Tag: listening

Posted on

What Oscar Forgot

Oscar needs a football helmet.

Don’t worry. I’m not predicting yet another Slap Heard ‘Round The Academy. Not unless Jimmy Kimmel sets up a gag, anyway. But now that the nominees have been announced and the countdown is under way, the Academy Awards really should have the proper gear.  

After all, they’re getting more and more indistinguishable from the Super Bowl.

Yeah, I said it. Hollywood’s golden night and football’s biggest stage are separated by about four weeks, some turf and not much else. Take a look from 1,500 feet – the typical altitude of the Goodyear Blimp – and think of what we have here.

There’s weeks of hype from every conceivable angle and a few inconceivable ones. A huge splash on the day itself. A main event that goes on and on and on. (And on.)

And more often than not, regardless of who wins or loses, it’s the weirdness that steals the headlines.

To be fair, the NFL at least plans for it. It’s practically a cliché that nine times out of 10, the Big Game is less interesting than the Big Commercials. (Or occasionally the Big Power Outage or the Big Wardrobe Malfunction, but that’s another story.) But when Oscar takes the stage, the possibilities are as endless as the running time. Will the wrong winner be announced? Will angry celebrities storm the stage? It’s a night that’s seen more on-stage nightmares than a Halloween special:  garbled names, awkward kisses, and even an on-camera streaker to liven up the evening.

Granted, some of that is the risk of a live performance. I get that. Things happen. But when year after year, the flubs, cringes and oddities are more interesting than the show itself, there just might be a problem.

We’ve known this for years. Heck, we’ve known it for decades. And the surface reason isn’t a secret: the show runs too dang long. Last year’s Oscars dragged out for nearly four and a half hours. The longer it goes, the more tedious it gets and the more time you have for something to go wrong.

But it goes deeper than that. If it was all about running time, people wouldn’t binge entire seasons of TV. Oscar audiences have fallen like a rock, but an “Avatar” sequel that’s more than three hours long is burning up the box office.

No, it’s something more fundamental. Something so simple, it’s Performance 101: a show isn’t about the performer. It’s about the audience.

If they don’t buy your story, you have no show.

That’s true for blockbusters. It’s true for art films. It’s true for any performing venue, from the smallest stage to the biggest stadium. The audience has to care. It can’t just be about you.

And for an awards show – a night designed for self-congratulation – there’s no easier trap to fall into.

That’s an important lesson to remember. And not just for Hollywood. Most of us will never get a multi-million dollar movie contract. (Mine just got lost in the mail, right?) But we all have the same chance to be aware of the people around us and hear what matters to them. To understand why they care and where they hurt. To connect their story with ours.

When we can do that, we can make a difference.  

I hope Oscar eventually learns that. I know we can. And on a smaller budget, to boot.

Listen. Care. Come together.

And if you come together at a Super Bowl party, let me know how the commercials went, OK?

Posted on

A Hole in the Silence

In space, no one can hear you scream. Unless you’re a black hole, apparently.

File this one under “weird but true”: a few days ago, NASA released the sound of a black hole to the internet. More specifically, a low, unsettling moan that prompted one online listener to declare “Space is haunted.”

What in the name of George Lucas is going on here?

After all, most of us learned the same thing as kids: there’s no sound in space. Well, unless you live in the Star Wars universe, where fast things roar and big things rumble because it’s Just That Cool. I mean, what’s the point of a space battle if you can’t rock an entire movie theater with the blaster bolts and explosions, am I right?

But for a galaxy that’s not run by Industrial Light & Magic, we’re used to thinking of things as being spooky silent. No air to push. Therefore no sound waves. Right?

Well, it turns out we all should have paid better attention in science class. Because as often happens, what “everyone knows” isn’t quite the whole story.

This particular black hole, you see, is in the midst of the Perseus galaxy cluster. A star cluster has hot gas. Gas that can transmit sound. Not very much, not very well – NASA had to enhance this one like a 1980s rock concert, to present a sensation that’s normally 57 piano keyboards below our hearing range – but enough to make a faint impression.

I don’t know about you, but I find that weirdly hopeful.

Space gives a different perspective on things, both overwhelming and awe-inspiring. Earlier this year, when the first images came back from the Webb space telescope, it made some people feel small while others felt connected to something wonderful. (For the record, I’m in the latter camp.)

