My thanks to everyone who reached out on my birthday. I’m grateful for my connections to all of you; as one who is now halfway to 136 I am increasingly aware of the importance of relationships (even for an introvert).

If I were to be granted a birthday wish, it would be that as we move through this crisis we take the opportunity to leave behind at least a few of those old destructive practices that we were either benefiting from, just sort of putting up with, or trying to ignore, and respond to what Abraham Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every crisis offers several possible paths to resolution, some reactive and some transformative, and this is one of those crises that can substantially alter our entire outlook. It’s up to us, both as individuals and as a larger community, to choose where we take ourselves. 

I also considered wishing for world peace and an end to hunger, but then I thought, you know, one thing at a time.