Happy Sunday, HaQ readers – I hope this finds you well. The post will be coming to you a little later than usual today because I’ve been out and about doing a benefit walk – it’s a break in routine, a breath of sweet fall air, a bit of hustle and bustle, and a bit of doing good for a cause near to me. That does a person good, you know?

I’m thinking about that sense of being surrounded by a community today. The sense that tells you that you fit, you have a purpose, you have a Place. There’s something very special about that. When I think about the times I have been happiest, it’s when I feel acknowledged, purposeful, and supported.  I feel part of the community around me and important to it. In my Place,  I am connected to others whose thoughts and presence make a difference to me and my presence matters to them as well. It is a special, at-home feeling.

The events that had me thinking about this were both this weekend. One was a small street festival where I the pleasure of reconnecting with friends I hadn’t seen in a while. We talked and laughed and it was as if we had never been apart. When you’re in your Place, the time between disappears. The other event was one of the biggest benefit walks in my community, Colors for a Cure, benefiting cancer research. I still ran into almost a dozen people I know, talking and laughing and walking side by side. This town cares.  These are good, good-hearted people, coming out to support their friends and their families and strangers fighting the same battle, and the healthcare providers who care for them. When everyone focuses on a common cause, all the other stuff melts away. There are no churches, no parties, no politics, no judging. When there’s a need, all lift their hands and hearts, no questions asked. Shared purpose and a smile are enough. It affirms the generosity of the place where I live and the basic decency of most of humanity.

That sense of basic decency is especially important when the news of the day is too often rife with the opposite. So I’m choosing to focus on togetherness and decency, rather than the divisions amplified by a partisan election season. Maybe if we all step back to where our common decency brings us together, those divisions will seem less inevitable and everyone will have a Place. And who knows how far we could go together.

I don’t usually get political because that’s not my thing, but you’ll see a reminder on here today, asking whether you’re registered to vote. I believe in exercising the rights and privileges of a civil society, and voting is both. Get out there and sing with the voice you have. We may not sing the same song, but it’s all part of the symphony.

Stay tuned for more on the Here’s a Quarter blog next week! As always, your thoughts and comments are always welcome – they are moderated (I know – adulting again), so they may take a little while to appear, but I read them all and appreciate that you were here. Thank you!