My Cliffs Notes For Contentious Times
My ever-changing Cliffs Notes for contentious times.
Contentious times? Oh, you must be referring to our plague of Us vs. Them. My “you’re not part of my tribe” due to your: appearance, your words, your clothes, food, and wow, can that beat just go wailing on…
Right?
Oh, come on! You know I’m right. And, as if I’m immune to this plague of tribalism, my capacity to judge different others, lickety split, is just a hair-trigger away. (And look at that. A Quaker, who doesn’t like violence, talking about triggers. Fallible human on the loose.)
Stop! Stop!
But, I don’t know how to stop. I mean, it’s my brain. My evolutionary threat brain. When I feel threatened by someone who appears different from me, oh wow, Us vs Them materializes like an unexpected summer thunderstorm. I can just feel the lightning forming inside of me. I hate it.
And I don’t know how to stop. Do you? What does it take to spark my humanity toward those different from me? Is there a change agent somewhere out there on the horizon? I suspect that waiting for a knight in shining armor to rescue me is the equivalent of waving a magic wand, intoning “Presto-Chango!” (Plus, I have no idea where they retail magic wands.)
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person…We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Barack Obama
Oh wow, that’s us! Uh oh, how do we accomplish this? How do I build bridges to others when I’d rather be breathing fire on them?
I seem to be on a quote binge today.
“Words Create Worlds”
~ Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
I start with little bitty words of connection and acknowledgment, particularly when I notice myself recoiling from someone. (My ol’ evolutionary threat brain in action. Attack to survive. Grrrr…)
At the risk of perseverating, which is obviously what I’m doing, can I just reach across bridges of difference, using ordinary words of acknowledgment and connection? Really ordinary. “Hey, have a good day.” Any words that connect me to the perceived other. Modeling connection and kindness. Trusting, on some level, that my words have the potential to create, in a particular moment, a different world than that which we’ve been living in. Yep, only a passing moment, but I have to start somewhere…..
Omigod, I’m lecturing! Mea culpa, folks, mea culpa! Probably time for a diet Dr Pepper to further wet my whistle for bridge building…