Charity and Doonesbury

When I was young there was a hymn with that title, loosely based on "Ubi Caritas". The lyrics go like this:

Where charity and love prevail, there God is ever found; Brought here together by Christ’s love, by love are we thus bound.
With grateful joy and holy fear His charity we learn; Let us with heart and mind and soul now love him in return.
Forgive we now each other’s faults as we our faults confess; And let us love each other well in Christian holiness.
Let strife among us be unknown, let all contention cease; Be His the glory that we seek, be ours His holy peace.
Let us recall that in our midst dwells God’s begotten Son; As members of His body joined, we are in Him made one.
No race or creed can love exclude, if honored be God’s name; Our family embraces all whose Father is the same. 

So I opened this morning's comics and read today's Doonesbury, which is all about a conservative family attacking a member who says "Happy Holidays". I don't normally read Doonesbury, and this is why. In a world where people lose their jobs for saying "Merry Christmas" this cartoon turns it around and depicts the Christian as the aggressor, forbidding his family members to say "Happy Holidays."

To me, one of the most divisive, hateful thing in the world today is the inability to assume the good will of others. This is the time of year when you will be sitting down to table with people who have different political and world views from yourself. There are two ways the world suggests you respond - either push these people out of your life, or fight with them.

I'd like to suggest a third way, and it's something radical in today's world. It's called dialogue. So your brother-in-law wants to fund Trump's wall. Did you ever consider tat maybe he is not a racist who hates immigrants, but rather he wants to shut down the "coyotes" who extort families and sexually abuse women and children to smuggle them into the US. Or perhaps your sister thinks Obamacare is God's gift to the US. Did you ever consider that maybe she wants to create a world where everyone can afford to get treatment for whatever ails them?

Did you ever consider that the ill-dressed person casually consuming Christ at mass is not being disrespectful, but is, in fact, leading a more Christ-centric life than you? Or that the lesbian couple on the next block are devout believers and pray a lot more (and more sincerely) than you do?

Then again, maybe your brother-in-law is just a jerk. The point is, you don't know what's in a person's heart. On every socio-policial issue there are two sides. Let's assume the people on the other side aren't doing it because they are evil, but because they want the good. We live in a fallen world, and we are all seeing "through a glass, dimly" so it's no wonder that people come up with imperfect solutions to a problem.

Let's be open to family and friends, and even strangers. If we're not willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, why should we expect others to do so for us. This is my Christmas meditation:

Let us recall that in our midst dwells God’s begotten Son; As members of His body joined, we are in Him made one.
No race or creed can love exclude, if honored be God’s name; Our family embraces all whose Father is the same.

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