In defense of the silent dissenter

My facebook has gotten very loud recently. Pictures, cartoons and tweets... status debates and name-calling. I am overwhelmed with the noise of it all, the deafening white noise of an unholy alliance between social media and political obsession.

I am the silent dissenter. Informed, yet searching. Impassioned, yet fallible.

I'm not going to tell you who I will vote for. I'm not going to go on Facebook and bait you into a political discussion. I'm not going to send you email after email about the latest, worst conspiracy. I will not be defined by whom I vote for. My identity is not within one party, but found in - and because of - one Man.

Online political discussions are not worth the time it takes to type a reactionary parting shot. But, if we must, I will tell you in person, a coffee mug or two between us. I will look you in the eyes, answer your questions, and ask you some of my own. I will smile and shake your hand as we stand and part ways. Because people are worth more than politics. 

And if we're going to choose battles, I want to choose this one wisely and fight on the side of grace.

If you'd like to have that coffee, I may just be found here, at Election Day Communion. Find your church, your people - not your party - and eat and drink what's been broken and poured out for you.

"And we’ll re-member the body of Christ as the body of Christ, confessing the ways in which partisan politics has separated us from one another and from God."

How do you cope with election season?