Seeing Things in 3D Again
I have had some really eye-opening experiences over the past couple of weeks that I'd like to share with you today. I had the rare ability recently to sit down out on a patio with a few dear friends and just chat about life one afternoon. I can not adequately put into words what this was like for me, after being separated for so long. It was akin to breaking through the surface of the ocean for a first gasp of fresh air after being plunged to its very depths. I sat on that porch, just relishing the feel of the sun, the soft wisp of the wind and the gentle cadence of the conversation, as we shared our deeper feelings about all that has been going on in recent months, in our lives and in the world in general.
But what grabbed me most was that very first moment, when we walked into the yard and first saw them. I had become so accustomed to seeing my friends as a little box on a computer screen. As a conversation stunted by several internet glitches, disconnections and pixelation, and misaligned image and sound, as the internet service comes and goes. I had lost the ability to read all their silent signals of body language and the three dimensional person. They are people full of many years of different life experiences and struggles, loves and losses, beliefs and family history, that had been reduced to quick conversations and a small snippet in 2D.
Since that beautiful day, I've had two very opposite, but very compelling conversations about difficult topics, through written technology. They had very different endings, both of which filled me with a vast array of strong emotions. One ended in the loss of a very long-term friend. They other resulted in the opening of a deeper and much stronger relationship with a family member. One in which we are learning slowly how to share much more deeply about opposing viewpoints, with a new openness and deeper understanding. We did not get here overnight and not without some struggle and tears, but it was worth it all in the end. I only wish the other relationship could have ended so well. I felt like just when I was beginning to see the bigger picture and figure out how to understand and to move past the differences in our conversation, the other person just threw in the towel and walked away, in quite a permanent way. I felt reduced to a caricature by that action. One that didn't even remotely begin to see all that I was thinking or feeling in the moment. And worse, didn't even really try.
I was so discouraged and I have been thinking over these different responses, among many other conversations, for several days, trying to figure out what is bothering me so much about all of this. And I keep coming back to that beautiful day on the porch.
I think what bothers me so much about all of this current situation is that we have been stuck inside our homes so long, with so little access to others, beyond a small screen or a phone call. We go to the store and can still see people afraid and distant, tight faces, very few smiles. It is really easy in all of that to forget that the people we see online, those with vastly different views and pet issues, are so much deeper and richer than the side of the issue, little soundbite or label we have ascribed to them.
These others we encounter get up in the morning, just like we do. They have families to provide for and to protect, they have jobs that they worry about losing or have already lost. They have causes that they want to see flourish, injustices that they want to see eradicated. They have deep hidden struggles we may never know about or see. They breathe the same air, they need the same food to stay healthy and alive. They are all made in the same image and likeness of God, with a complex makeup of physical, emotional and spiritual components.
When we reduce issues or people to one word descriptions or photos, it is all too easy to possibly objectify them as something without a heart or a soul, but just a picture. Pictures or phrases that can then be divided into separate boxes of those that are "for" or "against" us, a kind of tribalism that excludes anyone who might think or look differently than me.
And when we've reached that point of oversimplification, we can all too easily go to the next step of desiring to simply discard the box altogether. And unfortunately, history shows us many gruesome examples of the extremes that this form of thinking can take. So, while I heartily agree that sometimes words are thrown around too easily these days, and that when overused or used incorrectly, they can too easily negate the true experiences and struggles of people in those categories of extreme injustice. But, at the same time, if we aren't careful right now, we could just as easily end up doing the same terrible things that history reminds us of. I think one of our greatest dangers today is that we forget that all that separates us from those that have done really terrible things and our current life situation, is the right mix of ingredients and circumstances. We all possess a fallen nature and a danger to committing terrible sins and injustices. We just tend to forget that sometimes, when we're focused on "them" versus "us," or "their issue" versus "mine."
