From the Depths - William Balfour Ker. Circa 1906. www.loc.gov/resource/cph...

Been ruminating on the pieces of art and specific parts that have helped to make me the American I am. Sharing a starting point with this storyline from the final episode of M*A*S*H*

Believing that America can or must be good does not require one to believe that America is or was good or that Americans are more important than anyone else in the world. I don't know who it serves to insist otherwise.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history… No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation…

Just watched the doc, Resistance — They Fought Back, on PBS. One idea presented is that living life through acts like feeding the hungry, teaching and learning, and cultivating art were forms of resistance. The Hebrew word for this is, "amidah" - even trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto, amidah persisted.