Things can be clear if we allow it. Say a shooting on a movie set. Did the script call for the actor to turn around, point a weapon at the crew and pull the trigger?

The thing we can sort out is who did what. Why they did it is a different matter and, I think, beyond knowing.

Is a partnership, marriage or society supposed to be a joint venture, a meeting of minds or is it a matter of rulership?

There was/is reason behind bipartisanship or a two-party system. What is it?

Again, clear if we allow it, and obvious in a single question. Does any of us (individually or as a group) know the full picture? Do you? I know I don’t.

I don’t have the answers and think you’re of no consequence to me if all you do is agree with my stance. What use is that?

If agreeing is of little use so is criticizing without substance. Being a critic is easier, say than presenting a plan and providing fresh info that’s neither opinion nor commentary. Taint easy sorting profession from action; in the old days called words from deeds. An example is speech for diversity coupled to enforcement of a formula disallowing anything contrary, aka diverse.

So, sitting here alongside a disused mine in Aurora I take a cue from the environment to say: “OK, the pit is now a lake, but a lousy one because it’s steep and deep.”

Natural lakes have shallows where plants, insect and etc. thrive. “Lake,” most might say, means more than deep water-filled hole.

Seeing gradations in what we count is more difficult but more diverse than stipulating diverse as this, this, this, and that wet holes and no other.

Getting tangled in word representations (such as faith in diversity) has been around a long time. So why not look at current practices through lenses of old?

Do moderns sincerely believe pilgrimages archaic, superstitious relics? I’d say yes, and that by seeing their view as advanced these moderns see little connection between the act of protest and pilgrimage.

Performance of either is a sacrificial action that joins the pilgrim/protester to the larger body of the faithful. That is how it works. Whether to Lourdes for a miracle or DC for a sacred cause the participant becomes part of something larger.

My pit-side contribution adds nothing new. It is only a rehash to say the present repeats the past. We’ve been here and done this before, many, many and many a time.

Is being woke so different than being reformed? See what you think.

The reformation (Protestantism in general) declared faith sufficient for salvation. Luther and Calvin were the woke of their day offering redemption through belief.

The evil cynical such as I might say holding a saving belief is a damn sight easier than having to do anything. Isn’t that, then, where we were trying to sort out profession from action or words from deeds?

If not exactly, then at least it’s close, near enough for consideration.

Maybe the issue (or root cause if you’re political) is human superstition being so much a part of who/what we are there are a hell of a lot of us who can’t (or won’t) see the distinction between word and deed (or supposition and fact) and routinely mingle the two as equally valid.

Taint so, says I, who takes some small pleasure reminding the passionate that Jim in Huckleberry Finn was not an actual enslaved person nor was Huck real. They were/are fictional characters in literature.

If that distinction is not observed then the purpose of literature is lost. Literature (words) isn’t real life.

Words are insubstantial structures. They let us connect ideas and actions without consequence, in other words they allow preview and consideration before any actual doing gets done. Individuals can behave as if very upset and harmed by words, but unless you’re slammed over the head with a dictionary words will do no injury, and even in that case it’s not the words that split the scalp.

While pit-side looking backward fore, (note the comma) some connections look interesting, such as that regarding religion and politics. Being free of belief (free believers) we can justifiably look with loftier views on ancient bad practices such as hair shirts and flagellation.

But, HAH, alive and well in current society despite what we prefer to hold true. That’s because current forms of flagellation get around the uncomfortable practice of atonement for personal and/or worldwide transgression (aka sin) by beating up the dead.

A great thing about punishing the deceased is they, the dead and buried, are among the least combative found on the planet, anywhere.

The real Odysseus may have said as his fictional self is quoted “Only the dead know peace.” Well, we’ve fixed that by going after the dead as evils more dangerous to our present peace than any specter, spirit, or ghost of the past could ever be.

Contemporary witch trials convene to judge the dead (once done to an early Pope who was exhumed and tried, look out Francis) who are adjudicated without defense.

The cynically pit-sided evil such as I has to smile at modern progress wrapped in moldering robes while touting justice to the dead. I have no problem with this.

Judging the dead is suitable employment for those I wouldn’t want to see entrusted with anything important. Problem is, self-anointed judges hate to stop with the dead, don’t they? That’s where trouble spawns if we carelessly assume they are as valid as they claim. How to test?

Apply the politics-religion check. Baptism, saved, re-born, awakened, etc. work on salvation through acceptance of dogma. Faith inspires woke and born again with faith in a freshly revealed future.

Believers count. Non-believers do not.

Observation shows human society is rarely bipartisan, which requires much more work to maintain. In practical terms this translates politically as talking human rights being easier than respecting them.