One of my folk wisdoms goes by the name of “rules and rascals.”

Here’s how it works. Many circumstances in the human condition—particularly the social, political, and religious dimensions—are subject to the interplay of two forces. The rules express the way things are, the conditions at the time, the “shoulds” of our life together. In some cases, the reasons are clear and the rules compelling. Thou shalt not kill is as relevant today as when God handed down the message to Moses millennia ago. In other cases, the rules were established in a completely different time and place, sometimes for reasons now lost to history.

Meanwhile, the rascals are those people who push against the rules, test their validity, and toss out directives that no longer apply or, worse, have destroyed people’s lives. The word rascal is often thought of as pejorative, but not here. Under this definition, Martin Luther King, Jr., was a rascal. So was Gandhi. The rules they confronted absolutely had to come down.

Alas, the “right” or “wrong” of any given rule or rascal is not always as clear as Thou shalt not kill or Dr. King’s mission. Some workplaces, for instance, might push the ideal of collaboration into every practice and procedure. A rascal might push back on that, not by rejecting collaboration utterly, but by pointing out the value of solo work and how the two ideals, working together, might produce a better result in the long run. In such cases, the action of the rascal might modify a good rule to make it better, rather than eliminate an evil practice like segregation.

Here’s the bottom line. Most of the time, in the grand interplay of rules and rascals, we need both.

It is so easy to lose sight of this. In my deepest self, I tend toward the rascal side of the spectrum (and it probably is a spectrum, rather than an either-or). I chafe against rules that seem to make no sense. But then, on occasion, a “rule person” will give me the context for a given rule, revealing to me the value in it. Then I get it. I may even become a defender of that rule.

The problem comes when I forget that we need both: when my mindfulness of this need gets overwhelmed by my frustration or defensiveness or fear. When those forces take over, they prevent me from remaining open to the person on “the other side”…the very person whose perspective I need to hear…the person whose wisdom I could tap in dialogue.

Of course, this lesson extends well beyond rules and rascals. It’s hard to fathom at this point in history—when people on both sides of whatever just want to throttle one another—but Democrats could benefit from perspectives that Republicans can provide. Conservatives can make use of insights that liberals have to offer. None of us has enough perspective on an issue that we can look at “the other side” and say, “I don’t need you.” If, however, we acknowledge that need and approach the other with curiosity and openness, we begin to discover more of the truth—or at least more about the other person—and to build a bond that stretches across divides.

If you’ve explored the other parts of this site, you know I’ve been working on a book. It covers many of the themes we explore right here—particularly the ancient “work of the soul” that can make dialogue not just what we do, but who we are. You can read an excerpt here.

Soon you can read the whole thing.

This fall, SkyLight Paths Publishing will release Why Can’t We Talk? Dialogue as a Habit of the Heart. While the book is primarily directed at Christians (in the end, I found I could be most effective when writing to the tradition I know), I believe its lessons can apply across the spectrum of faith. It discusses strengths of character that most faith traditions uphold, suggestions for spiritual practices to cultivate those strengths, and a whole boatload of practical suggestions that anyone can use.

And I hope “anyone”—OK, everyone—will read Why Can’t We Talk? Why? Because it would greatly enrich what I see as one of the most exciting aspects of this development: the book not as an end in itself, but as a small starting point to much larger conversation. Yesterday a colleague of mine expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for the book. She’s a Hindu, and I am dying to hear her perspective, because I know it will add to the general stew of ideas. The more people who read the book, the more voices we can get in the room for this conversation. Who knows? We might be able to move the needle on dialogue where it matters: from interpersonal relationships to the halls of Congress.

I will keep you abreast of important developments as they arise. In the meantime, feel free to tell everyone you know, and post your thoughts here (or on my Facebook page or Twitter feed). There’s no time like the present to start the conversation.

The first draft of my response felt angry and haughty. I needed to breathe deeply, approach it from a more dialogic place in my heart, and tone down the language. So I did that, and the final result was OK.

Still, I was disappointed in myself. I’ve been on this journey with God for almost 40 years, on the monastic path for seven. Shouldn’t I have stopped getting defensive by now?

Alas, that’s not the way the spiritual life works. At least not usually.

