The Dialogue Venture

Posts Tagged ‘dialogue’

Tea Party. Mention the words anywhere these days, and you’ll probably get a vehement reaction. You’ll also hear stereotypes of the people involved.

Which makes the latest CBS News/New York Times poll quite interesting.

The poll’s myriad questions and deft distinctions (for instance, separating Tea Party activists from Tea Party members) yielded an in-depth look at the movement. Overall, the data confirm the popular image of Tea Partiers. Solid majorities are white, male, and conservative. They are angry about a variety of issues and really dislike the president.

But before you buy all the popular images of Tea Partiers, check this out: 

• 37 percent have college degrees, substantially more than the national average (25 percent).
• 56 percent make more than $50,000 in annual household income, again higher than the national average.
• While they like Sarah Palin, a plurality—47 percent—do not think she’d make an effective president.

I don’t want to make too much of these findings; they don’t make the Tea Party exactly a bastion of liberalism. But they remind me, yet again, how often I construct a simplistic image of a certain group (or absorb the simplistic media image) and generalize it to all members. I’ve done it with born-again Christians; now, it appears, I’ve done it with Tea Partiers.

The problem with these images, or stereotypes, is that they prevent dialogue. For one thing, why talk with Tea Partiers if they’re all angry and misapply buzzwords like “socialism” at every opportunity? For another, why talk with Tea Partiers when I know all about them already—or so the stereotype has deluded me into believing?

Polls like these make me stand up and take notice. Suddenly I realize that there’s more to these people than my stereotypes indicate. That stokes my curiosity, which in turn drives me to seek dialogue with members of the group.

Just like that, we’re reaching across the divide.

Too optimistic? I might agree with you if it weren’t actually happening. Recently the Transpartisan Alliance brought together a Tea Party leader with, of all people, a senior representative of MoveOn.org, a liberal activist group if there ever was one. Remarkably, both parties expressed an honest desire to talk—and keep talking. Check out the link to the video on the homepage.*

It’s not what you’d expect from either group, based on the stereotypes. And that’s exactly the problem with stereotypes: they prevent us from starting the dialogue that could move us toward deeper understanding—and, ultimately, the healing of our bitter divides. Let’s let go of them and approach each person for what she is: unique.

*The Transpartisan site may be down right now; I haven’t been able to connect to it for a couple of days. If you can’t either, keep trying; the video is worth the effort.

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.

Two weeks ago, our church held a Quiet Day—a day of silence, reflection, and mini-sermons in preparation for Holy Week. On the schedule was a silent Mass, which replaces the verbose (and beautiful) Episcopal liturgy with simple movements and gestures. In keeping with that, the facilitator’s first talk dealt with words: how they feed us, how they get in the way.

His ideas opened some new insights during our first period of silence. Two basic categories of words emerged in my mind: words that clutter and words that penetrate.

We’re all familiar with the first kind. These words fill our world: they entertain us, they convey our culture, they help us get by, but—like the mediocre actor whose presence remains onstage as we sit passively in the audience—they do nothing to connect with us or feed our souls. They inhabit our TV programs and our ads, our celebrity gossip magazines, the sound bites of our pundits and the posturing of our elected officials. They just keep coming at us.

The second kind leaps off the stage and approaches us face to face. They are well-chosen words, uttered with thought and reflection. They include the maxims and truths that cut right to our hearts and reveal a slice of truth. When I think of this category, my favorite words from St. Thérèse of Lisieux come to mind: “Jesus does not demand great things of us, but only surrender and gratitude.” They are the words we live by. They transform us.

This second kind is what we need in dialogue. The words that shed new light on old wounds and culture wars. The words that help us connect with people we may have considered our enemies.

But the more I reflected on all these words, the more it dawned on me that they’re not enough. Silence has a role to play, and it is indispensable. To understand why, realize that the cluttering words have done their work: they form a web of chatter that—together with the kids’ schedules and the work deadlines and whatever else—fills our mind. The sheer volume of words seems like wallpaper: adding texture to the background, but undifferentiated one from another. The truly important gets lost in the shuffle.

By enshrouding our dialogues with silence, we clear out all that mental clutter. As a result, each word from our dialogue partner comes through more clearly. We’re better able to consider it undisturbed by our automatic responses and preconceived biases. And when we let silence intersperse itself throughout our dialogue, it gives us time and space to more fully weigh each word, whether it might have merit, and how it might affect our own thinking.

Silence and penetrating words don’t come naturally in our culture. It requires deliberate effort to foster them, bring them to fruition in our lives, and let them transform our dialogues. But they are like any practice: the more you practice it, the better you get—and, even better, the more you come to cherish it. It’s a big step toward becoming a person of dialogue.

P.S.: One place to see this dynamic in action is the Clearness Committee. We’ll look at this in a future post.

