give us wisdom. give us love.

in retrospect i should have started at paragraph 5.
i'm referring to yesterdays blog.

i have spent most of the morning in tears because i awoke to an email that expressed a lot of hurt and anger about my writing yesterday, and my intent was so not to offend or anger or disrespect. i was in tears because words are powerful and words can sting- i'm so sorry if mine stung you. i was in tears because i felt misunderstood, so i'm sorry if i misunderstood you. i cried because i felt small and voiceless and insecure, i'm so sorry if my words made you feel small or voiceless or not secure. 

in a lot of ways, this is a metaphor of where our country is right now. many people were feeling small and voiceless and not understood and disrespected. someone finally heard them. someone heard something that others hadn't. the forgotten felt remembered, and they should have been remembered, we should all be remembered. but now others, who were just given a voice themselves, are afraid it will be taken away. others feel they will become forgotten. now they fear that this is about the turning of tides. that it's one or the other, not both.  like dr. seuss's the the star-bellied sneetches, stars on, stars off. but i believe it can be both. that everyone can have a voice, that we must love each other and part of loving each other is listening to all our voices. i think that is really what i was trying to say.

i am just one small person living on the other side of the world who is trying to follow Jesus. i wrote yesterday about love. i wrote about 1 corinthians 13 which is usually reserved for weddings, but is a call for how to love each other in all relationships, including me to our president. so if what came across, is me not loving donald j. trump but only judging him, i see the irony in that, and i am sorry.  my point wasn't to bash trump or those who voted for him- my point was to call us back to the basics- love, and not get lost in the politics.

unfortunately and perhaps obviously, i'm not very diplomatic.

i was writing from a place of hope and faith and belief in our country and with a deep love for our country, not from a place of anger or bitterness.  i was writing because the beautiful thing about our country is that we have a system that works,  a history of peaceful transitions, of distributed power, and freedom to share our thoughts, and an expectation to respect each others thoughts. i was writing to remind myself and anyone listening, that LOVE is what we are called to, and because i do struggle with some of the things that trump has said and done that don't appear to come from a place of love. i was writing because our country was founded on Christian principles, and how we live out Love together matters, regardless of who is in office. and i am writing now because we are called to unity and forgiveness and peace and perseverance.

if you heard anger in my words, i am truly sorry. i felt no anger.
if you heard bitterness, i'm sorry, i don't have bitterness.
if you heard judgement in my words, i am sorry, i can see how that could have been. i didn't mean to judge, but to ask questions.
if you heard confusion, yes, it is confusing. politics are confusing. religion is confusing. life is confusing. we do the best we can.

i really don't like to write about politics because there is so much intensity and conflict and hostility and division. but now that i have opened a can of worms- let me be totally honest. because truth matters. i do struggle with donald j. trump's character. i also struggled with bill clinton's character and most of all, i struggle with my own character. because we should wrestle with character and in all honesty, none of us get it right, probably most of all, me.

1 corinthians 13 tells us how to love. how to love regardless of gender, color, political opinion, nationality, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation. how to love all people, those like us and not, those who like us and those who don't, those who agree and those who challenge. those who were once forgotten and those who fear they will be. all.

as we enter the next 4 years as a country with a new president, i pray that i will practice LOVE, of all, including donald j trump. that you will too. that our nation will Love well each other and other nations. and i pray that for those of us who follow Jesus, that we would lead this, guide others in this, model this and teach this.

this is what is in my heart. again i am sorry if this did not come across in my words yesterday.
i say this in humility and with peace, and love and prayer and hope and a promise to be more loving in my words.


"When prayer is authentic, it will always lead to actions of mercy; when actions of mercy are attempted at any depth, they will always drive you to prayer." - rohr