Since my father’s funeral six months ago, I still call my mother almost every day. We live worlds apart, geographically and ideologically, but despite me being in Europe and she in the US, and despite our religious and political differences, we still manage to keep talking. After all, she’s my mom.
This year has not been easy, having lost my job, my father and what continues to feel like my country. I worked for USAID and believed in America’s capacity to help solve global problems while helping others in need, but the current administration ended such work, calling it wasteful. Two days after that, my father passed away, and as our family gathered to mourn, we received news that my mother’s cancer had returned and spread to her bones. Such news was devastating, but doctors offered hope. Though there was no cure, there was a pill available to stem the spread, sometimes even for many years.
Even grief couldn’t bridge our differences, though. At our family gathering, my mother confronted me about USAID, claiming that the agency funded terrorists and performed sex changes on children. Such disinformation about our actual health and development programs had taken root and was spreading.
I know I am not alone in a country of families divided by politics. In our case, my mother and most of my extended family have embraced a form of Christianity that intertwines closely with conservative politics. Some carry Patriot Bible editions with an American flag on the cover while others send their kids to school in T-shirts emblazoned with silhouettes of rifles.
Our information environment accelerates these divisions. Last month, my mother forwarded an article arguing that people who criticize Israel don’t do so out of concern, say, for casualties, but from discomfort with accepting that God is always on Israel’s side. I tried to get her to see the humanity with the same principles she taught me – to love one another, to care about suffering – but she dismissed the suffering as “God keeping his promises”. I was irate and one sister had to break it up, and both sisters stayed silent about the point.
Such clashes about principles are what test our relationship the most. We’ve learned boundaries, so when I talk to my mom, it’s generally about her treatment, the weather, plans for the day, family memories and family history. Like her medical treatment, our relationship requires attention to potential flare-ups.
Obviously I am still coming to terms with our differences, but she is my mom and I love her. I keep calling and she keeps answering. And our relationship is improving. The calls were initially to keep her company, but they are turning out to be good for me, too, as I am learning better about what comprises our love. The conversations also feel symbolic of something larger.
If I struggle to find common ground with my mom, how can I expect others to bridge similar divides? The essential functions of our body politic are under threat, and I suspect that, like my mother’s condition, there’s no single cure except the daily discipline of care and listening with mindful hearts.
It is comforting to stay in our like-minded communities where our views face no challenge, where we don’t speak or, better, listen to others. It’s easy to dismiss those who disagree as uninformed rather than seeking the seed of peace, common ground. My mother raised me to be curious about the world, to care about people beyond our family, and to seek truth even when it’s uncomfortable, lessons that came from the same tradition of faith that now seems to divide us.
I don’t pretend our calls are always easy or successful, but I am learning patience. I’m learning that to maintain the relationship requires me to show up consistently, avoid stepping on landmines but hold my ground on key principles (like love and peace), and to listen even when I am itching to challenge. And through our consistency, we are finding moments of genuine connection.
Like any living thing, democracy too can fall ill. Dire symptoms are everywhere: polarization of people and information sources, and the hardening of hearts against complexity. Of course, we need appropriate treatment to escape the present gilded age (get money out of politics, tax the rich, support independent media, etc) but getting there will require the same kind of commitment that my mother’s doctors ask of her. Regular attention. Long-term thinking. And the stubborn belief that what we’re trying to preserve is worth the effort.
My mom’s medication is helping to slow her cancer, giving us more time together. I don’t know how much time we have, with her illness or with our country, but I know this: both require us to show up every day, to resist the urge to give up and to seek success through small consistencies.
Our conversations continue, one phone call at a time. In a world pulling itself apart, maybe that persistence is its own form of hope.
Christian Smith is a former USAID officer
