...that the important thing now is to keep our Christian love and compassion flowing

It seems to me that the important thing now is that we keep our Christian love and compassion, and the hope it offers, flowing gently and lovingly through our families and communities.  There’s so much pain, so much fear and anger hanging over and around us, like a dark fog, keeping the light of our faith from shining through, just when it is so needed.

No matter how the recent election had turned out, one half of our nation would have been very unhappy.  Now there are protests on one end of the political spectrum and hate crimes on the other end.  Protest is the right of every citizen.  It’s what our country was born out of, but it should be  peaceful and respectful and that hasn’t always been the case.  Hate crimes are always deplorable.

 It seems to me that it should not be our role as Christians to take sides with, or to condemn, the people who are taking these actions.  While we recognize that certain actions are counter-productive and destructive, does name-calling and railing against the perpetrators do anything but feed the anger and fear and add to the darkness?

We don’t have to sit by quietly watching as our country is torn apart.  We can take NON-VIOLENT actions to protect the most vulnerable members of our society and the principles that our country was born of.  As Rev. John Dear of Pace e Bene [Peace and All Good] puts it,

“Sitting back and doing nothing does not help, nor does it reflect our discipleship to the nonviolent Jesus or our common call to be peacemakers. We have to take a deep breath, remain centered and mindful, and do what we can to help build the movements of nonviolence on behalf of the poor, the children, the earth itself.”

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