Bridging the divide after the election

One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Phil is that the most reliable

predictor of future behavior is past behavior. I doubt President Bush

will be concerned about unifying the country because this was not a

priority for him during his first term. At the same time, we should

be open to the unexpected. Perhaps he meant it when he said the vote

of support had “humbled” him and he would work hard to “win our

trust.”

A unilateral mind set is hard to shake, especially when it brings

success. A few of the immediate tests are, of course, the new cabinet

and Supreme Court appointments. Will they be moderates or from the

“right bank” of the mainstream?

The caustic atmosphere of two years of campaigning will take

awhile to subside. As former President Carter has said, the level of

incivility coming from both sides would have been unheard of in his

day. The kind of meanness and hatred that was projected on a daily

basis from ads, speeches, and multimedia could only result in a

climate in which violence happens (tire-slashing, etc.).

From a Zen perspective, the question is always: What can I do to

help? What is needed now in my family, church, community, nation and

world? For the Zen practitioner, silent meditation is the best

resource through which we can realize the unity that transcends all

division. Our most cherished opinions are made clear for what they

are, and we learn more and more to respond to situations free of

fixation.

This does not mean we do not hold views, for example, on war,

abortion and gay rights. This means that we live remembering that we

are deeply connected -- Republicans and Democrats; Christians,

Muslims, Buddhists and atheists; Americans, Europeans and Iraqis; and

ultimately the whole world of rocks and water, forests and sky.

REV. CAROL AGUILAR

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

“So let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is

not a sign of weakness.”

So John F. Kennedy summoned us in his inaugural address. Today,

incivility, partisanship and rancor rule political discourse. Comity,

the practice of courtesy among equals, is much praised but rarely

practiced. The political arena features opponents dug in and hardly

willing to exemplify tolerance.

Historically, politics has hardly been free of rancor. Bitterness

and hatred have always befouled our political atmosphere. The only

U.S. President who did not heap invective on his predecessor was

George Washington. In 1856, U.S. Rep. Preston Brooks, a Democrat,

mercilessly caned Sen. Charles Sumner, a fellow Democrat, for

delivering an abolitionist speech in the Senate chamber. Andrew

Jackson was accused of being a bigamist and kept dueling pistols

ready to level at whoever dared slander his wife’s reputation. Vice

President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton, former secretary of

the Treasury, in a duel over Hamilton’s opposition to Burr’s

candidacy for governor of New York.

James Madison was prescient when he wrote in the Federalist

Papers, “So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual

animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the

most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to

kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent

conflicts.”

Today, Americans are alienated from one another along political

lines, and both sides are entrenched in their positions. Since so

much power rests on a few votes or a single seat, the battles are

especially fierce. The battlefield is an apt metaphor, as both sides

contend for every advantage with every weapon in their arsenal. The

policy of “scorched-earth” leaves devastation and everyone is

bloodied.

All Presidents pledge to work toward an era of good feeling,

expressing a determination to reach out to opponents with gestures of

conciliation and bipartisanship. But it is not long before an

administration reverts to the default position of defensiveness,

scapegoating and attack mode.

“The incivility in American politics has reached unprecedented

heights or, rather, lows,” according to the Global Language Monitor,

which tracks politically sensitive words and phrases in the media and

on the Internet.

“Not since the Civil War era, when President Lincoln was

frequently depicted by adversaries as a gangly, gaping baboon, has

the discourse sunken to such a profane level,” it said.

The recent campaign, rife with calumnies and distortions, has

illustrated the coarsening of political life.

Columnist David Brooks examined the current polarization of

American politics and pronounced it “complete.”

“You’ve got a monopoly on virtue,” he said. “The other side is

wrong, but not only are they wrong, they’re illegitimate. It’s a team

sport -- your team versus our team.”

In the recent national spectacle that passed for a campaign we

were treated to an “us and them” mentality.

This campaign was sufficiently divisive for resentments to linger

for some time. How we need to hear the words of Lincoln’s first

inauguration speech: “We must not be enemies. Though passion may have

strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords

of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to

every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will

yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they

will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

In his second inauguration speech, Lincoln spoke to a tired,

bitter nation. The North was winning on all fronts and demands for

revenge were everywhere. But Lincoln called America to healing, to

repairing the breach: “With malice toward none, with charity for all,

with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us

strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s

wounds.”

May our President take to heart the words of his father, George

H.W. Bush: “I take as my guide the hope of a saint: in crucial

things, unity; in important things, diversity; in all things,

generosity.”

