Every Monday and Wednesday, my 4 year-old goes to preschool at a local Methodist Church, and every Monday and Wednesday I hold the door open for someone with an armload of kids and/or kid stuff. It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone with a child in my daughter’s class or a total stranger. I don’t stand there holding the door open to prove anything or to collect their gratitude like trading cards that I can whip out as evidence of my “goodness” or some silly thing, and I don’t do it solely to set an example for my daughter, though I surely hope that it does. I do it only because I’ve been the guy with a kid in one arm and enough kid paraphernalia to weigh down a pack mule in the other, and I know how relieved and grateful I feel when someone holds the door for me.
So, why am I telling you this? Well, there’s an election on tonight and, before I close my eyes in sleep, a man will be elected to run this great nation. This particular election has been fraught with angry and spiteful people on both sides of the aisle doing their level best to insult, belittle and even threaten the people who disagree with them. Some of this is likely due to the anonymity we feel when shooting our thoughts at the internet (with all the precision of a matchlock shotgun.) Some is due to the ever-increasing sense of entitlement the people of this nation seem to feel. Our needs, our feelings and our beliefs come first and to hell (or Oklahoma) with anyone who’s stupid enough to disagree. On and on it has gone since the election process began to gear up some months ago. On and on it will, no doubt, continue to go tomorrow morning.
I wrote down my initial thoughts about the Us vs. Them mentality so present in America today, but I aimed those comments more squarely at my spiritual brethren than at Americans in general. Now, I want to simplify and look back at a realization I had about all that door-holding-open I seem to do each Monday and Wednesday. You see, it hit me that I don’t really know much about those folks. I’ve likely held the door open for someone who would disagree with me on many levels not the least of which might be the candidate I voted for. I may have wished a kind “Good Morning!” to any number of people who, were their children not attending the same school as my daughter, might have nothing in common with me at all. And, perhaps, those same people might capable of spewing the sort of hatred and vitriol I’ve seen bandied about in the media and on social networks across the internet.
Here’s my point: I don’t care. Yes, we may disagree wholeheartedly about very important things, but when I’m holding the door open for them—or they are holding it open for me—we’re just doing what’s right: helping a fellow human being that, like us, can use a hand now and then. And, truly, in that moment does how they vote matter? Does their opinion of my faith? Do their thoughts about gay marriage or immigration reform make them any less a parent than me…or any less a human being worthy of decency on my part? No. The answer is no.
So, tomorrow morning, if your guy wins, how about seeing people as human beings: mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters and sons…instead of the “losers” of some great battle for the country? If your guys loses, how about focusing on your brother and sister Americans without concern over whether they are “red” or “blue?” What if we all decided that, no matter who wins or loses the race tonight that we’ll choose to be better Americans—better human beings—in the morning? What if we recognized ourselves in the faces staring back from the other side of the aisle and saw that maybe it’s the hatred and anger that keeps pushing us further and further from any sort of compromise and brotherhood?
I know there are a lot of important issues at stake. I know that, from where you’re sitting, victory looks good no matter what you have to become to grasp it. But, to this simple Texan, that doesn’t seem like victory at all…not if, in the pursuit of it, we lose the ability to love our neighbors and respect their opinions and their right to hold them no matter how greatly they conflict with our own. My faith, of course, helps because I believe that, no matter who occupies the Oval Office, it’s really God who is King of us all. But, even if you don’t share that belief, I hope that you can at least share my longing for an America in which all men and women are free to focus on the issues that matter most to them (and vote for the candidates they believe will see to them) without fear of repercussion.
May we all wake up tomorrow with love and acceptance in our hearts for ALL Americans, may peace reign where so great an anger once held sway, and may we choose to hold the door open for grace and reconciliation.
J. Patrick Lemarr
