THE MIDDLE PATH

Along with I suppose everyone who thinks like me, and believes as I do in justice for the powerless, the impoverished and disadvantaged, I was not only deeply saddened but seriously alarmed at news of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death last Friday. I was still more disturbed by the reaction of those on the right who leaped without hesitation to seize the opportunity to renege on previous policies and promises in order to ram through a nomination to replace this distinguished jurist before the election--or at the very least, before the inauguration of the next president.

Ginsburg's death has added a new and potentially noxious ingredient to the already toxic brew of the coming election. Before anyone has had the time to mourn the loss of yet another great champion of democracy, the argument is already in full swing as to who will benefit the most, Republicans or Democrats. The intensity of the division between left and right, between "liberal" and "conservative" has only increased--and I use the scare quotes because those words have lost their conventional meaning in the era of the current occupant of the White House and his congressional acolytes. Conservatism, particularly, has been stood on its head; its partisans have abandoned every principle and policy in which they once so loudly proclaimed their faith. And the word "liberal", not only in their lexicon but also in that of the radical left, has become nothing more than a pejorative taunt.

The question that arises in my mind in the midst of our deteriorating national crises is this one: where is the Middle Path, and, even if found, is it possible, even desirable, to still follow it? With the best of intentions, I see no middle ground between my own democratic--and, yes, Democratic--convictions and those of a would-be autocrat's enablers and his adoring hordes. A middle path requires that ground, an agreed-upon set of values, a common ground of reason, a measure of goodwill on either side. Where is the middle path when those who have set standards and made explicit, public promises so readily abandon them in order merely to maintain and reassert their power? Where is the middle path when those on one side of the highway seem to have lost their way; to have no path at all, but zig-zag constantly according to their perceived benefit at any given moment?

I find myself in a state of unhealthful perplexity. I wake early, too worried to fall back asleep. I head off to my meditation at an earlier and earlier hour, and find it harder to resist the thoughts that insist on intruding on the equanimity I seek. I remind myself of that sound, reasonable teaching about hewing to the Middle Path... and am challenged by my inability to find one.