That There Be No Divisions

I'm sorry it's taken so long to post again. Teaching a semester's worth of stuff in one month lends itself to a certain amount of franticity. I've entered survival mode which doesn't really let me accomplish a whole lot outside of my most basic needs. Even so, I've had some thoughts stirring in my head and I think they've reached the point where they may be worth sharing.

In Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, he says, "I beseech you bretheren . . . that there be no divisions among you . . . for it has been declared unto me . . . that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided?" Essentially, Paul is concerned that divisiveness and sectarianism would cause the body of the christian church to fall apart, a fear that eventually proved well-founded.

"Now, that's all good and stuff, but I'm a good practitioner of my faith," you may be saying. The thing is, I think this sectarianism and the fear of it causing a huge schism has ramifications outside of christianity.

I've noticed more and more that we don't really talk about America or being American, except on conservative talk-radio. But, of course, they're the only ones who qualify as such. We spend so much more time with defining ourselves and others as liberal, or conservative, or socialist, or zealots, or libertarians, or, or, or . . . I think we're in danger of fragmenting America in the same way Paul feared the church was fragmenting.

We've created a very divisive culture of "with us or against us" propeganda (and all sides are to blame, not just the GOP). Our philosophy seems to have become that if you don't adhere to my philosophy it's because you're either ignorant or evil. Instead of looking for common ground and trying to work together, we have all become very good at finding the most divisive ideological differences and focusing in on those with a microscope. We're really just not working together anymore.

I really noticed this lack of cooperation when I caught a snippet of congress interrogating a BP representative. As I watched and listened I began to feel sorry for the BP guy more than anything else. Here is a guy who has agreed to appear before an already hostile audience to try to discuss the situation. This is a guy who has probably spent a few sleepless nights as he has thought about the disaster in the gulf. If he has any human decency, this guy is already hurting for the role his company has played in such a destructive cataclysm. But instead of trying to work with him, our elected officials saw fit to rake him across the coals as they tried to make themselves look like good concerned leaders.

Look, the disaster in the gulf is a huge disaster. Ultimately, BP does bear responsibility for it. But instead of going to them and offering to help fix it, we as a country seem to be more interested in blaming them for the disaster, pointing fingers, calling names and demonizing.

I don't want this to turn in to a discussion of BP and the gulf spill, that's not my intent. What I do want to point out is that I can't recall the last time I saw candidates from opposing parties show genuine camaraderie toward each other. When George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did and advertisement for Haitian relief, I could practically feel the discomfort between the two pouring out from the screen. As a good, card carrying member of any party, I feel that I'm not allowed to show any sort of sensitivity to the other parties or their candidates. The others are absolutely wrong and I and my party must be right. There can be no compromise.

I miss when we used to talk about being Americans. We had differences, sure. Sometimes those differences led to some heated and serious disagreements. But at the end of the day, I still felt like we as a people were indeed still "We, the people", a united nation rather than an infighting community.

Do you think that we can start looking for the common ground, start reaching out to each other in friendship rather than contest, start looking at each other as part of the same great nation that allows us the right to have so many of our own thoughts and feelings? Regardless of politics, philosophy, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever, can we start looking at each other as human beings honestly trying to do our best rather than inhuman monsters and moustache-twirling villains?

I'd like to think so.