October 16, 2018
I have spent a great amount of time over the last seven years pondering the nature of conversation. The focus of my doctoral work honed in on preaching as conversation, but in order to hone in I had to acquaint myself with the works of those who are thinking and writing about the nature of human conversation.
The theological philosopher David Tracy, in his book, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope, wrote, "there is no intellectual, cultural or religious tradition of interpretation that does not ultimately live by the quality of its conversation." What Tracy intends to say here is that what binds together thoughts, culture and religious tradition is the way those are communicated through and between its adherents. We cannot come together without communication and the quality of that communication, in part, determines the success of an enterprise -- such as a faith tradition, a congregation, a nation.
Oftentimes, the inherent biases that lurk in the shadows of our being, because decent society tends to place value on keeping such biases in reserve, so taint our conversations that we can barely converse with one another. So tainted are we that we deny humanity to people with whom we disagree. Our words, which carry the whole of our intentions and meanings, become derogatory and dismissive, sometimes even hateful and evil. We refer to people by stereotypes, assign a characteristic to a group as if all members of a group shared traits in common that are worth debasing. We no longer see the world nor speak to one another as the Us of the human race, but instead as Us and Them, choosing sides to our detriment. Once sides are chosen we assign to the Other the worst qualities we can imagine and frame them in such a way that Other becomes expendable. It's worse than war; it's dehumanization.
The words we use. The way in which we choose to use them. The people to whom we choose not to speak. These qualities speak to who are and what we believe at our core. For me, this is a spiritual illness. The prescription for recovery lies in conversations across the chasm that connect us to one another as God sees us; children of the one human family.
Local columnist and pastor, Paul Prather, wrote in a recent column, "I hope you won’t take me to be an alarmist. I try not to be one. But I’m concerned we’re hurtling headlong toward a permanent breach in our country. Perhaps even a blood bath. I’m not a professional historian. But since I was around 9 years old, I’ve been an avid reader of American history. And the more I listen to the rhetoric of our moment, particularly the bent it’s taken since the 2016 presidential election, the more it reminds me of the 1850s, the years preceding the terrible Civil War, which killed 700,000 Americans and nearly destroyed the nation. Today we’re not divided between North and South. We’re divided between right and left, rural and urban, white and dark, rich and poor, men and women."
Divided. Taking sides. Chasm. Schism. Civil unrest. Shouting at instead of listening to one another. And it isn't just in America. Think of Brexit; Russia; the Phillipines, South America, the African continent, eastern Europe. The trend since World War II has been to divide by ethnicity and origin, by color and gender, by nationality. It's one tribe against another because coalitions and alliances are on the decline as well.
Again, David Tracy -- "there is no intellectual, cultural or religious tradition of interpretation that does not ultimately live by the quality of its conversation."
So, I say, talk to a stranger today. Talk to someone who isn't like you. Ask them about their life and listen. Let someone speak to you and ask you about your life. Talk to people who disagree with you. Don't shout at them or let your implicit bias pre-judge them. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Most all of us are husbands, wives, children, parents, siblings. We have things in common about which we can converse without devolving into heated political rhetoric.
Talk with people. Listen. Seek to understand, then to be understood. And most of all, see every human being through the eyes of faith, as God does, a beloved child of our Creator.
Peace and Love,
Jerry
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