Americans can do this together

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Dear Editor,

Sometimes it feels like we’re at war, doesn’t it? Verbally  anyway. Politically. What happened to make us feel like we can’t even talk to each other anymore? If you’re like me, you yearn for a time when we were able to discuss issues that bothered us and try to find ways to solve them that would work for all of us.  We maybe didn’t get everything we wanted, but we got something that would work for now.  Something took that away from us.  Now if we don’t agree on everything we are sworn enemies.

It feels so sad…and self-destructive.   When I was a kid, I remember learning about “rugged individualism”. I bet you learned about that too:  the idea that in America anyone could, if they worked hard enough, succeed in life without help from anyone.

I think the idea came from the difficulties faced by early settlers in America –our ancestral immigrants.  Mine were from Ireland and really struggled in rural southeast Wisconsin. It’s sort of a romantic idea, right? They came to the new land and made their lives anew.  But I think we all know it wasn’t an easy life.  Many lived very short lives.  Many starved.  It was a REALLY hard life. I have a feeling most of them grasped at any help they could get. Rugged individualism was unrealistic…because we need each other.    

There was another way to live in our history that’s best illustrated in community barn-raising.  A new family arrives and they’re not left to build their home alone - rugged individualism.  But instead the community rallies around them and works together.  We’ve all heard the stories of raising a barn in a day… men working the construction, women supplying the support, and even children helping as they could. Not for themselves, but FOR THE COMMUNITY. Everyone in the community benefits.

This was a big step in the life of a community – care for each other. Look after one another.  There were lots of dangers in America.  I’m sure they didn’t all agree on everything, but they had respect for each other’s lives and contributions to the community.

 

So, what has happened to us? Rugged individualism seems to have morphed into a culture of grievance.  We’ve been encouraged to blame the poor for taking our money through welfare, to blame immigrants for taking our money and jobs, to blame someone for something…the fears have grown into full blown conspiracies.  Someone is doing something to “get” me.  People are actually calling for civil war.

Are we really willing to throw away this beautiful country?   I think we would have wildly varying answers to the reason we are so divided.  The raging tumult around the election two years ago is an undeniable source of division.   But I want to propose that we stop arguing points from the past that we are unlikely to resolve.   Let’s abandon the horrible conspiracies and those who promote and profit from them.  We’ve all heard about cultures around the world that hold their grievances with each other for centuries.  Please let’s not let that happen to us.

 

Can we start where we are; open our minds to each other about what’s good for us all…work together to build a new barn? If we stop calling each other names and begin to listen to each other again. We will need to shake off some of the ways we automatically respond to each other.  We’ll need to hold our tongues in order to really listen to each other.  We can open our arms to each other if we respect each other’s humanity.

I’m asking you to examine yourself to find out what you can do to help us come together.  I don’t think it will be easy.  But I think we must do it, or our “union” is in serious danger. America has come through many times of crisis before, coming together to follow a path of faith and reason, a path enlightened by our own history.

We are united by the things we as Americans are devoted to: our love of freedom, our desire for greater opportunity, our need for safety, our belief in the dignity of each person, and the commitment to the truth. This is a challenge to each of us.  We’re Americans!  We can do this!

Sincerely,

Laurie Engen

 

 

 

 

 

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