There has never been a war or act of cruelty or torture that was not carried out by two sets of people or ideologies or nations who were absolutely certain that they were in the right. The truly broken and thus dangerous people, always believe they are waging war, literally or figuratively, because there is absolutely no question that it is the right thing to do.

The theologian R. Kent Hughes writes that righteousness is easily perverted into an overweening sense of self-righteousness and judgmentalism. If you are striving to please God, or acting in his name, he argues, look inward and examine your motives closely.

I was awestruck yesterday watching rivers of righteousness and self-righteousness flow by me, almost everywhere, online and off. Our nation of whiners and victims and sore losers. I do not believe I am a warrior in a great conflict of good evil.

I guess I’m just odd. I do not believe I have a patent on truth or goodness, or that the people who view the world differently from me are inherently evil, and must be attacked and vilified.

I was disappointed by the election results, but I am humbled by them as well.  I’m not angry or terrified. There was so much I didn’t see and didn’t know.

Righteousness is a trap, we have forgotten how to talk to one another, and as importantly, how to listen or learn or find the middle. Righteousness is a beautiful spiritual goal, self-righteousness is a disease.

Self-righteousness, wrote the mystics in the Kabbalah, is the largest false idol of the human heart, the idol which man loves the most and God hates the most.

Anne is a Trump supporter who has been sending me wonderful messages about the trauma of the election for her.  Our dialogue is precious to me. If only our leaders could practice it.

“Yesterday” she wrote me from Montana, “two female co-workers came into my office, distraught and “just needing to talk” about the election results. I suspect they assumed I had voted like they did and I was candid in explaining that I did not, and why, and we were able to have an empathetic and caring conversation. They have no doubt that I care about where they are in all of this and perhaps are more understanding of how it came to be. While they are still hurting, our differences did not erode our friendship. Your writings heightened my awareness of the importance of this gentler discourse and if I was able to “pay it forward” through yesterday’s interaction, then I owe that to you.”

Anne owes me nothing, really, she is genuinely righteous, she is not simply declaring her righteousness as so many people do. She talked and she listened, and she established a sense of humanity, which is vastly more powerful than politics.

There is a big difference between the righteous and the judgmental.

I am one of those people who has been disliked and judged for my values and beliefs my entire life, from the time I could walk to today. The modern animal rights movement is the perfect conduit for blind self-righteousness. I would not inflict that on anyone else.

Righteous is a conduct or person that is morally justifiable.

The righteous do not judge, they listen, as Anne did. They respect themselves, and they possess dignity and are capable of sympathy and empathy. Anne voted for Donald Trump, but she appreciated the fear and discomfort of people who did not. That is the very meaning of being righteous.  She could have simply dismissed or ignored their unease, as so many people in America are doing to one another, just look at Facebook.

She could have dismissed them as arrogant elitists.

Jesus was righteous not because he judged others, or thought himself morally superior, but because he did not judge others  and admitted his flaws and failings. He never thought of himself as morally superior to others. The most striking hallmark of the great religious leaders – Gandhi, King, Mandela, Merton – was humility, not judgement. The moral philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote that the righteous man or woman is one who looks in the mirror and retains self-respect.

You have to like yourself.

I am surprised at the number of people – many of them good friends – who have contacted me and told me they were afraid to tell me and others that they were voting for Donald Trump but came forth when they saw the result and the anguish and fear the election has caused.

They explained their reasons to me and I am grateful for that, I learned a lot about what has happened, and I am also grateful Maria and I did not seem to them to be people who would judge or reject them.

Anne is right about that too, we can’t leave talking to one another to politicians, they have their own agendas, very rarely ours.  We do so much better one-on-one, one person at a time, one step at a time. Facebook and Twittter are truly awful places to have these conversations, they accomplish nothing, heal no one, enlighten nobody.  They are vast transmitters of misinformation, hate and fear. They, like our ghoulish and parastic modern screen media, promote hostility and argument and disconnection. They are, with some exceptions,  poisons, not beacons of light. Their rewards come from profit, not truth.

There are no Muhatma Gandhi’s or Martin Luther King’s out there running for President. Jesus would never make it two steps into the process, no billionaire would dream of funding him. It is a sad thing when people see half of their country as evil and bigoted, and the other half see opponents as elitist and corrupt.

I believe the true corruption of American politics, apart from big money,  is the now universal practice of demonizing opponents and the people who disagree with us. Making us see our fellow citizens as demonic and dangerous and dishonest  – as enemies – is not righteous. We are in this country together, we will stand or fall together.

This  rabid polarization is a rejection of civility and democracy and freedom. My healing and enlightenment comes from learning not to do that, to be vigilant about seeing past my judgment and self-righteousness so that I can truly be righteous. I am too flawed to feel superior to anyone.

Morality concerns the individual in his or her singularity. Right and wrong does not reside in the approval of others, but in what I decide about myself. My life is not an argument.

Moral conduct depends on the dialogue between and individual and himself, not the votes of others.

No one in this wrenching time has a patent on self-righteousness, I see the left and the right, these two awful and suffocating ideologies, as mirroring one another, the pendulum veering back and forth from one hysteria to another.  There is one wave of condemnation and vilification,  then another. I reject panic and drama and hysteria, I will stay in the now, see what happens, and behave according to my own conscience and sense of right and wrong.

Garrison Keilor wrote the other day that people who see themselves as progressive can take a few years off, they can’t be blamed any more. Now, they have to actually deliver. I am rooting for them to succeed. I can focus on my writing and photography for a while. I wish the Trump supporters well, I suspect they will be in for a challenging time, just like the people on the other side.

Politicians do not have a glorious history of keeping their promises.

I did not vote for Donald Trump and I dislike his hateful and sometimes ignorant rhetoric, as is perhaps clear. Others have chosen to look beyond that.  I do not believe that tens of millions of people supported him just because he was racist or misogynistic.  There is more to it than that. He won the election and deserves a chance to lead.

I will be listening and watching with an open mind. I’m not joining any mob, not on the right, not on the left.

Then I will feel grounded in making whatever decisions I wish to make. I will respect myself and like what I see in the mirror.