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Build Bridges, Not Barriers

This is true with faith, politics, sex…

Shefali O'Hara
3 min readAug 16, 2022
Photo by Hert Niks on Unsplash

Yesterday I had surgery. I have metastatic cancer. The surgery was to put in a port.

My sister took me to the hospital and stayed with me. She held my hand when I was scared and prayed with me at one point.

The last was a huge concession on her part. I am a Christian and praying with someone gives me great comfort. She leans atheist.

However, she met my need. She built a bridge, not a barrier.

I consider myself a traditional liberal. I have friends who differ from me quite a bit when it comes to politics. Some are more progressive than I am, others more conservative.

One of my friends is a socialist. She knows I disagree with her in many ways. But… we listen to each other. It turns out, most of the time we want the same things. We want society to take care of the poor. We don’t want our government to get us embroiled in foreign wars. We want racial equality and a clean environment.

While we may disagree sometimes on how to achieve these goals, we agree on the goals themselves. So we talk politely and we build bridges, not barriers.

I have friends who are gay, non-binary, and bi. I used to have a friend, who I lost touch with when I moved, who was very…

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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