Walking Together In Disagreement

Normally, when we talk about “walking with” another person, we generally refer to being in agreement with him or her. However, in the current climate of our world, which on a political level is somewhat toxic, we need to understand the importance of walking together in disagreement.

Is it nice when we agree with one another? Sure. It certainly is convenient, at any rate. Comfortable too. In fact, some people become so comfortable in their place of agreement that they surround themselves with proverbial “yes-men,” and anyone who disagrees is removed from the circle. However, there is a certain danger in always keeping ourselves cloistered in comfortable agreement, and that danger is stagnation.

When we find people in life we disagree with, especially if we are able to handle that disagreement in a mature manner, we have an opportunity to grow. I’m going to use transgenderism as an example. I personally believe that most if not all transgender individuals have an underlying psychological issue or disorder that needs to be treated as opposed to it being a difference to be celebrated.  I also believe that by celebrating dysfunction, we do these people great harm. In my line of work as a trauma nurse, I occasionally work with transgender individuals and help them along their healing journey after a car accident or other physical trauma. During that time, I call them whatever name and personal pronoun they prefer to be referred by, and treat them with the same respect I would give to any other human being. Basically, the transgender subject with that person only becomes an issue, in my mind, if it is somehow medically relevant or if they choose to bring in a whole lot of drama about it.  The key to my entire example is this: I don’t have to agree with their perception of transgenderism to help them physically heal, care for them, or be kind and loving to them.

There are so many things in life where we disagree with one another. And while unity and agreement can be helpful and at times quite powerful, we also have to be able to walk together in disagreement with one another. I don’t even always agree with my wife, but we have been married for twelve years and are going strong. There are definitely a lot of times I have upset her, and she has upset me, and we disagree on a lot of things. However, the key to good relationships is learning not how to walk together in agreement, because that is easy. It’s when we disagree that we have to put the effort in and figure out how to keep moving forward.

While writing this, I was distractedly scrolling through my Facebook feed and came across a conversation about kids and Trump hats and a generally volatile real-life situation. I read through the comments and read the following quote: “my bias came out when I saw those ‘Make America Great Again’ hats. To me it just says bigotry, racism and limited thinkers.” The ironic thing about the above statement is it was possibly one of the most bigoted things the person could have written, and demonstrated extremely limited thinking. A bigot, by definition, is one who is intolerant of those with differing beliefs. The man who wrote the above quote looked at a person, saw a hat with a particular slogan on it, and immediately judged the character and heart motivations of the person wearing it without actually attempting to see if any of his judgments were actually true.

My wife and I have some family friends with very divergent political beliefs. The thing is though, that we have healthy and even enjoyable political discussions because we don’t let politics define our relationship. Our choice to share life together as friends is what decides how we manage our disagreements, not the other way around. Certainly there are times to limit the level of access that we give toxic relationships in our lives, but I think that these days we are far more focused on cutting out dissenting voices than we are engaged in learning from one another and committing to walking together even in disagreement. I think it’s high time that we bring back some maturity into our disagreements.