“Love one another.” —John 13 : 34

Two brothers shared adjoining farms and for over forty years they worked side by side, sharing equipment and helping each other out whenever needed. Then one day a rift developed. It began with a small thing but it grew into a major problem which neither could extricate himself from. Finally it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by months of angry silence.

One day the eldest brother, Pete, was out in his fields when a jeep pulled up. Out jumped a man who approached Pete carrying a carpenter’s toolbox. “I’m looking for a few days work,” he said. “Perhaps you would have a few small jobs I could do for you?”

“Well, yes I do,” said Peter. “See that creek down there, it’s the border between my brother’s farm and mine. My nasty brother keeps it big and deep to stop me from setting foot on his beloved farm. Well, I want you to take that timber over there by the barn and build me a new fence, a real tall one, so I don’t have to look over at my stinkin’  brother and his farm no more.”

The carpenter was glad to have the work, “No worries mate. I understand. Just point me to your post-hole digger and I’ll get to work.”

So the carpenter set about working. Meanwhile farmer Pete drove into town to a cattle auction. When he returned at sunset he was shocked to see what the carpenter had done.

There was no fence. Instead the carpenter had built a bridge and walking across it was Pete’s younger brother. When Pete approached his younger brother on the bridge, he was deeply moved to hear him say, “Pete after all I’ve done to you these past months I can’t believe you’d still reach out to me. You’re right. It’s time to bury the hatchet.”

The two brothers met at the middle of the bridge and embraced. They turned to see the carpenter hoist his toolbox on his shoulder. “No, wait! Stay a few days. I’ve a lot of other jobs for you,” said farmer Pete.

“I’d love to stay on,” the carpenter said, “but I have more bridges to build.”

It’s important to find ways of building bridges of understanding among those with whom we differ. Here are two things you can do to achieve better relationships, especially during this time of Thanksgiving :

1. Start by accepting the other person. You do not have to be in agreement or share the same opinions, but you can begin with what you have in common. When you accept another person and see what you have in common, you can both get down off your side of the fence and meet in the middle.
   
2. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugh at your mistakes and failures. When you laugh at yourself, other people can laugh with you at their own failures. Laughter helps us find commonality and makes our opinions feel a little bit safer and non-threatening. You build a bridge.

The key to building bridges, of course, is love for one another. But love for the other does not exist in the abstract. It makes use of little things such as a Thanksgiving dinner, acceptance of differences, a willingness to join in common pursuits, and the ability to laugh at yourself because no one is perfect.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.