passing on political posts

You wanna know why I rarely (in fact, I'm 99% certain that I never) comment on political social media posts? Maybe you don't want to know and that's okay. I'm not offended. It's totally your choice to read on or to not read on. I respect that you have your opinion about what you are or aren't going to do.

But for those of you who are interested in why I stay neutral on social media when it comes to political posts, well, the answer is simple. It's not because I don't have opinions. I have some pretty strong ones, actually. Nope. That's not why. It's not because people say some pretty rude, disrespectful, and judgemental things when they aren't speaking to you face to face but rather typing their words. While that might be true, that's not the reason either. Well, that might be part of the reason. That's a pretty good reason...

It's because when I look at what people post on facebook, I know that I am not well enough informed on any subject to stand up against the potential backlash of stating an opinion that could come from my comment having one or two words out of order. In other words: I don't know enough about any political situation to be able to join in the conversation. Call me ignorant. Call me naive. But if I haven't walked in your shoes, if I haven't informed myself of the same facts as you (facts: which I'm thinking are hard to come by these days), if I don't have the same types of friends or worldview or family members who are living lives that influence your opinion, then I don't get to shoot you down for what you believe.

So if I don't like your post, that doesn't mean that I don't agree with you on some level. But unless we have a discussion about it, you won't necessarily know where I am coming from and honestly, I don't want to have a public discussion with someone I care about just so the whole Facebook world can have an opinion about my opinion.

And if I'm being honest, which I try hard to be, I have one more reason as to why I don't publicly express my opinion on such matters that are disagreeable among my friends. I would be greatly saddened if I lost a friend because they defined me according to one opinion that I have that doesn't fall in line with their belief system. There are a lot of facets to KC. I guarantee there are a number of them that you wouldn't like if you knew about all of them. Turns out that I don't have everything figured out and I'm not right about everything in life (but don't tell my kids that. Don't worry: my husband already knows.)

My moral compass is guided ultimately by God's word. But even having that, many of my friends disagree on some very fine points. In my younger years I grew up in a very black and white world. As it turns out, there's a lot of grey in this world. I find the best way to swim through the grey is with a large measure of grace.

So if you made it to the end of this post, I appreciate you despite our differences (and there are some, I guarantee it. There's no way any 2 people could completely agree on anything in life). And if you didn't make it to the end of this post, I appreciate you anyway, even thought you'll never know it because you didn't read about it here.

KC