The buzz beyond

There was lots of conversation on the bus this morning. All of it with people who were nowhere to be seen.

A woman in the seat in front of me was discussing weekend movie options on her cell phone. I was reading through and responding to office e-mails on my BlackBerry, getting a head-start on my day. All around me were passengers similarly tapping at keypads, sending text messages somewhere into cyberspace.

As I finished my e-mail review, stuck the BlackBerry back in my bag and took note of the scene around me, I thought about the irony of our bodies bumping along on the bus while our voices and words sped ahead. We must still transport our physical selves in the analog world of the bus, but our thoughts are not similarly bound.

Pretty cool. As long as we don't forget altogether how to connect with each other in the here and now.

A moment of grace

I sing (loosely speaking) in the alto section of a local church choir. There are about 125 of us, but we split Sunday duty over three services, so rarely are we together as a group in anything but Thursday night rehearsal, which I haven't been attending all that faithfully of late. We all tend to know the others who sing in our sections at normal Sunday service times pretty well, but the altos who sing at 8 a.m. (like me) may only know the 9:30 a.m. altos in passing, and may not know the 11 a.m. basses at all. Which is what made today special.

Today there was a memorial service for the son of a fellow alto, one with whom I'm well enough acquainted to say "hello", but she's an 11 a.m.-er and I'm long gone by then. She's friendly, personable, and having stood next to her one year at the Christmas concert I know she sings in tune, but I don't really know her.

The choir director had asked for volunteers to sing at the memorial service, and I had dutifully signed up. But as the time drew near to head to the church for a pre-service warm-up, I wavered. I've got a busy week ahead at the office, and some catch-up work to do today... nobody will actually notice if I don't show up... she doesn't really know me....

Ultimately I heard my mother's voice in my head, telling me I had committed to be there, and whether anybody cared or not I should keep my promise. So I went.

As did virtually all the rest of us, from all sections, all service times. I haven't seen that many of my fellow choristers together since last Christmas. The look on the grieving mother's face when she entered the sanctuary and saw all of us... well, I knew I'd made the right choice.

I learned that my fellow alto's son had been a vibrant young chef at a ski resort in Idaho, with a passion for skiing and snowboarding before lymphoma cut his life short at age 39. I learned that she had endured not one, but two major losses -- first her husband, then her son -- in less than two years. The minister's words were comforting, the choir sniffled its way through "Be Thou My Vision" and "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need," and many of us lost it altogether when a pair of sopranos sang a breathtaking "Pie Jesus."

It was a lovely service, but more to the point, it was a collective moment of grace, an hour of my time that mattered a whole lot more than the office work I would have otherwise done this afternoon. To her... and to me.

Leap of faith

The sound of sirens in the distance pierced my early morning reverie one day last week while I waited at the bus stop for my transport to the office.

Newly conditioned to attend to the moment, I noticed the scene as the sirens came closer and closer. Cars on all sides came to a halt and in moments, two police cars and an ambulance barrelled through the usually busy intersection.

As traffic resumed I thought about the leap of faith the drivers of those speeding, screaming vehicles must make every time they set their course for emergencies. Will drivers of the cars on the road hear the sirens and respond? Are they even aware of the rules that call for them to pull over and stop? Or in their haste to solve someone else's crisis, will those who drive emergency vehicles become victims of one themselves?

Of course all turned out as it should at this intersection that morning, as it almost always does. So the police and ambulance drivers are justified in the faith they place in others on the road to know and abide by the rules.

Today, as I contemplate the close of an amazing week in our country's history, I think about the leap of faith we the people all take every four years when we choose a president, and many times in between when we vote for a host of other local, state and national leaders. Did we study the issues sufficiently to make informed choices? Did the candidates represent themselves honestly? They can't possibly keep all the promises they make in the course of a campaign -- but will they be able to do what's necessary to take action on those that matter the most?

The sirens are screaming for our economy, for energy independence, health care, national security and a host of social and policy issues. There's a fair possibility some or all will come crashing together in the intersection, with consequences I prefer not to ponder.

But today, I am feeling good about the leap of faith we collectively took this week, and hopeful our leaders can navigate the road ahead with the fewest fender-benders possible.

Election Day

As I type this, the outcome is unknown. I'm glued to the tv and will continue to be so until a winner is declared or I fall over, whichever comes first. Meanwhile, this day has given me a lot of things to think about. Among them:

Tim Russert. I'm sorry he's missed this election, I hope he's watching it from wherever he is, and I really miss his genuine passion and exuberance in following and reporting the political process.

Uncle Walter. Today is Walter Cronkite's 92nd birthday. He covered the elections of my youth, as well as everything that mattered in my formative years. Happy Birthday to someone who was at one time the "most trusted man in America" in a time when some journalists actually earned and merited that kind of trust.

Nastiness. Living in a "swing state" our snail mail and voice mail have been barraged with absolutely scurrilous and clearly untruthful messages. This stuff must work or they wouldn't spend money on it, but I hate what that says about us.

21st century marketing techniques employed by the Obama campaign. We in the business world should take note.

