A Bedtime Story

Well, here’s an unusual post this evening. Call it a bedtime story, if you will.

Before we tie up all our loose ends for the day and make that mental transition into letting go of all our mental gyrations, I want to plant a seed. Just one. I’ll be brief.

This little garden we have here—Howard County, Columbia, your own little neighborhood—we are its stewards. We must be. We can’t just turn our heads away and expect that someone else will do it.

Someone else may very well do it, but without care, or thought. Oh, they may be nice enough but not very able. Or forceful but unpleasant. Or incredibly well organized but inflexible. Or maybe no one will make the effort to do those community things at all. And they will languish. And so will we.

So: politics. Local politics.

I’m not a big fan of “political season” because I am not a big fan of politics as sport. Oh, it has its aficionados, to be sure, who have players and scorecards and stats. They analyze, predicts, recap, and then, for dessert, there’s snark and sarcasm. Biting wit that indicts the opposition and delights the cognoscenti.

We all do a bit of that out of frustration perhaps. It’s funny when you know enough to get the jokes and are sure they aren’t on you.

But back to the garden.

I have some pretty strong feelings about what we should be growing in our garden and I’m looking for people who want to get in there and plant, and weed, and share in both the work and the vision. And, if I decide I want to be an advocate for change, I think it’s my responsibility to focus on how we can make things better. What is worth believing in? Who has earned my trust, and why?

Take this bit of my bedtime story with you. I hope that you will engage enough and learn enough about local candidates that you will go to vote in November full of the excitement and enthusiasm of supporting someone who has earned your trust. Not because anyone told you to fear “the other guy”, but because you are a faithful steward of this garden and you have a vested interest in what we reap and what we sow.

Good night, Howard County. Sleep tight, and dream big dreams.