Open The Door. Listen…
It’s been a fortnight of loud news, on both the local and national levels. The presidential candidates continue to bash at each other, the Onteora School Board race has started up with a flurry of announcements and support letters, Jimmy Carter went to the Middle East to try and get everyone at the table to talk about possible peace, and the Pope visited our country, quietly admonishing the president for his war-like ways, and all of us for forgetting those less fortunate than ourselves. Passover occurred.
And yet when one steps back from it all, not much happened of major consequence. Trees started to bud and leaf out. Everyone got outside for a warm Earth Day. Doors and windows opened. Birdsong filled the air, at least whenever we had the sense to turn away from the news chatter.
The next month, here, will be consumed by school politics. Just as the national news will continue to be dominated by presidential politics. It’s going to get shrill… and yet, living here, listening to the world outside, we know it doesn’t need to be.
Maybe, as the best stories of the past two weeks have shown, we would do better in the coming weeks to listen, rather than shout; to try and learn, rather than convince. In the end, all this election stuff is not sport, but a means of discourse.
It is never good to simply shut off those we don’t agree with; to limit our worlds to those just like us. We are meant to be bigger than that, even if there is something in us that is easily led to such smallness.
Which means we all have to be willing to hear each other. Which means shutting our own traps, for the betterment of our communities…
PS