“The ulti­mate mea­sure of a man or woman is not where he stands in moments of com­fort and con­ve­nience, but where he stands at times of chal­lenge and con­tro­versy.” ~ Mar­tin Luther King

It’s time to stop look­ing to Wash­ing­ton for answers. We won’t get them from a new pol­icy or a new law or a new gov­ern­ment pro­gram. We have to repro­gram our think­ing and our hearts. We’re finally wak­ing up from the Amer­i­can Dream and we need a new one.

It wasn’t that long ago that we thought if we just played the game, fol­lowed the rules, we’d have a good shot at every­thing we wanted: a good job, a com­fort­able home, a retire­ment plan, and our kids could go off to col­lege and pre­pare for an even bet­ter life. The game’s over.

Now noth­ing is cer­tain, and no mat­ter how hard we try we can’t make all that work any more. We’re find­ing out that the mort­gage hold­ers and credit card com­pa­nies only care about keep­ing us for­ever in their debt. We aren’t in Kansas any more, and the Wiz­ard of Oz is the flim­flam man.

We could get all wound up with what we don’t have, what we think we need, or we can rede­fine what we want and recon­struct our com­mu­ni­ties to sup­port that.

Secu­rity, basic neces­si­ties, human com­pan­ion­ship, love and laugh­ter, and a mea­sure of com­fort, all in our own hands.

Wel­come home. Time to redis­cover our resourcefulness.

Tags: changing the world, community, paradigm, post-modern living, when the lights go out

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