LOVE, people. Love love love love love love LOVE, with a big side of forgiveness. Grace in motion.
Today I figured out where I stand on the whole Kim Davis thing. I know, you're relieved. You can rest easy tonight, America! Or at least, I can, since I was reminded that I am not, in fact, Atlas, and the weight of the entire world is not mine to bear. (False idols, anyone?)
Here's my job: To love.
Figuring out who is right and who is wrong and who said it better? Pass. Because a lot of times it seems like the only answer is: There is no answer. And the only question worth asking is: What would love do?
When I'm consumed by world events and the media, I do a pretty crappy job of loving my family and neighbors. I swear at traffic and frown at strangers, which is not good for unclenching the heart.
I know these things. Yet somehow over the past few weeks I grew increasingly convinced that if I only kept reading, stayed down the information rabbit hole long enough and late enough, collecting various evidence and opinions, I'd eventually find THE TRUTH in these problems that are not mine to solve.
Frankly, I don't buy the story of Kim Davis' victimhood. What I do buy, however (given that I've never met her and have been following her story peripherally at best), is that she's lost in self-righteousness. That possibly, she's just like all the rest of us: Broken, and a little bit afraid, and a whole lot human. Do you know what feels really good when you're in that void? Making other people wrong. Making yourself better than.
It's not about gay people, or God: It's about her. Her own ego and fear and insecurities and pesky human nature.
Kim Davis may want to feel better than. Maybe she just wants to feel good enough. If that's the case, then we have more in common than I thought.
If she shows up at my church next April wanting her feet washed (doubtful, but roll with me for a second), I'm washing 'em. Same goes for any gay/transgendered/divorced/post-abortive/addicted/homeless/fill-in-the-blank person, and for Donald Trump. Also millionaires and dads who wear socks with sandals. I'm not saying we should all necessarily hang out and be friends (or that the Donald's feet wouldn't gross me out); but every single one of us is still invited to the table. I'd like to see less political rallying and more rallying around each other. It doesn't matter if I have all the answers in the world if I'm failing to love the ones in front of me.
The other day I was listening to an old On Being interview with astrophysicist Mario Livio. He was talking about mathematics, and he said that, as with anything, we like the answers to be black or white. Most people can even live with grey. What's dang near impossible for us to accept is that something can be both black and white. This is also where he finds truth.
Both/and. The hardest and truest place to dwell. In math, and in life.
But WE CAN DO HARD THINGS, right? Is that not the rallying cry I've heard over and over again through certain places on the internet? And as Mama T (and, yes, Momastery) reminds us, we belong to each other.
Even Kim Davis.
. . .
"Do nothing out of contentiousness or out of egotism, but with humility consider others superior to you, as you look out not only for your own interests, but also for the interests of others. Keep this mental attitude in you that was also in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 2:3-5
"In the end, dear friend, it is always between us and God, not between us and them."
Mother Teresa
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