Having just spent an ideal week with family who were visiting from the other side of the country, I am exhausted and grateful. How wonderful it is to see our grandchildren begin to stretch their wings and trust the air as they look ahead!

Humans are social animals, and it is our compassionate nature that will guide us as we deal with enormous environmental challenges and bring peace with justice to this world. It occurs to me that “family values” can counteract an ethical perspective that relates each of us to every community we inhabit.

I raised our sons in the 1970s, when many Christians veered away from praise and service, focusing instead on care of family and self, particularly our future after we leave this world. This narrow perspective aligned itself well with a form of conservative politics that championed selfishness and greed. Today, 50 years later, we can clearly see the result of family and national policies that ignored the common good.

At my encouragement and, yes, a bribe, our granddaughters memorized The Gettysburg Address. They found it easier to put the words to music (their generation was weaned on “Hamilton”), emphasizing Lincoln’s words, “Government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

The United States has an opportunity to lead the world in a new direction, guided by the Golden Rule that is basic to every major religion. Each one of us has a role to play. The November elections will give all voters opportunities to have meaningful, respectful conversations with family members, neighbors and strangers.

Make use of this newspaper! Our differences of opinion can be energizing if we keep our eyes focused upward and outward. “America, America, may God thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness and every gain divine.”

Carolyn C. Peterson

Houghton