I had a dream....I was standing on the continental divide looking east when I felt the the ground beneath my feet shake violently...

8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

I had to brace myself to keep from falling when I discovered that the ground beneath me was separating, slowly, then gradually faster, until there was a great gulf that separated what was once the United States of America. I looked to my left and then to my right and discovered people in a daze looking east at similar people, shocked and bewildered at what they just saw happen looking west. 

 We all looked down this new grand canyon that separated our country.  All of us wanted our country back to the way it once was because none of us liked what we saw, but none of us knew how to fix this problem.

The meanness of our politics has finally caught up with us, separating us along our cultural, economic divide. 

 When we refuse to understand what it is like to walk in our brother or sister's shoes and experience life, they are experiencing, then we are allowing ourselves to grow cold and uncaring as the calcified deposits collect in our hearts, making it literally impossible to understand and meeting people where they are at in life.

Each time,

We walk past someone of a different faith staring at them with contempt

When we shove someone down with our icy cold stares wishing they weren't here,

When we make blanket statements based on social media accounts of what we think Muslim people are like,

When we disrespect someone's opinion by talking over them and making them feel less than human

Then I noticed the divide growing wider, deeper with increasing casualties on both sides falling in. 

Each time...

We give someone the finger,

We choose to cut someone down with words of accusations

We throw someone under the bus just to get ahead of them in status

I see the rift becoming greater in such a way that this one great nation was now many small islands more vulnerable than they were before this divide.

Then, I heard these words from Jesus:

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.”

And then I heard these words from our Lord,

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike Matthew 5:43-48

Then it occurred to me that each time I.......

strove to walk in my neighbor's shoes and attempt to understand,

actually talk to a friend of the Muslim faith instead of offering cold icy stares of contempt,

respectfully disagree while helping someone maintain their dignity,

Then I noticed the great divide beginning to get smaller. I noticed that others were noticing the kind things I was now doing, and they are doing them too...I noticed the anger beginning to disappear and the great divide coming together,

So that,..... 

so that the islands were now united,

the gulf was now gone

the people are now united

and the nation was now stronger.

I learned from this dream that we aren't as different from each other as we think we are. Learning to walk in another's shoes and building relationships with each other is the beginning of understanding.

United we stand, divided we fall