useful coexistence

This article is making the rounds:
http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html
I think some of it is correct and some is not, but this bit is really important:
>>The problem is that peacefully dealing with incompatible people is crucial to living in a society. In fact, if you think about it, peacefully dealing with people you can't stand *is* society. Just people with opposite tastes and conflicting personalities sharing space and cooperating, often through gritted teeth.<<

It goes well with this snip from a Peacebang post from earlier this month:
http://www.peacebang.com/
>>I wouldn’t be sorry if we struck the phrase “like-minded people” from our list of glowingly positive reasons to affiliate with a faith community. Can we start to lovingly challenge that, please? I know it feels really good to find a group of like-minded people and to become spiritual kindred with them, but we too often rest there with nods and pleasant smiles as though this itself is the highest calling of our lives — to find people who share our world view and to hang out with them thinking about the meaning of life for a few decades before we die. My church is, for me, definitely a beloved community of like-minded people. It is also the place that challenges and makes demands on me emotionally and spiritually and practically and that holds my feet to the fire of the highest ideals of our faith tradition. In many moments, I treasure our like-mindedness. But I treasure just as much the work that is required of me and of all of us when we uncover the truth that we are also deeply differently-minded.

“What does the Lord require of thee?
To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”
This isn’t necessarily best accomplished with a comfortable group of the “like-minded.”<<

bellringers on the beach

I had samosas instead of bhaji on the beach. I feel that I was the one appropriately dressed for being out in the noon-day sun

but I admit that I had to hike up my skirt when I went wading.
miraclaire and ataralas were more normally attired for getting
entirely wet, which they did.