This touches something similar. Once again, it’s a wonder that most of us didn’t expect. Not a vast interstellar panorama but the smallest of whispers in a sea of silence. Waiting … but only if you know how to listen.

And sometimes that seems about as rare as a sound in space.

We’re not a patient people, by and large. So many of us feel the need to do something and do it now. One reason the early pandemic lockdowns were so unsettling, I suspect, is that for the first time a lot of us had to hold still … and had almost forgotten how to do it.

The thing is, it’s not hard to make an impression. Even a black hole in the middle of nowhere can do it. What’s harder is to step back and actually see beyond our own impressions and efforts. To experience and understand. To be.

How many things do we miss hearing because our head is filled with our own chatter?

How much do we ignore without knowing we’re missing something worthwhile? It might be as vast as a black hole … or as small as the person next to you.

Hear the silent. Listen for the impossible. Touch lightly. Once we’ve learned that, we’ll know that even a murmur can matter. That the acts we do take, however small they may seem, always leave something behind.

Give everything its space. Haunted or not.

That’s the hole lesson right there.

Posted on

It’s All in the Accent

For most people, clicks and tweets are the heartbeat of social media.

For me, they’re a daily avian conversation.

“Hey, Chompy, how’s it going?”

“SHRIEK! SHRIEK!”

Don’t call the cops – the screaming’s not coming from the victim of an attack, nor from a hyped-up concert crowd. These are the excited calls of Chompy, our 16-to-17-year-old cockatiel (like his feathers, his age is a little fuzzy) who has become a Bird of Legend among our family. His mighty beak defies all but a chosen few who approach his cage. His piercing song could stretch to the farthest reaches of The Stadium We All Know Is Really Mile High – probably from our own living room.

And somehow, over the past few years, he’s decided I’m his best friend in the world.

This is usually an honor that gets bestowed on my wife Heather, who is one of life’s Bird Women. She has gathered feathered friends to her since childhood: finches, parakeets, everything short of a Long John Silver parrot (and I wouldn’t make bets against that someday). It’s a little like living with Snow White, but without the squirrels who do housekeeping.

Chompy loves her, of course. But I’m the one who gets him dancing. And maybe that’s because I’m the one who knows the tune.

I mimic. Often unconsciously. In my reporting days, I had to be careful during an interview or I’d start picking up the accent of the person I’d just been talking to. It’s a minor talent that’s been handy on stage, or while reading bedtime stories to Missy, or even just for little pranks. (Imitating a cricket during a quiet moment is a great way to make a room full of people do a double-take.)

During all the years that we had parakeets, I would do my own take on the clicks, pops and flowing whistles of their song.  It was a harmless way to join the chatter, and even after our last (for now) parakeet passed away in 2019, I kept doing it out of habit.

All I can say is, Chompy must have missed his ‘keet neighbors. Because Heather soon noticed that every time I whistled the song, our big ol’ cockatiel would hustle to the cage side nearest me and begin calling out, excitedly dancing and playing with his toys.

Mind you, I have no idea what I’m saying. It could be parakeet Shakespeare or the bird equivalent of “We’ve been trying to reach you about your extended warranty.” But regardless, it’s what Chompy’s listening for. It’s what he enjoys and responds to. And so, it’s what I give him.

It’s amazing how fast a friendship you can build when you try to speak someone’s language. Feathers or not.

I don’t just mean talking to people. We do that constantly, blasting our thoughts at every hour of the day through every medium at hand. Calls, texts, social media, even face-to-face (or mask-to-mask?) conversation … the barrage rarely stops.

But for all our expertise at shouting out – not unlike Chompy’s SHRIEK! – many of us are still learning to listen. And that means many of us aren’t really being heard. We’re talking to ourselves, but with a larger audience.

To really talk, we first need to hear.

That can be as simple as listening to the words they choose (do they say “I see” vs. “I hear you”) or as deep as listening for the story and emotions behind them. It’s the skill of the actor, not just reciting from memory but responding to the moment. Or the quality of the parent or teacher, hearing the things that aren’t being said and need to be known. Or the ability of the friend who wants to understand.

And it’s the gift that more of us need to possess.

When we take the time to understand, we can be understood. When we listen, we can be heard. It’s how we can be a “we” in the first place, able to shoulder a world’s challenges that need every one of us.

