Playing a round of golf on an unseasonably warm January day in Mesquite, Nevada, and later watching the movie “The Greatest Showman” might seem to be a strange way to begin some serious thinking about immigration.
But, the two greatly different recreational activities affected my thoughts greatly on a weekend when the U.S. government shut down largely over a debate about the futures of 800,000 Dreamers whose parents brought them here when they were children.
Coupled with an hour in church and the inspiration of a quiet Sunday at Zion National Park, the two disparate pursuits caused me to do some soul searching.
While golfing, we passed three laborers working to complete a home. I watched them perform back breaking tasks. It seemed as though they never stopped working.
I turned to my golf buddy and commented about how much respect I had for that incredible work ethic. The laborers were doing things I doubt I could have done even as a young man.
A few days later, I found myself leaving a movie theater surprised at how the message of “The Greatest Showman”, a musical about legendary showman P.T. Barnum, affected me.
What the movie emphasized was that while human beings may come in different shapes, colors and sizes with diverse but important talents, they all possess the same feelings, hopes and dreams.
The movie’s message was that it doesn’t matter whether we are rich or poor, white or black, tall or short, handsome or ugly, or born into wealth or into poverty.
What ultimately matters is how we treat our fellow human beings and whether we learn from our many mistakes as we age.
In between golf and the movie, I watched the debate over Dreamers and the talking heads and politicians on cable television for hours.
I tried to ask questions of strangers on Twitter about why any human should be called an “illegal alien” and whether the punishment of being deported to a country you don’t remember fits the “crime” of parents sneaking you across the border when you were very young.
The movie made me think about the many times I might have judged others who were different than I in a harsh manner.
I wish I knew the answer as to how to treat the 11 million among us who are not in the U.S. legally justly, or how we can find a way to give the 800,000 Dreamers a way to stay and contribute with the hope of some day becoming citizens.
This is what I do know.
We should treat every person we meet with respect. We should thank the people we encounter in our daily lives for their hard work and we should try to greet strangers with a smile.
That is the lesson I learned over four days of golf, watching movies and thinking about how much hate there is in my beloved country these days.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we tried kindness instead of hate, understanding instead of judgement and learned to disagree without being disagreeable?
Tom Wharton is a semi-retired Salt Lake Tribune writer with more than 50 years of experience in Utah journalism.