Dearly Divided,

I would venture to say all of us are “musing” about what is perceived to be a deep divide among the American population over a handful of issues. In this forum I have no interest in wading into the waters about specific topics; instead I’ve been wondering about those who are the beneficiaries of our division.

Years ago, I was a student of Rabbi Edwin Friedman. Much of his instruction for counselors and consultants was to coach us toward asking better questions. Better questions, according to Friedman, helped the client step back from the immediacy of their perceived problem to see the systemic dynamics that created their discomfort. In one instance, he offered a list of medical questions that highlighted his technique. These included:

• How long do you think it should take you to get better?

• If you persist in your illness, what unsavory tasks will you be permitted to avoid?

• On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the highest), how does your misery rate compared to others with your condition?

• Who would most benefit from your demise?

I was reminded of these questions fresh off my Monday morning news feed binge. I realized that for several months the algorithms feeding my information curiosity were stuck in a “democracy-in-a-death-spiral” mode. They were pandering to my appetite for “Jonathan’s smart and the rest of the world are idiots” pabulum. One article that appeared last week told me that half of Americans believe life-threatening lies. Never mind the content of those lies; what startled me was my reaction. Learning how 52% of our population were fools heading off a cliff of self-deception did not drive me to action or despair; instead I thought something akin to, “Oh well, more room for the rest of us.”

In a world of infinite parallel information universes, I presume someone with the opposite thread of content manipulation was thinking the same thing, only they were passively rejoicing at the potential demise of my 48% cohort. In a world divided into elites and deplorables, why care?

Which brings me back to another Rabbi’s important question. In John chapter 5, Jesus arrives at the pool of Bethesda. Magical power of the waters promised healing to the first one in the pool when an angel stirred the waters. An invalid had been on the pool deck for thirty-eight years. Unfortunately, because of his incapacitation, he was never the first one in. For nearly four decades he kept losing the race to healing. In combative passiveness the man revealed to Jesus his incapacity to see any other way toward wholeness, the way that was never going to work for him. But Jesus didn’t tap into the helpless magical narrative; he instead asked a better question: “Do you want to get well?”

Without being conspiratorial, I wonder if we WANT to get well. Do we as individuals really desire wholeness between our citizens, or are we more content with battling over definitions of purity?

The Rabbi is asking the right question.

Convicted of my own combative passiveness, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor