My Dad would tell me stories about his college experience at Texas A & M. He said there were a couple brothers well known for partying. People called them big and little “Adams”. There real last name was rather unusual, so I won’t use it here. When someone was seen drunk in public often a bystander would yell out “Hey Adams.” Quite the reputation.
Years later I was at a new college. I went to the gym to play pickup basketball and hopefully make a new friend. I got matched up on a team with a very good player. We played a few games and won them all. When we were done he came up and introduced himself as Paul and asked if I wanted to go get a beer sometime. I told him my name and said sure. Then I asked him his last name and he said “Adams”. I immediately said your dad went to Texas A & M. He replied, “How did you know that?” I explained the story to him over a beer. Come to find out big and little “Adams” were his dad’s cousins, but his dad went to A & M also.
We got to be good friends. He told me his brothers called him Bubba when he was little, so that’s what I’ve called him ever since. Bubba and I have an interesting friendship. We both love basketball, Elton John, laughing and dogs. However, there are some things on which we have not agreed like politics, religion and social issues. The interesting thing is that didn’t seem to matter and I give all the credit for that to Bubba. He has always taken me at face value. He never let the things we disagreed upon hinder our friendship. He accepted me for me.
We have talked about those issues now and then. Over the years he has had an influence on how I think. The main thing I’ve learned from him is accepting someone for who they are, even if we disagree on serious issues. We are friends because we like each other, not because we always agree.
Another thing I’ve learned is that deep inside where it counts we are mostly the same. We both have strong feelings for the important people in our lives. We both have our own insecurities and faults, the things that make us human. In his book Smile for No Good Reason, Lee Jampolski says, “Love-based approaches to the world always look for similarities through compassion rather than separating through fear.”
Another very good friend Ed, who I also don’t always agree with, sent me the song Christmas in the Trenches. It’s about a night of peace that happened between the British and Germans in World War I on Christmas Eve. There is a great line at the end, “On each end of the rifle we’re the same.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9coPzDx6tA
I am grateful I have never had to go to war. That would be awful. However, more than once I have done battle in my mind with people who believed differently than me. If I had looked for similarities instead of differences I would have found we’re the same in the ways that really matter. My life is much richer and my mind broader for having Bubba and Ed as friends and I’m grateful for that. “On each end of the rifle, we’re the same.”
May you have enough today, one moment at a time.
THIS HELPED ME 
The phrase I tell myself about those with whom I strongly disagree on matters of politics, religion, and social justice, and I believe this is true of almost all of them is “they have a good heart.” I was told by a very wise man that Libertarians (with whom I frequently don’t agree) are among the more compassionate people. This is helpful but it’s still a struggle and I find myself mentally debating them — which is VERY non-productive.
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