Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
East vs. West

East vs. West

Last updated on: July 22, 2024 at 7:00 am by Fred Clark

0 Comments

East vs. West 2024-07-21T16:05:14-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

So last year this kid from West was apparently dating a girl down the street from us and we’d see him walking past a few times a week.

This was notable because our house is just east of East. The East-West rivalry is kind of a big deal around here. Not violently so, but enough that it was pretty gutsy for this kid to be strolling around East territory all the time wearing T-shirts and jerseys that said “West” or “Whippets” on them. That’s a rare sight on our block. Usually the only time you see the word “West” on a T-shirt around here is on the day of any big game between the schools, when all the kids waiting for the bus are wearing shirts that say “Beat West.”

Again, this rivalry isn’t marked by any real animosity or hostility. That kid from West and the girl from East weren’t star-crossed lovers in some tragic Romeo and Juliet scenario. But still, in this neighborhood, those West jerseys marked him as an outsider. It identified him as one of Them and not one of Us.

We wouldn’t have to go very far at all for that shirt to take on an entirely different meaning. If we were down the Shore, walking the boardwalk in, say, Ocean City, and we saw somebody in a West jersey, that would be enough of a connection for us to stop and say Hi.

“Downingtown!”

“Hey! You guys from West too?”

“East.”

“Close enough! Have a good one!”

“You too!”

All those cheerful exclamation points are because it would be close enough. Two hours away from here the East-West divide would seem more like an East-West kinship — just two sides of the same town, after all.

Go a little bit farther away and that kinship would seem even closer. If I were in a bar in California and saw somebody in a West jersey, I’d buy that guy a drink. I’m not usually a buy-drinks-for-strangers extrovert, but that guy wouldn’t seem like a stranger. He’s from West. We’re from East. We’re practically family.

All the way out there in California, somebody from Ocean City would seem as close to us as that kid from West would have seemed on the boardwalk. “You’re from Jersey? We’re from Pennsylvania. We’re neighbors!”

Go a little farther, cross an ocean, and now someone from out there in California will seem as close a kin as someone from the opposing bleachers at the East-West game.

“Where you from?”

“Los Angeles!” the guy from Bakersfield says, because at this distance, that’s close enough. “You?”

“Philly!”

“Cool!”

Again, the exclamation-pointed excitement there is genuine. We’re from the same country! We’re neighbors, we’re kin, we’re connected. We can’t see that from here, but from over there — from, say, some airport in Beijing — we’d have the perspective to view that connectedness and kinship as an indisputable and wonderful fact. We’re not strangers — we share the same continent.

We don’t yet know if any of the thousands of exoplanets we’ve discovered in recent years might be habitable for us humans, or for any other form of life. But imagine, as I hope is true, that some are. Now imagine, somehow, that you have been transported to one of those planets, in another solar system unfathomably far from our own.

Not just you, but you and, say, a taxi-driver from that Beijing airport.

They are from China. You are from America. You do not share a nationality or a language. But none of that would matter. You are both humans from earth and the sight of one another, in such a distant place, would be enough to make you both weep for joy.

Strangers? You’re the opposite of strangers. You’re us, both of you, together. Neighbors. Teammates. Comrades. Family.

None of that is any less true here and now than it would be there and then. It only seems less true due to a lack of perspective. It’s harder to see because our eyes are too close to the page.

We are finite creatures whose perception — both figurative and literal — is simply not big enough to take in the bigness of our little world, let alone the universe.

We’re not good at stepping back to see the bigger picture partly because there’s nowhere else we’re capable of stepping back to. But we’ve sometimes caught a glimpse. Like in the photo above, which was taken by Voyager 1 from 3.7 billion miles away and sent back here on Valentine’s Day, 1990. This is the photograph Carl Sagan wrote about as the Pale Blue Dot:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Zoom out. Zoom back in. Here we are, all of us, neighbors. Close enough.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

July 21, 2024

Sunday reading

Next Post

July 23, 2024 Recent reads (7.23.24)

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Darkonese Language/Culture Post #1,307 (Law/Government-53, Sexuality-63):tortura (pronounced “tohr-TOO-rah”), tortureIn Darkon, torture is a fully legal ..."

Professor Rudolf Laschenkohl

On the aesthetics of Saddam Hussein

"But an Argentina with nuclear weapons, so the Posadists can add a few more demands ..."

MarjaE2

Cycling down the widening gyre

"As the wise person said, if your plan at any point involves the phrase "if ..."

SmogMonster

Cycling down the widening gyre

"I think this is just how all those corporate training videos are. They're written and ..."

SmogMonster

Cycling down the widening gyre

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Christian denomination is known for wearing plain clothing and avoiding modern technology?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Lutherans Baptists Presbyterians Amish