Red and Blue make Purple

The problem with being cynical, is you lose the ability to hope
I think hope is one of the greatest qualities we can have 
It makes us look for the good in our lives 
It helps us believe that even though we might be in a tough season, better days are ahead
I don’t think I would be here if I didn’t have an insane amount of hope 
It’s something we all have but it’s like a muscle
If you don’t use it, you lose it
We all have layers to us that far exceed understanding 
We are complicated 
Our minds tell us what we like
And what we don’t 
All the time
Please remember that a belief is just a thought you keep thinking over and over
So don't let that keep you from having friends and family in your life that you disagree with 
We can disagree and be okay with each other
I recently had a friend lose a parent that she hadn’t spoken to in a long time 
Because of politics, their last words to each other were not kind ones
Let’s learn from this and be better humans to each other
Richard Rohr said,”Our practice, whatever it is, must somehow include the problem. Contemplation is not the avoidance of the problem, but a daily merging with the problem, and finding some resolution. We quickly and humbly learn this lesson in contemplation: How we do anything is probably how we do everything.”
We have a lot of purple ground in these divided, United States 
What would it look like if we remembered how to disagree and stay respectful?
When I was in my 20s, one of my best friends was married to a guy from Maine, who was a lot more liberal than me
We had major disagreements, on a lot of topics, over many dinners
We debated sometimes for hours, to the dismay of my friend 
But, I learned a lot from him 
I learned there’s a lot more commonality in the world then we might think
We maintained respect and sometimes we needed an extra glass of wine to help us wind down but it was good
I think disagreement is healthy 
I think seeing from another’s perspective is how we grow
We are all getting our news from such fractured sources
It’s not making us happy 
We humans crave connection 
I live in a town where daily, I see posts on a local Facebook page of women reaching out, hoping to make a friend
Some of them have been here a year, three years, even four years and haven’t made one friend 
To me this is so sad 
I consider myself a very friendly person and even I am finding meeting people difficult 
We get this one beautiful life
We don’t have all the answers 
No one person is going to solve the puzzle of all that divides us
And no matter which candidate you agree with, half the country does not 
It’s going to take some compromise and some patience because we all want a kinder world 
No one is happy with all this toxic energy 
Walter Cronkite said, "In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story."
I think we can all agree, that this is true 
And very necessary for us to remember 
When red and blue are mixed together, they make purple 
A common ground 
Where we connect
Even if we need an extra glass of wine to do it