What are we going to do?

I’ve heard this question and I’ve asked this question many times, but never with as much urgency as after November 11, 2024.

In some churches, politics are preached from the pulpit because the pastor and the congregation feel it is their Christian obligation to create a Christian society. Others feel that politics should have no place in religious services or church-related group meetings in the same way that church and state should be separate. My feelings tend toward the latter. I don’t think Christians should use the United States government to force their beliefs on the diversity that this country is built on. I recognize, accept, and even welcome the fact that being a Christian doesn’t mean you have to belong to a certain political party. Maybe deep in my heart of hearts, I know Jesus would have been a flaming liberal Democrat dedicated to equal rights and spending money on social services, but I’d never say that. Oops…

Well, good thing this isn’t a religious service or a Bible study group. This is a personal blog that I’m pretty sure only my husband and a few close friends read, so I feel pretty comfortable making that joke that isn’t really a joke. Even if the whole world was forced to read this blog, I’d still say that. I’d argue it with you respectfully, like I’ve argued politics with my Republican-leaning atheist husband and my Christian Republic brother. What I wouldn’t do, though, is tell you that you aren’t a Christian if you’re a Republican. I wouldn’t think for a single hot second that Kamala Harris was ordained by God to be the next POTUS. This post isn’t to change your political stance because you can be a member of the Green Party (wait, that is a political party here, right?) and still be a good person, a good Christian even. I'm sure you have your reasons.

Even so, on the day that awful man was elected, I felt the waters of optimism and hope dry up within me. I might not have been so easily drained if the well hadn’t already sprung a Niagara-sized leak from my priest’s upcoming retirement. My reserves were low considering the impending doom of losing a leader in my daily life that I respect, rely on, and love when a dangerous, violent, narcissist with a track record of hate and disharmony was elected by my literal neighbors to be my country’s leader.

Maybe I should take a minute to re-read my first post about the radical love of Jesus toward all men and the responsibility of all Christians to love their neighbors, ALL their neighbors...

To be clear, I am not a Democrat upset by the election of a Republican. I am not just a woman who is scared about being under the control of a man and a country that so obviously doesn't value or recognize the equality of women – although that’s true. I am not even just a Christian who is upset by the election of a man I consider to be the opposite of Jesus – although I am that. I am above all other labels, a human who values human life and is therefore equal parts angry and scared that so many human lives will be abused, neglected, and in some cases completely wiped out, by Donald Trump and some of those who elected him.

On election night, I was texting with my friend as the votes were coming in. We were seeing red about seeing so much red on the electoral college maps. Couldn’t the Christians see this man is not a Christian? Couldn’t the women see this man would take away their rights, maybe even their lives? Couldn’t the men see this man is dangerous for his daughters? Couldn’t the Latinos see that this man would deport their family members who hadn’t been born here? Couldn’t the veterans see that this man is not a patriot and doesn’t give a flip about democracy when it undermines his power? After casting my vote, all I could possibly do was seek solace from a friend.

When it became clear on that Tuesday night that all my worst fears were coming true, I went to bed. It was the only thing I could possibly do at 1am. When I woke up the next morning, the Googling started. It was the only thing I could possibly do at 6am. Over the next day and a half, all I could do was insulate myself from Trump supporters and beat myself up over the complete lack of action I took during the campaign. I should have gone to the letter writing events and phone banks and door-to-door canvassing that I considered going to with the Carteret County Democrats. I cursed myself for letting my past experiences of witnessing door-to-door as a teenager and frankly, the fear of physical harm from some riled up Republican keep me from campaigning. I let my distaste for the way Evangelical Christians and MAGA groups yell their big loud opinions to keep me from sharing mine in any way.

I was not going to let anything stop me after the election the way I had before it. I was going to fix this. I was going to DO something.

