ASK DEB, October 2012 ' BE THE CHANGE..."

November 2012

No Dear Deb this month but Pre-Election ...  Last Month bears repeating.  Check out Pastor Tim in Nov. COMMUNITY REPORTER...  Halle & I will return in time for the HOLIDAYS.

Dear Reader….

When this column goes to press the people in our families, neighborhoods, cities, states and entire nation will be mere weeks and days away from exercising our power to vote for the Presidential candidate who best reflects our deepest wants and hopes.  I talk with many of you throughout my day-to-day life.  Some of you are conservative, some liberal, and some moderate in your political views. Some of you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist … When I am with you, drinking tea, sharing a karaoke stage, shopping the aisles of Cub, having the Linguini Bolognese at DeGidios ….  I’m aware of our common bond.  Maybe you sneeze into your elbow in line at the store and I say, “Bless you…” and you smile and say “thank you.”  Maybe you’re having a bad run of luck with the pull-tabs you bought with your beer and we lift our bottles and smile in commiseration.  You might be a devout practitioner of daily prayer and meditation or you and your family bow your heads to say grace before you dig into your pancakes at the Day-by-Day Café….  I’m watching you.  I guess, whoever you are, you’ve had sorrow visit your life.  I guess you’ve probably had some health scares, some financial woes -- worries about your folks or the kids.  The economy is not good.  Young people are maimed or dying far from home and right down the street from us.  A neighbor or son was just diagnosed with kidney failure, and still, when they’re not on dialysis we can hear the sounds of slow jazz pouring through their open windows.   I guess there are some things you fear, some experiences you prize and relish.  I’ll bet I’d be right if I guessed every one of you is “going through” something.  I’ll bet I’d be right if I guessed every one of you would like to feel cared about, heard and understood.  This is the common bond of our humanity.   I see this close up and on a micro/local level every day and imagine you do too.   Where are the great divides between us?  What matters most to you? Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”   Barbara Kingsolver, in ANIMAL DREAMS put it this way: ““The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for, and the most you can do is to live inside that hope.  What I want is so simple I can hardly say it:  elementary kindness.  Enough to eat. Enough to go around.  The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers or the destroyed.”

What is the change you wish to see in the world?  Be clear in your heart and mind what you hope for, then make the choice that best represents that hope.