I hate politics. It’s not that I don’t care. I care deeply and I believe honest, moral people can disagree about issues.

What I hate about politics is that neither side can manage to disagree without character assassination.

And, if I’m candid, the people who have disappointed me most in this are Christians. Christians on both sides. And I don’t exclude myself.

How can you follow Jesus if you tear down others because they disagree with your political position?

Does the fact that it’s really clever make it ok?

If you have kids, do you tolerate name calling between them? What makes you think God does?

If we are His children, how must He feel about the way we treat each other? Do you think He smiles when you insult your opponent? Does He laugh at your snide comments? Would He give you a divine fist bump for that funny putdown?

I’m going to go with … no.

When one of my daughters was younger, she made some rude remarks to a friend on Facebook. I grounded her from Facebook for about two months and, if I remember correctly, she had to write a short paper about kindness, complete with biblical citations.

Now I read tweets, Facebook updates and blog posts from grown men and women, many of whom profess to be Christ followers, that are far more defamatory than the comments that got my daughter grounded.

Is it ok to be vicious in the name of God? Again, I’m going with the no.

Does it mean we can’t express our views and stand for what we believe? Of course not. It just means we need to separate difference of opinion from disrespect of person.

When my girls were younger, I had a three-tiered system for dealing with disrespectful treatment of siblings. If clearly one-sided, the offender was required to perform an act of service for her sister. Mutual combat warranted a team project; an unpleasant task completed together. If the problem persisted, the next step was the togetherness hour; 60 minutes spent holding hands. And, yes, that meant the bathroom. I believe I had to impose a togetherness hour once. After that time, the mere threat was an effective deterrent.

I propose a team project for the Democrats and the Republicans. Start small. Pick up trash on Capitol Hill. Get out the hammer and nails and go repair a home or two. Clean up a highway. Scrub a toilet.

Then come together and discuss the issues with that person who held the ladder for you and handed you the hammer. The one whose worries, concerns and struggles are not that different from your own. Your sibling in the family of God.

Perhaps then the rhetoric would come down a notch — or a hundred.

Otherwise, I’ll propose a togetherness hour with … those horrible Democrats those nasty Republicans your brothers and sisters.

I don’t usually write posts like this, and I’ll probably make some people mad, but … here goes.

These words of love and compassion from Shane Claiborne still ring in my ears as I grieve over the tragedy in Haiti.

“God intends for the church to be the hands and feet of Jesus in today’s world and the Bible calls for believers to be the light of the world … when the next generation thinks of the church, they will think of compassion, justice, peace, reconciliation, gentleness and love and that Christians will be known not for who we are against, but for whom we love — everyone.”

Contrast Shane’s words of love and compassion with this statement from televangelist Pat Robertson (from CBS News):

As Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said “well over” 100,000 people may have died in the national disaster, Robertson took to the airwaves Wednesday on his show and said that the country has been “cursed by one thing after another” since they “swore a pact to the devil.”

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about,” Robertson said Tuesday.

According to David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, author of the book unChristian, Christians — and the church — have a less-than-stellar reputation. And statements like Robertson’s and this gem from author John Piper do little to represent Jesus’ unconditional love.

Christians are supposed to represent Christ to the world. But according to the latest report card, something has gone terribly wrong. Using descriptions like “hypocritical,” “insensitive,” and “judgmental,” young Americans share an impression of Christians that’s nothing short of … unChristian.

When a friend is diagnosed with a terminal illness, do we talk about the poor choices they have made?

Do we tell the bereaved family of a middle-aged heart attack victim that their loved one is gone because he was fat and sedentary?

Is it necessary to explain to the devastated parents of a teenager killed in a car accident that their child was a crappy driver?

Of course not. But I’m speaking the truth, you might say. Yeah. it might be the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts, but it must be spoken nonetheless. Those parents may have to deal with the fact that their child’s error caused the fatal accident. Sometimes family and friends have to intervene with harsh words in the life of an addict to bring them to the point of change. But sometimes, even true words just do not need to be spoken.

The difference is … love. In Ephesians 4:15 (The Message), the Bible tells us to tell the truth in love (emphasis mine).

God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do.

Of course there are times when tough words must be spoken, but it’s wrong to justify cruel words as truth when their aftermath is only pain. We must measure our words — both the sweet word and the hard ones — by Jesus’ example.

Please pray for the people of Haiti and donate what you can to support relief efforts.

I turned 51 a couple of weeks ago. I like birthdays. And no cancer survivor in their right mind complains about getting another year older.

It’s kind of like a lopsided baseball game — even though the winning team is far ahead, they still try to cross home plate one more time. You can certainly win the game without the insurance runs, but they do make the victory a little more secure. At 51, I’m 11 runs ahead, which is a pretty nice lead.

A few random birthday reflections:

• My family doesn’t even try to put all those candles on my birthday cake anymore; i just get the big number candles. I think they believe it would be dangerous otherwise.
• It’s fun to watch my younger friends freak out when I tell them I finished my masters degree before they were born.
• It’s cool to see the look of surprise when younger people realize I know how to work a computer and can type a text message just as fast as they can.
• It’s good to have an excuse for being absent-minded and scatterbrained, which I’ve always been anyway. Now I can just remind people that I’m old. My kids buy it completely and leave me alone about the forgetfulness.
• Every year is better than the last. The body may be falling apart, but my mind is full of the kind of lessons you only learn from experience. When I can remember them. See above.

I have a great life and am grateful for each and every one of these years. I love having adult and almost-adult children, especially when they turn out to be people you’d spend time with anyway. Marriage is better after 23 years than after one — anyone can be married for a year; 23 is a grand slam — and I’ve always wanted to hit one of those.

Note: I do know that baseball season is over. It’s the only sport I know enough about to make an analogy. And it’s only a few months until spring training starts.

It was a beautiful sunset — or was it a sunrise?

I watched it from our deck of my family’s house overlooking Greers Ferry Lake. Sara Ann was about to begin her senior year in high school, my last school year with a child at home. Prelude to the empty nest.

Between the uncharacteristically cool breeze, the natural beauty and the chardonnay, my mood was reflective as I thought about the beginning of the end of this part of my life. A life defined by semesters, school days, spring breaks and Christmas vacations. The end of my girls’ lives as children as they move into adulthood — college graduation and the beginning of a bright career for Elizabeth, high school graduation and off to college for Sara Ann. A beginning for me as, for the first time in 21 years, I explore my own priorities and interests apart from motherhood. The end of rules and curfews. The beginning of years of friendship with my girls.

I love pictures of sunsets. This particular sunset marked the end of an amazing day, but as sure as it set over the lake, the sun rose again on the other side of the night. When you look at the photo, unless you know the exact location and directional orientation, you don’t know whether it’s a sunrise or a sunset. So I realize it is with life — every end holds within it a new beginning and there is beauty in both.

Though I know this transition will not be easy and I approach it with mixed emotions, I cling to the idea that, for us, the sun is rising.

Photo credit: Sara Ann