But first, I had to go to a weekend retreat I had signed up for months ago called Cursillo. My friend Aimee had gone last year, had her life changed, and invited me this year. I wasn’t really looking forward to getting my life changed for reasons I’ll cover in another post, but I was happy to pack up and go to an event center tucked between live oaks on the banks of the sound with what I expected to be a bunch of liberally minded Episcopalians just like me. I wanted to use the weekend to work on being more prayerful and less action-oriented. This was something I had been feeling guilty about because I thought it meant that I wanted to rely more on myself and my abilities than on giving everything up to God in prayer like a good Christian should.

Mostly, I was looking forward to 3 days off from thinking about the election results, the future of the country, and my stupid neighbors.

The weekend was not at all what I was expecting, but as often happens Mother God gave me exactly what I needed. I found myself assigned to a discussion table filled with other Christians who were just as angry and scared about the election results as myself and just as willing to talk about it. Our table facilitator led us into the chapel for our first discussion, something he said he’d never felt called to do before, but seemed was planned by the universe herself. In that tiny and sacred space, five strangers took off their masks.

A teacher was upset because a 9-year-old black student had been subjected to racist remarks by a white student concerning Trump’s election. A woman was distraught that her political differences would cause a permanent rift in her family. A man was worried about what this would mean for his and his husband’s future in the rural place they currently live. I shared that I had my fallopian tubes removed the month before the election because I didn’t want to chance getting pregnant when I couldn’t be sure I’d get the medical care I would need if my blood clotting disorder made the pregnancy fatally complicated.

I spent the weekend having my well refilled cup by cup with every act of kindness I was shown, with every talk that was given, with every song we sang, with every eucharist and morning prayer and compline. By Sunday afternoon, I was vibrating on a cellular level with potential energy. Instead of thinking there was something wrong with me for not responding to life’s every slap to the face with a prayer to be able to turn the other cheek, I felt the peace of knowing that God had made me just the way I am on purpose. My action is my prayer. My heart for service is how I worship. Jesus has no hands or feet on this earth but mine.

I had big plans for big actions.

Then the retreat was over. I was shoved out of that safe and comfortable enclosure into a cold and messy world. How many times, O Lord, must I be reborn?

I met Amanda at my Cursillo weekend and came to look up to her. She was a triathlete for Pete's sake, what's not to fawn over? I was also impressed with her talk and all the ways she volunteered both in the church and the community. I walked right up to her and asked for a map to get where she was. Her initial response was that it was hard work that she didn't always want to do, sometimes she'd rather be in PJs watching Netflix instead of taking someone to rehab. She told me that one important thing was to be mindful of what you could do. She didn't have a partner, kids, or a dog so she had more time than others. That part kind of went in one ear and out the other at first. I've seen how sometimes I get weary in well doing with just the few things I already do, that's no surprise. And I don't have kids either, so I should have time for all the things too.

Later, she approached me again and said she'd been thinking more about my question. Her next piece of advice was the one I grasped onto with both hands. She told me that she asks God every morning before she gets out of bed to show her how he can use her that day. So that's what I did. On Monday morning, I lay in bed and asked God to show me ways I could be of service that day. Ask and ye shall receive. Before 9am, my boss had already told me about a concerning issue in the county school system and I had begun sending emails to see how I could help.

The action as prayer was off to a great start on Monday morning.

Then Tuesday came.

On Tuesday, I met with my book club at church. The Book Bunch, as we call ourselves, is a book club, but also a group who lives life together through support, prayer, and volunteering. We have several retired teachers and librarians so I immediately got to work telling them about the cancelation of the Battle of the Books in the elementary schools over parents' concerns about the book list. In my opinion, this is the first step to banning and then burning books and I wanted them to be just as upset and called to action as I was. They were upset and we did discuss actionable steps for a while, but then Debbie spoke up about her week since we'd last met which happened to have been the week since the election.

Debbie began to talk about how she was trying to recover that week. About the space she had taken for herself, the grief she was allowing herself to feel, the things she was doing to mitigate that grief. She told a beautiful story about watching butterflies feast on the last two remaining zinnias in her garden.

