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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