And that’s something worth shrieking about.

Posted on

Learning to See

I’ve seen the lament for a while now. “Can we please have something in the news that isn’t about COVID-19?”

Be careful what you wish for.

By now, everyone’s heard the name George Floyd. By now, we’ve all had the opportunity to see his final moments. By now, outrage has turned into something more powerful, launching protests and riots across the country.

It’s a rage that has proved stronger than even coronavirus caution. Yes, the virus doesn’t care about justice or race, just opportunities (and sadly, it will be heard). But when you fear that friends and family may be killed now, are being killed now, the fear of what may happen two weeks from now has less power  to hold someone back.

It’s an outbreak of a different sort. An all-too familiar sort.

And like every outbreak, it’s the result of a sickness that has been ignored.

Those  of  us who have the luxury of not confronting racism on a regular basis can find it easy to turn away all together. To decide it’s a problem we’ve solved or at least something on the way out. *We’re* healthy, so this “virus” couldn’t be all that bad, right?

Except we know better. Whether we want to admit it or not.

Anyone remember the dog leash? It was only a few days ago, the black birdwatcher in Central Park who told a white dog-walker to keep her dog on a leash. Her response was to call the police and say she’d been threatened.

Nobody does that if they don’t think they’ll be believed. If they don’t believe the police will be on their side.

Had there not been video, she might have been right.

I’m not going to get drawn into the argument about “not all cops.” Yes, I know a number of good officers and that’s not the point I’m making here. This isn’t just about the bad actors. It’s about the people who looked away, in or out of uniform, until something finally happened that couldn’t be ignored. Who didn’t see the warning signs – even with 18 prior complaints, as with this officer –  or chose not to.

We see what we want to see. But reality doesn’t care what we want.

If we’ve learned nothing else from the Age of Corona, we should have learned that.

We’ve been hearing this for months when it comes to the virus. Be aware. Look for who’s vulnerable and help them. Take steps to protect your neighbor, even when it’s uncomfortable. Don’t create an opportunity for infection to spread.

It hasn’t been easy. But a lot of us have done it. Because even the measures that don’t benefit us individually have a powerful effect when they protect our neighbor. And we’re all somebody’s neighbor.

If all of us look out for all of us, then all of us benefit.

Now it’s time to apply those lessons beyond epidemiology.

When a disease is left unchecked, it spreads. When an evil is left unconfronted, it grows. In both cases, the worst outbreaks come when opportunities to stop it at an earlier stage were ignored.

And the only way we bring both to heel is to see beyond our needs. To look beyond our own comfort. To remember that we’re only as healthy, safe and free as the person next to us.

Even before coronavirus, we knew this. These are ancient reminders, to love our neighbor and lift up those in need. They’re not new … they’re just not easy.

But if we were to follow them – to see, to listen, to truly help – that would be a headline worthy of the front page.

That would be everything we wished for. And more.

Posted on

Another’s Story

This week, I wanted to be teasing the royal family about their new arrival, Archie, and ask if Prince Jughead was next.

Didn’t get to.

Or maybe I could be celebrating and lamenting the Colorado Avalanche season gone by, with so much accomplished on the ice and so much left to do.

Uh-uh.

Heck, at any other time, falling back on Mother’s Day would be a valid plan.

But not this week.

This week, we had it all shatter again. Death in a place that’s supposed to be safe. Violence where it shouldn’t be. A lost child celebrated for heroism when his family only wanted a graduate.

School shootings are my least favorite topic. But it’s one that keeps coming back. And it has a way of erasing everything else that crosses its path, leaving no one sure what to say.

So this time, I’m going to start by saying nothing.

***

It sounds unnatural, I know. When someone is grieving, we want to help. We’ve all seen it – or done it – so many times: this friend helps a hurting neighbor clean things up, that one helps get them where they need to go, and everyone brings them dinner.

It’s one of our best traits. It’s what makes us a community instead of a bunch of people that just happen to live together.

And like any good trait, it can be taken a step too far.

Because what we also try to do, so often, is tell our story.

“I had a cousin who went through the same thing …”

“Oh, my gosh, I remember when that happened to me …”

“I bet I know exactly what you’re feeling right now …”

It’s natural. It’s human.

