How we Make Things Better

There are a few things we really need to talk about.  I want to put this off and just hope it will go away, but alas I am afraid its only going to get worse.  I have been dreading 2020 for the past four years.  Four years ago was brutal.  And this cycle of brutality seems to be growing worse, harder, and more difficult.  The past four years have been building toward this one being pretty hard.  And I think we just really have to talk about this before it gets too late.  

You know what I am talking about.  I am talking about the culture of animosity and fury that seems to animate everything about our political conversations.  

As I write this there is an impeachment trial going on in the senate.  The third since our nation’s founding.  I find it interesting that the second was only 20 years ago.  I have wondered if it doesn’t point to a declining culture of trust.  It is a fact that some people began talking about impeachment the day the election results were announced.  There has clearly been an agenda on the part of some to go down this road.  It is also true that the President being impeached has done very little to unify the country. I would argue he has used the animosity to encourage and bolster his supporters.  And why wouldn’t he?  It works!  

Did he commit an impeachable offense?  I don’t know, and neither do any of us.  A just world and a fair trial would bear that out.  And we could move forward together believing in the system more than any individual.  I would like to see that happen.  And I don’t think it’s impossible.  But in order for that to be possible, you and I need to work to make things better.  

We really can make things better, but to do that there are a few things we all need to admit and make a part of the way we live our lives.

 

The first thing most of us need to admit is that we don’t know as much as we think we do.

We somehow live in a world where patients believe they know more about the human body than doctors.  We live in a time where carpenters think they know more about politics than statesmen.  We live in a culture where store clerks think they know more about justice than Supreme Court justices.  We have lost the value of expertise.  We need to humble ourselves.  Statesmen need to learn to trust carpenters to build things. Supreme Court Justices need to trust store clerks to manage their inventory and compete in the market.  And all of us need to learn to trust experts again.  

Now, I know that requires people to do what is right.  I realize there is a missing element of trust.  But before we can regain that trust, we must all have an attitude of humility.  The politicians doing what they are doing off in Washington DC may have bad motives.  They may be less than ideal.  But here is what I am certain of:  they know their craft better than any of us do.  

The second thing we need to admit is that most of the “news” we read really is “fake news.”

I saw this article the other day that said some church in Minnesota had asked older adults not to come.  That’s horrific.  I saw it posted in a lot of timelines.  It turns out it wasn’t exactly true.  It was a few people’s interpretation of events.  This got shared and went viral because of course people were outraged, as they should have been.  But it wasn’t true.  It was a twist on the truth.  

I suppose in that way it was actually better than a lot of stuff that keeps getting shared on Social media.  Much of the “news” articles we share are flat out lies masked as truth.  They exist to make people mad. And we share them and reshare them. We fight with each other in the comment sections because they make us mad.  All the while we are just ignorant little cogs in the machine of anger that is fueled by our likes, shares, and comments.  We can stop the cycle but we need to admit that most of the “news” we see is just garbage intended to get shares and likes.  

The third thing we need to admit is that no one in Washington DC is going to solve our problems. 

I see people from both sides of this nasty political mess advocating for the perfection of their side.  President Trump can make no mistakes.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a monster whose only ambition is to burn America to the ground.  President Trump is the devil incarnate and the only hope for America is Speaker Pelosi getting him out of office.  
Do either of those resonate with you?  

Do you find yourself in one or the other of those groups?  Life experience should teach us otherwise.  Every one of us has had moments and seasons in life when we intended to do good, and failed.  Our selfishness may have played a role.  Words came came out all wrong.  Perhaps we were misinterpreted.  Maybe we just made a bad choice.  

We have also probably all had moments when we interacted with others driven by selfish motivations.  We hurt someone we didn’t mean to.  Maybe we even covered it up because of the shame of saying “I was wrong” was too much for us.  

This is the human condition.  Now there are some truly wicked people.  And there are some truly good people.  But both are in a small minority.  Most of us, including our Senators and Presidents are a complicated mix of selfishness blended together with a desire to do good.  People like that won’t save us. They can’t save us. They are merely one of us.  

Up to this point I really can’t imagine you disagreeing with me.  I suppose it’s possible that you are so blinded by the propaganda that you will either call me a “Racist Rabid Trumper” or an “anti Trump socialist scum bag.”  I’m actually neither, but I know that the world we live in doesn’t tolerate moderation very well.  

But on this next point you may disagree, so I would love to hear your alternatives. 

If we admit all of these things it could lead us to a very hopeless place.  We are all complicated and messed up.  We don’t know as much as we think.  And most of what we are told are flat out lies!  Where can there be any hope?  

Our hope must be in one of us who actually is perfect.  Who actually does tell the truth.  Who knows everything, and who can help us to become (over time) less complicated and more pure.  That person is Jesus.  I hope in him.  I believe if more of us were to find our hope in his work in the world instead of the activities of people far away in Washington DC, many of our problems may get better.  

Let me be clear.  My hope is not in Jesus to fix America.  Americans have to do that, and right now they aren’t.  But I do hope in Jesus to fix Americans.  Letting Jesus fix you just means you admit you don’t know as much as you think, and live like it.  You admit that much of what you hear are lies.  You admit that neither you, nor I, nor those we elect can save us.  

I don’t really want to “return to a Christian America.” (Whatever that means, maybe there is something there to discuss at some point?)  I think when people say that, they are thinking about laws that get passed or don’t.  But I will say this.  An America with a lot of Christians in it, Christians who live like they admit these things…  well that would be beautiful.