Presidents

I am writing about Presidents because I just watched the State of the Union. I'm thinking about Benjamin Harrison because I used to live and work in Indianapolis, Indiana.

President Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd President of the United States. He was born in 1833. The folks in Indianapolis, Indiana are proud of little Ben. He was called that because of his short stature. He was 5 foot, six inches tall.

He was a one-term president. He served from 1889 to 1893, and he gets skipped over in the history books.

A lot was accomplished during his administration. The Pledge of Allegiance was adopted during his term. Six states, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and North and South Dakota, were admitted to the union when Harrison was president.

Harrison was known as a Civil War hero and has been called the father of the modern navy. The Sherman antitrust act was passed during his tenure, and he was a staunch environmentalist. 17 National Parks were created during his four years. Not bad for a little known President.

He was the grandson of President William Henry Harrison and that provided campaign fodder for the Democrats. It must have bothered little Ben for he once said in a speech, “I want it understood that I am the grandson of nobody. I believe that every man should stand on his own merits.”

It is interesting to note that he received 100-thousand fewer popular votes than his opponent Grover Cleveland, but carried the Electoral College 233 to 168. Florida didn’t have chads then. Skulduggery again!

Incidentally, one time, in honor of his birthday sesquicentennial the city of Indianapolis ordered a statue of him sandblasted clean. It was the first cleaning in 75 years.

Sunday morning

Have you ever spent a Sunday morning choosing where you'd like to spend the morning? Those of us lucky enough to have a home of several rooms could make that choice.

Sunday morning, you could stay in bed, settle in your favorite chair, or, like me, go someplace I usually don't go.

The living room!

So the title of this post ought to be, "Spending Sunday where I usually don't go."

I have a beautiful living room. It is festooned with art and plants, comfortable chairs, big windows with the morning sun, appropriate decorations, and a modern looking sofa with fluffy pillows coordinated to amplify a sub-dominant tint splashing the room with color. Yellow and the sun vie for splendor.

I spent a lingering morning there on Sunday, and it was glorious. Memories flowed from every vibrant point in the room. The corner where a Christmas Tree once stood. I'm sure I heard the laughter of grand-kids. A papaya covered etagere; each shelf holds artifacts of a long-ago travel memory. A curving sofa gave up echoes of told stories, uproarious laughter and the sent of a friend or two who had no place to stay or just couldn't make it home after a little too much of too much.

There was music too; hidden on the shelves behind a rising electric mirror in a black lacquer console. Symphonies, songs, and ballads evoked a dance, a duet, a touch or a kiss.

I must spend more time in the living room.

Memories

Do you remember when nobody you knew owned a purebred dog? Remember when you’d get a half hour on the parking meter for a penny. When your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces. Well dressed men wore hats. You got dressed up for travel and church. Laundry detergent had free gifts inside the box. Jelly jars were kept as everyday glases when they were empty. Fly paper. 

Do you remember when your parents friends were always called Mr. and Mrs. How about memories of Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy, The Lone Ranger, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk. Hoot Gibson, Tom Manard and Bob Steel. The evening news was fifteen minutes long. TV test patterns, John Cameron Swayze, Murphy Martin and H. B. Kaltenborn and Westbrook Van Voorhis

Remember Candy cigarettes, wax bottles of coke with colored sugar water inside, a cup of coffee was a nickel and so was a song on the jukebox. Remember washtub wringers, mimeograph paper, Beanie and Cecil, Studebakers, Edsels, and rumble seats, The Fuller Brush man, penny candy and at the gas station you got your oil checked, windows cleaned and air in your tires all for a dollars worth of gas. Five dollars filled the tank.  

I remember.

True then, truer now!

If you look for it, you will find truths in a lot of places. A few years ago Gary Shapiro, President, and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association. Wrote a piece entitled, “Has Politics Trumped Truth?” for Forbes.

He makes solid and perfect points. Even the prophetic title is not lost on today's political rhetoric.

To wit:

“America used to be good a facts – real good. Baseball, replete with hard statistics, was our favorite sport, and we used its hard data to argue who was the best at it. Our reliance on facts also attracted the world’s best scientists, engineers, doctors, and researchers. We studied and reported and arrived at mutually agreed on facts. And we knew that when our government made statements, and our trusted network news anchors reported them, you could take these facts to the bank.

