I was briefly tempted to re-post what I had written for last month (you can find it online), instead, I am sharing this from unfoldinglight.net:
 
Loving God is the back side of love - It has a front side.
 
Loving others - Is how you love God.
 
How you treat people - Is your worship.
 
Neighborliness is prayer - Justice is piety.
 
Same love, two sides - One does not exist without the other.
 
Love people as if they are God - And love God as you love yourself.
 
        Steve Garnaas-Holmes
        Unfolding Light
        www.unfoldinglight.net
        October 22, 2020

 I recently read what was referred to as “an old line” that a conservative is a liberal who had been mugged and a liberal is a conservative who had been arrested.  Now - I get that it’s just a “line” and that it is not (I hope) meant to be a truism.  Oddly, this was posted at the beginning of a theological article that went on to discuss different viewpoints on the Kingdom of God and how to seek and follow God’s will in our lives today.   But it did give me pause to consider these labels.

We are born into our lives with a skin color and within a socio-economic setting not of our choosing.  There are choices that we make about our lives as we grow and mature.  We choose our careers, our friends, our partner, our location of residence - we choose a multitude of things.

We choose our faith, and whether or not to follow faithfully.  We choose our political leaning and how much that should weigh in our lives.  We are not born “red” or “blue”.  We hopefully do not choose our relationships based on how people do or do not define themselves politically.  What I especially like about that “old line” that drew me into thought was the notion of any perceived “barrier” between liberal and conservative as being completely permeable.  A person can choose regularly to cross that imaginary boundary for a variety of reasons.

I know that these days are filled with divisive dichotomies - choose this or that, right or left, bad or good.  Friends, we know that many dichotomies are false or at the very least un-imaginative.  Make another path, create another option, choose a better, more inclusive answer.  Please, let us come together and pray for patience, kindness, gentleness, humility, goodness, joy and self-control.  I know I can never have too many fruits of the Spirit.  May we pray for and use these gifts to bridge the imaginary chasms of false dichotomies.  Please join me in this effort!
 
Blessings, Pastor Kristi