Who am I but a single wave among an ocean of sounding currents?
What's one more word, tweet, thought, blog post going to do today? I get the feelings of despair and anger that are echoing online. I can relate to feeling numb. I woke up feeling ashamed of my skin color today. It is something much more than just another election. It is the crashing of our religious and political systems hitting hard against the sand. What a wonderfully frightening noise it makes. And now we get to see which parts remain and which ones get washed back out to sea.
On the surface I think the sky outside my morning window reflects the mood pretty perfectly. Grey. Dull. Even introspective. We can ask ourselves where we went wrong. But then I'm of the opinion that things haven't been right for quite some time. Our system was never meant to provide us with the peace we are longing for. We have to be willing to look beyond our two parties. We must be willing to accept the other and love them as we love ourselves. One of my good friends sent this text this morning that will always stand true: "Love still trumps hate. So let's do more of that."
But I digress, this isn't me just another white, male, Christian telling you that Jesus is "still on the throne". In fact, that could be the most threatening thing for us to say right now. When you make Jesus a white man preaching prosperity and waving the red, white and blue he is reduced to an idol and tells people who is "in" and who is "out". He becomes the poster child for whatever club you belong to and his words fit whatever bias you see fit to ascribe them too. It's almost enough to just throw in the towel.
What I want to say today is that I'm sorry. I'm sorry on behalf of the parts of my family who insist on using God as an object to tear down rather than build up. I can't say that I'm not like "them" because deep down I think we all suffer from the same human condition. We all have an ego. We all have to deal with our own darkness. But love was never an exclusive club, complete with membership fees and a laminated card, rather a beautiful widening circle of inclusivity that is always calling to us to join the flow. This is the image of God I am holding on to. Or maybe a better way of saying that is this is the mystery of God that I am going to continue living my life discovering and uncovering.
So let us choose to love and be loved today. Don't try and be right today, just try and listen. Expect to be surprised by what you find in the voices you hear. Turn the tv off. Give social media a break. Write something down. Draw something. If nothing else just get out and breath the air. Bend a good friends ear today and lets learn how to move forward, better, together.