The Dialogue Venture

Archive for the ‘Practical Steps Toward Dialogue’ Category

On Tuesday evenings, several of us in the local chapter of the International Thomas Merton Society get together for prayer, including the ancient monastic rite of Compline. Because of the liturgy we use for Compline, we always pray Psalm 91.

I don’t like Psalm 91.

Psalm 91, for me, is so upbeat as to be out of touch with reality. It includes verses like these:

Because you have made the Lord your refuge,

and the Most High your habitation,

There shall no evil happen to you,

neither shall any plague come near your dwelling….

[His angels] shall bear you in their hands,

lest you dash your foot against a stone.

I pray these words as my inner realist chimes in with “Yeah, right.” But I do pray them. That puts me in good company: people across faith traditions have prayed sacred texts for millennia. I’m sure most, if not all, have recited a text that did not fit their mood or mindset that day. Sometimes they’ve prayed texts that chafed against their whole outlook on life, as Psalm 91 chafes against mine.

So why even bother praying this way? Because it does so much good. Among other things, it orients us toward dialogue.

The key is what happens inside us as we pray words we don’t like. In this prayer, we allow the deepest part of ourselves to encounter wisdom outside ourselves, and the conflict between the two stirs up all sorts of things: 

• For one thing, the conflict awakens us to the fact that we—our feelings, our concerns, our schedules—are not all there is. We recall, instead, that we are part of a larger flow, which allows us to put our place in the universe in the proper perspective. In other words, the praying of sacred texts fosters humility.
• For another thing, the conflict with a sacred text confronts us with the disturbing possibility that God, life, other people, the universe are not exactly the way we understand them. This brings us to the mindset of I don’t know. The more I realize what I don’t know, the more curious I become about what you know, because together we might understand more clearly.

That curiosity, that realization of our own incomplete knowledge, drives us into dialogue with one another.

Have you prayed sacred texts as part of your practice? How have they changed you? Use the Comments function below to share your experiences.

Marianne Williamson’s letter to Sarah Palin didn’t exactly make front-page news when it first came out. But it’s required reading for anyone who cares about dialogue.

Williamson, a spiritual teacher who, by her own admission, is not a conservative, wrote her letter when Palin was using the language of guns to encourage “taking aim” at her opponents. In theory, Williamson could have joined the popular chorus in mocking Palin mercilessly.

Instead, she tried to engage Palin. And the way she did it is enlightening.

Right from the start, Williamson admitted her position in the public square—both what separates her from Palin and, unusually, where they find common ground. “I don’t share your politics but I do share your country,” she wrote. “I am writing to you now as a fellow American and also as a woman who, like you, puts my spiritual journey above all else.” By asserting that common ground, she looked to build trust where none existed before.

Then she went one step further. Rather than diss Palin’s recent book from afar, she made the effort to read it. What a concept! Williamson found a lot to like and said so, establishing more solidarity. She also found a lot to dislike and said that too—in a respectful, civil manner.

Then she made her plea: a carefully reasoned argument for Palin to stop using gun metaphors in her public appearances.

I could describe the letter more, but check it out and you’ll see what I mean. If we could bring such honesty and gentleness to our own dialogues—if we could first seek out common ground and strive to build trust—we just might connect with our adversaries as never before. Part of building that trust involves absorbing, in depth, what “the other side” believes; in doing so, we show a respect that will come through in our dialogues.

Have you ever reached out to an adversary like this? How did you do it? What were the results? Do tell.

Bertie Simmons opened her remarks by saying, “If we can’t imagine what civility looks like, we can’t do civility.”

She then showed us what it looks like.

Simmons was a panelist at last week’s Citizens’ Civility Symposium 2010, sponsored by the Institute for Civility in Government. (Check out my last post for a broad overview.) Compelling and drop-dead funny, she spun the remarkable tale of her tenure as principal of Furr High School in Houston—and how she used civility to transform the culture.

That culture was tough, to say the least. The school had no fewer than 15 gangs. On her first day, one student threw another through a plate glass window. Another day brought a near riot to the hallways.

