It’s weird, I’m writing this about two weeks before the election and I don’t know what our country will look like just after that. Right now the candidates are close. The President seems to be pulling ahead a little, but all kinds of people have registered to vote and their views aren’t included in the polls. Anything can happen between now and the time you read this. The discussion has become so heated and ugly that either outcome will turn off half the country. If the election appears tainted, which seems a real possibility, there will be public outcry and an even bigger mess that we had in 2000.

What the heck are we going to do? How can we build our economy and take care of everything that needs to be taken care of if one half of our nation hates the views of the other? I’ll rephrase, each half of the country knows the other half is wrong, or ignorant, or just quite possibly evil. Some issues seem insurmountable in the short term. We cannot have religion involved in our government and not involved at the same time. We cannot have peace while waging war. How can we trade freely and while keeping it controlled? How on Earth can we become one nation, under God or not?

One thing is clear. We cannot afford to waste our energy in hate and dissatisfaction. We need to stop facing off against each other and face the future together. If you think about it, we have so much in common. We all need good health care. We all want to feel as safe as possible in our homes. We all want the best for our children. We all value the freedom to worship or not as we please. We all want jobs that pay us enough to enjoy life.

If we believe, which I do, that our thoughts create our reality, that our expectations are met, it’s clear that we need some new thinking, and some better expectations. I’m not sure any of us is happy with the thought that our current government reflects us, and I mean current as in the last several decades. Corporations have much more say about things than we do. While we have the wonderful right to a free press, it fails to report properly, mostly settling to entertain us instead. We think we’re free, but often our options are decided for us. How ironic is it that during this election, protesters could only protest in free speech zones?

We are so lucky to live in a country created by people with a vision for freedom so clear that its essence rings true more than two hundred years later. Yet we take it for granted and risk losing it altogether through complacency, selfishness and petty squabbling. The least we owe our founding fathers for this gift is to be good stewards of their dream for our children and future generations. While eventually all progress is made with action, each action must be preceded by a dream. We all need to revisit the dream of our nation. This dream expects a transparent government that exists for the welfare if its citizens. In this dream the three branches of government do their job and do not allow laws that benefit some over others. Central to this dream is a consciousness of responsibility for long-term good rather than short-term gain, both here and throughout the world. Our dream urges us to believe that anything is possible, and that it is useless to cower in fear. We may respectfully agree to disagree, but we’d be shortsighted indeed to settle for a dream limited to religious views or party affiliations. Let’s always remember that the dream of our nation is so big that it encompasses each and every one of us and all our possibilities.