Maybe it’s just simple physics. Maybe it’s Newton’s third law of motion, which is quoted as being “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.”

What am I talking about?

Anything anyone thinks, believes, or feels can be met with immediate disagreement, debate, or argument.

It could be something as small as “Jordan Love is a future MVP” contrasted with “Jordan Love is a bust and should be traded, something something Malik Willis.” (This is football/Green Bay Packers stuff for those not into sportsball.)

It could be something as large as “John 6 tells us that our Lord and Savior IS truly present — Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity — in the Eucharist” versus “He’s speaking metaphorically. Do you think He’s really a ‘gate’? A ‘vine’? A ‘lamb’?” and so on.

Life is easier when we find and have like-minded people who agree with what we think, believe, and feel, but advances in technology along with modern attitudes of oversharing and overexpressing mean that if someone has a thought, belief, or feeling contrary to our own, we’d better expect to have it communicated to us as soon as we’ve expressed ours.

Who is/what is to blame?

We can argue that it’s a tale as old as time (you’re welcome, 90s kids, for the earworm that’ll be in your head now).

In Luke 12, the Son tells us, “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on, a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Luke 12:51-53).

You get the idea.

As long as there is clashing between good and evil in this world — thanks to our first parents — our imperfections are always going to breed divisions.

If we’ve been divided forever (looking at you, Cain), then why is there a shared feeling among many that we are more divided “today” than ever? (And why do I feel that if I looked for them, I could find 100 or so people that don’t think we are “divided” at all?)

Professional and amateur historians like to blame a variety of things and people for the divides.

An abridged list could include “the pill,” recreational drugs, rock music, JFK, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Trump (that’s three versus three, don’t come at me), extremism on the “right,” extremism on the “left,” Communion in the hand, “Vatican II,” abortion, transgenderism, lack of respect for women’s rights, lack of respect for racial equality, lack of care for the Earth — you know the typical talking points. We’ve been a part of these discussions a time or 50.

How many of these differences are simply a matter of:

“I’m right.”

“No, I’m right.”

Uh oh. Can you both be right?

Are you both wrong? Wouldn’t that be funny?

It is a sign of strength and fortitude to stand up for what you believe in, but clearly something is wrong if everything has its own built-in disagreement ready to go.

How do we fix it?

It’s easy to say that we start the healing by finding common ground, but it’s not easy to do so in practice.

When we have people living for Heaven butting heads with people who are living for their time on the Earth, you’re going to see some conflict.

It’s not even a matter of let’s make everyone happy.

At the smallest minute level, some people are happy listening to Taylor Swift, but I am not. The Swifties and I will never come to an agreement on this, and it’ll be hard to concretely prove either side is doing anything wrong.

How about working for a common good for both country and humanity?

No, we can’t agree on that, either. Beyond the veils of “good intentions,” different people have different definitions of what “rights” look like.

I don’t have a lot of space left, so I’d better come up with something pretty soon.

Perhaps step one is to not say as much as we want to.

I know this may be in opposition to the first Spiritual Work of Mercy — “Instruct the Ignorant” — but arguing is not instructing.

Don’t make that comment on Facebook.

Don’t fly off the handle and resort to insults or name-calling.

If you disagree with someone on something, use that as a chance to — prayerfully and intellectually — come up with the best response you can to refute it or debate it.

Maybe the initial moment passed, but you’ll be ready when you are next called on to articulate your point.

Or, in other words, be sure you are right, and also, also, also . . . be prepared to be wrong. We are imperfect,  after all.

If I’m correct about any of this, that means there is someone out there, whether within this diocese or not, who will disagree with everything I have written.

Wouldn’t the existence of that person and that point of view help to prove my point, though?

Thank you for reading.

I’m praying for you.