During much of our nation’s history our primary source of belonging was found in small local communities: neighborhoods; churches, mosques or synagogues; workplaces or workout locales. But, in the last half century our transient, remote-worker world has dissolved many of these community structures or at least made them less cohesive…

Viewed close in, sculptor Thomas Deininger’s assemblages of found objects look arbitrary and mismatched; severed doll parts appear to be randomly jumbled alongside bits of bicycle chain and broken shards of mirror. But from just the right vantage point, the flotsam coalesces into a finely detailed rendering of a recognizable object—a fish, Monet’s water lilies, or a portrait of Marilyn Monroe…

Understanding ourselves as people-cells of Yasha requires the willingness to lie in bed with otherness, to acknowledge we are part of one wholism with those we most disagree with. So we must grow skillful in our handling of otherness, begin to recognize its effects on us: the shift in atmosphere, the coolness, the slight drawing back, the entrance of aggression or quiet departure…

The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.

- Socrates

And that might just be the root of the problem: we’re all afraid of each other

― Leslye Walton, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender