Learning New Tricks
You will learn a lot from yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love. Cheryl Strayed
I appreciate this idea that our actions should be guided by our intentions. Most people I know want to stretch in the direction of goodness. They do. I’m lucky that way. But that does not mean that we all agree on how that should look. This is not a problem UNLESS we unconsciously shift away from our intentions and forget who we want to grow up to be - good, kind, forgiving, brave, a warrior of love. ALL of these characteristics are easier to manifest if we start and end all conversations with asking and answering the following question, “Where do we agree? Where is our common ground?”
What would happen if we stopped judging and calling names and instead got serious about listening to one another? What would happen if we stopped thinking, “What a bunch of _______ !” (Insert what bad names you use when you judge another.) INSTEAD, what if we said, “Man, I understand. I feel disenfranchised and marginalized too. How can we fix this?”
My kids have led our family in finding the art of loving, gentle, reasonable, heartfelt conversations about topics that we all land in various places on. My son Michael in particular is a passionate guy and I know he has strong, strong feelings about any topic that he is invested in understanding. But he rarely condescends and if on occasion a little hot sauce is sprinkled over his words, he immediately apologizes and explains why he feels so passionately that his words come out fast and intense. He is one of the safest people I know to be curious with on a hot topic. I do not know how he became this man. We did not teach this because we did not know how to practice this skill. But I think it serves as an encouragement - we can learn new tricks, even us old dogs. Sometimes the mentor is the youngest member of the family. Sometimes it is the oldest. If we as families could learn how to do this, maybe that would spread out into our communities and ultimately our country as well? Don’t you think it is worth a try?
In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. This is, we are all in the common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ’s family, then you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,” heirs according to the covenant promises. Galatians 3:28-29 The Message
