Fern Ridge Review
Creswell Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
November 6, 2020
By Pat Edwards
On this early morning of Friday, November 6, I woke at 6:30 a.m. with only about 5 hours of sleep. I have been struggling to know what I can write about in this column—what I could say that would mean anything. As with almost everyone in our country, the presidential election has held our attention these past days. It is still undecided, but we are on the brink of the remaining votes determining the outcome. At this point, approximately half of my friends, family and neighbors are full of hope, while the other half are hurting badly and/or are full of rage. It’s been a close race and it’s obvious that the effects, regardless of the eventual outcome will affect all of our lives for quite some time to come.
I firmly believe that whether red or blue, we are a nation of good people who truly love our country. Somewhere along the way, we have lost track of how to talk—and LISTEN—to each other, and that is going to have to be something that we must all adopt as our main priority as we move on.
On election day, I found a famous quote that I shared on my Facebook page:
“United we stand; divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy the union upon which our existence hangs.”
According to Wikipedia, Patrick Henry used the phrase in his last public speech, given in March 1799, in which he denounced The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, but it is generally attributed to the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop, both directly in his fable “The Four Oxen and the Lion” and indirectly in “The Bundle of Sticks.” Sadly, it applies so aptly to our nation today.
We must allow our democracy to work. We must begin listening to each other in order to learn how we can begin to resolve our differences.
Let’s move forward. Our family, friends and neighbors are still the wonderful, good people we have always known they are. We can no longer be black, white, brown, red, blue or green. We live in a beautiful, technicolor world, but we must remove the color labels we’ve put on each other and let our love and respect wrap us with the many beautiful things we share and shield us from the differences that separate us until we can peacefully find a way to make them positive influences in our lives. Whatever happens from here on, we must do whatever we can to heal our wounds and become one nation again.
God Bless America!
All Things Lorane 