I read the comments and sometimes I smile, sometimes I am deeply moved, sometimes I cringe, and sometimes I am befuddled.
Perhaps we should call a momentary truce - perhaps just till the end of July? Let's try and engage each other without ever using the words "conservative" or "liberal"...and, while we are at it, how about throwing out phrases like "godless" and "fascist" and "oppressive" and so on and so forth.
What is interesting about our comments to one another is that we are a little microcosm of America - we've got conservatives and liberals and moderates; we've got some who hate Dems and others who hate Republicans. And, just like in America, we excel at arguing at each other but not so much at learning from each other and figuring out how we can make little changes in our own lives, our own neighborhoods, our own relationships and most importantly our own relationship with God. Lets see if our conversation - and perhaps even our prayers - can do that.
Anyone game?
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Kat - Yes, yes I will. Though I do hope everyone understands that one of the reasons I loved it was because it was so over the top. David
David, I saw that you changed the post, thanks for the laugh!
About the gist of your post; I agree that the way we communicate about political issues in this country is pretty brutal. Its not just conservatives and liberals going for the jugular with each other. Check out the web or talk radio when a Democrat or Republican goes against whatever the popular issue of the moment is. The words from their own are just as scathing.
A good idea, David. But the troubled will likely not give us such peace.
In my faith tradition the view is taken, through long experience, that people (termed Ranters in our internal history) who badger us with vehement but wrongful assertions and invective are to be treated with care and understanding. But integrity and kindness does not lie in silence alone. The Ranter too, for all that is wrong about his thinking, is a creature of God's. His queries do contain and pose a Divine question to us, though commonly obscured by the hideous garb in which it is clothed.
Jillian - Right on. And I'm not wanting to squash anyone, just hoping that perhaps if we can lose the "labels" maybe our conversations might produce some fruit. :-)
Odd that humans are most argumentative about the things that are the most poorly understood and cannot be readily determined.
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