Silent mode: What I learned from taking a break from breaking news

For about two weeks after Inauguration Day, I didn’t watch the news, read my daily news feeds, or listen to late-night talk show hosts joke about serious matters.

COVID-19, protests against racial injustice, unending litigation about election integrity, the Capitol insurrection, and the heavily armed inauguration had stretched me beyond my emotional limits. I took a breaking-news break. And with the head and heart space that opened up, a fresh idea had the chance to emerge and invited me into a whole new perspective on our nation.

America is not divided, was my thought; we’ve merely been broken open. We have been forced to see the vices that have always lived among our virtues. We have been given this gift of broken-openness before, but we left the reality of “liberty and justice for all” languishing on a bottom shelf, only partially opened.

After the Civil War, Reconstruction could have given formerly enslaved people the 40 acres and a mule needed to start a new and flourishing life. Instead, it handed them 100 years of a slavery remix called Jim Crow. Post-World War II opportunities for housing loans could have helped Black citizens obtain a vital American dream. But racially restrictive covenants kept Black families from building generational wealth through homeownership. Voting rights wins in the 1960s could have changed the makeup of local, state, and national legislatures. Voter suppression strategies ensured that didn’t happen. America has not used its gifts to their fullest. We are great, but not as good as we could be.

Every time we have faced a national flashpoint, we have feared to look long enough and deep enough at our broken-openness. We fail to realize that it’s in our darkest and most broken places that God’s light will shine the brightest.

And here we are again, this time dealing with the formidable trifecta of racism, health care, and economic recovery. Are we willing to move beyond our binary historical narratives that cause us to see everything in terms of us/them, Black/white, red/blue, and haves/have-nots? Yes, it’s hard. It feels so much easier to take the road of defensiveness or denial than to face our long-overdue need for systemic change.

I get it. For about six years, I went – off and on – to see a mental health clinician. Every time I was about to make a breakthrough, I’d stop, not wanting to relive the sorrow of what I’d done or the trauma of what had been done to me. But the truth is, the way out was through.

Individuals and nations have to deal with their good, their bad, and their ugly. While we can’t undo what we’ve done, or unsee what we’ve seen, we can choose to engage with the gift of each new day differently. To go where we’ve never gone, we’ll have to do what we’ve never done. We’ll have to soldier through.

Our first steps toward what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the beloved community” might not feel like steps at all, but they are essential. First, we must find a comfy chair and a quiet space where we can sit and ponder thoughts that are honest, just, and lovely. And we must breathe. Yes, just breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Slowly. Intentionally. Deeply … for at least 10 minutes.

We must give our hearts and minds a rest. We’ll think about nothing while thinking about everything and allow the thoughts that emerge to emerge. If we stay in that comfy chair long enough, a sense of calm and goodness might overtake us. Peace, hope, joy, and gratitude will have the opportunity to become top of mind. We’ll ask ourselves where we can offer healing rather than harm, provide comfort instead of complaints, and give without a need to receive. We’ll ponder a small, doable act of kindness – and then we’ll set out to get it done.

As we are humbled by a greater awareness of our own broken-openness, we’ll take pride in a new ability to listen to those we think are not like us. We’ll discover that we have a lot in common with “them” – whoever “them” happens to be. We’ll notice that we all want safe neighborhoods, livable wages, quality health care, good schools for our children, and peace of mind about our retirement years.

In our comfy chairs, we can meet our “better angels.” I like to think that’s how President Lincoln understood the “still small voice” that speaks in the quiet. And when we get to know those angels, we won’t waste another day listening to demons of divisiveness. We’ll reimagine our so-called great divide as an open door into the lavish generosity, governed accountability, gracious forgiveness, bipartisan cooperation, and inexhaustible love that God’s light is waiting to stream into us all.

That’s the sound of silence.