Sabbath Devotional: How to Thrive as a Peacemaker While Caring About Politics
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In a political climate marked by increased callousness and even cruelty, loving your “opponent” can feel like an act of beautiful defiance. I’ve found it remarkably healing to choose connection over division.
After a particularly contentious election years ago, I found myself walking through a grocery store mentally putting people in boxes based on how I thought they had voted. I recall moving through the aisles surrounded by people who I assumed were operating with a completely different worldview than mine. I felt an oppressive fear, as though the humans around me were capable of great harm to others — though I had viewed them as ordinary neighbors only days earlier.
Once labeled as opponents, it was easy to view strangers, and even friends, with disdain or hostility. I felt myself slipping down a hole of bitterness and mistrust.
As I drove home along familiar roads, I realized this way of thinking was unsustainable. I wanted to halt the uncomfortable change I felt inside me. Political conflict did not wound me nearly as much as what it tempted me to become.
And so, I followed a spiritual pattern adopted over a life of Christian devotion — prayer, religious rituals, and meditative time in sacred spaces. I knew through experience that beginning with even a desire to change would help me do so. Eventually, I found myself having interactions with others that began to restore my ability to see their good qualities. I felt a sense of relief as I gave myself permission to reserve judgment about others’ morality.
My efforts took a leap forward one day when a friend introduced me to MWEG. As I engaged in discussions and learned from those around me, the principles of peacemaking became both a grounding theological roadmap and a practical guide.
As peacemaking took deeper root in my life, I realized that withholding contempt is a gift offered freely. It is not given with the expectation that our adversary changes or conflict ends in tidy resolution. As Dr. Martin Luther King described it, this “understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men…seeks nothing in return.” It asks us to honor the inherent dignity of others rather than expose them through ridicule and insult. Nothing about this is easy, but everything about it is rewarding and restorative.
As my involvement in public life has increased and the culture around me grows harsher, I have felt called in the opposite direction — not toward contempt, but toward the “overflowing love” described by Dr. King.
My efforts have been strengthened by repeated invitations from our church leaders to be peacemakers in every sphere of life — within our families, communities and public discourse. In a recent Easter message, Dallin H. Oaks urged us to “live peaceably and lovingly” with one another, regardless of the values we each may hold.
Over the years, peacemaking has become more than a personal goal or ideal. It has become a transformative and pragmatic principle that has opened my heart to the possibility of goodness in others. It grounds me in my own values but does not require me to try to change others. It is both self-reflective and deeply relational. It moves me from introspection to courageous and compassionate action.
Peacemaking does not ask us to abandon conviction or ignore wrongdoing. It asks us instead to resist becoming cruel in the process. In a culture that rewards hostility, I choose to stubbornly cling to peacemaking as a strategic and redemptive force for good.
Emma Petty Addams is a co-executive director at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.