What can you do? Staying engaged in divisive times

• Do something concrete. Trust in your power to make change, even if results aren’t immediately obvious.
• Be intentional. Know your values and how you live them.
• Connect with (or start) a community with shared values.
• Educate yourself. Seek sources with clear, unbiased, factual reporting. Seek sources from multiple viewpoints.
• If you live in a city, go visit a rural area. If you live in a rural area, go visit a city. Ask questions of the people you encounter.
• Ask questions of others who have different views.
• When you start to feel overwhelmed, take a break. Trust that the others in your community will cover for you as you will cover for them when they need a break.
• Reach outside your comfort zone.
• Volunteer to tutor in reading, English as a new language, math, or life skills.
• Call your local, state, and federal representatives.
• Volunteer to help people get to the BMV to get necessary voting IDs or to get to the polls on election day.
• Host listening groups to enhance opportunities for encounter.
• Create beauty. Sing, dance, paint, draw, garden, play an instrument or write.
• Appreciate beauty. Read books or watch movies that tell stories of people whose worlds you might not be familiar with.
• Collect household goods for a refugee family or host a fundraiser for a resettlement organization.
• Write a letter to the editor of your local paper.
• Become a mentor to someone in your city. Mentoring programs exist for children and for adults re-entering society after prison or addiction recovery.
• Visit with and really listen to a neighbor.
• Start or work in a community garden.

(Originally published in the Summer 2017 issue of HOPE magazine.)