Several months ago, I visited a patient who had requested a visit with a chaplain. After I introduced myself, she began telling me that she was glad for someone to talk to because home was several hours away, and she’d told her family members not to come into the city. “I don’t trust Democrats,” she shared. “I told them to stay home so they don’t get beat up or robbed by the Democrats. They’re scary people.”

I didn’t tell her that–based on my voting record–I would most definitely fit in the group she so feared, and I wondered if she didn’t register the rather large pin on my lab coat that identifies me as an ally of black, brown, and LGBTQ+ persons. Or the pronoun pin I’ve attached to my badge. Or the DEI sticker.

Instead, we talked for a little while. She shared her anxieties about her illness and its impact on her loved ones. We named the losses–of independence, of mobility, of schedule–that have been a result of her cancer. She requested prayer, and so we spent a few minutes lifting up her concerns together.

I should have been labeled as an “enemy” for her. But she couldn’t match the person she met–who came in offering compassion and a willingness to listen–with the picture of “Democrat/Enemy” that she has in her mind.

If we are thinking of enemies as persons who purposely threaten our safety, health, or peace, I don’t know that I have any personal enemies. I get along with most people, and as a middle-aged, educated, employed, housed white woman, I’m not much of a target. But I have a lot of neighbors–both in the blocks that surround mine and in the city of Chicago at large–who cannot say the same. Many whose skin is darker than mine are afraid to go to work, afraid to send their children to school, afraid to go to the grocery store, afraid to go to the very court dates that they are hoping will one day provide them with permanent documentation. My mind tends to put the label “enemy” on those who are making them afraid: Donald Trump, JD Vance, ICE agents, white supremacists… And then from there it’s an easy jump to those who voted for Trump, to those who support sending ICE agents into my city, to the woman who told me she fears Democrats.

But then I remember there are actual people behind the votes and social media posts… with their faces and stories and worries and cares.

In a training session I participated in last year, we did a listening exercise in pairs. Each of us were told to think of something that really bugged us, really got under our skin. We then ranted to the other person about it–without interruption–for two minutes. We switched, the other partner getting their chance to vent, and then we got back together as a large group. Each person then shared with the larger group the values they heard underneath the person’s tirade. If the partner had ranted about their upstairs neighbor being noisy, then something like this might have been said: “They value quiet and getting to spend time at home recharging. They think that it is important for them to have some solitude and reflection time. They value having boundaries and persons having respect for the boundaries of others.”

This is good work–to look and listen beyond the words or stances that put us at opposition–to see the person and their values. And then there’s a step further–to engaging in prayer for them.

A number of years ago, in a pastoral education class, one of my classmates was a fiery young Presbyterian who’d grown up with a physical disability, and his own experience had fostered in him a deep longing for justice for any and all marginalized groups. We often spent our break times together, and our conversations often centered on social issues.

At the start of one class near Christmas, he shared the Magnificat, the prayer-song of Mary that follows Gabriel’s announcement of her pregnancy, and he highlighted the justice themes that run through it. “God has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. God has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. God has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” During lunch that day, he and I discussed it further. “I find myself longing for the downfall of quite a few ‘rulers,'” he told me.

“Yeah, me too,” I said, “but I’ve also thought about the restorative ideas that are present in that song. If the rulers are brought down from their thrones and the rich are sent away empty, I would imagine–knowing the heart of God for all people–that it is with the idea that the rich and powerful and unjust will also become humble and aware of their common humanity and vulnerability so that they also can then be lifted up and filled with good things. It is not punitive; it is so that they can be emptied of the conceit that keeps them from being filled with goodness, kindness, love…”

Based on the equation of “Democrats=scary people,” I should have been an enemy to the patient I prayed with. But I’m not. I’m not her enemy, and she wasn’t mine, and in talking and praying together, our hearts joined, and my initial wariness was softened (it doesn’t feel good to be told you’re the Enemy, right?).

Lately I’ve been practicing prayer for those who, like that patient, might consider me an enemy. For those who vote and think differently than I do. In honesty, I have to admit that I have thought of “them” as the “enemy.” I mean, I’d love to be like Ghandhi or Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu, wishing nothing but universal good will upon “them,” but I’m not. So a lot of my praying has sounded a bit like this: “May they recognize their safety and become concerned about the safety of those who don’t look like themselves or have a different lifestyle. May they be healthy–in mind, body, and spirit–and then desire health and care for all others, and consider healthcare as a right for all people…”

Do I think these prayers will change their minds or hearts? I don’t know. But here’s what I do know. They change MY heart. They deepen my resolve to support the values and needs of the vulnerable and marginalized–and they also attune my heart to the values and needs of the “enemy.” They help me do the work of transforming “enemy” into “neighbor,” reminding me that we are ALL–like it or not–neighbors. My prayers increase the chances that I engage in conversation with those who disagree with me rather than avoid it, that I listen for underlying values, that I stay in a room/space rather than leave, and that I return to a room or space for continued engagement.

These prayers are really about me.

I’ll keep practicing.