Trampling Out the Vintage Where the Grapes of Wrath are Stored
Those words from the Battle Hymn of The Republic appeared to a very divided nation in1861 the year before the Civil War. President Lincoln had warned that a nation divided against itself could not stand but from the words of the song it seems that no one was willing to do anything about the divided nation except wait for God to heal the problem. The result was the bloodiest war in our history with the grapes of wrath still untouched.
Once again, we have become a nation divided and in danger of imploding. Fear, hate, anger, greed, and lust for power has divided us into warring tribes seeking to destroy each other. Once again, we seem to be content with complaining, arguing and trying to figure out who else to blame besides ourselves while waiting for some other outside source to heal our nation.
Years ago, a man named Walter Kelly produced a newspaper cartoon series called Pogo. Pogo was an opossum who said the very profound words that fit us today. He said, “We have met the enemy and they is us.” We are the only ones who can solve this problem, and it will have to be solved by a one-on-one grass root movement of people connecting with people. Congress can't write a law that will make us love one another. Right now, Congress couldn't write a law on whether or not the sun came up this morning because they are as divided as the rest of us. A new president cannot suddenly erase the conflicts that we are holding against each other. No political party can have the impact to bring us peace. Matter of fact one of the great dangers we have right now is the possibility of one political party taking over complete power. America has to have diversity in order to exist. The minute diversity is gone there could be no creativity nor the ability to make meaningful decisions. A democracy demands people who care and share and who voluntarily follow the rule of law. Hate and greed destroy those elements it also destroys our ability to be governed by a democracy.
All of this may sound like I feel like we're helpless and hopeless I do not at all. Matter fact I accidentally stumbled on to something that we all could do, something that would actually be quite transformative.
I was visiting with my nephew who I love very deeply but who claims to be a conservative and of course it's well known that I am a liberal. Those differences have never come between us. We visit almost every week on zoom because we enjoy each other. Recently when we were together, I said, “I would like to ask you a question but I want you to know I do not want to change you, nor argue with you, nor certainly do not want to judge you. I just want to understand you. What do you mean when you say you are a conservative? That word brings up a list of things I presume you believe but I do not know that they are true of you. I hear the term conservative values mentioned a lot, but I do not know what they are so please tell me what conservative is to you.”
He shared in some detail what it meant to him to say he was a conservative. I was surprised how many things I presumed he believed that he really didn't believe. Finally, he said “Actually a conservative would consider me to be a conservative with a Libertarian slant.” And even though I have known him for a long time, and I've been close to him all these years I felt like I knew him in a new way.
He thanked me for asking him the question. And the next time we got together he thanked me again and told me how much it meant to him for somebody just want to understand him and to listen to him without criticism argument or debate.
That experience opened my eyes to see how we are dealing with each other. We deal with people like buying a bottle of ketchup. We read the label but very few people ever read the ingredients on the back. Labels carry with them preconceived ideas and preconceived positions we just assume go with the label. This may sound like a simplistic idea, but we could start some kind of grass root movement by just asking each other to explain their position. Doing so without argument, without trying to change and simply trying to understand would transform this world. That sounds too simplistic but at least it's something we all could do and right now anything that we can do we should do. All of us know people friends, kinfolks, neighbors that seem to be on the opposite side of whatever position we have, and we just read the label and ignore the reasons or thinking that created their position. if we could all just start trying to understand the people we already know we could have a profound effect on the division that's tearing us part.
Listening not only helps us discover who the person is beyond the labels. It can be a valuable tool for self-discovery for the other person as well. Self-discovery is a lifetime task that is best produced by non-judgmental listening ears. Many of us know what we believe but perhaps have no idea why we believe what we believe. We may know how we react without really knowing why we react the way we do.
I would hope someone would ask me to explain myself. I'm registered independent but frankly I don't know whether I did so because I don't like either party or I just enjoy being different. About the only way for me to get past that would be for someone to listen while I tried to explain it.
We learn about ourselves when we talk. Talking orders the brain and helps us delve into the reasons behind what we believe, how we react and how we feel. We also get insight as we talk. Somehow new ideas and concepts seem to make sense and we have no idea where they came from.
Being understood is the most valuable thing you can give to another person. The longer I live the more powerful that word becomes. The bottom line to most of us is we really just want someone to understand us.
When I watched the January 6 attack on the capital, I kept thinking how many of those people are there because they never felt heard or understood. Being ignored or misunderstood creates hurt and anger that can make us vulnerable to joining with others who feel the same and the sharing of our hurts and angers can lead us to actions we never dreamed we would do. To me January 6 was the culmination of no one caring enough to listen.
After almost every school shooting, we discover a person who was an ignored loner who lashed out at a world that never listened or understood. Hurt people hurt people.
The listening ear has awesome power to heal, to bleed off anger and to bring us together I think it is the one way to stamp out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. We do that when we listen beyond the labels.