I had a 'world whisperer' experience.

Some of you might think it meaningless but I felt a tinge of hope.

There is someone on our email list that is from Joe's high school.  He sends us MANY emails that go to over 100 people.  I try not to read them as they are usually the exact opposite of what I think and believe.

For some reason, however, I decided to read one recently.

It spoke of our president's "Muslim Mafia" and listed 31 things that proved he was Muslim.

OOOOKAAAAY.

I knew that they were embellished but decided to actually fact check many.

As I suspected, they were false.

I didn't know if I should just ignore this or share the findings or WHAT?

I just knew that it felt wrong to do nothing.

I respectfully replied that I had found many of the statements to be unfounded and shared the sites that I used and then asked him to please remove me from the list.

I am not going to share here what the reply to me was....

...or the reply from some others' on the list.

Suffice it to say, it was pretty combative...even scary...and I am NOT easily scared...at all!

 I simply decided to remove myself from the whole thing so as not to be a part of the brokenness....

...BUT,the original sender emailed and asked that I not respond to 'all' because these folk were clearly not of my same thinking and it was upsetting them.   He said that they were members of a fraternity and most were on a different 'side' than I was.

I immediately responded saying that I can see why that would be disconcerting to them and had I known it was a fraternity list, I would not have replied to 'all'.   He/they could rest assured that I would not message again to this group.

I also explained that my reply was not meant to choose a 'side'.  I actually did the same when people were bashing Bush with untruths.

Rather than a 'side', I seek to find the TRUTH  which, in this day and age of immediate info 24/7, is VERY hard to do.

He responded MUCH more respectfully this time which is what moved me to meander.

This guy is a 'shoot and shout' kinda' guy but, by the end, he apologized for the 'shoot and shout' messages I received from his frat buddies and he thanked me for honoring his request.

He even said he was going to try to be more intentional about who/what/where he got his info.

 I am not naive enough to think this man is going to change his politics or stop sending messages that support his 'side'.

BUT, I DO believe that because we had RESPECTFUL dialogue, there was a tiny tiny step taken.

Which is why I wanted to share it here.

Makes me wanna' keep reminding myself to stay respectful, seek truth...

....and keep on 'world whispering'!