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#OWS, Part 2

I promised to outline some of my opinions in this second part of OWS. So, here they are.

I ended my last post talking about how we spend so much time dismissing others’ opinions, that we don’t listen. Our culture has lost the art of listening. We post diatribes on our Facebook page or letters to the editor or bumper stickers and billboards without really spending time on what that other person was trying to say or listening to responses. We get focused on our own single-minded track that we don’t really have a conversation.

Webster defines conversation as the “oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas.” There are a couple of points I want to make here. First, it’s oral. True conversation doesn’t happen by competing online posts or signs or billboards. It is oral. Oral communication is best achieved face-to-face. In person. Where you can see the facial expressions, the tone of voice, all the nuances of real, true, two-way conversation.

The other point about conversation is it involves opinions and ideas. None of us has the solution nailed. Doesn’t matter what the topic, what the opinion, there’s always another perspective. That’s not to say there aren’t some absolutes in life. Facts. Things like Abraham Lincoln did actually exist and was actually President of the United States. What it means is when it comes to the issues brought up by Occupy (or anyone else, for that matter), there are some valid points. Social equity, fairness, justice, etc. But what I find is many people dismiss the topics without listening. And I wonder if they aren’t listening because the messenger doesn’t look and dress like they do or because the topic maybe hits just a little too close to home. The root word of conversation is from the Latin conversari, which means “to associate with” and is frequentive (repeated or intense action) of convertere “to turn around.”

True conversation involves an exchange of opinions (exchange is multi-directional) in a context of associating with another with the ability to turn around. In other words, as we have a conversation, I might need to change my opinion. I might actually learn something from you. And you from me.

I serve on the Eugene Planning Commission. And I have to say what I appreciate most about the Commissioners is they listen. Our meetings are truly a conversation. And with that interchange of ideas, thoughts, opinions, I believe we have made some very thoughtful decisions. And I think those decisions will ultimately achieve a long-term benefit to our community. I personally met with two City Planning staff yesterday about a topic currently before the Commission with an idea, a thought, that I had that was a bit different from what they presented. And in that conversation, they heard my reasons, I heard theirs and we ended up with an idea, a hybrid, that I believe will address all the concerns that are on the table. But only because we had a conversation and we listened.

The other major point I wanted to make was how so often by NOT engaging in true conversation, we miss the point altogether.

If you regularly follow my posts, you know I follow Jesus. His life, his teachings. And what I found throughout the writings about him is that even people in the first century missed the point and didn’t engage in true conversation. People would ask him his opinion (“Teacher, what about this…?”) and more often than not, Jesus would respond by asking them “What do you think? How do you see it?” Conversation. And even when they would ask questions like “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”, Jesus’ response basically was “Neither. You’re missing the point.”

Back to Occupy. The newspaper this morning reported on the total monetary costs Occupy Eugene has cost the City. And I guarantee the banter now will be about how much money we’re spending on “these homeless hippies destroying the lawn.” And when we do, we will have missed the point.

Eugene’s Mayor, Kitty Piercy, recently communicated “OE supporters see the Washington Jefferson camp as way to not just talk about the inequities in this country but to actually do something about them. They should tell you what they are trying to do and how its going in their own words.” Hmmm. Sounds like our Mayor is encouraging us to listen. To engage in actual conversation.

So who sinned? Occupy Eugene for destroying the lawn? Or the City for not booting them out?

Neither. We’ve missed the point.

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#OWS, Part 1

Occupy Wall Street. #OWS. Just those three words (or letters) stirs an incredible amount of emotion in people these days. I recently shared a picture showing the contrasts (and similarities) of legal and illegal, mob and normal on my Facebook page.

As you all know, I’m one who likes to “stir the pot” and get a good discussion going. This one was no exception. In just two days, it generated almost 60 comments. When a post hits 50, I deem it “worthy” of a blog post here. So here I go.

The picture generating the discussion showed people camping in tents outside of a Best Buy (“legal”) and people camping in tents in an occupy area (“illegal”). Below those pictures were two more, one of occupy protesters holding signs (“mob”) and Black Friday people crowding a store (“normal”). I thought it was an interesting perspective. And that set off a whole range of responses. Responses ranging from emotional to thoughtful.

