New World Order

When I'm on the road by myself, I usually have NPR on, and when I travel on Friday, as I did yesterday, many of the NPR shows are doing news of the week retrospectives.  In the morning, all the commentators expected the afternoon meeting between Trump and Zelensky to end in a minerals deal and perhaps a vision for a path to a peace treaty.

By afternoon, it was not to be.  I first heard about the contentious meeting on a BBC show carried by an NPR station.  It was oddly comforting to hear the discussion in clipped, British accents, even as the subject of the discussion was so catastrophic.

As I listened to Trump and Vance shouting and Zelensky try to get a word in edgewise, I felt that careening disbelief that I've felt so often in the last few weeks.  Really?  Grown ups talk like this?  And then I wondered how we came to have audio.  I imagined some brave White House employee sneaking a recording to a British reporter.

Nope--it was all televised, and later, when I watched the footage, it seemed like a pre-planned spectacle.

It's an astonishing moment that I would never have imagined.  A Republican president embracing . . . Russia???  I came of age during the reign of Ronald Reagan, who must be spinning in his grave.  It's hard for me to imagine how any of this ends well.  I already miss the peace and prosperity slipping through our fingers.  I know, I know, it was peace and prosperity for Europe and the U.S., with proxy wars fought around the globe.

I can imagine any number of scenarios about where the world lurches from here, and none of them are good.  As I was driving, my apocalyptic brain kicked into overdrive yesterday, and I sang "Dona Nobis Pacem" to quiet it.  I'm amazed by how well that works.  This video offers a beautiful rendition, with footage from a cathedral.

I switched over from NPR to a classic rock station just as one song ended and the next started:  "Cult of Personality."  I smirked, but as the afternoon wore on, I did wonder if the d.j. was being deliberate.  I heard "Highway to Hell" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" in short order.  Hmmm.  I realize that my English major brain makes all kinds of connections that might not have been intentional.

Last night we went outside to see if we could view the planetary alliance.  I think that we saw it, but as with the playlist that might be making a statement about political struggles, I wasn't sure.  Still, it was good to look up at the sky and to remember how brief our geopolitical struggles are in the long term--still not a comfort when I think of what those geopolitical struggles likely mean for the rest of my life and those who come after, but a cold, planetary comfort nonetheless.