The Gentlest Joy of "Contention"

One of the greatest and gentlest joys in life is to love and respect, in unity, my opponents whose ideas are different than my own.

Invariably, as we have hung precariously on the granite cliffs together, we have found common crags and more sure footing in the small, but sure cracks and crevaces of our differences.

Both of us find common holds as we wedge our feet and hands in the tight places of disagreement.

In those crags of conflict we can be assured of one another's convictions and thereby, ironically, lay hold of a common hand-hold.

These days on the edge of conflict are the Great Adventure of intellectual and spiritual life.

Those of us from the granite peaks of the Wasatch Front, know that this unity settles and hardens rock solid as both sides listen and hear the other.

This coming together of opposites is the highest truth and the gretest joy.

Despite Our Differences - Hearts Knit Together in Love

Amid all the conflict and controversy we experience in this world, how ever much we disagree at the deepest levels of experience, despite our strongest held convictions clashing, mutual love and respect one for another should be our greatest accomplishment.

To mourn the passing of Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith and the untimely death of Yale graduate and National Review founder William F. Buckley is to realize the passing of a Grand Old Generation of Patriots on both sides of the arena.

In like manner, that Daniel Patrick Moynihan no longer is with us, evokes a loss of a Grand Age of thoughtful men and women.

But to recall Will and John as friends, is to see the larger picture of us all being fellow travellers to the grave, as Dickens put it.

May our hearts be knit together in love.