Simmons wondered whether she was cut out for the job—especially because 75% of the students were Latino, 25% were black, and she was (in her words) “white and old.” How could she possibly lead such a school, let alone make a lasting impact?

She got an early boost from a cultural phenomenon she hadn’t known about. Many Latino and black children learn from day one to hold their grandmothers in high esteem. As it turned out for Simmons, being “old” translated into being a grandmother. So she had an in.

And she leveraged it with a bold reach across divides. After the near riot, Simmons convened 42 leaders from the 15 gangs in one room—and asked them what it would take to make peace. What she heard amazed her: the depth of mistrust and disillusionment that these young people felt toward the system, the pervasive sense that they had been left behind.

How big was the divide? The gang leaders stunned Simmons with their belief that 9/11 never happened. They’d all seen things like that in movies; why couldn’t the government produce the same sort of “movie” and just make the whole thing up?

So Simmons took it upon herself to prove 9/11—by arranging a field trip to Ground Zero.

It took a great deal of planning and fundraising, but the trip took place, and the gang leaders got to see the devastation for themselves. In the process, Simmons built trust and got a penetrating look into the mindsets that drive many of her students.

That is what civility—and dialogue—look like. That is one way they bear fruit.

Simmons closed her remarks with the quote from Oscar Wilde that I mentioned last week. It, too, is a model for us as pursue dialogue: “Run your fingers through my soul. For once, just once, feel exactly what I feel, believe what I believe, perceive as I perceive, look, experience, examine, and for once, just once, understand.”

Can you start a dialogue just by showing up?

Miki Kashtan’s friend did. At a conference on reconciliation, this friend realized with despair that there was no exploration of gay issues on the agenda. On the third day of the conference, after praying and wrestling with the omission, she stepped to the microphone, announced to a conservative audience that she was gay, and simply made herself available. And people started coming. She didn’t try to change their mind; she just listened. (Miki puts this much more eloquently than I ever could; you’ve got to read the post.)

In short, Miki’s friend was present, in her attendance and her few words.

This past weekend, I attended the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany. Before us was a contentious resolution that touched tangentially on GLBT issues: the endorsement of a formal covenant for the worldwide Anglican Communion. For several weeks I had studied the issue, solicited opinions, reflected, and prayed; from that work emerged a position that could respect the covenant’s supporters while saying no to the covenant itself. On Saturday, I articulated these thoughts in 90 seconds from the floor of the convention.

In short, I was present, in my attendance and my few words.

And people started coming. One first-time delegate, who had no idea how conservative the diocesan leadership was, expressed relief at finding a kindred spirit. The head of a progressive organization in the diocese thanked me for speaking up. Yet so did the diocese’s conservative firebrand, who generally brooks no nonsense from “liberals.”

Experiences like these leave me with so much hope…and a few lessons. One involves the timeframe of dialogue. I have no illusions that one 90-second speech—or a boatload of 90-second speeches—will change the basic mindset of 400 convention delegates. Neither will they inspire all of us to listen respectfully and dialogue civilly all the time.

But each time we do something like this, we give people a glimpse of the flesh-and-blood on the “other side.” We reveal that we’re human, use logic, and come to our positions in good faith. Then, the next time we do it, our listeners might be a bit more accepting of us, a bit more willing to listen, whether they agree or not.

The other lesson is like unto it. It’s easy to think of dialogue as this intense, formal, sustained effort, with facilitators and flip charts and study circles and such. Those efforts are worthy of applause. But right in the midst of our daily lives, we can move dialogue in seemingly tiny ways, like presenting oneself at a convention.

When we do, people will come.

Have you ever started a dialogue just by showing up? Did simply expressing who you are draw people to you? What happened?  Please share your experiences by clicking on the Comments line below.

Forget bias. Never mind sensationalism. The biggest problem with the media today is that human beings are involved. 

Why is that a problem? Because every human being comes with her own upbringing, experiences, values, and opinions. Try as they might, then—and I sincerely believe they try their hardest—journalists can never attain perfect objectivity. Of course there’s bias; it can’t be any other way.  

