Build an ark before tsunami of greed hits

We have become overwhelmed today with a sea of issues — political, economic, ethical, and cultural — to a point reality and truth no longer seem clear, from a global, country, state, community, family, and even personal perspective. The overflows of media and money have diluted our perception and in fact may have disabled our ability to recognize truth from reali-TV. While waves of water are used to extinguish earthly fires, this flood seems to be increasing our hunger for more media, money and materials.

One solution may be to leave, to walk away from the problem. With its size however, this exodus would require a parting of the waters, but even a new president is not able to clearly separate the right and the left for us to distinguish the truth. Another type of departure is to change course, to change direction, to change the way we are thinking about where we are. From "The Phantom Toll Booth" by Norton Juster, "From here that looks like a bucket of water, but from an ant's point of view, it's a vast ocean; from an elephant's point of view, it's just a cool drink; and to a fish, of course, it's home." But is the skin of an elephant fireproof?

Building a bridge may also work, but water under the bridge has perpetuated a condition of forgetfulness for this generation about other generations, both before us or to come after us. With today's need for energy alternatives, building a dam to hold back the waters would only work if we had the proper machines to channel social energies to productive outlets. But we are, instead, damning each other in our daily lives, to a point where this power is harmful rather than helpful.

So maybe the perception that needs to change is not where we are, or who we are, but what we are. Rather than being fish breathing it all in, or archeologists digging up the past, we need to become architects building a new direction for ourselves. While water is clear and colorless, it is an essential element of life. It is time to build an ark! There is some controversy about the existence of Noah as well as his ark. However, similar to the metaphor presented in The Da Vinci Code, applying the same creative interpretation to this physical flat-bottom boat leaves each of us being a vessel, an architect of peace from a personal, family, community, state, country, state, and even global perspective.

With a tsunami of greed all around us, how do we keep our heads above the water? We cannot. We must rebuild ourselves, from the inside out, establishing a new foundation from which to grow, nurture, and develop, not removing the problem, but making ourselves bigger than it. As architects, we need to come together, being helpful to each other, not connected by a technical network but by our human spirit and acts of random kindness. Similar to understanding the beauty and power of water and our dependency to it as a natural resource, we also need to redeem and respect our individual beauty and power while understanding our responsibility to each other.

Suzann Brucato

Lincroft section

of Middletown