Wanting what is best for everyone

Don't most of us want what is best for everyone? Especially the basics? Aren't we all Americans? Don't we simply seek these things in different ways?

In his book Tribe, about the complexities of veterans returning home from war, the author Sebastian Junger (a journalist who has spent years reporting on the front lines) speaks of many compelling aspects including "how do you make veterans feel that they are returning to a cohesive society that was worth fighting for in the first place?" He cites the destructive behavior of our politics as one that damages veterans and says, for instance:

"The most alarming rhetoric comes out of the dispute between liberals and conservatives, and it's a dangerous waste of time because they're both right."

Take that in for a minute. Really. Why do we continue to obsess about our differences instead of focusing on our core similarities in order to reach a resolution?

From Junger's perspective, we are living "in a society that is basically at war with itself" and that "people speak with incredible contempt" about whatever is relegated to the so-called other side. And, he says that "it's a level of contempt that is usually reserved for enemies in wartime, except that now it's applied to our fellow citizens."

How tragic is that?

He goes on to say that "unlike criticism, contempt is particularly toxic because it assumes a moral superiority in the speaker."

We truly need to understand that what we're doing and saying is destructive for all of us, for our country. Criticize if you must. Disagree on how to achieve what is best for everyone. But can we please stop heaping contempt upon those who think differently?

I'm not preaching. I'm at fault, too. I'm begging for all of us to be less divisive and more constructive in our conversation and behavior.

I want what's best for the greater good. Don't you?

Leave or Remove?

Even prior to the tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Heather Heyer was killed by a domestic terrorist, Americans had been arguing over whether Confederate statues ought to be removed. Like many of us, I have done a lot of reflection about this issue, getting emotional while also thinking it out, combining heart and mind.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s unlikely removal will solve anything. The divide in our country right now will only become more inflamed when a portion of our citizens feel that even more is being taken away from them than before. Even if people on the other side (and it feels wrong to keep putting us on opposing “sides” -- we're all Americans here) feel it is the right thing to do, the very action of taking away only adds to a mental anguish around scarcity. We need to encourage conversation around these memorials by perhaps adding statues and plaques that represent why the Confederate statues are there, how they came to be there, and also why they need to be symbols of a history we are moving beyond. When we finally reach the point where we can discuss putting them in an historical museum without violence and strident protests, then we will know it is time to do so.

The following are four recent articles that were an additional influence on my coming to the above conclusion, and show some of my thought process.

The author (an ecofeminist and lawyer) of the blog post Southern Pride in a Time of Terror begins by citing all the things and qualities that give her pride in being a Southerner, from food to music to storytelling to resilience. Through her words, I felt a true appreciation for my own ancestors who were co-creators in building these southern traditions through their courage and strength. The author then went on to cite the aspects that are embarrassing or shameful, such as continued demands for slavery that contributed to the Civil War, and the later Jim Crow resistance to emancipation. I must own the fact that I also have ancestors who participated in that awful period of American history. Where I parted ways with the author, however, was in her vehemence to: “Tear down the Confederate flags and pull down each and every statue of Confederate soldiers on public land.” No, we shouldn’t be flying the flag of a group of people who were so caught up in their demands to be independent states (and maintain slavery as a way of life) that they lost sight of the goal for Union; but having a war against the symbols won’t change people’s mindsets. 

The author (a teacher of theology, psychology, and philosophy) of the essay On the Removal of the Confederate Statues cites a southern mayor and an historian with conflicting views; she comes to the conclusion that: “Keeping the statues in place supports rather than dissembles the power structure(s) the statues represent.” She would encourage that the statues be removed to historical museums; maybe that would be fine at some point, but not when we are in an inflammatory situation already because it is coming from a place of power, control over, and warrior ethic, rather than a public conversation. That’s why I appreciated a commenter who said that: “What if the statues to confederate leaders were not removed but monuments that tell the other side of the story were erected alongside them? … What if our whole denied and suppressed history was on display in the public square, the genocide of native peoples as well as slavery?” And that is where my own thoughts reside; we need the whole story out in public, not in museums (not yet anyway), but instead encouraging at the very least a visual dialogue in public spaces. We cannot skip steps in the healing of our Nation.