Hope. Not as a political slogan, but as a fervent wish that those who emerge as our leaders have the smarts, the will, the tenacity and the persuasive power to work together and confront the difficult issues ahead. I hope we can talk through our differences and look for common ground to move forward. There's too much to do to continue to spend energy in kneejerk partisan sniping.

History in the making. It's historic whichever way it goes... but the very idea that an African American man is knocking on the White House door is particularly stunning for me to contemplate, given that it wasn't so long ago that African Americans were not even permitted to cast a ballot. One more step forward. Many more to go.

And mostly, community. I have complained about my state not offering early voting, and I think it's ridiculous that we continue to hold elections on Tuesday - a decision first determined in the agrarian era to be convenient for farmers bringing their crops to town. But when I got in line at 6 a.m. this morning, and emerged a little over an hour later having accomplished my civic duty, I felt like I'd contributed to something important, and part of that was the collective experience of the voting process. There's so little we do together any more, at least in our physical presence, that I think maybe Election Day is worth keeping as a day to literally stand up (even if it's in a long line) and be counted.

Party bus

The bus was a few minutes late and unusually full when I boarded it this morning.

I soon discovered why: our bus had picked up passengers from another vehicle that had broken down, and our driver was determined to get her bus back on schedule. As we barrelled toward the business district, stuffed to the gills with twice the normal number of commuters, all struggling to remain upright or not be catapulted out of our seats, I had to check now and then to make sure Keanu Reeves wasn't at the wheel.

It was a wide ride.

It could have been fraught with fisticuffs as well, but it wasn't. In fact, it was party time. Perfect strangers of every imaginable stripe smiled and shrugged as they elbowed, jostled and hung on to their neighbors or rearranged themselves to let others disembark. A newly boarded passenger paid his fare, startled briefly as he turned to see the scene before him, then squeezed into a crevice and wished everyone on board a blessed day. Even Carmelita, the no-nonsense driver, was chatty. The good-will aboard was palpable.

I'm not so starry-eyed as to believe such conviviality would last indefinitely if we'd been stuffed in the bus any longer than the time it took us to get downtown. But my jolly ride to work this morning did more than give me a great start to the day. It gave me hope that we can, now and then, all just get along.

This is when it's great to be in the moment

This walking trail -- where trolley tracks used to take people to work downtown and back home again when our neighborhood was developed in the 1920s -- is about a half block from our house. It's where Mr. James and I go walking every day. (It's also where I slipped on the ice and broke my wrist last December, but we'll ignore that for now). My camera doesn't do it justice, but trust me, it's quite wonderful to walk amidst the splendor Mother Nature sends our way, however briefly, at this time of year.

I probably wouldn't go out and enjoy this nearly as often -- maybe ever -- if Mr. James didn't require a daily constitutional. He's more focused on the squirrels than the blue sky and colorful leaves that enchant me, but I definitely have him to thank for the experience of these moments.

Civility

There's a lesson I clearly remember from 4th grade social studies about the value of free speech in America. In my mind's eye I can still see the textbook illustration of two guys with patriot-looking hair and knickers, apparently in heated conversation in a 1700s style Town Square. Next to that picture was another depiction of the same two fellows shaking hands.

It wasn't the illustrations so much as the teacher's comment about them that made such an impression on me. One of the things that makes living in America special, she said, is that here people can express different points of view and not get jailed.

Can disagree about things, and still be friends.

Cut to today. That social studies book is probably out of print, and the point it tried to make seems sadly out of style.

Our local newspaper this morning carried a story about vandalism of presidential candidates' yard signs. It seems in some areas, signs are taking a beating from both sides of the great political divide. Mostly they're just being snatched out of yards - one fellow found his Obama sign folded up and stashed in a sewer, the story reported, and a McCain supporter said she's had to replace 20 signs so far.

But more pernicious, the story noted that several Obama signs have been spray-painted with hammer and sickle symbols or the letters "USSR," while McCain signs have been covered in black or marked with swastikas.

We all have different interpretations of what constitutes the American dream, but the concept represented by those long-ago textbook illustrations - of the freedom to speak your mind and not be bludgeoned (or spray-painted) for it - is high on my list.

From the news article, it appears there are at least a few like-minded citizens out there.

"I would think we could behave more civilly," one was quoted as saying. "Our country is not going to solve any problems with this back-and-forth."

"It breaks my heart to see the country so divided," said another. "Someone's going to win this election, and we're going to have to work together."

Call me gullible, but I refuse to believe either of the candidates themselves personally sanction the hostility their campaigns seem to be engendering. Rally rhetoric and slanderous robo-calls aside, I believe they both are good men, well-intentioned, genuinely want to serve the country and its citizens. They just have different ideas about how to go about it, and they're passionate about their point of view. Just like those two guys duking it out, at least verbally, in my 4th grade social studies textbook.

I also believe that when the votes are counted and a winner is declared, both men will put country first and behave accordingly. They may not exactly shake hands and go off for a beer together, but they'll seek some scrap of common ground to start working on the considerable problems we face as a nation.

They may never be friends. They may not even be particularly cordial. But I think they will be civil.

It's not them I'm worried about. It's the rest of us.