Caught in the post-election net and now the latest DAPL incident at Standing Rock, I finally cut myself off Facebook yesterday. So much gone awry and my soul was being sucked dry.
How do we live together, when we are so different? And live together we must. There is no choice. This post-modern time is pluralistic, multi-ethnic, digitalistic.
I have ministered in several churches. There is always that contingent of people who maintain fond reminiscences for the church's past. A past when I was a child, when the pews were full, and Sunday school was bursting.
Now we have a contingent of people in society who want to return to the past.
But was there ever--truly--a hallowed decade? Not for women. Not for people of color. Not for the disabled. Not for certain faith traditions. Not for a gay or lesbian person. Certain white men struggled too but with the other end of the power spectrum, men who were able to see their position of privilege.
Nostalgia haloes our backward longing.
Do we really want to return to the days of Andy Griffith, Leave it to Beaver, Brady Bunch? Or perhaps further back to Gunsmoke and the Wild Wild West? What?!! And leave behind our water flushing toilets and smartphones?! Not to mention--you did notice, didn't you--the shows depicted, from a male perspective, an all-white or mostly-white world. And that was never true. There have always been people of color in North America.
To live together, as we must do, requires respect.
And . . . curiosity. We love checking out different cultural foods and we incorporate these new foods into our meals.
Why not be curious about people who are different from us? There's so much wisdom and compassion, so much about one another that we actually share in common. We all desire community, safety, an earth that can sustain us.
A new world, a new era is struggling to be born. When you feel your soul being sucked dry, take time away from the furor of the news, to renew yourself and find courage.
But also, know there will be a time to go back out among the people, make phone calls and share your wisdom. For the future will be shaped by our voices.