I recently attended a class dealing with the election. It was held in a church. I went to support the class leader and hoped to learn something. It was challenging for me because I don’t feel comfortable in politics. George Washington's farewell address comes to mind: “Beware of the political parties, for they will usurp the power of the people.” (1)
As the class went on, I became more curious about the thing behind the thing that people shared. I noticed that each personal story revealed a deeper thought. People's opinions were often informed by concerns about a daughter, father, grandchild, workplace, or other experience. Of course, another person could have a similar experience and find themselves on the opposite side of the political aisle. Anais Nin insightfully said: “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”
I try to remember this as I walk through my neighborhood and see political signs. I try to remember this as I hear curated sound bites from news sources. Behind every issue is a person, and there is a lot below the surface of each person. Leo Tolstoy explained it this way: “Human beings are like rivers; the water is one and the same in all of them, but every river is narrow in some places, flows swifter in others.” The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters. (2) One often lands in a position because they are afraid, worried, angry, grieved, inspired, or concerned. It takes time, compassion, and insight to know a person.
We may need 44 hours. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a biography of Paul Simon based on 44 hours of taped interviews. That was not the original plan. It all started with one interview. At the end of it, Paul Simon asked Gladwell if he would like to meet again, and then after the following interview, they decided to meet again and then again. Something must have happened in those interviews. They must have been enjoyable. Paul Simon must have felt heard and understood. He must have trusted Gladwell. (3)
Imagine having 44 hours of information from a trusted interviewer on someone you would like to know better. Maybe a presidential candidate? This would be the kind of interview that each person volunteered to participate in for 44 hours because they enjoyed the experience and trusted the interviewer. I suspect we would get to know them better and feel more certain about who they are and what is important to them.
While we may not have 44 hours to conduct an interview, we have endless moments each day, opportunities to see and hear those around us with compassion. This is the power we have. To live with compassion is to see people as deep waters with unique needs and abilities. To live with compassion is to respond to each person and their needs with kindness and love.
C. S. Lewis guides us with his words: “It is a serious thing…to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendship, all loves, all play, all politics.” (4)
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1, Senator Joe Manchin summarized Washington’s quote this way. Washington’s warning in his farewell address: “However [political parites] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and usurp for themselves the reins of government..."
2. Proverbs 20:5
3. The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast. CNLP682: Malcolm Gladwell Deconstructs His Writing Process and Habits, Shares His Theory on How to Reach People in a Crowded World, and Explains the Revenge of the Tipping Point.
4. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory