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Jennifer Hacker's avatar

I very much agree! I just can’t figure out HOW to reach the people on the other side. If you won’t agree with them, they will not engage in any meaningful way. They’ll simply pronounce you evil and also probably curse at you and that’s that. In the past 2 days my daughter has been notified by multiple friends AND a cousin that they can no longer be friends or interact with her because she voted to take away their bodily rights. There’s nothing she can say or do. And I find myself in a similar position with several of my “friends.”

Have you had any success or do you have any ideas for how to bridge this kind of gap with people? I’m at a loss.

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Cynthia Kondratieff's avatar

Amen, Amen, and Amen.

If we do the best we can to live the two great commandments: to love the Lord with all our might, mind, and strength; and our neighbors as ourselves, then we wouldn’t hear nearly as much shouting, or feel nearly as much judgement or hate.

But wait, we have to know how to truly love ourselves first!

Knowing that God loves EACH of His children – you, me, and the people we can’t even stand to be around – helps us see ourselves and each other in a different way.

We can then agree to disagree civilly.

The challenge, as you have pointed out before, is that if a person at some level (even in not consciously) knows they are on shaky ground, the way they think they make that ground firm is by insisting that everyone stand on it with them. That leads to political correctness and shaming in a way that stifles — or frightens away — individual thought.

It takes incredible courage – or the innocence of a child – to point out that the king is wearing no clothes, when the rest of the world insists he is.

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