Agreeing with each other is hard. And it should be. I wouldn’t have said that this morning with such finality. Intellectually I knew agreeing with each other should be hard. I have written stories, dialogue, essays and poetry. All of them short. Short because I couldn’t finish them. They were all in an attempt to sugar coat the truth. To make it easier to swallow. I couldn’t even rely on Mary Poppins' ‘spoonful of sugar’ to make this awful medicine go down. So I’ve had to putter about, read, clean up my kitchen and let all my thoughts go on their own. Finally I had to tell myself the truth - agreeing with each other, all the time, about everything, is impossible - and should be. Disagreement may even involve passionate anger.
Where had I been stuck? I do not like disagreement or confrontation that leads to argument, ridicule, fighting, name calling and all that goes with those dreadful things. In the last many months there has been so very much of all of those things. Personalities torn asunder. Mud slinging. Lies about the very truths that most of us have learned since childhood. Kindness, tolerance and human decency has been trampled and trashed. It has been too much, too often and too loud. Turning away from the reality of this magnitude is not helpful. I do hope I’m not alone feeling quite powerless to do anything to restore peace and calm to our societies.
“Everything can be restored. If one won’t believe that,
how does one endure all this?”
~ Chris Cleave, Everyone Brave is Forgiven
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