COMMENTARY: Talking to Each Other Instead of Letting Others Speak For Us

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) I stood at the ticket counter and felt baffled. I didn’t want to pay first-run prices for sequels whose originals were dull, or for one last gasp of the Sandra-meets-Keanu franchise, or for a comedy ridiculing short people. The one film I wanted to see, “The Devil Wears Prada,” […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) I stood at the ticket counter and felt baffled.

I didn’t want to pay first-run prices for sequels whose originals were dull, or for one last gasp of the Sandra-meets-Keanu franchise, or for a comedy ridiculing short people. The one film I wanted to see, “The Devil Wears Prada,” had already started.


So we found an outdoor table, ordered seafood, and just talked. Father, mother and son, just talking about ninth grade, friends, busy summers, travel, long-term plans, ideas, politics, books, family, church mission and soccer.

Beyond our sight, but not far from our consciousness, were the dangers of a world spinning into dangerous disarray _ sectarian warfare, terrorism, religious extremism, bursting economic bubbles, vast disparities in wealth and opportunity, incompetent leadership, assaults on basic freedoms, historic churches fracturing and bickering over property.

Within our sight, on the other hand, were hundreds of people doing what we were doing: talking. Talking at dinner tables, talking while strolling, talking in line for ice cream. Their conversations were beyond my hearing, of course, but I doubt they focused on whether Lois Lane would recognize Clark Kent or on what politicians and church lawyers had to say.

People were just talking and in the process were pursuing romance, friendship, family bonds or just enjoying a summer stroll.

Maybe this is the answer. If we did more talking over tilapia, maybe we would discover our common interests, our yearnings and fears, our ground-level concerns like romance and schoolwork and our higher-order concerns like justice, faith, patriotism, prosperity _ as we truly express them, not as clever politicians try to frame them for us. We would have more useful energy for dealing with a dangerous world.

I recently exchanged e-mails with a longtime Episcopalian who is frustrated with his church, knows whom to blame and sputters in rage. When I looked beneath his argument, I realized he just wants a church that works, that cares about people, that is worthy of his devotion. I disagree on some details, but share that yearning. Why stifle our yearning in order to argue about blame?

Why, then, don’t we talk? Why do politicians and religious zealots have such an easy time diverting our attention to causes of their choosing, which have the effect of keeping them in power and the people divided? If we know that they don’t have our interests at heart, why do we let them turn us against each other and against our own instincts?

In my experience, churchgoing Christians are basically decent people. We do our faith in a hundred different ways, but left to our own devices, we will end up with much in common, such as caring for children, providing pastoral care, feeding the hungry, encouraging civility and paying attention to the life-transforming words of Scripture.


My experience of Jews and Muslims is that they are much the same. Until someone whips us into a frenzy of self-righteousness and loathing, we get along.

And yet here we are, in a tragic sequel to centuries of pointless religious warfare, shouting at each other, brandishing weapons and adding the acid of self-righteousness to medical, economic and political matters that are already complicated.

It happens, I think, because we let leaders do our talking for us. They define the issues, they propose solutions, they declare dogma _ and we let them. If we talked to each other, I think we would relish our common humanity and learn that we all care deeply about our communities. We would find that political and doctrinal uniformity matter less than our leaders want us to believe.

AMB/JL END EHRICH

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org)

To find a photo of this columnist, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by last name.

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