When things get challenging, a friend of mine resets the next day by saying ‘Look, it’s a whole new day of possibility!’
Obviously, I generally try to avoid friends like this.
When you’re trying to wallow in hard times, you just don’t need people who are biased towards actually enjoying life. I mean, how rude.
But then I find myself quoting these friends in blogs and I know I’ve crossed into new territories of ‘perspective’, and ‘hope’, and (god forbid), ‘wisdom’.
The last few (7?) years have been challenging for people who appreciate such qualities as sanity, decency, truth, and skills such as…oh I don’t know….governing.
There are still challenges in all these regards, but it seems as though the tide of insanity has been quieted somewhat over the last week, and perhaps there is finally real reason to believe that there is a ‘whole new day of possibility’? Maybe? I think so….
If you have been reading this newsletter for a while, you know that I don’t very often get explicitly political. I have worked with and enjoyed people across all parts of spectrum - on climate change planning, or just as friends and neighbors. I value multiple views and I (mostly….fine, occasionally) welcome being challenged in my assumptions. And yet, I have been reminded in various ways over the last several years that being open to different views doesn’t mean that you have to be or appear neutral.
Also over the last few years, if you did dare to express views, it was often assumed that you were not open to anything else. It seemed like everyone had to be either blue or red, southern or northern, pro this or anti that. There appeared to be so little room for nuance, for reconsidering, for understanding complexity. This is part of the insanity that I hope is finally diminishing somewhat.
The takeaway for me of this election is that America actually doesn’t love the hard divisions as much as it seemed. We DO get nuance. For example, we almost all understand the complexities of decision-making around abortion and reproductive choices, and it matters that we have representatives who get that too. We really don’t want congress men and women who cheat or who claim others have cheated when they lose. We really are tired of all the shouting and the blaming and blathering and the selfish power grabs and stunts. Mostly.
I am in Williamsburg, Virginia this week, and of course, we’re visiting Colonial Williamsburg. Together, with some dear friends, we are awash in the events, lectures, and exhibits of our colonial past and the fraught, imperfect, divisive, and idealistic visions for the new independent nation that was emerging in the 1770s: 250 years ago.
The presentations and actors who are letting us see some of our well-known and less well-known characters and history are doing an amazing job of drawing parallels with today and illustrating the bumpy path towards ‘a more perfect union’.
I do believe that we took another tiny step towards that more perfect union this week in our most modern election. Or at least, we narrowly avoided taking a large step backwards towards reduced freedoms, reduced representation, unrestrained power, and reduced accountability, which is almost the same thing.
There is a lot more work (and lots more disagreement) about how to move forward and create the next phase of America, but perhaps we can do so with a little less vitriol for the next little while.
Maybe.
In the meantime, I’m off to hear a speech from George Washington himself! I’ll bet he has some things to say about how hard it is to build a nation…..and how important it is that we see the next new day (next chapter) of possibility.