Thursday, May 24, 2012

Blessing of Living Here

Today the ministry I work at went before our local government to get approval for tax-exempt bond financing for a project we want to build near Purdue University.

The details of the project are available here but the project itself isn’t the point of this post.  After spending 2.5 hours standing at West Lafayette City Hall and watching the process work it reminded me how fortunate I am to live here.  Regardless of the outcome of the approval vote today I wasn’t worried about being gunned down on the way out of the building.  I wasn’t worried about my family being persecuted for my involvement.  I wasn’t worried that my place of employment would be attacked.  I knew that whatever the outcome everyone would move forward and life would continue without issue.

I think we often times take this for granted.  We get all worked up in a situation and supporting our causes that we don’t realize how fortunate we are to be able to get worked up and passionate about supporting our causes and that we are able to communicate that passion and zeal to others in a public process.

Today was a great example of that process.  Many folks spoke, both for and against our project and no one was booed, no one was harassed, no one was laughed out of the room, even though there were a few opportunities, like the person who addressed the group and wanted to talk about global warming.  Talk about the wrong setting.

In the case today, we were able to get the approval we were seeking.  Agree or disagree with the outcome the discussion was civil and respectful.  Our freedom to express ourselves is precious and we shouldn’t take it for granted, even with those with whom we may not agree.

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