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before—and who was one of the Pharisees—asked, “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” The Pharisees replied, “Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.” (John 7:50-52)

If you think the state of civil discourse has reached an all-time low, this story may surprise you.

Allow me to introduce the cast. Jesus was from Galilee (hence the reference in the passage above). The Pharisees, a Jewish sect, emphasized rigorous adherence to the law that God had given to Moses, as well as to the traditions that sprang from it. Nicodemus, a Pharisee himself, had visited Jesus early in the gospel of John to hear what he had to say.

Previously, the Pharisees—who were offended by Jesus and worried about civil unrest among his followers—had sent guards to arrest him. It backfired: the guards came back awestruck, saying, “Never has anyone spoken like this!”

From here the story could go one of two ways. Hearing the guards’ new perspective could inspire curiosity. Maybe, the Pharisees could think, it’s worthwhile to talk with Jesus. They could see if his ideas shed a new light on their beliefs. Perhaps, through dialogue, an exchange of views might draw them both closer to God.

That’s one way. The other, alas, is all too familiar to us: dig in, protect our position by insulting the other side, reduce thoughtful positions to bromides that obscure more than they clarify. This is what happens, for instance, when pro-life adherents call their adversaries “baby killers,” or when pro-choice advocates incessantly trumpet “a woman’s right to choose.”

That’s the way the Pharisees go in the gospel account. To the guards, they say, “Surely you have not been deceived too, have you?…the crowd [of believers in Jesus], who do not know the law—they are accursed.” When Nicodemus tries to put the idea of a fair hearing before them, they insult him too, dismissing him with a one-liner.

As always, let me offer a caveat. Any of these positions may hold truth. “A woman’s right to choose” is a factor worth considering in the abortion debate. Maybe the fetus is a baby. Perhaps there is no mention of a Galilean prophet in the Hebrew scriptures.

The problem is that the advocates of these positions assert their position and stop there. That cuts off the possibility of exploring for a deeper truth. If the fetus is a baby, does it too have a right to choose? If we can’t determine when babyhood begins, what then? If the scriptures are silent about a prophet from Galilee, does that mean it can’t happen?

Questions like these—when we ask them of each other—help us probe deeper, uncover more truth, and become more empathic with those who disagree. Insults and repetition block our way.

Even two millennia ago, the dynamics of dialogue and polarization were at work. Ultimately, I think, this is encouraging news. It means our divides never go away—but neither does our desire to reach across them.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading Tom Ehrich, you’re in for a treat. An Episcopal priest and church wellness consultant, Tom writes prolifically about the meaning of Jesus, the state of the church, and the nature of spirituality in the 21^st century. His daily writings, available through www.onajourney.org, often stop me in my tracks with their insights.

This past week, he published the following essay, which speaks volumes about the need to understand the whole story. In dialogue, this means gently probing well beyond the other person’s initial opinions to get to the whys. When we do that, we can at least start to appreciate her perspective, whether or not we agree. That appreciation fosters trust, opens the dialogue to deeper levels, and enables us to build bridges across whatever divide confronts us.

Tom makes the point about “understanding the story” particularly well, so allow me to share his essay with you. I’ve reprinted it here with his permission.

Understanding the Story

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1-2)

At a Perkins restaurant in Lincoln, Nebraska, the hostess was struggling to keep pace with Sunday business. Incoming patrons and outgoing bill-payers were grumbling. Wait staff let her flounder.

Later, on board a flight to Newark, our flight attendant was having an equally bad day. She stormed down the aisle, gave sarcastic answers to the usual questions, and seemed to enjoy bumping elbows.

I was dealing with my own fatigue and transition, of course, and wanted only to push on toward home. I turned away from the attendant and kept my grumbling to myself.

I’m sure there was a story behind these bad days, just as there was a story behind my fatigue and wanting to retain a retreat’s warm glow. If we could know each other’s stories, we would be less likely to bristle and fire back.

Luke described a common situation. One group felt offended by another. In this case, it was the pious resenting sinners. But it could have been anything: new neighbors, new boss, immigrants, young people behaving differently, the pedestrian who glowers at you and seems ready for a brawl.

The Pharisees and scribes weren’t motivated to understand the tax collectors and sinners coming to Jesus. In the same way, early Christians condemned the Jewish establishment without understanding their resentment.

Jesus told a parable, because he did understand both groups. He understood the resentment of the elder brother—descendants of Abraham, much oppressed and yet faithful to their God—who obeyed the rules and now saw the father’s grace fall on a disobedient son. He understood the prodigal—sinners who should have known better—whose headstrong ways landed him in trouble and sent him home in shame.

I believe God understands our stories. God knew why a hostess at Perkins couldn’t perform her job this day, and why a flight attendant chose this day to snap at a Hindu passenger for requesting a snack without meat.

God knew I was making a difficult transition: leaving behind a wonderful retreat and deep connecting with men of Nebraska, and returning to worries and duties.

