3 Reasons We All Need Each Other

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Mission Aviation Fair at Smoketown Airport in Lancaster with some teens from our youth group. It was a blast. We climbed in and out of little planes. (Okay, they climbed in and out of planes and I took pictures.) We talked to reps from different organizations. We laughed. We acted cheesy. We learned.

It reminded me again of how much better life is when we work together. Here’s why:

1. None of us can do everything.

When I think aviation, I think pilots. And we met pilots at the fair representing at least three organizations that send them to hard-to-traverse countries in the world to help move doctors, nurses, teachers, preachers, patients and students to and from remote villages. Pilots who land on a tiny airstrip sandwiched in the mountains with a sheer drop off if you don’t stop soon enough.

But there were also representatives from organizations that service or rebuild planes, schools that train pilots and mechanics, groups that build those airfields and an organization that builds self-contained solar electric units that can arrive by plane and be set up quickly.

The pilots can’t do their jobs without all the others. They need the airstrips, the mechanics, the power, the training.

We can’t do it alone either. We need the skills, the talents, others bring to the table.

2. We all have blind spots.

That means, we need the perspective others bring to the table as well. One of the interesting discoveries from Facebook is how many of my friends hold cockamamie ideas about life. And they probably think the same about me. We all think our way, our belief, our political position, is the right one. We need others to challenge that.

At one of my first meals at college, they served jello. I took a bowl and poured milk on it and soon realized the whole table was staring at me in horror. “What?” I asked. They didn’t understand the milk. I explained to the apparently uninformed: “This is how you eat jello (and pudding and applesauce by the way).” They assured me no one but my family ate jello or pudding or applesauce that way. Who knew? I just assumed everyone did it that way because it was what I was raised with.

There are blind spots in all of our lives. The older I get, the less certain I am about anything I was once dogmatic about. I still believe in absolute truth (God’s truth), but I am willing to say I may not always get it right and I need to hear the perspective of others. And there are so many fewer areas in every realm of life where I think total agreement is necessary.

As John Wooden says:

“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

3. Together we have more fun.

Les and I try to bring teens to every mission festival we find out about. One we never want to miss is the Global Fair put on by Eastern Mennonite Missions in July. In previous years we’ve been there for hours, sampling weird foods, trying games, petting animals, making fun of one another. This year, for some reason, the teens didn’t go with us. Les and I were through the displays in half the time with much less laughter. We still had some interesting conversations, but not nearly the fun. (The fact that it was 95 degrees out may have contributed to that.)

At the aviation fest last week, we laughed. The kids made faces at each other as they climbed in planes or onto earth-moving equipment. Lunch and the van rides were filled with silliness. It was great.

Together is just better.

Who are you working with?

Who are you learning from?

Who is making you laugh?