PUBLISHER’S COLUMN: THAT HAPPY PLACE

As my wife said, I was in “my happy place” as I prepared dinner for friends on Saturday night. Steaks on the grill, twice baked potatoes, banana peppers stuffed with ham and mozzarella and a cucumber/onion salad served in a sugar/vinegar/celery seed marinade helped set the table. We visited as we enjoyed all of that and more and I quietly reflected on how lucky we were to partake in such abundance, when there are so many who have so little.

I think about the crisis in Afghanistan a lot these days, not from a political standpoint, but from a humanitarian perspective. Those pour souls who are trapped physically and emotionally in an unsettled and violent environment breaks my heart and I feel helpless to do something about it. I wonder how one world can give us spectacular mountain ranges, endless oceans and breathtaking sunsets while another can create such agony for so many who were merely born into a bad situation.

I think about single moms working minimum-wage jobs who are barely able to put food on the table for their hungry children and young children who have lost father-figures to car accidents, cancer or addiction.

I think about the homeless caught in a situation they don’t know how to overcome, those struggling to understand their sexual identity and women and men who find themselves in abusive situations.

I think about those who have lost their homes to fire, their jobs to the economy and their joy in life to crushing depression — those who have lost loved ones too soon, marriages unexpectedly and children to conflicting opinions.

I think about friendships that have been damaged because of political division and households that have fallen apart because of theological conflict.

And I think about the disparity in wealth distribution and the division caused by social classification, perhaps the greatest division of all. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has never been wider, it seems, and here I sit, feeling like both.

Yes indeed, I was a “have” on Saturday night as I enjoyed a table flush with food and friends while countless around me were served up an empty stomach and a side of loneliness.

But when financial challenges present themselves and create middle-of-the-night anxiety and lingering worry, I think about those who don’t give a second thought about how much is in their bank account, or where their next overseas adventure is going to be, to say nothing of the Wall Street tycoons whose wealth accounts for the very top of the tax bracket.

It’s a paradox, really, how life can be so lovely and so ugly all at once, and I sense the world is groaning trying to figure it all out. I know I am.

I guess I’ll just keep going to “my happy place” when I am able, and enjoy the “haves” in my life. I hope you are able to do the same as we transition into a new season that feels so familiar and so foreign all at the same time.