Thus, may the better angels of our nature inspire us to bind up

the nation’s wounds.

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yam

Newport Beach

In the final days of the campaign both President Bush and Sen.

John Kerry hinted at post-election reconciliation with wisdom such

as, “This great country needs the best each of her citizens has to

offer.”

Senator Kerry’s concession, avoiding another “chad”/provisional

ballot delay debacle, was gracious and mindful of the greater good.

President Bush’s eloquent and out-reaching victory speech

acknowledged the dangers of divisions existing among us and promised

that a primary goal of his second term will be to help our nation

“come together and work together.” These actions certainly are

conciliatory.

I hope that President Bush will now move beyond conciliation to

reconciliation and be a reconciler. He has begun well, reaching out

to former opponents. Jesus taught that one must be reconciled with

one’s brother and/or sister (see Matthew 5:23-24 for example) before

one can be reconciled to God. As a faithful Christian, our President

should understand that God is neither a Republican nor a Democrat and

that polarization results in paralysis. We citizens must understand

that politics do not happen only once every two, or four, years; its

process, our progress, is day-by-day. During their campaigns,

politicians paid ample attention to which ways the wind blew; the

President must now lead us in changing the wind!

Christians understand that the opposite of love is not hate, but

fear. This election was full of fear: We fear our adversary. We fear

losing control. We fear sliding down a slope from the height of our

own self-right-ness. When we fear, we cease to love.

Christian groups ranging from the National Assn. of Evangelicals

to the United States Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops have issued

helpful statements addressing this. I trust that President Bush is

aware that what we need now is a unifying vision, clearly

articulated, of our great nation as a servant of all this earth’s

peoples in our universal yearning after justice and peace.

In the Episcopal Church in this Diocese of Los Angeles, our Hands

in Healing initiative says, in part: “Jesus’ life, death and

resurrection were about reconciliation: ‘...God through Christ

reconciled us to himself...’ (2 Corinthians 5:14-20) Jesus did not

teach a theology or philosophy. Jesus witnesses to the truth that

repentance, forgiveness and rebirth in the Spirit are the means of

entering God’s Kingdom -- the realm of God’s rule.”

In obedience to God, President Bush must look to the well being of

a world that God loves so much that he came among us to reconcile to

himself and to save. May our President do what the Lord requires,

which is, according to the prophet Micah (6:8b), “to do justice, and

to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.”

VERY REV. CANON

PETER D. HAYNES

St. Michael & All Angels

Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

The fierceness of this election has become somewhat of an urban

legend. We are all a bit myopic in our view of history. What is in

front of our faces is always more colorful than memories. Tom Brokaw

said that the 1968 and 1972 campaigns were just as, if not more,

divisive. Have you ever read some of the early campaign rhetoric from

the 18th and 19th centuries? I didn’t know that they were allowed to

be that vociferous back then.

That said, I love our government because our legislatures know the

difference between a lively debate and getting legislation done. Just

last week, we saw a food fight in the parliament of a country in

Asia. That was not the first time either. It is common to see

shouting matches and even fights in the governments of other

countries. Somehow we have retained our decorum and have limited our

fighting to words, divisive ones on occasion, but that is part of the

debate.

Yes, President Bush needs to “reach across the aisle” and begin

some conversations with the opposition. The opposition needs to

reciprocate. Extremists on both sides need to realize that

cooperation is the only way to move this country forward. They both

need to look beyond special interests and see our nation is in a

state of desperation for hope and action. The elderly need affordable

medication, the poor need food, housing and healthcare. Our air and

waters are polluted, but we have an unhealthy reliance on unstable

and unclean fuel sources.

The media has a huge part to play in the problem of divisiveness.

As reality shows, talk shows and soap opera-style dramas dominate our

television, the news has become susceptible to sensationalism and

gossip. They have become participants in the process rather than

observers.

There is no excuse for slashing tires or other types of

intimidation. The Florida driver who tried to run down people to

intimidate them was an extremist.

The violence is the result of the death of tolerance. Tolerance

used to mean we could agree to disagree. Now it means that if you

don’t agree that I am right (and still believe you are right) then

you are intolerant.

Relativism dominates the thinking of our culture. It stems from

the reluctance to agree on the existence of absolutes. This new

“tolerance” allows a person to justify their violent actions against

those opposing them because their opponents are not seen as part of

the solution, but part of the problem. Our politics will indeed grow

more violent if we continue on this path of relativism.

SENIOR ASSOCIATE PASTOR

RIC OLSEN

Harbor Trinity

Costa Mesa