And then I opened my big mouth after her opening her soul up to us and said something supremely stupid and supremely rude like, "Yes, I see what you mean about recognizing the grief and finding peace for yourself, but what I really want to do is to take some action to fix some of this shit that is causing the grief and ruining my peace!"

Debbie, a kind woman with the best earrings and a heart for pastoral care like you've never seen, didn't flounder in her response. She stood firm in her point without negating mine. She very calmly, with sure conviction, reiterated the importance of time alone, space from conflict, of watching a lizard weave around her suncatchers. Not in these words, but with her heart speaking wisdom into mine, her previous words and actions backing her up, Debbie told me that day, "I love your energy girl, you are a blessing to me, but you have to slow down. Go through the stages of grief. Go to your garden. Take off your shoes and wiggle your toes in the dirt. Plant your feet firmly before you start trying to take steps."

God, thank you for Debbie.

Tuesdays are busy days for me. I sit at the same big table at noon and again at 6pm, discussing the assigned readings with two different groups of (mostly) women. Same table, different meat to chew on. Says the vegan... but same table, different tofu to chew on just doesn't work metaphorically.

The later meeting is EfM. I find it difficult to explain so here's the official description.

"Education for Ministry, or EfM, is a program of theological education-at-a-distance of the School of Theology of the University of the South. Participants enroll one year at a time for this four-year program. It covers the basics of a theological education in the Old and New Testaments, church history, liturgy, and theology - with a strong emphasis on theological reflection."

-From the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina's website

I'll talk more about the substance of this class and its effect on me in later posts, especially when I talk about my beliefs concerning the Bible. Admittedly this past Tuesday, there wasn't a whole lot of substantive discussion about the readings themselves, despite Father John's best attempts to keep us on track and away from politics which we had been told at the beginning of the class weren't supposed to be discussed. When Year 3 students began telling us what they had learned about the division in the early church and of powerful political groups using this new religion to dominate and control other groups it went completely off the rails. Have we learned nothing in the past two thousand years? How many times, O Lord, must your people be reborn?

In the middle of the discussion about how certain groups were using the excuse of Christianity to do unspeakable things today, just as they had all those centuries ago, Kathy N. spoke up. To our collective question of "What are we going to do?" now that Trump is president, now that hate has permission to come out of the shadows, now that Christianity has been hijacked by the far right, Kathy answered, "We start with what we have in common. We have to realize that those Christians follow the same God as we do, that they read the same Bible we do."

Kathy is an excellent cook, a voracious reader, a vocal Democrat who littered her yard with political signs including a very popular with us Honk for Harris, but still finds it in her heart to help us down from our high horse named Righteous Anger to a place of commonality, to a place of love.

To a place none of us were ready to be in. Their God isn't our God, we declared. We don't have at thing in common with those people, we insisted.

Thank God for Kathy. "But we do," she said, "We all believe in the Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit. And they may be on a different side of the issues, but can you really tell me that you don't see the acts of service that churches of all denominations do? Think about the Baptist church's response to hurricane victims. It may not be much, but we have to start on common ground or we won't get anywhere with them."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for that bit of radical love of Jesus, Kathy. But still, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?

We went around and around about this issue. It's so hard for a group like ours to wrestle with what's going on in the world because we aren't sure how to tease apart politics and religion, especially when most of us support the separation of church and state. Politics have become about religion in a very dangerous way, but is the answer to use our version of the same religion to push back or do we have to perform two separate types of tasks? Is the answer to split ourselves in two, to try to incorporate in the same body's lived experience a political activist against hate and violence and for freedom for all with a radical lover of both the perpetrator and the victim? Isn't it our very belief in the teachings of Jesus that makes the current sociopolitical state so abhorrent to us? Isn't that exactly what the conservative Christians say too, probably word for word?

Two days off the mountaintop that was Cursillo and already my cells were back to vibrating with anger and confusion.

