WHAT BINDS US TOGETHER

"Love seeketh not itself to please
Nor for itself hath any care
But for another gives its ease
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

So sang a little Clod of Clay
Trodden beneath the Cattle's Feet
But a Pebble of the Brook
Warbled out these meters meet.

"Love seeketh only self to please
To bind another to its delight
Joys in another's loss of ease
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."

--William Blake

I wonder what it would feel like to live through a civil war. Would it feel a bit like these last months in the US, with political polarization intensifying? It's hard to have a conversation with someone without thinking "which side are you on?" In DC, when I meet people and am seemingly assumed (because I am young, educated and in DC) to be a Democrat, I'm thinking, "how would this person treat me if they knew?"

That's why I wanted to quote that Blake poem: it's love that binds us together. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic platform can bring about paradise. If we love each other selflessly, like the Clod of Clay, we will build a heaven in hell's despair, but if love is tainted by pride, we will build a hell in heaven's despite. We mustn't let ourself be so seduced by the vanities of this civil war that we forget the mundane reality and deep necessity of love, the source of true joy in this vale of tears.