This venture into podcasting is like the podcaster. It’s rough around the edges. It’s unpolished. It’s slow. Its pace and subject matter require patience. Thanks to Chuck Lieber for welcoming me to podcasting.
Gordon C. Stewart, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf and Stock), 49 brief (two to four pages) reflections on personal and public life, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, April 10, 2022.
I’ve never met David Kanigan, but his latest Live & Learn post greets me every morning. Thank you, David.
Live & Learn, David Kanigan, Dec. 16, 2021
He felt at peace only in the hour before dawn, when the darkness seemed to give way slowly to a mist, and it was at this hour that he would wake and sit by his window.
— Peter Ackroyd, from Hawksmoor (Hamish Hamilton, May 25, 2010)
Notes:
Thanks for dropping by Views From the Edge and Live & Learn — Gordon (Sitting by the window before dawn)
All good thing come to an end, they say. Harry Strong’s series on biases is one of them. Thank you, my old friend, for introducing us to Brian McLaren’s framework and the building blocks of a more honest, compassionate, and useful way to identify and seek understanding of our own biases and the those biases of relatives, friends, and, “dare I say it?,” threats and enemies. Harry’s series led me to reflect on belly-buttons. Every human being has a belly-button! — Gordon
“People can’t see what they can’t see.”
Brian mclaren
Quick Review. Brian D. McLaren has identified thirteen (13) Biases which partially explain why we see thing so differently from one another: Confirmation Bias; Complexity Bias; Community Bias; Complementarity Bias; Competency Bias; Consciousness Bias; Comfort or Complacency Bias; Conservative/Liberal Bias; and Confidence Bias; Catastrophic or Normalcy Bias; Contact Bias; Ca$h Bia$; and Conspiracy Bias. [1] All of these can dramatically impact our views of life and the world.
As our Blind Bias “class” draws to a close I’d like to share with you an email I received recently from my friend, Mitch. He wrote this:
“I am at a loss as to how to bridge the gap to a better understanding between myself (and MY strongly held political positions) and my friends (and THEIR strongly held political positions) when our positions on critical issues are at such opposite poles of the political spectrum. I am finding it is putting a real cramp on what used to be casual and friendly conversations among us. I AM SURE my opinions are right. But when I come down off of that perch of righteousness – I have to concede that JUST MAYBE if I learn to be a better listener JUST PERHAPS my friend is not my enemy – but an ally. If we work TOGETHER (the hard part indeed) we can identify how to move forward in ways that promote understanding of the importance of each person’s position to each individual yet the need to accommodate at least a little bit of the other person’s position so the greater good is achieved. My challenge is I am not yet that person and I would welcome learning how to become better at achieving that goal.”
email from Mitch
Frankly, it was Mitch’s honest and vulnerable testimony that motivated me to read Brian McLaren’s e-book. [1]
As Brian McLaren shifts our attention from Recognizing Biases to Overcoming Biases, he offers this disclaimer regarding the above quotation which introduced each of the first three “classes” we’ve shared together: “When I said earlier ‘People can’t see what they can’t see …,’ I was telling the truth, but not the whole truth. Here’s how that sentence should be completed to be more fair and full: ‘People can’t see what they can’t see unless someone helps them see it.’” To that end, McLaren offers the following recommendations:
SURPRISE PEOPLE WITH WHO YOU ARE. Show kindness, empathy, curiosity, fairness, acceptance, patience, decency, boldness, and humility. Put understanding and acceptance before agreement, making it safe for people to confront their biases. Tell stories about times when you failed to face your biases and misconceptions. Demonstrate fairness by admitting (and addressing) the downsides of your position and the upsides (as well as the downsides) of other positions. Seek to win friends instead of arguments, since people would rather learn from friends than critics, opponents, or enemies. People will not believe your message until they find you, the messenger, believable. In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do. — Stephen Covey
SHOW BEFORE YOU TELL. Use experiential learning (field trips, introductions to “the other,” immersive artistic experiences, simulations, demonstrations, learning games, etc.) whenever possible, helping people step into the shoes of others and see from new vantage points, and following up the experience with honest reflection and conversation.
KEEP IT SIMPLE AND DOABLE. Whenever possible, find one simple point of agreement or make one simple proposal for consideration or offer one simple, doable, immediate step that can be taken in the right direction, followed by questions and conversation.
CONNECT EMOTIONALLY. If a person is afraid or angry, don’t shame them or tell them not to feel as they do. Instead, try to understand their emotion, and then convey, with emotion, that you can see why they feel as they do.