But we changed. Facts and data have become less relevant, especially in Washington. Americans now choose their news more on the opinions of the news providers than on the fact-gathering skills and objectivity of the reporters. We no longer want to be challenged by facts; we want to be reassured in our biases.”

BRAVO! Mr. Shapiro

Tradesmen and women

I pondered last night what I should write about in today's post. I asked myself what did I learn today that might be of value and comment.

Immediately, I thought of a young man who came to my house to upgrade my video-television choices. It was a scheduled appointment, and he was well qualified. He went to school, worked with others who were skilled in his technical field and then he had to pass a test, and now he's on his own for a major company.

I thought, not everyone needs a diploma of parchment to find success. The trades are just as a rewarding skill as a college degree and, in fact, sometimes more so. We all need plumbers, electricians, carpenters, painters, mechanics, roofers, masons, chefs and all-around handymen and women.

It brought to mind a story I just heard from a young college graduate friend. He said recently he and several of his high-school classmates met for a ten-year high-school get-to-together. They chose an inexpensive place to meet since nobody had the money for a fancy restaurant.  When they got to the meeting place, there waiting was a stretch limo that took them all to a high-end restaurant to celebrate.

Of the ten guys, only one had not gone to college. He had hired the limo as a gift to the others. He was a tradesman and the only one who could afford the limo and the restaurant.

Another fantasy!

I wonder what an old-fashioned newscast would be like today?

You know, a newscast that had just the main ingredients. The top stories, the feature stories and the news stories that contain only the who, what, where, when and why (if known).

I know cable station panels are not newscasts, but they often appear to the viewer that way. Some of the questions asked on these panels of pundits are valid questions, but they should be asked to the main people, not just to the experts who are only offering conjecture, educated opinions, and what-if theories. The lawyers are the ones who can answer questions regarding "the law" in a what-if situation, but the political analysis is always subject to the disclosed and undisclosed beliefs to the perceived experts.

Yes, their former or current jobs give them legitimacy and expertise in conjecture, and that's fair for analysis, but it's not the same as asking the protagonist.

As far as the main people are concerned I understand protecting one's proverbial "ass." Nobody wants to go to jail for lying, obstructing, or cheating on their taxes even though more people do it that you can imagine. Could we eliminate the legal obfuscation? All we have to do is place a suspect in a room, turn on a lie-detector, ask the questions and get on with our lives and maybe a new government. If the fifth is taken, so be it. It does give you an idea of where truth is hiding. It's got to be a lot cheaper than what we are doing now. Ah...the fantasy!

Genetic Heritage

There are kits available to test your DNA.

I did mine. 60% Irish, 22% English-Scot, 11% Scandinavian and the rest traces of middle European.

Eighteen years ago scientists found a way to decode the 3.1 billion subunits of DNA.

The subunits are called base pairs, and they make up the double helix of the deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. The genetic instruction of what makes us unique. It's what makes me and you and us.

One section of the original announcement reminded me of the fallibility of humankind.

It said, "most of the base pairs of DNA between genes have no known function and scientists commonly refer to these pairs as Junk DNA."

No known function! So we label them junk! With all due respect to the scientists who worked so hard on this decoding, calling them junk, just because we don't know what they do, smacks of human intellectual arrogance.

To me, it goes into the category of the flat earth proponents and the early scientists who thought the sun revolved around the earth.

Wouldn't it be nice if someday they discovered the junk pairs were the stem instructions for the human attributes of grace, elegance, courtesy, kindness, and compassion?

John Coleman

I just learned that a former colleague of mine died. His name is John Coleman. He was a weatherman par excellence. A founder of the Weather Channel. An icon of weather science who took the road less traveled. A man of humor and intellect. An excellent conversationalist of interest and a stalwart defender of his beliefs.

John was a gentleman in both his professional and personal life, a man of integrity, ethics, and laughter.  My thoughts and prayers go to his family.

For me, it is that time of life when your friends and associates start the passage we all will make someday. It is a condition of aging.

Having professional memories and personal friendships is like having a garden of flowers that come back year after year and are robust and soothing. But any friendship, like flowers, need the watering of connection. A lot of us forget that as we get older, and passing is a profound reminder.

We come into the world, share our talents, we struggle, we succeed, we change, we live a little, laugh a little and then we are called home.

I know a truth that life continues, and someday hence we will meet again for only the body dies.

House-keeping stuff

Some things that need to be acknowledged.

Thank You, Senator Jeff Flake, for your commentary on President Trump from the Senate Floor. Bravo!

When are we going to see congressional patriots and statesmen and stateswomen come forth and decry the daily dirt that surfaces on and about Mr. Trump and his political and business dealings?

Perhaps when elephants fly.

The Snows of Life

It is cold here in the Northeast. If fact it's cold almost everywhere the last few days. Where I live we are digging out from Wednesday's significant snow. It was a fluffy snow so it's not to hard to shovel.

Life is a lot like that. We get some storms that are heavy and hard where the emotional shovels and medical plows have difficulty removing the burden. Then, at times, we get the light stuff that frightens us before we assess the accumulation and ascertain that it wasn't as bad as we thought and we worried about nothing.

I can't tell you how many times the emotion of a "snow" cancer scare moved through my family's lives and the lives of friends and neighbors. The specifics are not necessary for this post but tangential to the snow metaphor.

Doctors, by training,  must present all sides of potential possibilities or, at least, an educated prognosis of cancer or illness path. It's never an absolute, but it is a possibility, and we the family and the patient must absorb and assimilate the information to the best of our abilities, and then the patient must take responsibility for his or her total health, and the family must embrace the patient's choice as sacred.

Eventually, for some, the warmth of healing melts the fear of the unknown. In the end, we all embrace the inevitable and rejoice in the knowledge that each of us, in time, are, and will be, going home. It's a hard acceptance, but really what more could we ask?

Be well.

A Fantasy, but profound

Some things you read in life are so powerful they must be shared. The following is one of them. I first read this a few years ago and every once in awhile it surfaces to the top of the internet email circuit.

I love it and I hope you do too.


I dreamed I had an interview with God.
“So you would like to interview me?” God asked.
“If you have the time” I said.
God smiled. “My time is eternity.”
“What questions do you have in mind for me?”
“What surprises you most about humankind?”
God answered…
“That they get bored with childhood,
they rush to grow up, and then
long to be children again.”
“That they lose their health to make money…
and then lose their money to restore their health.”
“That by thinking anxiously about the future,
they forget the present,
such that they live in neither
the present nor the future.”
“That they live as if they will never die,
and die as though they had never lived.”
God’s hand took mine
and we were silent for a while.
And then I asked…
“As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons
you want your children to learn?”
“To learn they cannot make anyone
love them. All they can do
is let themselves be loved.”
“To learn that it is not good
to compare themselves to others.”
“To learn to forgive
by practicing forgiveness.”
“To learn that it only takes a few seconds
to open profound wounds in those they love,
and it can take many years to heal them.”
“To learn that a rich person
is not one who has the most,
but is one who needs the least.”
“To learn that there are people
who love them dearly,
but simply have not yet learned
how to express or show their feelings.”
“To learn that two people can
look at the same thing
and see it differently.”
“To learn that it is not enough that they
forgive one another, but they must also forgive themselves.”
“Thank you for your time,” I said humbly.
“Is there anything else
you would like your children to know?”
God smiled and said,
“Just know that I am here… always.”

-author unknown


Sent from my iPad

A gift to any politican running for Congress

This is a free speech for any politician who chooses to run for Congress.

My friends, my neighbors, my fellow Americans. I am running to be your representative in what was once the most magnificent deliberative body in the history of the world. I am running as a (choose one) Let me be clear; I am not a Republican. I am not a Democrat; I am not an Independent, I am a concerned citizen of this great country, and I am running as an American who is willing to serve the greater good, not the party. I may have a party label because our current system only allows for two major parties and a few independent labels. We need other choices, but that’s for another time.

Here is my platform.

Fairness for all. Cooperation with all shades of opinion.

A promise to serve only one term in the Senate or two terms in the House. To generate support and pass term limits. To solicit a congressional vote to move congresses pension and health care back to what the average American must endure with social security and the current Medicare. To remove Congress as an exclusive club. To always be honest. To be courteous, cooperative, and combative for the common man and women, to be true to the founding values of our forefathers or any president who stood for principle over party.

Here is my phone number. I will call you back. Not In an hour, or a day, but soon as I can. Here is a litany of my affiliations and why I attach myself to them. Here are my weaknesses and perceived flaws and my perceived strengths. I will serve as an American, not for a political party. Vote for me if you have the courage.

