During the presidential election of 2004, I found myself in line to vote behind a woman who turned to me with a comment. With a look of anxious intent on her face she said to me, “This election is REALLY important.” From the political button which she wore on her shirt, I could tell that our votes would effectively cancel each other out. We did not agree on the candidates, but we did agree on the election: it was really important.

Much can be said similarly about our current election. The 2008 election cycle is indeed very important, maybe even more so than four years ago. But in recent years, all our elections have been really important – and sadly, really divided.

The American electorate seems to agree on only one thing these days: the question of who is elected is very important. On all other issues we seem to be at loggerheads. We are not only divided by party but by ideology. We are “liberal” or “conservative.” We are “fundamentalist” or “progressive.” We are “believers” or “atheists.” We discuss issues not from rational positions with all the “facts” before us but instead move quickly from facts to emotion. In the process, rational and critical thinking goes out the window. Our ability to discuss and disagree with any level of civility is gone. We are a divided nation of “reds” and “blues” with very little ground in between. Why is this?

I suspect that we find our civic life divided and dysfunctional for two reasons. First, we are scared. The world is a scary place, a fact which came crashing in upon our shores with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We are increasingly not sure whom to trust – least of all our government. Our infrastructure is slowly crumbling while support for public institutions is waning. Our schools are in disarray while routinely under attack by gun-toting students. Additionally, America has been going through a “browning” process. That is to say, it won’t be long until white, American-born citizens are in the minority. This reality feeds our fear of immigrants – legal or otherwise – a fear which further undercuts our ability to find helpful solutions to the divisions in our land.

Second, U.S. citizens are divided for the very reason that we should be united: something real has been lost. While what has been lost has never quite been identified, underneath all the divisions and ideological positioning there is a very real grief. What we have lost is felt personally. What we have lost is something close to our hearts. What we have lost is our neighborhoods.

Beginning perhaps in the early 1970s, America has witnessed the slow disintegration of the local neighborhood. These are the tight-knit communities that once helped us raise our kids and make sense of our world. Whether these neighborhoods be white and suburban, black and urban, or in some way mixed, we no longer know our neighbors and are not quite sure we want to. We are now simply private citizens looking out for ourselves.

In this privatized world, we have lost any consensus about what is right and wrong. We have opted instead for a “live and let live” philosophy which seems to celebrate freedom, but leads only to an alienating loneliness. When we do try to take a stand for the public good, we find our positions consistently undercut by a prioritized “bottom line.” It used to be that in America what was good, sells. Good quality products which enhance our lives would sell and be a source of pride (and jobs). Today in America what sells, is good. Thus, we have high-risk mortgages which lead to economic collapse. We have a thriving, multi-billion dollar pornography industry. We spend more money on weapons of war than all the nations of the world combined. These realities are not only absurd, they are obscene. Yet, when what sells is equated with what is good, obscenity is the outcome.

Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin taps into this longing for what we have lost when she says, “We grow good people in our small towns…I grew up with those people. They’re the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food and run our factories and fight our wars. They love their country in good times and bad, and they’re always proud of America.”

This is fine, of course, except that that America is largely gone. The “globalized” America of 2008 is the America we’re not so at ease with. This is the America in which the Main Street, “mom and pop” store has been replaced by Wal-Mart. This is the America where most things are made in China. This is the America where much of our food – not to mention our labor force — comes from south of the border. This is a privatized America, where the neighborhood — and any affinity for the “public good” — has long since disappeared.

When our 2008 election cycle is over with, I wonder if the winning candidate will have the wisdom and courage to stand before the American people and call for a time out. We are on a sad, reckless course with our national divisions sabotaging any efforts to turn us – and our government — in a new direction.

Yet, perhaps an intentional, well thought-out, period of reflection and conversation, beginning with every neighborhood in the country, could lead us in a new direction. This would be a conversation not to get peoples perspectives on the “issues of the day,” but a conversation first to uncover what it is that people feel they have lost, why they are scared, and what their hopes for the future might be.

If we knew the answer to these questions, perhaps we could begin to heal our divisions and set some national priorities that would actually address our problems. Maybe we could begin to move away from our privatized, despair-ridden America toward a new order where we would once again know our neighbors, speak with them about our concerns, and work toward solutions.

Let us hope that some candidate has the courage and wisdom to begin the process.

This column is sponsored by Cumberland Countians for Peace and Justice, an organization composed of representatives from various churches in the area, and dedicated by the local writers to the theme that the lion and the lamb can and must learn to live together and grow in their relationship toward one another to ensure a better world. Opinions expressed in “Lion and the Lamb” columns are not necessarily those of the Crossville Chronicle publisher, editor or staff. For more information, contact Emerson Abts, editor, at 277-5101.