From Me-dom to WE-dom

​The other title I thought of, given my hours of watching the now-concluded Paris Olympics, was “WE, WE, Monsieur!” In either case, in light of the Olympics’ modeling of friendly competition amongst sometimes hostile nations, a critical mass of humankind now needs to embrace a broader, more inclusive view of our global world. From my perspective, the most important race to be won is the human one. That’s why, in this age of self-definition through the use of personal pronouns, I have been giving mine as He-Him-WE, with the capitalization of “we” hinting at where I am going with this thought...

As babies we are intensely focused on ourselves. Personal survival, clearly, is at stake. If we are fortunate in having caring parents, they will cater effectively to all our needs. As a result, we will grow physically, emotionally, mentally, and—one would hope—spiritually. Eventually we will become adults, at least physically. All that happens by itself. With good parenting helped by other adult family members as well as helpful teachers, coaches, friends, and others, we become even-tempered, self-controlled adults who show respect and consideration for our fellow human beings. Our reasoning and critical-thinking skills, although ultimately the products of native intelligence, can nonetheless be helped along by our ability to learn from experience and the instruction and modeling of others.

​I would argue that while physically we grow up, spiritually we grow wide, that is, horizontally. If we are lucky, we will have positive encounters with people and cultures different from our own and learn that they may have individual and cultural gifts that transcend what we know or have. Then we are blessed if we can embrace in practice the French saying Vive la différence! That is, not only esteeming what is different but making successful efforts to adopt it creatively for ourselves. Culturally, to be sure, we will be swimming against the stream. For families, ethnic and religious groups, subcultures, and national cultures have strong centripetal pulls. Our team is deemed the best, not because it is (although it may be) but because it is ours. As a teen I was always encouraged to marry a nice Jewish-American girl. Okay, she could have been Canadian or—because we had well-to-do relatives there—from Argentina. I ended up marrying a lovely Lutheran woman from Germany. Then, when she passed, my second and current wife came from a storied old New England family who were of course Congregationalist. Moreover, neither was well-to-do.

The posterchild in Western tradition for inclusiveness is St. Francis of Assisi. He extended his family to include non-human life forms, Brother Wolf being a case in point. Even if we can’t go quite that far in our feelings, we can at least live according to the African American sayings that “God don’t make no junk!” and “All God’s chillen got wings.” Happily, starting in the 1970s and 1980s, American colleges and universities began to require a significant cross-cultural living-learning experience for all their baccalaureate students. The post-World War One song made the point succinctly: “How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?” Seeing and experiencing delicious differences are crucial in one’s personal human development. It is said that the longest journey is from the head to the heart. I would posit that, needed as it is in our multiply divided world, the longest, most important journey right now is from Me to WE. In the spirit of the Olympics, I’ll wish us all, myself included, “Bon Voyage!”

Different folks having fun together—a necessary goal these days.