Always Beginning Again and Taking Sides

Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, once described the program of AA as a kind of "spiritual kindergarten."  I think he had in mind the same basic truth that Merton describes in his entry entitled, "Always Beginning Again."  We never quite get anything perfect in this world.  Always falling short in some regard throughout the day, taking myself too seriously most of the time.  I forget to stop and let that be alright, that it's not the end of the world.  My mother told me that her mother had said to her when something had gone wrong and someone was hurt-I guess feelings were included- "at least it's not a leg." So, I muddle my way through wondering if it's enough, and when I finally lay down to bed, and I've made it through another day, I am usually quite grateful, that most days it is enough to struggle, to be disappointed, to be pleased occasionally, to be delighted with some kindness given to me or observed in another. 

Still, "Taking Sides" suggests that a lot of the harm in the world is caused by taking the wrong side on one issue or another.  Like the conclusion of the Nichomacean Ethics, Merton quotes Tresmontant's observation that the "gravest moral problems are found at the political level."  I am always startled that so little has changed in our country since the sixties.  In spite of a revolution of science that provides great insight into the human condition, little advancement has been made along a moral front on political lines.  The lines there still resemble the effectsof the Protestant revolution on the religious front, and resistance to the Enlightenment on the philosophical front.  Without electricity, I think most Americans would soon resemble their medieval cousins-serfs and a few lords of the manors.