Sometimes it’s depressing how we just divide up into tribes and assume the worst sort of faith on “the other side” and only the best of faith on “our side.”
“The children of God have more in common then they have differences.”
― Henry B. Eyring
Too bad so few of us actually believe this.I recently felt compelled to defriend a few people on social media. I likely didn’t have to do it, and I may regret it sometime soon. It’s just that the one behavior that really sets me off is tribalism, especially when the tribes start talking trash about the other tribes. I was even told at one point, unironically by several people that should be intelligent enough to know better that there is only good faith and honest people on their side and naught but bad faith and self-righteous blowhards amongst those on “my” side (I may be paraphrasing a bit too much and freely here).
In church, I’ve heard too many lessons where “the poor” or the “the intellectuals” were discussed as though there clearly weren’t any poor or intellectual types in the room. Too many blogs in the LDS market write as though only those who share the conservative/liberal/progressive/orthodox/whatever persuasion of the blog as a whole are welcome.
We’re all in this together.
Don’t think this is some plea for unity and a call to action to unite around what’s most important. I’ve somewhat given up on the idea that’s even possible, and it depresses me. I’ve seen plenty of those calls before, and they all fail because we refuse to give up our tribal identities. I blog at M*, but I never really considered it my “tribe” – however, several recent events have made me realize people at other blogs like T&S and BCC and elsewhere see me as “one of the M* wackos” even though I mostly just post book reviews and tend to stay out of the more heated and polarizing discussions.
If this could be a call for anything, it’s to stop treating everyone on “the other side” as fungible, I guess. But I’m not even sure that’s possible. On my best days I start to approach this standard, but on my worst I’m as tribal as the rest.
I’ll end with the lyrics of my favorite U2 song, which seems appropriate somehow:
Take these shoes
Click clacking down some dead end street
Take these shoes
And make them fit
Take this shirt
Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt
And make it clean, clean
Take this soul
Stranded in some skin and bones
Take this soul
And make it sing
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I’m waiting for the dawn
Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don’t make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticise
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahewh, Yahweh
Still I’m waiting for the dawn
Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
The sun is coming up on the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
This love is like a drop in the ocean
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, tell me now
Why the dark before the dawn?
Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break