During the first presidential debate of 2020, some of us might've winced for 90 minutes with sobering embarrassment, shock or even disgust.
We were seeing a mirror of the state of our country's culture. It was on global display between our 2 presidential candidates.
In the presence of a leadership vacuum, we must be the change we wish to see.
When foreign entities interfere with our election process, their intentions are not what we think they might be. In 2020 they are not intended to help Biden or Trump.
The goal goes straight to the heart of what weakens us even more than whichever leader you don't want in the White House: internal division.
In coming weeks, as a year more challenging than we have faced in our lifetime is laced with political tension more intense than we have faced perhaps since the 19th century, our core values are on the line.
For many of us, we feel those core values are tied to our vote. That may be true. Yet there is more to the story.
We at The Church Lab assert that there are shared core American core values on the line, and it'll take all of us choosing our better nature to preserve what makes our country great in this pivotal historic moment.
The Church Lab is largely impartial on many topics so as to hold the respect and room necessary to invite inclusivity and generative meetings of truly diverse minds and hearts.
Where we do take a stand is embedded in our mission: spiritual maturity builds and is built by a commitment to unity. This is not achieved by ignoring difficult conversations and differences. It is pursued by friendship pursued again and again by people with major differences.
Dialoguers don't cancel each other. Our community doesn't write each other off, even when it is tempting. We hang in there. Together. As a team.
At a time when our nation's political enemies have identified our country's greatest illness as internal division, and are effectively and strategically stoking that fire, we have a deeply consequential choice.
We can summon all the tools we have honed for years as a bridge building community, the lessons learned, the hard moments turned into redemptive ones, the tensions we have learned to love each other through while still all having a voice and a deep affection for one another.
We can be peacemakers in conversations where others have never encountered dialogue ground rules or frameworks.
We can be deep listeners, empathizers and speak with the sharp mind of someone whose patriotic heart is committed to the wholeness and well-being of this country. By our example, we can invite others into this posture, which seeks wisdom over the insistently distracting noise.
We will only be fooled if we take the poisonous pills that those who wish us harm are giving all of us Americans. This poison has and continues to tempt our fears and anxieties and confusion into a tight lens which interprets our own neighbor as our enemy.
Please, in coming weeks, call upon the quiet voice and the resilient toolbox of a person committed to peacemaking alongside standing up for what we believe in on policy. There are plenty of mutually exclusive choices in life. This is not one of them.
Peace be with you, which can and does so often surpass understanding.
Peace be with you, peacemaking be in you still, and may you share this spirit with all others in your physical and digital midst.
Peace be with you. Deep peace, on the right and on the left and the middle.
Peace be with the United States of America and our global neighbors.
Amen.