The author (a professor of anthropology) of the article I detest our Confederate monuments. But they should remain., provides another perspective. He comments on the terrible destruction of statues and relics throughout world history, how it solves nothing. He says that, “People effectively act as though destruction of a monument exorcises its power and removal banishes the power from their midst. But these pieces of metal and stone only have the meaning we assign to them, and that meaning can take any form we like. They can be revered or reviled; honored or ridiculed; or co-opted for a new purpose.” This is vital to realize, and he continues with stating that, “destroying monuments takes a page out of the playbook of mobs across the centuries, lowering one’s self to that moral plane.” He continues: “When racists revere these monuments, those of us who oppose racism should double our efforts to use these monuments as tools for education.” He finishes with what I consider to be a powerful statement: “Destroying or removing monuments is the easy way out of our obligation to understand our past and improve our future. Monuments to our nation’s racism can be as much a tool to counter it as they can be a tool to foment it. The choice and obligation is ours.” 

Lastly, there are multiple web sites posting the same article, but claiming authorship for the article titled: “Here's what Robert E. Lee thought about Confederate monuments.” I’ve no idea which one is the original source, but all use what are apparently comments in Lee’s letters to various people after the Civil War. Lee apparently wrote that Confederate monuments would retard the ability of the country to recover, he wished that battlefields be “erased from the landscape altogether” (according to biographer Horn), and he didn’t want the flag flying at the college where he taught; it seemed Lee felt these would remain “divisive symbols” and wanted nothing to do with them. Unfortunately, the symbols are still standing and flying, so we have to find a way to deal with them — and learn from our mistakes — without in-fighting and tearing each other apart.
I happen to believe that all memorials to wars in any shape or form need to be done away with eventually, that all they seem to do is promote the celebration of aggression and make heroes and/or martyrs or those who killed and died, with a focus on nationalism, disregarding the rest of humanity that suffered or is suffering. 

Middle Path Philosophy

Isn't it fun when we find a kindred spirit? Someone who speaks our thoughts with more clarity or eloquence than we can ourselves? Sometimes I feel quite alone walking what feels like the middle path in life, peeking into the more polarized landscapes on either side with curiosity as well as puzzlement, and often more than a little frustration. I felt less isolated this week while reading The Owl of Minerva, the memoir (though really more of a delightful, albeit brief autobiography) by philosopher Mary Midgley.

I've never read much philosophy, often finding it to be over my head and difficult to comprehend, but from the little I've seen so far, Midgley's books are purposely written for non-academics and I might just be able to glean some wisdom from them. This will be helped along by having read her memoir, I think, which provides a marvelous scaffold from which to view her work.

Midgley was born in 1919, with her first book published in 1978, and her latest book published in 2014. Her memoir came out in 2005 and gives a savvy, often witty, account of her life and how she wandered naturally into philosophy, what she points out is defined via its Greek origin as "love of wisdom." Where she differs from other philosophers is her aversion to reductionism or the abstract, instead she prefers a far more practical Big Picture approach -- and one imbued with embodied compassion.

In her memoir, Midgley comments on some of her favorite teachers. One of those was a history teacher and Midgley said about her that:

"She also reached back often into the past to show how the strange things that seemed to be happening now could have become possible -- what people had meant by acting in this way, what states of mind had shaped our world. This way of getting at the meaning of the present by looking at the past has remained central to me. It is just as useful for understanding thought as it is for understanding action."

How many of us have had such marvelous mind-broadening teachers?

