PEACE

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Many, many years ago, I had an online conversation about abortion with an old high school friend. She had worked with George Tiller, a well-known abortion doctor in our hometown who was murdered by an anti-abortion extremist, so this was a subject of passion for her. To her credit, she initiated the exchange; she’d seen posts I’d made about my pro-life beliefs, believed I was honest and thoughtful about those beliefs (which I took as a great compliment), and wanted a genuine discussion with “the other side”.

It was a fascinating conversation . . . mainly because of how much we found we agreed on. Yes, folks – when it came right down to it, we agreed on so much! We pondered together why each of our respective camps in this debate ended up so far in the extreme. She blamed it on that fear that giving an inch would sacrifice a mile. For example, even though she (and many of her colleagues) might personally have been okay with abortions only being allowed very early in a pregnancy, they felt they had to fight for the right to abort a child even through the last trimester . . . because the other side (my side) wouldn’t be satisfied with the compromise and would keep pushing for more restrictions.

Oh, friends. This was quite illuminating to me.

I’m so weary of the political division in our country. So weary.

More than that, I’m pessimistic about the value of the verbiage out there. I keep hearing people saying how important it is to make your voice heard! Speak up! Don’t succumb to silence! But y’all, this speaking up must be done right. So much of the speaking that is happening now just makes the extremists on each side defensively dig in their heels even more, determined that they are right and righteous and their opponents are evil or just stupid.

Here’s the thing, folks: I may be hopelessly naïve, but I am convinced that the vast majority of Americans are, deep down in their hearts, pretty centrist. We want the same basic things; we just don’t agree on how to get there.

No, we are not behaving as a nation of centrists. I think that’s because centrists are quiet and extremists are loud. Centrists listen and extremists scream. And because nobody is putting out a reasonable centrist plan for the country, we are having to choose between the two loudly screaming extremes and pray neither one gets too out of hand. I think most of us would be content with a middle of the road policy on most things – far more content than we are with the current state of the nation anyway.

I think where our energy needs to go right now is not in trying to convince the world how wrong the extremists are. Most of us know how wrong the extremists are – on both sides. I think our energy needs to go into finding a workable centrist agenda. We need to define the problems in a way we can all agree with and then find solutions that accomplish most of what we all want. Like my pro-choice friend and I realizing that if both sides were just willing to accept a middle-of-the-ground compromise, there would at least be less abortions – which is one goal that we actually all wanted.

Let’s take, for example, the immigration problem. Again, I believe the vast majority of Americans will agree that we have an immigration problem. And I believe the vast majority of Americans want the same basic things here. We want our country to be protected from people who enter with nefarious purposes. We want our country to be a safe haven for those who are unsafe in their home countries. We want new immigrants to be able to integrate into our communities easily; we want to be a blessing to them and them to be a blessing to us.

So why in the world can’t we figure out a way to make those things happen? A way that we all can agree on? A way that gets each side at least some of what they want, even if not all of it?

Then the majority of Americans might be satisfied . . . and stop hating half of their neighbors.

Unfortunately, I am not smart enough, knowledgeable enough, nor wise enough to advance that conversation much. I’m not happy about a lot of what’s happening in the current administration. I wasn’t happy about a lot of what happened in the last administration. But frankly, I fear the polarization of the nation more than I fear a set of questionable policies. Because the polarization of the nation is what leads to extreme radicals in powerful positions that can change life as we know it.

My Resurrection Station scripture this week is from Luke 24 (and John 20) – Jesus appearing to the disciples in the room they were hiding in that Sunday night. And what jumps out at me this year is that the first thing he says to them is “Peace be with you!”. In fact, John has him saying it twice.

Peace. Peace. Peace.

Jesus wants his peace to be with us. And here we all are, stirring up trouble -- intentionally.

Can we all please seek out that calm place in the middle of the storm? Can we all please be about peace?

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