Media Honesty

            As a country we are struggling with polarization.  Part of that has to do with what media we listen to, what media we believe to be telling us the truth.  And while I definitely have strong opinions about what media I believe is the most accurate and honest, I'm coming to feel that even the sources I believe to be reliable are questionable.  

          For example, I shared in another blog about what had happened at my youngest daughter's high school.  30 kids on the night of their graduation went to the campus and vandalized it with hate speech graffiti as well as damage to buildings using things like firecrackers.  I understand they have been arrested and are waiting sentencing.  I learned about this through letters from the school informing all parents of the class of 2023 that the entire class is now banned from the campus permanently.  They informed us immediately after the event that the senior trip was canceled, though later, when the 30 kids were caught, those who were "cleared" of culpability were still allowed to go on their trip.  In the span of 24 hours we received half a dozen emails letting us know what had happened and what the consequences were going to be.  

        But despite the large amount of vandalism and damage, there was not one word of this event in the local media.  Not one word.  Why?  Well, apparently the charter school they attend is afraid of losing their credentialing so they were able to keep the information out of the media in an effort to preserve good public opinion of the campus.  At another local school another hate crime incident received a great deal of coverage about what had happened on their campus.  But my daughter's school, which tends to be slightly more affluent, and to have many prominent and wealthy members of the community as parents, was able to put the lid on information going out to the larger community.  

      This event alone causes me to question what we hear in the news.  When the affluent and powerful voices are the ones who determine what makes it into the news and what does not, then everything we hear is skewed towards the rich and powerful.  Where are the voices of those who were hurt by the homophobic and racist slurs painted on the campus?  And more, what else are we failing to hear because it is about damage done to those we don't value as much, don't see as often, don't care about as deeply?  

       I know there is still valuable information in the news stories that are out.  But I will tell you honestly that I canceled my news subscriptions after this last event of media suppression.  As a person of faith, I am called to hear the voices that are being silenced, to uplift the oppressed, to focus my care on the "least of these" who are being harmed, ignored, and made invisible through our cultural practices.  If my local media does not lift up those voices as a priority, then I am not interested in supporting what they share.  It breaks my heart because I always thought media was supposed to be about exactly this: giving voice to those things we would not otherwise hear.  Instead it appears to be another cog in the wheel of a society that bows down before wealth and fame while ignoring the cries of the poor.  I do not choose to be part of that.  

A Moment of Kindness??

     Last week I was walking with the two young adults who are currently at home.  We were stopped at the corner of a busy intersection waiting for the light to change, when a car full of teenagers also stopped at the light.  One of the young men in the back seat of the car called out to us, "Hello!"  

    I said "Hello," in response.  

    He then said, "You're beautiful!" to which I responded, "Thank you.  So are you!" and then the light changed and we all moved on.

    My youngest turned to me and said, "Mom, he was being sarcastic and mean."  

    I said, "How do you know that?"

    "I know it because he is the same age as the kids at my school and that's how they are."

    Hm.  Perhaps my daughter did not believe a teenage boy could possibly think I was beautiful. Perhaps the boy was referring to my two kids when he said, "you are beautiful," in which case, the "thank you" still held for me: "thank you for seeing the beauty in my progeny."  Still, I would be lying if I said that the same thought that maybe he was just being sarcastic and mean had not crossed my mind as well.  Perhaps when they drove off they all had a good laugh.  Maybe. But several things occur to me.  

    First of all, we can't paint everyone, including boys of a certain age, with the same brush.  It isn't healthy for us to stereotype or prejudge others.  Assuming others' motives is not helpful for anyone.  

    Secondly, once again I had a choice about how to see or frame this situation.  I could have chosen to be hurt by his "meanness."  I could have chosen to discount him as "just a kid being unkind because that's what boys of a certain age do when they are with their friends."  Or I could choose, as I did, to be bolstered and uplifted by the kind words of a stranger.  There is a wise 12-step saying, "It's none of my business what you think of me."  What is my business is how I am treated and how I choose to respond to the treatment that comes my way.  I choose to take kindness at face-value and to appreciate those moments when good is offered by strangers, whatever the thinking behind it might be.

    Finally, I was saddened by my youngest child's cynical view of the world.  I asked her, "So, are all your friends at school mean like that?"

    "Well, no," she said.

    "Then why would you assume that these kids were being mean?"

    "Well, my friends would not have said anything to a stranger."

    "Then that is their loss, isn't it?  If you have an opportunity for kindness, I would hope that you and your friends would take it, even if that moment of kindness is being offered to a stranger."

