Curtis Schaeffer, Falls Church News Press
I am a member of a citizens movement called Better Angels. Established after the last presidential election by a group of conservatives and liberals who were concerned about the increasing polarization in the country, Better Angels is committed to bringing people with different political views together to better understand each other, to look for areas of commonality and to build alliances to strengthen our communities.
The name of the organization comes from Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address when he closed his speech with the following:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”