How do I honor my own feelings and those of others while recognizing the need for action? How can I love my neighbor, ALL my neighbors, when some of them are hateful jerks bent on burning the world down? How do I evangelize the good news of Christianity, that Jesus loves us and gave us permission to be one family, without turning into a mirror image of Evangelical Christians?

I'm an Enneagram 8 Virgo so uncertainty is NOT in my comfort zone. There has to be a way to function with certainty inside of this giant question without an answer that is today's America. I've been writing down things people have said to me over the past few weeks, highlighting passages in the books I'm reading both for groups and not, and spending more time in quiet and contemplation than usual trying to figure out not only what to do but also how to do it well and how to stay well while doing it.

Here's what I've come up with.

STEP ONE: Go to your Gethsemane.

A new friend that I met through Cursillo, Kathy C. (not to be confused with Kathy N. from above) sent me Gary Thomas's book Sacred Pathways to help me understand that I didn't have to feel guilty about my preference for action over quiet prayer. In this book, Thomas outlines 9 ways to connect with God which he calls spiritual temperaments. Healthy, strong Christians will use most, if not all 9, but we all have a predisposition toward one or the other. To help us identify and use our spiritual temperaments, Thomas asks us to think about our Gethsemane. Jesus frequently when to the garden of Gethsemane to pray, most notably the night that he was betrayed by Judas, and to gather strength for actions he knew he must take.

"When you need to hear from God, when you need to be strengthened by God, when you need to receive your marching orders from God, where do you go?" - pg 24

For Debbie, it is clear that her Gethsemane is indeed a garden, her own magical cottage garden. That's where she went when she needed peace for where she was and fortitude to move forward.

Her Gethsemane sounds a little bit like hell to me. When the sky is falling, I want to be running around forming groups and gathering materials to build a shelter. My natural first reaction is not to take time and space to see the beauty of nature like Debbie does. That's why my reaction to her story was so strong, I did not understand it at first. And then when I did understand it the second time she spoke, I felt a little bit guilty, like I was less of a Christian for trying to jump in the deep end without taking a breath first.

Kathy C.'s gift of this book came at just the right time. It kept me from spiraling down a rabbit hole of alternately being flabbergasted by how some people were reacting to the election and feeling guilty about how I was.

"Expecting all Christians to have a certain type of quiet time can wreak havoc in a church or small group. Excited about meaningful (to us) approaches to the Christian life, we sometimes assume that if others do not experience the same thing, something must be wrong with their faith. Please don't be intimidated by others' expectations. God wants to know the real you, not a caricature of what somebody else wants you to be. He created you with a certain personality and a certain spiritual temperament. God wants your worship, according to the way he made you." - pg 7

 Thank God for Kathy C. and the book she sent me. I am free to be myself and to let others be themselves.

Step one is going to look different for everyone and that's perfect. We need to go to our own Gethsemane. We need to get closer to God and gather strength any way we can, according to our spiritual temperaments and the point we are at in our lives.

My way of gathering strength was talking to other people so I knew I wasn't alone even though the majority of the country seems to have a different political view and discussing what could be done for those that will be most affected by the upcoming social and political shifts. Thomas would say that I was displaying the spiritual temperament of an Activist, loving God through confrontation. I felt closer to God with every conversation I had that gave me a new perspective or confirmed my deepest beliefs. I felt closer to God making plans to show Her love to others.

But what others? The whole damn world needs help. The far right needs to calm down and stop being so afraid of a man in a dress. The far left needs to calm down and realize that not every Christian and not every Republican carry around pitchforks and torches. People are starving on every continent even though we are burning down the rainforest at alarming rates to produce more and more food. The public school system is in shambles and no one can buy a house in any school district anymore. Women's rights are being threatened. Queer rights are being threatened. Fast fashion is killing the planet and subjecting children to horrifying work conditions. Social media is making people feel bad about themselves or display greed or straight-up lie or, in way too many instances, causing young people to die by suicide. The price of gas and the price of groceries and the healthcare system and the potholes in the roads and the airline industry and people will still not just let Taylor Swift live her life!

