Dear Lacey,
The longer I am the mother of four children, the more I understand the science behind birth order theory. It’s fairly certain that you will always be the fun-loving, naturally charming, baby sister of the family.
I am constantly wavering between guilt and thankfulness as I watch you grow up in the chaos and shadow of your three older siblings. One guilt for example is that there are significantly fewer evenings where all of us happen to be home and ready to eat at the same hour, and even fewer evenings that I manage to find the energy to shop for and make a proper dinner. While I like to think you consistently eat two to three square meals a day, I am certain you eat way fewer green things and way more sweet things than any of your siblings would have ever been allowed at the age of 10. The evening or so a week when all six of us are home to sit down to a proper meal around our large circle table in the breakfast room, I am always filled with nothing but thankfulness. Thankful that many of our dinners include an extra friend or two to feed. Thankful that everyone always seems just as thankful to be together as I am, even as annoyances are freely expressed and arguments often break out. Thankful that the conversations are rich in meaning, ripe with controversy, and full of grace. This is of course quite different than the weeknight dinners we shared when Kori Jane was your age, and you were still a toddler. We still play the occasional dinner table games that used to dominate our mealtime conversations, but rarely do we make it through one round of “Two Truths and a Lie” without some exciting, interesting, or upsetting event someone encountered that day sparking a lively discussion or debate.
It is true that most often, you are wishing everyone would stop talking about teenage drama, current events, and theological truths, but there are plenty of times when you are jumping right in and asking one of your precocious and thoughtful questions. Many times, I fight the urge to change the subject, but instead I opt to silently cringe as you are exposed to subjects and vocabulary I was frantically trying to shield your siblings from at your age.
Even when our dinner table conversations leave me with some explaining to do, I am still thankful that you are growing up watching your siblings as they learn to think for themselves, really listen to others, defend their beliefs, disagree, give grace, vocalize doubts, and ask hard questions. After all, there is no better place in the whole world for those conversations to happen than around a dinner table. In fact, it might not only be my favorite place to have hard conversations, I daresay it is the ONLY place I feel comfortable having the hardest of conversations. At least in any sort of way that will prove meaningful, productive, and unifying.
There is no doubt that we are a passionate family with strong convictions and deep-rooted beliefs, but my sincere hope is that we are not known outside the walls of our home only by the convictions we hold, and I certainly cringe to think that we would ever be categorized or known by the way we voted in the last election. Better yet, unless you have dined at my dinner table, I prefer you don’t necessarily even know who I voted for in the last election. Being that we have just come out of one of the most charged and divisive presidential election campaigns in US history, politics have been a topic of dinner table conversation frequently over the last year.
Last month, Lacey, it was your question that sparked what might be my very favorite dinner conversation of the year so far! You asked, “is Jesus a Democrat or a Republican?” First there was silence followed by awkward giggles and knowing smiles carefully exchanged, as we all wondered where this evening’s conversation was headed.
While somehow, I had never bothered to directly ask myself this question before, the answer was quite obviously, “neither.”
“Jesus was neither a Republican nor a Democrat.” Not only that, but Jesus was also not American, he did not speak English, and he looked nothing like our blonde-haired blue-eyed family. The constitution was not the law he preached, followed, or quoted, and His allegiance was not to any government, race, gender, political cause, or even to his own family line. When he laid down his life it was not for the sake of his country or for any social or political agenda at all. He laid down his life because he loves people, and he especially loves broken, hurting, and sinful people- people like us.
As Pastor David frequently likes to remind us, “Jesus would probably be far too conservative for the liking of most Democrats, and far too liberal for the liking of most Republicans.” I don’t think this means that Jesus would necessarily not have voted in this last election had he been alive and living in America today, but I do not pretend for even a second to know the mind of a sinless, all knowing, and perfectly compassionate Savior. His Kingdom is not of this world. His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are his ways our ways. Who among us has understood the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him?
As you know from so many dinner table conversations, your parents proudly exercise their right to vote and have openly shared which policies each of us are most sensitive about. And while we always vote, we do not always cast matching ballots, nor do we expect that all of our children will always cast matching ballots. I hope you will one day choose to take advantage of the privilege and duty you have as an American citizen to vote when you turn 18, but far more important to me than your political affiliation will be how well you love people- especially the people who think, look, act, and vote differently than you.
Please do not hear me say you should not hold strong opinions or convictions. On the contrary, I want all my children to be compassionate deep thinkers who know what they believe and why they believe it, but I also want you to leave space for others to believe something different without judgement or personal criticism. We can never fully know the life experiences, natural bents, or the various relationships, hurts, joys, and griefs that have shaped another person’s world view. But what we do know is God has placed in each of us unique passions, experiences, and gifts He means to be pursued and shared as we seek to be instruments of peace in a desperately needy and broken world.
Please also do not hear me say you should keep your strong opinions and convictions to yourself, and avoid hard conversations at all costs. On the contrary I want each of you to be passionate advocates for not only peace, but also for truth, justice, and love. The question to me is not whether we should be having hard conversations, but rather when and where we should be having these conversations. Of course, there are not straightforward answers to this question, but I implore you to give them thoughtful consideration, nonetheless.
Hard conversations tend to engage our emotions as much as our intellect and therefore they have tremendous power to divide or to unify, and to harm or to heal. I have made a deliberate choice to try to only engage when there is potential to unify and heal, and I make that determination by asking myself the when and the where questions.
For me, difficult conversations are worthy conversations WHEN I know and love my audience and they are convinced I love them despite any of our differences, WHEN I have been asked my opinion, and WHEN I have had time to weigh the consequences of engaging in any such conversation. I’ve chosen the practice of avoiding high-stake conversations on a whim, among people who are unwilling to listen and learn or who are easily offended, and on any digital platform- especially social media. It is incredibly sad to me how often the very conversations we avoid having face to face with people we know and love, all too often flow freely over the internet. We make blanket statements sure to hurt and offend someone, we hide behind news articles that prove our points, and we spout statistics that think for us.
Possibly even more important to me than asking when to engage in difficult and complicated conversations, is asking WHERE to engage? In my experience, the most meaningful, unifying and healing place for hard conversations is around a shared meal. This is why there are no off-limit conversations around my dinner table, and also why your vocabulary, your questions, and political acumen at the age of 10 might be a little more mature than I’d prefer.
Even so Lacey, may we be a family who is known foremost for our love, compassion, good deeds, and an extra spot at our dinner table. May our dinner table conversations always be full of deep and meaningful questions, controversies, opinions, wonderings, and observations. And may each shared meal end with a sense of unity and healing, not because anyone has been convinced of anything, but because we have all listened, we have all learned, and we have all felt loved.
Love,
Mom