From A Distance

From A Distance

What is friendship? I believe, as the great Jewish Hassidic theologian Martin Buber, that it’s all about relationship. The problem is that relationships are complicated. We disagree with each other sometimes. And if those disagreements are about values, it’s very difficult to maintain a sense of comfort and mutual respect. It wasn’t always this way, but I perceive that I live in a culture that is very polarized right now. This is the same polarization that was seen prior to our Civil War, which I don’t think ever really ended.
Our political, religious, and economic differences seem to keep us separate and apart from each other. A recent author wrote a book about how we Americans are doing a lot of “clustering”. The author’s research indicated that we cluster ourselves around people of like-minded opinions for comfort and perhaps a sense of safety or validation. My experience is that the culture has gotten so emotionally reactive and mean spirited that I find myself not even talking about certain issues that are very important to me with other people. The result of this is that I hold back a large portion of who I am and that keeps others from really getting to know the real me.
In my opinion, what seems to be lacking is grace. I don’t see a lot of graceful respect or mutual grace in spite of the differences we hold. I would like to believe that the quality of the relationship and the Christian respect we are supposed to show for each other would over-ride our differences and our anxiety.
We are a very media-driven society. And the political campaigns remind us, every time we turn on the TV or radio, of our differences. A few years ago, I don’t exactly know when, but liberal and conservative became dirty words, depending on the camp from which you voted. Experts in the manipulation of opinion know how to create phony cultural norms, fears, rumors and subtle half-truths in order to help their candidate/client win elections. And we are the lab rats for all of this. Sadly, the reason so much negative campaigning, personal attacks, outright lies, and just pure meanness continues is that with the public it seems to work.
I think as Americans, as humans, as earthlings, we are much more alike than we are different. A bumper sticker I see everyday has a picture of the planet earth on it, with the words “We are all in this together”. And of course we are. Truth is, we all have the same spiritual source and we need each other. If we cannot learn to live together peacefully and constructively, we will perish. Just look at all the species on the planet that are now extinct because they could not adapt to change. As the song goes, From a Distance, God is Watching Us. I wish we could all believe that and live it out. - RSP