Last week in this space, I suggested that most of us Americans—conservative and liberal, coastal and middle America, urban and rural—share a weird type of common ground: fear. We fear the white-hot public square, in which anything we do or say might incur wrath. We fear our leaders, our institutions, and our systems, often with good reason. This came up in conversation with a good friend of mine, a conservative Christian and reluctant Trump supporter.

Another of my friends might have an answer to the fear crisis.

She is one of the wisest women I’ve ever known. I’m tempted to call her a mystic and a prophet, but even that doesn’t capture the depths at which she lives every day in her tough urban neighborhood.

Right now she’s focused on two desires. She wants everything in her life to be a prayer, a continual communication through a continually open channel to God. And she wants to be so full of divine love and light that it just floods out from her and suffuses every person in her wake.

Skeptics might scoff at her. But I don’t think they understand the true nature of love. It’s not what passes for love in our culture: romance, or flirtatious fancy, or concern only for family or tribe. Rather, it’s a commitment to seeing every last human as having surpassing worth and dignity—a commitment to tend to their needs as diligently as we tend to our own.

The fourth chapter of 1 John, a book in the Christian scriptures, makes a bold claim about this kind of love. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment.

That feeds right into our crisis of fear. What are so many people fearing? Judgment, shaming, disparagement—all forms of what that verse calls punishment. If we made the effort to flood our adversaries with God’s love, to listen openheartedly, to gain their trust, would their fear melt away in time? Would they someday be able to trust the love they receive from us and respond in kind? Then could we talk and listen and respect one another?

This sort of thing is easily dismissed as “holding hands and singing Kumbaya.” It is nothing of the sort. It is hard, excruciating work that involves vulnerability, pain, the shame of looking squarely at how we’ve been wounded and how we’ve wounded others.

Love doesn’t mean we’ll agree on everything. It does provide a way to live and work together in a way that benefits our species and our planet. It is certainly better than what we’re doing now.

I think it’s worth a try. You?