You can listen to this week’s Devotional here
Author: Carolyn Gard
We’ve gotten hung up on the words either and or. Either support the Israelis or the Palestinians. Either vote only for Democratic bills or Republican bills. Either accept my theology or go to Hell. Either oppose abortion or allow it every time. Either build a wall at the border or let thousands of criminals in. Either support conservation or support logging.
There are two words we can use instead of these: both and and. We can understand both the Israelis and the Palestinians. We can vote for both Democratic and Republican bills. We can accept that my theology is right for me and yours is right for you. We can both have qualms about abortion and agree that it is an individual’s choice. We can both put up a wall and let people into our country. We can both save land for conservation and log some of it.
Whatever happened to compromise, to talking together? Polarization is the word of the day, especially in this election year. Polarization first referred to light waves travelling in different directions (okay, all you physicists out there, that’s a pretty simple explanation). Then, the idea of different directions came to describe people whose ideas go in different directions. 3D glasses make use of polarization by taking two images and letting our brains merge them.
So what we need is to let our brains merge our different directions.
It would be wonderful to have a world in which every problem is solved by a yes or a no. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. There are a lot of maybes. We can, however, both recognize that we have differences and work together to make this world what God has envisioned for us.