The Women’s March of protest and hope in Chicago provided much material for reflection.  Participation is a catalysis for personal change.  I know I am not the same person I was one week ago.  I am changed in ways that will be recognizable as my future unfolds.

Everything is connected.  We separate aspects of thought, emotion, business, politics, etc only by effort, by a forced abstraction of language.  I hope to never forget that there are links between beauty, kindness, economic activity, politics, and even the small talk that lubricates the give and take of ordinary human contact.  My opinion of today’s weather is dynamically linked to my sense of what it means to be a citizen in my country.  The trivial is linked to the momentous.  Beneath the disparities, the seemingly unrelated pieces of lived experience is a matrix of connections, some older than our birth.

When I think about this “reality” I experience some peace, some disengagement from the immediacy of conflict which is the substance of politics in our time.  Troubled times have come before.  In my great grand fathers time, slave holding states departed the Union to

make their point.  The States had two presidents, one in Washington and one in Richmond.  That’s how bad things can get.  Backward looking it appears that under the circumstances of a slave holding Southern economy, war was a matter of destiny. The slave States attempt to conserve their status quo was unspeakably bloody.  Looking forward one never can foresee what is possible, from all that hangs in the  balance.

So I am grateful for a break, for paying no attention to the news feed that automatically renews, offered up on the iphone screen.  I am grateful for friends that gather on Tuesday evenings at the Long Grove Coffee Shop to mindfully discuss ideas, and search for applications that can be adapted personally.  The atmosphere of good will has been earned by improved listening skills.  Are we all of the same political opinion?  Far from it.  We still manage to learn from one another.  Thanks to Ethel for being a gracious host for us.

I am grateful for the smaller, more intimate discussion of philosophy that takes place at Taste-of-Paris Café on Thursday evenings in Mundelein.  Ideas are considered, criticized and developed with a glass of wine, or cup of coffee, often with a treat from the pastry case.  Thanks to Chef Claude for gracious permission to utilize his place.  The evenings there are an expression of what is meant by “civilization.”

A friend offered this thought experiment for my consideration today.  “How did you get from the mind that you had as a three year old, to the mind that you have today?”  I am certain that exposure to ideas, and the nurture of conversation with friends can be credited with the adult mind that I have today.

One cannot endure the trenches, the shell-fire of political engagement–indefinitely.  Sanity requires that we disengage from the hairball of combat and say “yes” to the good things of life.