Usually, the spiritual life is more of a one-step-at-a-time affair. Along the way, we cultivate habits of the heart. They take a lifetime to grow. Meanwhile, the old habits keep popping up. Over time, fewer of them pop up, and less often. We grow more into the habits of the heart that speak of God. But the old ways are always there.

The “way of dialogue”—which is itself a kind of spiritual path—is the same. We don’t walk it until we reach a state of perfection, and then dialogue from some lofty perch of perfect enlightenment. Rather, we dialogue all along the way, and to each dialogue we bring our vastly imperfect selves.

That simple truth calls us to be gentle with ourselves, in the same way that dialogue calls us to be gentle with others. Clearly, accepting my own lack of progress is not my strong suit. But when I can do it, I am in a better position to welcome others and hear their perspectives in authentic dialogue.

Is it a challenge for you to be gentle with your own progress (or lack thereof)? How does it affect your connections with others?

Does it have anything to do with dialogue? I think it does speak to dialogue, and the message is strikingly nuanced.

On the one hand, the Jesus of the Gospels waxes eloquent about the ideals behind dialogue. He blesses the peacemakers, commands us to love our enemies, calls for unity among believers, and identifies all these imperatives as a reflection of God’s very heart.  We cannot love people most effectively without knowing them, and we cannot know them without listening: deeply, extensively, in the spirit of dialogue.

Then there is the example of Jesus himself.  His mission, of course, involved delivering a message, so in the Gospels he does a great deal of talking. But he also listens and, I would submit, is changed by the listening. He listens in amazement to a Roman centurion and says, “Not even in Israel have I found such faith” (Luke 7:1-9). He listens to a Gentile woman who deftly argues that she too is worthy of his attention (Mark 7:23b-30). He asks his disciples who they think he is (Mark 8:27-30)—and I don’t believe it’s a rhetorical question.

That is the one hand.

The other hand brings us much closer to Good Friday itself. It is the end of a life lived not in dialogue with the religious authorities, but in conflict with them. His penetrating and sometimes caustic remarks offend them deeply. They see him as a troublemaker in a time and place where troublemaking could lead to Roman crackdown. And then, one Passover season—with thousands of pilgrims turning Jerusalem into a security tinderbox—this Jesus goes into the temple and creates havoc, overthrowing tables and chasing out moneylenders.

Here is what I take from all this. Dialogue is a good, to be sure. More specifically, it is a good to be used when it makes sense—and in service to something else. In Jesus’ case, that “something else” involved two higher goods that he practiced throughout his ministry: truth regardless of consequences and love that crosses taboos.

You would think that “speaking the truth in love,” as St. Paul puts it (Ephesians 4:15), would be uncontroversial. Not everyone, however, wants the truth to be proclaimed. At times, none of us want the truth to be proclaimed. Similarly, not everyone wants the unlovable to be loved (and we all have our own “unlovables”). The simple action of upholding truth and compassion, then, can get you in trouble.

Perhaps that is one good message among many to take from Good Friday. Pursue truth relentlessly. Spread compassion extravagantly. Use dialogue where appropriate to pursue these higher goods and others. Together with the other gifts that the Jesus of the Gospels has given us, this legacy deserves our commitment and our praise.

Everything I write seems presumptuous. There are already too many voices raised, too many fleeting shards of news and rumor and innuendo flying around the Internet. At the center of all this is something horrible beyond words: the death of a young man—quite possibly for walking while black. No wonder the proper words won’t come.

My instinct, right now, is simply to write down a few thoughts and get out. So let’s keep it simple:

Being black in America is still fraught with risk. People make assumptions about you that have no basis in fact. We can do better. We have to do better.

One can realize this state of affairs, express outrage at it, and still want to wait for more evidence before deciding that the Martin case is an example of this.

It is possible to express outrage about the police response and want to demand justice.

It may be possible to express outrage about the police response, want to demand justice, and still not be sure whether George Zimmerman should be convicted, or of what.

Bottom line: it is possible to hold different, even paradoxical, beliefs in one’s head and heart at the same time. It is even OK to do so. 

This, by the way, is a useful skill for dialogue. When we hold paradoxical beliefs, we can see the value of each. That makes it easier to see the value of others’ perspectives as well—and want to engage them in dialogue.

