Another post so soon???

YES!  Here’s an antidote to all the contention and polemic flying around the airwaves and unfortunately, too easily eddying in our own ruminations.

We still have over a week before the election.  During that time it’s only vastly possible that the theater of opposition will amp up.  The essential subtext of all the contention is that we the people not only should but do dislike, disrespect and fear one another.

Clearly there’s truth in that, but it’s not the whole truth.  I learned and keep learning about the rest of the story when I drove around the country in 2009 and again this past winter.  The book, 100 Voices – Americans Talk about Change holds the story of the first drive — the voices of everyday Americans speaking to the idea of change.  The second drive involved meeting with small groups in communities along the original route.  The entries in this blog from that time reveal the sustained interest everyday people (i.e., most of us) have in getting along, having room for our differences, and learning again to listen to each other.

So here’s an opportunity to put words from that side of the story into you thoughts.  Last Friday the 100 Voices project has hit the airwaves.  In their characteristically modest and grassroots way, the voices continue to find new venues in which to be heard.  As true antidotes to the divisive public messages of the day, these 100 voices continue transforming the conversation.

We all know that the conversations in our heads fuel the conversations we have in the world.  Take a listen to Chapter 1.  I’ll pass along the next chapter this weekend — all in the spirit of balancing out what we hear and think of ourselves as a people and a nation.

Once again, I invite you to join me in the radical act of listening.