Our long season of political mayhem comes to a head today and as I reflect on where we've been and where we're going, I offer you a bit of beauty and an invitation. Would you join me in living and loving well today and tomorrow and the day after and so on? Would you join me as I seek to listen to the people around me and understand their hopes and fears and their stories? Would you join me as I set aside my pre-drawn conclusions to deeply embrace someone with whom I don't agree? 

I brunched with friends on Sunday as we celebrated the life of someone we love. Around that table were people from different backgrounds and perspectives. In my little corner of the table, we talked about living with wisdom, in freedom as our authentic selves and with a willingness to really, really love. If we say we love but offer that love conditionally, it really isn't love, after all. 

Don't get me wrong, it's a tall order to love someone we vehemently disagree with, no matter the party or group or nation. It requires courage and maturity to love without condition. To always hope. To always choose to see something good. When we fail to love unconditionally, we wind up doing the very thing we hate. We dehumanize another and thereby, dehumanize ourselves. Evil we must hate. People we must love.

I think today is for more questions, curiosity, genuine care and interest in another than ever before. If we lived this way as individuals each and every day, I think our lives and our world would look very different. Instead of walking in offense or being ready to pounce on a potential offense, feasting on what is offered to us through media and assuming motive and intention when we don't have an up-close view or understanding, we can choose to believe the best. We can choose to ask questions. We can choose to offer genuine care for another. 

Tomorrow will come. I wish to greet it with open arms no matter what the outcome of this day. Because in the end, we're all in this together. Let's bring beauty into our relational interactions, let's be clothed in kindness and grace, let's allow mercy to be our guide and let's love. Let's love like never before.