Maybe you missed it, but there was an election to decide the President of the United States this week. I am no different from most of the rest of us, we are all overflowing with emotions & observations that will take days, months, years to unpack and reconcile.

I don’t like to speak publicly about who and/or what, specifically, I politically support. Far more important to me is offering everyone a seat at every table, where we are comfortable and safe to explore and discover our own place in our journey. It’s never helpful to try to control others conclusions or beat them into changing their minds – not helpful to relationships and always unsuccessful.

What has hurt us, as a nation (of course) and as human beings, is the belief that we are not just one group, but we are 2, an us/them dichotomy, adversaries where I am right and you are wrong. I am interested in bridging imaginary gaps and reminding us all that we are all moms & dads, brothers & sisters, just people all in the same strange boat, inviting us all to the table. And big beautiful tables like that aren’t ever built by hanging signs on the front door that some aren’t welcome. We listen and try to understand, and when we don’t, we love anyway.

I do have some observations, (hopefully) without endorsement or judgment of you and your conclusions.

Let’s say Pepsi and Coke are the only available soft drinks. And let’s also say we don’t like them. They’re not great, but we figure that one is marginally better than the other. Now, let’s say a new company comes along to disrupt the status quo. We complain about the 2 soda empires, but we continue to only buy Coke or Pepsi. Do you think anything would ever change? Do you think Coke will sink any time, energy, or money into putting out a better product? Do you think Pepsi will ever decide to transform the dual monopoly, if it means cutting their own profits and market share? Of course, neither of them would jeopardize their own power and wealth. Our participation in this 2 cola race (voting with our wallets to ignore any other drinks) is validation of an only 2 cola race. In this case, we deserve Pepsi & Coke.

I do wish we deserved/demanded a wide array of choices in our soft drinks.

I am a religious person – but maybe not the kind of religious that you might have in your head. What I actually mean is that I love and follow Jesus, and I love you, too. So, a really big problem is when we replace God with a person or party, and when we replace the enemy with a person or party. (After writing and deleting what I’ve written several times,) That’s all I’ll say about that.

What I know, after this and every election, is that we are still an us, there are no monsters here, and as long as division reigns supreme, we will drift farther and farther apart. We will dig our feet into our respective Coke or Pepsi camps, and hurl violent insults (and more) from our right-ness into their wrong-ness, killing our opponents, before we ever wake up to the truth that in killing them, we have been killing ourselves all along.