Blog 207 – 01.14.2016

With the Presidential Election season in full swing this subject seems appropriate. And, no, I am not going to endorse a particular candidate though I like many of my football fan friends may have a particular team I’d like to see win. Trust me not enough to shave the emblem of the team on my head or get a tattoo. That is for way more devoted fans than I and besides I know a secret. Ready? It’s only a game and it doesn’t really matter who wins.

Some one on Social Media posted regarding U.S. Politics “Don’t they know the left wing and the right wing are on the same bird?” Where do all these polarizing personalities come from? And when did it become such a crime not only to have a differing opinion but to even suggest that both disagreeing parties compromise for the “common good.” I put common good in quotation marks because it almost seems like a lost concept. Somewhere in their zeal to defend the U. S. Constitution my Conservative friends have I think forgotten a key phrase “To promote the general welfare.” And not to let my Progressive or Liberal friends off too easy either many of them too have the “My way or the high way mentality.” I can’t help it but I love Rodney King’s remark, “Why can’t we just get along?”

It is an old political trick to trash your opponent and make them out to be the worst possible choice and thereby yourself as the best thing since sliced bread. It is old school I know but there is something to be said for “breaking bread together.” We live in a society so fearful of everyone eating together that actually touching someone else’s food or they ours is abhorrent to many. Since many Americans mistrust and fear Middle Eastern people I remind them that one of their most beloved books takes place almost entirely there and that these folk are many times pictured around a common table eating with there hands. He for whom the Christian religion is named used such a meal, which probably looked very little like Da Vinci’s Last Supper, to break bread with his friend’s and to tell them that eating the bread he broke for them and drinking the wine from a common cup symbolized their oneness with him. Not made them one, I think, but merely recognized a relationship that has always been.

From the time we are children we are choosing or being chosen to play on one team against another but life is meant to be lived together, working together for the common good, not pitted against one another. The only competition that makes any real sense is to strive to be a better, kinder, more loving version of yourself. Feel the need to best someone? Be a better you?

In thinking of polarity remember it is opposites that attract and likes that repel. If that is a scary thought for you smile and remember, it isn’t the one who dies with the most toys who truly wins but the one who collects the most friends.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White