Words taken from The Dangerous act of loving your neighbor by Mark Labberton. “We”is a set of invisible goggles we never take off, not least because we have no sense we even have them on. We look out on the world with the lenses of our instincts and Social Grooming. we think we see the way others do or even more frequently perhaps the reverse: that others see the way we do…. Saying “we” is like building a kind of perch for ourselves. we functions, then, as a kind of social place from which we see, act, engage or withdraw from them and that. It’s a powerful perch and motivates so much about how we perceive, name and understand ourselves in the world.
“I” yields to “we”variably, on this side of things. “We” is typically valued so long as it is Either inescapable or useful: family, ethnicity, privilege, opportunity, belonging, love, hope, money. When “we”becomes a significant disappointment or distraction or they vision from what “I” want or if “we” becomes a force that feels threatening to “I”, then the loyalty to “we” wanes; things change. easily, readily, a slide occurs as “we”becomes “they”. They as a word involves figuratively sticking out our tongue. It’s a word of expulsion. They is a word that pushes away. It’s not far from Spitting. it draws a boundary, a parameter, a distinction, a separation, a distance. They is a kind of anti-identity, an anti-definition of “I” or “we”. They means disassociating, disconnecting: they are like this……they think this….they feel that…….they are different because……they don’t get it the way we do…
What moments or circumstances expose your distance, fear, rejection, Anger, prejudice, dislike of “They”? Why do these responses seem natural and justified? What experiences or voices in your life has contributed to that?
