Seeding a Ceasefire: The end of ‘othering’

My spiritual assignment on this election day...

Once again we have tossed the flag of our preferred ally over the mirror, avoiding those truth-telling moments where bloodshot eyes discover self-inflicted root causes.

Once again we have decided to repeatedly chant the newest holy word — somehow growing simultaneously more aggressive and more desperate with each utterance — instead of actually living out its meaning.

Once again we have become trapped in the belief that someone else will come and do the dirty work, the hard work, the missionary work, and have willingly bypassed our responsibility in creating the relief we seek.

I am tired of seeing an intolerant world beg for a ceasefire, yet I am also tired of being part of the problem every time my mind slides back into the unproductive practice of othering.

There have been moments in the last year in which I really have believed that we were becoming a unified force against corruption. Doesn’t it sometimes seem like we might all want and need the same things? We have finally started to cling onto the same word, and no it isn’t ’God’, though it might as well be. Our shared past and collective future have converged right here, at nine letters with one crystal clear meaning.

To cease the firing. To stop the repeated wounding. To pause for a moment so that we might catch our breath and contemplate peace.

Today I am wondering how I can ceasefire here — now — with my own humble, human faults and faculties. It is time I commit to end the othering, because even when I try to stop it in others, I almost inevitably always slip back into it myself.

No more name-calling, please.

No more ‘narcissist’, no more ‘neo-lib’, no more ‘Trumper’, no more ‘flat-Earther’, no more ‘democrat’, no more ‘republican’, no more ‘Zionist’, no more of that language that places me and anyone else on separate islands.

Today, amidst the tension, I will choose to believe that every face I see is trying their best despite being flooded with fear, confusion and even self-interest. Then I will smile at them as if I have finally chosen to look in the mirror and discover that all along, I have been my own worst enemy.