I have been a moderate person in many ways for probably most of my life. Don’t get me wrong—I admit I have certain kinds of things I will take a decided stance on, especially when it involves the true well-being of others. Nonetheless, I am not and never have been a person of extremes, and anyone who really knows me knows this to be true.
I find myself living in a world currently calculable in its extremes at best, chaotic at worst, and it is both exhausting and utterly dismaying to deal with this on a daily basis now. On a daily basis: confrontation, hatred, skepticism, and an unhealthy disregard for the Other, for those marginalized, for those struggling with burdens the average person might find hard to understand or reconcile.
I’ve decided to sit and meditate with this a bit, and this is what I have discovered, looking inside myself first—something I would recommend anyone do. In my life I have moved from a place where immigrants were, for better and worse, an accepted part of society, to a place that lately expresses a deep and abiding hatred for immigrants. I have moved from a place where I was openly Catholic to a place that has held me in skepticism at worst and shown me a true investment in faith at best. I have made friends with people in every place I have gone, and live in a town that is a constant shift of people from everywhere, and I have encountered all kinds of struggle, hurt, and triumph in these individuals—they have taught me year to year how to be more human.
What I am struggling with—and perhaps you are, too—is this daily living in extremes, in a state (both literal and figurative) that goes by extremity rather than moderation. What I am grateful for are groups like the Franciscans who are at the heart of moderation means to me. St. Francis’s way is the way I long to and strive to live daily, the well from which I will draw to draw closer to God’s vision of this world. It may feel like only one drop of peace that I contribute into the vast abyss of darkness daily, but I will contribute that one drop—and I hope you will yours, too. Whatever your drop of peace is, it matters. Look inside yourself for it. Then add it to the million others into the darkness to see the light.