“The flawed human race, trapped in a cycle of cascading pain and wrong is what, and who, God is bound and determined to love; the question is, how can he do it? “ – Walter Russell Mead, God’s Dilemma.

I watched most of Andrew Cuomo’s press conference today, I felt for him, he seemed utterly exhausted, worn down and sick of question after question about death, supplies,  Nursing Homes and the growing number of protesters pleading with him to let them go back to work and feed their families.

He gave a stirring speech about duty and leadership, and then he blew it when asked what he would say to the protesters marching just outside the door of his Mansion in Albany.

Of course, he is human, and humans are frail. For the first time I could remember, he seemed frail.  I had the sense he was just done today.

How does he do it? I wondered.

His usual eloquence and empathy seemed to fail him, he somewhat lamely told the reporter grilling him about the protesters that the men (and a small number of women)  should go home and find work as essential employees if they were so worried about their families.

It was an off note for him, an uncharacteristic, cold,  bumble that reflected his exhaustion and the short temper for which he is known.

Governor Cuomo, about who I have been writing lately, is usually so exquisitely attuned to love of family and its many obligations. I would think he would embrace these men and their worries.

He is generous about his love of family, but sparing in empathy for those protesters, some of them creepy and programmed, many genuine. It is wrong to make them leave feeling ignored and dismissed.

How awful to fear not being able to feed your family. How helpless to be trapped at home for weeks and months when you are so eager to work, and when you and everyone you know is healthy.

I felt for Cuomo in a way I struggle to feel for the President.

There is something genuine about Cuomo that I relate to. Even when he stumbles, he is trying.  I can’t help but see the President as false and heartless, worried mostly about himself. I wish I could feel the same thing for both of them, but the President never helps me to do that.

But I do see that both are struggling with God’s Dilemma. The flawed human race, trapped in a cycle of cascading pain and wrong...I was moved by this press conference and saddened by it.

Because in a way, both men are on opposite sides of the same impossible position.

They each have their answer, but the truth is there is no right or wrong answer. It is an impossible choice for anyone to make. Whichever they go, there is sacrifice, loss, and pain

Some people – especially on what we call social media – see the world in black and white. I see the world in grey and with many different hues.

I thought of the parable in Genesis 22, the Old Testament, where God tells Abraham to “kill me a son” to show his devotion. Abraham puts a knife to his son’s throat, but God relents, and Abraham kills a goat instead.

The Old Testament is pretty basic sometimes.

And both men – the President and the Governor –  face impossible choices.

Cuomo has chosen to protect his citizens from dying, if not at any cost, then at a very high cost. Trump and his supporters believe in embracing the risks of life, giving the greatest number of people what is to them the best chance of living their lives. Those men protesting have a right to live their lives also.

Trump rejects having to make people feel heard apart from his supporters; Cuomo usually takes care to do just that. I think right now almost everyone feels dismissed by somebody.

Socrates would agonize over this one.

Do you spare the few by asking the many to suffer? I admire Cuomo’s sense of moral leadership; he feels that keeping people from dying is the thing he must fight for as a leader. Blame me, he says, again and again, offering himself as a sacrifice,  standing his ground when it would be so easy to waver or fold.

Isn’t that a leader?

President Trump is unable to articulate the moral reasoning behind his choices, even if they are noble or correct.  His fatal flaw is his offensive and obnoxious nature.

He always gives the impression that he is fighting for himself, and his ratings and his re-election. Even when he is right, which is more often than some would like to believe, he sabotages his own decisions, because they seem to be devoid of compassion and anything but self-interest.

And because he makes people hate him more than they can bear to listen to him. How can he do that?

I don’t know what it is really in his heart. I go back and forth on this weighted, and in some ways awful dilemma.

I know some of these men in my town, running out of money and facing the great shame of not providing for their families when there is little or no visible danger around them.

Do they have to go to the food pantry to feed their families when their good jobs are waiting for them a few miles away, and there is little sign of this plague in their communities?

These are the times that try men’s souls, and I will work harder to listen rather than condemn, to trust in good faith rather than succumb to cynicism and self-interest. I do so wish I had a God for me to pray to, how wonderful it would be to turn a decision like this over to him.

I don’t know how to make it.

There are no winners and losers here for me, no right and wrong. The only way to win is to do what I think is right and hope that others do the same.

I admire Cuomo’s moral clarity and strength when it comes to protecting the needy, but these men and women yearning for their lives back are needy also, and I feel they are deserving of sympathy and of being heard.

If the Cuomos of our world speak to one side, our President speaks to the other. In a strange sort of way, isn’t that how democracy is supposed to work?

What is so fascinating about the on-again-off-again struggle with one another is the clear choice they offer us about what government should be and what leaders should do. That is the morality play at the heart of this difficult time.

I am not wise or smart enough to know the answer to this dilemma; no one should be asked to make it a choice like this. Trump rarely says anything in the way in which I would say it, but in my soul, I wish that the words that came out of Cuomo’s mouth  today were these:

“Yes, I hear them, I feel for them. We must give them their lives back; they are right to come here and plead their case. We must and will do it as fast as is humanly possible. But I won’t kill anybody’s mothers or fathers or children if there is any way it can be avoided. I pray for just a little more time to try.”

God has a problem, wrote Mead. “It’s us. We keep messing things up.”