A good friend posted this meme today. I saw it this morning, before I started getting ready for church. It bothered me throughout the morning and, now, it is mid-afternoon, and I’m still disturbed by it.
I started to post back something equally “in your face,” like, “So you’re saying that the President’s party wants to let no one into our country, thinks anything that law enforcement does, no matter how biased or unwarranted it may be, is okay, and wants to arm everyone of all ages and without regard to their background have guns of all types including semi-automatic and automatic rifles? I refrained, mainly because the person who passed the meme along is my friend, and I don’t want to offend her, even if what she posted offended me. I’m sure she didn’t mean to personally offend me.
But, as the day has gone on, I realize that this is the point – she DID offend me, because in a world that through her eyes is either one or the other, I’m the other, it seems. I’m registered as a Democrat, although I have not always voted along party lines. That does not make me a DemocRAT, as another one of the memes this friend has posted called the party.
I matter. Each one of us matters, but memes like these just lump us into groups at which other groups can point fingers and make disparaging remarks. We seem to have forgotten any form of empathy or consideration for the other person.
I don’t know any Democrats who are advocating for no borders and want anyone and everyone to enter our country without any scrutiny about from where they came, what they’ve done prior to coming here or why they want to come to our country. I do know Republicans and Democrats who are frustrated that Congress cannot seem to pass meaningful, effective, humane immigration laws and who are dismayed at the way we are treating people – families and children – who are seeking asylum from horrible, dangerous conditions in their own countries.
I don’t know any Democrats who hate the police; however, I do know Democrats and Republicans, myself included, who are concerned about racial profiling, insensitivity to or unawareness of mental health issues, and political agendas that some police officers have shown.
I don’t know any Democrats who are advocating for taking guns from all citizens. I do know Democrats and Republicans who are in favor of gun sense safety laws such as more effective background checks, keeping guns out of the hands of mentally ill people and banning assault weapons.
I assume that all of us are concerned with security, regardless of political party.
Advent has special meaning this year, at least for me, in helping to see some hope in the midst of the chaos and division to which we are being subjected.
Isaiah 11:1-10 – The Branch From Jesse
11 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.
My hope is that we will remember how to value each other for what we each can bring to the world – right AND left, Democrat AND Republican and others in between, saint AND sinner (because we are all both). We can’t survive in a to-the-death battle. Yes, one side wins each election, but we all have to live and work together afterwards. Advent gives us hope for a better world, one in which “the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together.”
Neither Trump nor either political party will save us. Trump is not God’s messenger; I’ll try not to think of him as the anti-Christ, mostly because I don’t believe that we are near the end of the world. These only know how to divide us, because to divide us is to control us and our votes.
We have a responsibility as humans tasked with stewarding the earth to start relying on our own common sense and common values based on our spiritual beliefs in what is good and right. The Golden Rule is universal to all major religions – from the Baha’i Faith to Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Native American spirituality and others. I personally like the Buddhist version: “One should seek for others the happiness one desires for oneself.”
I do not believe that Republicans should win every election, nor do I want Democrats to win every election. I don’t think a Democrat House and a Republican Senate are healthy; I particularly don’t think a President of one party trying to lead with both the House and Senate controlled by the other party is productive. But, it happens, and, fortunately, our Constitution anticipated the limitations of that and set up a process to keep a healthy mix. Every four years the president, vice president, one-third of the Senate, and the entire House are up for election (on-year elections). On even-numbered years when there isn’t a presidential election, one-third of the Senate and the whole House are included in the election (off-year elections).
I think the problem with this past election is that it has never ended. We’re still in a “them against us” mode, when Congress and the President should be well into a process of working together to build compromise and already coming up with solutions to big problems like immigration, climate change, crime, drugs, mass killings, terrorism and national security, fair election process, equal pay, women’s health, sexual abuse, mental health, hunger, homelessness, poverty, shrinking middle class, our dying industries, etc.
I propose that each of us as individual citizens take action, since Congress, which has everything to lose, is unlikely to do so. Write your Congressional representative TODAY and state that you will not vote for anyone currently in office and up for reelection unless she promises to vote for term limits and no lifetime pay or pension payments. Regardless of who wins this next election, we need change, and we can’t expect that as long as we let the current system continue.
Karen J. Rieley 