Dr. Doug Anderson, Sioux Falls Psychological Services (photo from SFPS website)

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  So wrote Charles Dickens.  It is the first line in his famous book, “A Tale of Two Cities” written in 1859.  What he wrote 167 years ago could as easily be written today as a commentary on current events.  For some, now is a time of financial success and at least the perception of having power and control over their future.  For others, now is a time of financial struggle, emotional struggle, challenging relationships, fear of injustice, and at least the perception that there is not much hope for a better day.  

Near the end of January I was in Minneapolis and I took the opportunity to visit the memorial sites of Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti.  Whatever your particular take may be on the ICE activities in Minneapolis, for me it was provocative to stand at the spot where American citizens had been killed by ICE agents (also American citizens) working for the federal government.  Muslim women were serving hot tea on a very cold day at the Pretti memorial site, and a man was tending a fire and offering its warmth to those visiting the Good memorial site.  These humane offers of empathy and care stood in stark and distant contrast to ICE agents weaponed up and behind masks meting out their understanding of American justice.

What is interesting is the degree to which we have “best” and “worst” ends of the continuum without much in the middle.  We don’t see commentators and pundits talking about it being “an okay time” or “a pretty good time.”  Social media doesn’t seem to comprehend the possibility of middle ground.  We have lost the middle, and the result is that our tendency is to become loyalists that land at one end of the extreme or the other.

Following God can move us toward the middle.  We are encouraged to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves.  We are reminded by the Apostle Paul that the fruit of the Spirit is love.  And the prophet Micah reminds us that what God wants from us is to invest in justice, to love (enjoy) being merciful, and to walk humbly with God.  These passages of Scripture give us a standard by which to measure our lives and actions.  When we do that we become more thoughtful, and thoughtfulness will almost always move us toward the middle and away from extremes.

Good psychology does the same.  Here are some basic ideas that you might find helpful.

1. Listen to hear, not to reply.  In other words, in a divided culture and context, one where people tend to retreat toward extreme positions, the need is for us to become very curious and committed to the effort to understand or at least hear the position of the other.  Our cultural style is to reactively respond to the other’s comments before they have even finished their comment.  Practice stepping back a bit, listening more carefully, and striving to understand their point of view before you offer your own point of view.  
2. Let go of the threat of difference.  I sometimes say that we need to let go of the threat of difference and replace it with the ambiance of difference.  Difference is the norm in our world.  God seems to enjoy diversity in all of creation.  Our task is to lean into the diversity, to enjoy it, and to allow it to move us toward the good.  
3. Practice gratitude.  A third thought that closely aligns with leaning into the ambiance of difference involves having gratitude for the other person.  True intimacy encourages us to be grateful for the other person exactly as they are with no need for them to be different.  Nothing about our current cultural context makes that easy!  But it is hard to be hateful or rejecting or vitriolic against you if I express gratitude for you unrelated to who you are or what you believe.  Gratitude for the other honors the humanity of the other, and thus one’s own humanity as well.

Some think we are living in the best of times while others think that we are living in the worst of times.  We are certainly living in interesting times!  As people who follow Christ, we want to find our way to a middle ground of sorts, to a position or a characteristic way of being that reduces the power of the extremes in our cultural moment.

Loving God and others, listening well with the desire to understand the other, leaning into and appreciating the ambiance of difference, and leveraging gratitude for the other can lead us toward the middle.  Not positionally, of course.  You can and will have your viewpoints.  

But we clearly need to move toward the relational middle.  Toward love and acceptance of self and other.  Toward the good.

My Indigenous brothers and sisters talk about doing everything “in a good way.”  We are able to recognize what a “good way” looks like in most situations.  If we approach life with that as our intention, then maybe, just maybe, we will discover what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote that he had “learned to be content in whatever circumstance” he encountered.  I think he meant that even in moments of extreme distress, even when he was being whipped within an inch of life, even when shipwrecked and snake bit and imprisoned, even then he had this internal realization that God was with him.  He was not alone.  And this was not the last word.

That internal sense of security in the midst of external chaos and crisis sustained Paul.  It can help sustain us in the midst of our national and global chaos and crises.  It can sustain us in the midst of our personal chaos and crises as well.  Jesus understood life in this world.  In John 16:33 Jesus says “In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”

That is a very clear statement about reality.  It is good theology.  It is good psychology.  If you’re a preacher, I guarantee you it’ll preach.  If you’re a parishioner, that’s preaching worth listening to.

As I left the Pretti memorial site I greeted a Minneapolis police officer who was watching the site and providing a presence to promote security and safety.  I gave him a thumbs up and thanked him for protecting the site and its visitors.  It was a small gesture, a momentary attempt to pursue the relational middle in the current extremes on display in Minneapolis.