Tonight is debate night in America. This might be the only meeting between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris before our November elections.
I was dreading the Trump-Biden debate. And, I confess: I’m sort of dreading this one, too.
Mostly because I dread politics right now.
For me, that’s unusual. It hasn’t always been that way.
Since mid-June, I’ve stayed in a few places where there was little or no internet access. That means for more than two months, I’ve largely avoided social media and watched the news only in small doses. During my sabbatical time, I read books and poetry, wrote in my journal, walked, and spent time in meditation and prayer.
I didn’t ignore the world, but the pace in which I engaged it slowed, was more considered, and offered the opportunity for thought. The time was reflective, spiritual, and humane. I felt more connected to — and relaxed with — both nature and my neighbors.
As I’ve moved back toward a more regular schedule of work and speaking, I upped my news consumption to be better informed and to address important concerns facing Americans in this election season.
And, sadly, since doing so, I’ve felt stressed and off-balance — and caught my heart racing. I mentioned this to a friend. She suggested that I should stay away from politics.
Actually, a lot of people have been saying to stay away from politics including some readers here.
Instead of avoiding the subject, however, those feelings of dread drove me back to an older book that helped me when it was first written — Parker Palmer’s work on democracy and the heart.
The below quote caught my attention:
When all of our talk about politics is either technical or strategic, to say nothing of partisan and polarizing, we loosen or sever the human connections on which empathy, accountability, and democracy itself depend.
If we cannot talk about politics in the language of the heart — if we cannot be publicly heartbroken, for example, that the wealthiest nation on earth is unable to summon the political will to end childhood hunger at home — how can we create a politics worthy of the human spirit, one that has a chance to serve the common good?
― Parker J. Palmer, “Healing the Heart of Democracy”
Palmer reminded me why I care about faith and politics.
I’ve written about how, as a small child, the first two names I knew outside those of my own family were Jesus and John Kennedy (with due apologies to my friend, Kristin Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne — my Jesus and “John” were different!). Faith and politics have always been part of my life — with stories, aspirations, and heroes from both filling my imagination and strengthening me to live compassionately in the world.
Both made me think about my neighbors. Both compelled me to look beyond myself and my preferences toward bigger goals.. Both have taught me about equality and liberty. Both inspired me to understand freedom and human rights. Both opened my eyes to global concerns. Both pressed me to care about the poor and the causes of poverty. Both insisted that peace was better than war. Both educated me in history and tradition. And both remind me to look toward the future with hope for a better world.
Both are about right — and wrong — uses of power. Both insist on truth, even when both too often fail at it. Both can be contentious, argumentative, and self-righteous.
In many ways, faith and politics are alike in good ways and troublesome ones. Ideally, however, they are both grounded in love for others. I’ve always hoped that to be true.
At their best, religion and politics are twinned matters of the heart — directing us toward both ultimate and earthly concerns that serve a greater good.
The heart is, of course, what is forgotten on social media and in the media flood. Mostly forgotten by politicians themselves. Woefully forgotten in our churches and synagogues. Politics is presented to us, in Palmer’s words, as technical, strategic, partisan, and polarizing.
The horse race. The game. The polls. Us versus them. A culture war. Even a civil war. Keep upping the ante. Heartless, really. Cold and calculating.
Just writing that causes me to sweat.
No wonder my heart is racing with fear. That’s exactly what this soul-less sort of reporting on and practice of politics creates — panic.
There are things about which we should be concerned, worried, or even enraged. We face difficult, entangled, and complicated problems — as well as internal stresses brought about by a combination of economic failures, political cowardice, structural manipulation, and bad external actors. Many of the policies proposed will hurt people, will hurt the environment, and will hurt economic wellbeing. But fear and panic won’t help. Fear and panic do motivate us, but rarely for the good and never for the long term.
What we need are sturdy hearts and courage. Persistent, insistent love.
The opposite of love is not, as we many times or almost always think, hatred, but the fear to love, and fear to love is the fear of being free.
— Paulo Reglus Neves Freire
That’s why churches, synagogues, and congregations of all sort must talk about faith and politics. We must engage religion and democracy — because they are about compassion, empathy, neighbors, community, and the future. They occupy overlapping territory of the heart and hold forth soulful possibilities for our life together.
We can’t afford to buy into the definition of politics on social media, cable, and in the news. We can’t give into thin renderings of the political game. This isn’t Monday Night Football. And it isn’t the World Series.