And unless it’s invited, it’s also taking over. All of a sudden, if we’re not careful, we’re making someone a spectator to their own grief while we make it all about us.

The best help starts by listening.

It’s hard. We don’t like silences. Or unanswered questions. Or pain.

But the pain of grief lives in a sacred space, a time and a place set apart. A time and a place for the one who’s living it.

It’s a space they can fill with their memories of what happened, their need to examine the details again and find their place in it.

It’s a space they can fill with their memories of who they’ve lost, reminding themselves and the world around them of the treasure that was here.

It’s a space they can fill with their anger. With their hurt. With their uncertainty. With their need. And (with time) their hope.

And yes, it’s a space they can fill with silence when they need it.

When we enter that space, we’re not the author. We’re the audience.

That’s challenging enough when the pain is a private, local one. It becomes even more so when it’s something so public that re-opens so many of our national wounds. There are issues that have to be dealt with, alternatives that need to be discussed, policies that need to be addressed – if only because it seems like we can never get anyone talking about them at any other time.

Those are conversations we need to have as a nation. They shouldn’t be delayed.

But we still need to respect the space.

Those who are at the center of all this have their own stories, their own priorities and needs. They’ll join that conversation if and when they choose to do so. If it’s forced on them – from any side – they have every right to say “not here, not now,” just as they did at a recent vigil.

Our hearts may break at their grief. But it is their grief. We don’t own it, any more than we own the new royal baby just because Harry and Meghan let us share a piece of their joy.

“A time to keep silence and a time to speak,” the old verse goes. We have our time to speak, in abundance. And I don’t doubt we’ll fill it.

But remember the silence. Remember to listen. Remember whose story this is.

If we don’t have the words – maybe they were never ours to begin with.

Posted on

Making the Reach

It shouldn’t take a celebrity.

It shouldn’t require a death.

But here we are.

Some conversations never seem to be had until something painful and public happens. Like discussing security after a terrorist attack. Or guns after a shooting.

Or, in this case, talking about mental health after someone famous commits suicide.

Two someones, this time around. The most recent spotlight started with designer Kate Spade. And then, before the news could die down, chef Anthony Bourdain entered the headlines as well. Social media echoed and magnified the conversation, full of people trying to raise awareness, or share memories, or simply understand.

It’s what we try to do after all. Find patterns when something makes no sense. Make a painful moment manageable by reaching for an answer, any answer.

And then time passes. The moment passes. No one can live forever in crisis mode, and so the incomplete answers and uncertain explanations fade out for most of us and we return to a more normal sort of life.

Except for those who can’t. Those who continue to face a daily silent struggle. Unheralded. Unseen. Maybe even unsuspected.

And often, as a result, untalked about.

It’s a curious thing. Many of us these days are willing to talk about physical ailments, almost to the point of oversharing. Diabetes. Epilepsy. Multiple sclerosis. Even the once-unspeakable “big C” of cancer. We don’t necessarily pass around our latest medical charts, but there’s little hesitancy about speaking out, finding support from others, sharing stories, maybe even pinning some colorful ribbon to a shirt collar or Facebook profile once a year.

We don’t talk about mental conditions the same way. If we talk about them at all. It’s taboo, unsettling, dangerous. And those in the middle of it all often keep quiet, not wanting the judgment that comes with the label.

We all know someone who’s there. Whether we realize it or not.

I have friends and family who have lived with (and sometimes died with) depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and more. Many of these CAN be lived with, even if that life has to be won again day after day after day. But in isolation, without support, the battle can become overwhelming.

Once in a while – usually after something like a Spade or a Bourdain – the drumbeat will go up. Folks will be shocked into awareness, will post the suicide hotline numbers, will encourage folks to reach out for help. And that is good.

But.

Many conditions are isolating. Your brain outright lies to you, telling you you’re worthless, you’re alone, that no one really cares. There’s a hesitancy to reach out, not just because of the social stigma, but because of the internal soundtrack that’s constantly playing.

The burden of action cannot be entirely theirs.

Don’t wait for someone to reach out. Reach in.

Reach in to the people you do know. Not as a nosy neighbor or a person with all the answers, but as a friend who cares that a friend is in pain.

Reach in so they know they’re not alone. Step away from the center and listen. Don’t worry about having the right words or the magic formula – it’s not about you, anyway. The right words are the ones that remind someone you’re here, now, for them.

