Icebergs, Politics, & the Broken Edges

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that a massive Antarctica iceberg—almost the size of the state of Delaware—broke loose from an ice shelf. This iceberg was already floating,[1] so may not add to the global sea rise. Yet it may de-stabilize the remainder of the Larsen-C ice shelf. It also gives map-makers more work to do, because this break-off will require “a redrawing of the Antarctica coastline.” Long-term? No one knows. Yet anyone who cares about global air and water temperatures is uneasy today.I live on the East Coast of the United States, near Washington, DC. I am not a scientist. I don’t ship freight in Antarctic waters. I don’t own ocean-front property that would be destroyed by rising sea levels.Why should you and I care?In the past two years, an ideological and political rift that had been noticed by some astute observers began to grow. As many bare-knuckled political campaigns slowly bloodied into one full of vicious words and actions, the rift deepened and widened. On November 9, Americans voted. On November 10, one group of people cheered for what they saw as a much-needed upset of the status quo. They hoped the swamps of the halls of power would now get drained. The new President said what he thought, and everyone else be damned. America would be great again.Yet others knew Washington, D.C. and the halls of power well. Long-established systems don’t change quickly. Perhaps America did not have to be made great again. Perhaps America had always been great. This grieving group of people—on the “wrong” side of the election—were stunned and shocked. Eight months later, many still struggle to understand just how they ended up on an iceberg that has broken away from the rest of the ice shelf. Eight months later, spiritual leaders like me wonder how we can live into our own personal political perspectives and beliefs with integrity, while at the same time holding together all the little ice floes: communities of people who voted for Bernie Sanders, people who voted for Hillary Clinton, people who voted for Donald Trump, and people who voted their displeasure about all three by staying home.Have we broken away from each other in a way that we can never fit ourselves back together again?I believe that deep inside, we are all children. Every child wants to be loved unconditionally. Every child wants to know s/he is important. Every child wants to be listened to, to truly be heard.  If everyone is shouting at each other—whether in person or on Twitter—all we can hear is shouting. No one is really listening. I wonder if our hearts are slowly freezing and hardening into rough edges that will never match again.As a spiritual leader, I believe God’s people can be healers, listeners, maybe even instruments of reconciliation. Yet if we are to do that, we need to be willing to center ourselves in God, focus on the light that shines from each of God’s children, open our ears and hearts to what our brothers and sisters feel and think.If we are willing to do that—even adrift on an ice floe—perhaps we can reach across the gaps, to hold each other’s hands[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/07/12/one-of-the-biggest-icebergs-in-recorded-history-just-broke-loose-from-antarctica/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_iceberg-810am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.fb3ed164f552Photo by Ciprian Morar on Unsplash#iceberg #politics #light #Antarctica #Larsen-C ice shelf