Happy Thanksgiving, this momentous year. The world is so fundamentally different than it was even a month ago, we can’t even see it’s new shape yet. Barack Obama’s big win is our big win. Casual conversations on the street, and on buses, reveal to me that people are hopeful, even though they fully realize that digging out from the economic implosion will be difficult and take a long time. Right now is the most fertile time for positive change that the world has seen in a very long time. Freshly plowed fields, waiting for the seeds of new ideas, lay before us.

There are many hopeful signs, even in the midst of anxiety. Boocoo, a not-for-profit cultural center and coffee shop, kitty corner from Evanston High School, hosted a meeting on November 22nd for the Mosaic Experience to present a workshop After the Election – Where Do We Go From Here? an ongoing dialogue about Respecting Difference and Rebuilding Community. I canceled my weekend plans to check it out. About 25 people joined this discussion. The Mosaic Experience will host workshops the third Saturday of the month, starting in January. It is high time that the issue of race enters our national discussion because we won’t get very far as a country as long as entire groups of people are disenfranchised.

If the imploding economy makes you nervous and worry about keeping your job and your home keeps you awake, this is the perfect time to get to know you neighbors and to learn whom you can turn to for support. The scope of the change knocking on our doors compels us to look for answers in an unusual place: our communities. Elected officials at all levels of government are searching for workable ideas to provide relief to communities and anchor residents. Although I don’t have the answers I am convinced of the method: gather as a community every month to brainstorm for solutions to universal problems. This will uncover lots of ideas. Many of them could be effective and some of them may be brilliant. I have unshakable faith in the power of a community to know what it needs, to recruit others, to attract resources and to create solutions. Soon, the government will begin throwing tax payer dollars into projects. The potential for mismanagement, waste and fraud is staggering. Now is the time to mobilize your community to create solutions that lift everyone.

My blog post, Single Parents Dilemma talks about single moms who work long hours and their children who wait for them to come home. The Lathe That Got Away tells the true story of an aspiring carpenter who lived across the street from a master wood turner and didn’t know it. Both stories illustrate the point that there are untapped resources in every community that could provide tangible benefits that no one even knows are there.