You don’t have to be a psychiatrist. You don’t have to be a therapist. You don’t have to solve the problem for them and you’re not going to.

But if enough people reach in, it can become that much easier for someone to reach out for the help they truly need.

It starts with us.

Not every battle will be won. Not every person can be helped. Some will need more than we ourselves can give.

But where we can, we should.

It shouldn’t take a celebrity.

It shouldn’t require a death.

Just open eyes. An open heart. And open, ready hands.

Be there. Reach in.

Posted on

Doing It “My Way”

“If I had my way …”

Just writing those five words takes me back to my second hometown of Emporia, Kansas. It’s a nine-hour drive by car, but an instant flight in imagination. It just takes one thought to walk the acres of Peter Pan Park, or to race to my (cluttered) desk at The Emporia Gazette, or to taste a Braum’s sundae yet again.

And somewhere in that weave of images lives John Peterson.

Mr. Peterson, who died recently at the age of 96, was a man of many parts: professor and dean at Emporia State University, world traveler and biologist, passionate about conservation and the arts. But the open door through which most of Emporia knew him was his regular column in the Gazette, called “If I Had My Way.”

The title sounds didactic. It wasn’t. This was not a command, but an invitation. John’s column walked through his thoughts and his beloved community like a man on an evening stroll – noticing, commenting, passing the time. It was rarely earth-shaking. It never had to be. It was a chance to visit with a neighbor, to listen and muse and ponder.

His readers often mused right back. More then once, a passerby would greet him with his perennial catchphrase. He remembered one who would call out “If I had my way, the weather would be lots better today,” or another mentioning “If I had my way, you would keep writing those columns.”

“See how my title works for me?” he teased in print once. “Makes me feel good. That is fun.”

Those five words could have been the grumbling of a cranky old man. In John’s hands, they were closer to the late Andy Rooney’s “Did you ever wonder …?” It was a chance to consider what life could be, or at least a small corner of it. Like Hawaii’s “aloha,” it was a greeting, a farewell, and an expression of love.

We could use a little more of these days.

Oh, we’re good at expressing what we want the world to be like. Boy, are we! Whether it’s a sharp-tongued Facebook commenter or a president who finds it “disgusting” that the press can write what it wants, it’s easy to take offense, take a stand, and take on all comers. Right or wrong matters less than “My way or the highway.”

I don’t mean taking a principled stand. There are times to fight for something you believe in strongly, or against a wrong that will not let you remain silent. This isn’t that. This is taking umbrage that someone dare disagree with the rightness that lives in your own head. Other voices become threats to be walled out, lest they undermine you.

After all, what if they were right?

During the latest First Amendment brouhaha, my mind went to another president. Thomas Jefferson was no stranger to the partisan press. He often turned it loose on his enemies from behind the scenes as a rising politician, and often caught holy hell from it in return.

It’s said that when Alexander von Humboldt visited the White House, he found a copy of a newspaper that viciously attacked Jefferson. Shocked, he had to ask: Why are these libels permitted? Why isn’t the newspaper closed or the editor fined or jailed?

Jefferson asked Humboldt to take the newspaper with him. “Should you hear the reality of our liberty, the freedom of the press, questioned,” he said, “show this paper and tell him where you found it.”

Other voices matter. Listening matters. Seeing the visions of others matters, even as we ask them to share our own. Even if we don’t always like what’s shared in return.

Conversations make communities. That’s true in a great nation, or a small town. Remembering that can make life better for everyone.

And you would remember that … if I had my way.

Posted on

Are We There Yet?

“No , Google, that’s not what I want.”

Not an unusual conversation under any circumstances. Doubly so when it involved Google Maps, as I wrestled with my phone screen to make at least one sensible route appear. (And by “sensible,” I meant of course, “route that I like.”)

I have nothing against the great orienteering tool of the 21st century. Most of the time, it’s been a godsend to me since I lack any real sense of direction. I’ve often said that the one direction I can reliably find is “down,” so long as I remember to leave my shoelaces untied first. It’s helped to know that the mountains are always west – at least, until I moved to Kansas for nine years, which may explain why my first attempt to find Lake Eisenhower ultimately led me to two ruts in a farmer’s field.

Ah, the good old days.

