Back on the porch again and the weather is like an early summer day. This is where I like to do my pondering and my condition at the moment does not always let me get out here. As we age we do spend some time, some of us learning to accept what we know is one of the rewards of age… death. The book of  Ecclesiastes has a lot to say about the futility of life and the seemingly useless tasks we undertake but the joy of this life overwhelms us in the present…so enjoy, drink and be merry. I will remind you that at the bottom of that glass or bottle is that thing called reality. As some of you know I messed my knee up, the surgery failed and now I am confined to a wheelchair. Before I got to the chair I spent some time in a nursing/rehab facility and it was there that I met William. We had time to talk and get to know something about each other, I couldn’t walk and William was confined to the bed. He was totally unable to do any thing but feed himself and even then they had to raise his bed where he could sit up to eat. He had no family close enough to look after him…he was alone. I won’t say we became friends but for the next two months we each became a little bit of light in an otherwise dark room. Here in this room I learned a lesson that would serve us all well. Now from early conversations I became aware that William was an ole “my daddy and my grandfather were Democrats” and I was a Goldwater-Reagan Republican…nice pairing considering the election was just a few months away. We talked a lot but that’s when I discovered, earnest discussion is far more productive than earnest debate. William was a well educated man, simple folk though but he had a passion for movies. I soon learned his collection included some silent movies and a vast collection of movies in the prime of the movie making era. William soon learned that not only was I interested in what he had to say but enjoyed just letting him educate me in a thing he loved. So here is the “Ponder of the week.” I learned that we all can find common ground even in a small dark room we became a light to each other. But the big takeaway was that we all need to learn the art of Discussion and put aside the need to Debate. Debates demand someone has to win… Discussions only require that we listen. Here is the simple key to it… When we discuss something…we are exchanging ideas, when we debate we are presenting opposing arguments. So ponder this…talk or argue ?