Every Thanksgiving we sit down to a lovely meal, express our gratitude to God for His many blessings and proceed to fight over every little thing. Turkey v, ham, Alabama v Auburn, football v baseball, board games v video games, kids v kids with video games, who Mom likes best and then Uncle Bob ruins the whole thing by bringing up politics.

Next year, we repeat the whole thing. Why? Obviously, there’s no one at that table that agrees on anything – yet they all come together year after year. That’s unity. Family unity is a powerful thing and it doesn’t rest on agreeing with Uncle Bob when he explains how Kennedy is still alive on Mars and running the IRS. Fortunately, we don’t even have to understand what the heck he’s talking about. He’s still Uncle Bob and that time he took everyone to the zoo so you could see a leopard is far more important to you than his latest in wacky theories.

Unity is a shared membership as well as shared values. We don’t have to agree all the time on all things – we are still all members of this American experiment that’s been running nearly 250 years now. That alone unifies us but we’re far more unified than that.

See, you don’t fuss with people whose opinions you don’t care about. You fuss and fight with those who matter to you in some way. That doesn’t mean fussing and fighting is a healthy way to carry on a relationship – hint, it’s not – but it does mean that just fussing isn’t the sign that we are pulling apart. Some of the worst fussing will always be when we can’t make the people we care about see things our way.

Now, truth be told, there are better ways to disagree than hollering so loud the neighbors three blocks down can hear. There is a LOT to be said for learning how to disagree without being disagreeable. The point here is that mere disagreement – even very loud disagreement – is not the sign that we are less unified. Often, it has nothing to do with our unity.

Ever get in between two siblings fighting? They go from trying to kill each other to trying to kill you in an instant. While they are very earnest in their fight, they are even more earnest in their unity. Just because I get to yank out half my sister’s hair doesn’t mean you do – and after we’ve beaten the crap out of you, we’ll go right back to ripping out each other’s hair. Ah, family…

Americans are one very big, slightly dysfunctional and loud as all get out family. Sure, there are times when we go too far and no one speaks to each other for a month. In political terms, sometimes the bell curve starts looking a bit flat on top.

But other nation-states are ill advised to get involved in our fights.

We are a boisterous bunch. But we rarely come to serious blows. That is of no help from the outside looking in as we seem ready to kill each other most of the time these days. Heck, sometimes we scare ourselves.

Then something happens and we suddenly remember we’re all Americans.

On 9/11 hundreds of thousands of people were trapped on Manhattan after the towers fell. Bridges and subways were closed. People started desperately gathering at the shoreline, trying to find a ferry or boat – any way to get off and get home.

The Coast Guard tug responding realized immediately that there was no way the Coast Guard could handle so many. So they put out a call for any craft in the vicinity to please come and aid with the evacuation. The Coast Guard didn’t know if any boats would come. Within fifteen minutes, the harbor was full of vessels of every size and shape, all heading straight for Manhattan. Within nine hours, the island was safely evacuated.

No one asked about political affiliation or favorite baseball team. No one cared about color or size, rich or poor. People who never met before and never would again helped each other that day because they were there and they could.

That’s unity.

Unity is more about being willing to try and find common ground than actually living on that ground. To be fair, there are a lot of little things that we do share which add up and make us more unified. The US is centrist as all get out – we do share a lot of core values and civic virtues. We may not agree on party but we do agree on elections. We may not agree on all the specifics but we do agree that we are a nation of laws, not men. We may not agree on whether or not we should have done many or even any of the things we’ve done in our history, but we agree that we should do better in our future. This is our common ground.

We will always fuss and fight. Occasionally, we will really screw up. Things will change but we will still be us.

Cranky, fussy, messy and picky while also gracious, understanding, disciplined and tolerant, we are a mass of contradictions sometimes.

But we are still Americans. We still have each other’s backs even when we can’t stand each other. That’s what unity looks like. It’s not the peace and harmony, playing harps on clouds or folk songs in a commune – it’s being there for each other even when we don’t like each other anymore.

In the movie Major League, there is a tiny little scene that epitomizes America to me. The Indians have just won the playoff and everyone watching the game is celebrating. The scene cuts to a bar where the crowd is also going nuts. Two guys, jumping up and down and hugging everyone turn to each other. One is a cowboy, complete with a ten gallon hat. The other is a goth punk, complete with black leather and piercings. They stop, look at each other, then shrug and body slam into a hug, celebrating the win.

Two guys that ordinarily wouldn’t give each other the time of day celebrate together. That’s what unity really looks like – do we come together when we get right down to it? For America, the answer is yes. Cowboys and Punks can get it together. So can Reds and Blues. It’s what Americans do.

Those who seek to divide us are going to find out this coming Tuesday just how unified we really are.