Side by Side

A child has just died, slowly and in agony, and two men who could hardly be more opposed are left standing over the body. Rieux is the doctor, an unbeliever who fights the disease with his hands and expects nothing from heaven. Paneloux is a Jesuit priest who has just watched his God allow the innocent to suffer. They have every reason to turn on each other. Instead Rieux speaks the line above.

The doctor does not pretend the disagreement is small. He and the priest see the universe in contradictory ways, and neither will convince the other. But there is a sick child, and there will be more, and both men are bent over the same beds. That shared work matters more than the argument they will never settle.

We are badly out of practice at this. We sort people first by what they think, and decide that those who think wrongly are not on our side at all. Camus points to something the plague makes obvious and ordinary life lets us forget.

You can stand beside someone whose whole worldview you reject and still be, in the way that counts most, allies. The test is not whether you agree. It is whether you are facing the same suffering together.

If you have written someone off over a disagreement, look for the bed you are both standing beside. Some shared trouble, some common work. Meet them there, beyond blasphemy and prayers. It may be the only thing that matters.