“Rightly understood, politics is no game at all,” claimed Parker Palmer. “It is the ancient and honorable human endeavor of creating a community in which the weak as well as the strong can flourish, love and power can collaborate, and justice and mercy can have their day.”
Creating community. Love your neighbor. May we all know justice and mercy.
Politics? Really? Yes.
And it is also the work of faith — the work of heart.
I find myself dreaming of a debate in which the candidates outdo one another in their plans to expand a community of neighborly love.
That makes my heart beat faster in the right way.
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'We the People' must build a political life rooted in the commonwealth of compassion and creativity still found among us, becoming a civic community sufficiently united to know our own will and hold those who govern accountable to it.
— Parker J. Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy
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My only salary is provided by readers like you. I couldn’t appreciate your yearly and monthly contributions more. I’m working hard to speak truth in a world that too often trusts lies — and to inspire a more beautiful and just vision of faith.
INSPIRATION
If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow-growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it,
if we will make our seasons welcome here,
asking not too much of earth or heaven,
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
there, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides, fields and gardens
rich in the windows. The river will run
clear, as we will never know it,
and over it, birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be
green meadows, stock bells in noon shade.
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music
risen out of the ground. They will take
nothing from the ground they will not return,
whatever the grief at parting. Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its possibility.
— Wendell Berry
Let us testify to the plight
of the well-meaning at the pulpit
with its sounding board high above,
congregations raising heads and hands to the sky.
We, the people — the tourists
and townies — one nation under
this vaulted roof, exalted voices
speaking poetry out loud,
in praise and dissent.
We draw breath from brick. Ignite the fire in us.
Speak to us:
the language is hope.
— January Gill O’Neil, from “Old South Meeting House”
SOUTHERN LIGHTS IS BACK!
Join me, Brian McLaren, and special guests Robert Jones, Dante Stewart, Jacqui Lewis, and Mihee Kim-Kort on St. Simons Island, Georgia on January 17 -19, 2025.
This January, we will gather to “Reimagine Faith and the Future of Democracy.”
Regardless of who wins in November, Southern Lights is going to be three days to help us assess, get centered, and re-ground ourselves for the future. This gathering is for safe and inspiring conversations about things people are afraid to discuss in church.
Come to the live event or attend virtually. Information and registration HERE.
SOME SPECIAL DISCOUNTS:
Cottage Discount: Good until September 30, 2024. Get 15% off! Use this code – Cot25Sub – when registering. (This is the same discount as the early bird rate.)
Under 40: A 15% discount. Use this code — Under4025 — when registering.
Group Discount: If you have ten or more registered from your church or organization, you can receive a 15% discount for the entire group! Email info@southernlightsconference.com for more details.
📣PAID SUBSCRIBERS ANNOUNCEMENT
Keep an eye on your email tomorrow morning.
We may have found a brief window for Eliza Griswold to reschedule our conversation on her fantastic new book, Circle of Hope. I read it at the beach and am, frankly, haunted by it (in a good way).
IF THIS CONVERSATION HAPPENS, IT WILL BE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 at 2:00 PM EASTERN. If we manage this quick scheduling, you will get a link in the morning. If you don’t get a link, we’re still looking for another time!
And don’t worry if you can’t make it live. We always send out recordings of these conversations to paid subscribers a few hours after the live event.
Some days you have to turn off the news
and listen to the bird or truck
or the neighbor screaming out her life.
You have to close all the books and open
all the windows so that whatever swirls
inside can leave and whatever flutters
against the glass can enter. Some days
you have to unplug the phone and step
out to the porch and rock all afternoon
and allow the sun to tell you what to do.
The whole day has to lie ahead of you
like railroad tracks that drift off into gravel.
Some days you have to walk down the wooden
staircase through the evening fog to the river,
where the peach roses are closing,
sit on the grassy bank and wait for the two geese.
— Philip Terman
Thanks for your thoughtful words.
This reflects my own reluctance to listen to the news and engage in worry about the election outcomes. I was on a long (21 day) cruise to Iceland and Greenland and had very limited access to the internet. I convinced myself that not listening was not participating. As I meditated my daily practice kept coming back to the message of Love. Love for those of whom I had branded as dangerous, love for those who perpetrated wars- how do I do that? I turned to Jesus (yet again) and was reminded that it was not for me to judge, but leave that to God. However, the message was also that Jesus was a radical and participated in the world. So, I am an activist without spreading hate and belittling others, reminding all that we are all immigrants and that as we live with integrity and love we will overcome whatever happens. Thanks you so much for this reflection- It really helps!