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By Chris Adams

Let’s try something risky. Let’s try threading the needle of bi-partisan political discourse in 600 words or less. To start, let’s acknowledge something: it’s very strange to see both the exuberant, profound joy and the profuse, fearful grief at the results of Tuesday’s election. Shouldn’t it clue us in that something is wrong with our politics when 51% of the country feels empowered to execute their vision while 49% of the country believes some of their fundamental rights are soon to be stripped? Everything has become saturated with fear and apprehension, and it makes life so exhausting.

It does not have to be this way. It just doesn’t. Aren’t you tired of being drunk on fear and hostility? Aren’t you sick of the walls that divide us? Forget who you voted for. Just be human for a moment. Conjure in your mind’s eye the person you hate or fear the most. See their face, their human face, so much like yours. See in their eyes someone who needs to be loved, needs to be affirmed. See in their eyes someone who craves happiness at an existential level.

For clarity’s sake, if you have experienced violence or abuse, I’m not asking you to recall the face of your tormentor. I’m asking you to conjure the faces of people you fear because their skin color differs. Conjure the faces of people whose marriages don’t look like what you believe is the traditional Biblical approach. Conjure the faces of those who bring out the worst impulses within you. Try, with all of your might, to see them first as a fellow human being, a complex web of emotions, experiences, and needs just like you. See them as a fellow traveler through the universe, clawing and grasping for meaning on a floating rock in the vacuum of space that is cold and indifferent toward everything we find meaningful. The universe doesn’t care about us. But we can care about one another.

We can be such selfish brutes. We just don’t have to be. We aren’t fated to such disorder and chaos. But it will only get better when we all want what’s best for our neighbor. Maybe Jesus was onto something when he called us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Maybe he was onto something when he washed the feet of his disciples and proved that nobody, not even God, is above getting dirty in service of their neighbors.

There’s a sickness coursing through the veins of humanity. But the cure is within us as well. Nobody is stopping us from loving our neighbors. The only one with the power to do that is, well, us. Truth, justice, and a better tomorrow will always be the order of the day. Perhaps we can find it within our collective selves to rise to the occasion and choose to cure ourselves with love. I hope so.

Chris Adams is the Rector at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Washington