I found myself regularly smiling, delighting in Midgley's British sense of humor as she interwove her personal experiences -- a father who was a vicar, going to a girls' boarding school, attending Oxford from 1938-42 -- with philosophical views, and the history of education before, during, and after World War II. From the distance of half a century, Midgley reviewed her past and kept me captivated all the way through the book. She stands firmly in the camp of context, that all of us present our own unique views and "individual value systems" in all that we do -- we can't help it ... and we shouldn't try to:

"Personality is not an irrelevance to thought, an obstacle to philosophical enquiry. It is an essential element in the solutions offered. All thinking is a human activity, radically linked to feeling and action. ... The impartiality that we have to aim at is not impersonality but simply the avoidance of irrelevant bias."

"In philosophy, rationalists are the people who keep trying to refine and complete that half-framed order, hoping to build it into a clear, universal system. Empiricists are the ones who keep saying, 'No, that won't do. Things are a bit more complicated than that.' This dialectic is unending. Both things are needed; both can be done together."

As to her subtle humor, for example (I wish I had marked more of her humorous anecdotes and comments, but I didn't), during the war she says of a friend that:

"She also took me to visit the home of her mother and aunts, a classic clamjamfrey of elderly ladies and cats with the cats mainly in charge ...."

Midgley addresses often her frustrations with the way that philosophy is addressed in university:

"Showing-off is indeed a feature of many kinds of life and of course it is often a harmless one. But that is no reason why it should be allowed to take them over. Any situation where a lot of young men are competing to form a dominance hierarchy, will produce cock-fights. But -- as Plato pointed out already -- these fights are not part of its essence; they are distractions from it. They interfere with philosophical work. 'Tough-minded' is much too polite a word to use for people who go to a meeting, not in order to understand what someone is saying but in order to catch him or her out by picking holes in it. ... In any case, the practice of bullying one's students ... is not a sport at all; it's a vice."

Mary Midgley was and is a remarkable woman. She raised three sons before writing her first book in her fifties, and points out that not only did she choose to put her children and home life first, but that she thinks it turned out far better that way because then she had lots of personal experience to apply to her philosophy. Not that she didn't keep her toes in the waters; her husband was a teacher/philosopher as well, and as Midgley's sons got older, she slowly began writing more, teaching, lecturing, and doing broadcasts. The latest interview I found was one from March 2015 HERE, where it said:

"She is, she says, still writing: currently working on an afterword for a book about her philosophy and also on a talk she will give next month at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, when she is awarded The Edinburgh Medal for her contributions to the 'wellbeing of humanity'."

I'm reading her books in order -- other than having enjoyed her memoir first -- and will no doubt write more blog posts as I follow her through those thirty years.

1978 Beast and Man

1981 Heart and Mind

1983 Animals and Why They Matter

1984 Wickedness

1985 Evolution as a religion

1989 Wisdom Information and Wonder

1992 Science as Salvation

1994 The Ethical Primate

1996 Utopias Dolphins and Computers

2000 Science and Poetry

2003 The Myths we Live by

2005 The Owl of Minerva 

2007 Earthy Realism

2010 The Solitary Self: Darwin

2014 Are you an illusion?

An Inspirational Perspective on Being American

Wow! I know that's a mundane word for a book that combines philosophy and spirituality in such an eloquent flow, but, hey, that's been my constant response while reading this book, Jacob Needleman's "The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders". It is inspirational and filled with hope! 

This is one of those books that, if it were within my power to do so, I would have as required reading for all Americans. Profoundly moving and deeply edifying, this book speaks to all that I have been pondering recently. Needleman says that:

"The hope of America lies and has consisted in the fact that its political ideals and forms of government, its iconic actions and archetypal heroes, reflect in two directions at once--toward the external good of a life of liberty and equality and the reasonable search for a normal life of community and creative aspiration; and at the same time inwardly toward the search for inner development, the life of conscience and reason that defines the true nature of humanity and gives life its ultimate meaning. … America needs to recover its mythic dimension. If not, if it begins to live only in its first history, only in the outer dimension, it will have lost all that really nourishes the life of a nation or an individual." [my bolding]

The author talks of "The American Virtues and Their Shadows" and of so much more that the scope often leaves me breathless!

