Do they still teach the cherry tree story in elementary school these days? You remember it, don’t you? George Washington chopped down his father’s cherry tree and when asked if he had done it replied, “Father, I cannot tell a lie. Yes, I did it.”
End of story. Moral clear. Good people tell the truth, and grow up to found a country, be the first president of that country and have schools, cities, monuments, states, mountains, children, streets and bridges named after them by other people.
Even though the original story was a fabrication, the idea behind it was driven by a noble intention. It instilled in readers at an early age the importance of being truthful, honest and taking responsibility – especially for your own actions. There was even a bit of humbleness mixed in for good measure.
Forty-four presidents later, there is a different kind of storyline unfolding, which unfortunately isn’t a fabrication. By today’s moral compass, as represented in the current president, the cherry tree story should have a different ending. “No father, I did not chop down your cherry tree. It was a bad Muslim, and he was named Obama. Sad.”
The idea is worthy of a laugh. Sadly, laughing seems to be one of the few balms available under these new realities.
More sad though is that laughing will ultimately get us nowhere. It will just lead to a mouthful of dirt when we realize all we have done is stick our heads in the ground, hoping the reality will be different when we come up for air.
So let’s get right to the heart here and not waste time with believing things will get better. There are lots of reasons to be concerned. One, however, bubbles right to the top very quickly.
Being able to believe people is prime to being a civilized society. Truth is just the beginning though. The real damage occurs at the next level down – trust. If you can’t believe, there is no foundation to have trust.
Trust is something we in America all take for granted. It is just there like air, like snow plows in winter and beaches in summer, and grocery stores full of food for us to buy all year round. Trust fills every day, every minute, with confidence so we can go forward in safety and feel safe.
When driving a car we trust that drivers traveling in the opposite direction will stay in their lane, on their side of the road. When walking on a sidewalk we trust that the people driving their cars will stay on their side of the curb. When buying a steak at the butcher shop we trust that the meat is fresh and free of bacteria. When going to a hospital emergency room we trust that the doctors and nurses will heal us as quickly as they can. When getting on an airplane, we trust the pilot will get us to our destination.
The list goes on and on and on. Take your own inventory. How many times a day do you put your trust in total strangers? That trust is in turn reciprocated, and almost always proves to be valid.
Trust is the grain that keeps our society healthy. It keeps us free from fear, free from exploitation, free to nurture ourselves and our families to grow and prosper. Trust is the enabler. It creates a path to respecting and acknowledging others who we don’t know. It is what we need to have in our leaders, both locally and nationally, so we can feel safe to pursue lives that are fulfilling.
The question we need to consider today, with some alarm, is what happens to trust in the absence of truth?
It is probably the most disturbing outrage of the current White House tenant. With ample justification, we wonder how long it will take for him to chop down all the trees around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and then blame Democrats for the loss of foliage.
Maybe that is what we need to have happen to finally bring this saga to an end. Clear-cutting will clearly expose the barren nothingness that has been there all along. It will be like reaching rock bottom. There will be no place to go but up, and we will be able to move ahead again. We can start the replanting, though it will take years for foliage that once again provides protection that we can believe in.
George Washington, where are you? Even though we know the cherry tree story was fiction, created to make you more noble than perhaps you ever were, it doesn’t matter anymore. Because some fictions are easier to trust in than truth. And some facts are so obvious, no amount of lies can pervert the truth they tell.
(John Gfroerer of Concord owns a video production company based at the Capitol Center for the Arts.)