Reading today from Krysta Tippett’s Becoming Wise I was once again reminded of the power of presence and dialogue. Writing on an initiative by the mayor in Louisville to make the city a city of compassion, she describes a dinner where a cross section of the community was present at a dinner:
“Most stunning of all was the hard-won sense of trust in that room: of fears calmed, and vulnerabilities laid bare and safe to be so. An African American pastor tells me that the greatest breakthrough was having a politician who was willing to sit down with the people’s pain – just that. Not, in the first instance, to present a policy or a fix – but to acknowledge that damage has been done and dwell with it, let it be in the room, accompanied, grieved – lamented, in the ancient language of the prophets. We know in life that taking in our losses and grieving them is a step that is not in itself productive or effective – all those ways we measure what matters. But it’s an opening without which only limited growth, movement out and forward, is possible.”
Shortly thereafter she writes:
“After 9/11 in America, we had a robust vocabulary of revenge and enemies, and we acted on it. We didn’t summon words to help us dwell with the shattering experience of vulnerability in our strongest fortresses. That vulnerability brought Americans into a new point of kinship with far-flung strangers around the world, who live this way much of the time. But our response drew us apart again.”
It occurs to me that we are again at such a moment in history in our country, a James 1:19 moment where everyone (politicians, protesters, everyone) should be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Yet here we are again, watching the yelling and screaming and finger-pointing from people who should know that there is nothing good that comes from spewing the recycled seeds of hatred that brought us here to start with. Progress in this world does not and cannot come from hatred and blame. It is difficult to see meaningful discussion arising from pointed fingers or the atomic bomb of dialogue – “shut the f_ _ _ up.” No, progress requires that we first “acknowledge that damage has been done and dwell with it, let it be in the room, accompanied, grieved – lamented.” Sadly, we seem to have skipped over that part and jumped right into the finger pointing and name calling.
It occurs to me... 