It’s Martin Luther King Day and the warmest the temperature got was in the mid-teens; but the media discourse has remained at its standard white hot level. And it made me ask a question:

What would Dr. King have to say about the way we talk about the issues of the day and to each other?

There are many still alive who could give you a more personal answer than I. They were there when he gave his visionary speeches. They walked with him on the marches. Some were with King when an irate gas station owner put a gun to his temple and he responded with a simple, “Brother, I love you.”

I’m pretty sure I was still in diapers on the day he was assassinated. But I know enough about the man to believe he’d be shaking his head in despair at the way we and our leaders have spoken into some of the most pressing and complex issues of the day.

I know I’m going to be poking a hornet’s nest on this one – especially knowing I have some serious blind spots. But there is a quote by Dr. King that I’ve seen more than once today:

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

This is coming from my own perspective of which I am sure that I’m firmly in a state of “don’t know what I don’t know.” But if we’re honest, that’s where we all are in one domain or another. And it seems to me that if we are ever going to help each other out of our ignorance and into better understanding of reality, an enormous amount of mutual grace will need to be extended.

That is important to me, so I’m not going to be silent. And hopefully, our lives will continue and you all can lovingly point out the spots where I’m off base.

One note before I proceed: I am not going to debate the facts of one incident or another. It’s an adventure in futility and misses my main point.

It began with a news story that broke over the weekend about a confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial. The first video that I saw was damning and made my heart ache as I saw the seemingly clear dehumanization of a lone individual by a group of young men.

What stung even more was that it happened at the memorial that I personally hold most sacred and have visited on nearly every trip to Washington D.C. And each time, I marvel over and celebrate the diversity of the faces I see there. Understanding that history is complex, there is no place on the planet that better expresses for me the idea of people sacrificing to confront an injustice. But then again, there are many memorials I’ve admittedly not experienced.

I was pissed. I hurt for the foolishness of those boys and for the whole situation. It angered many, many others – and they said so. I watched the comments on one social media feed as they ranged from indignation and remorse to a suggestion that all white people should be deported and then the wall should be built.

Wow. Really?

But then more context arose. More videos from different angles surfaced. The article, which reported on the viral nature of the first video, was quietly revised. Other brave journalists saw it as a kind of referendum on the “accuse first, retract later” bias of the press.

There was no response to the revised article by the original commenters on that social media feed. If it weren’t for my putting my own comment out there so that they might re-read the article, the whole thing might have been buried deeper and deeper in their feed and eventually forgotten – replaced by the next indignation of the day.

And if our broken nature were fully in play, all that would have remained was the quiet, but growing sense that “they’re wrong and we’re right.”

But this is by no means an isolated situation.

I have a friend I’ll call Jess whom I love dearly, but drives me up a wall with some of her posts. There is a strong kernel of truth in all of them, but the cutting edge of their delivery makes me want to lay another cinder block of defensiveness in my heart instead of trying to keep it soft and vulnerable to their message.

This same friend has befriended a Mexican woman who lost one daughter to the human trafficking of the drug cartels and is seeking asylum in the U.S. with her little girl and infant son. They are currently staying in a spare room in Jess’ house until they find some stability of their own. Politics aside, there is more Kingdom of Heaven happening in that east side home than many churches I’ve attended.

Another friend I’ll call Mark posted this photo. As silly and simplistic as I thought the analogy was, I respect the hell out of the guy. He and his wife have done more than most to stabilize local marriages; and it wasn’t until I reached out to him to talk about it that I was reminded that he was speaking from the perspective of twenty six years of border security experience serving in the U.S. Coast Guard. He also spent much of his young life with his family hosting a family from Mexico and helping them get on their feet.

I became nearly apoplectic as I watched the debate a couple of years ago over the proposal of a regional transit authority. The people arguing for it were insightful and intelligent and the people against it were boorish and self-centered. And it had nothing to do with the fact that the proposal’s passage would give my daughter future opportunities toward independence that she could find no other way.

See what’s happening there? An assertion isn’t flawed if it furthers my personal agenda. But God help anyone who dares to disagree with me – especially if it involves my kid.

All of the above experiences and many more have led me to a few observations (notice I didn’t call them “conclusions”):

• Toxic politicization of the Gospel that upholds the intrinsic value of everyone has pulled a chunk of the country radically to the left and another chunk radically to the right. Those poles are screaming at each other in a futile attempt at self-legitimization and there are a whole bunch of exhausted people in between.
• Just like the “0” or “1” of binary code, social media seems to divide people more than it unites.
• No one is immune to flawed logic and careless speech – me especially. But stir them into the megaphone of social media where everyone is their own media outlet, and you get a toxic and self-sustaining soup of dehumanization and tribalism where nothing happens that is ultimately life-giving or redemptive.
• Any first encounter with an idea or assertion via a meme – no matter how well it resonates – is ultimately untrustworthy.
• Equally untrustworthy is my first reaction to “breaking” news. By its very definition, it means that all of the context has not been gathered; but the fear of being scooped by another organization often compels the publication of a half-baked story.
• Simple can be helpful. Simplistic is never helpful.
• Perspectives on and solutions for complex problems will not fit into the dimensions of Twitter’s 280 characters or a post on Facebook.
• As satisfying as that zinger post might be, it is ultimately toxic to the greater conversation.

And finally, while the binary sides of any debate scream at each other, Ultimate Good remains in the tension between the two, lovingly beckoning them to be with each other in the discomfort, be vulnerable, grow and find a way forward together. And if we can get a couple of tough challenges behind us, we may actually see each others’ humanity a little more and fulfill one of the dreams of the man we celebrate today.

But I’ve also found that I can only take my own advice. So these are the resolutions that I am going to make to lower the temperature of the discussion:

I resolve to wait a minimum of 24 hours before I comment on any news story.

I resolve to make a good faith effort to say “I understand” before I say “I disagree”; and a lot of the time I will be reaching out personally as opposed to continuing the noisy debate over a social media channel.

(By the way, I had a conversation with each of the people in the examples I used above. Though anonymized, they would recognize themselves in those stories and they gave me permission to use them.)

I resolve to slow the hell down and not make my first reaction my final word.

I resolve to remind myself that every two dimensional social media avatar is a multi dimensional human being speaking from their perspective, passion and sometimes their pain. They are not “the other.” They are my extended family.

I’m not sure of the ultimate impact of this personal challenge will be; but there is one thing I know of that people of all political stripes can agree on: The way we do life and government is seriously broken.

If we can get enough people together on this, my hope is that our leaders will eventually mirror our behavior. But we all need to grow up and be civil with each other before the clue phones are going to ring in the halls of power.

Am I getting it wrong? You think I’m out of my tree? It’s possible. Leave me a comment below. I’ll engage with those who offer something with humility and thoughtfulness – invective will be quietly deleted.