The Bridge

I’d seen the “Bridge” installation in “Sculpture in the Wild”, in Lincoln, before but I hadn’t read the sign commenting on it. When I was there last Thursday though, I read one could either view the gap between each side with the suspended planks as either falling apart or coming together. I confess my immediate assumption was that it was falling apart. I’m not a pessimistic person but logic said pieces in midair must be falling. My poor logic bound brain went that direction but I certainly like the other possibility much better.

That’s a good metaphor for us in this season. We are bombarded these days by billions of dollars in advertising and commentary seeking to convince us that the “other side” is attempting to destroy all that is good and right in the country. It is exhausting and I’m sick and tired of it.

Yes, there are folks running for office whose policies are, I believe, very bad for our country but there is no problem which we could not, with good will, work out so long as we, that is to say our elected representatives, are willing to compromise and reach conclusions which benefit the entire country and not just one faction or the other.

Your neighbor who votes for that awful side of things wants our country to be successful, to be prosperous, to be a peace just like you do. The argument should not be about personality, or race, or gender, or whatever difference we’re told is critically important. The argument, the discussion, should be about how we proceed to make our country “a more perfect union”.

I’ve told the story before. A woman I knew needed to have a portable booth made she could use at protests about our participation in the production of nuclear bombs. To my surprise I found out it was being made for her by a man who held diametrically opposing views.

Intrigued, I went to see him and asked about it, “You know what she will use it for, don’t you?”

He shrugged, “She’s totally wrong but she’s still one of ours.”

He understood what we need to relearn nationally, we’re all in this journey into the future together. We’re not in separate boats trying to sink each other, we’re all in the same boat trying not to sink ourselves.

When I vote, I will vote for policies which I believe are good for the greatest number of people and provide the best possible pathway into the future. I will not vote against, I will vote for. I refuse to watch propaganda produced strictly to make me fearful or turn me against other Americans. I absolutely will not vote for anyone who can only view the bridge as falling apart even if that was my initial reaction. I will vote for those who, perhaps implausibly, view the planks as rising to ensure the whole and build a better path into the future. We are, after all, in this together.