Need to go back to your Gethsemane already? Yeah, me too.

Two days ago, my book club was discussing the readings on peace from the Living Well Through Advent booklet we are reading. The major theme was that true peace isn't the absence of conflict. One woman felt especially troubled by this. Was her agreement with her sister to not discuss politics in order to save their relationship a false kind of peace? The group didn't think so. One woman offered some advice she had heard recently, that it isn't worth destroying your relationships with people you know to help a stranger who will never know what you sacrificed for them. Now that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't help that stranger, it doesn't mean you have to cause conflict with your sister just because you know she's wrong. I think the best way to look at this is to think about the Cosmic Bottom Line- you have to act in such a way as to add value to the world by helping certain people without subtracting value by hurting others in the process. That leads me to step two.

STEP TWO: Identify your groups

At Cursillo, as we were discussing the state of the world, one of our table facilitators asked me, "Are you part of any of these groups, Page?" And that question blew my mind and settled something in my heart at the same time.

Identifying your groups can help you narrow down how to respond AND gain support, encouragement, and resources to carry out that response.

Remember, you have to recognize what you can do with the time and resources you have. The first part of Amanda's advice was so necessary and important, even if I didn't see it right away. You may or may not have a partner or kids or a dog, but everyone is a part of more than one group already that cannot be ignored in order to be a social activist warrior person (unless you are feeling called to give up your life to do so, that's a different story).

First, we must identify our groups, starting from the most immediate and expanding until we recognize our place in the group that is the universe. Let's define a group as the top Google result does, "a number of people or things that are located close together or are considered or classed together".

By that definition, you yourself are a group. Think about it. The thing that you consider yourself is really a number of things: your neurological system, your cardiovascular system, your skin and hair and nails, your gut microbiome -- and that's only the physical stuff. Yourself is also your hopes and dreams and goals and fears and anxieties and preferences and strengths and weaknesses and astrological sign if you believe in that sort of thing or your Myers-Briggs type if you'd prefer.

Your group is also how you identify and what you find most important: I'm a cis white woman, a bisexual person in a straight relationship, a person who values education, and a Christian who believes in celebrating diversity of thought, culture, and orientation. This will help me to narrow down my response in later steps. For instance, while I do recognize the need for action to save our planet, I know that isn't my most immediate group. If I want to defend the rights of the groups I am part of - women's rights and LGBTQ+ rights and education and true American freedom for all - I can't be spending all my time picketing environmentally dangerous hog farms or cleaning up polluted waterways. And since I am a white woman, I may not be the best person to try to lead a revolution on the rights of black people or Latino immigrants (although I will try to help how I can as I discuss in step 6).

Thinking of "you" as your most immediate group shows that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of any thing else. Put your oxygen mask on first. About a week after the election, my friend asked if I had been on any more runs. I had asked her to be my accountability partner in doing the Couch to 5K program, so I had to admit to her that the only running I had done was running myself ragged trying to figure out how to save the world from Donald Trump. Answering that question had me looking at all my actions that week. I realized I had eaten out or eaten quick, crappy food instead of cooking the healthy meals that I like to make at home. I hadn't been sleeping as much or as well, staying up to doom scroll and running scenarios through my mind even once I put my phone down until the wee hours of the morning. I don't think I got out of the ratty clothes I wear around the house even to go to work or meetings and please don't ask me how many times I showered or even washed my face.

I had let the group of Page down completely. I didn't put my oxygen mask on and I got to the point where it felt like I couldn't breathe. I ran out of steam pretty quickly and the feelings of hopelessness and despair started to creep in, no matter how hard I worked. In the next week, I got back into a better routine by working out daily, eating better, prioritizing sleep, and showering more days than not. Spending more time on myself helped me feel more energized and capable of helping others.