But I think it showed that we want simple answers to complex issues. And how once something becomes a part of our culture, we accept it as “normal” while vilifying anything that rubs against the grain. So Black Friday, a generally-accepted part of our culture, with it’s isolated incidents of pepper-spraying, robbing, fights and looting amidst the accepted culture of consumerism is deemed “legal” and “normal.” Yet OWS, with it’s isolated incidents of pepper-spraying, robbing, fights and looting, rubbing against the grain of our social mores, challenging our greed and consumerist mentality, is deemed “illegal” and a “mob.”

So we, on the one hand, make statements like “OWS hasn’t ever articulated what they’re against,” and on the other, “spending money on Black Friday helps our economy.” In doing so, we miss the point. As one of my friends so aptly said in one post, “I’m not for or against OWS, but I am for nuanced conversations that spur actual change in our political and economic systems. The REAL issues can not simply be dismissed.”

The point is we spend so much of our time dismissing others’ opinions, that we don’t listen. We don’t ever have a true conversation. We need those “nuanced conversations” that will actually bring about change. I think everyone would agree our system is screwed up. But few of us are willing to consider any kind of compromise on how to fix it. Most of us have an “it’s my way or the highway” attitude. Most of us get sucked into the popular media that conveys what we WANT to believe rather than taking the time to find out what is REALLY going on. We don’t do that, I think, because deep down, we’re afraid our current opinion might be wrong. And if we find out it is wrong, we are then faced with a decision: maintaining a flawed idea or concept regardless of the facts, or changing our opinion and admitting we were mistaken. None of us likes that. “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind’s made up” becomes our mantra.

Until we can listen to each other (really listen), we won’t accomplish anything. So now that I’ve laid the ground-work, I’ll outline some of my thoughts and ideas and opinions (and how this relates to living a simple, sustainable lifestyle) in: “#OWS, Part 2.”

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Just Take a Deep Breath – Part 2

So now you may be wondering about how I went from an LTD bus to a coffee cup? Well, aside from wanting to put in a shameless plug for my favorite coffee shop (Full City, thanks Michael for a great cup of coffee), there are two things I wanted to build on from my last post. Those are Margins and Perspective.

MARGINS
We don’t tend to build margins into our lives. We leave ourselves no margin for getting stuck behind that slow driver, no margin for a task taking a little longer than we had planned. And in doing so, we pressurize our lives.

thesimpleHOUSE is about “living a simple, sustainable lifestyle.” Pressurizing our lives makes things more complex. We rush here and there, often running late, blood pressure rising. The American Heart Association estimates about one third of the US adult population has high blood pressure. They say the cause in 90-95% of the cases isn’t known. I would submit it might be the lack of margins in our lives.

Slow down. Give yourself a little more time. Walk, ride the bus or a bike. I’m amazed at how much calmer I am when I bike or bus to my destination. And there are fringe benefits to all this.

When I walk or bike, I get exercise, which in turn, increases my healthiness. The Mayo Clinic has tips on walking for exercise. (I’m actually a little disturbed that we need instruction in walking…). When I ride the bus, I make new friends, have the opportunity to read a book (remember books?) and save $$ on gas and maintenance on my car. ALL reduce my carbon footprint.

PERSPECTIVE
The coffee cup actually is an example a friend of mine, Van Clements, uses. And I have reused this example many times.

We are seeing one side of the cup in this picture. Someone on the other side of that cup will see something else. There is no logo on the other side of the cup. How do I know? They shared that observation with me; and I listened. You see, that’s where perspective comes in. We have to be willing to listen to another’s perspective and realize they’re still looking at the same cup. We’re just getting a different perspective of that cup. It’s still the same cup for both of us and neither one of our perspectives is right or wrong; just different.

Right now, in our country, we are tearing ourselves apart because we are’t willing to listen to one another’s perspective. And I mean listen. We ultimately don’t have to agree (although I believe if we listened more, we’d find out we agree on more than we disagree on), but we absolutely need to listen. For our society and our culture to survive, this is critical.

If we truly listen to each other, find our common goals and start there, we can repair our society and our culture. I would submit most all of us want clean air, clean water, good health care, and the like. And there may be very different perspectives of getting there. And you know, either or both paths might actually work.

But until we are willing to see the “other side of the cup”, we won’t get anywhere except into a life without margins, with high blood pressure, disintegrating as a culture. I don’t want that, and I don’t think any of you do, either. For a truly simple, sustainable lifestyle, lets step back, take a deep breath, commit to giving ourselves some margin and be willing to hear one another’s view of that coffee cup.

For only then will we see the entire cup.