It is one year since I started working with Arkansas Strong and six months of writing this column. Both are things of beauty that rose from the ashes of political defeat to be joys forever--in my heart, however long such privileges may last in practice, which I hope will be also forever.
I thought about this milestone for all of June, even before bipartisan gun reform passed, and the Supreme Court handed down historic decisions. The controversy that surrounds us adds to the urgency I feel to do this work, and invite/inspire others to join me in the messy middle. I believe that is where honest, civil conversation leads to empathy and, I hope and pray, reconciliation in both our state and nation.
For me, this work--meaning opportunity with these two specific communication outlets--sprang up from a place of loss.
I lost an election, and with it the belief that things were not as bad as they seemed, that while national party politics were toxic, we Arkansans were not so divided on the local level.
I lost a sense of community with my church and some I considered friends.
I lost confidence that I could do anything I set my mind to if I worked hard enough. And I lost the new direction I thought my life was going, one of expanded purpose and fulfillment.
After loss comes grief. However, the degree of grief I felt over those losses surprised me. It didn't happen at once; more like a slow burn. That may be because immediately after the election I threw myself into a side-hustle with a friend's company, doing Internet marketing and sales, which I knew little about. Learning it seemed a good place to put energy, but it fizzled. Then another possibility emerged and came to nothing.
Without distractions, I sank into sadness. I tried hard to fit back into my old life in which I was mostly content, but it was like pouring new wine into old wineskins. Unsustainable. A friend suggested therapy and I went, even though I thought I shouldn't need it and felt ridiculous. This turned out to be a good decision.
The therapist gave me permission to need and seek ways to stay engaged with Arkansas politics, new people I'd met, and use what I'd learned to try to make a difference. She assigned the task of pursuing/creating opportunities that might fulfill those needs. So I got after it. And I ended up delighted to help build Arkansas Strong and write for the Democrat-Gazette.
I am reflecting on that journey as the July 4 celebration approaches, Ukraine burns for the fifth month, and America is at war with itself. Ukraine seems so clear-cut to me. I'm with Zelenskyy.
But at home, I don't want to choose a side. To do so seems a capitulation, an acceptance that the United States is a misnomer. It feels like giving up. What is the way to peace, to unity? How can we choose allegiance to being one nation under God over ourselves? Can we forge a new understanding of what it means to put America first, to make it great? Isn't that really what it is to love our country?
I am not talking about being wishy-washy. There are some things as black and white to me as the cause of Ukraine. I side with evidence, like what we see in footage of the attack on our capitol. I side with facts, like the ones coming out in the Senate hearings. I side with science, like the statistics that show the covid vaccine saves lives. And there are things upon which my faith does not allow me to compromise.
But as much as possible, I want to live at peace with all people (also a New Testament directive). I want to choose not either/or, us/them, my way/the highway, but a balance of ideas and choices that gets us closest to what is best for all of us.
A cloud of melancholy hangs over me since the news that Roe v. Wade was overturned, and following that, the decision that supports the public prayer of a public school coach on the 50-yard line of a public school football field.
And it is not because I think abortion is great and prayer bad. The opposite is true for me. But if I am completely honest, as with most things, I see more than one side to both of these issues. And what I find most discouraging--most toxic--is that saying so will alienate me from people, friends, readers who stand strident on one side or the other, certain that those who do not agree with them are wrong and thus either evil or stupid and regarded as enemies.
It is not disagreement on issues that is wrong with America. It is the inability to disagree with grace--humility to be aware of one's limitations, and respect for another person's lived reality, however different it may be from ours.
It is also the ease with which we sacrifice honorable means for the end we think we want--the unwillingness and lack of vision to transcend disagreement for the sake of something more important than having our own way, which is having each other.
As a new year of work begins, I am looking for a new narrative that unifies, one that reminds us of our best selves and restores the conviction that in spite of our differences--and in some cases because of them--we are better together.
I am looking for leaders who will stand in the gap between us and gather us toward each other, not continue on opposite sides tearing us apart. I am looking for creativity, ways to channel anger and passion into something constructive that brings hope.
And I am looking for the courage in myself and others to do the hard work of coming together around shared values to compromise and broker peace.
Gwen Ford Faulkenberry is an English teacher and editorial director of the non-partisan group Arkansas Strong. (http://arstrong.org) Email her at gfaulkenberry@hotmail.com.