I heard about Jacob Needleman via his interview by Krista Tippett at OnBeing. http://www.onbeing.org/program/inward-work-democracy-jacob-needleman/222

Don't Ignore Oppression or Violence

I am grateful and deeply honored to have my piece "Ignoring Isn't The Same As Ignorance" published by Feminism and Religion. Many wise women post their thoughts there, and I appreciate every single one of them for sharing their ideas and insights, love and frustration, support and encouragement. May we all be at peace and live into loving voices.

Two Wise Visitors

Roots, Vines, and Religious Liberty

As I settle into our new home in the southwestern Missouri Ozarks, I’m embraced by trees and vines and roots, by bloodlines and history, by two hundred years of cellular community. Do the trees protect or isolate? Do the vines support or choke? Do the roots nourish or taint? How does any of this help me become stronger and more compassionate? 

I turn to the wisdom of nature and the beauty of landscape for messages of growth and healing. I step into new communities and listen with my heart. I invite the past to share its journey through story. 

I’m reading like mad, as usual, and one of my absolute favorite books has been Founding Faith: How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to Religious Liberty by Steven Waldman.* Founding Faith is a gorgeous distillation of America’s process toward religious freedom, and a good reminder for all of us right now not to persecute a religion because of extremists within it. Founding Faith is one of those books that, if I were one to highlight pivotal phrases or “ah-ha!” moments, would be a text of almost exclusive yellow markings. This means I find it nearly impossible to narrow my focus and provide only a few quotes, so the blurb from the back of the book will have to suffice in wetting your appetite: 

“The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Many on the left contend that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state. Neither of these claims is true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman. With refreshing objectivity, Waldman narrates the real story of how our nation’s Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty. 

Founding Faith vividly describes the religious development of five Founders. Benjamin Franklin melded the Puritan theology of his youth and the Enlightenment philosophy of his adulthood. John Adams’s pungent views on religion stoked his revolutionary fervor and shaped his political strategy. George Washington came to view religious tolerance as a military necessity. Thomas Jefferson pursued a dramatic quest to “rescue” Jesus, in part by editing the Bible. Finally, it was James Madison who crafted an integrated vision of how to prevent tyranny while encouraging religious vibrancy.”

 This book is one that I wish everyone would read; with excellent information (massive amounts of footnotes and extensive bibliography to follow up on any details) and beautiful flow to the writing and layout (resulting in a fast read), it also provides common ground for people to meet each other in conversation. 

An acquaintance on Facebook recently told me, after a brief chat clearly showed our political differences of opinion, that we needed to stop before the dialogue could damage our friendship. A few years ago, I would have agreed wholeheartedly with that comment. But now, I find myself wondering if that’s where our political system has gone haywire? Is that part of what has led to such tremendous polarization? If friends and family cannot participate in civil conversation, and respect each other across and through our differences, how can we expect politicians to do so?

The seasons change, the wheel of life turns, and new visions emerge within and without … below are two photos from nearly the same angle and location on our deck, yet the view is so different. Time and awareness can change everything.

August 2015

January 2016

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*I bought Founding Faith after listening to “Liberating the Founders,” an interview with Waldman by On Being with Krista Tippett. If you don’t have time to listen to the hour-long podcast, even just skimming the transcript is a delight. 

The Oil Spill of Our Words

This morning I woke up feeling such compassion and peace that I nearly cried. Why? Because I am blessed to live in America where we are gifted with the absolute splendor of the natural world plus cultural opportunities and freedom. 

Sadly, I nearly cried again in the next few hours as I read the words of so many people, people I know and had hoped to form community with, who seem to have vitriol spilling out of them. They are awash in a constant turmoil of religious fervor and what they believe patriotism to exclusively be. And this zeal too often emerges as acerbic ridicule of people or enclaves or cultures, as the bitter criticism that heaps blame upon the other, upon someone who doesn’t think like they do. 

