The outrageous political news cycle these days and the California wild fires share at least this in common; there are days in our lives when life seems to slip beyond our grasp, control, or even influence. Our family has a family member in the Los Angeles County fire evacuation zone living in that space where the only news that counts in the moment lies in the fire’s verdict. Meanwhile they are being held in friend’s and family’s hospitality, support and consolation. We don’t have to dig too far to see the good in that kind of networked support. The larger news cycle also smells of smoke and future crisis. We will have to dig deeper to find a seam of radical good in which to invest our decisions when it comes to the community and public affairs. I use the metaphor of ‘mining for good’ because like all mining you have to go below the surface to find the wealth. Outrage and anger feel like deep emotions but in fact they are simply flash emotions instructing us to bring out the shovels and new architecture, not the guns. 

But, back to the children and a healthy future. Children held in safety, nurturance, and constant human connection for the first years of their developing lives will make profoundly safer, spiritually sound, generous, creative, and decisive adults who might be able to repair and sustain a good future for whats left of this nation and its culture. Working and contributing to an expanding network of child nurturance is a field of influence that lies today at all of our feet ready to be picked up by people who care and dare. This Project will look more closely at nurturance and nurturance communities in future posts but for now I offer a quote from the much loved and respected Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 

“In our African Language we say “a person is a person through other persons”.  I would not know how to be a human at all except I learned this from other human beings. We are made for a delicate network of relationships of interdependence.  We are meant to complement each other.  All kinds of things go horribly wrong when we break that fundamental law of our being.”

So yes, many things right now might be going ‘horribly wrong” and still I believe when operating outside the Meta-trance of politics and commerce, in this nation, there is a longing and a capacity to restore the ‘delicate network of relationships of interdependence.’ The restoration begins with each of us and the children so let’s do it. Stay tuned. 

thegooddecision.org