You might’ve seen in our last couple of newsletters that Lisa and I were hosting a movie night at our home last evening.
A good group of us watched a documentary on Christian Nationalism called “God and Country.”
In addition to the benefits of collectively consuming burgers and slices of pie, we had the opportunity to meld our minds and hearts as we discerned about what we had watched through the lens of our faith.
Or more specifically, through the lens of love.
The conversation was rich and deep, and it felt like each of us were moved by recognizing the need for us to listen to each other, find common ground with those whom we are decidedly not aligned.
We heard this theme in our readings, which is exceedingly relevant now, given how entrenched our country’s divisions have become, despite most of us claiming to be upholders of the same ideologies.
As we were talking last night about mindfully engaging in rectifying it, one person asked, “What does that process look like? You can’t just jump into these things…there should be preparation or it could go really badly.” Well said.
Social-psychologists have long been telling us that contact between opposing groups reduces tensions, and forging a sense of commonality.
It’s the ordinary citizens,
it’s you and me, everyday folks who interface with our friends,
neighbors, co-workers, and family members…
If it’s going to happen it needs to be at that level, not at some high level summit meeting.
Sounds simple, but everyone here knows that this is much easier said than done.
How do we make this seemingly inaccessible objective more graspable?
Do you remember the book by Robert Fulghum called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?
It’s often true that to start at the very beginning is a very good place to start… with lessons we learned in childhood…
those lessons that aren’t yet marred with caveats and ‘Yeah, but’s…” that can rationalize a person right out of the wellsprings of wisdom.
Let us thus turn to someone who was a long-time friend to many of us… Mister Rogers
Some of Mister Rogers’ teachings are absolutely relevant today, including (and sometimes especially) to us adults.
Fred Rogers masterfully addressed conflict by advocating for standing up for what you believe in, while also making room for other thoughts across the spectrum.
Here’s an overview of lessons that are more relevant today than ever, and aren’t diminished by time or limited to any age group.
- It’s okay to feel whatever we feel/ to believe whatever it is we believe.
- But our feelings aren’t an excuse for bad behavior
(Here’s where we start stepping into the real work)….
- Other people are different from us—and just as complex as we are
These days people dread family holidays. Our types of media consumption, and our relationships lock us into silos of agreement, where it’s easy to demonize and oversimplify those with whom we disagree.
An adage from Mister Rogers underscores this:
Sometimes people are good, and they do just what they should,
but the very same people who are good sometimes
are the very same people who are bad sometimes.
It’s funny, but it’s true.
It’s the same, isn’t it for me…
Isn’t it the same for you?
Fred Rogers’ favorite quote was: “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
- It’s our responsibility to care for each other, and the most vulnerable.
Fred Rogers appreciated many religious traditions, but, as an ordained Presbyterian minister, at his center he was a Christian deeply committed, as we are, to emulate Jesus, who perfected simultaneously loving self AND loving his neighbor.
- We can work to make a difference right where we are.
Often Fred did his work in his own context. Therefore, instead of marching against Jim Crow, he cast black actors on his program. On one occasion he set up a pool and invited Officer Clemmons (played by black, gay actor François Clemmons) to share a tub to soaking their feet and sharing a towel
- It’s important to make time to care for ourselves
Although Fred spent his life giving of himself on and off screen, he could only do so because he was absolutely committed to taking care of himself. As is always the case for any of us…making time for self-sustenance meant he could give more away.
- We are neighbors
Mister Rogers didn’t call us “acquaintances” or “friends”; he didn’t call us “boys and girls” or “ladies and gentlemen.” He, like Jesus, called us neighbors.
So that’s the Big 7. Here’s his condensed Love Thy (challenging/ seemingly so different from us politically/religiously) Neighbor:
-It’s ok to feel the way you feel about the other guy
-but those feelings don’t make bad behavior ok
-those other guys are just as complex as you, and have been born into or happened down roads that have helped formed their otherness just as you have your you-ness
-it’s impossible to be like Jesus and not care for these other guys
-you absolutely have the opportunity to try and bridge the gap. And, as people sitting here hearing this today, being exposed to these truths that Jesus lived, we have a responsibility to try. “To those who much has been given…”
-But make sure you personally are grounded, in your own skin, first.
-And finally, make no mistake,’ those guys’ are your neighbor.
In this nutshell version you heard words like “impossible” and “absolutely.”
Those are pretty air-tight words. They are meant to be.
That of which we speak today is an imperative, because it’s literally killing us. We have to look no further than yesterday’s assassination attempt to know this.
Speaking of, I read a New York Times article on this shooting, and took special note of this brief paragraph in the story.
It recounted that Trump put his hand to his ear, Secret Service rushed to shield him, as they moved him offstage Trump paused, pumped his fist as if victoriously, to the crowd chanting U.S.A.!
A man literally comes within an inch of his life through deadly violence, and his first inclination just seconds later is bravado, and next follows the chant of the masses that celebrates and blends all of this with our beautiful country.
If ever there was a time for Mister Rogers’ guidance….
Not long ago I tried to incorporate his guidance in a conversation I had with my conservative/other side of the aisle brother Todd.
