E pluribus unum

We are constantly being reminded of what a polarized country we live in. The divides are many, deep and seemingly intractable: right wing vs. left wing; Republican vs. Democrat; pro-war vs. anti-war; pro-choice vs. pro-life—all positions adamantly confident of their rightness and incapable, it seems, of compromise or negotiation.

In this environment it is especially refreshing to review our area’s summer’s triumphs of collaboration. Most obvious perhaps, because most official, are the Sullivan Renaissance projects. A huge number of groups and individuals has come together to make these projects possible: two foundations (Gerry and Beaverkill), some politicians (pre-eminently Aileen Gunther, who made the Golden Feather Award possible, and John Bonacic, who contributed $75,000 of the more than $1.5 million raised), the Center for Workforce Development, and many volunteers from each community who got together, agreed on what they wanted their homes to be like and then set about making them that way. The county has been enriched by the results, from Lumberland’s Circle Park and its grand stone and wood arched entryway—the winner of this year’s Golden Feather award—to Mountaindale’s music park with its outdoors instruments made from recycled items.

But the spirit of cooperation has been evident in less formalized contexts as well. The performance of Shakespeare in LaPolt Park was a convergence of the ideas and abilities of Sullivan Performing Arts; the theatrical talent Oliver King; the organization he currently works with, Teen Link to Community; the Center for Workforce Development; and the local teens themselves. Earlier in the summer another local Shakespeare in the Park was born in Mamakating as the brainchild of Town Supervisor Charles Penna, who accessed the expertise of Ian MacMillan, a local resident with years of dramatic experience who intends to contribute his coaching abilities to train local youths to act in future Shakespeare performances.

Even in the realm of sculpture, we have seen the power of people working together: sculptor Susanne Wibroe-Fost’s 15-year dream of building an anagama kiln came to fruition in a first firing this summer—a firing that required the kiln to be stoked 24 hours a day for seven days with wood splintered to the size of matches. Forget the stereotype of the lonely artist in a garret: it took a team both to fire the kiln and to produce the works of art to fill it up with—works that now grace the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance’s galleries.

Even in government, the area we perhaps tend to regard with the most cynicism, there is some evidence that people are coming together to shape their lives in a positive way. Many local towns have recently started working to create or revamp their comprehensive plans, agreeing on some vision as to what the places they live in can and should be and working to enshrine that vision in law. There are numerous towns and townships talking about multi-municipal zoning.

It would be nice to conclude by drawing the moral that the polarization we hear about is just an illusion. Alas, matters are not that simple. There remain many issues about which disagreements are profound, and they cannot simply be wished away. But what we can do is to draw inspiration from the local example of cases in which people have, by discovering a common ground and a common goal, mined the riches of our abundant human capital to make miracles happen.

In the end, it’s always a matter of deciding what we want our homes to be, and then working together to make them that way; the same principal pertains whether it’s our town, our country or planet earth, which we call home.

Dr. Punnybone

The Domino Effect