What Matters

The past few days I have been 300 miles from home at a conference for work. Thinking about the events in Boston yesterday made me realize none of this matters. While I am fortunate enough to like my job and to like my colleagues, at the end if the day none of what I'm doing here matters. What matters is my family and my farm. Not the money I make, not the important people I might know, not the clothes I wear or the car I drive.

This article led to my Facebook post today.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/15/opinion/granderson-boston-safety/index.html

My Facebook post linked to this article and this is what I said. Because of our greed and push into the global economy, we have forgotten to take care of what is at home. We have lost our sense of community and of place. This isn't something that happened overnight. It has been a gradual transition from a country with a sense of community to a country of people who don't care about each other. Maybe I'm jaded because I was a privileged child. And I'm still privileged. But not in the way you might think. I was raised by parents who instilled hard work, responsibility for myself and discipline. I lived in a rural community where I had a sense of place and belonging. I know at least 1/3 of the population of our county, if not more. If we had a problem we had people to call, just the same as if we had a joyful event we had people to share it with. Do people still have that?? Or are we so wrapped up in our careers, our moneymaking, our kids soccer/dance/band/football/baseball/soccer/ whatever else it is that kids do that gets in the way if being a kid that we have forgotten how to be a community? How to support each other and take care of each other and feel joy and sorrow for each other?

All I know is things aren't they way they used to be, and it happened fast, within my short 32 year lifetime. It's not the fault of the current administration though some might find a way to argue it is. We can only search people so much, and keep things like guns away from people to only a certain degree, and we can't put all the bad guys in jail. We HAVE to do something.....but what will it be? How can we get back to the America my parents knew? The idyllic 1950s pre Vietnam Leave it to Beaver society we once knew? Or is it too late?