I was chattering with one of my brothers the other night, catching up on our lives, which are playing out two thousand miles apart. I can’t speak for him, but I feel a constant low-level grief from being separated from the remnants of my birth family members. My spouse and I chose to move back to Wisconsin from the West nearly four years ago, thinking we knew what the trade-offs and sacrifices were going to be. We just miscalculated the degree of withdrawal we’d experience from being cut off from “real” mountains and oceans, the friends and family of our extended youth (a youth which has been animating me for six mischief-making decades now and might morph into adulthood any day now), and other accustomed soul food. On the other hand, we also miscalculated how fond we’d grow of the people and the rolling hills and rivers of Southwest Wisconsin, and that has compensated for much.

It is not impossible to stitch together a new family-type unit from the elements at hand at this late stage in our lives, but admittedly it’s not as easy as it once was, when there were children in the house to tie us automatically to schools and other multi-generational activities. I was discussing this with my brother, who is weighing the pros and cons of selling the ranch where he has live for 35 years to move closer to a grown son and grandchildren. Our family is a confusing mixture of cautious folk who hunker down -- creatures of habit who become pillars of the community -- and a sprinkling of impulsive individuals who are accused of being on a perennial quest for the new and different. For whatever reason, they (we) move around a lot.

In this area of Wisconsin we find representatives of both populations. A combination of rolling stones and folks who know intimately and carry in their genes the long history of the place. This makes for the healthiest communities, I do believe. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest we cannot get far in these crisis times without one another. The first group perhaps can’t be counted on for the long haul, but they bring in a breath of fresh air when they arrive, casting doubt on rote old ways of looking at the world which no longer fit the situation, and they can help us cope with the need for change with their interesting ideas from the outside world. This group of people sails in, eager to help and all fired up, but too frequently are shot down or shut out.

The second group is absolutely essential to a good outcome, too. Their steadiness and pride of place, their knowledge of the inner workings of these communities, their incredible work ethic and ingenuity, are a great treasure. For either group to ignore or discount the other would be to “squander our human capital,” as the economist Robert Reich likes to say.

“He drew a circle that shut me out --

Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!”

--Edwin Markham

I grew up being cudgeled by that quote in the popular press, especially during the tense era of the civil rights struggle. (That effort isn’t complete, by any means, but progress has been made.) I thought of it again after the recent election, when this country took what, for some, felt like a great risk but for others was the logical next step on our society’s road to recovery from squandering human capital. We are all going to need to love more and help more in the months and years to come. Everyone, regardless of age, skin pigmentation, philosophical and religious orientation or the lack thereof, will have important roles to play if we are to survive as a viable culture. No more petty back-stabbing and infighting. No more excluding. Just widening the circle to bring everyone in. Then we can best figure out what to try next and put our collective shoulder to the wheel.

Clearly, we must do more collectively, but, finally, decisions boil down to debates held in the privacy of individual hearts and minds. To this end I commend to you a little list compiled by one of the great hearts and minds of the last several centuries.

Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency ask the question: is it politic? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular -- but one must take it because it’s right. ~Martin Luther King Jr.

 Happy New Year from up here in the clouds!