October 2016

The Soul Matters themes, which are used as springboards for small group discussions and Sunday services, are set for the church year several months in advance. Now that we have come to October, a month to consider what it means to be a community of healing, I have to wonder if we should have waited at least a month more for this topic! Let’s face it: No matter the results of the upcoming November elections, healing will be needed. No matter who wins, no matter who loses, this country will be facing some tough days and nights. We will need to find the means to our way back from the social media squabbles and the self-righteous rhetoric, back from the empowerment of bigotry as if it were a valid and patriotic stance, back from the willingness that so many in our nation have to essentially throw their hands in the air and claim, “It doesn’t matter who our president is. Let’s just create havoc. Let’s just destroy it all.”

It does feel right now, with the election still a month away, that the more we seek to argue on behalf of the candidate of our choice, the more we will ensure people will become even more yoked to another candidate. It’s as if we are in a kind of “Bizzaro” universe where attempts to share our truths will instantly repel those with different viewpoints. It seems that the capacity to be curious about difference has vanished in our eagerness to be right. I wish I knew what to do with all of this, other than be, at times, cautiously hopeful and, at times, incredulously afraid for what may come.

Last month, in our services and conversations about covenant, we were asked to consider whose are we? To whom are we accountable? To whom are we bound, inextricably, for better or for worse? These questions helped remind me that, even when the world seems to be going mad, I do have responsibilities to and for my family, my friends, my neighbors, even those with whom I disagree. I am called to be faithful to my theology of creative interchange, a theology that demands that I seek to grow my appreciative understanding of people who have different worldviews than I have. I don’t have to agree with them. I don’t have to like them. I don’t have to accept everything they say and do without letting them know I have a different perspective. But I do have to speak my truth clearly and compassionately. I do have to try to understand their truth, too, to seek to get to the story behind the story, to grapple with how where each of us stands has a lot to do with how and what we see.

If you share my faith, you know that some relationships we have will not withstand these expectations and, to preserve our safety or sanity, we may have to walk away, agreeing to disagree, aware that as Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr. said during a recent anti-racism speech at our church, “Some pancakes cannot be flipped.” But the promise of creative interchange is that some can be, including our own. And that is a glorious possibility, one worth pursuing.

And so may each of us be called to live our open, curious and committed faith in the possibilities of life and relationship in these days to come. Now, this November, and each month to follow. Our healing as a nation will depend on it

See you in church!

Mark

E-mail the Rev. Mark Stringer at minister@ucdsm.org
or visit him at his Facebook page: www.facebook.com/RevMark.Stringer