We Are Family!

A great old song filling the heart and soul with excitement and vigor. Remember it well. Not usually by sort of music, but then I was working with tens of thousands of young people, driving a lot (listening to the radio of course!) and remember the times, work, schedules were rough. A lot of effort in those days just to get from one day to the next. This song helped me do that.

Today the challenge is to once again support the ‘we are family’ message in spite of all our diversity and divisiveness. The mood is poor. The mood borders on violence. And that is exactly what we do not need.

If bullies must act out their frustrations in this manner, then let’s not give them any mind to do that. The authorities will answer violence with restraint, arrest, jail and court processing.

The rest of us can go about our purposeful lives and live our happiness.

Scanning Facebook posts I note those who disagree with my comments and positions. Mine are not vicious; theirs are. And, I add, uncalled for. So I merrily go on my way and leave them in their pooling acid and disposition.

If anyone wishes to calmly sit down and talk about issues in an orderly fashion, fine; I’m up for that and welcome the opportunity to hold an adult conversation. That exchange is likely to help me understand more than I do at the moment; hopefully that is the same for my conversationalist. It is in opening up our minds that we learn. Better yet, we come to understand more fully the issues at hand and then what we can do about them to make them more productive, not less.

I have long held that those who do not understand my positions on issues literally have not experienced life in the same manner as I. Well that’s a big DUH! That is precisely why people have differing views on the world. Our experiences are different and we come to those experiences with myriad feelings, needs, aches and pains. It is the human condition for each of us. Our views will be different.

Working through those views, however, is the process that gets quirky. It is not the same for each of us. It takes focus, work, exploration, and research to understand an issue. Hopefully each of us gains a good understanding of an issue before holding forth on it in a public manner. In the age of Facebook, Twitter and personal blogs, that is mostly not the case.

So we blast off on every issue regardless of our understanding or temperament. No wonder others react to our words.

Mea culpa. I am at fault with this. Perhaps you as well?

We can do better. We have to do better. If we are to reason together we must recognize our own faults and trip points. We must be open to hearing and actually working to understand other points of view.

Maybe that’s when we will find ‘we are family’ all over again.

I hope so!

August 31, 2017