I’m not suggesting a place where we are cloaked in sameness. Accept and promote diversity, but rather than focusing on what is different, look for the similarities.

The plural noun, similarities, captures the likeness and resemblance that exist, the traits and aspects that are reflected from one to another.

In a place rooted in common ground, it is easy to focus on similarities rather than that which divides.

William Shakespeare’s eternal truism regarding this was written more than four hundred years ago in “The Merchant of Venice.”

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” (Act III, scene I)