A National Trigger

The incident at the Lincoln Memorial over the weekend was a national trigger.

What we saw in the widely circulated videos depended on what we were looking for. I have very little interest in conflicting opinions currently being shared about “what really happened.” I have little interest in berating “the media” for bias or decrying viral videos shared on social media. The interactions among three very diverse groups of Americans triggered us, and I have a lot of interest in that.

The malevolent spirit at work in our nation lurks just under the surface, and it doesn’t take very much at all to unleash it. And this surreal malevolence doesn’t care about “what really happened” or the current realities of how we consume our information. The only thing on the agenda for this spirit is to keep us all mad at each other. And this week we got triggered.

This weekend, the malevolent spirit got exactly what it wanted.

By and large our leaders have also succumbed to its influence. At the federal and state level (at least) our elected and appointed leaders seem to do nothing to alleviate our anxiety. Caught up in the bizarre malevolence themselves, they seem to be helpless against its power. Instead of defusing, they add fuel. Instead of compromising, they double down. Instead of seeking common good, they seek reelection.

I have written about this phenomenon before, of course. And yet I am stymied. I continue to believe that the only force at work in the world capable of overcoming this malevolence is love. As I said back in September, “resisting the surreal malevolence at work in the world requires us to announce, advocate for, and embody true love.”

By "true love," I mean “a deep, bold love that is brutal in its honesty and equally brutal in its graciousness. A love that insists on authenticity and vulnerability. A love that is at the same time both pliable and unyielding. A love that is at the same time naked and wearing the full armor of God. A love that is the paradox of the deepest pain and the most ecstatic joy.”

Three diverse groups of people interacted in front of the Lincoln Memorial last weekend, and we were all triggered. As Lincoln gazed on, I wonder what he would have said, how he would have responded. Perhaps with something like…

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”