As a result, no one media outlet can provide the diversity of perspective that reasoned dialogue requires. To prepare ourselves for dialogue, then, we need a “balanced media diet”: a healthful blend of newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, TV news, and other sources that provide a cross-section of viewpoints. I took a look at this in my last post. 

Now, what does a balanced media diet look like? 

Part of it is pretty evident: we strive to absorb views across the political spectrum, as President Obama mentioned in his recent commencement address. Conservatives who love The Wall Street Journal or the National Review could try reading Mother Jones. Liberals who get their news from the Huffington Post could tune in to FOX News now and then. (Stop cringing. This hurts me worse than it hurts you.) 

Straightforward, right? Except diversity comes in more than one flavor. For instance: 

• Ethnicity. If Anglos like me tapped into Latino news sources, how much more would we learn about the immigration debate?
• Gender. GQ readers, when is the last time you picked up Ms. Magazine? And vice versa?
• Faith. If atheists subscribed to God’s Politics, how much common ground might they find?
• Reporting vs. analysis. Reporters by definition are held to a higher standard of balance and objectivity. Getting all one’s news from analysis and op-eds makes it too easy to absorb predigested opinion, however, thoughtful, as fact.

 There’s another way to balance your media diet too: perusing media that themselves present a diversity of opinions. I think of these as the “mutual funds” of news. Just as each mutual fund contains a diverse array of investments, so these diverse media present us with more breadth of perspective per hour spent ingesting the news.

I personally gravitate toward these “mutual funds.” From the PBS NewsHour I get in-depth investigations of a few issues each evening, usually with a well-struck balance of insight and opinion. Our local newspaper carries a diverse blend of conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between. In the pages of Tikkun I read social and spiritual insights from across the spectrum of faith traditions. Because of its thoughtful insights and analysis, The Economist also makes my list; it gives me a bias toward the free market while reporting on some of the world’s least reported stories.

What happens when we take in a diverse media mix? Inevitably, we come across the same story from different angles—and begin to see the legitimacy of each point of view. The complexity of the situation and the lack of easy answers become clear. We grow instinctively skeptical of easy answers for any issue. We start to take political and social heroes with several grains of salt, knowing how fallible humans are and how quickly we fall. Overall, we gain wisdom, empathy, and an ability to live with ambiguity.

Of course, we can’t read or watch everything we can put our hands on. But to the extent we broaden our media mix, we broaden our perspective. And to the extent we broaden our perspective, we prepare ourselves more deeply for dialogue.

Every once in a while, I try listening to Rush Limbaugh. I never make it past the first five minutes.

Perhaps that’s my loss.

To explore that statement, let’s start with President Obama’s commencement address at the University of Michigan. (If you haven’t read it yet, do yourself a favor and visit the site. Many aspects of dialogue that we’ve discussed here appear there as well. Only he’s way more eloquent.) During the speech, Obama gave this advice:

If you’re somebody who only reads the editorial page of The New York Times, try glancing at the page of The Wall Street Journal once in a while.  If you’re a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website.  It may make your blood boil; your mind may not be changed.  But the practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship. 

Several good things happen when we “listen to opposing views.” When we hear conservatives articulate conservative stances, or liberals speak from their experience as liberals, we get a firsthand, unfiltered view of that perspective—unfiltered, that is, by their adversaries’ use of terms like wingnut or socialist to inflame passions and thus obscure the details. Even if we don’t agree, we can at least see where they’re coming from. More often than not, we can see that their argument has some logical thought behind it, that they’re trying to grapple with the same issues we are, even that one or two of their insights might make sense.

Then, when we actually engage the “other side” in dialogue, we’re not thinking of them as wingnuts or socialists. Our perspective has moderated. Perhaps our anger has abated. That paves the way for deeper, more effective dialogue.

On another front, a “balanced media diet” doesn’t just facilitate dialogue; it is dialogue. As we absorb our adversaries’ insights, we naturally stimulate our own thinking—whether we’re marshaling counterarguments or just trying to draw out the opposing insight to its logical conclusion. The dialogue is happening in our heads. That in itself prepares us to be more curious and more civil when we have the dialogue with others.  

