Nine years ago, as the presidential battle for 2016 began, I wrote this tale of woe turned by grace—a dangerous sibling rivalry conversation between one of my sisters and one of my brothers. Here we are again as the presidential battle for 2024 begins. This story remains relevant, though the act of grace this year will likely include a new diversion from God.
I pray our dear Lord drops in a unifying incident like the following, one for each of us who find sabers once again rattling between loved ones.
Image by PORTRAITxan Xan
My brother called me the other day and reported a profound miracle of sibling love and grace that took place just a few weeks earlier, an intervention by God during a nasty conflict over political loyalties gone armageddon.
It’s 2015, and my sister and brother are sitting in a coffee shop discussing the polarities of the big four political rifts prevalent in the upcoming 2016 presidential race: economics, choice, war, and trust.
I’m guessing about the logic of their debate, but the polarities are very real. My brother’s report of his difficult conversation with our sister didn't include specific details. They argued about fruit sown by God and weeds sown by the devil, divisive issues wormed under the dirt of their political debate.
Fiesty, frosty framing of economic conditions
Matters of choice
Fostering war
Picking whom to trust in their two ideologies
They came armed with competing narratives that my brother and I believed were designed by the devil to divide families and friends.
At the root of my siblings’ diatribe, these four subjects percolated into a toxic air-borne poison. The shouting match between them lacked listening skills. Staunch and verdant loyalties clashed. Firmly held beliefs did not change. My brother and sister lobbied epithets until their blood boiled, turning love into a gas that dissipated into the air, leaving them defenseless.
The war of words probably went something like the following, though my interpretation takes place completely in my mind’s imagination.
First, they had a debate over the issue of wealth.
The force of law must distribute wealth because it is mainly ill-gotten and hoarded. Wealth earners owe the poor at least half of their treasures. God hates the wealthy.
No! Wealth derives from elbow grease within familial trees. Only free will can compel them to spread their wealth through gifts, taxes, or investments. God blesses the wealthy.
That battle ended with their arms crossed. Next, they moved into a verbal battle over “choice.”
Choices must be restricted to a communal common denominator, not religiously held morals, especially in the cases of education, healthcare, life decisions, environmental, and biological science. Oh, also over owning guns and making left-hand turns.
No! Choices have to be based upon commonly held moral values nurtured by religious truths, natural law, and constitutions. Liberty drives the law, and order stems from the natural law founded upon the universe's creator.
I imagine the choice argument ended with finger-pointing and hand-waving. Freedoms almost always morphs into arguments about violence—especially war.
War and violence cannot be justified when the warriors, competitors, and policing agents are more powerful than adversaries. The weaker individuals or entities are automatically victims of those in power. Diplomacy resolves conflict through the submission of the powerful to the cries of the weak. The powerful must be continually replaced by the weak. God loves the poor.
No. The innocent populations require protection from aggressors through a voluntary, morally trained, and effective defense. One willing to stop aggressors does so at the cost of their voluntarily supplied lives. The powerful must serve the civilians and those in their care, but they can’t be forced. The brave choose heroism, not weakness. God blesses the hero.
The poor and heroic didn’t get any help from my siblings this day. Bludgeoned and bloody, they changed the argument to trust. Whom should we trust?
Trust can only be given to the experienced bureaucrat, the caring and charismatic orator, the one who grasps the educated positions, the common goals, and the majesty of their positions. Loyalty calls to the ideal and everything that sustains it, centering trust upon the few that God elevates.
No! Trust rests upon every adult, not just the elite. Education develops study and experience, not power. Leaders should be encouraged by measured wisdom and success, building trust through service and willingness to change the guard for new blood. Loyalty means standing up for your friends and loving them like Jesus.
These polarized positions are a pure fabrication. I wasn’t at my siblings’ coffee table. I took some notes about how upset he was. His final assessment?
“I thought she was crazy,” he said. He assumed she thought the same about him.
The two of them have steely jaws, which frightens me, and surely the brave servers whose hands rattled as they poured them more caffeine. Coffee downed during an argument is like pouring gasoline on a fire.
Their frustrated turns of heads to the left and the right were substitutes for jabs. Add in insulting rolls of eyes accompanied by stiff-shouldered disdain. The nearby customers may have thought they should run for their lives.
Or, so I imagine it.
My brother explained that out of nowhere, however, a shift occurred in the conversation. It was due to prayer, he said, an internal plea to God. He had to go to the bathroom. Forced to excuse himself, cutting short the nuclear blast about to erupt, my brother thanked God for a weak bladder. He was worried that the resulting fallout would end their relationship altogether.
A bulging bladder would not be enough.
As he scuttled to the men’s room, his praying increased. As he did his business, his lamentations took over. He washed his hands—hard—scrubbing at his fingernails. Deep breaths into the mirror, he headed back to the table.
A host of new arguments lined up to refill his mind’s empty magazine clip. He would fire away, rejuvenated by the goodness of God’s thoughtful and clever plan for him to retreat and rearm. Unloading a new round of ammunition might ruin their relationship forever, but the truth must prevail!
As he spied the battle table where his almost former sister sat, he walked tall in his recharged warrior gear.
She waved at him.
What?
“She’s waving at me?”
“What is she doing?” he thought, seeing a smile on her face. She bounced in her seat as she urged him to return. His ammunition fell away.
Holding up her smartphone, she yelled at him as he arrived, “The Rams are moving back to L.A.!”
My brother was stunned. Not that the Rams were moving back. He figured that was a possibility some time ago, as had most of the sports-conscious world. He was stunned because it was the perfect truce. The return of the “Los Angeles” Rams from years in San Diego fulfilled their long-shared history as rabid Rams fans.
Like the Christmas truce during the 1914 Western Front ceasefire, when French and German soldiers put down their rifles and sang songs together, my sister and brother began reminiscing about their unbroken love of the LA Rams. They even made plans to attend a game together.
My brother knew God didn’t allow him to fire off his new arguments—which likely came from the devil. Instead, the Holy Spirit orchestrated a history-changing truce. God’s loyalties to truth notwithstanding, his desire for love is stronger than the mightiest of warring factions.
God’s answer to my brother’s prayer was delightful.
I was so happy for them. But, of course, the Denver Broncos will destroy them if they ever have cause to meet up with my team.
(As I predicted, the Bronco’s did beat my sister and brother’s Rams when they finally moved to Los Angeles in 2017, but the Denver boys ended up with a losing season of 5-12. The Rams won their division 11-6 that year, losing in the Wild Card game to Atlanta. The two of them remain LA Rams fans and loving sibs.)
Read John’s new book, Frank & Ralph, a fictional novel about the retired Guardian Angels of Jesus, in Catholic Nutshell News.
Chapter 3 of Frank & Ralph, ‘Stares from Heaven,’ excerpt:
“In a very real way, Frank and Ralph were the only combinations of angelic holiness with a brokenness familiar to human existence . . . With trepidation, the angelic hosts watched Frank and Ralph.”
Paid subscribers (only $6 a year) get access to new chapters as they are added throughout the coming months.
John Francis Pearring Jr. authored Snarl, a novel about animal redemption, and the premise for A Snarl Theology.
“Coffee downed during an argument is like pouring gasoline on a fire.” True. On such occasions only alcohol surpasses coffee as an incendiary device. :)