Our Evolving Garden

A while ago, maybe a year, I suggested that it would help us come together in our new reality if more of us left our "comfort zone" groups on social media and visited groups whose focus was more "the other side". 

Many of you told me exactly what you thought of the idea:  not much!

Others, a dear friend included, gave it a try only to have their worst fears confirmed in short order. (The dear friend messaged me shortly after retreating, saying that she would NOT be following my advice in the future!). Fair enough. At least she tried. 

But some of you tried it and, not being immediately repulsed or expelled, have stuck with it. Bravo!  Brava!  The point is not to convince or to concede.  We don't move forward on the evolutionary scale if we capitulate totally or if we never hear or consider other ways of doing things.

The point is to harmonize our polarized legacies through discourse. We can build our future together; something new, something fresh, something better than either had in the past and we can do so on our ample common ground. I know it's a slog. Believe me, I know. 

Those who have stuck it out, withstood mischaracterizations, jibes, offensive rhetoric or  suffered direct abuse "just because", you are the pioneers. You are the cross-pollinators in our new garden whose efforts will eventually yield a new kind of reality. 

Thank you. Well-done. Keep it up. 

"Time will take care of it, like it does everything else."

     - Hattie Shepherd

How much time do we have?