August 2, 2007

Bridge Collapse

I am sure everyone knows about the Minnesota bridge collapse last night. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those involved and those who have lost.

I also think this is time to restart the conversation about community and shared experience. This is not intended to blame particular people, but I really do think there has been far too much individualism in our public debate and less about shared values. This is a great example. It costs money to build and maintain these structures that benefit us all. We can all pay for them. We build communities that we all use, and that should be the watchword of our political dialogue. Too often, and unfortunately almost constantly from the conservative side, has been a call for individualism and the sense that any tax is bad.

On a related point, btw, I saw Kathleen Kennedy Townsend on Colber the other night and she made a really good point about Christianity being about community. Of course, many of us have talked about it that way, but she pointed out that the Lord's Prayer does not go "my father" but "our father," and "our transgressions" and "deliver us."

Perhaps I am biased because I feel like I have been leaning on my community this last week. We are all in this together.

1 comment:

Tony said...

Streak,

This stuff...this is the stuff nightmares are made of.

You are right. This is yet another opportunity for Christianity to shine. Will it? I hope so.

Glad to see you are mending.