When I returned to the U.S. six summers ago after living 20 years in Bolivia, I returned to a country that was far more divided than the one my family left before. One of those divisions was between people who lived in the country’s big cities and those who made their lives in small towns and farming communities.

Landing in Lockport and Niagara County New York, landed me in a place where Trump flags still flew nearly a year after the 2016 election, where guns were fiercely defended, and where renewable energy was seen by many as a demon taking over farmland.

Into that stew of public opinion I began to offer up a different point of view, in my columns and with reposts of those columns to a local Facebook group. Reaction was often fierce, but I listened, had some of my own views challenged, and learned some valuable things about the Great American Divide.

Here are three of those lessons that I think have meaning far beyond the small corner of western New York. Because if we cannot stay woven together as a community where we are neighbors, how on Earth can we stay woven together as a country?

First, I think we need to talk a lot more about the things we love in common.

As a columnist I write a lot about the things I love in our small town – artists, businesses, places in nature, and more. Why do I do this? As a newcomer I sometimes appreciate certain things that people who have lived here for decades may take for granted. Some people get so lost in complaining that they lose sight of our community’s blessings.

The other reason I write about the things we love here – from the sight of kids on bikes in summer to the joy of picking apples in the fall – is that it is the things we love together that bind us together regardless of our politics.That is true as a country as well.

Second, we need to get a lot better at understanding people who do not see the world the way we do.

One of the oldest and wisest of all fables is about the three blind men who run into an elephant and get into an argument with one another about what it is. One grabs the tail and says it is a snake. Another grabs the leg and says it is a giant tree. The third grabs its heavy body and says it is a rock.This is also how we often see the world around us these days. We become convinced that our perspective is the only right one and that people with a different perspective are just wrong, or worse.

In my columns I have written about these differences.

To be Black in small town Lockport is a different experience than being white. Some people think that guns keep them safer, others think that guns put them more at risk. Most people fall in love with people of the opposite sex, but many love people of the same sex. In our communities and in our country we need to get away from the idea that people not like us are bad.

Finally, we have to stop treating democracy like it is a spectator sport.

I have worked in the field of citizen democracy my whole adult life and never have I seen it so close to being lost. Locally, here and around the country, we have elections in which almost no one votes. Too many of us are more than happy to complain about problems but unwilling to actually roll up our sleeves and help do something to solve them.

Nationally, we have turned our democracy into a swamp of foolishness where lies are accepted as fact (no, Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election). Instead of being informed and thoughtful and involved we have started to treat democracy as if it is a toy to play with, disassemble, and discard. If we can’t commit ourselves to making democracy work locally in our community, how are we supposed to save it for our country?

I am deeply grateful for my six years living in a small town and for the chance to write for the people here. I am deeply grateful for what I have learned living here. I am especially thankful for the people who stop me on the street, at the store, at the park, and even in bars to say hello and offer a comment, and to the people in other places who read my column in their local newspapers and send me notes.

To be a columnist in a small town is a gift and whichever small town you live in, appreciate its blessings.

Jim Shultz is founder-executive director of the Democracy Center and a columnist for the Lockport, N.Y., Union-Sun & Journal and other CNHI newspapers. Reach him at: jimshultzthewriter@gmail.com.