Call me if you have any questions.

Thankfullness

I had left-overs for dinner last night, and it was filling and fine. It was a simple meal, but ample and nourishing.

Up not a fan of left-overs, but with every bite, I thought of those throughout the world who didn't have left-overs to eat or where starvation is a constant worry. So many count the grains of rice for the pot to feed a family and deal with the ache of hunger as the body eats itself in a wrenching pain to stay alive.

My simple meal was to millions of souls around the world, a feast.

I had the pharmacy fill my prescriptions the other day. There are millions in the world who have no access to even simple medical treatments let alone to modern medicines to cure or prevent.

To get the same medical expertise, most of the world would have to walk for days or suffer in place.

I have a nice home. Good neighbors. I have heat, electricity, and freedom from fear. I know millions love their families, but who have no permanent home without the hostile and real intrusion of fear, and war.

With all these realizations, there comes a moment when I ask the question, “Why me?” “Why do I have so much and so many have so little?”

I don’t know the full answer and I suspect I never will until I get to the other side. I do know that even though there is no complete answer to my question, there is self-realization that appears when the question is asked, and they lead the way, not only to an appreciation of what I do have but to the responsibilities that go with the abundance.

Giving from substance.

Compassion and aid to those who suffer.

Tolerance of other’s beliefs.

Awareness of need.

Perhaps all of us who live in abundance should think of these things more often.

Saying "shit" on the air.

When I was a young reporter working in the hinterlands of America and then the big cities of Washington and New York, there were certain words one could never use on the air or quoting anybody, one of those words was – “shit.” If it was said it was deleated. It was and is a derogatory term used in any number of ways to denote disgust. It exists in every language and culture.

In the last 24 hours, I heard the word used as a quote, either spoken or written, or used once and then referred to the, “S” word so the nuance would be clear, on all the television networks, both broadcast and cable quoting the President of the United States referring to countries like Haiti and El Salvador.

I think our national puritanical under-garments are showing. We are not too far removed from those pilgrim beginnings. When I was a youngster and even into my teens, my Mother would not tolerate vulgarity in our house-hold. I never heard my Father use any vulgar words unless it was outside the home and then only rarely.

Me? (Sorry Mom), I use them often in expletives at other drivers, (my friends will attest to that). I use them when I see cruelty to humans and animals, at comments about congressional irresponsibility and when I slam my thumb when closing the dish-washer.

My Mother used to say when she did something that required an expletive, “phish-posh and piddle paddles.” I tried it once, but it never worked for me.

The way Mr. Trump used the term was not presidential and internationally offensive. The way some of the media reported the quote needs to be modernized. Get over it!

America - Wake Up!

Never before have we had a President lie, obfuscate, delude and misinform as we have now.
Never before have we had a President create such confusion and consternation as we have now.
Never before have we had a President so not respected in the litany of world leaders.
Never before have we had a President create chaos in the daily White House as we have now.
Never before have we had a President say he will, and then he won't or say he won't then he will on numerous issues.
Never before have we had a President who refuses to reveal his personal and business finances.
Never before have we had a President who calls those with whom he disagrees derogatory names. Never before have we had a man in our top leadership position who promised to drain the political swamp, but instead fills it with muck and mire.

I know some of my friends supported this man in his quest to become president. I understood then their desire to see change, their hope for a better political world; I do not understand now how after a one year in office anyone can continue to support a man who is so devious, so ego-centric, and so anti-ethical American.

I want change too, but not at the expense of democracy, decency, and the deportation of innocents.

Young and Old

Hey Seniors, if you ever get a chance to spend some quality time with young people I would recommend that you do so. Most of us elders forget what it was like when we were in our teens and twenties. We think we remember, but when it comes right down to it, we don’t. We remember the essence of being young, but not the specifics and the particularity. Our imaginations remember better than what it is in reality.

I was a teenager in the mid-50’s. The time of James Dean, the actor not the singer. The time of Elvis, hotrods, fallout shelters, Yankees dominating the American League pennant race, Black Jack gum, Howdy Dowdy, Glass soda pop bottles, fifty-cent movies.  Captain Video, I love Lucy and cigarette ads all over the television, magazines, and newspapers, Ed Sullivan on Sunday night TV and Edward R. Murrow on CBS.

