Ditches or Bridges

Northern Ireland, awm

I reviewed the news today before engaging my morning prayer routine. Ugh! So I came to prayer angry and disappointed. Disappointed and pained by what appears to be stark neglect of humanity by people who claim the love of God with their lips. How can they be so blind, hateful, hypocritical? How is it they’ve become so wrapped up in the love of power; a love that sucks life out of the soul? 
Then I remembered – how can I be so blind, hateful, hypocritical?

I’m shifting (albeit slowly) from condemnation to compassion. For if I sit in judgment, how am I any different than “them”? I only dig a deeper ditch between us versus them when the only way to build bridges toward Beloved Community is with us and them.
There will always be us and them. It’s natural. We are drawn to our families or to people we enjoy or share a kindred spirit. And, there will always be differences because we are part of the amazing diversity of creation. It’s a shallow pipedream to imagine we want everything(one) the same. How can a body function with only hands, only eyes, or only a nose? A body with only a heart acts without reason. A body with only a head, acts without compassion. We need each other in all our diversity ~ to be thinkers, doers, builders, designers, producers of food, and sellers of goods, prophets to keep us on the best path, teachers, cleaners, politicians and protestors. Where would we be without one of even these few? 

You are important to the interdependence of community in creation.
I am important to the interdependence of community in creation. 

How shall we make our way beyond digging ditches between us versus them thinking to us and them ~ respecting, listening, and seeking to build bridges toward Beloved Community? 

I closed my morning routine with a prayer I learned from one of my favorite bridge builders, Howard Thurman:

For Love’s sake, I will open myself to God
And let the spirit invade me and fill me
Till I no longer know what is mine or Thine.
This would be my fulfillment, O my God.

in this together…