Taking one step out, your next group is your home: the people and animals and objects that you live with and have been tasked with caring for. How much time had I spent with my husband during that miserable week? I know I didn't walk my dog more than once. The laundry and the toilets and that empty pizza box that's been in the fridge for 3 weeks, forget about it. I had let the group of home down pretty spectacularly. I've been working on that too. In fact, I'm doing laundry as I write this, so there! I also include my close, personal friends in this group. I may not live with my BFFs, but they are still home to me. I don't want to ever get to a place where I don't have time to talk to them on the phone (sorry, Kat) or go visit when they need me. For some, children and extended family may fit here on the list as well. We have to hold this group up and hold it together before we can offer help to someone else's household.

Next is the group of your job. That's the time you have to give to your employer, the tasks you have to complete, the coworkers you have to show love to no matter how loudly they pound on their keyboard when a light touch would work just as well and wouldn't drive you to the point of table-flipping rage. You have to prioritize your paid work not only because that is what funds the rest of your life's work, but because your coworkers and your customers depend on you. If you are making life harder for those who depend on you at work to try to make life better for a stranger, you aren't making the cosmic bottom line any better.

Your church, if you go to one, should be next on the list. Like with your paid work, the people on committees with you and the people who depend on the work of those committees depend on you showing up and being present with them. Continue to make time to weed the church's flower beds or bake the communion bread or put together gift bags for first time visitors. Continue to show up to your church sponsored book club or prayer shawl ministry or Sunday school class even if you haven't done the readings or feel like knitting - you can still show up for your friends in that group, show up to listen to them. Let each other know you are not alone.

And finally, consider what other groups you are part of in your community. Do you volunteer at a food bank or celebrate Wine Wednesday with a group of women in your neighborhood or go line dancing on Thursdays? Keep doing that if it feeds your soul, if it helps you help the cosmic bottom line.

A major part in identifying your groups is recognizing which current obligations you might want or need to give up to pursue other callings. If you feel that the time you usually dedicate to crocheting a prayer shawl or doing the cha-cha slide at the beach club would be better used in writing a letter to your local government officials, maybe you need to take this season off. Tell your book club that you are going to skip out on this book, but you'll be back for the next one and if anyone from that group needs you, they can call you. There is nothing wrong with that. You have to recognize what you can do with the time and resources you have.

STEP THREE: Start working on your new cause by talking to your people

Now that you've identified your groups, you have a better understanding of where to focus your time, energy, and money. You have identified the cause or causes that you are best suited to help. For me, that is women's rights, queer rights, education, and championing diversity in the Christian faith. I feel pretty comfortable with 4 causes since I don't have kids, have a flexible job, and therefore have a bit more free time than parents or people who have more demanding jobs. If your plate is already full, maybe you have to completely skip this step altogether. That's so beyond fine it's perfect. Remember, any new cause or action you take up can't come at the expense of your other responsibilities, otherwise the cosmic bottom line isn't any better off.

In my opinion, the next step after you've identified the cause you want to champion is to go be with your people. Talking to the people you know who are like-minded or who feel the same calling as you do can help you gather ideas, resources, and emotional support for this new cause. For instance, I went to my book club after I found out about the elementary reading program being shut down. I knew reading was important to those women and that they would be just as motivated to do something about this as I was. Kathy N. stepped in and started writing letters to the editor in response to the initial article I read about the topic (education). I went to my friends to talk about how I could better understand or help women with unwanted or unexpected pregnancies (women's rights) and the families who had been stressed by differing religious views (diversity in the Christian faith).

If the current groups you are part of don't answer your current calling, you are going to have to find a new group. This isn't comfortable. This isn't easy. Sometimes it isn't cheap. Anne Lamont gives us some advice for this in her newest book Somehow.

"How to find a beloved community? You just have to want to. Then you wander shyly into some group or other that has caught your eye, that you've heard or read about - the local birders, parents with special-needs children, the marijuana addicts. You show up, you step inside. Maybe like me you feel like a walking personality disorder but manage to say hello. A lot of things start with hello. Maybe someone offers you a glass of water. You say, "Thank you." You drink it, and then you look back at them and you say, "Could you tell me a little about what all of you are up to here?""

