Washington, DC, and the whole country are gearing up for President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, January 20. How do we navigate this new political era as Friends?
Around the FCNL office on Capitol Hill, proliferating security fencing makes even a short walk more difficult. This week, as I stepped through one of the gates in the fencing that was left open, for the time being, I realized I could feel a kind of fence growing inside me as well.
I am concerned by the threats this administration poses to people I love and to the dignity and lives of millions of people I will never meet. I can feel the urge to push against those threats, to reach for absolutes, to think in terms of “them” and “us.”
There is something deeply satisfying about that impulse – and something deeply troubling.
As Friends, we receive regular and humbling invitations to recognize that multiple truths can co-exist. We recognize that everyone has the Divine spark within them, while also plainly and forcefully naming the impact of an individual’s actions or ideas. We make plans and then are called to work for transformation in unanticipated ways. We are asked to look beyond the fences, categories, and labels we so easily resort to. We are called to do what it takes to bring the world we seek a bit closer, for ourselves and for all our neighbors.
FCNL recognizes the immense challenges we face to advance peace, justice, and an earth restored in the incoming administration and Congress. We stand firmly in our commitment to prophetic witness, action, and truth-telling. We will take practical steps to advance that prophetic vision. And, as General Secretary Bridget Moix wrote in a recent column with Religion News Service, “we will persist in our belief that our democracy is strongest when we are all engaged with it and with one another. Not Republicans. Not Democrats. Not independents. But all who call this nation home.”
As you consider your work in the year ahead, I invite you to take some centered time to reflect on these questions:
- What do you stand for, and who do you stand with?
- Where do you experience truths that may seem contradictory?
- What fences are you building? What would it be like to take them down?