How easy is it to see those marching with guns, a president we may agree or disagree with, those yelling for complete isolation versus those desperately seeking employment in a society that may have permanently lost up to 40 percent of its jobs, those deeply fearful for frail or vulnerable family members, those "professionals" whose varied opinions we may see as invalid because they disagree with our own version of things...to see all those people supporting issues we may disagree with as just a caricature of everything we are against. Rather than a person we could engage with and understand. A person who is not just standing aggressively with a gun or hiding at home in fear, but a person with a lifetime of sorrows and joys that have shaped the person they have become and that has brought them to this very day or situation or desperate cause. And it is really a shame that, instead, we can easily turn to hatred or calumny, rather than hearing a different viewpoint and trying to understand what seems, at the moment, as absolutely inconceivable as another valid viewpoint. We are naturally going to have differing views and causes that we want to share, but have we gone so far as to silence any opposing view altogether? That is very dangerous ground, as history reminds us.
I don't know what side of what issues you are on right now. But I do care about what led you there and why it's important to you. I might not ever agree with you on that issue, in fact, we may vehemently disagree. But I think that we all have a right to those differing views. Maybe we can hear those other views over time and seek to shift the social understanding of those issues that are important to us. But we will never achieve that as long as we keep people or issues in 2D boxes of one-word soundbites or photos. Nor can we seek to shift that social understanding if we do not fully understand how people came to their current understanding of events or how those phrases are so differently interpreted by many different people. And mostly, we can't change the social landscape if we insist on instant change, as we are so accustomed in our instant worlds of social media and instant gratification.
There is a pastor out in California, whose books I have been reading over the past year or two. His name is Fr. Gregory Boyle. He began his priesthood in a heavily infested gang area. He recalls the years when he was running into gang situations, yelling his head off at people, desperately trying to get them to hear common sense and respond. But, in those situations, things were so heated, that wasn't going to work. However, somewhere along the line, he discovered something else that did work.
He began to really see the whole person and to show each person the unconditional love of his Father in heaven. He spoke to them with respect, dignity, and compassion, communicating to them their deep value and worth. Sure, he had days where he lost his temper still or made a big mistake, but the theme of his ministry was to give those people that he ministered to a second chance at life. Because too many people had given up on those gang members as unreachable. He created Homeboy Industries, a ministry dedicated to giving jobs to gang members and to helping them to reintegrate back into society, rather than just punishing them and going on. Fr. Greg sought to really understand what led them to make the choices that they did, and to walk beside them as they sorted through it all. He helped them to find a voice and a purpose.
But more than that, he helped them to see their dignity as a creature of God, regardless of what they did or what had happened to them. He helped them to see past their shame, to realize they have a name and that they are deeply loved that they truly matter, and that they have a chance at life.
Life.
So many of those gang members had given up on life, because they were surrounded by death every single day. After awhile, Fr. Greg realized something about them and the caricature of gang members in general. He found that gang members do not join gangs as a way to belong, as we are so often told, but as a way to escape. They were not running toward something missing, but away from something truly awful beyond description. You can find his books online in the links below. The titles are listed below. I can almost guarantee you will spend many hours going from side-splitting laughter to deep tears over the scars of these beautiful souls he ministers to:
Tattoos on the Heart, The Power of Boundless Compassion
Barking to the Choir, The Power of Radical Kinship
I think if I remember anything about his ministry, it will be the mutuality and kinship that he introduced into their lives. They were not a "cause" for him to change. They were his friends and dear spiritual children. Friends who changed his ways of thinking just as much, if not more, than he changed theirs. It was a deep kinship between people of vastly different ways of life. When he got past the labels and hangups, he discovered beautiful hearts and treasured friends. I have been very fortunate to have some such people in my own life, that did not give up on me, even at my lowest points. People who were willing to look past the labels or their own views, to see a kindred spirit. And they are among some of my best friends to this very day, despite even our hotly -contested differences. The only reason I think these differences still work between us, is simply in the ability to pause and ask, "how do you understand this?" and then listen for the answer with an open heart. That is no small or easy task, but so worth the fruit it eventually bears, and the personal growth that comes from hearing something outside of our own small slice of life.
