There are surely important things to where division becomes necessary. Hatred is not the inevitable result. It is insidious though. It creeps in within the most loving of us and creates blind spots. We would rather be right, even if we have limited understanding. In our 'rightness' we become impotent self-righteous gods willing to cast aside billions of people to damnation. Hate blinds us.
I have seen it and so have have you. It can come from an unwillingness to even fathom a different view. The liberals, Trump supporters, muslims, capitalists, rich, poor, blacks. hispanics, catholics, pro-lifers,LGBT, second amendment supporters, immigrants,pro-choicers, BLM and their supporters, religious, police, russians, americans and pretty much every group of humanity. We love to paint with a broad brush so as to categorize people into an object and less than human. All we need is a few anecdotal to support our view and we are able to run with it and scapegoat those people as the cause of all problems. How is this really different from every other form of prejudice than haunts our world? We get to comfortably sit in our seat of judgement of the world, particularly when we have a 'right' group to identify with.
Our diversity is a great strength, even our differences. When we remember that people are people are people before they are ever a part of the group. We are one humanity. At least the extremists of the world are honest enough to admit their hate, can you?
Jesus plays a holy trick on us when he tells us to pray for our enemies. There are definite evils and powers to strive against but when we pray for the person we actually know it can be difficult to hate them thus the belief in them as an enemy wanes. Can you allow yourself to get to know people you disagree. Hate is easy, it really is. Love requires a willingness to not always be right. to suffer with being misunderstood and actively work to understand the other side.
Most of humanity is not out to destroy the world. Can you believe that to be true. In Matthew 25, Jesus identifies himself with every suffering human. Our baptism calls us to see Christ in ALL persons. We fight those powers and false gods of greed, over sexualization and war/violence. We pray and try to understand and when our 'enemies' see our love it shocks their soul to change. Love is the only power that sustains change, Those who call the Lord, Lord are called to the shocking embrace of the cross.
I am not one who does this well. I love to get energy from political arguments. It is an ongoing work of the Spirit. It is ok to be wrong.
What if this unique time in history is a lesson that we don't need to make America great but rather, by God's grace, strive to make her good. And not just America but the whole world.
'But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you"- Jesus
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