“Instead of contradicting each other’s views, the task is to
supplement each other’s views in order to see the whole picture. Each of them
has key pieces to the puzzle. Paradoxically, opposition becomes a resource.”
― Barry
Johnson
_________________________________
I am going to hold my breath until I turn blue
Fine
Go ahead
Try
I am going to hold fast to my viewpoint and never let it go
Fine
Go ahead
Try
If you actually succeed, you will die
If you actually succeed, what you hold dear will die
Every inhale must become an exhale.
Every exhale must lead to an inhale.
If I am out of oxygen, I need fresh air
Inhale
But soon there is too much carbon monoxide
There is only one solution
Exhale
The carbon monoxide is cleared out
But then we are back where we started
Too little oxygen
And so it all starts over again
Our solutions are never really solutions.
Someone once said that for every complex problem
There is a simple solution
And it’s wrong
We cannot have an inhale without an exhale
And we cannot have an exhale without an inhale
We cannot have one end of a polarity
Without the other end of that polarity
Each end by itself is incomplete.
Each end needs something from the other
Needs
Something
From the other
We tend to deny this.
We believe that we can live on one end odr the other
In isolation
But all we get is staleness.
Narrowness
Incompleteness
And we end up gasping,
Failing,
And flailing
I dislike the right end of the ideological polarity
I find it seriously bereft of things I think are important
Flexibility
Welcome
Compassion
Servanthood
But oddly enough
If I look honestly at the left end of the polarity
If find it seriously bereft of things I think are important
It has its own inflexibility
And sometimes, frankly, it is vague and cloudy
It eats its own
At the end of the poles are two tight balls
That need new life breathed into them
That need
Something
From the other end of the spectrum
Jonathan Rauch talks about
Thin faith
Sharp faith
And thick faith (I prefer fat faith)
Thin faith is committed to social change
To justice and peace
But it has left too much behind
God is, perhaps, too vague
(One friend said they envision God kind of like a huge bowl
of tapioca pudding)
Values are too conditional, and this faith can be morally
derivative rather than
Morally formative
There are too few norms left; they are shattered (yes, the
norms have to be the right norms, and some deserve to be shattered)
Sharp faith is fear-based
And is used as a weapon.
It is enmeshed with nationalism, authoritarianism (at many
levels, including family)
And sees itself as the persecuted saviors of the world
The protectors of God (as if)
Thick faith embraces the important values
Jesus embraced
Love, welcome, forgiveness
Social justice
Care of the poor
It moves forward seeking to solve real problems and create
change
But it is clear about its core values
And it understands the need for some structure
some rules
And yes, some compromise
Thick faith accepts that this is about the individual
But not the individual alone (if you were to die tonight...)
But instead all people
All creatures
The entire planet
It is a faith that moves back and forth
Between the poles
As Jesus moved back and forth between
All the different groups of his time
The outcasts and the establishment
The rich and the poor
The self-righteous and the repentant
The Samaritan and the Jew, and the Roman
Touching them all
When I encounter that person
Who embraces MAGA,
Who is on the “other” end of the Christian (ideological) spectrum
Can I see past the differences?
Can I look for the things I CAN embrace
(there will be things I can’t)
Can I think deeply about what I NEED from them?
And not just about how they are “wrong”
And oh, how I wish
That instead of seeing themselves as the persecuted
righteous
They could see that my version of the faith
Has something, a lot of things, that would help them
Become the people
I hopefully believe
They want to be
But this is hard
It is difficult for Christian nationalists to understand
That God doesn’t need their protection
And that it is not necessarily just, right, or even
Christian
To rewrite secular law
To reshape the secular world
To reflect their religious, but mostly cultural, principles
It is hard for social/spiritual liberalism to move away
From its own forms of purism and perfectionism
The left has its own deadly sins
Can both sides come to understand that trying to
Dominate or destroy the other side
Will not work?
And will weaken
And not strengthen
The presence of Sacred in this world?
Inhale, take in the new, the challenging,
Hold. But not too
long
Exhale, let go of those things that do not work
In the formula of the Kingdom
Start all over again.
Everyday
Left foot, right foot, left foot,
Breathe
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