EXPECT THIS TO BE HARD. Remember that the human brain is structured for safety, efficiency, ease, and comfort, so biases are working against accepting messages that are perceived as unfamiliar, complicated, dangerous, inconvenient, or uncomfortable. Don’t expect people to be other than human. Show patience and persistence. And take advantage of research to help you learn what is most likely to work. [1]
Where Do We Go From Here?
So, deep breath! Are we willing to move beyond appreciating McLaren’s analysis of our Biases to the more important and challenging phase of trying to make some changes in our own lives and the lives of others? That is the $64,000 question, isn’t it? What is our next step? I guess we’ll each have to answer that question for ourselves.
I’ll tell you my next steps. First, I’m going to send a copy of Why Don’t They Get It? Overcoming Bias in Others (and Yourself) to Mitch for a Thanksgiving present. Second, I’m going to invite my neighbor, Larry, over to the house for an adult beverage. (Some of you will recall Larry from my Blind Bias 2 post. Remember, Larry told me: “I’m not biased or prejudiced about anything. I have my opinions and my perspectives, but I try to be as objective as possible about everything.”) I’ll tell Larry about how hard it was for me to overcome the racism implanted in me as a child by my Uncle Herb who lived on Chicago’s south side and every Thanksgiving would rail against the encroaching “African Americans” (not Uncle Herb’s words) who were destroying the value of his home. I’ll ask Larry if he ever had to unlearn anything. I’ll listen. Then, Larry may need a second drink, because next I’m giving him a copy of McLaren’s book as well. Baby steps, I know. I pledge to continue “working the program.”
Thanks so very much for the privilege of your company during our time with Brian McLaren.
Whatever your next steps, may they be grounded in listening, leveling, and loving. Harry
[1] Brian McLaren, Why Don’t They Get It? Overcoming Bias in Others (and Yourself) (Self-published: 2019), e-book.
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is put away! Blessed/happy is the one to whom the LORD imputes no guilt,and in whose spirit there is no deceit!
He is guilty. It was his knee that pressed George Floyd’s neck against the pavement. I saw it with my own eyes. I watch his eyes during the trial. I see no hint of remorse. No sense of guilt. He sheds no tears. His mouth stays shut. He does not speak.
When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
Is he silent now in solitary confinement? Does he have conversations with himself? Does he scream at the jury for failing to vindicate him? Does he talk with God? Is he restless all day and all night? Does he feel a heavy hand pressing down on him the way his knee had pressed down on George Floyd’s neck? Is he wasting away, groaning all day long?
You are my hiding place;
You preserve me from trouble;
You surround me with shouts of deliverance.
He is not preserved from trouble in maximum security. The shouts of other inmates on the solitary confinement cell block are taunts, not shouts of deliverance: “I can’t breathe; I can’t breathe, Mr. Officer! Get your White knee off my Black neck!” There is no hiding in this place where only perps, not cops, do time. There is no solitude. There are no shouts of deliverance.
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go;
I will guide you with My eye.
Does he sense a presence waiting to instruct and guide him into a way beyond the White/Black—Innocent/Guilty—Cop/Perp—Top/Bottom—Up/Down-World his eyes are trained to see? Does he sense the presence of a different Eye, a greater I than he?
“Do not be like a horse or mule, without understanding;
Whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,
else it will not stay near you."
Will he bow his head to be fit with the long-suffering patience that reins in deluded mules and bucking broncos? Will the solitary cop in orange shift from wailing in the minor key of down-and-out-over-and-done to the glad shouts of deliverance by an I greater than he? Does he hear the the chant — “a love supreme…a love supreme…a love supreme” — of a bridled Coltrane resounding off the walls in this not-so-God-forsaken place?
In this place where cops are perps and perps are cops with heads bowed by the law, will the killer cop bow the knee that killed George Floyd? Will he bow his head to be fit with the bit and bridle of a Love Supreme that delivers the soul from every illusion of supremacy?
Click HERE and scroll forward to 6:00 minute to hear Coltrane’s unexpected chant, a love supreme, a love supreme.
— Gordon C. Stewart, public theologian, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf and Stock), a reflection on Psalm 32 (GCS Unauthorized Version), and the solitary confinement of Derek Chauvin, August 9, 2021.
We saw no tears during the daily coronavirus updates. Narcissus could not lift his head from his image in the pond. The inner well of empathy was empty. Eternal and solitary, he was imperial and impervious to suffering. Gods don’t cry. Narcissus is strong and cold. He bows to no one but himself. To him every knee must bow. He does not know the truth: Illusion always dies.
On the spot where vanity dies of thirst, beauty raises its head again. A daffodil breaks through the tamped-down place where Narcissus bowed to himself, and lifts its head to the sky as a silent Ode to Joy.
