Battling the "Tired" of Political Fighting

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I didn't realize how tired I was last week. Were
you more tired than usual? Did you sleep well? If not, understandable,
we have a lot on our minds these days. Try
going online or check social media, listen to the radio,
or watch TV. It's all about hate, revenge, finger pointing.

(00:21):
It's all quite tiring. What to do well? About two
or three times a week I take a morning walk
around here. Dundee is a wonderful neighborhood in which to walk.
It's a front yard part of town. Not too many
eight foot backyard privacy fences in Dundee, So Dundee urge
use their front porches and they're good at it. They

(00:43):
always say hi or good morning to walkers like me.
Then I wind up at the Cardier Bakery and Cafe
or on Mondays Lola's in the Dundee Theater for a
cup of mid morning coffee. Since I've been on KFB
over thirty years, they kind of know me now and
it makes me feel special when the greeting is Chai
latte to stay Rosie. Sometimes I see somebody I know there.

(01:05):
City Councilman Pete Festerson was one of those last week.
I don't know that he's a big fan, because all
we know about each other is our political views, which
are not the same. But this time we briefly chatted
and I learned that he has a college aged daughter.
Mine just earned a master's degree. I would have enjoyed
learning more about his and sharing a little about mine.

(01:28):
Maybe I'll ask Pete to coffee so we can. Maybe
he'll ask me. If he does, I'll accept. Sometimes I
just sit there by myself, drinking my coffee, answering or
sending email texts. Over the weekend, I realized, outside of
me and the cup, the only other thing there with
me is an empty chair, And wouldn't it be great

(01:49):
if somebody sat down in that chair with a cup
of coffee too. The thing is, I think I'm like
a lot of you. The list of folks I want
in that chair has gotten shorter and shorter. All of
last week, we got a lot of warnings about other people.
We were told who we can and can't trust, about

(02:10):
whom we should or shouldn't like, about whom to be afraid.
There are lots of Omahans who only know me and
I them for politics or where we stand on the
issues climate change, taxes, education, homelessness, transgenderism, like state Senator
Megan Hunt or Nebraska Democrat Boss Jane Kleb Mayor John

(02:32):
Ewing or teacher union chief Tim Royers, Flatwater Free Press
editor Matthew Hanson. I suspect we don't agree on any
of those things, which means if my coffee goal is
to convince people who don't agree with me, it would
devolve into an argument. Because when we argue, it's because

(02:53):
we're always right and the other person is always wrong.
And if I win that argument, that's somehow makes me
more powerful. But not everything that comes from winning an
argument is good or even healthy. For in arguing, we
never listen, and we certainly never listen like we're wrong.

(03:15):
Imagine listening as if you're wrong, even if you're not.
But what if we might be? What if we are wrong?
If we're not listening, we'll never know. Oh, I'm not
at all certain one cup of coffee will change either
of us, But isn't it time to try? Maybe a
cup of coffee is a good place to remember Philippians,

(03:38):
Chapter four, verse five. Let your gentleness be evident to
all over a cup of coffee. Maybe I'll remember liberals
and conservatives are both equal members of the human race,
that we both commit sins and need God's grace and
forgiveness for them. Does the other guy commit more sins

(03:59):
than me? So what? God doesn't keep score. Why should
I hate? Corrodes the container that carries it. And if
we're hating, we're not living, just surviving.