PUNCTUATING IT

There’s a story told – a short one --- about an English professor who wrote the words "A woman without her man is nothing" on the blackboard. He then directed the students to punctuate it correctly. The men wrote: "A woman, without her man, is nothing." The women wrote: "A woman: Without her, man is nothing."

It’s all a matter of perspective, is it not? Two people can read the same sentence and understand it in a different manner, often in a completely opposite manner, as the story reflects. Two people can look at the same sight and one can see something the other simply does not, and vice versa. That is normal. That is human. That is expected giving who we are as people: diverse, complex, different. Thank God for that! Life would be so dull and boring if we all thought and acted alike.

But because of our differences, because no two people are alike, there are bound to be disagreements, sometimes very serious disagreements on some very serious issues. Nations have been known to go to war over such differences. Add religious differences into the mix and there can be chaos. One does not have to be a serious student of history to know what havoc has been wreaked over the millennia because one side of an issue believed the other was totally in error and the only way to eradicate the error was to eradicate the perpetrator of the error. Think Crusades.

Fortunately that does not happen very often, even though once is still too often. What happens more frequently is a personal insistence that our way is the right way if not the only way, that we have a lock on the truth, and that those who disagree with us are in error. It is not a matter of perspective, we say; it is a matter of right vs. wrong. That attitude is often even more destructive than war because it is a war that cannot be won: there are only losers who engage is such battles.

There is a lot of debate going on in this country about a multitude of issues, some very serious issues, issues which I will not go into at the moment. But we all know what they are and we know that we are all part of the discussion. Much of the discussions and debates are being punctuated by those who punctuate the same sentence differently, by those who see the same issue from a different perspective. That is fine and that is to be expected and that is even as it should be given who we are: all sorts and conditions of people.

What also should be and must not be forgotten is the realization, by those present and discussing/arguing/debating/voting and those of us who will only hear or read about what goes on, that we are a nation were perspectives vary, where opinions are strong and where punctuation is important, yet, in spite of it all, we remain one however tenuous that oneness seems to be at the moment.

How we punctuate the point of view is not as important as realizing and living with the truth that no one has a lock on the whole truth. There is always another perspective and there indeed can be more than one way to correctly punctuate the same sentence.