Addressing the -ists" and "-ics" in Families

How does a soul navigate through compassion? When politics drives you insane and you're love for people in the world is met with apathy or even hatred by your family. 

When they say the Japanese Concentration camps weren't that bad and were needed at the time. 

When they say, "All Indians are terrorists because they're Muslim!" 

When you have to sit through a Thanksgiving and check off in your mind all the different demographics of people being mocked and insulted except for "white men".  

Especially with the collapse of timelines and the world "sorting itself out" on that basis... I figured you just accept things are severing because people are on different spiritual wavelengths and you let go. 

You walk away from, get distant to, and accept the inevitable shift. 

But then I was invited over for 4th of July. I'd say I've gotten into heated political debates with them, but it was mostly just once where I really laid things out and then gave up afterwards because it changed nothing. 

For my family out in the country I had an easier time. They can't pretend to have "a mexican friend" or a "black friend" to hide behind with the phrase "I'm not racist because...". They watch Fox News religiously and have no real outlet or access to a change in perspective. They're basically brainwashed by a culture and are too old to recognize or even begin to change that. 

So most of the time I just accept that's the reality and with exception of few instances, I can't change much. I pray for them and ask God to shed some light, but I've seen God struggle reaching them too. 

With my other family it's different. They listen to NPR. They watch a lot of Fox News, but not only that station. They are more educated and live in the city. They've MET people of different races and backgrounds. 

So It's harder and hurts a bit more when politics come up. I was told "The MeToo movement is a danger to men because false accusations are going to go through the roof now". This from someone who had witnessed her sister being raped. Whose father said, "Well boys have needs" when he found out. Who has known rape survivors. 

I don't know what to do in those circumstances. God has given enough Truth for them to grasp hold of so denial and ignorance wouldn't take hold and they're still blind. 

And it hurts. It hurts when I have to sit there and listen to that. I wounds my heart. 

So I didn't know what to do. so I prayed. "God help me through this one". Because a part of me has had enough and just wants to sever for the sake of my sanity -especially given how toxic things have become. I don't want to have to debate concentration camps where kids are being neglected and abused. 

Then I came across some quotes from Woodrow Wilson yesterday. It was a God-send: 

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed. -Woodrow Wilson

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand. -Woodrow Wilson

Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. -Woodrow Wilson

There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with. -Woodrow Wilson

Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach. -Woodrow Wilson

The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy. -Woodrow Wilson

America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal - to discover and maintain liberty among men. -Woodrow Wilson

I have long enjoyed the friendship and companionship of Republicans because I am by instinct a teacher, and I would like to teach them something. -Woodrow Wilson

Neutrality is a negative word. It does not express what America ought to feel. We are not trying to keep out of trouble; we are trying to preserve the foundations on which peace may be rebuilt. -Woodrow Wilson

A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt. -Woodrow Wilson

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people. -Woodrow Wilson

Interest does not tie nations together; it sometimes separates them. But sympathy and understanding does unite them. -Woodrow Wilson

Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles. -Woodrow Wilson

"America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us." -Woodrow Wilson

I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past. -Woodrow Wilson

He lived in 1921. This is how OLD this scenario has been. And I realized how long it has taken us to get this far. From this I learned God's request for Patience. Some ideologies take a way to die out. Like the notion of monarchy and tyranny that lasted for centuries. 

I was then later reminded how God is there indiscriminately for everyone -regardless of all the excuses people make to say that God isn't. 

But how do you actually navigate through the conversations. My instinct is to turn to Christ as example. If people claim to be Christian than it can be supposed they're beholden to Jesus in some way. It's easier to reason with people on the basis of Him than politics which I'd like to think they would agree matters much less. 

Christ is with those kids. He's with the refugee and the gay teen. He's standing beside the poor, the disabled, and the domestic violence survivor. 

He isn't an "---ist" because the flesh doesn't matter, he sees only the Soul. He isn't "-----------ic" because no person is foreign to Him. So those who follow Him should be able to see and acknowledge that if nothing else. 

Beyond that I have no clue. I could argue "democratic/ liberal" concepts of humanism but Republicans don't care about and tend to hate those things. 

I am reminded by God to appreciate the good in people and see where they don't have blind spots. Both sides of my family are more embracing of LGBT people. They still say gay is a "sin", but mostly out of default-dogma because it's not something they've had to contemplate independently of religion or more deeply out of compassion. People never should have blindly followed doctrine. It hasn't always been of God. 

And my family agrees on universal healthcare. My dad's side of the family acknowledges racism and police brutality. They're anti-death penalty. 

So with "politics" and social issues at least there's been some middle ground. And I can appreciate and be thankful for that.