For many years now I have watched the news and read people’s posts on Facebook wondering whatever happened to the ability of people to disagree on something and yet be able to have a discussion and express their views and opinions peacefully. That ability appears to have atrophied to the extent that it does not appear to exist anymore.
Several years ago I was working with a group of people to plan a fifty year reunion for my high school graduation class. There was a presidential election gearing up with many opposite opinions being expressed on Facebook, a site we were using to publicize the reunion. I watched numerous friendships harmed by the things that were said.
The reunion should have been held in 2020. However, Covid stepped in and forced the reunion to be delayed until 2022.
I was the MC for the evening of the reunion. After conveying the planning committee’s thanks to those who had come and thanking people for their help and contributions to the reunion’s success I said the following:
I have been reading more lately. I am currently reading, Josef Pieper: An Anthology. (He was a German philosopher.) He talks in part about love in its various forms including friendship. He said it is important to recognize and let the other know, “it is good that you exist”. Love, including friendship, is not just a feeling, it is an act of will. I have been friends with some of you longer than others, on Facebook and off. Some of you I have not seen for years and others I see more frequently. With some of you I agree with some things and disagree on other things. Despite this I can say to all of you: It is good that you exist.
I didn’t give much more thought to this until I received an email from one of my classmates over a year later:
Dear Greg,
You and I are far apart politically, and at opposite ends of the pole religiously. I don’t point that out to start a conversation. I just find it special that those two things can be true, and I can also feel close and comfortable with you.
I imagine you puzzling; “Close, you say? How can you say close when we’ve had 4 short conversations decades apart at reunions when we were both on our best behavior? We had entirely different friends, goals, and ambitions in high school.”
Yep. And you have a particularly appealing warmth about you when we talk. I like that.
I want to thank you for all the work you did to make the last reunion happen, and the follow up with the slide shows and records of past reunions. That was a mountain of work. Why would you do that? I ask myself. The only answer that makes sense is it was a labor of love. Thank you.
It meant a lot to me. Let me explain.
I wasn’t going to go. The politics of the day are so virulent and painful I didn’t want to be in the room with Republicans. And that includes you. I wanted to see everyone, but didn’t want to talk to anyone. It was a dilemma. I couldn’t rise above my feelings. This may be petty, or selfish, or self-centered, but it’s how I felt.
I tell you all that so I can tell you how this last reunion healed a lot of that for me. What moved in me is ineffable, but it did move.
The primary force that brought that about was you. Your efforts overcame lots of stuff I don’t want to list, and much, much more, I’m sure, because the person behind such an event never goes unpunished. I hoped to see many people who chose not to come and was grateful to see the ones who did.
And then you ended it with a very heartfelt, and mercifully short talk that sealed the deal, that took us above the fray and brought us all together. That talk erased what was left of my psychic scars, real or imagined. You blew my mind, Greg. Not that I didn’t expect it of you; I didn’t expect it at all.
I hope you and Ellen and all your kids and grandkids are well. Thanks for the memories.
What did I say that evoked such a response?
It is good that you exist.
While planning this essay I discovered the Address Of His Holiness Benedict XVI On The Occasion Of Christmas Greetings To The Roman Curia from 2011. His Holiness stated in part:
I would like to speak of one last feature, not to be overlooked, of the spirituality of World Youth Days, namely joy. Where does it come from? How is it to be explained? Certainly, there are many factors at work here. But in my view, the crucial one is this certainty, based on faith: I am wanted; I have a task in history; I am accepted, I am loved. Josef Pieper, in his book on love, has shown that man can only accept himself if he is accepted by another. He needs the other’s presence, saying to him, with more than words: it is good that you exist. Only from the You can the I come into itself. Only if it is accepted, can it accept itself. Those who are unloved cannot even love themselves. This sense of being accepted comes in the first instance from other human beings. But all human acceptance is fragile. Ultimately we need a sense of being accepted unconditionally. Only if God accepts me, and I become convinced of this, do I know definitively: it is good that I exist. It is good to be a human being. If ever man’s sense of being accepted and loved by God is lost, then there is no longer any answer to the question whether to be a human being is good at all. Doubt concerning human existence becomes more and more insurmountable. Where doubt over God becomes prevalent, then doubt over humanity follows inevitably. We see today how widely this doubt is spreading. We see it in the joylessness, in the inner sadness, that can be read on so many human faces today. Only faith gives me the conviction: it is good that I exist. It is good to be a human being, even in hard times. Faith makes one happy from deep within.
We all need to know we are loved. Primarily, we need to know that God loves us. Many people do not have a sufficient knowledge of God to realize He loves them. That puts the responsibility on our shoulders to let others know we love them. Not just those we want to love, but even those whom we would rather not have in our lives.
At the very least, we need to let others know, it is good that they exist. So before I forget,
Greg Gillen
April 29, 2025
© 2025 Greg Gillen
Email edited for privacy purposes
Josef Pieper: An Anthology/Josef Pieper/© 1989 Ignatius Press
Address Of His Holiness Benedict XVI On The Occasion Of Christmas Greetings To The Roman Curia/© Dicastero per la Comunicazione – Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Image Credit/Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash
