Close Up & Personal

Let’s talk about getting close up and personal. Why? Because is one of the best way to move beyond the divisions that exist to remember our connectedness and create a world of harmony and peace.

Our instinct is to back away from those we don’t agree with, those who don’t look like us, or talk like us, or believe and worship like us. It’s easy to dislike, or hate, from a safe distance of righteousness and pride. Our fear of difference and conflict drives wedges between us and other people.

The Apostle Paul, in the book of Romans, questions all of us, “But you, how can you sit in judgment of your sisters or brothers? Or you, how can you look down on your sisters or brothers? ... Rather, we must resolve not to be stumbling blocks or obstructions to each other.”

The spiritual path is not about issuing judgments and setting up obstructions to living in peace and harmony with one another. The spiritual path is about seeking understanding, common ground, connection, compromise and finding a constructive, positive way forward.

Jesus sat around tables with all kinds of people very different from him. They ate together, they talked together, they probably discussed and argued together. Yet, we never hear stories about fist fights breaking out over differences, or someone walking out in anger. The important thing was the willingness to have the conversation.

Brene Brown reminds us that it is okay to set boundaries when you have these conversations. We should always be physically and emotionally safe. Emotional safety isn’t about not being uncomfortable, or not having to listen to a different point of view, something I don’t like or think is wrong, or even getting our feelings hurt a little. The line of emotional safety is crossed when dehumanizing language and behavior is used which depicts the other person as the enemy, as morally inferior and perhaps even dangerous.

As long as we are staying safe, as Brene’ Brown says, “People are hard to hate close up.” We know this, but it is easier to nurture hate and anger. If we want peace, if we want our society to move forward, it is only by getting to know another, by listening non-judgmentally without the need to fix or change, by sharing openly without anger or a need to convince. The only goal is gaining understanding.

Here’s something to practice before even trying to get up close and personal. Pema Chodron, in her book Welcoming the Unwelcome writes, “There’s a practice I like called “Just like me.” You go to a public place and sit there and look around. Traffic jams are very good for this. You zero in on one person and say to yourself things such as “Just like me, this person doesn’t want to feel uncomfortable. Just like me, this person loses it sometimes. Just like me, this person doesn’t want to be disliked. Just like me, this person wants to have friends and intimacy.”

There are so many ways that we are just like everyone else. Everyone wants to be loved, healthy, safe, secure, respected. Everyone wants a home, enough food, meaningful work. Everyone wants to be accepted, to live in peace, to have hope for the future.

Margaret Wheatley, in her book Turning to One Another, shares this story:

Bernie Glassman, the co-founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order, tells a story about leading a group to Auschwitz, to bear witness to the death camp and the 1.5 million people killed there. Of the 150 diverse people in the group, two people had great reason to hate one another, the American-born son of a Jewish concentration camp inmate and the German daughter of the Nazi commandant of that same camp:

For many years the American had heard stories from his father about the brutality of the camp commandant, and coming face-to-face with the man’s daughter in Auschwitz had been almost intolerable for him. He didn’t want to meet or talk to her, he wanted to remain silent. But when the two finally talked and exchanged stories, they discovered they had many things in common, including shame, guilt, and silence. The expected anger of that first meeting eventually evolved into a deep and powerful bond of understanding and empathy, and finally into a strong, meaningful friendship.

Listening, getting up close and personal, being open and vulnerable takes courage and strength. The hard conversations always do. As Maya Angelou once said, “The price is high, the reward is great.”

Last week I received a call from the assisted living center where my dad lives. Their head nurse informed me that dad was ok but had been in an altercation (not instigated by him) with another resident. She sat down with my dad for quite a while and just let him tell his story and vent his frustrations. She said she knows he is just trying to do what he needs to do within the parameters given to him. I thanked her for taking the time to listen to him. Then, she sort of gave a rueful chuckle and said, “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve listened to him this long. We tend to put tasks before people.” Ain’t this the truth?

Listening is the core. Listening without the need to change or be right. Listening with compassion.

As Margaret Wheatley says, [H]ealing is possible because, in all our diversity, we share the experience of being human… We discover this shared human experience whenever we listen to someone’s unique story. The details and differences are important to hear. (Nothing shuts down our story faster than someone saying “I know exactly how you feel.”) But as we listen quietly to their story, as we allow another’s life to be different from ours, suddenly we find ourselves standing on common ground.

May we walk through our days with less judgment, more openness, and a greater capacity to listen with the intent to seek understanding.

Love & Light!

Kaye