In the midst of a pandemic with social and political unrest, a violent effort to intimidate Congress and threats of violence at state capitals, I keep thinking about new beginnings.

In the midst of a pandemic with social and political unrest, a violent effort to intimidate Congress and threats of violence at state capitals, I keep thinking about new beginnings.

New beginnings often require a death to occur first. It may be the death of an idea from which a new innovation emerges. It may be the death of winter, as the earth sits fallow, waiting for spring. It may be the death of a family matriarch and the beginning of our role as the elder. Or it may be the death of flawed national values, from which a new nation arises, like a phoenix.