What color is your hair? Are you vaccinated? What country are you from? What religion are you? Do you have a lot of money or a little money? Are you conservative or a leftist? Which of our two previous presidents did you like better?…Ok, those may be questions that help us understand a little about how someone else orients to our world. But none of those questions are main event questions. They are subtext and mostly meaningless.

Main event questions:

Do you feel sad or afraid? Do you cry? Do you feel ashamed or lonely? Have you felt let down recently? When was the last time you felt immeasurable joy? What do you need right now in your life? Who can you count on? What still bothers you from your past? Do you want to live? Who makes you feel loved? Who is dear to you?

There is so much pain and suffering around us. There is so much division and strife. I am truly afraid of where we are headed with each other. I am truly afraid that we will “other” our fellow humans and begin to see those around us as less than human. When I begin to look around and see fellow homo sapiens as animals, savages, and less than human, then I am headed in the direction of embodying what I am afraid they are (animals, savages, less than human). I begin to manifest those traits myself. If I say “yes let’s lock them up, let them die, deal with them at any cost”. Then I am what I fear.

WE ARE AFRAID. We are very afraid. That is one thing that binds us all together right now. And we need each other. I need you to look at me and see my fear. I need to look at you and say “I see that you are afraid and that matters to me”. We need to be focused on the main event – our survival together as humans. And that won’t come from me convincing you that I’m right or the other way around. That will only come from banding together and uniting as alive, flesh and blood humans. We need collaboration and creativity right now more than ever as we face the challenges our cities, states, countries, and world are facing. Our planet is crying. We need to come together, regardless of the subtext, and be love and hope that our planet and its humans need.

So take The Main Event Challenge: Spend a whole day imagining what you have in common with everyone you come into contact with, rather than what’s different. And acknowledge your fear and the fears that others might have. And then do it again the next day… May you be well.