We had our wars too. Korea was prominent, but the death and dying of American troops were not. It was just as tragic as today and numerous, but we didn’t know about it for weeks or months. The media’s technology had not yet developed enough to share instantaneous information.

Today’s teens know who their entertainment and social heroes are, and they are environmentally aware, and most young diligently recycle. Their cognitive powers are far more advanced than mine was as a teenager.

They are conscious of their sugar intake, and they have heaps of information from computers and iPods available to them to augment their interests, amplify their studies and their hopes and wishes.

Margaret Mead, the noted anthropologist, recommended that the old and the young spend time together. She posited that time together encourages each to acknowledge the other in themselves. She concluded it forms a new agreement between generations.

The touch of Sunshine

I had a profound awareness the other morning as I sat in a chair next to an Easterly window. The sun rose without morning cloudiness to obscure or dilute its light. I was reading a book while the early morning light bathed my shoulders with its warmth through double glazed windows.

I paused in my reading and thought of my old friend, singer, entertainer, actor, activist and environmentalist John Denver and his song, “Sunshine On My Shoulders.”

I replayed in my mind his many gifts to the world.

John was a poet, a singer of songs, a friend to many, an idol of millions the world over. He died in a plane crash in October 1997.  We continue to honor our friend with personal memories of his laughter and his profound intellect.

We remember his public gifts of song and self, his harmonies of love and nature, his vision for a sustainable future and all of the joys of life he shared through an extraordinary ability to entertain.  His songs would take us to places where troubles couldn't reach, at least for a while. His lyrics encouraged us to seek a higher ground, a metaphor for a better way. His hugs were special for they were given without condition and his smile personified his spirit and his love of life and humankind.

I think now we celebrate his life without the salt of sadness, and that's right, but we still miss him. We all come into this world, make choices, make sacrifices, laugh a little, love a little, cry a little and learn through experience that the real importance of life is to share our gifts, to be true to ourselves and to make the world a bit better place to live.

I hope I have more sunshine on my shoulders soon. I like the memories it engenders.

Turning 80! Oh! Not me, yet.

As I write this, I am listening to “A Te, O Cara,” from the opera “I Puritani” by Bellini. It is one of my favorite selections of all Operas, with the possible exception of Puccini’s “O Soave Fanciulla” in La Boheme.

Having said that and the fact that this post has nothing to do with the music I am listening to, but everything to do with the generation of comfort, I suppose they are minutely and mystically connected.

I recently returned from a gathering of elders and almost elders celebrating the 80th birthday of a mutual friend.

I looked around the long table of aging friends and felt privileged being in their company for they are all successful and accomplished gentlemen either active or retired in their chosen professions.

It mattered not that we were all friends from previous outings and experiences. At the moment of dining and libation, we were all equal colleagues and acquaintances joyfully celebrating a singular and unique moment in another’s life.

My mind moved to what some mystics call “the sacred moment of being,” and I rejoiced at the moment, the feeling of freedom, the wonder of expectation and the knowing that connection is instantaneous and fleeting in this density and time, but eternal elsewhere.

I will see these souls again here, if that is given to me to experience and if not here somewhere else in the eternity of being. Trying to fathom that moment in a restaurant bar with glasses clanking and dishes rattling, and ambient laughter is at best awkward, but possible if one genuinely lives in the moment.

History

You know that famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware? It’s inaccurate. He crossed the Delaware, but the painting is of the Rhine River. The painting by 19th century American Painter, German-born Emanuel Leutze was painted in Dusseldorf, Germany and the Rhine River was used as a model.

Even allowing for an artistic license, the painting has its share of errors. The American flag in the painting shows thirteen stars and stripes. George crossed the Delaware the day after Christmas in 1776. The flag design was not adopted until 1777.

Leutze's painting also shows Washington in a rather small boat. Actually, Durham boats were used. They were 40 to 60-foot long flat bottom boats used to transport freight on America’s Northeast rivers.

The painting could not show what George did after he crosses the river. The enemy was encamped at Trenton. The Hessian commander Colonel Johann Rall was snug in his headquarters. Christmas was celebrated with cheer and some card playing.

Colonel Rall told his aides – no interruptions. When a loyalist spy rushed into camp with word that Washington had crossed the Delaware, the aides made him write it down on a piece of paper. A porter brought it to the Colonel. He stuffed it into his pocket and went back to his cards.