A chance for us to really listen to each other emerged unexpectedly in his living room.
When I arrived at his place one evening he had the TV on to the news that was talking about presidential campaign issues.
As we listened to commentary about the fallout for one candidate after the recent debate I said, “I imagine that you’re happier about the debate results than me.”
At first he only grunted in response. Then some moments later he said, “You know, I think they’re all full of it. And that’s because none of them truly put God and godliness in the center of what they’re doing.”
As I sat there pondering his words I thought that this is an opportunity to practice what I preach.
And so the conversation eased toward how politicians incorporate “Love Thy Neighbor” into their efforts.
I brought up my concern about how little we exercise loving our marginalized people-of-color neighbors in this country.
Then the conversation turned more personal, away from politics and the country, more about our own worlds.
I told Todd about the efforts of the churches I’ve served to concretely live what it means to ‘love thy neighbor’ through efforts with Black Lives Matter and protest activities.
Todd listened and then spoke of his struggle to fully embrace these ideals because of personal experience.
He shared that he is a deacon in a Baptist church in rural Kansas, and he told me about the Sunday his church had arranged for a black man, a professional athlete, to be their guest speaker.
He described how the speaker and his wife and their two kids arrived dressed in their Sunday best, and how striking he was in his physical presentation.
Apparently this didn’t matter to numerous elderly parishioners, who announced that “If he’s speaking, we’re going home.”
As they were headed toward the door, Todd said, “You should stick around, you may learn something.” They paid no heed.
He shared another story of when he hired a black man to work for him in his small construction business.
When several customers indicated they didn’t want that employee in their home, Todd’s response was, “Then find someone else to do your project.”
After sharing these stories and assuring me that he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, he also admitted that he has personally experienced, and has been somewhat influenced by, racial stereotypes (mostly around work ethic issues).
This was uncomfortable to hear, yet I couldn’t deny this reality for my brother.
I attempted to listen without judgment and then pointed out how systemic racism and centuries of oppression likely contributed to those circumstances.
Then he turned and looked directly at me and with misty eyes (and my brother is not a misty-eyed kind of guy) he said,
“Lori, of all us five kids, I’m the one that got the worst grades. And yet I think that I’ve turned out pretty successfully.”
[This is true. Todd, my only non-college-degreed sibling, is the most financially successful in our family.]
“And I’ve gotten where I am,” he went on, “from maybe a little luck, but mostly just really hard work. Everybody has that same opportunity.”
I gently responded that, by virtue of his white skin, doors are opened to him that his black employee, no matter his work ethic, would never profit from
(and then reminded him of his own customers and fellow parishioners who didn’t give black people a chance.)
Todd became quiet. I knew he had heard me.
Todd is one of those people who can sometimes be set in his ways, but is always solid, with a heart of gold.
He’s the guy who is committed to his wife, a decade older than him, who suffers from Alzheimers. In addition to running his business, he sees to it that she is comfortable keeping her at home with him,.
He the quintessential pull-yourself-up-by-the bootstraps, stalwart work ethic person who has a hard time understanding why if Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama can be so successful, can’t anyone?
None of what was shared that evening was mind-blowing news to me about my brother. But listening to his stories, appreciating his intention and his limitations (mostly, I think, due to lack of exposure), expanded my heart.
I have a renewed appreciation for his geographical place in the world, the people and ideologies that surround him since birth…in his place of worship, in the homes of his customers, at the lumber supply store he frequents, and all places in between.
It expanded my heart toward his politically/religiously conservative self simply because I heard him, and I felt heard by him.
There’s a Hebrew phrase tikkun olam (tee-KOON oh-LUHM) which means “world repair.”
A poet friend of mine named Patti Lister wrote a poem that underscores this.
The poem is entitled Mending.
Tikkun Olam.
Walk with bloodied feet
Through scattered shards of a world
Made brittle by the icy stare
Of eyes that would not see
The pain in eyes of another,
severed from kindred and kindness;
Destroyed by autocrats with damaged minds
And shriveled souls
Clinging to power.
Tikkun Olam.
Walk once more
With tired and bloody feet
Toward a place of peace and rest, repair and restoration;
Take up once more
Your holy task of picking up pieces
And putting back together again
This vessel made for holding love. Tikkun Olam.
‘This vessel made for holding love’ could certainly be a descriptor of Mister Rogers. If you have time, look a little further into the life this man who concretely lived what it means continue in our time what Jesus began in his.
He was calling us—all of us—out of our towers of power and our silos of sameness, beckoning us toward lives of mercy and care for one another.
Now, maybe this seems to some of us as an overly optimistic endeavor (especially these days).
But perhaps he was urging us toward our best selves.
Yes, his identified audience was the young ones.
But doesn’t it apply to all of us, that if we’re told again and again that we were good, that we were lovable, maybe we’ll begin to believe it.
If we live in that blessed state of knowing that we are held and that we are good, then we can become secure enough in our own worth and lovability to be able to extend mercy,
and thus to grow into real and lasting neighbors to those who inhabit all the neighborhoods of our lives.
It’s not too late. The time, my friends, is now. So may it be.
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