A nation divided

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There are many things that can divide a nation, a country, a town, or a family.
They can be the ‘big topics’, like politics. But more often it is about much smaller things...

This past week a sentence has come up in conversation that sort of stuck in my mind. It was about the difference between living in the ‘big city’ and living in the country ~ and although it may not have been meant that way, it did give me a feeling that it pitched ‘us’ against ‘them’.

While it is often true that different groups of people have different priorities, desires, and perhaps even needs in life ~ as soon as it becomes a matter of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ these priorities, desires and needs seem to be valued as less than our own.
And pretty soon ‘us’ versus ‘them’ becomes ‘right versus wrong’. Of course we are right. How can it be possible that this other way of thinking, this other way of living could be just as good as the way we put our lives together? Let alone ever be better...

Of course there is nothing wrong with really liking life the way we live it. That is the way it should be!
Just like other people with different mindsets, live their lives differently ~ the way they like living their lives. And that is the way it should be...
Us and them, living side by side, and by sharing our differences making a nation, a country, a town stronger.

On a much more personal level, thinking along lines of ‘us and them’ can really put us in a space we don’t necessarily want to be in...
Because on a personal level it evolves often easily into the thought that what is happening to us ~ especially the things that we perceive as making our lives hard or difficult ~ is not of our own doing. After all, we don’t want those things in our lives. So it has to be ‘them’ doing it to us.

If you follow a spiritual line of thought, there is an intrinsic problem with this perspective, as it would state that anything that happens in our lives is of our own making. Not because we want to go through difficult times, but moreover because we on our personal path of spiritual growth requires ourselves to learn certain things.

So maybe it is not a nation divided ~ in whatever way ~ that takes our strength. Perhaps it is how we are divided within ourselves ~ feeling that ‘they’ are better, worse, or even the cause of our predicament ~ that ultimately makes it hard for us to show our true strength.
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