This time, though, it was being recalcitrant. I needed to visit the office of an out-of-town veterinarian friend. Google Maps was perfectly willing to take me there – so long as I used I-25, in part or in whole. Which for me, is a little like saying “You can come to the Bronco game, so long as you wear black and silver and carry a banner that says ‘Go, Raiders.’ “

I’m not totally unreasonable. I’ll use our great, great interstate when the time is right – say, 10 or 11 at night, when the cars are scarce and the exits are easy to reach. After all, there’s nothing wrong with I-25 that removing 90 percent of the traffic wouldn’t cure.

After the electronic equivalent of twisting one arm behind Google’s back, the map finally, reluctantly, gave me what I wanted. It wasn’t the fastest route there. In fact, it overshot the mark by a little bit in order to cross beneath the interstate and then double back. But it would take me on a route I trusted and get me where I wanted to go.

The fastest route is tempting. But it’s not always the best one.

As I write that last sentence, I’m tempted to look over my shoulder for the American Inquisition. After all, that’s heresy for us, and not just in driving. This is a nation that often loves straight lines, simple answers and clear-cut decisions.  And sometimes bulling through despite the complications does help us find a better way forward, like Indiana Jones in the bazaar blowing away a master swordsman with one shot.

Most of the time, though, it leads to frustration. If everything must be simple, then opponents must be crazy or wrong – after all, any reasonable person should clearly be able to see you’re correct. If things must be resolved quickly, then anyone who says “Hey, wait, what about this,” is the enemy, or at least wasting precious time.

And so discussions become debates become arguments. Positions get polarized with opponents seen as little more than cartoons. We dig in – and when you dig in, nobody is moving forward.

Health care. Immigration. Gun control. Each of us could name a dozen issues where we’ve had the same discussion over and over again without moving an inch. Many of these are high-stakes issues where people care passionately and deeply, which makes it even harder.

Most problems don’t have a single, sweeping solution. They require smaller steps on a number of fronts, as we define what we really want and what that looks like in each piece of the situation. That takes longer – and that’s hard when a sense of urgency is there. But it also means the solutions we reach are likely to be better fits, creating a path forward one cobblestone at a time.

The best route is not always the fastest. It’s the one that gets you where you want to go.

Let’s start mapping, shall we?

***

NOTE: Thank you to the many, many people who wished us and Missy well after last week’s column, “A Day In Emergency.” She’s been doing great and is as sassy and sweet as ever. We appreciate your thoughts!

Posted on

Hearing Through the Storm

I wanted to write about Adam West this week. This was going to be a warm and fuzzy farewell to TV’s Batman, full of  the echoes of “BAM!” and “ZZONK!” and maybe even a “KAPOW!” or two.

But then shots rang out. Again. And it’s been a little hard to think about anything else.

This time, it crossed the country in a single day. The sites couldn’t have been more different. A baseball field in Virginia where congressmen were practicing for a charity game. A UPS center in San Francisco, where it was just another working day – until suddenly, it wasn’t.

Until the anger reached out. Again.

I used to write about these more. That was when the announcement of a mass shooting was a punch to the gut, a painful shattering of an ordinary day. It demanded to be grappled with, even if there were no clear answers to offer. (Are there ever?) Even if all that could be offered was comfort.

Now it seems more like an old wound, poked and prodded to life again. They’ve not become normal – please, let them never become normal – but the pace has increased and the alarm bells have started to blend with the overall noise. Now, we pay lasting attention mostly when something raises the bar, with maybe a high profile victim (the baseball shooting), or a strange setting (the Aurora movie theater), or a huge casualty list (the Orlando nightclub).

I almost wrote “… or a place we expected to be safe.” But that’s the point, isn’t it? We used to expect safety. Now, we seem to expect anger. No, shootings like this aren’t normal yet, but now they’re punctuation marks rather than breaks in the narrative.

When I was a kid, we used to play a storytelling game called “The Boiler Burst.” It was a narrative version of musical chairs, where whoever was up had to tell a story, usually long and rambling. Sooner or later, the person would have to call out the words “the boiler burst” and everyone would move.

After you’d played a while, you became harder to surprise. You learned how to listen to the story, to listen for the cues that would suggest the punchline was coming. You knew which players would jump to the punch line as quickly as possible, and which ones would draw it out to the point of agony. The more closely you listened, the more ready you were.

