Go ahead and cancel me for maintaining these friendships with my neighbors. These are people God has called me to love without exceptions or excuses.

Sorry. I'm not canceling my neighbor.

As a parent of six children though, I am moderately annoyed by the suggestion that parents should just butt out when it comes to their kid’s education.

While parents may not control what is taught in school, they at least deserve to have clarity about a school’s goals, beliefs, and methods.

Violent crime is up by 5.6% overall but homicides are up by over 22% according to my simple calculation.

I have proposed recently that the American public is becoming unhinged in ways I have not witnessed before.

The world as we have known it for the last 18 months has been a challenge in which to find a rhythm. Our old ways of doing things have been flipped upside down.

Work, school, and church life were moved to different rhythms.

America’s culture wars are intensifying in the nation’s classrooms and board meetings. How long can this public institution withstand the tug-of-war between ideologically opposed groups?

As leaders in our community, we were keenly aware that our city was on the brink of potential riots if even one police interaction went wrong.

Our little city of York, PA, has a history of violent riots dating to 1969. That year was violent and deadly as a young Black woman, Lillie Belle Allen, was shot by white men as she drove with her family. A white police officer, Henry Schaad, was killed in an armored truck by a Black sniper that same year.

York was boiling over with antagonism and rage, much like most of America in 2021.

There are likely good reasons why a departure may be justified. Before you say “I Quit,” perhaps you should ponder if you may need a season to renew your strength.

We should all be deeply concerned about the fracturing of our nation. The snag in the fabric has torn all the way into local communities and houses of worship. The tear does not show any signs of slowing. 

“Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others… but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God ‘sending us’ to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE hell unless it is nipped in the bud. “

People who possess eternal life are not afraid to risk what they can’t lose. The question we should ask is not the teacher’s “who is my neighbor?” but the more expansive “to whom should I become a neighbor?”

How can we dismantle the distrust of this emerging tribalism? We are on the crazy cycle of distrust and defense. Your tribe attacks mine, we answer tit-for-tat. Your tribe becomes more defensive and even violent, mine reciprocates.

Jesus said, “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:28, NIV).

We need not be naive about the pursuit of truth. Civil dialogue can lead us to better understanding, empathy, and even compromise, but there will inevitably be disagreements. We should not be frightened by the prospect of disagreement, but welcome it as one of the gifts of a free society.

Do we want a beautiful city free of violence, racism, classism, sexism, greed, self-righteousness, partisanship, and ongoing division that is wasting our communities? These are shackles and fetters that must be broken and only the truth can do that.

So let us sit together in the public square and boldly pursue the truth together. We can do it with openness, transparency, humility, laughter, and joy.

After much mental and spiritual despair, I am now confident, even optimistic, that there is a way forward. I have the privilege of witnessing the beginnings of it happening right here in York, PA. It is a tenuous start, but it is a beginning nonetheless.

We can build a beautiful city and I believe God wants us to do it together. This construction requires the recognition of four emerging problems in public life: outsourcing, ambivalence, intolerance, and tribalism.

Easter Sunday is still the ultimate reset for the followers of Jesus. Just as the Church was awakened to a bright new reality 2,000 years ago, so too, the modern Church should embrace again the life-giving power of the resurrection of Jesus.

I propose there are several affirmations the Church can make that will chart a new trajectory for generations to come.

We build gates in communities that are restricted with key-code access, and erect fences in our neighborhoods to mark off our territory, give us privacy from our neighbors, and safety from unwanted intruders.

The logic of good fences seems indisputable. Fences keep little kids and pets within our boundaries, but more importantly, they keep the unwanted and unwelcome out.

Anti-Asian attacks around the country have been on the rise during the pandemic. Hatred is being directed at people of Asian descent for the irrational reason that they are somehow to be blamed for COVID-19. We cannot allow these injustices to stand, especially in the Church.

I am suggesting that social media has aided the multiplication of judgmental critics who do not operate out of a deep well of virtue and constructive concern. They are dangerous because they are destructive and lead others astray. 

What is worse, they even discourage the very people we need to declutter the path before us: the creatives.

To refuse to see the plight of your brothers and sisters is to be robbed of the opportunity to feel your heart thump with the compassion of God. We must resist the impulse to look away.

There is another way. You can rise above. You must figure out how to do it ASAP.

TODAY is the day to begin rising above the chaos and the vitriol that threatens to undo the good work of our institutions.

YOU must lead. You must become the bigger person. You must refuse to be dragged down to despising your attackers. When they go low, you must go high.