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We Need to Talk – Part 2
Last week in this feature, we posted “We Need to Talk” about a church in Lincoln, Nebraska, where political divisions erupted over the screening of a film called Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy. This is Part Two of that story, so if you haven't read “We Need to Talk,” please do.
Gabriel, the pastor of that church, canceled the screening because it was clear that the community was not ready to engage the issue, which some saw as partisan. In place of the screening, Gabriel planned a community discussion for the whole congregation.
He was nervous. He knew his congregation was “purple” (Democratic and Republican), but he did not expect such opposition to this issue; Christian Nationalism concerns all Christians, whose faith is being co-opted by a political machine hungry for power.
He was also nervous because he had a busy pastor’s week already: committee meetings every weeknight, wedding on Saturday, worship Sunday morning. He just didn’t have time to plan another event, let alone one as delicate as this.
Nonetheless, the report I got Monday morning was this:
“It could not have gone better.”
Whew!
How did this happen? What turned a tinder box into a holy flame?
Covenant, storytelling & listening, and ritual.
During the event, people were reminded of their deeply shared commitments; they were offered a container in which to express themselves and hear others; and they were invited to create together a symbol of their hope.
We offer below some specifics about how Gabriel’s church moved through these elements and hope that your community can adapt them for your own difficult conversations.
1. In a large group, everyone present agreed that they had covenanted to be a community of presence. Gabriel reminded them of the covenants in the Bible; churches covenant as well, with one another and with God.
2. Then, in small groups, congregants told their stories and listened to others’ stories. This is where, with any hot-button issue, things can get messy. Structure and guidelines are key. There were timekeepers and instructions not to “cross-talk.” The movement of the discussion was rooted in the structure of ancient Psalms of lament: lament, remembrance of identity, hope, and action.
3. To conclude, the full group came back together and participated in a ritual of hope and unity. Holding one chalice with red finger paint and one with blue finger paint, Gabriel acknowledged the importance of both blue (the liturgical color of Advent) and red (the liturgical color of Pentecost). He poured the blue and red paint together into one chalice to make purple paint as the congregation sang “They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love.” Congregants were invited to dip their hands in the purple paint and, with it, write their hopes for the church on a piece of canvas.
While this community’s experience is complete in itself, you might also look at the practices below when you are planning a similar gathering:
This practice of kindness and reverence provides a good start to a meeting when you want to insure that people matter at least as much as the items on the agenda.
Listening is key to community engagement. This practice can turn diversity of opinion into learning.
We’ve mentioned this resource before but there are so many good practices in it, we want to refer you to it again: “Practicing Democracy at a Local Meeting”
See more Spiritual Resources for the U.S. Election Year.
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23 Weeks to the Election
Loving-Kindness in Plain English
Bhante Gunaratana was ordained as a Buddhist monk at the age of 12 in Malandeniya, Sri Lanka. He is the author of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English, Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness, and several other books. He travels and teaches throughout the world and lives at Bhavann Society Forest Monastery in West Virginia.
In his well-done resource, he sees "loving-friendliness" as a major component of Buddhist practice. When we lavish this natural faculty on all beings, we exude generosity and warm fellow-feeling. The author quotes Joseph Goldstein who says, "Metta (the Pali word for loving-friendliness) does not make distinctions among beings. It embraces all; there is no one who falls outside its domain."
How is this practice nourished, and what stifles it in our daily lives?
Gunaratana points out that mindfulness meditation and relaxation help nurture this seed within us. On the other hand, loving-friendliness is hindered in its expression by rigid thoughts, judgments, and negativity.
Being kind to others follows naturally from cultivating love for ourselves.
The Buddha listed eleven benefits derived from practicing metta including one's mind becomes calm immediately, neither fire nor poison nor weapon affect one, one becomes affectionate to human beings and non-human beings, one sleeps well, and one dies without confusion.
Gunaratana expands his exploration of loving-friendliness with top-notch chapters on communities of metta, stories about the practice, its relationship to ecology, and the challenges of listening, speaking, and working with metta. In summary, the author writes:
"It's the ultimate underlying principle behind all wholesome thoughts, words, and deeds. Metta transcends barriers of religion, culture, geography, language, and nationality. Loving-friendliness is the reliable path to peace, to warm connection. It is a universal and ancient law that binds all of us together. We need it in order to live and work together harmoniously."
A helpful resource on loving-friendliness, a major component of Buddhist practice.
Matthew Flickstein in Swallowing the River Ganges
On a more subtle level, we need to recognize that we express a lack of reverence toward others when we communicate using harsh words, or by displaying offensive gestures and facial expressions. Whenever we make judgments about people — labeling them selfish, ignorant, arrogant, and so forth — we relate to those people as if they were fixed objects and 'kill off' our connection to their individuality and inherently divine nature.
