Divided Conventions, A Divided Nation  Watching the Republican and Democratic conventions the past two weeks has been an illuminating experience.  While speakers at both conventions made appeals to unifying the American people and to creating change, a tone of blame, derision and outright sarcasm for the “other side” was much in evidence.  In the U.S. such partisanship is thought necessary to winning elections.  It is divisive however, and ruinous when the goal is bringing a divided nation together. Skills for Bringing a Divided Family Together As someone who has paid a dear price for participating in a conflict which nearly destroyed a family, I understand how such apparently intractable conflicts work. I also understand what it takes to reconcile and I know it is possible to find peace after years of terrible bitterness and anger.  I learned many things in my journey back to my family and developed skills, all of which are applicable to making peace at the larger, collective level. One of the most important of these is the skill of seeing the world as other people see it.

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                                                         Can’t We All Just Get Along?  Why can’t we just get along? I have spent my life studying why people hurt each other. The little wars we wage against each other are sometimes as vicious as the larger wars which nations conduct. The suffering and pain in human relationships as we gossip, complain and disrespect one another is intense. We don’t often realize the hurtful effect we have on people we care about and get defensive if someone observes that we are less than kind.

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Americans today are divided, polarized by political and cultural schisms that are wide, painful and deep. The nature of the issues that divide us are social, cultural, political and religious. In some ways it feels as if we are living in two different countries, depending on where you live and how you describe these schisms and how you vote. The simplest description of this division is to separate the country into the so-called red states and blue states, that is that people in those states vote overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic depending on how they feel about certain cultural or social issues. We can pretty much predict that most people who are pro-choice vote Democratic and most people who are against same sex marriage vote Republican. No surprise there.

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We live in a world with a tremendous amount of violence and suffering, much of it brought on by human beings themselves. And yet, with so much grief, loss and pain, caused by our own actions, it seems we human beings have not learned much in the past several thousand years. Yes, we have made amazing advances in technology and health care, gone to the moon and back, but we are still killing and murdering our fellow beings with a ferocity and cunning that is chilling. We could be having such a different experience of being alive. This planet is breathtaking in its beauty and human beings are capable of acts of grace, generosity and wonder. Why don’t we love each other more and hurt each other less?

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