What do you believe?

NPR, the gem of my life, is bringing back a great program- "This I Believe". Back in the 1950's there was a radio program hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow based on the ideal that we as humans share some of the same beliefs/values/ideas and that it can hold us together. It was created for people to share essays that reflected guiding principles in their lives. The program highlighted empathy and the ability to look at other peoples vantage points and reflections and for respect to grow there. It freaking rocked apparently as my grandmother listened to Einstein, Helen Keller, NYC taxi drivers, farmers, mothers, bankers, and Jackie Robinson speak from her radio weekly. I have to suspend my warped idea of the 50's and really think about what this all meant to the American people-I mean people were stressed-society was focused on the Cold War, McCarthyism, and racial issues. It was not all bobbysockers, Levis, strange music, and milkshakes as I like to imagine. It was real times and this program brought so much comfort and hope I imagine. Hope is where the good stuff lives. I think now is a perfect time to revisit this notion of what we can and do believe. I found it very comforting when I researched the old essays and noticed that many new parents in the 50's choose to write essays to their newborn children, a message for the future. I like to conjure up in my mind the image of my mother as a baby in 1951, twisted in a soft blanket while the wooden radio hums along and my grandparents drink tea. I like to remind myself that I am in places where others have been before me. I find comfort in the notion that my grandparents were young and worried about the future as I am-that they looked at my baby mother and found it hard to exhale-that they had all the hope in the world on her-that they believed it would all be alright. That is also what I believe.I encourage you to go to npr.com and submit an essay. I will be posting my essay soon.