I want to talk to you this morning about a headline.
Not because it’s the first of its kind.
Because it’s one of too many.
A report came out this week.
It said people inside the White House are worried.
Worried the President might order a major strike in the Middle East.
One adviser, speaking without his name attached, called it “political suicide.”
Now, I can’t tell you that report is the whole truth.
It rests on people who wouldn’t give their names.
And I’ve lived long enough to know unnamed sources can be right, and they can be working an angle.
So hold it loosely.
But hold it.
Because of what it says about the times.
Here’s what was reported.
The President cut a weekend short and hurried back to Washington.
He said “very big things” were coming, and not far off.
The embassy in Israel told Americans to stay alert and watch for cancelled flights.
The Israeli Prime Minister cut his own trip short.
Oil prices have been climbing.
And the people closest to the decision are, by this account, hoping he backs off like he has before.
Hoping.
That’s the word that stopped me.
When the people nearest the lever are reduced to hoping, something has slipped.
I got a draft notice in 1972.
I was a young man finishing high school and working swing shift on an airplane line.
I didn’t wait to be drafted.
I walked into a recruiter’s office so I could choose my own road.
They gave me a choice. Vietnam or Germany.
I picked Germany.
I tell you that so you know I’m not talking about war from a soft chair.
I remember what it felt like when the decisions of men far away could decide where a young man slept that night.
Or whether he came home at all.
That feeling doesn’t leave you.
It comes back every time the talk turns hot.
Back then, war had a slow machinery to it.
It wasn’t good. It wasn’t always honest.
But it moved at a pace you could see coming.
There were hearings. There were speeches. There was time to argue at the supper table.
Now it can come off a phone screen on a Sunday.
A few words. A threat. A promise of “big things.”
And the whole world holds its breath and checks the price of gas.
That’s the crazy way I’m talking about.
Not one man. Not one party.
The speed of it.
The way the most serious decision a country can make now travels at the same speed as a joke or a sale on shoes.
I read that article with advertisements for evening gowns running right through the middle of it.
War talk, then a dress in sage green, size sixteen.
That’s the page we read our history on now.
And I think it’s changing us.
When everything comes at the same speed, everything starts to weigh the same.
A threat to destroy a nation sits right next to a cereal ad.
Your mind can’t tell them apart after a while.
So it goes numb.
And a numb people is a dangerous people.
Not because they’ll do something wild.
Because they’ll let almost anything be done.
There’s also the matter of timing in that report.
The midterms are weeks away.
One of the fears named was what a strike would do to the election.
Now I understand politics. I’m not naive.
But I’d like to believe the first question on a war is still whether it’s right and whether it’s needed.
Not what it does to the vote count.
If the report is accurate, both sides of that room were talking about the wrong thing first.
So what do we do with crazy days?
I’ll tell you what an old man does.
First, he slows down.
He doesn’t let a headline set his heartbeat.
He reads it. He sets it on the table. He waits for the second report and the third.
Second, he keeps his own counsel.
He doesn’t take his fear from one side or his comfort from the other.
He asks, “What do I actually know?” and he’s honest when the answer is “not much yet.”
Third, he talks to the young people in his life.
Because they’re the ones whose names end up on the orders.
They should hear from someone who remembers that war isn’t a word on a screen.
It’s a bus ride, and a long flight, and a letter home.
And last, he keeps his feet on the ground.
He feeds the birds. He fixes what’s broken around the house. He shows up for the people near him.
Not because the big world doesn’t matter.
Because a steady man in a crazy time is worth more than a loud one.
I don’t know what’s coming.
Neither do the people in that White House, if the report is right.
That should humble all of us.
There are crazy days ahead. Crazy ways too.
The only thing I’ve found that holds up against them is a calm head, an honest question, and a long memory.
Keep all three close.
We’re going to need them.
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This post was drafted with AI governed assistance and reviewed and directed by Michael S. Faust Sr. before publication.
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