I think we need to do some listening now. Because the pressure keeps building. And if it doesn’t stop, the boiler will burst again.

I’m not naive enough to think that we can ever completely scourge this kind of thing from the nation, or that we can ever understand every last motive of every last shooter. But we can grapple with the national anger that gives them a space to grow and flourish. The rage that has touched all of us, even those who have never heard a single shot.

Some of that anger comes from understandable places. There are many among us who fear for their families, or their jobs, or their rights, or their place in the world. When the conversation seems to stop, when those who might be able to help turn into stone walls – or worse, seem to add to the pain – the fear turns to anger and the anger grows.

Some of it is manufactured. From ancient times to now, people have found it convenient to stir up anger and point it at a target – an “other” who can be safely blamed for all their woes. That rage can build mobs. It can build camps. It never, ever builds solutions.

We need to hear where the anger is coming from. We need to listen for the real worries and fears that generate it, and to know when we’re being sold an easy answer. We need to be more aware of each other and our hurts, so that no one has to shoulder their burden alone.

We won’t prevent all the crazies. But we can stop helping them flourish. And if we turn down the volume, maybe, just maybe, we can better hear them coming.

Batman’s not going to burst through the door this time.

This time, we have to come to our own rescue.

Posted on

A Time To Think

There’s a fire racing through Facebook.

This time, the spark came from talk of Syrian refugees. Before that, it was gun control. Before that, some other broad and powerful issue of the day, building an audience faster than the rumor of free Bronco tickets.

By itself, that’s not so bad. Big and important issues should be discussed by a free people, after all. I’ve seen some approach the impromptu debate with thought and care, and I’ve done my best to take part in the same manner.

All the while, I know we’re in the minority.

Most of what happens isn’t a discussion or debate. You know it. I know it. Most of it is a shouting match at best, the verbal equivalent of Mark Twain’s duel with axes at two paces – swing hard and fast, with no particular care for accuracy so long as blood is drawn.

“Behold the power of my inflammatory photograph!”

“Hah-hah! Your photograph is impotent in the face of my video of dubious origin!”

“Oh, yeah? Well have at thee with an unsourced blog post!”

“Pah! Now you shall see the might of my snarky cartoon!”

Sometimes the borrowed memes and images open a new line of thought. More often, they’re an opportunity to raise the voice, plug the ears and carry on, invincible. No listening. No learning. No need for the other person to even be in the (virtual) room.

And thus, a wildfire. Plenty of heat. Plenty of damage. Precious little in the way of useful light.

Please understand: I’m glad that people care. In the face of an issue like this, apathy would be an indictment of us all. I want this to be on our minds and hearts and I know others feel the same.

But how it’s done matters.

If you are one of the people involved, please. Take a moment, or several, before hitting Enter. Take the time to think.

Think about the image, or the video, or the report that you’re about to put out there. Have you checked its accuracy? Does it have identifiable, verifiable sources? This is especially true if it seems to agree with your feelings and beliefs in every particular – these are the items we are least likely to check, because they seem so obvious. (Reporter’s Rule No. 1: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”) If it is true, does it add anything new and useful to the discussion?

Think about what you’re for, not just what you’re reacting to. What can you offer as a next step? If you favor sealing the borders, how do you propose helping those who need help, without putting them at risk of being radicalized? If you favor welcoming the stranger, what do we as a society and as individuals need to stand ready to do, to make sure our aid is more than an empty ‘welcome’ banner and an isolation within a new society?

Think about what the other person is saying and examine where you stand. Have you put yourself in a place that you’ll regret when the passion of the moment has died down? Our history books are full of people who earnestly argued positions that have since been exposed to wrath and ridicule. (One of those, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, is even now the subject of a Broadway production.) Are you so sure that you want to be so sure? Even the unbending Oliver Cromwell himself once implored “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

Sure, I want to win people to my side of the argument. I’m human and the subject is important to me. But I think calm consideration is more likely to do that than angry sloganeering. If it can’t, then maybe I have a few things to examine of my own.

I’ll take that risk. This is too important to be decided purely by gut impulse. This is the time to think of who we are as a community and a nation, and what we want to be. A “Thinksgiving” season, if you will.

Some fires bring warmth, and light, and inspiration. Please help this be one of them.

Haven’t we all been burned enough?