I don't know how all of this is going to work out. I have my own set of fears and strong opinions. But I hope and pray that when this is all over, we won't all wake up one day and regret any lost relationships because we rashly placed our own personal opinion or fleeting feelings of a temporary struggle over the depth and beauty of a lifetime relationship with a whole person made in the image and likeness of God.
But what grabbed me most was that very first moment, when we walked into the yard and first saw them. I had become so accustomed to seeing my friends as a little box on a computer screen. As a conversation stunted by several internet glitches, disconnections and pixelation, and misaligned image and sound, as the internet service comes and goes. I had lost the ability to read all their silent signals of body language and the three dimensional person. They are people full of many years of different life experiences and struggles, loves and losses, beliefs and family history, that had been reduced to quick conversations and a small snippet in 2D.
Since that beautiful day, I've had two very opposite, but very compelling conversations about difficult topics, through written technology. They had very different endings, both of which filled me with a vast array of strong emotions. One ended in the loss of a very long-term friend. They other resulted in the opening of a deeper and much stronger relationship with a family member. One in which we are learning slowly how to share much more deeply about opposing viewpoints, with a new openness and deeper understanding. We did not get here overnight and not without some struggle and tears, but it was worth it all in the end. I only wish the other relationship could have ended so well. I felt like just when I was beginning to see the bigger picture and figure out how to understand and to move past the differences in our conversation, the other person just threw in the towel and walked away, in quite a permanent way. I felt reduced to a caricature by that action. One that didn't even remotely begin to see all that I was thinking or feeling in the moment. And worse, didn't even really try.
I was so discouraged and I have been thinking over these different responses, among many other conversations, for several days, trying to figure out what is bothering me so much about all of this. And I keep coming back to that beautiful day on the porch.
I think what bothers me so much about all of this current situation is that we have been stuck inside our homes so long, with so little access to others, beyond a small screen or a phone call. We go to the store and can still see people afraid and distant, tight faces, very few smiles. It is really easy in all of that to forget that the people we see online, those with vastly different views and pet issues, are so much deeper and richer than the side of the issue, little soundbite or label we have ascribed to them.
These others we encounter get up in the morning, just like we do. They have families to provide for and to protect, they have jobs that they worry about losing or have already lost. They have causes that they want to see flourish, injustices that they want to see eradicated. They have deep hidden struggles we may never know about or see. They breathe the same air, they need the same food to stay healthy and alive. They are all made in the same image and likeness of God, with a complex makeup of physical, emotional and spiritual components.
When we reduce issues or people to one word descriptions or photos, it is all too easy to possibly objectify them as something without a heart or a soul, but just a picture. Pictures or phrases that can then be divided into separate boxes of those that are "for" or "against" us, a kind of tribalism that excludes anyone who might think or look differently than me.
And when we've reached that point of oversimplification, we can all too easily go to the next step of desiring to simply discard the box altogether. And unfortunately, history shows us many gruesome examples of the extremes that this form of thinking can take. So, while I heartily agree that sometimes words are thrown around too easily these days, and that when overused or used incorrectly, they can too easily negate the true experiences and struggles of people in those categories of extreme injustice. But, at the same time, if we aren't careful right now, we could just as easily end up doing the same terrible things that history reminds us of. I think one of our greatest dangers today is that we forget that all that separates us from those that have done really terrible things and our current life situation, is the right mix of ingredients and circumstances. We all possess a fallen nature and a danger to committing terrible sins and injustices. We just tend to forget that sometimes, when we're focused on "them" versus "us," or "their issue" versus "mine."
How easy is it to see those marching with guns, a president we may agree or disagree with, those yelling for complete isolation versus those desperately seeking employment in a society that may have permanently lost up to 40 percent of its jobs, those deeply fearful for frail or vulnerable family members, those "professionals" whose varied opinions we may see as invalid because they disagree with our own version of things...to see all those people supporting issues we may disagree with as just a caricature of everything we are against. Rather than a person we could engage with and understand. A person who is not just standing aggressively with a gun or hiding at home in fear, but a person with a lifetime of sorrows and joys that have shaped the person they have become and that has brought them to this very day or situation or desperate cause. And it is really a shame that, instead, we can easily turn to hatred or calumny, rather than hearing a different viewpoint and trying to understand what seems, at the moment, as absolutely inconceivable as another valid viewpoint. We are naturally going to have differing views and causes that we want to share, but have we gone so far as to silence any opposing view altogether? That is very dangerous ground, as history reminds us.
