My friend, nurse Kathleen Grannan (left), wrote in a beautiful Facebook post. "We can do better than just hate and anger. It’s on us to breech the divide."
Her truth is as wise and as hard as Radical Loving Care. Everyone loves white clouds puffing up a blue sky. Storm clouds demand attention.
We all love peace. Some paint it red. Some blue. White absorbs all colors.
The red/blue divide is exactly that: a divide. A tragic one that only "white" can absorb.
My trial lawyer training demanded "fighting" injustice's, storms. Three years in law school, seven as a trial lawyer, and eight as an acting judge, taught how to "win" arguments.
Outside court, I noticed that victory using lawyer's arguments generated resentment. Divinity school training years later taught me pathways to peace. My years of ministry in hospitals and to Death Row affirmed patients and prisoners as people, not numbers.
What about Aesop's 3000-year-old fable of how the sun bested the North wind? And the message 500 years later to "love our enemies"?
"Please, red and blue," Kathleen pleads, "if you can share a moment of really listening, really reaching across the divide, please do so...We owe it to our country to try."
Peace asks more than silence. It seeks Reverend King's balance of "tough-minded/tender-hearted." Unity marries listening presence with respectful response.
My peaceful-politics failures have severed some friendships. Thank you, Aesop and Kathleen...I am trying.
- Rev. Erie Chapman
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