I understand the fear and anger, I'm intimately familiar with them, but scathing or derogatory remarks incite vitriol rather than invite tolerance or mercy toward our common need for safety and peace. How do we use our words to respond with healing intention to this acidic oil spill spreading throughout our families and communities? How do we mend the cracked and broken channels of emotion erupting from within that are in direct reaction to the eruptions of threat and violence we see coming toward us? 

I know my reflection upon this arises partially out of an audio interview I listened to a while back wherein naturalist and author Terry Tempest Williams said at one point that: 

“And I was thinking, what is vitriol? What does it mean? And I actually looked it up and it was fascinating because it means an allusion to the corrosive properties of vitriol, which is a strong corrosive acid linked to sulfuric acid, clear, colorless, oily, water-soluble liquid that is produced from sulfur dioxide. Which I thought was interesting, which is the toxic waste that comes from burning coal, used chiefly in the manufacturing of fertilizer, chemicals, drugs, explosives, and petroleum refining. And I thought, well, this is really interesting. Because I think that the conversations that we so often have, and I have to tell you, you know, I don't have to go anywhere but my own family dinner table to find the seed bed of this, both the highest use of language and the lowest use of language with real vitriol, because the people around our dinner table and our extended family do not all think the same. So I have no illusion that we all have this common ground. You know, we have to really fight for that around our household. And we always have.”*

Williams talked about her journey to see the residual effects of the Gulf oil spill (she wrote a piece on that called “The Gulf Between Us”**) and also relates this to the feeling of being caught in the middle because we need something, such as oil, but also are diminished and shamed by what our own desire and need has done to the planet and myriad diverse cultures. 

So, how do we create balance? How do we embrace the other while holding our own center point of integrity and faith? How do we return with awareness, repeatedly, to our own culpability in the current chaos and crises? How do we not blame the other…the other person, the other side, the other country? Not easy questions, I know. 

One thing I can do, to begin within, is try to carefully watch my words, because they can’t be taken back, and because vitriolic words taint, tarnish, and can even potentially destroy all that we hold dear when they escalate actions toward violence. Thankfully, by grace, words can also heal and hearten the weary or fearful or angry, leading to compassion and the ability to embrace the other and to peaceful resolutions or, as Parker Palmer said recently, to revolutions, in "Five New Year's Revolutions." 

And this gives me hope...

Happy New Year and May We Know Peace on Earth.

___________________

*Terry Tempest Williams. “TheVitality of the Struggle.” On Being with Krista Tippett. July 19, 2012. < http://www.onbeing.org/program/vitality-struggle/233 >

** Terry Tempest Williams. “The Gulf Between Us.” Orion Magazine. < https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-gulf-between-us/ >

Meddlesome

In the movie Serenity, one of my favorites, River Tam as a child says: “We meddle. People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think. Don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome.”

I rarely talk or blog on politics. I’m making an exception, one that might continue. 

Why do people condemn anyone who seeks to understand “why” terrorism happens or empathizes with the plight of another culture or even tries to point out our (not an individual but us, all of us) part in the problem, our responsibility. After all: WE MEDDLE. America and Great Britain and other European countries have long meddled in the Middle East, we’ve repeatedly stuck our noses into a tribal culture about which we comprehend so very little. And though we do need to defend ourselves against terrorism, we also need to step up and take responsibility for our part in the current mess. We meddle. Maybe for good reasons, or what we erringly believe are “good,” but often purely out of fear disguised as morality or righteousness. We try to impose, even force, our ideals, society, and/or morals upon another culture. 

With consumerism having gobbled up most of the world, is it any wonder that some cultures may not want it and/or may have a hard time keeping up and become angry? Maybe they haven’t had time to assimilate or grow naturally into the market at a pace that is acceptable to their religion and society. How many times has colonial arrogance viewed the other as savage?

