There are occasions in our lives each as people and as a collective when we have to take inventory of who we’re, what we wish to turn into, what will we owe to ourselves, our communities and the world.
I’m a guardian of a teen who’s on the cusp of maturity. This summer time, my husband and I’ve been having deep and significant conversations with our teen as she begins to outline her life. We now have inspired her to consider who she is and how much particular person she needs to turn into as an grownup. As her mother and father, we now have requested our teen to ponder what values she holds, whether or not these are ones we now have taught her, or she has picked up alongside the way in which. Our conversations have additionally included subjects like what it means to be pal and part of a group, and what it means to reside with honor and integrity. Most of our conversations started with open-ended inquiries to open a dialogue and encourage reflection.
America can be at an inflection level. A few of those self same conversations must be happening inside our bigger society as America decides the way it will redefine itself. To open a dialogue and encourage reflection, listed below are only a few questions for People to chew on. What values does America nonetheless maintain or wish to maintain? What does it imply to be a pal to our close by neighbors and allies across the globe? Do honor and integrity nonetheless matter?
The winter of 2020-2021 was actually bleak in America. For the primary time in our historical past, we didn’t expertise a peaceable post-election switch of presidential energy. As an alternative, we skilled an revolt within the very seat of our democracy. The peaceable switch of energy has at all times been a central tenet of our democracy. The election of 1800 between the incumbent, Federalist John Adams, and his Democratic-Republican vice chairman, Thomas Jefferson, offered us with the primary take a look at of this tenet.
