It has been immensely discouraging these past several months, and especially in the past week watching the RNC, watching people in this country be motivated by hatred and fear. Whether in response to violence, or refugees, or certain religions, or people's need and desire to stand up for their rights and articulate the injustice being done to them, it seems everywhere you look is not expressions of love and compassion, but division and labeling and blaming and self-protection.
For completely unrelated reasons, I'm listening to an audio book right now on effective dialogue, called Crucial Conversations. It is designed for dialogue in the work place, but also uses examples on how the same tools make communication more effective in our personal relationships. I'm about halfway through, and as I follow what's going on in the news right now, and how people respond to it, I have thought many times how if more people had the skills and perspectives discussed in the book, our country would not be one in which hate and fear are the primary motivators.
I thought this especially in the most recent chapter I listened to, which is about the stories we tell ourselves. Often when we are faced with the facts of a situation, we feel some emotion, but this emotion doesn't come from the facts. Rather, it comes from the stories we tell ourselves about those facts. For example, if you come late to a meeting, I take that fact, as well as the fact that you were late once last week, and the story I tell myself is, "He is always late. He must not care about the work we are doing together, or, he doesn't value my time. He is inconsiderate, and only cares about himself." Now, in response to that, I feel angry at you, and hurt, and dismissed, and my response to that feeling is either silence (quietly fuming and letting it fester, avoiding confrontation) or violence (I attack you verbally, emotionally or even physically).
On the other hand, I could tell myself this story: "He's late again. I hope everything is going okay - now that I think about it, he is has seemed kind of down lately. Maybe he has something tough going on at home; maybe he is distracted and lost track of time." With this story, my emotional response is to feel compassion and concern toward you. I think about times I have felt that way. My response then is not silence or violence, but rather, my inclination is to check in with you, to ask if everything is okay, if you need help with anything.
The description is not unlike a recent sermon I preached about assumptions, in which I referred to Luther's description of the 8th commandment to not only avoid gossip, but also to interpret another's actions in the best possible light. While that sermon came out of a personal experience, hearing about this technique in the midst of our political and cultural scene right now has made me think about it in a different way.
I often hear Secretary Clinton referred to as a liar, a criminal, someone who ought to be locked up. I hear about police officers who are irresponsible and puffed up on their power and authority. Donald Trump is a bigot, a racist, a facist, a hater of women and minorities. Black Lives Matter is a violent and misguided movement - don't all lives matter? Black people, and anyone who supports them, hate the police. Islam is a violent religion that produces terrorists, and moderate Muslims need to speak up against it.
These are all emotional responses based on the stories we are telling ourselves based on the facts we know. Maybe they are true stories, maybe they aren't. But what other stories could we tell? What stories could we tell ourselves that would help us to feel compassion rather than hatred and fear? What stories could we tell that help us to remember that all the people we are talking about here are actually people, real humans with real brokenness and pain and suffering, just like me?
I don't want to discount people's real pain; I know that sometimes putting a silver lining around something, or painting it as a rosier picture than it is, can trivialize or disregard the real damage being done. All I'm asking is for us to remember that what we all share in common is our humanity. That doesn't mean you have to forgive someone right now for the pain they have caused you. It doesn't mean you can't respectfully disagree or even critique them for their actions - and sometimes this is even the most loving response. Love sometimes looks like accountability, like calling someone out when they are not living up to our shared responsibility to care for one another, to love one another. Sometimes staying quiet in the face of hate, injustice, or unhealthy behavior is the unloving option, because it allows hatred to continue unopposed.
But calling someone out is not the same as tearing them down. Holding them accountable is not making blanket statements about their character. Constructive critique, loving critique, is taking into account someone's humanity, seeking to understand who they are and their motivation, pointing out their problematic actions, and then directing toward a better, healthier, more productive, more loving way. It is acknowledging that we have seen each other, heard each other, that we are striving to understand each other, and then finding a better way forward.
Of course this only works if both parties agree to strive toward this ideal, if everyone is able to take to heart criticism offered in love. I know we aren't there yet. But it is at least something I can practice in my personal life. Can you? Can we all strive to seek a person's humanity, before we try to demonize them, in all aspects of life?
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