We should live in world where we lift each other up

There is a lot of ugliness in the world right now.

It would be easy to blame social media, the times we live in, political unrest, and a host of other things. And as these things go, people have laid the blame squarely on the doorsteps of others.

We see the posts, or the photos of people with faces distorted by hate or hear divisive statements from one political group against another. We don’t have conversations so much anymore as we do finger pointing. We’ve become “us” against “them.”

We see that in the merciless comments left on social media. We see that in encounters between people in public venues. We see that in derisive treatment of people who differ in beliefs, politics and or religion.

Truth be told, each generation could serve up its own list of ugliness and troubles. Easy to do, and often hard to take. It has become OK to not only hate in public, but to act out on that hate. Most of us are just stuck in the middle of the mess, trying to navigate our way through.

We can get bogged down in the ugliness and miss out on the beauty; and, the weight of that can rob us of the joy and beautiful moments happening around us.

Fear of being on the other side of the ugliness — or being one of “them” — chills the simple act of conversing with our neighbor.

When we’re so wrapped up in the rhetoric of hate, we miss the patience and beauty of a healthcare provider offering comfort to a stressed family or frightened patient.

We miss the sweet gesture of compassion and friendship of a group of young men who, upon seeing an older woman eating by herself in a restaurant, asked if they could join her. The young men later told a reporter that they now consider this woman among their grandparents.

We miss the heart of a community coming together to help a young person injured in a horrible accident, or that same community coming together to help people misplaced by recent fires.

I cannot think of a better antidote to the “us” against “them” mindset than the act of being a community because we are all in this together.

Mother Teresa is credited with saying, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

Too simple? Probably. Naïve? Perhaps. Then again, if we all tried to remember that we belong to one another — that we are connected to one another — for whatever time we are here, we could rise above the hate and create change fueled by love, by respect.

How sweet would it be to move from a place of “us” against “them” to a place of “we are in this together.” We belong to each other; we lift each other up; we do better and be better for all of us.

Patti Dobson writes about faith for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact her at:

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