Most people, including me, have only a gossamer grasp of history yet in our conversations we are eager to blame others from this limited perspective of what it means to be human in various cultures and we try to dictate how long it takes for change to happen. Even many history teachers or scholars focus upon a narrow time period—just as other professionals like doctors become specialists—rarely venturing into a broad spectrum of history. In our time, the vastness of global history is overwhelming, and yet we must make an effort to see beyond our personal narrow vision when we speak and act but, most of all, in the first framing, when we listen. 

Reading books is an excellent form of deep listening. Not just reading blips in articles or newspapers, which are far too limited or skewed to allow a substantive perspective on an issue, but reading books from various “sides” and immersing oneself in a subject dear to one’s heart but from an opposite shore. Usually we choose to read confirmatory books that reinforce our already existing beliefs and that result in a greater polarization. We feel good when we read that others agree with us, it confirms our sense of place in the world and affirms our sense of identity and belonging that feed our instincts for survival. But this kind of one-sided reading also can contribute to rigidity and radical judgmentalism: they’re wrong and I’m right. And, yes, I admit that it can sometimes be uncomfortable reading — and thus “listening” — to the “other side.” But if there is even the slightest chance that we can live together peacefully, respectfully, with dignity, then I’m willing to be uncomfortable once in a while.

Now, of course, someone might say that all of this psychology, philosophy, sociology, and trying to understand the other is moot because if we don’t control/kill “them,” then they will do it to us. All I can say to that is again…look at history. War leads to more war. Every great nation falls. We no longer have the option of “discovering” another continent upon which to expand and build a new nation. Our planet is finite and unless we find a way to all get along, it’s very possible that humans will become extinct. I don’t want that for my nieces and nephew; I want them to enjoy a beautiful, abundant, and safe world. 

Humans have the ability to change. We can choose to do so.
So the question remains: How do we help without meddling, without forcing ourselves?

The Other

As I continue softening into understanding the Other, I have been comforted to know that there are other women also moving through this process of non-judgment and compassionate presence. Today's article, At the Intersection of Other & Friend, by Kate Brunner at Feminism and Religion, was one of those helpful connections that elicit a feeling of community, even though it is through cyberspace.

A book that I recently finished reading has been good for helping me understand the polarization between mindsets, between people who lean with intensity toward either a liberal or conservative view. One aspect of this is understanding that our beliefs "lean" first through intuition and are then followed by rational thought, and our human tendency is to find supporting evidence for what we already believe or are leaning towards. As Jonathan Haidt says in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion:

"If thinking is confirmatory rather than exploratory in these dry and easy cases [via various referenced studies], then what chance is there that people will think in an open-minded, exploratory way when self-interest, social identity, and strong emotions make them want or even need to reach a preordained conclusion?"

I think that the first step into open-minded views is by simply knowing ourselves better and being more aware of our own tendencies prior to judging the Other.

Then, imagine ourselves sitting on a porch swing with the Other and really, truly listening to where they have come from and where they are now. Where can we meet?

Where is home?

“A track is not the shape of a foot; it is the shape of a foot in the ground.” ~ Mary Pipher

The above sentence clarifies my sense of the path I’ve already travelled as well as the one that remains in front of me. It reveals a vital image of context. My tracks are not just mine but encompass where I have placed my feet. And the image also provides discernment toward where next to step, because I will leave my imprint in that place while also receiving its imprint upon me.

Pipher reflects upon how “place is identity” when she refers to a painting and interprets the artist’s message to be that, “we are landscape internalized. Our souls are etched with the geography of a particular place.” Every place I’ve lived has done this, has etched itself upon my soul. A new place will do this, too.

It is difficult if not impossible to separate culture(1) from community(2). Because community is a place that is inhabited by people (in this instance, though, I also know the power of being in community with beings of the more-than-human world), those people bring with them their culture. My personal yearning for a specific place in which to feel at home is by its very nature tied to whoever lives there and what their beliefs are.

