Social networking and the joy of diversity and celebration

This is just a quick note today as I am celebrating Christmas with family and friends. The world is enriched with a tremendous diversity of peoples, cultures and customs but one that we all share is the will to celebrate and to share in joy and hope. It can be in celebrating Christmas or in so many other ways, and voices. Secular or religious, local, national or global, we all hold that in common. One of the benefits of our increasingly everywhere and all the time connectedness is our ability to reach out and connect through these shared moments. It is in finding and sharing the best in us and in all of us that we cut through the differences to find common ground. The trick is in sustaining this beyond the holidays and the special celebrations and in finding the best in all of us in each other and even as we disagree on things – even important things. The trick is in finding ways to find common solutions and resolutions to those sometimes tricky problems and in finding the opportunities in them.

Yesterday the American public here in the United States was gifted a real present in the form of healthcare reform legislation. True, the House and Senate have to come together to find a compromise bill and pass that, but after decades of struggle it looks like something good will come out of this effort. Good things can take time. But looking for and finding the best we would hope for in ourselves in others too is a beginning.

So I wish you all happy holidays, and all holidays, and goodness and joy for all, and for now, this coming year and beyond. Now I am going to get back to my family and to this, our local celebration.

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