We seem to have found our lesser selves this election cycle, forgetting our guiding principles as a nation. In a season of distrust, anger replaces reason. Emotional barrages are launched towards groups we disagree with. Resentment masquerades as wisdom. Facebook posts taunt anyone who doesn’t agree with our viewpoint. Comments on news sites sling hate. Our digital world allows us to express our opinions sometimes openly, often anonymously, and too often viciously. With our rhetoric we blind ourselves to the realities in other people’s lives and their very real pain.

In the midst of this summer of discontent I believe people of faith have a special responsibility to create safe spaces for conversation and places to build bridges of understanding. We need to be the people who remember that when Jesus told us to “love one another” and to “do to others what we want done to ourselves” he didn’t give our Facebook and Twitter posts or our anonymous newspaper comments a pass on that.

Instead we are called to be the people who bridge rivers of distrust and cross oceans of false assumptions. We are to be people who listen and hear – who allow space for conversation, dignity and respect . . . Creating places of empathy and understanding even as we stand, polar opposites from each other. Of all people, faith communities must model respect and dignity as we talk to each other.

Three weeks ago, a riot on a bridge in St. Paul MN turned into a place of violence as police were pelted with fireworks, rocks, bricks, glass bottles and chunks of concrete. The riot crew out of a demonstration over the death of Philando Castile, who died during a traffic stop. This week, on that very same bridge a different crowd gathered. There was no plan, only an urgent need as a young woman climbed over a fence, planning to jump onto I 35W. Some took hold of her T Shirt, others reached through the chain link fence to grab hold of her. Construction barrels were pushed into the busy highway to divert traffic. Police arrived. The fence was pulled back and cut through. A young woman, who believed that no one loved here, discovered how many people cared. Together, police and community pulled her through the fence to safety. Afterward people lingered celebrating a life saved together.

John Wesley said, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite.”