    I am troubled by this conversation.  Are we raising cynical children who expect unkindness, maybe especially from their peers?  Perhaps her expectation protects her when cruelty comes.  But also, sometimes people rise to the level of expectation.  And if we expect our teenage boys, in particular, to be cruel won't that expectation inevitably encourage them to be just that?  What if, instead, we expected them to be polite, respectful, to go the extra mile to be kind?  

    As I have often said, I believe we tend to project out onto others our own thoughts, feelings and behaviors.  So my conversation with Youngest continues.  I want her to take the opportunities to uplift all those around her, even strangers.  Perhaps if it were habitual in her own behavior, she would not be so cynical about expecting others to behave in the same way.  

    My youngest may be right and again, the boy in the car may have been having a laugh at my expense.  But I do not choose to be brought down by that.  Instead, I choose to take in the words, "You are beautiful" from a stranger and to pass them back, "So are you!"  It made my day brighter, regardless of my daughter's interpretation.  

Becoming more whole - only when we have to

          In the movie, The Family Man, the main character is given the opportunity to see what his life would be like if he had made different choices.  In his real life, Jack is CEO of a prominant company and Alan, who works under Jack, is timid, unsure, unable to make any decisions without Jack holding his hand.  In Jack's "glimpse" into a different life, Alan is the CEO.  As the CEO, Alan is a man of strength and of courage.  He stands up for what he needs and does not hesitate to make decisions or to fight for them.  When Jack eventually returns to his real life and meets up once again with the timid, unsure Alan, he makes the comment, "Somewhere inside of you there's a much more assertive person."

         In my own life, if I had not been put in a position where I was forced to be in charge of... well of everything, I, too, would not have stepped into that position.  I was comfortable being an associate pastor and later, a co-pastor, not wanting to make the hard decisions.  In my family, while it looked like I was the alpha, the big decisions, all of them, were made by my husband.  He decided when and where we should live, what schools our kids should attend, when we moved out of state and even what jobs we had.  He wasn't domineering. I just was more comfortable having someone else make those decisions.  I didn't trust my own voice, I didn't trust my ability to choose well.  But along with that beta position in my own life came a sense of inferiority, of incompetence, and frankly of deep insecurity.  Being forced into a position where I raised my kids alone, worked as the sole pastor of a congregation and the lone income provider for my family, being the only adult who had to make every decision for the family: while the transition was difficult, it also helped me to grow in my own strength, my own abilities, and ultimately, my own sense of wholeness, happiness and well-being. Additionally, I learned how to do things.  I learned how to mow the lawn, how to do small repairs in my own home, how to invest money.  Before, it had been simpler not to learn these abilities.  But I am grateful I now have them. While I never would have chosen what we lived through, the deep truth is that I would not be half the person I am today without having survived it, and thrived through it.

       I look around and I wonder what certain people could be if their lives forced them to step up.  More, I've been thinking about how we sometimes enable people to be lesser versions of themselves through our care for them.  When we make all the decisions, are we disempowering others to make their own choices?  When we take charge of certain aspects of another's life, are we disempowering them from being able to take charge of those aspects themselves?  When we stand up for one another, are we disempowering them from standing up for themselves?  

       No, this is not a political argument against aid.  I believe there are universal rights people have: the right to clean water, food, shelter, healthcare, education.  All people should have these, and there are  people who absolutely need help. You cannot teach a person to fish who is so hungry they can't hold the rod or net.  But aid would undoubtedly be more empowering if we were to also teach, and more, to help folk make the connections they need to get the work they often want.  

      While sometimes we are thrown headfirst into needing to take more control of our lives, it is easier if we are gradually empowered to grow.  With our children, they are given more responsibilities as they grow up.  If a person is not used to making decisions or doing things for themselves, easing into those behaviors is certainly better than being thrown headlong into the deep end.  Also, I believe we can support one another in ways that do not take away another's opportunity to make decisions, stand up for themself or learn a new skill.  But these take thought.

        There is a Murdock Mysteries episode where Murdock's wife was arguing with their boss about her right to do something.  She turned to Murdock expecting him to defend her, but he did not.  Afterwards she confronted him angrily that he had not stood up for her.  But his response was, "You did not need me to do that for you!  I knew that you were a strong enough woman that you did not need to be ‘rescued’ or ‘saved’ by the big powerful man.   If I had jumped in, the police chief never would have come to respect YOUR strength and your ability to speak for yourself as a full human being.” 

        I wonder how often we think we are rescuing or helping someone when in fact we are disempowering them from becoming the best, most whole people they could be.  

