I looked out today on “evening light,” just when the sun falls below six degrees each day, scattering blue light, leaving a honey glow across everything, red waves mixed with tangerine. Some call it “eventide,” the moment just before twilight.
In this hour, old churches sang “evensong,” or the Psalms. It is a time that causes pause, makes you ponder your mortality, your morality, your duties, this world awash in fear, evil, and strife, your life.
In Maine, our sunsets are more west than south (it will drift south come winter). The glow warms a blanket of needles, at rest where they fell from towering pines, each pine bright on one side, dark on the other, and each casting a long shadow, slash of black, turning my yard into a tiger’s back.
In this moment, my mind sometimes rests and sometimes races, like a child at play, trying to catch up with my heart, which does the same. Today, the question of the hour – for this Maine-iac – is why: Why run for governor, go through all the mud, muck, misery, and hate to fix this place, my state?
Why wrestle those who demonize, doubt, and deny that we face an onslaught, a hurricane, of drug trafficking, who somehow try to pull victory from hundreds of dead kids a year, 10,000 fatal and non-fatal overdoses, arguing we are just fine, just another normal year, nothing to see here?
Why say over and over, not for those who know but for those who know not, that our property taxes – driven by a hellish obsession with overspending and mandates, in a state with no money, are the highest in the country, that income taxes and sales are a crime, driving us to bust, killing us?
Why repeat, quote experts, cite studies, and write about the tragedy of Maine’s collapsing schools – schools once the toast of the nation, now the last of 50, filled with frustration, infected with indoctrination, 4th graders unable to read, 8th graders at a loss for math, parents searching for a better path?
Why take the slings and arrows for saying corrupt non-profits, from Lewiston to South Portland, and shamelessly corrupt politicians in Augusta’s ruling party, the Democrat Senate leader to Democrat Governor, are on the take, all about political graft, a criminal infestation, each due for investigation?
Why deal with the constant profanity and libel online, the sideswipes on social media, brushes with violence on the campaign trail, the ugliness of inanity, insanity, stupidity, and evil cup – why step up?
The answer is, simple and solemn, that if you care, if you hear a voice in the silence, if your conscience has not been dulled to despair, if you understand evening light, the echo of evensong, that we must be strong, have an intergenerational debt, then you cannot give up – not yet.
As we breathe, we owe. As we ponder, we know. As we rise to accept our duty to those who did so before, to those who surround us now, and those who will come after – the children – we are acting in accord with our conscience, doing what we know is right. This is our time, this is our fight.
So, as today’s sun sets, that warm glow replaced by purple, a kind of amethyst, remember when we ponder, resolve, and work – we define the future. It reflects our effort, all of us, at our best.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
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