Of Aspirations and Hopes, Part One

I believe there's hardly anything that stands in isolation in the universe. I believe that synchronicity is constantly at play, ditto for synergy. Never mind serendipity.

I also believe that our personal journey more often than not commingles with our other ones. Professional, etc.

So it goes without saying that it's no surprise to me that I've delved so animatedly into the areas of engagement over the past six months or so. (You'd have to either be walking in my shoes or be intimately familiar with my particulars to understand, but that's OK, this editorial isn't based on that degree of familiarity.)

Truth is, I've always been rather 'fond' of communication. Yes, for as long as I've been writing, but on a much more personal level. There's a special place in my heart for genuine back-and-forth exchanges. For contact, for communion...for dialogue. Which to me can all be gathered up under the umbrella notion of 'engagement'. Now, if you wanted to put a spiritual spin on things, you might want to observe that engagement is nothing more, nothing less than an expression the God/Spirit/Universe in each of us. So I have no problem in aligning myself with the greeting 'Namasté', most recently utilized in the James Cameron film 'Avatar' with the expression 'I see you'.

Keeping this in mind, it's no wonder I've been so blown away by the material of Scott London on his site. Specifically the previously heralded 'The Power of Dialogue'. But now there's a new pinnacle in town: 'Thinking Together: The Power of Deliberative Dialogue', an essay adapted from 'The Power of Deliberative Dialogue', published in the book 'Public Thought and Foreign Policy', edited by Robert J. Kingston.

There's simply too much in London's essay I'd like to mention, stuff that's germane to my pet yammering-on subject, 'increasing the relationship of engagement between resident and Councillor in local governance', so I encourage you to take a look at what he has to say...and check back for Part Two in this series.