What a privilege this morning, to sit with a friend over coffee and talk about our world. Yes, our world. Our troubled, imperfect, often-unconscious world. I always look forward to time with this particular friend; she stays informed about the goings-on in our nation, yet manages to stays grounded in a bigger picture. She may feel anxiety about what she sees in the news and some of the ideas that her children bring home from school, but if she does, she certainly doesn’t lead with that anxiety and she doesn’t let it run her life. I think she believes in the inherent goodness of people; she sees our species’ potential even when our actual behavior is contracted by fear, blinded by greed or just downright embarrassing. I haven’t even gotten to the best part: she finds a way to use everything that comes to her as a way to serve others.
This morning she told me of an incident in which she’d been verbally accosted by a driver as she peacefully walked down the street. His comments were based on the way he saw her: Foreign. Other. Potentially Dangerous. As she told me this story, I saw the hurt and shock on her face as a mirror of what I felt in my heart. This drivers’ unconscious behavior could have embittered my friend, she could have spent the rest of our time together talking about her grief and anger. Instead, she talked about a start-up program she was developing for school age children that would honor diversity. The beauty of my friend’s resilience was heart-opening for me. I am more impressed with the noble nature of my friend than I am with any ideas for programs.
It was hard for me to tell her this, but I am not sure programs work. They may look good on paper and they may help us to feel like we are doing something to help others, heck! they may even do some good, yet this work – bringing the light of consciousness to unconscious behavior - is an inside job. It’s done from within and is driven from within. I don’t mean to say that the outside world can’t influence change and that programs like the kind my friend is starting can’t help raise awareness of the need for change. It’s just that the real change – the change that helps us evolve from a species cowering in fear to a species bathed in light - involves the kind of individualized work that programs may not have the capacity to address.
This view may be unpopular (To speak truth, it’s pretty unpopular with me as well. I’ve got my fair share of programs under my belt and am currently planning another) and this view may not even be true. It’s appealing to think we can fix a problem from the outside. We build out-of-context structures within which people can have access to more diversity, to education and new experiences, and we encourage behavior that is more conscious and more compassionate. I’m not sure this translates to real life. Real change involves minuscule shifts within each person, microscopic movements of our internal gear system, to which no one else has access. We have no idea what others’ alternatives look like. I doubt the driver who shouted at my friend is a ‘bad’ person; my guess is he driven by fear of an ever-changing world and a feeling of loss of control.
Can we ever hope to convince others of our views? Can we demonstrate to people that diversity offers a richness to our lives? Can we teach people to be more accepting of others? To be less fearful? To be open to what is new and different? Should we even be trying to do this? There are no answers here. Just questions. My friend is not sure if programs work either, but she holds what she calls “a hope too big to lose.”
I think it is only through touching the inner landscape of one another – real-life experience, vulnerability and openness to intimacy – that we may be able to help guide each other. A perfect example is my friend who, this morning, inspired me, enlivened me and showered me with her inner light.