Compassion floods the Reflecting Pool and radiates from candles on the White House steps in honor of the dead. The wordy self is hushed. Heads are bowed in solemn silence in recognition of what is greater than ourselves. Tears flow. The well of empathy is full again.
One moment I was alone in the room, myself the centre of my own little self-constructed world, the next it was as though I had been flung an infinite distance to some edge or margin, to make room for the enormous presence and pressure of sheer Being and Holiness that filled the room. I felt the ground go from beneath my feet and suddenly realized that I was utterly dependant, that I was hanging by a thread. But I was content to hang by a thread if only to know that there was, at the heart of things, and radiating everywhere, this Holy Presence.
Malcolm Guite — Interview series with Malcolm Guite — Part I, May 2012.
Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf and Stock), 49 brief reflections on faith and life, available from the publisher HERE and from Amazon HERE; Chaska, MN, March 5, 2021.
So much can and should be said following the death of Congressman John Lewis, but every attempt to pay tribute to him here on Views from the Edge fails to reach the high bar of tribute and thanksgiving to which he is entitled. Into this wordless void came a message sharing Eric Whitacre’s virtual global choir singing “Sing Gently” – the sound of hope and gentleness that sings what words cannot say.
The Congressman’s words after watching video of George Floyd’s death reach are as deep and wide as Eric Whitacre’s musical testimony (scroll down).
“We’re one people,” he said, “we’re one family. We all live in the same house, not just the American house but the world house.”
John Lewis’s skull was cracked by officers enforcing the law-and-order of white supremacy and white nationalism, but his faith and Christ-like character could not be broken. He was as gentle as he was strong.
Sing boldly. Sing gently. If John Lewis found the strength and courage to sing his way through all the troubled waters his world was making, who am I to keep from singing?
Gordon C. Stewart, author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017 Wipf and Stock) available on the publisher’s website and on Amazon, Chaska, MN, July 20, 2020.
At Indian Town Gap National Cemetery, where my mother and father are buried, “Taps” from a single bugle will ring over the silence of the fallen. That is as it should be. No band. No orchestra. No choir. No parades. No “bombs bursting in air.” Just a single bugler breaking the silence “in the dawn’s early light.”
Other tears will fall today for those who did not die or serve in war — 98,035 and still climbing here in the U.S.A. ( ); 345,000+ and climbing worldwide. They were sent to their graves by a deadly virus that knows nothing about wars and borders between nations. You can’t shoot or bomb a virus. Calling the new coronavirus an ‘enemy’ may strike up the band to rally the troops for a crusade, but it’s easily misused to divide the living and the dead. This is a time for Taps, not “”Reveille.”
The lock-down to protect ourselves from exposure to COVID-19 led me to the strange encounter between the Crucified-Risen Christ and Thomas — and for all who come to faith in future time: “Blessed are those who have not seen but believe.” The following interpretation is original and speaks for no one else.
Caravaggio’s painting of Thomas putting his finger in the wound in the Risen Christ’s side is exquisite, but no painting can capture the strangeness of the invitation to Thomas in The Gospel of John (Jn. 20:26-29).
Translating New Testament Greek texts into English often involves a translator’s decision as to the meaning of a word. The story of Thomas is one such text. Most often βάλε in English becomes ‘place’ or ‘put — a rendering that paints a beautiful word picture of a unique moment of tenderness with Thomas. But “put your hand in my side” avoids the jarring sense of the Greek text — “Bring your hand and βάλε (thrust/throw [it] into) my side.”
“See the τυπος (marks) in my hands.” τυπος can mean ‘wound’ or ‘mark’ but it has another meaning – ‘type’. A τυπος originally meant a mark created by a blow or impression. Eventually it came to mean a mold or form into which something is shaped. Those who are being molded into the life of the Crucified-Risen Christ are called to behold the marks and throw themselves into the enduring gaping wound in Christ’s side.
John tells the story found in no other Gospel. He tells it in the present tense, drawing the reader into the scene as it is happening. It is not an event happening only then. It is happening now. “Jesus έρχεται (is coming). Th syntax raises the question of how to render the placement of the word κεκλισμενων (‘locked’). Does the text describe the physical circumstances of an unrepeatable moment? Or does ‘locked’ modify Jesus? “Jesus of locked doors/gates έρχεταιs (is-coming) into the midst of them.” and us?
“Do not γίνου (be becoming) faithless (ἄπιστος) but πιστός (faithful),” Jesus is saying to Thomas, and to all who will never see the historical Jesus directly, that faith and faithfulness are more than mental constructs and belief systems. To follow Christ is to throw ourselves into the gaping wound in Christ’s side all around us. He will meet us there.
