Addressing the nation for the last time as President Thursday night, George W. Bush identified September 11, 2001, as the defining moment of his eight years in office. The lesson of that awful day, he suggested, was that "good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right." Americans can never afford to grow complacent, and, above all, must "maintain our moral clarity," he said.

Maybe I'm too immersed in a generous-orthodoxy world. Maybe the anticipation of one of the great symbols of such an orthodoxy in my lifetime has slanted my thinking. But, to me, words like this are no longer simply sad, rigid, old-fashioned, "conservative," or impractical...

...they're idiotic.

I don't use that word in a mean-spirited sense. I use it in this sense...

...Idiocy in the sense that a position is too complex, too far-fetched, requiring too much energy, in the face of a simple, clear alternative.

Love is not a complicated option.

Its the obvious one. The one we've forgotten under the weight of all our schemes and plans.

Grace and Peace,
Raffi