How To Grow a Nation

Are you watching the Democratic National Convention? I'm obsessed with the whole political scene, even more than in 2008 when I wrote a post on the magnitude of electing the first African American President. It was snowing the day of the inauguration. I remember it well. I put on a white hat and gloves with a teal scarf around my neck and went for a walk, excited about the dawning of a new day for our country. 

Eight years later, things have turned downright bizarre. When the current President's own brother pledges to vote for the opposite party in the upcoming election and the Republican past presidents won't endorse the Republican nominee, you can sense how divided we have become. At this moment I am perfectly at peace with the fact that the "party" doesn't matter to me.  I am having my own party and asking myself these questions: Who is moral? Who is ready to lead? Who is experienced? Who would I trust with the the nuclear button? Who is simply a good person, an honest person? 

Who is the well-seasoned soul in the room? 

Even with all the rumblings of fear and displays of violence and uncertainty in the world, I know we'll be OK if we keep moving forward.  Positive progressive movement doesn't only apply to politics - it's vital for groundbreaking research, innovative manufacturing, idealist entrepreneurship, excellence in education, social and equality movements, foreign policy goals, and the conservation of our beautiful planet Earth.  

But how do we get there? Where is the standard?  How do we begin? 
You don't have to look very far for the answer. Change and evolution happens every single day in all our lives, mostly in the dynamic and hard work of personal human relationships.  It looks like grace when you don't deserve it and sounds like kindness when you didn't earn it. 

It walks like love just because love is love. 

It moves into something bigger. Something worthy of every stakeholder in the room.
 And it digs down deep into the walls of dirty dirt to bring up a new handful of roots you planted long long ago when nobody knew where love was headed. 

 Human interactions are the model for great nation building.

Because moving forward is just as organic to the sustainability of great relationships as it is to the forming of the world's finest models of peace and prosperity.  You can't have an unbreakable partnership without the desire to grow a deeper commitment to the one you love, a willingness to understand and forgive again, and a pot full of dirt. 
 Then you put in seedlings for birthing and expect them to grow.

You can't have a strong nation without fundamentally good and moral people willing to do the same.  

My life isn't perfect. 

Our world isn't either.

But I'll keep planting.

And digging.

And getting my hands dirty.

And tending my own garden.

Because when I find myself planting seeds in window-boxes in the silence of the hot southern sun or during a snowy inaugural walk, I feel a growing in my own soul. And a voice with the deepest strongest wisdom of all saying...

"Just plant, Mimi. Plant."

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