Every so often, I am reminded that the things which keep us human are not the grand abstractions we argue about, but the ordinary loyalties we live by. They are small, familiar, and often dismissed as trivial by people who believe that only political commitments matter. But I have come to believe the opposite: it is the ordinary loyalties — the ones woven into our days, our memories, our affections — that preserve our humanity when the world tries to flatten us into ideological silhouettes.
I think of the loyalties that have shaped my own life. The
University of Oklahoma, where I was bonded into a "band of brothers" and learned what it meant
to belong to something larger than myself. The Sooners on a fall Saturday, a
ritual that has outlasted presidents, movements, and every political storm of
the last half‑century. The quiet routines of home in South Lyon, the presence
of my wife, my son and daughter‑in‑law, and the dogs who remind me daily that
joy is not an argument but a companionship. These loyalties are not
distractions from the “real” world. They are the real world.
Ordinary loyalties teach proportion. They remind us that
life is not meant to be lived inside a single political tunnel. When I cheer
for OU against Texas, I am not escaping politics; I am participating in a
tradition that binds generations together. When I sit with my family at the end
of the day, I am not ignoring the world’s problems; I am honoring the people
who give my life meaning. These loyalties anchor us in the goods that do not
depend on winning an argument.
They also teach humility. Politics tempts us to believe that
our convictions are the measure of our worth. Ordinary loyalties remind us that
worth is found in fidelity — to people, to places, to memories, to the
institutions that formed us. You cannot “win” a Saturday morning routine or a
family dinner. You can only show up. And showing up, again and again, is a
moral act.
Most importantly, ordinary loyalties protect the interior
life. They give us space to be more than our positions. They allow us to
disagree without losing ourselves. They remind us that the world is full of
goods that cannot be captured by slogans or platforms. When someone demands
that politics be the highest loyalty, they are asking you to shrink your life
to the size of their cause. Ordinary loyalties resist that shrinkage. They
insist that a human being is larger than any ideology.
I have seen friendships collapse under the weight of
political absolutism. I have watched people treat disagreement as betrayal, as
if the only loyalty that matters is loyalty to their side. But I have also seen
how ordinary loyalties — shared memories, shared rituals, shared affections —
can hold people together even when their politics diverge. These loyalties do
not erase differences. They simply remind us that differences are not the whole
story.
In the end, the ordinary loyalties are what keep us human.
They tether us to the world as it actually is: messy, beautiful, full of people
we love and traditions we cherish. They remind us that life is not a
battlefield but a home. And they teach us, quietly and persistently, that the
measure of a person is not found in ideological purity but in the fidelity of a
life lived among others.
If politics demands that we abandon these loyalties, then
politics has asked too much. I will choose the broader world — the one filled
with family, faith, vocation, and the Sooners — every time.
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