Our Estrangements: Real Cause for Concern

HUMAN BEEINGS DIFFER even though they may agree on many things.  They have different families.  They attend different churches, go to different schools, live in different sizes and kinds of communities.  The differences are countless.

But the divisions among us in 2023 are different in their own right; and not just due to the year being in the century it is nor to the fact each of us is unique.

Today, our differences are sharper.  There’s more anger in them, less sympathy for or tolerance of opposing ideas.  And as we are too well aware:  mass killings are on the increase as are the groups that lean toward racial intolerance and fascism.

These are my readings of course, the significance of which I  have been pondering for several weeks; and concerning which, I am now of the opinion that we the people are being seriously challenged to recover a genuine sense of being in this life together, all of us, everywhere.   Our normal life expectancies are endangered if we cannot narrow the gaps between us.

Which mean further:

#1 – We must moderate the extremeness that reinforces violence and, when unchecked, leads to death;

#2 – We must learn to live with our differences so that we restore our basic belief that we  are One people;

#3 - We must cease publicizing the mental and emotional illnesses and give stronger support to mental  and emotional health as we also  stop using abusive vulgarities to attack others; and

#4 – We must recommit, each one of us, to a serious search for Truth.   There are liars among us, on all sides really. There are false conspiracies being spread.  There are ill-thought-out  plans being implemented that , in advance, we know are likely to fail.  Who’s telling us the real truth?  Who stands for the best in our democracy?  Who really cares about the lives of all people?  These questions have to be answered.

We haven’t been able in recent years to do any of the above very well.  In fact, we seem to have become experts at doing  the opposite; all the while becoming more extreme and radical, more intolerant of others; with more mental illness among us, and greater confusion about what is true and what is not.

To top it off, of course, adding to the tensions in which we're trying to exist, is the fact that many Americans simply do not understand why it takes so long to ensure justice, especially when the crimes involved are committed by the wealthy and powerful.  If one has enough money and influence, one is often able to get off scott free, at least that is how many citizens view our judicial imbalances.   A major current societal need is for our judicial system to  become much more efficeint and even-handed  in its pursuits.