We express a lack of reverence
A Complaint Free World
If you stop and take a hard look at daily conversation you'll find that 75 percent of it is negative. We complain about the weather, the traffic, work, food, movies, the younger generation, and much more. Negativity is a common denominator in our competitive and adversarial culture where we are each striving to be number one and are always comparing ourselves to others. Our consumer lifestyle is based on dissatisfaction with what we have, and so we are encouraged to always want something more, better, or different.
Will Bowen, a clergyman at Christ Church Unity in Kansas City, Missouri, decided to do something about all this complaining. On July 23, 2006, he passed out purple plastic bracelets at his church and admonished the congregation to start saying positive things instead of whining about everything. They were given three weeks to break the complaining habit. Every time they complained, criticized, or gossiped, they were to move the bracelet to the other wrist. Bowen's challenge enabled people to see how difficult it is to reformat their habit of speaking negatively: the average person found that it took four to eight months to be able to keep the bracelet on the same wrist for 21 consecutive days.
In this sprightly paperback, Bowen discusses this creative and ethical project which has resulted in nearly six million people in more than 80 countries requesting a bracelet and taking up his challenge. The average person complains 20 times each day, and this negativity has a dire effect on health, relationships, career, and level of happiness. St. Paul in Philippians 2:14 says "Do everything without complaining," and that is very good advice. And too, those who strive to live in a complaint-free world will have more time to notice and celebrate what they have to be grateful for.
The story of a campaign for a complaint-free world that mushroomed into an international phenomenon.
The Power of Optimism
Buddhist teacher and spiritual writer Sylvia Boorstein calls herself a recovering worrier since she still tells herself stories, which leads to fear, anger, disappointment, expectations, or catastrophe. The big difference is that she no longer listens to this worry machine. That gives her more time and energy to do positive things that are beneficial to others. In this uplifting work, bestselling author Alan Loy McGinnis heralds the firepower of optimism as a path to meaning and fulfillment. He lists Twelve Characteristics of Tough Minded Optimists and then explores them in the rest of the book.
One of the characteristics is "Heightening their powers of appreciation." McGinnis shares the following anecdote from the sculptress Louise Nevelson: who made her home in the Bowery, New York City's Skid Row and even there she says:
" 'I collect for my eye.' Sitting in her dining room and looking out at the ugly building that stood across the street, she could find beauty in the varying patterns the sun and the moon reflected on its windows. She would look at a chair and say, 'The chair isn't so hot, but look at its shadow.' "
The Power of Optimism is filled with many anecdotes from both the lives of well-known people as well as ordinary folk. McGinnis ponders another characteristic of Tough Minded Optimists: "They have an almost unlimited capacity for stretching." And this is especially true for the elderly who are eager to learn new things and explore new worlds. Two other characteristics we loved were: "Optimists love to swap good news."
Given the deluge of bad things that are happening in the world, this is a fine strategy. And, last but not least, "Optimists accept what cannot be changed." This is a tough one to do but demands discipline and the art of letting go and living with what is.
A salute to the Twelve Characteristics of Tough-Minded Optimists.
Shoni Labowitz, Miraculous Living
Every word you speak creates an angel in heaven that assists in turning your words into reality. Your thoughts, like control buttons, are linked to a spiritual servicing station in the heavens and dispatched here on earth, where they are filtered through subject matter and travel in a path of positive or negative energy.
Every word you speak creates an angel
Evan T. Pritchard, No Word for Time
What is sacred speech? This much I have learned. When tears fill everyone's eyes, the people have been touched by God. When the people fall silent, their minds have been stilled, their hearts opened by the heart of the speaker.
What is sacred speech
Joseph Goldstein, One Dharma
Sometimes our talk is overly self-referential, always turning conversations back to ourselves. Do we find ways of taking center stage in our communications, for taking center stage in our lives? It would be insightful to look at our motivations at these times. The poet Antonio Machado suggested an antidote to this habit of speech: "If you want to talk, first ask a question, then listen."
Sometimes our talk is overly self-referential
Mother Teresa , A Revolution of Love
Often just one word, one look, one action — and darkness fills the heart of the one we love.
One word or action leads to darkness
Diane Eshin Rizzetto, Waking Up to What You Do
Studying the ways in which we discuss the faults of others can reveal much about the ways in which we place walls between ourselves and the world in general. When even the more subtle self-serving intentions are added onto the words we convey about other people, we distance ourselves both from them and ourselves. By creating this separation, we encourage the specialness of me. Feelings of inadequacy, imperfection, fear, and shame may be temporarily assuaged, but they are only pushed aside to reappear at an another time. We deeply harm them when we speak of others in degrading ways, and we harm ourselves as well because we deny acceptance, compassion, and generosity as part of the fulfillment of life. As James Baldwin says:
"It is a terrible, an inexorable law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own; in the face of one's victim, one sees oneself."
Discussing the faults of others is harmful