If the groups you want to be part of don't exist in your community, you are going to have to start one. Again, this will not be comfortable or easy. It will take more time, energy, and money than you might want to give, but don't let that stop you if you feel called to do it. For me, that's a support group of some kind for people who have been othered by mainstream Christianity and mainstream culture. I want to provide a safe place where LGBTQ+ youth know they are loved, even if their parents or their classmates or their government makes them feel otherwise. That doesn't exist in my community yet. I feel a burden to provide that place. And I will. I've already spoken to my pastor about it and to people I've met at Cursillo who have contacts who can help me. I don't know how to start this group, what it will look like, when we will meet, what we will do. I don't know anything about the how. All I know is that I feel the calling and that I know people who know people who can help me figure it out. I'm scared and I'm anxious and I'm clueless, but I'm determined and that has to count for something.

STEP FOUR: Love the "not your people" people

We've worked out how we are going to add value to the cosmic bottom line by helping those in our groups so now we have to figure out how to deal with the people who aren't in our groups. You have to make a series of decisions about how to love the people who look and vote and love and talk differently than you do.

If that person's differences do not allow them to treat you well or even put you in danger, then the decision for right now has to be to love them from afar. Pray for them, pray for your relationship, send them cards on their birthdays or holidays but don't call or go visit. Or cut them off completely if the situation warrants it. Shutting people out doesn't have to be for everyone who doesn't agree with you and it doesn't have to be forever, but that doesn't mean it isn't sometimes necessary.

Maybe you are like the woman in my book club who doesn't talk politics at all with her sister, and that's ok too. For people you either can't or don't want to cut off, your spouse or your coworker or the person sitting next to you on a plane, it is ok to love them around their world views if they can do the same to you. Love your spouse for the way they put up with your family and how they load the dishwasher if you can't love the way they marked their ballot. Love your coworker for how they treat your customers. Love the person on the plane by ignoring the Trump pin on their carry-on bag and asking what is bringing them to your shared destination. After all, isn't the very definition of life a million different people taking a million different journeys to the same destination? Airplanes can be good practice for the real world.

If you feel that you can remain safe and loved, if you can find sufficient common ground to start from, feel free to start or allow them to start a conversation about your differences. Be warned, you aren't going to change their mind. Be warned, you need to actually listen instead of just waiting for your turn to talk. If nothing else, having that conversation can help you see the Great Other as truly human and hopefully it will do the same for them (but don't be surprised or offended if it doesn't, we can only worry about ourselves at the end of the day). I find myself getting mad at Far Right Conservative Christians (FRCC for short) for not seeing the humanity in gay people or immigrants or people of color, only to realize that by grouping them together as FRCC I am myself failing to see them as human.

Deciding how to love those we disagree with likely cannot be made on our own. We need to talk to those we agree with who might be a little wiser than us and ask for their advice. We may even need to go to individual, couples, or family therapy to develop the tools to get along despite these big divides.

STEP FIVE: Take local action

You've gone to your Gethsemane and gathered strength, you've identified your groups, you've determined how much time and energy you have to give, you've put thought into how to love the other. Great! Does that mean you are going to have it all figured out right away? No! But what it does mean is that you've finally accepted that you can't fix everything, but you can do something. It means that you can't let the enormity of the world's problems make you feel like you can't do that something right now, right where you are with what you have, even without a grand plan or all the answers.

You can take spontaneous action in your everyday life. Maybe you don't know exactly what to do about your MAGA brother-in-law, but you can smile at the scowling man in the MAGA hat in the grocery store just as brightly as you would smile at the queer person of color with a fabulous fedora on. That's my personal example, but maybe it's reversed for you. Maybe the transwoman is the one you find it difficult to smile at. Mother Teresa said peace begins with a smile. If it doesn't bring peace to them, it can bring peace to you knowing you aren't deducting from that cosmic bottom line.

