Tables or Sides

I used to naively believe that there never had to be “sides.” There never had to be choosing who to stand with because I thought we could learn to stand together. I believed in tables…I believed in conversations. I believed in being willing to hear another person’s voice, to understand another person’s life experiences. But then life taught me that some people are unwilling to come to the table and listen. Come to the table…join the conversations…there’s laughter and joy on the other side of the tears we will shed when we realize all the unnecessary losses that have occurred when we excluded people from the table.