While I am simply an American moving from one state to another within the same country, reading Mary Pipher’s book The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community has provided tremendous perspective. Pipher’s book is eye-opening and heart-breaking; she says that “it is difficult to describe or even imagine the challenges of getting started in a new country.” Not only do refugees and immigrants have to decide how much of their traditional culture they want to maintain, while also building a new life and community in a foreign country (and concurrently learning a new language), they are also dealing with past trauma that is nearly incomprehensible to me. I’m grateful for the blessings of being an American and having access to so many diverse resources, and Pipher’s book offers lessons in compassion as well as resilience.

I have spent a lifetime shying away from conflict and yet, not surprisingly, still find myself occasionally in the midst of it in one way, shape or form. Pipher says that, “Community does not mean ‘free of conflict.’ It’s inevitable and even healthy to have great differences. Diversity in community is as healthy as diversity in any ecosystem. Without diversity in age, ethnicity, and ideas, we don’t have communities; we have lifestyle enclaves. Even conflict can lead to closeness.” I find myself wondering if this is true. Can conflict indeed lead to closeness? I try to recall examples of this in my own life but come up empty; maybe I need to spend more time on this one. However, I don’t see that diversity has to result in conflict. Am I naive?

I am encouraged by Pipher’s expression of how cultures can flow, because it reflects my own desire to understand all sides of a situation. She says: 

“Cultural traditions are not set in stone. Cultures are not monolithic. Rather, they are processes, or sets of negotiations between members. Cultures are practical, active, and creative responses to specific conditions. They are constantly changing, and within any given culture there are many points of view and many different groups and members. 

“Culture isn’t the property of just the leaders or the powerful. The right to interpret the cultural values doesn’t belong to any one group. It is important to ask whose interests are sever and whose are violated by a tradition. Who profits from maintaining the status quo in a culture? Who stands to gain with change?”

The above is great to ponder because it invites into the conversation the theories of cultural evolution. These theories, in turn, provide new ways of looking at the difficult and sometimes violent gaps between the Northern and Southern cultures of America.

The further we move into a global society, I agree with Pipher that “we need a home to hold our lives in place” because I have felt this deep need in my bones the older I’ve gotten. Pipher quotes Bill Holm: “The love of your own country hasn’t to do with foreign politics, burning flags, or the Maginot Line against immigrants at the border. It has to do with light on a hillside, the fat belly of a local trout, and the smell of new-mown hay.” This emphasizes how important individual landscapes and their communities are to our identity. America is a huge country, populated over hundreds of years by immigrants from diverse cultures who created their own unique communities. Many of these original communities have all but vanished, and those of us who moved away during our youths can often feel like we are displaced or culturally-bereft when it comes to specifics. Pipher goes on to say that “The refugee experience of dislocation, cultural bereavement, confusion, and constant change will soon be all of our experience. As the world becomes globalized, we’ll all be searching for home. There are two intertwined components to home: people and place.” 

I seek somewhere I can call home again. 

Me with Mom, younger brother, and new puppy in Missouri in the late 1960's

___________

1 Culture is defined as: “the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group” and “the attitudes and behavior characteristic of a particular social group.” [Apple Dictionary]

2 Community is defined as: “ a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common” and “a particular area or place considered together with its inhabitants.” [Apple Dictionary]

Introverts, Misfits, and Community

My Brothers & Me in Missouri:
A Tree Planted When We Were Toddlers

I have been puzzling over the curious concept of community. How has it changed or remained the same in the past five decades? How much of community is fed by our similarities as compared to our differences? More specifically, how does community manifest for deep introverts (like me)? 

A lot of my curiosity has arisen because of an epiphany I had while writing Desert Fire, which was the realization that I had slowly and gradually become part of a community in Maine. And that it’s only upon reflection that I’ve realized how my soul was nourished by that subtle ebb and flow of community. I lost most of those tangible threads when we moved to Arizona, and, after nearly four years, have been unable to feel welcomed into a strong sense of community here.

Is that loss of community why I feel this tug to return to the landscape where I was born? To return to the land where both sides of my family-of-origin have lived for generations?

