Most of the recent news cycles regarding the El Paso and Dayton mass shooting, President Trump’s continued taunting and teasing of his opponents, stoking up his base via Twitter, and politics in general have left me with the awareness of how toxic tolerance can be. Jesus never said, “Tolerate one another, as I have tolerated you.” And yet, we seem to think that toleration of those whose ideas, actions, words, beliefs are in opposition to our own is the answer to navigating the polarity and partisan rhetoric dividing our country today.

Is tolerance truly the answer? Is tolerance healthy? Has tolerance made us be less shocked and offended by the thoughtless, hurtful, name calling, shaming and blaming culture of our leaders? Has tolerance of those who wage lobbying and media wars against anyone who attempts to discuss background checks on gun purchases because it “threatens our 2nd Amendment Rights” made us less sensitive and shocked by the mass shootings that are more and more frequently occurring?

Tolerance is not the answer. Intolerance — despising and hating those who don’t think like myself, vote like myself, look like myself — is not the answer. Despising those in leadership who stoke fears and spread lies and paint those who oppose them is not the answer.

Our tolerance must lead to a transformance of how we see the world — even those who we disagree with, a transformance of how we think and deal with those who have done so much to undo equality and undue the ideals of what America has stood for. While not enabling their damaging behavior and the damage of their rhetoric and insighting of their base, we must remember that they too are loved by God. We can’t start acting in ways against them that mirror the ways they act against those they oppose.

This transformance must lead us to respond from the heart and not the ego or the mind. To respond from that awareness of God’s great love for myself and for all of creation.

In the Gnostic text The Sentences of Sextus we find a few wise snippets that may help us navigate this narrow path of standing up for the value of each humanity and creation without casting those so hell bent on undoing the strides made in equality and justice for all into the “other” class who are not worthy of the same value.

This verse resonates with this need to stay grounded in the light and goodness of all creation:

A godly heart produces a blessed life.

Sentences of Sextus verse 326b

Verse 328 really speaks to the soul and puts in words better than I did above about how we can’t let their actions against humanity lead us along a path by condemning the tyrannical perpetrators of such injustice that leads us along their path:

Let not an ungrateful man cause you to cease to do good.

Sentences of Sextus verse 328

Verse 316 challenges us to not let our thoughts of anger towards these tyrants get the best of us:

Where your thought is, there is your goodness.

Sentences of Sextus verse 316

Perhaps the most important verse to keep in mind during these trying times when seeking to stay grounded in our faith and spirituality and in the Light and Love of God and yet to not enable and do what we can to undue the damage of these tyrants is verse 167:

Wisdom leads the soul to the place of God.

Sentences of Sextus verse 167

Instead of falling into the pit of tolerance and risking becoming immune to the actions of our leaders who are tyrants and liars and wreaking havoc on humanity, and rather than emotionally reacting in anger and hatred, may we seek Wisdom and understanding, to be transformed so as to respond from the heart and find ways that after our soul has come closer to God, helps spread the spark of the Divine, the Light, the Hope and the Love and Healing upon and throughout the cosmos.