So how do we balance our media diet? It’s not all that hard, but there’s a bit more to it than meets the eye—even a bit more than Obama articulated in his address. Let’s look at that next week.

You hear it all the time. Friends who would die for each other disagree vehemently about animal rights. Business partners squabble over investment strategies. Parents and teens argue about tattoos. Often, they close discussion by “agreeing to disagree.”

The idea sounds wonderfully civil. By agreeing to disagree, we pledge to respect each other’s opinions and move on. We restore harmony and concord.

Or do we?

All too often, agreeing to disagree turns into a tacit agreement never to speak of the issue again. But that creates problems on two fronts: it disrupts relationships and impedes action.

Take the relationship part. When we declare a certain issue off limits, we’re holding back a part of ourselves from the other person. That diminishes the relationship by definition. Moreover, people grow over time; their values and beliefs evolve. If we cut ourselves off from certain aspects of them, how can we share in that growth, especially if it involves the aspects on which we agreed to disagree?

Then there’s the action part. To work together on a specific issue, we have to hold certain beliefs about it in common. Often, when we agree to disagree, we haven’t established enough common ground to take action.

So is agreeing to disagree always bad? Not at all. The key is to use the idea in a way that actually promotes dialogue.

Try this on for size. What if, by “agreeing to disagree,” we agree to continue dialogue in general, to keep sharing our lives with each other, while being sensitive to the disagreement and how it affects the other’s thinking? In this way, we don’t wall off a part of ourselves from the other; quite the contrary, we agree to be gentle with the other’s hot buttons—and to trust the other’s gentleness with us as well. Rather than relationship-disrupting, this is relationship-building.

We can even take agreeing to disagree one step further—by supporting one another within our differing viewpoints. A close friend and I share similar spiritual temperaments but hold radically different theological views. We spent the better part of two years debating these disagreements by email. Sometimes, though, he just wanted my opinion of his latest sermon; rather than rant about the hot-button items in his message (which he knew I disagreed with), I tried to react within his theological framework in a way that helped him. This allowed us to support each other’s spiritual growth even as we disagree.

So yes, by all means, let’s agree to disagree—if that means we agree to hold our differences lightly, support each other, and continue the dialogue.

Do you have “channel markers” in your life? I’m referring to those people whose deep insights and good example command your attention. Wherever you are in life, you keep half an eye on them (as you would a channel marker when you’re sailing) to see what they’re thinking, writing, or doing. A glance at their words and actions helps you chart a straight course.  

Jim Wallis of Sojourners is one of my channel markers. He’s a born-again Christian with a deep concern for peace and justice issues—so he confounds the conventional wisdom that religious always means conservative (and that liberal always means godless). His prolific writing has found expression in three books, a popular daily blog, and the magazine where he serves as editor-in-chief.

Yesterday, he asked me to sign a civility pledge.

Not just me, of course, but anyone and everyone. Like me (and probably you, since you’re reading this), Wallis is deeply concerned about the climate of polarization that pervades U.S. culture. Like me, he believes people of faith have a unique role to play in nudging us toward dialogue. So he’s asking said people of faith to sign his Covenant of Civility as a critical step.

I’m skeptical of pledge signing in general: it’s too easy to pledge and too hard to deliver. (Think New Year’s resolutions.) But this may be different. According to the site, “church leaders from diverse theological and political beliefs” have already signed on. Just as important, Jim Wallis is a “channel marker” for a wide swath of the faith community—including, I believe, people in very high places—so anything he produces has more clout than the average effort.

Civility, as I’ve mentioned before, is only the first step, a precondition for the dialogue that draws us close to one another across all manner of divides. But it is an absolutely necessary first step, because you can’t talk—or, more important, listen—until you’ve stopped shouting. I encourage you to visit the site and sign the pledge.

A week in France over Christmas set me to thinking about one of America’s white-hot issues—and how we might deepen the dialogue around it.

While traveling through Normandy and Brittany, we encountered few people who were comfortable with English. I speak enough French to get by, so it became my job to order at the deli, buy stamps from the post office, talk to the cellphone people, etc. I adore the language, so this was a labor of love. But it took extraordinary amounts of mental energy to think through my sentences, understand the other person, and respond in kind. 

By the time my head hit the pillow, I was dead exhausted. And that led me to think about immigration.

Imagine you’re a U.S. immigrant whose first language is Spanish. Every day, you expend all that mental energy to navigate a strange language and culture. On top of that, you have to hold down a job, talk with your kids’ teachers, figure out the banking system, etc., etc. You may want to speak English, but learning a language takes years.

All this leads me to three thoughts. First, there’s clearly more to the immigration issue than “if you live here, you have to speak the language.” Whatever the validity of this position, it raises more questions than it answers. Since mastering English is both complex and time-consuming, can the U.S. take steps to accelerate the process among immigrants? How much accommodation should Americans make to other languages? Should government be involved in this? Should business?

All of this can lead to a rich dialogue, bridge building, and perhaps even a direction for policy. But it requires us to eschew bromides like “just speak English” as the beginning and end of the discussion.

Second, my place in this grand debate reminds me of the need for humility and sensitivity. I have my own (ridiculously liberal) opinions about immigration policy, but then I don’t live in a high-immigration region. It’s essential, then, that I honor the opinions of both Anglos and Latinos in the U.S. Southwest—because they live this issue. No matter how much I think that absolutes of social justice are on my side, I cannot be a party to this dialogue unless I commit to hearing others out.

Third is the surpassing value of travel in broadening our perspectives.  When we delve into another culture entirely, we quickly discover an incredible diversity of viewpoints. What seems self-evident to white Anglo Americans might be completely foreign to a South African matriarch, or an aboriginal hunter, or a young hotelier in Normandy. We cannot help but begin to see our personal worldview as one among many. This reorients us to approach others not only with openness, but with empathy.

In my case, I can hold all kinds of theoretical opinions about immigration and language issues. But traveling to France gave me a glimpse of what it really feels like to be a stranger in a strange land. It left me, quite naturally, with more openness, more empathy. And that was just for a week: imagine how much a year in Poland, say, or mission work in the Philippines might have changed me.   

Given the long, angry history of our national immigration debate—which has lasted well over a century—this openness and empathy might be just the thing to move us from debate to dialogue.

Humble. Humbled. Humility. The words don’t even sound pretty. They’ve come to denote some very unpleasant feelings.

I am convinced that they hold the key to dialogue.

Few words generate greater misunderstanding than humility. In the minds of many, it signifies humiliation, self-denigration, low self-esteem. Even the dictionary enshrines such definitions: Google humble and definition and see what you get. Eating humble pie is something no one wants to do. Being of humble means is something no one wants to be.

But there’s a better way to think about humility, and it can release all kinds of potential within us. Rightly understood, humility is complete clarity about our individual selves and our place in the universe. As the Holy Cross Associates’ Rule puts it, “Humility is not self-denigration; it is honest appraisal. We have gifts and deficiencies, as does everyone else.”

So what does this have to do with dialogue? To find the answer, let’s think about “our individual selves and our place in the universe.” I reduce this to two basic claims: 

1. I’m only one person.
2. I am one person.

Take the first claim. I am only one person among billions. My perspective, therefore, is one among billions: I see only a small sliver of reality as it is. It stands to reason, then, that others’ perspectives on reality might hold as much truth as my own. If I am curious about the cosmos, I want to hear these perspectives. If I care about the monumental challenges of our age—challenges far, far beyond my reach to solve—I want to hear the ideas and solutions of others. Our collective wisdom is our best chance to see all sides of each challenge and, perhaps, arrive at effective solutions.

Now for the second claim. If my perspective is one among billions, it’s also the only one of its kind. I don’t know whether it might hold the key to solving a problem, or blessing another person, or stimulating a discussion that needs to happen. So it’s important that I share it—tempered with the realization of its place as one perspective.

By cultivating this type of humility, we see what we know—and how much we don’t. We can appreciate just how unfathomable a mystery the universe, and the Divine, truly are. With those realizations, we see the value of sharing and listening.

In other words, the value of dialogue.

This is dense stuff. So an example or two is well worth exploring. Let’s look at one next week.