People Who Need People

People Who Need People

It was 1964 when Barbara Streisand sang the hit song People Who Need People as part of the Broadway play Funny Girl. The first verse goes like this: “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. We're children needing other children, and yet letting a grown-up pride hide all the need inside; acting more like children than children.”

As I listened to the news last week, I heard Barbara make a public statement that if Donald Trump was elected President, she would move to Australia or Canada. Several days later I heard TV personality Sean Hannity comment that he would personally buy Barbara and her liberal friends a one way ticket out of the country. I am not sure who is more childish.

American politics has taken a turn for the worse this election year. Not only have the candidates themselves taken the lower road of personal slurs and character assassinations but the public media has jumped into the mud fight as well. Our politics has always had a perchance for the unseemly. You would think that with all the national and international issues we are facing the level of common discourse would be of a higher quality.

The reason I was reminded of Barbara’s song is that there is truth in those words that people who need people are the luckiest people. Those things that separate people are the very issues that become the foundation for prejudice, hatred, and civil discord. I saw this quote on Facebook: “The worst distance between two people is misunderstanding.” Therein lies the truth.

It is my conviction that when people who don't get their way and pick up their marbles and go home are acting like spoiled children who have no need for other people. How sad it is when adults insist on acting like children.