I began the year not with a resolution but with a word: remember. A focus of mine this year has been to return to that which I know I am and have been at my core. To build up confidence and courage from the person I have always been because she is who I was created to be.
Lately, maybe due to the change of the seasons or the middle of our fall semester, I’ve found myself frustrated more often than usual. I am beginning to think, though, that the root of some of my frustrations is related to my one word for the new year: some people that I share my daily space and life with don’t seem interested in remembering who they are.
In my mind, remembering is individual and collective. We all have been created by the same God, with a divine purpose and plan, and with intention and completeness inextricable from our bodies and souls. To have a relationship with God is to acknowledge that remembrance, and to live a life by faith is to doggedly remain tethered to that same remembrance that drew us into that Created-Creator relationship.
Case in point: a friend recently shared a podcast episode with me. She found that this episode’s examination of Christians’ responsibility with regard to civic engagement was resonant. For her, the episode represented a refreshing take on what it means to align civically with Christian values rather than aligning civically with a political party that is believed to espouse Christian values.
I, however, couldn’t finish the episode.
The idea that there is a single way to engage civically or politically as a Christian is deeply upsetting to me. It feels like exchanging one type of legalistic indoctrination for another. That isn’t to say that such an idea isn’t valid or shouldn’t resonate with those for whom it lands differently.
But for me, this idea isn’t it.
Take, too, for example, the unfortunately oft-espoused idea that you can love someone but not like them. I cannot count the times I’ve heard people say this, and each time I hear it, my breath holds, my pulse quickens, my heart sinks just a little. What a hurtful, potentially relationship-destroying belief to hold. Can we really not separate people we love from their actions which we may not? Can we not understand that love is a degree of like and therefore the two are inseparable? Have we been so hoodwinked by the idea that love is a choice that we can’t see the truth: that love for each other is a return to the God who made us; that yielding to love means remembering who we are?
As for people who identify as Christians who are conflicted about whom to vote for, if they vote at all – is it really necessary that we confine our identity to a rigid idea that someone besides ourselves decided was the only way a Christian can possibly vote? Since when did a vote change a person’s faith? We are – no matter how we vote – the people God made us to be. And if our faith in Christ compels us to vote a certain way based on our convictions which are rooted in that faith, then that is how we should vote. But in my view, that has to come from within, not from without.
Ever the student of Brene Brown’s insightful call to get curious about the feeling when I’m triggered or angry or hurt, this is the conclusion I have reached: that my desire to remember who I am isn’t always shared by the people around me. This can lead me to take others’ words to mean what they say rather than meaning what they meant to convey by saying them. It is a frustrate for which I have no answers, but the knowledge of which beckons me deeper still into remembrance.
