Civil Disagreement: Finding comfort and strength in bifurcation

During the pandemic, I’ve been swimming in two different waters: being on the Steering Committee at MMUUF while we attempted to guide our fellowship’s pandemic policy in science, truth, caution, UU values, and social responsibility; and struggling to understand and continue to extend grace and love to a number of individualistic, anti-vax, anti-science, loving, generous, kind people who are near and dear to my heart. This service is a reflection on my experience of oscillation between two groups of people with irreconcilable truths, trying to understand and straddle both sides of a societal divide, and dealing with the discomfort in the middle as they drift apart.
Lincoln stepped in this summer as President of the Steering Committee here at MMUUF, having previously served as Treasurer and Vice President. The last 5 years he has been working as a homemaker: a stay-at-home father of two wonderful children, as well as solo designing and building his family’s locally and sustainably sourced, post-and-beam, straw bale house. Lincoln enjoys building things (hence the house), solving puzzles (also, the house), and staying up far too late having philosophical, moral, political, and/or ethical arguments that one mostly can’t remember the next day.