Dear Friends,
My friend, Mary Zeman, shared a short piece this week from Nikita Gill. It reads:
“Everything is on fire,
but everyone I love is doing beautiful things
and trying to make life worth living,
and I know I don’t have to believe in everything,
but I believe in that.”
For sure, this week has elicited intense feelings for lots of Americans. Some are deeply disappointed and sad. Some are disappointed and angry. Some are disappointed, sad, angry and afraid. Some are worried and hopeful. Some are pleased, if not joyful. Wow. That is quite a range of emotions.
What if we decided in a conscious and intentional way NOT to judge (at least right now) how someone else is feeling? What if we listened carefully to the pregnant woman who feels less safe because of Trump? What if we imagined ourselves in the shoes of a Guatemalan farmworker who picks the fruit that comes to our grocery stores … but is at risk of being deported? What if we listened to the young men in West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wyoming who are angry and convinced that the American Dream left them behind years ago? Wherever you land with your sympathies, there is an opportunity here to practice more empathy than usual. I believe it is the way of our faith.
Here is another opportunity. Let’s get serious about redefining ‘safe space’. Safe doesn’t mean everyone should be even-keeled. It doesn’t mean that people do not get angry and say things they wish they had not. It doesn’t mean that people don’t vehemently disagree. What if safe means we practice apologizing, we offer forgiveness, we seek by whatever means to repair what is broken? That is the kind of community that Jesus outlines for us in the New Testament. I would feel safe enough in that kind of community, and that’s all any of us need – to feel safe enough.
I do love the words of Nikita Gill. In this season of turmoil and uncertainty, I am going to keep company with people who are doing beautiful things AND working hard to make life worth living. I do not care if they are left-leaning or right-leaning.
For all of us live by grace.
Carter