Healing

I would love to see us get back to a place of agreement, a place where one side of any given issue doesn’t automatically reject a reasonable idea just because it was suggested by someone on the other side.

A 67-year-old white male conservative cisgender heterosexual Christian can have a good idea. A 25-year-old black transgender lesbian liberal atheist can have a good idea.

But we have become so polarized that we refuse to learn from each other – and that only magnifies the polarization.

But you listen when a friend has an idea, don’t you? Even if you and that friend don’t always agree.

The cure for difference is unity.

Find me any individual on the planet, and there will be ways in which that person and I are similar and ways in which we differ.

Maybe I’m crazy, but doesn’t it work out more positively for both of us if we seek to build on the common ground? It’s a small decision for each of us, but it’s one which takes a little trust and a little guts to make.

Now imagine 100 people. Between them, they need to make that small decision 9,900 times – each one choosing to find common ground with the other 99.

9,900 decisions, even small ones, is a rather more daunting prospect, but it’s achievable with conscious effort – and, if we truly go into it with an open mind and an open heart, it can happen in the space of a few hours.

What if 100 people in each town and village and neighborhood across America decided to undertake that exercise this week?

What if 80 of each 100 went to different nearby towns next week, and did it again?

And again the week after that?

There are a lot of people in America. For each one of us to make that small decision for all of the rest of us, it would take over 100,000,000,000,000,000 small decisions.

And yet, if we truly tried to do it, I bet we could do it in a year.

Let’s take this country back from those who would choose to divide us. Let’s heal ourselves and our nation.