During the shelter in place due to covid-19 I have been building with my boxes of Ankerstein. I am building sequentially through the plan books and am now on set NF16.

My latest build was a bridge, and with the recent events I had a lot of thoughts wandering through my head as I built it.

I thought about how we should be building bridges between communities and cultures. It takes a lot of work to build bridges, but the end result can be very rewarding.

Bridges help us cross from one side to another. This can be physical, or it can be a bridging of differences in cultures and communities. Bridges help us get from one place to another often over a shorter distance.

Bridges can take time to build, but in the end we have a freer flow of information and ideas and it is easier for us to work together.

In this foot bridge there are steps up to the surface of the bridge. We need to take steps up toward a common surface that lets us communicate with others.

We need to make sure that we build bridges together and make sure that we do not reinforce negative stereotypes in our cultures.

Bridges between cultures help us to share knowledge and ideas and to better help each other. We can help each other learn so that we are not ignorant of each others culture.

Bridges come in many different shapes and sizes. You can build simple bridges like this one.

Or perhaps you need a bridge that is a bit more complex.

Large difference between places or ideas require a larger bridge and more work to build. See: Anker Bridge

If we want bridges between ideas, communities and cultures to last we need to make sure we put a lot of work into building them.

Please make sure you are helping build bridges and not tearing them down.

Steven