Redemption

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

I left United States high crimes and misdemeanors behind for a blissful nearly three weeks this month, to visit with family of my son-in-law, Fili, and to explore the wonder-full country in which he was born.

The wonders of Brazil were many.

Endless cobblestone streets. I know they were endless because Fili led us up miles of them.

Incredible, unfamiliar wilderness.

Inspired architecture. Art, everywhere.

Stunning beaches. Stunned first by one, then stunned again by the next, and the next, and the next after that. It was winter in Brazil, yet the ocean was warmer than any summer day on the California Pacific, warmer than the lake we usually summer at in upstate New York.

There was unexpected beauty, too. The home of Fili’s mother, with whom we stayed, looked across the way to the favela, a densely packed impoverished neighborhood to the people of which she ministers by day as a nurse. Her son could not walk there unmolested, but there she is regarded as something of a saint for the constant and faithful work she does.

The favela is a kaleidoscope of color climbing into the sky (in the United States, the richest people live atop the hills; in Brazil, the poorest often stake that claim). It literally sparkles at night with spotlights and fireworks, and pulses with live music, a sort of funk carioca, well into the early hours.

Then there was the alarmingly tasty food. A man could grow fat and happy there, though most of the people I saw looked fit. The police looked so fit that I couldn’t help myself from finding one who could speak English so I could tell him they were the fittest I’d seen anywhere in the world. He laughed with what seemed unfeigned astonishment that there might be a fat policeman somewhere out there.

And that was my greatest find in Brazil: the people I met. I barely understood a word of Portuguese. Even that one word I could speak — obrigado (thank you) — I kept mispronouncing as “abrigado” and almost spelled it that way here. But I understood their kindness, their generosity, their willingness to show their best selves to a stranger.

Qualities, like there are in the best of Americans. Like there are in the best of the peoples of all the countries of the world. Folks who aren’t always well-represented by their leaders in government.

There’s a man in Brazil running for President who seems to want to make Brazil great again. He is said to be very like the liar and crook we in the United States elected to our everlasting shame. Most of the people I talked with are terrified of the prospect.

I hope it doesn’t happen there. I’m running out of refuges. I want to return to South America.

I know there is redemption for my America. Maybe it’s only a couple months away. Maybe till 2020 to get my country back.

I can’t quite see it clearly yet. But I have faith, if I wait, wait for just a little while, for my people to show their best selves, that it is there.