Just got back from my little polling place – the fire station in Dexter Twp, Michigan. The turnout was nothing like 2016’s Presidential election, but there was a line of well-behaved voters who had no idea which way the other would vote. We don’t ask. We’re not allowed but it’s also none of our business. We don’t ask … EVER … election day or not. Surely we find ourselves among like-minded people in the friendships we form. But we encounter all sorts of people on a daily basis. I don’t ask my postal worker or the gal at the checkout in my local grocery who they voted for. What difference does it make? Would I look at them in a different way? And I certainly don’t ask the people in our audience who they voted for. I don’t want to know. But sometimes I find out …
Jane and Carol are good friends. They come to a lot of our shows. They’re both singers in a choir which may be how they met. Both have good hearts and are always ready with a hug and kind words. They were at a concert we were playing just before the 2016 election. Not sure how it came up but we found out that one was voting for Trump and the other for Hillary. They made a point to say that they just don’t talk about it. Their friendship was based on way more than who they were voting for. With all the stories we’d heard about people unfriending each other on Facebook and family members never speaking to each other again, these two recognized that they had much more to talk about than who was gonna be President. What they have in common made them friends. And they are still good friends today. I like to believe this is true for most of us humans. Way more in common than differences. Today some of us are hoping for change and some of us are hoping things will stay the same. But I don’t know anyone who isn’t hoping the divisiveness, meanness, and hostility will stop. Civility and kindness can be found way more often in our day-to-day lives if we just turn off the t.v. or radio and share a conversation with someone about something we have in common. Music maybe??
POST SCRIPT: As I write this, NPR is on in the background and my ear caught a bit of the conversation Joshua Johnson (1A) is having with Bishop Michael Curry about LOVE. And they’d come around to the story of the Good Samaritan. He doesn’t ask about their political leanings, doesn’t care what race or ethnicity… just helps. Think I’ll have to go back and listen to the podcast.