When emotions run high and opinions are strong

When emotions run high and opinions are strong, social media reflects that. The tweets and statuses may be preaching to the choir or not. They may disperse into the ether without making a blip on anyone's consciousness, or they could potentially wound a fellow saint. As I've seen the volleys go back and forth even yesterday, it saddens me. But lest I point the finger out there, have I ever given any indication that I would:

- Disrespect or mock a fellow believer if I found out that we disagreed and pressure them to agree with me?
- Be unwilling to listen? Not care enough to learn more and try to understand where someone is coming from even if the disagreement still stands?
- Be the last person they would go to because of lack of empathy/sympathy?

God forgive me if I have done so, and I would ask the same of you, my brothers and sisters.

The interaction among opposing sides is getting less and less civil in the culture at large, and it is rubbing off on us. And yet there are serious topics that need to be discussed that are weighing on people's minds. They aren't going to go away by sweeping them under the rug or letting social media be the primary outlet for discussion. Can we bring them to one another in person rather than tweet-to-tweet? Not necessarily to force a consensus or to expect someone to tell us how to think, but to be able to share when we are troubled. There have been times when I am in a group situation thinking, "Please don't bring up politics. Please don't bring up politics." But at the same time I am hoping the topic will come up so I can make it clear that my silence is not always tacit agreement; it may be far from it at times. But this means being vulnerable to reveal fears, concerns, and the issues that cause them so we can pray and consider how the Word informs our moral theology.

I'm not saying social media is completely unhelpful, but at least in my case, I need to take this conversation out of the ether, out of my home where my forbearing daughter is my only confidant, and to my brothers and sisters I see face-to-face. If can't go to the people I see Sunday after Sunday, who do I go to? If we love one another as we say we do, then it means having potentially hard and awkward conversations. It means being honest, willing to learn, and even being willing to admit when we are wrong. This is an opportunity to put all the words we say about unity in Christ to the test. I don't know what that will look like, but I want to take a step toward this by God's grace. I pray others will too.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,  does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Cor. 13:1-7

photo credit:By Maxime Raynal from France (Orage PLN) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons