Love Is But the Song We Sing, and Fear’s the Way We Die

 

 

 

We may differ in skin color, appearance, gender, sexual orientation, cultural values, religious values, the way we dress, etc., but these are just the outer layer of our shell.

 

On the inside, we are all the same and we all share similar values: the desire to love and be loved, to commune with others, to feel appreciated, to be heard, to be understood, to live happily and to live freely.

 

 

How can we understand one another when we’re so ready to castigate, and injure, one another over our differences? And it is this castigation that has led to the sectarian strife we see in the U.S. and all over the world at this point in time.

 

One day, many years ago, I was standing with a group of friends on a street in New York City. A cop walked by and said to me, “Hey, how’s it going? Things ok?” I didn’t know this cop and his friendliness unnerved me. I said back to him, “I’m doing ok, thanks.” And then I asked him, “Do you know me?” He said back, “Sure, I locked you up a couple of months ago.” I replied to him, “No, officer you did not, and I don’t know you.” The cop said to me, “I’m sorry, you look like someone else.” I then asked him, “Are you always this friendly with people you arrest?” And he said, “Yeah, I always try and make friends with the people I arrest and try and help steer them on the right path.”

 

I’ll never forget the kindness that police officer showed me, even if it was a case of mistaken identity. And I’ll never forget what he said, that he desired to make friends with the people he arrested.

 

We have to listen to one another, because that’s what anyone wants, to be heard. If someone is in pain, they want to be heard. They may lash out at others, but if they feel like they’re being heard and that someone understands their pain, there’s a good chance they won’t lash out or hurt anyone else.

 

A few years back, two Iraqi men came to see me for acupuncture. They had been living in the U.S. a few years, having fled their country after the U.S. invaded Iraq and tore their country apart. The two men didn’t know each another in their home country and instead met in the U.S., but now they were like brothers. One of the men told me that when he met the other, he felt a lot of tension and anger well up inside of him, because he was a Sunni and the other man was a Shiite. In Iraq, Sunnis and Shiites are mortal enemies, but having met in the U.S., and away from their cultural biases, they were willing to get to know and understand one other, which allowed them to become like brothers.

 

 

We just have to understand one another. We are more similar than different. Listen to others, hear them, hear what they want, understand them.