Platform for America

At the entrance to Halibut Point State Park two emblems remind visitors of government's mandate to serve the land and the people. The people have chosen their governors this week on Election Day. At the end of the week, on Veterans Day, we will honor those among us who served in the national defense.

The following week, on the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, we will recall President Lincoln's consecration of a battlefield in the most perilous time for the nation, and the hope that it "shall have a new birth of freedom." The final week of November brings the celebration of Thanksgiving.

Eloquence can emerge from episodes of great struggle such as these historic occasions of re-purposing. It may yet arise from the consternation we are now experiencing. Clarity may return us to community, or chaos may bruise us further.

The eloquence may be in speech or in action.

It will come, instinctively or by cultivation, from the truest source: the still, small Voice that tempers the slide between desire and indignation.

Within the current dissonance we will have to attune to the quiet guides and uncluttered decorum of reconciliation. We will have to accept a personal role in the State of the Union. We will have to envision a spirit of mutuality.