Photo by Priscilla Du Preez
Nov 5 is arriving soon. It's a big day, and the days, weeks and months which follow it will be perhaps even more important as we each decide how to treat our neighbors in the wake of election results, and how to nurture -for ourselves and for others- our spiritual, mental and emotional health along the way.
I know so many of us are experiencing stress, if not outright distress, over this election season. Folks are understandably worried for many reasons and on many levels. My prayer for us is that we would remember deep in our beings that the government is very important, but not a god. For those reading this who are people of faith, there is something -Someone(s)- beyond ourselves who offers us care, strength, resilience and connection whose depths reach far past what we can manufacture for ourselves. I wish each and all of you deep Peace today and in the days ahead. I wish for our unshakeable conviction to make our voices known in our political convictions while prioritizing behavior of embodied love and dignity for all human beings whose paths we cross, even when it is difficult.
I thank you, because if you are reading this, you likely value that bridge building conversations have not been shut down everywhere. They continue in our midst. They will continue in our midst, regardless of political outcomes. Dialogue is a courageous act; I'm grateful for your courage! You are a part of that miraculous space being held for foundational love of neighbor. I thank God for you, and for our connection as peacebuilders.
I look forward to continuing our crucial conversations together, and I look forward to looking back on this time and being thankful that we were here, together.
If you'd like to read on, here are some additional personal reflections I wrote in early Oct as a reminder and re-commitment to dialogue in such a pivotal moment for our country and culture:
Matthew 22:36-40 (nrsvue)
36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
I have 2 priorities this election season.
The second one is to vote. Pretty dang important.
The first one is to focus on loving my neighbors who do not vote like me and do not think like me.
Please allow me, especially in this season, to encourage you to live in the reality of who our neighbors are, and to commit to words and actions that love them.
Here are my efforts that I hope may help yours, too:
My focus is on understanding and curiosity, and trying my best to move away from judgment. Even when I am judged.
My focus is on giving dignity to my neighbors, whether they are neighbors whose rights and protections I am concerned for, or neighbors whose votes will trouble me.
My focus is on refusing to oversimplify my American neighbors. I do not believe half of the country is stupid. I want to live in the realities of humankind being complex. I want to remember that it is not informational differences that lead us to different conclusions, but rather subcultural, paradigmatic differences. To create understanding, it doesn't mean sending articles to people. It doesn't mean yelling at people on the internet or in-person. It means entering my neighbors' world to understand their worldview and genuinely caring about it and committing to learning from it. This is much harder work than concluding 165 million people are stupid, because it is work that accepts the reality that other good, intelligent people might conclude something I cannot currently fathom concluding for myself.
It also means bringing an open mind and an open heart to conversations with folks who are different than me. Instead of assuming they need to change, I come willing to be changed myself. What can I learn from this person who is speaking to me?When that is mutual, everyone changes, learns and grows for the better. The hard part of that is, of course, losing control over one's own agenda and hopes for how others need to change; the good part is by letting go, the possibility for all of us to change in yet un-imagined ways emerges.
What I am describing is not something I do perfectly and may never do perfectly. But it is my highest priority for several reasons, including that my faith commands me to love my neighbor and this is me taking that very seriously, to think about what that means and how it needs to look in my life and then trying my best every day at doing this.
It is also important because strong communities exist due to doors that are kept open to conversation, understanding, compromise and change that occurs together. If we shut the door on one another, if we insult each other and denigrate each other, if we belittle one another, then the possibility of creating a critical mass for the kinds of communities we want and need over time is also shut down.
Some say to me that standing up for the rights of the marginalized (whether unborn babies, LGBTQ neighbors or other children of God) stands in tension with staying in relationship with those who would vote against those marginalized neighbors. That the line must be drawn. That choosing to be in relationship over being right sounds nice, but that sometimes being right is important to the basic rights of human lives.
I believe standing up for what we believe in, and protecting the vulnerable in our midst is crucial. There are ways to do this without tearing down those voting against the interests of the vulnerable. If we believe dignity is for all humans, I encourage you (and me) to not take dignity away from people even when they take it away from humans, from souls, we are trying to protect. If we believe in dignity for all, we must model giving dignity to all, and to not inadvertently make it a trading game, or a game at all. If dignity is for everyone, then the hard part is that it is for everyone.
The power of committing to love of neighbor, while seated in the realities of our neighbors different than us, is a power I've seen grow people together in ways my faith tells me only God can make possible. It is a lifetime's worth of work, but it is worthwhile for the ways it forms us and draws us together meaningfully, and for people of faith, the way it draws us to God. Seeing God's work in this way spurs me on to continue to see what happens when we take seriously the mandate to love others -meaning with our minds, our hearts, our souls- in all the best ways we can.
If you are in the trenches of trying to love neighbors that are hard to love with mind and heart and soul, and if you ever need encouragement, please just say the word. We are in this hard work together! God's Peace be with you, child of God, as we take seriously the call of peacemaker (Matthew 5:9).