In Northern Virgina, Fairfax County, a major suburb of Washington, DC. The local industry has been Government for many decades. In the 60’s I went to High School in Arlington and Alexandria. In ’63 the Martin Luther King speech at Mall, the Kennedy assassination, in ’67-’68 weeks of rioting with maybe 8% of the city burned to the ground during it. US Army jeeps patrolling streets with mounted 50 Cal. machine-guns, just like Saigon, except its our Capital. Two machine-gun emplacements, in front of the Lion statues at the start of the Memorial Bridge facing into the City towards Lincoln Memorial only two hundred feet away. Our Capital was in extreme distress, nobody could really understand it.

Just like today, but we think we are having a unique experience. To us, yes. In history? Hardly. The basic world just keeps going on, it too is changing, but when hasn’t it?

In the midst of change, as I travel and change moment by moment, I marvel. This is a fine world as constituted. Greed, Hate and Delusion. You betcha. Can I notice it in myself? Oh, yeah! Can I mitigate it within myself through effort and allowing? Sure! If I’m willing.

So many variations of people in the world and on the way and on the road. Can I change them, inform them, wise them up, or tell them they are not seeing things clearly and I’m willing to straighten them out? Loud Nope!

I need to contain My Self. That, it turns out, is the only arena where I can observe, reason, allow, and be willing to learn and respond, sometimes all at once; and change is taking and finding its own place.

I’m finding great peace through just asking, “Who is having this difficulty _________________(fill in as appropriate)?”. The answer seems to generally present either a reasonable view of ‘who’ is in fact having a difficulty, or the degree of perceived difficulty. This is not just an easy-fix thing, it seems to merely be a way of viewing Trust at work.

My little local roads and ways of

Getting around have changed to

Toll and EZ Pass’s that lead to High

Rise towers that dwarf the mighty

Pentagon and make it seem like an

Old beat-down shopping mall. I can remember

When the Pentagon Parking lot

Was named ‘Midnight Auto’ by High

School car-buffs on limited budgets.