Ponderings

During the Primary season, politics were easier in the church. In a field where it takes both hands to count the contenders, polarization wasn’t as seductive. Now we are down to two candidates that stand on either side of the infamous American wedge issues and the divide seems unbridgeable. Conversation across the divide seems improbable so we gather as groups on either side and yell at each other.

Herein lies the challenge of a faith community. To be relevant, we cannot ignore the elephant in the room. This is an election season, and a crucially important one. To be a gathered group on a particular side of the divide is tempting, but only contributes to the abyss. A gag order may appear the preferable option, especially following the IRS investigations, but our silence unwittingly indulges the divide. Neither bigger megaphones nor stronger gag orders will dissolve the wedges that are buried deep within our communal psyche.

For this healing we need to forge new paths of dialogue.

We do not find a common path by sharing only our ignorance. When we are able to share the depth of our understanding, the nuance of our perspective and receive the same from others we can begin to identify common threads. When our discourse moves beyond the sound bytes and into the heart of the issues and our passions, we find the strands that can be woven together.

The hallmarks of this discourse involve naming and claiming our particular perspectives. This requires that we dare to pay attention, get involved, develop our individual beliefs. Having named and claimed our own perspective, we can then be open to respectfully hear perspectives that differ from our own. Rooted in what we now, we can listen, discover common threads and at times find our own perspectives moving. Respect for self and other is the ground of this discourse.

This respectful discourse is the call of the faith community in a contentious time. Our space must be safe without being neutral. Each of us is encouraged to bring our questions and our yearnings into the community, our buttons and bumper stickers too. So too to bring our open minds and our open hearts to receive the questions and yearnings of others whose buttons and bumper stickers differ from our own. Sunday morning is not the neutral zone nor is it the zone for either side of the divide. Sunday morning is the time when we bring all that we are to the table, in all of the wonder of our diversity, and therein meet the presence of the living God.

So come, children of God, come with the fullness of who you are… questions and answers, blue and red. At the table together we will discover the beauty of purple.