It is good to be with you all today. When I was invited to be here, I thought back to my earliest memory of Nashville, when I was 21 years-old and had just met my wife. I said, “Let’s go to Nashville,” and she agreed, so we drove down from Plainfield to spend the day and were in a little shop where I saw a stuffed rabbit made out of a white tube sock. I thought it was cute, so bought it for her, thinking she would treasure it forever, which turned out not to be the case. When I gave it to her, she very politely thanked me, and said it was nice, but has been trying to get rid of it ever since. Every spring, when we do a major house cleaning, I find it in the bag of clothes to take to Goodwill, buried at the bottom. But I always rescue it, saying, “I can’t believe you want to throw this away. It was the first gift I ever bought you. I thought you loved me.” I often frame my arguments as if they were a referendum on her love for me, which doesn’t hinder her nearly as much as one would think it should.
I am learning these days that things we think others should treasure, things like the Constitution and the rule of law and the Golden Rule, don’t matter nearly as much to others as we think they should, hence our present difficulties as we navigate this cultural divide. If you came here today hoping this Quaker had a secret recipe for reconciliation, you will leave disappointed. It’s been my experience that cultural divisions take just as long to heal as they did to form, that one doesn’t necessarily bridge divisions so much as survive them.
Many of us, in these past nine years, have experienced ruptures in our relationships. A man in my town, after seeing a Harris-Walz sign in my yard, texted to tell me he would never speak to me again. Included in his text was a racist, sexist meme of Kamala Harris. I have no wish to bridge my differences with that man. My life will be fine without him. Another man I know voted for Donald Trump because he is a lifelong Republican and voted reflexively, instinctively, for the Republican candidate. While I don’t think he is well-served by his political inflexibility, he also volunteers at a local homeless shelter and fosters stray dogs. Though we are poles apart politically, we remain friends.
There are differences we can bridge and there are wide, yawning divides we are not likely to bridge nor should we. I can break bread all day long with someone who believes government should be limited and non-intrusive, who believes traditional morality is a suitable guide for human behavior, who thinks unbridled capitalism is the finest economic system ever devised. My life is full of people who embrace traditional conservatism, and I get along fine with them, even though I believe governments necessarily grow more complex and involved as nations grow, even though I believe traditional mores have sometimes negatively impacted women and people of color, even though I believe economies are too complex and powerful to be steered by unchecked greed. But I do not believe those people who think differently are my enemies. Indeed, I consider some of them my dearest friends.
What I am not willing to do is build a bridge to those whose goals include the mistreatment of women, the maltreatment of people of color, the wholesale rejection of due process and the rule of law, the abuse of the poor by the rich, the idolatrous worship of tyrants and dictators, the abandonment of our neighbors and historic allies, the participation in sexual assaults, economic policies that rob others of their retirement and college funds, the pointless and gleeful cruelty in order to own the libs, the open warfare on public education, the denigration of veterans as “suckers” and “losers,” and the encouragement of a violence insurrection against a duly elected government. Those, for me, are bridges too far. If being a true American requires me to ignore those abuses, then I will move to Canada, thank you very much. There are some bridges I will happily cross and even build, and there are some bridges I intend never to cross.
Motive is everything. I have no desire to unite with misogynists, racists, and abusers who saw in Donald Trump a kindred spirit. I will share a country with them because no nation is absent such people, but I will not pretend to be indifferent to their moral defects, nor be silent about them. I am not indifferent. I am not Neville Chamberlain, so blinded by hope I cannot see what is abundantly clear--that some people in our world, some people in very high places, will do whatever they wish while everyone else suffers what they must. I will speak up, lest my silence convey approval.
I will be kind, but I will also be clear, that there are some bridges I will not cross, no matter who is on the other side beckoning me. No matter how nostalgic I am for our past relationship, no matter that they were my best friend in high school, or my second cousin, or even my sibling. If they stand on the other side of that bridge because of a lockstep devotion to a political party, unable to comprehend that the party of Lincoln no longer is, I can still greet them as friends. But if they stand on the other side of that bridge because they believe some races are inferior, because they believe their wealth makes them superior, because they believe they are first-class and others are not, because they prefer fascism over democracy, that is a chasm I am unwilling to cross.
I do not say this lightly or easily. When you grow up a Hoosier Quaker, steeped in the double traditions of Hoosier hospitality and “seeing that of God in every person” it is sobering to realize that some ideas and people merit inhospitality, merit our full-throated rejection. It is sobering to realize some people care nothing for goodness and light. A word of pastoral advice: do not spend your one precious life attempting to win over those persons diametrically opposed to the happiness and well-being of others. It will be a game to them, and a misery to you. Above all, avoid the trap of nostalgia. My wife is right. It is okay to let go of things, even tube sock rabbits. When something or someone has lost their appeal, when their presence brings more burden than joy, it might be time to say good-bye.
If old friends have become toxic, make new ones. If a spouse or family member has shown you who they are and what they value, believe them. Stop making excuses for them. They’re not just having a bad day. They have made a conscious and deliberate decision to embrace that which should never be embraced. Mourn the loss, then for God’s sake, move on. There are eight billion people on Earth, find someone else. Then bring them here to Nashville and buy them a tube sock bunny. It worked for me.
I do not know why so many Americans have chosen to partner with ugliness. I do not know if they were motivated by economic struggle, by intransigent racism and the browning of America. I do not know if they absented themselves from the public institutions that used to connect us—the church, the bowling leagues, the Rotary, the Lions, the garden clubs, the public school—perhaps it was all of those things, and more. I do know that if we do not learn how to be together again, how to work together for the common good, that this rupture will not end with the death of Donald Trump. He is not the cause of our discord, but only a symptom, capitalizing on the consequences of our failed social compact.
It is up to us to decide whether we will sit alone in our homes, blasting away at unseen enemies on social media, or whether we will once again do what we used to do so well—befriend our neighbors, share meals, go for walks, read good books, travel, discuss important ideas, take up a new hobby that takes us out of our world, into the worlds of others.
Do what I did, join a motorcycle gang. Nine years ago, I started a motorcycle gang named the Quaker Oatlaws. Five old white guys and a young scientist from India who teaches at IU, riding our motorcycles through the reddest parts of the Midwest, engaging others, preaching the virtues of motorcycling and enlightenment to anyone who will listen.
Engage. Speak up. Don’t yell. There’s already enough noise. If you have young people in your life, and you must have young people in your life, be their elder. Guide them. Teach them history. All of it. If Donald Trump wants to leave out the parts about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bloody Sunday, you tell them about it. If Pete Hegseth removes the DOD web pages about the Navajo code talkers and the Tuskegee airmen, you make sure they are mentioned and honored. This is what elders do. They keep the stories alive. And not just the stories that reflect favorably upon us, but all the stories, so the ugliness isn’t repeated.
We have become civically flabby. We have let the muscles of our democracy wither. It is time we went to work. Join. Vote. Engage. Talk to others. Be an elder. Make friends with people who don’t look like you, worship like you, or always think like you. Challenge cruelty. Correct untruths. Run for office. Resist ignorance and small-mindedness. This is the hard work of democracy, and we not only can do it, we must do it, if America is to be saved.
Philip Gulley is the author of Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe and the popular Harmony series.
Discover my books, stories, and more by visiting Books by Philip Gulley
Contact Philip directly at philiphgulley@gmail.com
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