COMMENTARY: Will Divisions Define The US?

The struggle continues, and sometimes, it’s hard to understand.

Which struggle? Take your pick.

Black Americans have opportunity like they’ve never had in the history of the country, but the economic burdens of history in this land of plenty remain heavy.

People of faith strain for understanding and compassion, but others use faith like a sword to strike at those who offend them. And the entire Western culture off ends them.

Husbands and wives forget their vows and turn marriage into an institution that crumbles easily in trying times. It quite honestly begs the question of why gay couples want any part of it.

Generations that grew up knowing marriage as a union of a man and woman cannot fathom the drive to redefine it into something it has never been.

Americans stand on a proud history of freedom, yet they wrestle with their place in a contentious world in which we’re told — and some accept — that the United States is the Great Satan.

People in our nation have more than they could ever want, yet there is abject poverty amidst the abundance.

Citizens give up on the American political process, presuming anyone elected to public oft ce is corrupt and under the infl uence of dark forces. Then we re-elect the same people.

Our system of justice is called into doubt as questions of equal treatment under the law undermines Americans’ confi dence and the once-accepted standard that it was better to let 10 guilty people go than to convict a single person wrongly.

People with mental illness need help but most only pay attention to the appalling lack of mental health services after a “crazy person” commits an indescribably vicious act that defi es all comprehension.

The Internet, an invention with such promise for worldwide communication and better understanding, becomes a mechanism for transmission of lies, porn and scams. People forward blatantly false information as though it was the Gospel.

It’s enough to make anyone wish for a journey back to simpler times, but did they ever really exist? Many of us look longingly back to times of favor, but maybe things were easier back then because we were just kids and the grown-ups who came before us had to tackle the real world.

These are among the challenges of our time. Are they that much worse than say, the tensions of possible nuclear Armageddon? Are the racial challenges of today worse than the terrible cruelty of slavery or the unjust nature of separate but equal?

Can we honestly say things are more dift cult to work out than for a generation that, for example, brought the nations through a world war?

Are we really going to suggest that it’s tougher today — with our iPhones, fl at-screen televisions, 2.8 cars per household and a store on every corner — than it was 50, 100 or 200 years ago?

Some of our ancestors might have a hardy laugh at such a contention.

Of course, we hardly need to worry about what they might think. The bigger question is what future generations will come to understand about Americans of the early 21st century.

I struggle with all these issues. It’s dift cult to put yourself entirely in the shoes of another person, particularly when your background and experiences can never match up with his. This is the blessing and the curse of our individuality. Empathy is possible, to a degree, but none of us will ever entirely grasp what it means to be that other soul.

But that’s always been true, and past generations have risen to the challenge. We must strive to understand one another and find the path to overcome these struggles. It’s not good enough to shout “You’ll never understand what it’s like to be me.” We owe it to ourselves and our children to try.

Our nation is well known for its divisions, for the various subcultures, ethnic groups, economic groupings, clashing political philosophies and such.

We’re going to have to get past those to fi nd solutions, to find ways to move forward as a country. If we fail to do that together, we will all fail individually, and these God-given lives of ours will have been wasted on the things that divide rather than things that can bring us all together.

It sounds so simple, but it’s the hard work of being. As long as we’re all on this planet together, isn’t it better to try?

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