It feels strange to me to want — or at least be open to, for the first time in my life — to place myself in the midst of a culture that is predominantly the opposite of my own belief system. For me, as a pagan-liberal, to consider the value of living around Christian-conservatives is an enigma swirling in my mind. Will I be welcomed or ostracized? And yet, to continue growing in my understanding of Self and humanity through conscious placement into diversity holds a tantalizing energy. It’s almost like choosing to live in a  foreign country as an observer, an anthropological endeavor, while unable to detach from my emotions. Yet, within the southwestern Missouri Ozarks reside my own genetic and blood-roots, foreign as they may seem.

Big Spring, MO
(courtesy Wikipedia)

It is easier in many ways to settle in a place where everyone, or at least the majority, thinks as we do (Oregon, a state we are also considering moving to) than to be where the mindset is alien (Arizona and Missouri). And yet, if one’s purpose is to grow and share the beauty of diversity, what better way than to live on the edge, at the perimeter? If we live in separation — segregated — the gap becomes wider and the bridge more flimsy due to the distances between us. How do we nourish community within diversity? Precious Diversity in her “coat of many colors that my Mother made for me.” Will I be able to stay focused on my path and also find the community’s core goodness, our commonality?

Will the land support and soothe my fears and nurture our differences? At least in the Ozarks, I would be living in a moderate, lovely landscape (in spite of the occasional tornado) and climate where my husband and I can afford to live comfortably as we age closer to retirement. I want to walk barefoot upon the land and within my own mind — free from aversions to my past. 

My Grandparents' Farm in MO

I yearn to sink down, to ground — even if it is into my own blood-roots that I swore I would never return to. I never felt I fit in — with family or culture or religion — and yet, now, I also feel a kinship arising within me like the ancient sap of an ancestral core. Is it the simple process of aging that does this? Or is it self-realization? An acknowledgment and acceptance that I am spirit; genes, and uniquely woven — all of these? What are the gifts held within genetic memory and the people who are my family-of-origin?

Is it possible for the moist verdant rolling hills, the vibrant vegetation, and the multi-generational roots of family and community to be nourishing enough to offset the strain of living a culturally misfit presence?

During the past couple of months, as the potential for moving has become clearer, I’m reading a variety of related sources that touch upon family, community, diversity, and how we view our historic past. The books written by psychologist Mary Pipher have been extremely helpful; they have provided me with insights I’d not previously considered regarding our American views of family and community. (I wholeheartedly recommend her books, I’ve read all of them, though I find myself disagreeing with some of her more rigid views.)

For me, this research also entails trying to understand why some of us attach so strongly to the past and its symbols, while others can detach, even when we are born into the same families.* Most southern Missouri people were allied with the Confederacy, and yet, somehow, from a quite young age, I personally felt more like a Yankee. Because of this desire to comprehend a different perspective, I’m also reading books like Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct by Michael McCullough, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, and The War that Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters published this year by James McPherson. 

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* I am an American hybrid, an example of the genetic melting pot; my ancestors are mostly 17^th century immigrants from Ireland, Scotland and England, as well as from the Netherlands and Germany, blended with a couple of Native Americans. Is it possible that my different views (from my family) are also a product of genetic memory? In Beyond Revenge, the author points out that most of the American South was originally settled by “livestock herding” immigrants from Ireland, Scotland and Wales; these traditional cultures held a strong “honor mentality” due to their original way of life (their livelihood — herding animals — were portable and could be stolen away). This imprint has held firm even when they moved into agricultural pursuits. This is in contrast to the settlers of the American North who were a majority of European, England and Germany for example, established farmers in traditions (their livelihoods were predominantly agricultural and, therefore, could not as easily be stolen therefore emerging a different culture and mindset). Is it the German genes being expressed more strongly through me? McCullough’s book is absolutely fascinating, even though I don’t concur with all his findings. Nevertheless, it helped me to think outside the box.