In telling this now-famous parable, I think Jesus was saying to us, Take the time to know each other’s stories. See the other’s point of view, even if it strikes you as hateful. Know why the whiner is whining, the aggressor is attacking, and the child is crying.

As others reach for weapons to fight back, take a moment for the ambiguity of parables. Don’t just bristle—as I am wont to do—but imagine the story. Better yet, ask to hear it.

Here’s the sort of thing that gets my attention: 

• A born-again Christian telling me she has no problem with evolution
• The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff supporting a repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell”
• George W. Bush proposing a moderate immigration policy
• The head of a regional hospital advocating single-payer healthcare
• Leaders from the Tea Party movement and MoveOn.org saying how much they crave dialogue
• Catholic leaders advocating for the poor (a “liberal position”) and against abortion (a “conservative position”)

You see the common thread here? All these statements strike a dissonant chord. They make us think, “How can those people take that position when they also believe this?”

I find these voices terribly important.

To understand why, first consider the voices we usually hear. Spend any time with the news media, and you’ll find yourself hearing, on any given issue, the same things from the same people—over and over and over. If a news segment covers abortion, for instance, it will most likely feature a pro-choice advocate touting a “woman’s right to choose” and a pro-lifer promoting “the rights of the unborn.”

Now the positions behind those sound bites may have merit. But the endless repetition of the same catchphrases by the same people obscures whatever nuance these positions may have. “Of course he’d say that,” we think. “He’s a [insert political party or special interest group here].”

But then someone zags when we expect her to zig. Or she holds two positions that we’ve been led to believe are contradictory. There’s your dissonant voice.

These are important, I think, for two reasons. First, when people express a belief contrary to their historical position or perceived self-interest, it implies that they find the belief itself compelling. I don’t think it’s a slam-dunk that a hospital CEO would support a single-payer system. So when James Barba of Albany Medical Center does, it’s an opportunity for us to see single-payer differently. If he’s for it, the thinking goes, maybe it’s worth another look.

Second, these dissonant voices can explode our stereotypes. Over the years, I’ve been guilty of painting the born-again Christian community with too broad a brush. Like many people, I could see them as uniformly literalist, creationist, and overly focused on abortion and gay marriage. So when a priest’s wife touts the beauty of evolution as the means of God’s creation, or I see born-agains advocating for the environment and social justice, it forces me to rethink my image. More accurately, it forces me to discard the image—and listen to each unique person with his own unique voice.

Dissonant voices can point out areas of truth. Dissonant voices can help us see our “opponents” more clearly—and thus treat them more respectfully. See how many of these voices you can hear in the public square.

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.

Previously on The Dialogue Venture, we looked at one of the world’s most misunderstood virtues—humility—and how it holds the key to dialogue. In the process, I boiled down humility to two basic claims about the self: 

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

The first helps us see our perspective as one among billions and, therefore, acknowledge that others’ ideas might hold as much truth as our own. The second reveals the utter uniqueness of our own beliefs, values, and perspectives—and how, rightly used, they could create more robust solutions for the issues that face us today.

Nice theory, right? OK, let’s see how it plays out in the real world.

I knew next to nothing about healthcare in 2008, when the latest hue and cry for reform began to take shape. A single-payer plan made a great deal of sense to me at first. But as “only one person”—and an ill-informed one at that—I could see how limited my perspective was.

So I sought out other voices. Republicans spoke of tort reform to reduce exaggerated malpractice suits, interstate commerce between insurers to boost competition and lower costs, triggers to the public option. Democrats talked about requiring health insurers to cover people regardless of pre-existing conditions or catastrophic illness. As I listened, something dawned on me: all these ideas had merit.

I hadn’t heard anyone say that.

And that illustrates the contribution of “I am one person” to dialogue. I don’t know the technical ins and outs of the healthcare system, but I do have an unusual ability to consider both/and solutions. In a world where either/or is the dominant paradigm, that’s a valuable gift.

So in a grand dialogue on healthcare, or any issue, even non-experts like me have a role to play. The more people we bring to the table, the more gifts and perspectives we have at our disposal, and more thoughtful the solutions that arise.

This also makes humility an essential component of social change. What if a robust policy framework arises from our grand dialogue? As “only one person,” I look at the power of the Congress, the complexity of the bureaucracy, the staggering challenge of swaying public opinion, and I despair. But, in “I am one person” mode, I look at my gifts and realize I can write. So I write op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, and missives to individual legislators. At the same time, I see that I need others with expertise in recruiting volunteers, drafting legislation, and lobbying elected officials—so I join with them to wield exponentially more clout than I could by myself.

In other words, humility opens us to power of we.  

Humility calls us to hear everyone. Humility calls us to contribute what we have while realizing its limitations. Humility draws us together to think and act with power. Imagine what might happen if everyone cultivated that kind of humility within themselves.

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.