The problem with teams.

On Sunday, the Green Bay Packers will start their season off playing the Minnesota Vikings. While I love the Packers, I happily associate with Vikings fans. Chicago Bears fans? Maybe.

Have you noticed that we have become increasingly more aware of the teams we are on?  

Packers versus the Vikings. Democrats versus Republicans. Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter? Does it end? If so, where?

Humans need two things to survive - to seek safety and avoid threats. Being communal animals, we find safety with others who believe the way we do - our tribe. But when you compound job loss, isolation, and depression with repetitive divisive rhetoric on a 24-hour news cycle, it's easy to feel we need something solid. Unfortunately, that solid ground comes in the form of the loudest voice that resonates with us. Unfortunately, the loudest voices tend to be the ones that divide.

Unlike sports, our tribes aren't better than the others - they're different. Republicans are different than Democrats in how they think about governance. Does that make one right and the other wrong? Maybe. Does that make one good and the other bad? I don't know.  

I know that to create a culture where people come together to do great things requires each of us to tolerate the other. Tolerate means to accept another as different and be okay with it. Tolerate means that we can still work together and find what's in common.  

We all have something in common. We hope, breathe, and live our stories. And our stories are beautiful and complicated - at the same time.  

There's a tribe that many of us don't go to explore often enough.

That tribe is full of people who enjoy breathing, learning, and growing.

They also enjoy serving others.

Perhaps you know people like this.