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My grandfather seemed to understand the world and his place in it just fine.

Days of sweat and work. Sunsets with iced tea on the back porch. Occasional mornings spent fishing. Church on Sunday mornings, and family dinners on Sunday afternoons.

He didnt insist that people live his way, and he didnt spend much energy trying to understand why people would want to live differently. He just demanded that people not interfere with his life.

As I grew older and ventured further into the world than his farm, I learned the world was a whole lot bigger and more complex than I had thought. I encountered people who were living quite different lives from those in my little rural community, and they seemed pretty happy with those lives.

Now, I will never understand why people would want to spend their lives in a large metropolis with millions of others all around them, but city dwellers do not require my blessing upon their lives. My grandfather did not need their permission to live his way, and they did not need his.

So much of the division in our country right now seems to arise from the differences between urban and rural life.

I know were not just talking about the differences between people who like to plant crops and people who enjoy climbing the corporate ladder. There are serious issues about which we disagree.

But I sincerely think that isnt our biggest problem. People in this country have disagreed about great big things since its beginning. If we seem more divided now, our conflict has less to do with the issues and more to do with the culture war.

The country mice and the city mice arent getting along these days, and so many people doing the speaking for us on TV, on the radio and online are playing on our fears of one another for attention.

And I get it. We sell ads in the Farm Forum, too. Everyone in the media is fighting for a little bit of your attention, and nothing grabs peoples attention like fear.

But Id like us to be less afraid of each other. Most people are just living their lives and not harming anyone, whether they are coastal liberal elites or gun totin rural conservatives. If we try, we really can get along.

How do I know? Because Im a poor, rural farm boy married to a woman raised in the suburbs of New York City, and our home is a pretty happy one. Yes, the culture wars are alive and well in our house, but do you want to know the secret ingredient that makes it all work?

Its super simple. We love each other.

What if that could work for everyone? What if stick with me on this crazy idea love was a choice rather than just something that happens between people?

The Bible seems to suggest just that. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. He even calls it a commandment.

That means you either obey that commandment or disobey it. Thats a choice. And what if we truly choose to love our neighbors even the ones who want to live completely different lives from us? Would we get to call them names and make fun of them online if we truly loved them?

Or would we be forced to respect their decisions, accept their life choices, and find some way to live with them?

If the choice is between that and fearing them, then, reader, I choose love.

Stan Wise is the editor of the Farm Forum. He grew up on a farm in Mississippi.

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The Planted Row: There's a secret ingredient | News - AberdeenNews.com