These are hard days for many people in this country; too many people.  The possibilities of despair are endless. The drop into bitterness is the cheapest ride in town. The climb out of despair is certainly not a free balloon ride. 

The Tuvans are an ethnic group living in Southern Siberia with a lesson for us all. The individual Tuvan Throat Singer has learned how to sing in two pitches at the same time; a low foundational drone and a higher pitched overtone. That is a seemingly impossibly difficult vocal skill to master, but once mastered, the music lifts entire cultures. 

This Nation’s mindset currently has the two pitches of life hard at war with each other.  Pitch one is the lower harder street knowledge of violence and injustice, and Pitch two is the sacred aspirations of a better, more just, higher version of human governance.  While the rough streets seem to be winning this war, we need to become like the Tuvan Throat Singer and learn to reconcile our low tumultuous streets and our higher aspirations for justice and fairness concurrently.  As in throat singing the concurrency creates its own harmonic   Our challenge is going to require the commitment of the Tuvan musician as we master the art of democracy on the streets and aspirational overtones pointing the direction to a brighter future for our offspring.  In the history of western civilization no one has ever suggested democracy would be easy.