Columnist Pete Whalon wrote in last week’s Culver City News, “Over the course of the next year do not discuss politics with anybody.” Upon reading this, I immediately affirmed that I would do just the opposite.
On President’s Day weekend, I thought of the movie “LINCOLN,” where shouting-match, character-assassination political arguments raged concerning the Civil War, where President Abraham Lincoln powerfully demonstrated how to hold political tensions creatively.
I also thought of what Parker J. Palmer wrote about Lincoln his book, “HEALING THE HEART OF DEMOCRACY: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit.” Palmer asserted that Lincoln chose to “engage rather than evade the source of his stress. Evasion would have diverted him from his desire to ‘do something meaningful’ with his life, draining him of the energy for the pursuit.”
How different our country would be had Lincoln chosen to evade rather than engage. We would have no Gettysburg Address to inspire us, no Emancipation Proclamation.
“When we choose to engage, not evade, the tension of our differences, we will become better equipped to participate in a government of, by, and for the people as we expand some of our key civic capacities,” writes Palmer.
“Despite our sharp disagreements on the nature of the American Dream, many of us on the left, on the right, and in the center have at least this much in common: a shared experience of heartbreak about the condition of our culture, our society, and our body politic,” Palmer continues. “If we know how to hold these tensions in ways that open our hearts, they can become proof of democracy’s genius and drivers of its renewal.”
In this election cycle, I choose to express my passionate support for my candidates of choice, both local and national. Each of them is in alignment with what I perceive to be the “nature of the American Dream.”
As Palmer writes, “The sources of our heartbreak [about our culture, society and body politic] are often different and contradictory: what makes my heart sad may make your heart glad.”
Such contradictions provide an opportunity for me to use my “broken-open, tension-holding heart” as a source of compassion and healing, a source of wisdom for making decisions about when and how to speak up and when to remain silent.
Inspired by Abraham Lincoln, I refuse to be cynical about politics, as columnist Whalon admits he is. I choose to keep on talking about politics, to keep posting relevant articles on Facebook that invite discussion. I choose to remain engaged and learn how to hold political tensions creatively so that they “become proof of democracy’s genius and drivers of renewal.”
— Carlene Brown, MA. Ed.
Culver City