There are many things that divide us

EDITOR'S NOTE: This column originally appeared in the August 8, 2002 edition of The Daily Mail.

I have mentioned recently how I enjoy making new friends. This week, I made another new friend. She had known who I was, but I didn't know her. When I met her, I realized she looked very familiar, but I really didn't know who she was.

She contacted me because of an article I wrote in the paper that mentioned that I have this old copy of The Nevada Herald which tells about the house she now owns. She wanted to see the paper and get a copy for her own history.

We had a nice talk over the phone, and then she said she would come meet me in church the following Sunday.

You see, this new friend attends the same church that we do, and we are each often in the same service. But the problem is, she sits on the north side of the middle aisle. And what's more, she sits naer the back, while we sit on the south side of the aisle, about in the middle.

It's hard to believe that in a town as small as Nevada, in a church that is not huge, people do not know each other because they sit on the opposite sides of an aisle.

I do have some very good friends who sit on the north side of the church, and some of them even sit near the back. But I got acquainted with them some other way than by attending regualr worship services together.

My new friend said that once in a great while, she does sit on "our" side of the aisle, but she just wasn't comfortable. I understand. One time I needed to sit on the other side of the aisle because of a responsibility I had to greet a newcomer. I did it, but I felt like I was the visitor.

My new friend's cousin sits right behind us on our side, but that had not made us get acquainted until the article in the paper brought us together. Sometimes when people go forward for communion, I try to pay attention to those neighbors on the north to get better acquained, but it is hard to find out who everybody is.

This has made me think about other things that divide us. It used to be that people could live on the wrong side of the tracks, and, therefore, not associate with the rest of the townpeople. That has changed quite a bit in recent years. In fact, in some communities, the new subdivisions are sometimes created in what was formerly a 'bad neighborhood'.

Rivers used to divide communities from each other. There are still some places where residents can see the buildings of each others' farms, but to drive to the other palce would take serveral miles of travel.

We live west of Nevada, which puts us only ten miles from the Kansas border.

It wouldn't be far to visit folk in Bourbon County, but until Lester served an interim term as a minister in that area, we didn't even know any of our western neighbors.

However, we knew many people who lived that far away in eastern Vernon County, or in other counties north, east and south of us.

Somehow that state line was a bigger division than county lines.

I worked in the election this week and as we saw people having to choose a certain party to get their ballot, I realized that politics also divide us somewhat.

However, many people didn't really care what the name of the party was, they just wanted to be able to vote for a certain person. They searched the lists to see which ballot gave them the opportunity to make that important vote.

Now that I am middle age plus, I begin to realize more that age sometimes divides us. The young whippersnappers don't want to associate with us old codgers, as much as they prefer being with their age group.

We accentuate this by clubs designed for certain ages, regulations that require certain ages to qualify and even newspaper page titles, such as the Senior Page.

I could get into more controversial divisions, such as sex, ethnic origins, sexual preferences, marriage versus significant others, or even body size. But many serious books are written on those subjects and need more research than I care to do right now.

Which brings up another division -- perfectionists or lazy slobs.

As an older, south of the aisle, married, overweight, tall, white woman with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, I will admit to falling into the category of a lazy slob.

But just like some of the people across the aisle are good friends, some perfectionists also are counted as friend. It might just take a little more work to be sure that we don't get divided over that issue.

So, let's tear down some of the walls that divide us, or at least cross over the imaginary lines we draw. I think the world will be a better place if we do.

But don't look for me on the north side of our church. I like it where I am.