[Today is post #6 in our annual, summer Guest Writer Series. Note that the opinions expressed may or may not be held by the Intramuralist.]
I have been honored to be a guest blogger here at the Intramuralist for the past five years. My friendship with the actual Intramuralist has a pretty auspicious beginning. We met sitting in the outfield at our son’s baseball game. It goes without saying that baseball moms are a pretty special bunch. We endure hours of games and practices and learning what cups do, and why it is important to wear them. So our friendships are born out of that commonality. And at the age our boys were, the games weren’t always the most action packed so that left quite a bit of time for chatting and getting to know one another.
One particularly hot summer day, we were clustered together in the only spot of shade anywhere near the diamond. If memory serves, it was midway through the season. The air was thick with humidity and the sun was relentless. We all knew one another but not well enough to have a conversation about much more than the heat or if we packed enough water for the kids. Somehow we got on the topic of religion, and not just a friendly, “where do you go to a church?” but an actual discussion of faith, and God and beliefs. And not everyone in our group was on the same page. That conversation was real, and passionate and heated at times, and when the last out came, we all packed up our chairs and smiled and said our good byes and planned to see each other again at the next game. And that’s what we did. We pulled our chairs into a line, and continued to share in the fellowship that can only be known in the outfield of a little league game in July.
Believers, non-believers, proselytizers, and agnostics.
At the end of the season, our bond now road tested, our connections strengthened by time spent together, we gathered for a mom’s night out at a local establishment for food and drink and talk that was to have nothing to do about baseball. There are two things you aren’t supposed to talk about in polite company; religion had already been discussed so we moved on to politics. It was an election year; I can’t remember which one or who was running. I remember the discussion was intense. We talked from all sides about the issues we were most passionate about.
Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and a few who have given up on siding with anyone.
We had food and beers, and when the night was done. We hugged and the words, “Man, I’ll miss seeing you,” were thrown around along with promises to schedule at least monthly gatherings. And then that season was over.
I tell you this as a background for what is the heart of what I want to share. In my years of guest blogging, I have had two central themes, baseball and respect for opposing views. I don’t think it is any coincidence that both of those things are a part of my friendship with the Intramuralist. Our friendship was born on a baseball field, and from mostly opposing sides of those two deep conversations. Now, she will laugh and say that we aren’t necessarily opposing, that we are generally closer to each other’s beliefs than the labels of our current society would allow. So I’ll counter her hearty chuckle with this: from mere affiliation we are opposite of one another, but yet there’s no one I’d rather have those conversations with — even someone who is 100% in agreement with what I think and believe. For the important stuff, her take is the one that I find the most interesting. The one I seek out, in these times of Wall Building, Gun Control, email-gate, religious fundamentalists. The one I can count on to make me really think.
You see, there is so much we can learn from one another by simply having the discussion. And by discussion, I do not mean in the comments section of Facebook. I mean face to face, if possible. We have to resort to Facetime now that I live hundreds of miles away. But it works.
One of our last such discussions involved the heated vitriol that is rampant on social media lately. That evolved into a discussion of “unfriending.” The ultimate “gotcha” of our culture. And how sad that is. How empty a victory it is to simply click a button and rid yourself of having to engage with people who aren’t lock step with your beliefs.
To what end? And though Facebook and Twitter and all the others are very much our reality to most of us, the act of unfriending shows how far from the truth that actually is.
In REAL life you wouldn’t say to someone in the middle of a conversation, “I don’t agree with you so consider us no longer friends!” But yet still be in the same social or professional circles or heaven help you, family. There’s no button you can reach out and push and make people in your life disappear if they don’t agree with you. No, in person there are two options, engage in a debate or keep your opinions to yourself and make note not to bring the subject up again.
Unfriending someone isn’t the answer; it’s the problem. We live in a world of big issues, that require us to engage in conversations with all sides to solve them. Closing yourself off from that doesn’t make you part of the solution. It isolates you, amplifies the fear that someone else might have a different idea. Your “side” may not have all the right answers. Choosing to only have one opinion show up in your newsfeed skews your thoughts, and makes you less. It widens the divide.
I realize now how myopic my way of thinking would be if I had picked up my lawn chair and separated myself from that first difficult conversation. I consider how much my way of thinking changed when I realized the person I so enjoyed sitting with on those hot summer nights didn’t agree with my feelings about religion being a private thing. I think of how much I have learned about myself from hours of conversations about hard things with someone who passionately and often believes differently than I do.
And I thank God there was no option for unfriending back then.
Respectfully…
Jules
A thought once learned: “When two people always think alike, one is unnecessary.”