What Kind of Greatness Are We Choosing?

Why do we spend so much time fighting and blaming when, deep down, we all know we are supposed to be helping each other? We ALL know this on a very basic level. Not just here in the United States, but across the world.

I think part of the reason we are fighting and blaming each other is because we have lost the ability to truly listen. We have lost the ability to discern the difference between ideology and what is actually right. We have forgotten what it means to be unselfish, compassionate, and empathetic. Instead, too often, we use our ideology, our religion, our politics, and our fear to protect us from becoming the caring people we are called to be.

Why on earth would we ever think it is acceptable to stop programs that help feed people, house people, protect people, heal people, or give struggling families a chance to survive? Before we defend the cuts or argue the politics, maybe we should be asking the people affected by them what it is doing to their lives — and then actually believe them. Why do we use such inhumane thought processes to defend our lifestyles and our wallets?

Why do we spend so much time fighting and blaming when LGBTQ people are American citizens and human beings, deserving of the same rights, dignity, safety, and respect as everyone else? They are not sexualizing anyone. They are not hurting anyone. Why can’t we just be compassionate and caring for the sake of being compassionate and caring?

Why do we spend so much time fighting and blaming when so many people coming into our country are not coming to “take” from us, but because they are desperate for safety, opportunity, freedom, and hope? They are human beings. They need dignity. They need compassion. They need us to listen to their stories instead of deciding who they are before we ever know their names.

And the same is true for our Black brothers and sisters who are telling us they feel like this country is moving backward. They are not asking us to explain their pain back to them. They are asking us to listen.

What is going on? Where is the United States we were supposed to be? Where is the country that says we believe in liberty and justice for all — not just for the comfortable, not just for the powerful, not just for the people who look like us, worship like us, vote like us, or love like us? At some point, we have to stop asking, “Whose side are you on?” and start asking, “Who is being hurt, and what can we do to help?” It is time for all of us to take a deep dive into our own motivations, our bottom-line beliefs, and what we truly believe makes America great.

Donald Trump is focused on a kind of greatness I am not interested in. A greatness rooted in power, self-interest, building only ourselves up, and forgetting the people, the earth, and the moral responsibility we have to care for both. That is not the greatness I believe in. The greatness I believe in looks like compassion. Justice. Mercy. Truth. Humility. Neighbor loving neighbor. People with power protecting the vulnerable instead of blaming them. A country strong enough to care, not just wealthy enough to dominate. And if we cannot see the difference, then we need to ask ourselves what kind of country we are becoming. Because if our first instinct is to defend systems instead of listening to suffering people, then we have lost something sacred. We can do better than this.  And we HAVE TO.

Maybe this is the question underneath all of it: will we choose compassion over ideology?