Conservative or Liberal?

I’ve never been particularly patriotic or political in my life. In fact, though I voted in my early years, when John Lennon died in 1980, I stopped voting. Imagine was one of my favorite songs and I was deeply inspired by it. His violent death opened my eyes to the fact that the world wasn’t what it seemed. I don’t completely understand why my response to his death was to stop voting. I abstained for many years, and gradually found myself occasionally feeling inspired by someone, and voting intermittently for the person whose message touched me, or a subject that was meaningful to me.

I vacillated as over and over again, the people I had chosen to trust by voting for them showed, through their actions, that they didn’t actually represent what I had been led to believe they did. True colors showed up over and over, and ultimately led me to recognizing that I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) dive deeply enough into the people and the issues of politics to make useful decisions. Instead, I turned to how I could have a more positive effect on the world (and myself) instead of looking outside for change to occur. This decision was the beginning of reducing my association with the label of liberal.

My father was a “Liberal” and my mother was the Secretary for the League of Women Voters. That’s about as political as it got in my house (at least when I was in hearing distance). I don’t recall any deep discussions about voting or issues of the day. Maybe I tuned it all out as I was too busy rebelling against society. Who knows? I do remember one instance when the neighbors right next door were supporting the Republican candidate and my parents were voting Democratic. There was some friction between the two homes during that time - and this was the neighbor we celebrated the Fourth of July with during my growing years.

In college, I definitely had a more liberal leaning as my friends and I were hoping to save the world by gardening, hiking, being vegetarians, and just loving nature! Over the years I discovered that, in much of America’s farmlands, the farmers leaned to a more conservative belief system. At one point, some twenty years ago or so, I heard about a certain segment of the far right who started openly supporting environmentalism, and growing organically, because of certain sections in the Bible that supported respectful relationship with all of life. That was eye opening for me at the time.

Though I’m not a Bible reader, I thought it would be helpful to have a few reference points. As always, everything is open to interpretation. Here are a few sections that speak to the environmentalist in me: Jeremiah 2:7, Psalm 104:24-25, Job 12:7-10, Numbers 35:33-34.

Also in the mid-1990s, I was in the midst of founding a democratic school for my son to attend. Suddenly, the lines began to blur. Another founding family was strongly Catholic and we seemingly had little in common. And yet, we found enough common ground in how we chose to live our lives that our children grew up together as good friends, and we ran the school successfully within community, though not without conflict.

Gradually, I became more and more aware that labels weren’t realistic or helpful. In fact, as the world of humanity has continued to shift, to me more visibly in recent years, the clarity I thought I had about label definitions has blurred significantly. The increasingly blatant messages dispersed by mainstream media, regardless of the stance being supported, has pushed me to back away from the separation of labeling as much as possible. This includes when I think of myself or others, whether I know them or not.

I’ve been perusing the current Primary Election booklet while I write this, and am fascinated how many of the people in it are claiming “No Party Preference”. It doesn’t matter if they are calm, clear and focused in their statements, or to the opposite extreme, spewing vitriol as a stance. In fact, I’m quite shocked by some of the statements that were published. I guess it’s all in the name of “cover your butt legally” in order to not look like anyone’s rights are being trampled on by not including them. Very modern California!

I suppose on some level there’s a benefit to being exposed to these severe extremes. Hopefully, it will result in supporting more moderate opinions in order to move forward in a meaningful way in these tumultuous times. What feels dangerous to me are the extremes that are currently the norm, both to the left and right. They are often blithely supported in the name of “equal rights for everyone”, without clear consideration of how it is affecting the rights of the majority. And yet, I recognize that theses imbalances are representative of the breakdown of the old, which in turn, makes way for the new - whatever that may be.

I attend a spiritual study group on a regular basis, and it’s fascinating to see how people express their thoughts and opinions there. There’s been a limited amount of directing the conversation which allows for a wide variety of expression to occur. There’s actually not a lot of variation in opinions in the group, as they (and I to a certain extent) represent a certain swathe of society. There is often a degree of thoughtful conversation within the parameters that exist. What I’ve observed is how the loudest, and most extreme voices tend to override the calmer, quieter voices in the group.

As the louder people get louder, the quieter people get quieter. Until a certain point, at which they demand to be heard either by getting louder or by taking control, usually respectfully, of the conversational tone. This interesting experience of heightened conversation that resolves into a more peaceful place by the end of the evening is due, I feel, to the ultimate intention held by the host - to extend love. Gradually, equilibrium returns, sometimes with more effort and other times with less.

The extremism is quite apparent in our society today. The smaller percentage of people are the loudest and most extreme. Everyone I meet is more moderate in their opinions. These people come from a wider variety of backgrounds than my spiritual study group. And, they genuinely want the same things - physical and emotional health, sufficient housing and food for everyone, trusting relationships, feeling safe, time for fun and joyful experiences, and being surrounded by the beauty of nature.

Getting to the other side of such a huge global transition requires the majority to stand in the middle. This middle ground is also the higher ground, as it is a place from which a wider view is seen. The challenge, though, is to somehow hold the respectful space of conflicting ideas, in one’s own internal dialogue with and about oneself, and in relation to how we perceive others. Ultimately, though it may sound trite in today’s world, love and compassion are necessary to stand in the center with the feet deeply held by the earth while the winds of change blow all around.