Finding a Way

Monday night, I came home from work, cooked, ate dinner, and pulled out my laptop to Skype with a friend. I then proceeded, as I do every time I try to log on to Skype, to enter and re-enter my password until I finally managed to log in. I suppose that speaks to how often I use technology for face-to-face communication…

But between the laughing, the joking, and the being repeatedly smacked in the face with the cat’s tail, we talked about life and the goings on of school and work. And at one point, we crossed the lines of “polite” conversation into that oh-so-dangerous territory of religion and politics (*duhn duhn duhn*).

By the end of our Skype visit, we had covered Christianity versus Islam, evolution versus creation, the Bible versus the Quran, and even relevant verses with similar representations in each of our holy texts. Yet, in leaving this conversation, I found that despite the horrid “impoliteness” of our conversation topic, which may have made Emily Post roll in her grave (sorry, Mrs. Post!), the points we each made weighed more heavily towards seeking commonality than shouting differences. (Although, to be fair, our conversations generally consist of talking loudly and simultaneously at each other until one of us gives in and listens before jumping right back in twenty seconds later.)

In light of the most recent shooting (because unfortunately that needs to be clarified), this conversation struck me more poignantly than other, similar conversations we have had in the past. To sit and to earnestly, genuinely listen to another human-being with a real interest in learning about our differences and finding out more about where those differences came from and how they’re still, somehow, almost always related is a blessing I know many refuse to have. Because that is one blessing that is ours for the taking.

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Don’t get me wrong. I like to talk. I didn’t always. Growing up, I would have told you I hate talking stop trying to make me, my stuffed animals and I do just fine thank you very much. At some point, I learned that the easiest way to enter a conversation was to do it loudly, because otherwise, who could hear me over my sister’s chatter? (Sorry, Sister!)

Yet, for all that I joke about how long it took me to voluntarily talk, I learned to be loud pretty quickly, and it’s the ongoing unlearning of that lesson that often forces me to confront myself about the thing that makes me duck and cover when politics or religion comes up in conversation, whether spoken or written. That easier said than done kind of word: listening.

There are people it’s easy for me to listen to. And there are people I scroll right past in my Facebook newsfeed. And there are those people with whom I enjoy a good, deep, genuine and authentic conversation. Those are the conversations I learn from. Not just knowledge, but skills. To listen to a lecture, or a podcast, or a friend who’s ranting an agreeable, thank-goodness-someone-finally-said-it-but-it-wasn’t-me kind of rant is an entirely different skill than listening to someone who doesn’t agree with everything you think or say, and respects you enough to challenge you to an intellectual conversation about it.

Those are the conversations to model. For ourselves. For our family. For our friends. For all our Children who watch what we do. For our Neighbors.

To respectfully challenge someone you respect can be good, but to listen to something challenging is better. Differences grow from commonalities. Finding a way to bring it back to what we have in common is our way of finding a way out.