I don't know what side of what issues you are on right now. But I do care about what led you there and why it's important to you. I might not ever agree with you on that issue, in fact, we may vehemently disagree. But I think that we all have a right to those differing views. Maybe we can hear those other views over time and seek to shift the social understanding of those issues that are important to us. But we will never achieve that as long as we keep people or issues in 2D boxes of one-word soundbites or photos. Nor can we seek to shift that social understanding if we do not fully understand how people came to their current understanding of events or how those phrases are so differently interpreted by many different people. And mostly, we can't change the social landscape if we insist on instant change, as we are so accustomed in our instant worlds of social media and instant gratification.
There is a pastor out in California, whose books I have been reading over the past year or two. His name is Fr. Gregory Boyle. He began his priesthood in a heavily infested gang area. He recalls the years when he was running into gang situations, yelling his head off at people, desperately trying to get them to hear common sense and respond. But, in those situations, things were so heated, that wasn't going to work. However, somewhere along the line, he discovered something else that did work.
He began to really see the whole person and to show each person the unconditional love of his Father in heaven. He spoke to them with respect, dignity, and compassion, communicating to them their deep value and worth. Sure, he had days where he lost his temper still or made a big mistake, but the theme of his ministry was to give those people that he ministered to a second chance at life. Because too many people had given up on those gang members as unreachable. He created Homeboy Industries, a ministry dedicated to giving jobs to gang members and to helping them to reintegrate back into society, rather than just punishing them and going on. Fr. Greg sought to really understand what led them to make the choices that they did, and to walk beside them as they sorted through it all. He helped them to find a voice and a purpose.
But more than that, he helped them to see their dignity as a creature of God, regardless of what they did or what had happened to them. He helped them to see past their shame, to realize they have a name and that they are deeply loved that they truly matter, and that they have a chance at life.
Life.
So many of those gang members had given up on life, because they were surrounded by death every single day. After awhile, Fr. Greg realized something about them and the caricature of gang members in general. He found that gang members do not join gangs as a way to belong, as we are so often told, but as a way to escape. They were not running toward something missing, but away from something truly awful beyond description. You can find his books online in the links below. The titles are listed below. I can almost guarantee you will spend many hours going from side-splitting laughter to deep tears over the scars of these beautiful souls he ministers to:
Tattoos on the Heart, The Power of Boundless Compassion
Barking to the Choir, The Power of Radical Kinship
I think if I remember anything about his ministry, it will be the mutuality and kinship that he introduced into their lives. They were not a "cause" for him to change. They were his friends and dear spiritual children. Friends who changed his ways of thinking just as much, if not more, than he changed theirs. It was a deep kinship between people of vastly different ways of life. When he got past the labels and hangups, he discovered beautiful hearts and treasured friends. I have been very fortunate to have some such people in my own life, that did not give up on me, even at my lowest points. People who were willing to look past the labels or their own views, to see a kindred spirit. And they are among some of my best friends to this very day, despite even our hotly -contested differences. The only reason I think these differences still work between us, is simply in the ability to pause and ask, "how do you understand this?" and then listen for the answer with an open heart. That is no small or easy task, but so worth the fruit it eventually bears, and the personal growth that comes from hearing something outside of our own small slice of life.
I don't know how all of this is going to work out. I have my own set of fears and strong opinions. But I hope and pray that when this is all over, we won't all wake up one day and regret any lost relationships because we rashly placed our own personal opinion or fleeting feelings of a temporary struggle over the depth and beauty of a lifetime relationship with a whole person made in the image and likeness of God.
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