For me, being political begins with listening. I grew up listening to political opinions – first, my family’s, and then others.’ I read widely and learned that different experiences lead to different perspectives.
As a doctoral student, I am required to listen even as I research, and this listening resounds with humility because I do not have all the answers. It brings me back to the end of Micah 6:8, “…walk humbly with your God.”
Being political is not about being the one with the one right answer. It’s about seeing that there is a bigger picture that includes the stories of other people: people who don’t look like me, people who don’t think like me, people whose livelihoods require something different of them than mine does of me.
Being political is about working together to build a better world for all the children of God, setting aside differences to recognize Christ in each one of us and taking action to protect one another.
This message is excerpted from an essay in “Called to Be Political,” a 2020 resource of the Women of the ELCA, written by Elyssa J. Salinas-Lazarski.
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