Higher Ground By Jamie Kirkpatrick

You may recall that when I was wallowing in lament last week, I promised you I would seek higher ground this week. Despite the tragic events of the last few days, I intend to keep that promise here.

The thing is, when you’re down in the valley, it’s easy enough to discern the higher ground, but sometimes getting there is another matter. Ascent is hard; you have to overcome gravity and that takes willpower, fortitude, strength, and purpose or else you’ll stay stuck in bottomland muck. As much as I admire Michelle Obama, I fear she may have been a tad naive when she told us that “when they go low, we go high.” That sounds great, but it’s easier said than done, and anyway, it’s unlikely that the bullies and bigots will get the message. They never do.

Be that as it may, there is higher ground out there. In 1898, John Oatman penned a Methodist hymn that contained this verse: 

“My heart has no desire to stay
Where doubts arise and fears dismay;
Tho’ some may dwell where these abound
My prayer, my aim is higher ground.”

A hundred years later, Stevie Wonder sang it this way: 

“teachers, keep on teaching
preachers, keep on preaching
world, keep on turning…
gonna keep on tryin’ ’til I reach my highest ground.”

The point is, there is still much that is good in this weary world. Despite all the inflammation and heartache we are experiencing these days, we can still find some higher ground. We can still help our neighbors; we can still work out our differences; we can still love one another. Despite all signs to the contrary, I still believe we can—and shall—overcome.

Over the past few days, I’ve made a point of finding some personal higher ground. I decided to start by taking better care of myself: by eating healthier, drinking less, and exercising more. If I told you it has been easy, or that I’ve suddenly climbed the mountain, I’d be lying. It has been a step-by-step journey, but I had to start somewhere, so I started at home, and if I ever find my way out of my own backyard, you’ll be the first to know. Promise!

There was a period in my life when I spent a lot of time in the high desert country of New Mexico and Arizona. I loved the arid, raw beauty of the region: the shifting play of light under an endless sky, heat without humidity, sweeping landscapes that were at once both simple and complex. There was something soothing and serene in the washes and mesas, landforms cut out of rock over eons and eons. There was a stillness, an absence of clutter and noise, in those ancient places that enabled me to feel closer to what is timeless and divine rather than immediate and temporal. I would return home refreshed and restored as though I had sipped handfuls of cool water from a hidden spring.

Many miles and years later, I crossed the Chesapeake Bay, and, as they say, the rest is history. I don’t miss the high desert, but I remember it fondly, like an old friend or lost lover. Now, here, I find myself surrounded by rivers and streams, towns and fields, sunrises and sunsets—an undiminished abundance of natural beauty. And, maybe best of all, by many good friends. 

So here is where I will stand. This is my higher ground.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay. His editorials and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His most recent novel, “The Tales of Bismuth; Dispatches from Palestine, 1945-1948” explores the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is available on Amazon and in local bookstores. His newest novel, “The People Game,” hits the market in February, 2026. His website is musingjamie.net.