Your comments, as always, are welcome here. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with one of the more thoughtful articles I’ve read on this topic: a New York Times opinion piece by journalist and op-ed columnist Charles M. Blow. I hope you get as much from it as I did.

A kindred spirit, Lauri Lumby of Authentic Freedom Ministries, recently honored me with an invitation to submit a guest post to her blog. In response, I sent her “Living the Monk’s Life in the Real World,” which briefly describes my experience as a monastic associate—and the impact it has on my life. Because the “work of the soul” is a key component of my approach to dialogue, I thought you might like to read more about this work. Your comments, as always, are welcome, either there or here. Happy reading. (If you like what you see on Lauri’s blog, I suggest you subscribe. Her approach to spirituality resonates deeply with mine, and she communicates it with love and gentleness toward her readers.)

First off, I totally one hundred percent agree with your critique of the cynical mindset…. I also agree that critiques of culture, institutions, or individual circumstances need a “To” direction.  Getting rid of the negative or undesirable factors, without also having a positive outcome towards which you are aiming, tends not to get anywhere….

Having said that, I think the article falls short in that it…doesn’t exactly address the larger issue. In my experience with cynics, and I encounter many…there is no motivation on the part of cynics to change. They are not seeking a positive “To” direction, because they do not believe that change is indeed possible. “Life’s a bitch, and then you die” is a fair summation of the cynic’s philosophy, mindset, worldview. Everything that could be tried has been tried, and found wanting.  In short, the cynic’s view is undergirded by a general sense of hopelessness.  If they did not feel that the situation (whatever situation that might be) was not hopeless, they would not be cynics. If they could envision a “To” direction, they would go in it.  But their negative mindset clouds their vision.

Vision is the ability to “call those things that are not as though they are.” In short, vision is faith.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The visionary is able to see things that are not, and walk towards them. They realize their vision by seeing that which does not exist, and summoning it forth into existence by faith. Martin Luther King envisioned a world where people were not judged by the color of their skin. Mandela envisioned a South Africa post-apartheid. Bobby Kennedy said, “Some men see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ I see things as they could be and ask ‘Why Not?’”

Cynics lack this basic capacity; in short, they lack faith. Not necessarily faith in a particular God or view of God, but basic faith that things can ever be better—better in their personal circumstances, better in our political system, better in our communities and institutions.

How does one get from Point A (cynicism) to Point B (hope)—that is the question….

I think…often the cynic is changed by the unfailing love he or she receives from a believer.  I have been watching the movie The Way this week, and it has a similar story line. A father loses his son, he is angry and bitter, and in the course of completing the pilgrimage across the northern Spanish coast—which his son was undertaking when he died—the father is changed. He is changed not by anyone telling him he needed an attitude adjustment, but by the human encounters he experiences along the way. Our hard attitudes are most often changed, not by lectures, but by the unselfish love and mercy we receive from others. We are changed by patient love that wears down our defenses over time.

That, in turn, got me thinking about cynicism.

Cynicism is, in many respects, the default mindset of our age. Distrust of government is dangerously high. The 2008 financial meltdown turned many people against once-respected institutions. Big [Name of Industry Here] is the epithet we use to refer to faceless businesses that, from most appearances, are out to screw us.

It’s hard to argue with this response to power. Many of our current systems and institutions richly deserve our cynicism (or at least our outrage). But after so many disenfranchising experiences with them, we often use cynicism as a starting point for any discussion.

That presents a problem. Today’s cynicism is very good at grumbling against, but it has nothing to point to. With no alternative vision in mind, and a first response that seeks out the evil motives or rapacious self-interest behind any lofty idea—or simply proclaims that “it’ll never work in the real world”—this type of cynicism offers no avenue for change.

The word cynic, of course, comes from the Cynics of ancient Greece and their system of ethics. From what I read (note particularly this interesting article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy), it is easy to see the connection: the Greek Cynics scathingly criticized, even mocked, the societal conventions and systems of privilege of their time. But they also touted a framework of thought through which, they believed, people could achieve freedom: living in accord with nature, practicing self-sufficiency, being frank and free with one’s speech.

In the language of The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc. (a consultancy with which I’m affiliated), the Cynics had a FROMàTO vision. They clearly saw the insufficient state of affairs they were moving FROM—and the purpose of life they were moving TO.

