I don’t know if a cardiologist would notice, but America’s collective heart is contracting — and has been for at least the last few years.
I am not a physician or a scholar, but in my own life, I generally know when things are not running according to specifications. My first kidney stone awakened me in the middle of the night. I sat upright and declared, “I have a kidney stone!”
Michael Chancellor
I was not awakened by a bright idea or a recurring pain. Rather, although I had no frame of reference and no history of kidney stones in my family, a visit to our community ER confirmed what was to become the devil within me for the next 20 years. Occasionally — apparently to keep me humble — without warning, this grass-burr-like devil would slip from the kidney into the canal connecting the kidney to the bladder, stopping traffic and sounding the alarm with resounding pain.
The point is, I didn’t need a doctor at my bedside at midnight to tell me I had a problem.
Similarly, I don’t believe I need a cardiologist to tell me we have a heart problem in the United States. To quote Dr. Seuss in reference to the Grinch: “We have a heart two sizes too small.”
This is not a generational problem, nor is it a flaw within our structure as a nation. It also is not an unfamiliar issue, because throughout our history, it has surfaced in times of fear and uncertainty — such as when we displaced Native Americans to tightly controlled reservations, interred Japanese Americans or bought and sold African Americans because their enslavement was convenient and their forced labor built the economy of the South.
“Our founding documents were not flawed; they were just ignored when doing so was more convenient.”
Our founding documents were not flawed; they were just ignored when doing so was more convenient.
Today, I believe convenience is pushing us into the times in which we are living. Our faith does not constrain us, and our laws do not stop us; we are caught up in the fear stoked by peddlers of hate.
We are buying this hate from people we look up to, who drive a narrative as false as the old elixirs peddled by the traveling salesmen of the Old West. A love and respect for our neighbor has propelled us at the best of times and created solidarity in the most difficult of times.
Peddlers of fear have caused us to stress about who is in the country and what we should do about it. To hear the elixir salespeople tell it, the answer is simple and clear: Throw out everyone who is not like us. In pursuit of that end, we are told to fear them, suspect the worst and sit by as leaders convince us who our enemies are.
Three groups come to mind in particular.
First, it is the undocumented immigrants who have journeyed to our nation across borders previously more accessible. Someone whose name escapes my memory pointed out that our founders were not the elite of the nations that sent them to the colonies; in fact, in many ways, we were the riffraff, the outcasts and those who did not conform to the established, enshrined religion. He went on to say, in so many words: “If an ocean didn’t stop them, do you honestly believe those same people would allow a river to dissuade them?”
Research into undocumented immigrants shows that while some claim they are smuggled in to do us harm, crime statistics simply don’t support that narrative. Additionally, notions that immigrants are eating our pets are merely “alternative facts,” which in my world have always been labeled as lies.
Second, it is important never to diminish the power of truth in our time. In fact, it should be easier for a person today to see what is true, partially true, mostly false or completely false. The discernment process never has been simpler, yet false stories proliferate so quickly that we must constantly verify what we see.
When the news came across my feed last Wednesday that Dolly Parton had died, I initially was unsure if it was true or just another social media post snatched from somewhere to catch my attention. It didn’t take long to corroborate that this tragic news was, in fact, true. It is easy to be misled. For that reason, it is vital to always check multiple sources to confirm any rumor or “fact.”
We are challenged today to discern what is true. Vaccines have not been linked to autism, and a combined MMR shot for children is safer and more effective than giving a child up to five separate shots for the same things. In my world, an environmental lawyer is not qualified to dispense medical information.
Finally, doesn’t our faith compel us to live like Jesus lived, do what Jesus did and see others as Jesus saw them? Have you ever counted how many outcasts — those living on the margins because they were pushed out of polite society — Jesus noticed, talked to and helped?
If you are truly a follower of Jesus, there is no “other.” There are no “others.” There is simply my neighbor, who is loved by God and for whom Christ died — even if they never realize it.
Michael Chancellor served 33 years as pastor of four Baptist churches in Texas, six years as a mental health manager in a maximum-security Texas prison before becoming a therapist in private practice in Round Rock, Texas. He now lives in Taylor, Texas.