Sometimes, I think it must be so nice (in a way) to have a political team of choice. To be decidedly red or blue. (Just American politics things 💁🏻♀️✨)
To be able to naturally gravitate towards communities and friendships where people are like-minded seems so cozy. Rejoicing together in uncomplicated wins. Grieving together through easily definable loss. Ranting at the sky in collective rage with near perfect agreement.
Echo chambers sound like a relief.
Alas, though, I have never been able to squeeze myself into a political box without betraying my internal grounding or sense of integrity. The result of this has been that every election cycle since I was old enough to have any sort of grasp on the gravity of it all - I have spiraled out, hard.
Every election cycle. No matter who won.
Because (for better or for worse) I have never shielded myself from the dire laments or concerns of those who felt they had lost.
I don't know if you have noticed, but fear is sticky. It’s contagious.
And that’s not to discount people who are in a state of elation because they feel they have won! As I listen to the laments of the hurt, angry, and scared - I am also always standing (uncomfortably) with one foot in celebration with the elated, hopeful, and relieved.
The result of this is that I typically experience an overwhelming compulsion (both from within and from without, I’m afraid) to go on a frenzied search for knowledge in times of general public distress and conflict.
I try to bury myself deep in every type of information that I could possibly need while crossing my fingers that I may avoid succumbing to a deluge of increasingly paranoid what-ifs.
Can I ever know enough to be sure that I understand everything with the certainty it would take to confidently prescribe solutions to the myriad problems faced by a country?
I mean. If I’m honest, I struggle if I have to plan a birthday party, so maybe I’m not meant to be someone with a big opinion about how the department of transportation ought to be run or how geopolitical conflicts between countries with intricately complicated histories should be handled.
And I’m not about to try to make a case against research or becoming informed! But in this Information Age, where we could easily engage ourselves in several research projects a day just trying to get our heads around everything that keeps happening (and happening and happening and happening), I would like to propose instead that perhaps it may be better to take a beat and have some gratitude for the fact that we are small.
In the first book of C.S Lewis’s sci fi trilogy (Perelandra), the main character (Ransom) was feeling the incredible weight of his responsibility towards an entire planet. Honestly, it’s been a hot minute since I read that book, and it may have been more than one planet.
But, to get to the point: a character who was an angelic figure says to Ransom, “Be comforted, small one, in your smallness. He lays no merit on you. Receive and be glad. Have no fear, lest your shoulders be bearing this world.”
This is a quote I am inclined to remember often, as it applies to each of us so fully. We get to be small. Thank goodness.
So - since there is so very much that is thoroughly outside of our control, I’m going to suggest that we not work ourselves into a daily anxiety attack due to geopolitical events or the policies that are forever changing and being passed down.
I am really ready to beg everyone to take ten slow breaths and step outside for a half hour. Unplug yourself from the news for a week. Yes, I said a week. I dare you.
Because here’s the thing. As I said, I have fully gone into the pit of despair every single election cycle. And I gotta say: Zero out of 10 stars! I don't recommend it!
It:
Did not make the world better
Did not stop any of the scary things I was worried about from happening
Did not cause any different/better things to happen
Did not keep my friends and family from fighting or disowning each other
Did not keep anyone from being mean to me if they sensed anything less than perfect agreement if/when I failed to match their energy
But it did:
Give me chest pain
And stomach pain
And totally killer anxiety
Shut down every last one of my creative processes
Nerf my mental health into oblivion
Steal time that rightfully belonged to my kids and my husband
Put me into survival mode where I gained like 20 lbs
Undermine my sense of humor
It also seems to me that sometimes there’s a phenomenon that vaguely mimics the guilt people feel when they are grieving the loss of a loved one.
That guilt that can come when they have a happy/joyful moment but something tells them they should only be feeling sad. Like they’re dishonoring the person they lost if they so much as let go enough to genuinely laugh at a well timed joke.
I think there’s a tendency to do something like that with political angst. A stubborn clinging onto that burning anxiety, resentment, terror, and/or anger because of a foundational suspicion that it would be wrong to let go and feel good? Maybe a fear of dishonoring the people whose suffering we see as being worsened by the current political powers.
As if we control the political weather with the weather of our moods. As if the suffering aren’t always with us no matter what.
As if our suffering does a single thing to alleviate theirs.
And I look back on those times and all I can think about it is that really, I could have just not. All the doom scrolling and outrage and upset and worry was just not worth it.
Even fretting about what people would think about the decisions I made for my family during covid times did nothing to help anyone.
In the end, I look back and think that we really must do whatever it takes to climb up out of the cave and refuse to be our own psychological terrorists.
Horrible things will happen. It’s a guaranteed fact of life.
So maybe we shouldn’t make it worse on ourselves, you know?
Unsettling political times are the times to fight the urge to disappear into our algorithms. Now is not the moment to become ghosts.
Are you scared that a government policy or a new law is going to saliently impact something in your tangible life?
Stop torturing yourself reading articles and conversations online and speculating about it! Go to the people in your local community who work at the hospital or the school or whatever it is, and ask them directly what’s changing.
We are not blaming our political opposition, our neighbors, our friends, or even the fallen state of the world for the positions we may find ourselves in.
Acknowledging obstacles and frustrations and the limitations of ourselves and others is good and right and necessary, but we aren’t going to sit down in that mud pit and make it our home.
Eternal mud-squelching isn’t going to make our own lives better.
No. We are taking achievable, small, practical steps towards whatever needs to happen next. Even if all we can manage at the moment is shift our gaze from the muck to the cross.
It should be no surprise (to my fellow Christians, at least), that we each have one of our own to carry. And we are called to carry it.
Swirling around in the ethereal vortex of current event social media scroll-a-thons is so last season. It’s out.
Grounding ourselves in immediate reality is IN, okay?
We are meeting-in-person, going-outside, cleaning-our-houses, good-night’s-sleep (or at least taking-naps-if-we-need-them) maxxing.
We are done staring at outlandish headlines in horror until they ruin a perfectly good day.
We are not (personally, this is going to be the hardest one for me) internalizing the big hairy feelings of our loved ones about any of this, either.
It’s time to let them have their feelings without confusing those feelings with our own.
You also don’t have to engage in heavy political discussions. No matter how much urgency people come at you with. You don’t have to solve this for them. (Spoiler: you almost never can, anyway.)
Silence is not usually violence. You are allowed to protect your peace.
And don’t forget to give it all to God. We aren’t built to do any of this without Him. He has not forgotten you, your loved ones, your family, your country, or your home.
We are more than overcomers, friends. So let’s go overcome. ❤️🔥
