The anger that lives in us comes both from our personal lives, pain and slights we have experienced, and from the larger community of which we are a part. We cannot fully resolve to be without anger if we are unwilling to address the suffering that exists around us. And we cannot address the suffering of the culture if we choose to see ourselves as separate from it. But when I am in community I don’t have to carry it all on my own. It is also carried by others and it is also carried by God, for I truly am not separate.

The redemption of the world comes through us more than we do the actual redeeming. I don’t know how to make a lotus bloom. But I do know how to prepare the ground so the lotus might choose to bloom.

I am sad for my nation right now. This self-righteousness, this judgment, this anger is no place to live. But I also believe the suffering allows us to find a deeper understanding and compassion. So for that I am grateful as it gives me the opportunity to love more and more powerfully. What we nurture becomes the future. Let us starve anger and nurture love so we might be the transformation our culture so desperately longs for.