In so many cases, today’s cynicism has no TO.

That is a corrosive stance in such a vastly imperfect world as ours, in which so many of our systems and problems desperately need a TO. It’s not enough to complain about the current polarization in Congress, or business self-interest run amok, or the corruption that keeps much of the world in extreme poverty—although these things deserve serious attention and, often, loud condemnation. It is not enough to respond to every new idea with “get real” or “that’ll never work.” These cynical responses shut down dialogue on big, potentially useful ideas before they have a chance to be heard (and therefore to develop).

I’m a big fan of realism. As we dream about the ideal, realists keep the dialogue grounded in the possible. But today’s pervasive cynicism doesn’t even have the benefit of being real: it dismisses the possibility of change even where change could actually occur.

It’s so difficult not to be cynical sometimes. But cynicism as a worldview—without the TO—gets us nowhere. Outrage, protest, dialogue, deliberation: all these things can move us ahead. We owe it to ourselves to prefer those strategies over the powerless cynicism of our age.

For more information on The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc., please visit www.kjcg.com.

I think I’ve found a case in point: a compelling article by Candace Chellew-Hodge. In “Smashing Our Idols,” Chellew-Hodge—a pastor and editor of an online magazine for LGBT Christians—muses on her interactions with David Gushee, an evangelical and professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University.

The thinking from both parties is remarkable for its civility and nuance. Gushee makes clear that, while he is currently opposed to “all sexual acts outside of heterosexual marital acts,” the question requires a rethinking on his part, and that process is ongoing. Chellew-Hodge, meanwhile, affirms the humanity of people on the “other side,” is glad to have allies like Gushee with which to dialogue, and stresses the importance of patience.

I wish all interactions between adversaries were like this. It could easily serve as a model for the whole Church. One piece of it, though, doesn’t quite sit well with me: Chellew-Hodge’s sense of certainty—and what that might do to the dialogue. She writes:

…we must give people time and space to come to the side of full equality. Those who are making an honest effort, like Gushee, must be applauded and nurtured – not attacked. In the same manner, we who want full, unconditional inclusion in church and society need to be in relationship with people like Gushee so we can encourage them to keep whacking at the statues of exclusion and oppression until they are finally gone.

Her underlying assumption, as I read it, is that she is on the right side of the issue, and that the most gracious thing she can do is to “be in relationship with people like Gushee” until they come around.

Just for clarity’s sake, I happen to believe—passionately—that she is on the right side of the issue. I hope to God that the Church continues to move in the direction of welcoming all people. But authentic dialogue, as I see it, requires one more step than Chellew-Hodge has taken: a suspension of one’s preconceptions—however temporarily. Only with that step, I believe, can we be fully open to the other.

Suspending one’s preconceptions is a nod to one of humanity’s most fundamental realities: “I don’t know.” We may believe with passion. That passion may be enough (in some cases, it must be enough) for us to wrap our lives around the conviction and even attempt to steer the world in that direction. But especially in matters of the spirit, we know nothing. While this bedrock reality may not play a huge role in our daily lives, we can best extend compassion and a listening ear to the other if we enter dialogue with it in mind.

What would happen in a dialogue entered this way?  We could create a space in which, no matter how much we disagree, we can listen for the value in the other’s perspective and for how it might make our own thinking better. It’s unlikely I will ever adopt Gushee’s current stance carte blanche, but if I am fully open to it, I might hear more about the values beneath it and how they resonate with my own thinking. Maybe what happens is that I reaffirm my current thinking on LGBT issues but reimagine the place of spiritual intimacy and commitment in it.

Dialogue rarely changes a participant’s position completely or instantly. In many cases, that’s not the point. The point is, more often, to grow together in love and reconciliation and to accumulate wisdom wherever we can find it. Goodness knows, we can all use more wisdom.

I can imagine the snorts of derision that question may elicit. Yet last summer, amid the brinksmanship over the U.S. debt ceiling, a number of respected public figures raised this very issue, and now I hear that columnist David Brooks is writing a book on humility.

Maybe it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds—which is perhaps why the Fellowship of Reconciliation just published my meditation on humility in Washington. Please take a look, see what you think, and let me know:

http://forusa.org/blogs/john-backman/toward-humble-washington/10143