Front Porch Revolution : FriesenPress : 9781525519857 : 1525519859 : 18 Jul 2018 : A piece of music is more than the sum and sequence of its notes. The spaces between the notes, the rests or silences, are just as essential. Without those spaces, the notes do not properly relate to each other and even the most profound composition degrades into mere noise. Front porches metaphorically represent those rest-spaces in our lives and they are vanishing. Without them we are denying ourselves access to our music and possibility - and the evidence is clear at all levels of interaction. The social and political discourse in this country has, of late, eroded into noise and acrimony, dialogue having been abandoned for weaponized partisan monologues. Diatribes and rhetoric are gleefully accelerated like charged particles online, and on competing TV news and talk radio shows. In fact, this dynamic is experienced in meetings of any scale where diverse perspectives clash around topics we care about.