United States of America???

Scriptures to Read

Acts

7:8-15

Acts

7:54-60

Acts

19:23-29

St. Matthew

27:19-25

St. Mark

14:55-65

Genesis

37:18-24

Ephesians

4:25-32

When you read this, we will be a little more than one month from the national elections. We gave up television a little more than a year ago and so have not been watching the political ads. Perhaps you are tired of them, too. I hope you are planning to vote, but I am not planning to make this a political column.

You might have noticed the question marks in the title of this "Thought." They are there because I wonder just how united we are. There is strong evidence we are deeply divided. I had thought about calling us a fractured nation. But I think a more appropriate term is "shattered." A fracture can simply be a break or broken in two pieces or parts. But I think the challenges are far worse than that.

Some issues that shatter us are race, creed, religion, political philosophy, law vs. anarchy, pro-life vs. pro-choice, age, and we could list a whole lot more. The challenge for me is not so much that there are differences. There have always been differences and many of them are those I have already listed. But in these days it seems there is a whole lot more anger, even hatred, over the differences.

Politically, our nation is basically a two-party system. So choices are few. I may choose one and you the other. We dare to make our choices, hopefully after careful consideration and I hope prayer. Once we have chosen, we expect that one will be the winner and the other a loser. We need to prepare to live with the consequences of the election. But if hatred develops between us, we are both losers.

Our nation has been known as a "Great Melting Pot" and there is a measure of pride in that. We have come together from many places, for many reasons, over generations of our history. We have learned from each other. We have adapted to differences. We have made compromises. But in these recent days, this seems not to be so. We have not learned, we have not adapted, we have not compromised. If someone is different, we have demeaned him or her. We have expressed prejudice. That prejudice has often turned violent. And the violence is not simply expressed toward the one who is different. The violence has been savage and out of control.

People who are not involved in our differences are also attacked. There is massive property damage. That is the least troubling. People have been hurt and even killed because of out-of-control-anger (OOCA). In the cases of OOCA there is little effort put forth to help people see our position nor for us to understand theirs. There is no argument, there is just violence. Sometimes people who may agree with those expressing OOCA but are nonetheless caught up in the hatred and become victims of those they may actually agree with.

Scripture says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish..." (see Proverbs 29:18.) We have walked on the moon. We need to walk side by side. We have conquered many challenges. We need to conquer our tempers. We have controlled many problems. We need to control our tongues.

Many folks are under a lot of pressure. Scripture tells us to come apart and rest. Some sage has turned a phrase and said, "We need to come apart or we will come apart." He is saying if we do not step back, count to 10, take a deep breath, think it over carefully, we are likely to explode. Consider carefully.