Last Wednesday night, sitting in the dugout waiting for our softball game to begin, the umpire yelled towards us – presumably continuing a conversation started with one of my teammates about politics.
“My sister is a libtard out West. I don’t even talk to her anymore. She lives in Oregon and I hope she stays out there.”
The hostility and apparent sense of self-satisfaction with his words was jarring. To so casually flatten a relationship and write off a sibling – someone who he presumably shared so much of his life with at some point was just so sad to me.
Divides come in many different forms; geographic to geological; man-made to natural; personal to the political. But what they all share is a common source. For something to be divided inherently means at one point it had to be united. Coming from the same land mass, country, community, relationship or family. This makes the division both painful and possible unification hopeful.
I’ve been listening to Noah Kahan’s new album a lot lately. It is aptly named, The Great Divide. Throughout the seventeen tracks, Kahan explores divides – presumably inspired by his own life, Someone wrestling with leaving his home town and coming back. Recognizing divides that have occurred for a myriad of reasons – time, distance, life events, class conflicts, politics, and trauma.
In many songs, there is a yearning to bridge these divides. In the last song, “Dan”, he longs to just have a Miller Lite with an old friend who he once had so much more in common with. In my favorite song, “Willing and Able”, he sings of a falling out with a sibling. The chord progression in the chorus builds movingly and achingly towards a desired reunion. The song ends by repeating “I’d be willing and able” eight times before wistfully saying, “If you’re willing, I’m able.”
I have long believed, perhaps naively so, that there is substantially more that unites us than divides us. So much division is born from the self-interests of others who pit people against each other for their own gain or a culture that leans too heavily into zero-sum thinking and resentment. If only we could pause and remind ourselves of our ties that bind – before they were torn asunder. To see each other with more grace and compassion. To judge less and seek understanding more. To forgive doesn’t require that we forget. But it does ask that we remember what brought us together in the first place.
If you’re willing and able, of course.
This Week’s Recommendation: Listen to Kahan’s The Great Divide. Find a song that speaks to a division you’re experiencing. Now consider sending that song as an olive branch to the person on the other side of that divide.
Share this email with a friend – or perhaps even better, an ex-friend