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During my childhood in Oklahoma, someone gave me a delightful example of capillary action in plants to answer my questions about thirsty plants. We placed cut daffodils in water with red food coloring added and observed how the colored water moved up the stems into the yellow blooms of the daffodils. The red coloring showed where the water had advanced throughout the plant.

After that discovery, I often mixed some red-streaked flowers with regular daffodils in a bouquet to add variety. 

Shortly before this year's presidential election, I thought it would be fun to repeat my food coloring with two flowers, one in red water and one in blue. It would add some distraction to the “waiting” for election results. I settled on trying white carnations since Virginia had no daffodils in November. Although, I don’t think their results were as pretty as what the daffodils did. However, perhaps my memory is faulty.

After the election, listening to different responses repeatedly reminded me of my flower experiment. Like the flowers, we “take in” and begin to “show” what we have been soaking in. Doesn’t this mean that when we live in our own information bubble and only talk to people who think as we do, that we cripple ourselves? Don’t we need effective opposition to hone our understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of “our own” ideas and those of “others”?

In his 1967 inaugural address, Ronald Reagan pointed out that Freedom is fragile, never more than one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed to them to do the same.

Aren’t freedom of speech and association two of those freedoms we need to protect and ensure our descendants understand? We don’t exercise those freedoms by screaming in the face of people with whom we differ, nor do we practice them if we silence people with whom we disagree. Have some parents protected their children from difficulties so much that they have grown into adults demanding protection from someone who thinks differently?

Our sources of information and responses to differing opinions are quite different now than during my childhood and nearly sixty years of marriage. As an only child in a home with one parent a Democrat and the other a Republican, I learned early that you could love and respect someone even if you didn’t agree on everything. Over the years of my own marriage, we often participated in a discussion group of some type, often at our house. We discussed various topics and frequently current events. At times, some in the group were all over the political spectrum and didn’t see eye-to-eye with others on some things. But even when there was a heated discussion, it didn’t cause any “blow-ups” or destroy any friendships.

Monty and I forged our relationship through discussions during coffee breaks while in graduate school. We continued long talks nearly daily until his death after 57 years of marriage. Did we agree on everything? No. But who wants to be married to a clone? Then, one of us wouldn’t be necessary. Shouldn’t life and marriage be an adventure full of fun and challenges? We wanted compatibility, not sameness. We had unity without uniformity of thinking. 

Our differences knock off some of our sharp edges as we learn and grow through our interactions with others who may differ from us in their opinion. Debate and discussion should not be based on a win/lose basis but on searching for and finding understanding and truth in the situation and the various views. We learn more by asking questions and listening attentively to others’ answers, for we stretch each other when our life experiences differ. Asking sincere questions helps us find common ground, know how we might understand and even pray for the other person. We must work to regain the freedom of speech where people feel free to discuss anything, even when we have different opinions.

 It helps me to hear the “why” of someone who believes differently. We should never stoop to name-calling as some do. Doesn’t that reflect more on the “name-caller” as a person with limited information who doesn’t know how to discuss things and who has never had someone help them realize there is more than one view on just about everything? A good question to ask ourselves is, “Can I back up and explain why I believe what I do?” or “Am I just parroting what I’ve picked up in my soaking tank like the tinted flower reflecting the colored water it soaked up?”

Next week is Thanksgiving. Many will be gathering with family and friends.

We have much to be thankful for, considering the “water” in which our founders were soaking as they wrote our founding documents.

Did they disagree? YES.

Did they pray and continue trying to find something they could agree on? YES.

For example, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson definitely didn’t always agree. Still, they put aside their differences and were even close friends when they died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Shouldn’t we try to put aside our differences? Let us pray and seek unity. However, we must remember that unity does not mean uniformity of thinking.

Have we or our country gone through tough times in the past? YES.

But we survived them, and we will survive now because 

God > any differences and any election results.

Let us each rest assured that God is still in control and greater than anything we worry about. I must remember to trust His plan. Whatever weighs me down, confuses me, or overwhelms me is not too big for God because He is greater than all of it. (Yes, this advice is timely for me since my car hit two deer this week, and it has caused all sorts of disruptions in my life.)

Please join me in bathing our leaders in prayer that God’s Will be done for America and the people who reside here. Let us also pray that God will bring unity to our families, neighborhoods, churches and country.

Just as we’re often warned that a wounded animal can be the most dangerous—let us remember that might also apply to a wounded person. So, let us diligently pray for the healing of those with a wounded spirit and be one to reach out in love to them. Let our discussions be loving, not ridicule, judgment, or condemnation. Let us aim to understand and learn the truth about any hurting or distraught person around us.

A functioning civil society will be challenging if we have differing views on good and evil. We need some common agreement if we want our society to thrive and not disintegrate, so let us reach out to understand and communicate openly with others who think differently.

Remember the colored flowers. We all reflect (or believe) what we’ve been immersed in because we soak it up like the flowers. Isn’t it time we try to take the blinders off and work at communicating instead of talking past each other?

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue….” Proverbs 18:21(a) (NAS)

    Let our words give life.

“The mind of a person plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (NAS)