Hours later Washington’s forces open fire on the surprised enemy camp. The battle was short. The entire Hessian army encampment surrendered. Colonel Rall was mortally wounded. The note still stuffed in his pocket.

Tis Cold, Yes?

It’s early morning. Temperature is six degrees with light snow expected. I have a fire going and feeling safe after a cold winter’s night.

A log fire dissolves its way to ash giving back the heat and light of many seasons' growth. Fluid flames dance in a flickering grace of form and orange light. Heat is the result. Light a soft byproduct.

A few feet away is cold. It is a stinging cold with only a window glass to hold it back. It’s double glass, a bulwark of silica that another temperature and time turned into a transparent glazing of clarity and protection.

I grew up in old houses with single panes of flawed glass. Frost would decorate the panes into a translucent crystal of art, but not now. Modern houses are too tight for nature’s cryogenic beauty to seep in and paint the panes with a cameo of cold. Too bad! How many kids today will miss the vision of feathered frost on the inside of a windowpane where they can scratch their design into the thin sheet of ice crystals.

Enjoy the day.

The Book of Silence

There are places of extreme quiet, where silence and nothing are one, and you cannot tell them apart. Places where only nature speaks and her sound is deafening as no other audible intrusion is near.

One place is on a silent river. Where portions neither ripple nor descend through roaring   cataracts but carry liquid volumes in the stillness of deep flows and where it is far enough away from man’s modern concoctions that the only thing you hear are your thoughts.

If you’ve never been to such a place and find yourself in one, there will come wonderment, revelation, a spiritual attunement, and a surprise appreciation of a sentient nature that only stillness engenders. 

The first time I experienced such silence was on the Green River in Utah as I floated in a quiet eddy pool and found myself in involuntary prayer with nature whose sacristy I had entered and remained by choice of benevolent thought.

The second time was at night alone at the edge of a lake in the Allagash wilderness of Maine. The stars have a noticeable brilliance when civilization is far away. They also have a sound that man rarely hears for we occupy a space of noise and hustle in the Cosmos of life.

The third I often experience for I live nearby. It is on the Wallkill River in New York. When my Kayak drifts on the silent surface, I embrace the Oneness and silence of All That Is.

I know that science has learned much from exploring the vast cacophony of the heavens. I know that religions promote silence to reach the unreachable. I know that the stillness of winter creates a frigid cocoon and a constricting density.

What I didn’t know until I experienced it was the gift that nature’s silence gives the listener. I found too that robust laughter needs no sound and God needs no dogma. 

Trump's Folly

I was going to publish a gentle experience on the magnificence of silence, and I will tomorrow, but this takes precedence on this date.

The childish tweet from our president in response to North Korea’s nuclear button is an escalation of sand-box rhetoric between these two sophomoric leaders.

Does not our president (and I purposely do not capitalize his undeserved title) realize bravado may lead us to nuclear mass destruction and destabilizes any hope for diplomacy?

Macho stuff and innuendo of mine is bigger than yours does not work in global brinksmanship.

The Now of New

Happy New Year my friends!

Beginnings always have an expectation.

What happens next, where do we go from here?

There is an old saying that says we attract to us what we fear. If it's true, then the antidote must be true too. Within each of us is an immense creative positive energy that can find a way out of the fear, the sadness, the despair, and the negative conditions for which we often blame others.

Perhaps it is time we take personal responsibility as creators. Not only the creator of things and conditions, but also of attitudes and prejudices.

We often constrict our creative self by limiting the power of our thoughts. We often inadvertently deny those in need by believing personal security is the comfort of having more. Sometimes we delude those we say we love by only loving ourselves through them and not honoring their choices and sacred self. Sometimes we do a lot of stupid things that have unintended consequences.

It is a choice, but we can listen to the life force of our hearts. It lets us hear the trees, the oceans, the plants and animals when they speak to us with their beauty.
It lets us acknowledge the equal sacred pursuit of life from those whose culture; language, beliefs and color are different from us. It even helps us to forgive.

That life force is Divine love. It is embedded in our spirits from the moment of our being. It can never be lost; it needs only to be remembered. It translates into common respect, courtesy, compassion and kindness and manifests into a willingness to be of service for serving the other serves the self.

It has never been tried on a mass scale.

It seems to me we have nothing to lose. Maybe 2018 will be the year.