Tonight President Obama delivers the State of Nation address.

What is the state of the Nation?

In a word it’s fear. We live in a seething caldron of fear. Anger is everywhere. The sense that life is out of control. We are clamoring for safety. Arguing about guns, drones, the Patriot Act provisions that suspend due process, and so much more. The right fears the left. The left fears the right. The middle fears both. The fears are not without some justification. The America the President will address tonight is in a chronic state of mass hysteria.

This is not new. G.A. Studdert Kennedy, affectionately known as “Woobine Willie” because of the cheap Woodbine cigarettes he gave the stressed troops as a British Army Chaplain in World War I, addressed it during a time of hysteria in England in 1926:

“There is, and there must be, a plane upon which we can think and reason together upon questions arising out of our wider human relations, social questions, that is, apart from and above party prejudice and sectional interest. If it is not so, and there is no such plane, and we cannot think of these big questions outside the prejudices and passions that arise in party strife, then it is safe to assert that there will never be any solution of the problems whatsoever. The idea that politics in the true sense – that is, the art of managing our human relationships on a large scale – must remain a separate department of life, distinct from morals and religion, is ultimately irrational and absurd, and is an idea with which no responsible teacher ought to have anything to do. – Sermon, “The Church in Politics: a Defense.”

The issue way back then was capitalism and socialism. Studdert Kennedy dared to ask the question of what these words mean – he called for a more reasonable discussion apart from the stereotypes and name-calling.

As I listen to the voices these days and watch the videos of public hearings here in Minnesota and elsewhere, I wish Woodbine Willie were here to take the microphone with the questions instead of the answers. I realize that some things never change.

I scratch my head and wonder whether we will ever learn. Then the music and words come up from memory:

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Re-clothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence praise.
…
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
…
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!”

My prayers are with you, Mr. President.