Friday, October 5, 2012

Politics With Soul

I am dismayed by the state of civic discourse in our country. The upcoming elections have exacerbated the situation beyond reason. There is virtually no real discussion of what's best for the average citizen.

The conflict between Democrats and Republicans resembles a blood sport with the combatants exchanging body blows, many below the belt. As with such events, there are people working behind the scenes to manipulate the outcome of the fight for personal profit. They spend massive amounts of money to influence and misinform the voters, sometimes with outright lies. They don't even pay lip service to the basic tenants of democracy, that our government is of the people, for the people and by the people.

From a soul perspective, our political system is dead or dying. There is little of that hope and fire that inspires people to look beyond themselves and to reach for the stars. Rather, we are driven by grim determination and cynical suspicion. At best we are trying to hold on to what little we have.

As I write these admittedly pessimistic paragraphs, I am reminded of my grandson Gus who is now six months old. Gus is completely innocent and naive. Sure, he grumps when he is hungry, tired, or has a full diaper. But he lives in the moment. If he is startled, he may cry; but this quickly passes. When I greet him saying, “Hi Gus. How the heck are you?” He flashes me one of his thousand watt smiles. It literally lights up the room.

I am awed by the intensity with which he absorbs the world around him. He is constantly attentive and curious. When he stares at me, it seems he is looking into my innermost being. Gus, for me, is soul incarnate.

What might life be like if we could live with soul like little Gus? What if we were able to greet one another with thousand watt smiles? What if we were able to laugh when we are pleased and grieve when sorrow overwhelms us, rather than lapsing into cynicism or defensiveness? What might it mean to live in conscious informed naivety – with the openness and curiosity of little Gus, but with a deeper understanding of the potentials and shortcomings of being human?

For me this would mean living with conscious awareness of all that is life giving and life destroying in our world. It would mean meeting all people with openness to their positive potential as well as their shadow side. It would mean engaging people without prejudgment even when we have full knowledge of their past actions. The Buddha described this way of living as the middle way of non-attachment. Jesus counseled, “Do not judge or you too will be judged.” Prejudgement leads to judgmentalism which strangles soul.

Soulful living means getting in touch with that energy that motivates us to reach beyond our limited selves. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa lived with soul. They dreamed dreams that encompassed all people without discriminating between friends and enemies. Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream speech,” although often over romanticized, was that sort of soulful pronouncement.

This type of living often results in unintended positive consequences. My son, Timothy, worked for a large international law firm. One Christmas we were talking about his job. He said, “Dad, it's strange. When I really listen to my adversaries, I find that I can save millions of dollars in the legal settlements. People just need to be heard.”

Soulful interactions are difficult in our present social climate because they require that we engage friends and enemies at our deepest level of being. Put more traditionally, it requires that we relate to people as God relates to them. This requires that we get to know ourselves at this level. When we are willing to acknowledge our deepest shortcomings as well our greatest potentials, we have little to hide from others. Then we needn't posture trying to be someone whom we aren't in order to impress. Such posturing behavior has caught many a politician when s/he says one thing to their “friends” and another to those whom they wish to impress. Most recently, Mitt Romney was caught on video demeaning those who were not like him and his friends. President Obama was also caught in this kind of “off the cuff remark” earlier in his career.

Living with soul is not about influencing people for our own goals. Rather it involves being our authentic selves. For this reason, politics with soul is not just an election time phenomenon. It is a year round endeavor. It requires that we approach one another with curiosity, willing to dialogue about our similarities and differences, willing to assume that dialogue produces more creative solutions than when we attempt to dominate one another.1

A number of years ago, dialogues were held among citizen leaders in several large American cities. One such dialogue involved a union leader and the chief of police. Following this interaction, the union was involved in a strike action that forced a confrontation with police. Because the union leader and police chief had grown to trust one another, they came to an agreement concerning the showdown. The union leader assured the police chief that there would be no violence in the confrontation if the police came unarmed. Because of the trust developed between these two men, the strike action resulted in no violence or bloodshed.

Finally, politics with soul does not mean opting out of political involvements. Each of us should actively campaign for the candidates of our choice. We should challenge our opponent's positions when there is honest disagreement. The difference is that we do so without impugning their motives. We listen with curiosity to what they are advocating, trying to understand why they support their positions. Such questioning humanizes the process and leads to insights that produce third way options that proponents of the previous positions had not considered.

Dialogue like this is possible even in our soulless political system. But it requires courage, creativity and persistence on our part as we seek to transform the political process. When I was the director of Madison Urban Ministry, I opposed people and institutions that acted unjustly by strategizing to block their unjust actions. Having achieved this goal, I then sought to develop win-win solutions that met everyone's needs. This is a difficult because it means looking at long term consequences and planning for these eventualities. It means looking out for the welfare even of our enemies. It means convincing them that they will achieve more by working with us than by continuing to oppose us.

I realize that it is probably to late to fully implement these strategies before the November elections. But it is not too late to alter our attitudes so that we can campaign with more soul. Our democracy has been constructed to bring citizens together for the common good. It does not have to become an arena for blood sport.

1. Parker Palmer has promoted this kind of dialogue for years through his Center for Courage and Renewal and most recently through his book Healing the Heart of Democracy.

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