Quiet in Aberdeen...

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;

an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

– Winston Churchill

It’s quiet here in Aberdeen this morning.

While the temperature is in the high thirties (38 F – 3 C), the little apartment I’m sharing with my colleague Uffe, is downright toasty. We’ve struggled to get our temporary home balanced, and since each room has its own heating unit, balance is a delicate thing.

We are staying at the Skene House Holburn in the downtown district.  Established in the 1970s Skene Houses were the first traditionally styled apartment hotels in the U.K.

 

The internet description reads:

“Skene House Holburn is classic, chic and cheek by jowl with Union Street and Aberdeen's West End. Inside there's thirty-nine 1,2 & 3 bedroom apartments with six different interiors mixing class with comfort.

Step outside, climb a cobbled road and explore the bars and restaurants of Union Street. Pop round the corner and you're in Rose Street and Thistle Street.  Here macarons, mocha and Bubblegum Candyland ice cream rub shoulders with haute couture in a potpourri of cafes and boutiques.”

Chic, in this case, suggests comfy and appointed in the style of earlier generations and this place is every bit of that. The expression “…cheek by jowl…” means, in this case, ‘close by physical proximity.’  It is located, as its advertisement suggests, in close walking distance from most anything one might want to do in the downtown area of the city.

While I slept well the first two nights, the ‘nectar of the gods’ this morning was an ounce or two short and sleep ended at 3 AM. That’s the thing about traveling internationally, the mostly predictable night visions become erratic. I am grateful when getting a full cup, and accepting when I do not.

Sitting here this morning, ‘accepting’ is the operative word as I sort through the astonishing (to me) results of our presidential election at home. Several weeks before the election, I stopped watching the news (an earlier blog), because the non-stop ‘lowest common denominator’ coverage was toxic to my sensibilities. The negative sensations were visceral and genuinely hurt mentally, and physically.

I have written before about how important voting is to me. I feel a genuine connection to the system under which we live in America. It is not quite as dramatic, but like standing on the cusp of the Grand Canyon for the first time. There is a feeling of insignificance and being part of the whole universe at the same time - the convergence of humility and awe. Voting does that for me too...insignificance, yet a part of the fabric of the broader American Democratic Republic.

I voted for Hillary Clinton. I did so for reasons of moral character…not for the lesser of two evils. I believed her of better character and because of her historical track record for women and children. It was a pragmatic decision.  The continuous negative narrative about her was just that – a narrative. I get it. It is the way our system operates.

I did not vote for Mr. Trump, not because I disapproved of his policies – in fact, beyond hyperbole, I am uncertain what they are. I did not vote for him because of my mother and father. I was taught that character counts based on a deeply rooted value system of respect, justice, and honor. Even if I knew what Mr. Trump’s policies were, and if I agreed with them, I would not have voted for a man whose values are the opposite of everything of moral significance I believe.

This piece is not intended to litigate the self-right superiority of my choice, nor an attempt to justify my candidate decision. It's about balance...the balance of the universe. It is about acceptance. Acceptance of the will of a majority of American people for someone who strongly resonated with their sense of impotence and disenfranchisement from a government that they feel has not heard them.

Parenthetically, I would suggest, minorities in our country have always felt disenfranchised and will continue to do so. 

This piece neither is intended to litigate the ‘popular vote vs. electoral college’ argument, because my choice did not win. My opinions were not on the winning side. Having said that, I am grateful to have participated.

This piece is intended to say none of us knows what the future will bring. It is meant to suggest that history, in the broadest of brushstrokes, was interrupted by the injection of an experimental form of government, spawned by an idea. America was not born from the bowels of monarchy or oligarchy, but rather from a set of ideas…powerful ideas of safety and freedom from oppression.

The principal framers of this experiment were not fully Christian, but Deists. George Washington, John Adams, and Andrew Jackson were Christian Deists. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson Christian skeptic Deists and Thomas Paine was a non-Christian Deist. Deism, in essence, teaches God created and set the universe in motion based on a set of ethics, then left it alone. It teaches He simply allows it to unfold according to natural law. We will see how our grand experiment balances itself and moves forward. 

The American Founders began this experiment, believing it would unfold for better or worse according to the process God set forth.

The experiment continues, the future unknown and I feel blessed to be sitting quietly "...here in Aberdeen this morning."

- ted