New York Architecture offers additional information about the historic Bankers Trust Building. Beautiful postcard, huh?
As we move toward September 11, I'm thinking how divided the United States is, with polls indicating a virtual dead heat in the presidential race and polarization seeming to intensify daily. No matter the outcome it is not going to be an easy transition and there will be plenty of lip-service paid to coming together, I fear to no avail. We haven't learned much from our sorrows and mistakes and seem intent upon stirring up the potential for more. Who's going to be willing to give a little, i.e., cave in, when it means giving up something that means everything to you? We're so entrenched in our worldviews, so committed to certain outcomes, that we've lost the art of compromise. Have we forsaken true caring for the fear-derived high that we get when we live in pay back mode?
It's an US against the World, our-side/their-side kind of mentality that has run rampant for the past eight years and shows no signs of stopping. I'm trying to put on the brakes a little by reading, at least during the next two months, two blogs I found that are written by conservative/evangelical Christian Republicans, who happen to also seem to be trying to apply their brakes long enough to write some thoughtful posts (the key issues and points of which dumbfound and confound and astound me, I admit) and to respond to comments in a cordial, intelligent – even caring – manner.
Honestly, this election-time endeavor is really a stretch for me because – and I don't think I'm alone – I so love my growing list of favorite blogs written by people who write about issues and points that dazzle and enthuse and calm and inform and encourage and inspire and validate and move me, and those are the blogs where I want to spend some of my precious time, not reading bloggers whose belief systems are the polar opposite from my own. Polar opposite. Polarized. Can we agree to disagree and work together from there (and try to save the polar bear)?
It's hard to remember in times like these that we are more alike than we are different, and it's always been so. In that spirit I plan on posting a poem tomorrow that celebrates our humanity.
(The two blogs I mentioned above are Malott's Blog and Tsofah.)