Guilt and Change

       After all these years, I still make a lot of mistakes.  Within the last two months I've made two errors that I felt were rather large in my role as Co-Moderator of SF Presbytery.  The first one happened at a Presbytery meeting that went 3 hours longer than planned.  We have a number of minister and elder members of our Presbytery for whom English is not their first language.  Since the meeting was going so long, it was suggested that the translators be dismissed and I allowed the meeting to continue without translation.  I never should have done that.  My worry about the exhaustion of the translators does not excuse my failure to think of those for whom the meeting was no longer accessible once they did not have translation.  But when another pastor took the time to lovingly but clearly point out the error, I saw it. I apologized to the Presbytery, I learned from the mistake.  We are now working on a policy that will make sure such an error does not easily happen again.  We were able to take a mistake and bring some insight and change from it.

          Yesterday I made another such mistake.  I was officiating at an ordination of a pastor in a truly multicultural congregation.  And, as I do, I was talking extemporaneously about how connected we all are.  I used a word I often associate with that, Ubuntu, which I have understood to mean, "I am because we are."  I was immediately corrected, by someone from South Africa, whom I believed was upset that I had used the word and used it incorrectly.  And suddenly I realized that I had once again erred.  It is not my place to be using or defining terms for people who actually speak the language and are from the culture that uses the word I was attempting to use. Being called out in front of the congregation had enough of an impact on me that I left immediately after the service out of a sense of shame.  I didn't sleep last night, feeling that I had failed again in a major way.  My nighttime inner critic kept yelling at me that I really needed to just stop opening my mouth, because when I do, I make mistakes, some that I can't fix as easily as others.  This, for example, was a mistake that will be harder to correct since there were people from numerous communities attending the service.  

    I could go several places from here.  

    I could talk about Professor Loretta Ross and her teaching at Smith College on the subject of effective conversations.  She says that we need to stop being a "call out" and "cancel" culture.  These ways of approaching one another tend to tear us apart and shut us down rather than building communities of reconciliation, growth and belonging across our differences. We sabotage our happiness with anger and create barriers between people that do not need to be there.  Dr. Ross encourages, instead, a "call in" culture where we invite one another into relationships, into conversation, into learning and healing. In both of the situations I described above, what the confronters said was absolutely true and it is not in any way their responsibility to take care of me or my feelings.  I was at fault in both situations. And I choose to grow from both situations.  I choose to learn, and I will work to do better, to not "co-opt" language, for example. Still, the impact of the way each approached the situation carried the potential for very different responses. Neither response was wrong.  But one had greater potential for doing good and for moving towards reconciliation and healing. 

    I could also talk about how we move from that place of shame into a space of grace.  It was helpful to me after the first error to write the letter to the Presbytery.  I could take an active step towards owning my mistake, and could be part of the solution, to try to make sure a policy was developed in the Presbytery for when meetings go too long for our translators.  I could also work to make sure the documents we write (such as my letter) are translated appropriately.  I am still thinking through how to deal with my mistake from yesterday.  But when I see ways to step forward (probably starting with another letter), I will do so.  These actions help us to name the mistake, ask for forgiveness, step into repairing, reconciling, and growing.  They help us to claim the grace that is always offered. We can do so by recognizing our own movement and decisions to respond to the world with creative but important action.  If we respond instead with self-judgment and condemnation, we are often left paralyzed.    

    I could talk about how intentionally studying racism in the United States with my congregation for the last three years has not prevented me from making these mistakes and then name the reality that the systems we live within are so insidious that even when I am daily reading, studying, and learning, that next step of being intentional about removing my own complicity in the system will take a lot more work. I've lived like this over 50 years. Changing behavior will take time.  

    I could write about how in many ways we have not moved much as a country.  This last weekend my daughter graduated from high school.  Over 30 kids from her graduating class then went to her high school and vandalized it with racial slurs, homophobic graffiti and other signs of hate and anger.  They don't learn these behaviors in a vacuum.  Their behavior was a mirror reflecting the communities and families in which they've been raised.  I found it deeply disturbing.  It broke my heart to know that kind of hate and anger was acted out by so many young people right here in this community.  It should not have surprised me.  With all the reading we've been doing, it just plain shouldn't surprise me.  But I was hit hard.

      But where I think I really want to go with this is into a deeper conversation about how we use the unpleasant feelings that arise for us.  Do we allow the feelings of guilt or shame to keep us up at night?  Or do we take our mistakes and seek out creative ways to learn from them, make amends to anyone we've hurt, and move forward?  Feelings are a gift.  Or they can be, if we use them well.  But if we allow our anger to cause us to hurt others (or continue to hurt ourselves), or if we allow our shame to keep us from living in healthy ways, we are misusing the gifts.  Our feelings can become oppressive if we choose to let them.  

       Almost everything in this life can be used for good or for harm.  Even our feelings and thoughts.  But we have a choice in this, like everything else in life.  I invite us to step back from those strong feelings and make choices to see them differently, to engage with them differently, and to find the gifts in the pain to use for the good of all.