Fellow Citizens, Where is the Love?

It’s not over until the fat lady sings, or in this case until the last vote gets counted. In a world of mail-in voting, provisional ballots, and deciphering postmarks, we have lost more than a simple election process. In the age-old marriage of Love and politics, there seems to have been a divorce. Has this election ushered in the death of truth? When can’t we trust our leaders, information sources, or each other, what else is left to anchor two juxtaposed versions of reality teetering on the brink of tipping? I offer it’s only Love, our first and last hope.

The consequences of profiling people by who and what they vote for seep out like poison, and we need to decide if that is the culture we want to feed or starve. Consider the following study in the journal Science. Half the dating population just became off-limits, friendships, neighbors…the ramifications of this kind of thinking is not without cost.

“Compared to a few decades ago, Americans today are much more opposed to dating or marrying an opposing partisan; they are also wary of living near or working for one,” according to the study published Thursday in the journal Science.

CNN Health

Love Can’t Live in Political Boxes

We can only speak in generalities when it comes to a few hundred million people, but no one in this country wants a civil war. Most of us do not support discrimination for any reason, and we share a love of freedom—the ability to decide for ourselves what is right. Never the less, we cobble together our beliefs and try to fit them into boxes stuffed with accessories we may very well reject. Next, we put each other into those boxes, too, closing the cardboard hard before people dare to push back. There can be no Love when we use politics to imprison others.

Boxes labeled racist, the baby killer, science denier, lazy youth. It’s easy to find boxes that make us feel good about our choices and put people in neat stacks, but there is a problem. We spew poison and teach it to our children, never asking ourselves, what is the cost of turning people into caricatures of humans? We tell them to share and Love their neighbor and use politics to hang ours. When we take the Love out of our approach to anything, we risk losing humanity itself. 

Love Covers Petty Politics

Most of us agree on what is right. Freedom, kindness, taking care of the weak, lifting the wounded, and supporting human flourishing. We remain deeply divided on how to do that. We look to Government with our laundry list of wants only to find it is an institution that is at its core only concerned with growing its influence. Politics cannot Love; only people can do that. 

Max Harris from Oxford College offered this spark of hope, “And political advocacy, at its best, involves the passionate expression of strongly felt sentiments and experiences. But not all emotions should necessarily be welcome in politics. Hate and fear, for example, drive exclusionary behavior. They often result in rash and unfair decision-making.”

Max Harris, Aeon.com

If we are divided, we traded our tolerance, patience, and generosity for nothing but a swinging pendulum of power that switches the wizard behind the curtain only to smack us on the side of the head when it comes back around. We have traded civility for narcissistic rage. We feed the beast so that it can feed on us. There is a shocking lack of Love in the process. 

Love Brings Freedom

We can reject it, you know. Let’s look at the people around us as more than election signs and doors to power we want closed. We can have a dialogue about alternatives to the boxes that force us into larger problems and create so many new ones in the process. We can resist the desire to paint over good qualities in a rush to discredit other attributes. The balance of power depends on people working together, the politics of Love must replace our system of hatred.

Love can bring freedom to politics by bringing understanding. People can argue about the government’s role without taking on moral stances that would make Hitler look moral. It’s time we admit there are significant problems to solve, and name-calling is not helpful.

Love Has a Face

In all the rancor of Love and politics, we need to remember ways to get along with one another! It’s hard to hate someone when you listen to them, listen to the struggles and the triumphs. Let’s return to humanity and restore balance! Let’s start Here with a short article filled with simple tips to get along with family and friends in a loving way.

Love is the verb that illuminates people’s good even when there are aspects we do not admire. Love is the hope we can carry deep inside that we can do more to help the hurting than a policy ever will: a warm meal, a soft bed, a trip to the doctor. We can do what the Government never can. We can give help a face and hope a hand to hold. There are places to meet and unity to be found.  The question is, are we willing to lay down our arrogance and pick up the humility required? 

Love can not make us agree, but agreement is not all we need right now. 

Here is a video I put out to help us find some balance in this tumultuous time. I hope you find something that helps you approach the future with Love.