April 10, 2026
The Space Between
Put a human face to a belief and you might reconsider what you believe. The space between us isn't as great as you might think.
6 min read
I wasn’t feeling it this week with writing a new post. I couldn’t wrap up drafts I had started and new ideas weren’t coming. I reached back to previous writing I had done and I am reposting and updating a previous blog essay I authored back in 2017. It hit a nerve with me as it was something that I needed in this moment to revisit and be reminded of. I hope it resonates with you.
The Space
With our current political and post-Covid environment, I think of the connections lost between friends or family and the disconnection with activities that were once part of our daily routines. All caused by the space between us. A chasm that seemingly can’t be bridged. We aren’t able to reach past the positions or beliefs we hold to find and connect with others around those things that we have in common.
I was driving on a Saturday morning doing errands when Dave Matthews Band came on the radio. It had been two years since our son had a devastating Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) from a fall and I was lost in my thoughts reliving whatever I could still recall of that time. It was nearly two years to the day that our son walked for the first time after his accident. I recalled a moment that I had let go of from that time. An interaction at an elevator one night on my way back to visit him at the hospital. I went back to his CaringBridge site to retrieve the memory, as I didn’t want my memory to miss the purity of the moment:
And one of the neatest examples of being the good occurred on an elevator ride one evening. I was arriving by myself and for security reasons after 6 PM you must get a picture badge to wear to be in the hospital. After I got my badge, I waited for the elevator with an African-American man, a little younger than me who was being treated at the hospital, and a young Asian man. As we got on the elevator, the door was held open to ensure everyone got on safely. Floor buttons were pushed as we identified what floor we wanted. When one exited, “good luck” or “have a good night” exchanges were made. I was the last one off the elevator and as I exited I had the realization that I just experienced how the world should be. Three people from varied and unknown backgrounds simply being kind to each other as we wandered in and out of each other’s life. We were an example of how easy it is to Be The Good.
Over the car speakers I hear the chorus… “The space between the tears we cry Is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more.
The space between…”
The space between us.
Making abstract ideas personal
One of the changes that happened to me after the experience of our son’s TBI is that it’s nearly impossible for me not to connect on personal level to what was before abstract concepts or ideas. Take for example, drug addiction and the opioid epidemic. I could choose to shrug my shoulders and say it doesn’t affect me, it’s a problem in West Virginia and that no one in my immediate circle is a drug addict. And those dealing with prescription drug or heroin abuse are simply bad people who are predisposed to be addicts.
Instead, I choose to read first person and second person accounts of those struggling with an opioid addiction. I read the books Dopesick and The Empire of Pain to learn the stories behind the story. Many times it started with lower back pain or a dental surgery and a seemingly innocuous prescription from a doctor. I watch documentaries that show families being torn apart as a struggling child sucks the life out of their relationships. I put a human face to the issue.
And then I recognize that I am impacted by the epidemic. My son has a friend who has gone through methadone treatment. A friend of mine has a son recovering from a meth addiction. A neighbor had returned from a jail sentence due to extremely poor choices made when he was trying to cope with his struggles, and he’s paid his debt to society. The man I pass by who is sleeping on the sidewalk might not physically be able today to get to where he should or wants to be.
In the end, there are two common threads in all of these stories. They are flesh and blood human beings, not some abstract societal problem and secondly, they are struggling with something, just like each and every one of us. Struggle is a constant in the human condition and, if we allow ourselves, it can be the tie that binds us. It can be the bridge to traverse the space between.
What it all means
One of my kids back in 2017 made me aware of a new ad, or actually a short film, by the beer manufacturer Heineken. In the cleverly produced ad, Heineken identifies their activities as a social experiment, of sorts. They brought people of varying (opposing) political viewpoints together to work on a small project. The participants don’t know that they have opposing political viewpoints as they begin to work on their project. I’ll let you watch the ad and see the results for yourself:
Heineken - Worlds Apart, #OpenYourWorld (2017)
Without making a political statement, Heineken identifies how important is it to connect as people, as human beings in a shared experience. To engage; not to divide and stay separated. In the end, each group identified and connected with what made them similar, which then allowed a reasonable discussion to occur about what makes them different. And, in my opinion, each recognized that the other person ended up where they where due to some struggle. They related to the other person because they realized that they, too, had something in their life that they were, or at one time had been, struggling with. They put a human face to their beliefs.
Suddenly, their abstract beliefs weren’t as easy to maintain. That’s progress in my world.
How Be The Good became a call to action
I wrote the original post on a Sunday, which, if you believe, is considered to be the Lord’s day. A day to give Thanks. If you are one that attends church on Sundays, I hope you do so with an open heart trying to find common ground with those you may disagree with or those who aren’t like you. Recall that Jesus spoke in terms of love and said that to love another as you love yourself is the second greatest commandment. Give thanks for that lesson and the ability to Be The Good.
For those who choose something other than church, I also ask you to be open. Be open to those who are different than you, including those who may believe. We have more in common than you think and we all deserve basic human dignity.
Let us all continue to Be The Good, so others can believe there is good in the world. And hopefully, we’ll remove some of the space that sits between us along the way.