The story of Thomas is the final word in the original of the most metaphorical Gospel. It is as though John is leaving us with another way of telling the Parable of the Last Judgment, turning our lives from distant observation and hiding ourselves from the wounds to throw ourselves into the place where we come to faith and faithfulness. “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was in prison and you visited me. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me”. (Gospel according to Matthew 25:25-26)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer described the Christian life as an ongoing conformation into the pattern of Christ, “the Man for Others.” Writing from prison cell #6 of Tegel Prison where he awaiting state execution two days before the defeat of the German Third Reich, Bonhoeffer wrote the poem that addressed the question of where Christ is today. The three stanzas move from crying out from distress (“when we are sore bested”) to “standing with God in God’s hour of grieving” to God “hanging dead for Christians, pagans alike . . . and both alike forgiving.”
Men go to God when they are sore bestead,
Pray to him for succour, for his peace, for bread,
For mercy for them sick, sinning, or dead;
All men do so, Christian and unbelieving.
Men go to God when he is sore bestead,
Find him poor and scorned, without shelter or bread,
Whelmed under weight of the wicked, the weak, the dead;
Christians stand by God in his hour of grieving.
God goes to every man when sore bestead,
Feeds body and spirit with his bread;
For Christians, pagan alike he hangs dead,
And both alike forgiving.
There is no life inside locked doors, and if we lock them out of fear or for protection, the Jesus of the Locked Doors will find us and break us free.
Grace and Peace,
Gordon C.Stewart, Memorial Day 2020, Chaska, MN.
In spite of the deepening chasm that divides us, the American people on both sides of the abyss might agree that we are living in a dark night.
This sermon was preached on the Sunday of the Transfiguration. A friend suggested posting it Sunday morning.
I was five years old the morning I screamed from the top of the new chain-link barbed-wire fence that separated my next door buddy, Buddy Singleton, and me. Moments before, we had been speaking through the fence Buddy’s father had just put up to protect his property. We were friends. We wanted to play.What to do? One of us had to scale the chain-like fence. Clinging to the chain links, I climbed to the top where the barbed wire was. I lost my footing and screamed, hanging by one hand from the barbed wire that had spiked my hand. I hung there until my mother heard the screams and rushed to take me down. I never climbed a chain-link barb-wire fence again. The scar on my left hand reminds me every day.
Making mistakes is part of life. It’s just human. Sometimes our mistakes hurt ourselves, sometimes they hurt others. Sometimes they hurt both. But mistakes also teach us to look closely before trying to climb over a fence, no matter how lofty our intentions.
Today the fence I’d like to get over is harder to scale. “C’mon over,” says Buddy. “I can’t!” I say. “Sure you can. Just climb over the fence!” I’ve learned not to listen to a dangerous invitation. Having made that mistake, I now look up to the top, see the barbed wire, and decide to stay safe in my yard on my side of the fence. I don’t understand the Singletons, the Singletons don’t understand me, but each of us is sure we do.
Today the invitations to “c’mon over” are hard to find. It’s not so much that we’re cowards; it’s that we don’t want each other in our yards. The Shadow’s question “What evil lurks in the hearts of men?” is no longer a question about all of us; it has become specific: “What evil lurks in the hearts of the Singletons?” “What evil lurks in the hearts of the Stewarts?” We no longer talk through the chain links. We call each other names, sure that, whatever evil is, its place is the other side of the fence. We get our news from different sources. We tell stories about the fence that separates good and evil, and the people on the other side of it. We don’t just see things differently. We see different things. We buy the stories about the fence and the people on the other side of it. The Stewarts watch MSNBC and listen to NPR; the Singletons tune into FOXNews and Rush Limbaugh. We’re worlds apart. Or so it seems, but . . .
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall [a chain-link barb-wire fence] (Robert Frost in “Mending Wall”) bubbles up from a deeper memory in the year a virus locks us in our homes on both sides of the fence. COVID-19 knows nothing about fences and walls, good and evil, or state and national borders. Sometimes it takes a poet to take us to our deeper selves.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. - Robert Frost, "Mending Wall"
Gordon C. Stewart, at home in Chaska, MN, March 31, 2020.
The Senate majority party scored high on the Rotten Tomatoes scale for mocking truth in the impeachment trial that was not a trial. When truth is mocked, we rage against the sham or fall silent in despair. The poets say what we feel. God loves real tomatoes. God loves truth. Have a look at this re-blog. — GCS, Views from the Edge: To See More Clearly.
This is the blessing for the first garden tomato: Those green boxes of tasteless acid the store sells in January, those red things with the savor of wet chalk, they mock your fragrant name. How fat and sweet you are weighing down my palm, warm as the flank of a cow in the sun. You […]
Truth — Live & Learn
-Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 2, 2020
Views from the Edge 