Change

The Vermont House joined the state’s senate in overriding the governor’s bill making gay marriage legal in Vermont. The Iowa supreme court recently made gay marriage legal there. Numerous states allow the use of medical marijuana and some have decriminalized the possession or use of small quantities of the recreational drug. An African-American man now occupies the White House. Change, like that stinky stuff we flush, happens–whether we like it or not. For many people, most any kind of change is unwelcome. Change is unsettling; a stressful event. But even when the change is one we strongly oppose, it still presents an opportunity to exercise the brain and to challenge the assumptions underlying the “truths” we hold dear. The stock market goes up; the stock market goes down. The political power shifts left; the political power shifts right. Does it make a difference? Sure it does, but how much difference it makes depends on what we make of it.