You can take more planned action in your church or community based on what you learned in steps 2 and 3. If you have the calling and the time or the money, volunteer at a local charity or bring canned goods to a local food bank. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Put a sign in your front yard that reminds people on both sides to love the people on the other. Put a bumper sticker on your car that supports a group you think might not find a lot of support in your area. You never know - a person struggling with how their sexuality intersects with their faith may see your LGBTQ+ Christian is NOT an Oxymoron bumper sticker at exactly the right time. Call a shut in from your church and ask when you can come visit them and what they'd like to eat when you come. Walk some dogs at the humane society. Take a garbage bag to the beach or the park or the stream that runs beside your house and pick up garbage. Go to that group whose mission is combating Christian Nationalism that you were interested in but too scared to go to before because you didn't know anyone. Start that group that you know is needed but not yet formed in your community.

Do what you can where you are with what you have -- without excuses.

STEP SIX: Take national and/or international action

How can smiling at a stranger or refusing to fight with your mom about politics help all the hardworking people trying to make a better life for themselves and their children from getting deported? How can taking some canned vegetables to a food bank save a women from dying because she can't get adequate medical care when her pregnancy turns fatal? It can't.

How can focusing on the groups that you are a part of and can contribute to stop you from losing sleep worrying about all the suffering in the groups you aren't a part of? It can't.

It can't, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do those small things or spend most of your resources on your groups. It can't, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't care about the big things or spend at least some of your resources on the other suffering groups.

You have to take local action, but you also have to take national or international action. It has to be both. It does not have to be both to the same degree.

This week, I sent a letter to my local government expressing concern about mass deportation. That cost me nothing but about 5 minutes of my time because the template was already online. In the past month, I've donated $20 each to 6 different national and international organizations that can affect change on a greater scale than I can. In the future, I hope to have an article published in a national publication that will reach way more readers than this silly little blog.

Donate a small portion of your time, prayers, money, or other resources to organizations that can turn that small act into a big deal.

STEP SEVEN: Do not be weary in well-doing

For a while when I was so hurt and disillusioned by the Christian church, I dabbled in Buddhism. I'm still dabbling in secular Buddhism because it helps me to understand Christian concepts in a way the Bible and the church weren't able to (shoutout to Paul Knitter and his book, Without Buddha I could not be a Christian).

Buddhists have this concept that I really identified with where you can strive toward something, but you have to be ok with any outcome. That's how you can achieve some come-what-may peace without just sitting down on your couch and letting life pass you by. During the Cursillo weekend, I heard this concept phrased in a more directly Christian way, work like every depends on you and pray like everything depends on God.

Buddhists believe in multiple lives. That helps them to not get too devastated when they cannot solve every problem within the span of a human life. There is always the next one. The universe is getting closer to Nirvana with every cycle. As Christians, we have this same concept. We say, not in our time, but in God's time. We have to trust that things are bad now but they are getting better and in the end it will be good for everyone.

When things feel impossible and overwhelming and permanent, go back to your Gethsemane. When you've done all that you can do and your candidate didn't get elected or your dad stopped calling because he couldn't support your sexuality or no one came to that group you tried to start, go back to your Gethsemane.

Go back to your Gethsemane to get closer to God and gather strength to start all over again.

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Books I've been reading this week that probably informed some of my ideas and books that I referenced directly in this post:

Barbara Brown Taylor. An Altar in the World : A Geography of Faith. New York, Harperone, 2010.

Knitter, Paul F. Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian. Richmond, Oneworld, 2017.

Lamott, Anne. Somehow. Penguin, 9 Apr. 2024.

Stoner, Scott. Living well through Advent 2024: Practicing peace with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.

Thomas, Gary. Sacred Pathways : Discover Your Soul’s Path to God. Grand Rapids, Mich., Zondervan, 2010.