Professor J,
I was going to write about boycotting
Black Friday or the quest for simplification in an overly complicated
world. Well, I may still get to that. But first...this quote from
Homeland hit home the other night:
“There are only wrong choices. I’m finally seeing it for the first time.
Nothing good can happen in this f----ed-up world that we’ve made for
ourselves. Can it?”
CIA station chief, Carrie
Matheson is talking about her chosen vocation, but sometimes in every
day life the varying perspectives and stories, nuances and motives,
information and confirmation bias are all too much. The truth, increasingly
maddeningly, lies somewhere in the midst of what we think we know.
Information is fed to us from no one without an agenda. Clever tweeters
lay out problems and solve complex problems in 140 characters or less. I
can't even read the comments on blogs or news sites anymore where the
worst side of people in their anonymity shows their true selves.
It would be easy to believe there are only wrong choices when things are grim.
Monday afternoon when I heard that the grand jury in Ferguson had reached a decision, I prayed for peace and justice.
Admittedly something I have done far too seldom as someone who claims
to follow Christ. Perhaps it's that I just finished a thorough
re-reading of the Gospels and Acts. Perhaps it's that this reading was
done with a spiritual eye out for the poor and oppressed. On the lookout
for injustice. I highlighted hypocrisy. Underlined non violent choices
in the face of corruption and hate. Tried to read it like it was the
first time. Fresh eyes. Open heart and mind.
So Monday
night's news was especially troubling. Not even because I was sure of
the truth of anyone's testimony or knew (or thought I did) what the
right course of action should be. But because the older I get the more
aware I am of the experience of others. The other perspective. The
different conclusion. Honest intent and split second choices. The power
of hopelessness. How everyone's history up to this point affects
thinking, perception, and judgement.
We are all trapped
in our own narratives and it takes conscious effort to break out of
that. I believe it's impossible unless we are willing to dialogue. To
listen without defending. To look for common ground. To say that lots of
things we disagree about can actually all be true at the same time.
Sometimes many different parts of the story are true. Our brains
struggle with gray areas.
Even when we get to the truth
of the story, we aren't finished. The mother in the poverty stricken
neighborhood knows what the problems are. So does the teacher, the owner
of the liquor store, and the sanitation worker. Recognizing the problem
doesn't bestow upon us the tools with which to solve them. We are
fractured and ill equipped to solve them without banding together.
I found the following quote in the article, The Society of Fugitives
"Many in law enforcement recognize that poverty, unemployment, and the
drugs and violence that accompany them are social problems that cannot
be solved by arresting people. But the police and the courts are not
equipped with social solutions. They are equipped with handcuffs and
jail time."
We have more information than we need, but
claim we need more. What we are desperately in need of is wisdom. We
need people who act wisely.
Yesterday I found this TED Talk, Take an "Other" to Lunch." In it, Elizabeth Lesser outlines her simple plan to change the world, but she also mentions the concepts of the mystic and the warrior.
I liked this idea because I can feel both things tugging at me. She
echoes your idea that small things matter. Things like listening and
looking for common ground.
Oh yeah, and let's not buy stuff on Friday and if we have to let's make sure it's local.
No comments:
Post a Comment