Why Can't We All Just Disagree?

It's going to be Rememberance Day this weekend.  It's a really big deal in Canada, not so much in the United States.  I always missed it when I lived in New Jersey - the shivering cold and rain making us all stand a tiny bit closer to honour the many who over the course of history have had to be part of war-making in all its horror and grimness.  The solemn applause of the many gathered as those men and women march by moves me, every time.  The deep quiet of the moment of silence seems like the only quiet left in this loud world of ours.  I don't think everyone there knows it, but the groaning of our hearts remembering the cost of war is prayer and it seems right and good to come together in the street to pray and beg God to bring peace.

Watching the US elections this week, I was very thankful to be home in Canada and not still in the political shit show that is America.  I was struck that America really, really loves war.  Sure there is the whole military-industrial complex gorging itself on as many conflicts and police actions and terrorist-seeking melees as it can get.  But more upsetting is what appears to be every citizen's desire to be at war with their neighbour.  I watched people who share communities and counties and states say terrible things about each other because of a disagreement on the best way to proceed for the next four years.  I read stories written by people I know and care about congratulating themselves for shaming and ridiculing people who align themselves differently on questions of policy.  Policy.  Good fuck.

It may be an over-statement to call this war.  But it is most certainly not peace-making.

My not-cheering self knows that there is no prize for Being Right in my marriage.  It is clicheed but nevertheless true that it is always better to choose Relationship over Right if we want to stay in that relationship.  I find it painfully difficult to let go of my fondness for being right though, and thus 10 years later, I'm still quick to undermine Relationship for the cheap thrill of a well-timed See?! I was right... 

There is no life in Right but there is the promise of life in Righteousness.  Jesus says that people who are hungry for righteousness will be filled right up.  Not rightness so much though.  People who hunger and thirst for being right - they're never full.  They'll never be satisfied or at rest or content.  But righteousness? righteousness is on offer - we can know peace if we're on the hunt for that one.

Righteousness is tricky though - it's hard to even pin down what it means.  Whatever it is exactly, it isn't something that we do; it's something that we are given (if you can stand Paul, try reading Romans 9, right at the end). And then having received it, we live it and do some justice and act with mercy and walk humbly.

And if we get it, and then live it, we probably don't worry about much else.  We don't worry about who's in charge of the American government because whoever they are will be as broken and wrong as we are most days.  And we don't worry about who was right about how to handle that dude at work because whoever was right is still as broken and wrong as their spouse is most days.  And it is better and good to live together chasing down righteousness and living out justice and mercy in humility than it is to live alone. Right?