It is pretty easy to get angry at the world right now. Donald Trump and others with this whole anti-Islam thing and hating on Muslims, but I'm lucky enough to live in a community with people who support a broad range of pluralist beliefs. I was thinking about my first interaction with the Islamic faith last night and remembered it was my first mixed gender birthday party in the 6th grade. One of my best friends all through high school was a Muslim woman and Ms. South Dakota when I was in Junior High was a Muslim woman of Egyptian-American heritage. In South Dakota. I'm also hugely thankful for so many people in my life who happen to have had family, or who are active participants in the Islamic faith. From Bosnians, to Kurds, to Iraqis, to individuals who have committed to the faith here in the United States, to Lebanese and Turkish Immigrants, my life is hugely richer, directly, because of hundreds of Muslim men and women. I'm thankful for all of them!
I'm thankful for friends who are working hard to cut through the bullshit. I think we're all sitting here at the moment wondering if this is going to erupt into something like Nazi Germany in the 30s, all not really believing this could happen--but I think all ready to fight against that sort of evil and idiocy if it comes to that. I'm thankful for friends who believe in the principals of this country.
I'm also thankful I get to go out to the desert this week. The baby is expected to come in late January and I'm headed down to SoCal for my last work trip for a while and extending for a weekend out in Joshua Tree. Its a magical place and was my first big climbing trip about a year after I started climbing. My friend Chris, Robert and I went a couple years in a row, then nothing. Now, just Chris, and a few new friends since then, including another guy named Chris, are heading down there. That place is magical.
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