The Great Divide

My younger brother lived in New England for more than 40 years when a job offer to move halfway across the country dropped on him. He knew this kind of opportunity didn’t present itself often – and he accepted, with trepidation and excitement. I can remember thinking at the time he would never get used to that kind of heat.

One of the ways they beat the heat in Dallas is just like we do it here, with ice cream. And the first time I flew to Texas to visit him, he pulled a tub of the Great Divide by Blue Bell out of his freezer. One half of the container is vanilla – and the other is Dutch Chocolate. I was immediately enamored with the flavor name and by how good that ice cream tasted on a hot afternoon. What I discovered during my very first serving was that I liked both the vanilla and the chocolate separately – but I liked them even better together.

I think there’s a market for Blue Bell’s Great Divide all over the country right now. We are divided, with half of us preferring vanilla and the other half preferring chocolate. What we’ve lost track of is how much a little bit of each can be just right. To drop the metaphor, what would compromise look like? At the very least, what would it be like if we were simply decent to one another?

It’s easy to become entrenched in the philosophy of one side. I understand this because I’m pretty entrenched myself. How does this make me feel? Justified, angry, smarter than the other guys, one-hundred percent right, smug. What I’m not one-hundred percent sure about is that these feelings are doing me any good. They represent a closed mind rather than one open to suggestion or a perspective shift.

Compromise is, of course, not always the answer or even possible. Some things hit us hard and fast – and we know our gut isn’t wrong. We see bad things happening to people who don’t have power by people who do. This has been happening since the beginning of time, and the only way against it is to resist. I also know – as one of my former priests likes to say – that the people who are not like us are still people, like us.

I do understand and applaud the urgent need for some to fight. People are angry about violent actions, about disregard for human life, about misinformation and disinformation, and self-centeredness and greed. Who do we turn to for answers to our questions? Who do we trust?

In the midst of the chaos, there is still and always room for kindness. How can we heal the Great Divide? One way is by stepping closer to one another instead of moving away, greeting those we happen upon, friend or stranger, with a smile and an open heart. We can foster connection – because people with a connection, however small or tenuous, are more likely than those in opposite corners to work for the common good.

Recommendation:

So many things matter to us, individually and collectively. If you haven’t already, add kindness to your list.