Horrific mass murder in Great Britain. Young lives of promise and hope ended in a flash of depravity and evil.
A budget proposal so cruel and heartless. Tax cuts for plutocrats on the backs of families who worry each night about feeding their children or caring for the sick. Not to mention huge cuts to medical research.
Daily bombshells of an investigation into the undermining of our democracy by a hostile foreign power and the potentially active collaboration by some of our own citizens. Now, we confront serious fears of obstruction of justice.
To all this we add so much more... desperate refugees fleeing war zones... a belligerent and unstable nation firing off missiles and boasting of nuclear weapons...a climate warming...add your own concerns to a list that can take so many forms...
And yet... and yet...
I go for a walk on a glorious spring day and see the flowers in resplendent bloom.
I hear the chatter of school children at the bus stop apprising their friends of pending summer activities.
The sun is out late as I settle into my favorite chair and turn on the television to the familiar chatter of a baseball game - words and phrases that I have heard since my youth
There are new books in the window of the local bookstore begging to be bought for a summer read.
Even the headlines in the newspaper suggest our nation may survive this stress test to its democracy. Congressional hearings heating up. An acknowledgement that this budget is dead on arrival. Spirited races for Congressional seats and a growth in civic engagement across the country.
There was a time when many of you asked me if I thought this was potentially the end to our way of life. I have returned many times to a word that was one of my father's favorites and has guided me since I was a child - steady.
Over the course of my lifetime the world has been shrouded many times in darkness and despair. It took courage and action to persevere and it will require that again. But somehow our precious Earth kept spinning. And as the sun crests on the horizon in the east this morning, I know it spins again today.
Dan Rather
