What do Sliding out of a job and protesting a mosque, have in common? Both of these stories are stories about expressing your opinion, freedom of speech.
Today Steven Slater was let out of jail and there has been an explosion of conversation and opinions about his actions. He is the flight attendant who after having a bad experience with a passenger used a number of expletives over the intercom then grabbed a couple of beers, deployed the slide and slid out of the plane into his car and went home. Quite the dramatic resignation, you can check out the details in many places online. Steve clearly expressed his opinion.
Mosque at ground zero debate. “Approved for New York City buses is an ad which shows a plane flying toward the Twin Towers as they burn, a mosque which has been proposed for the area, and the words ‘Why There?’” There has been great public debate over the building of a mosque at ground zero.
I do not know what your opinions are on either of these stories but what I do know is I am very thankful that I was born and raised in the United States of America where we have the right of free speech. In Luke 12: 49-56 what resonated for me is the importance of having and expressing your opinion, with mutual respect and grace. I believe that through discussion, disagreement and being in relationship we all grow and we are honoring one another. For this blog I looked at a variety of blogs and opinions and I found myself continuously reflecting back on the phrase “Agree to disagree agreeable” which is one of Steven Covey’s Stephen Covey Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Why can't more people agree to disagree and to disagree with love, grace and respect?
As a Lutheran I often view life through this specific lens; what I love about this lens is the encouragement I received to ask questions. The opportunity to have conversations, disagreements and debates about faith, the Bible and more with mutual respect has helped me in my life's journey. Martin Luther was a person who questioned the status quo and who wanted to engage in discussions. My parents always encouraged me to ask questions of people, of leaders and even bosses. The key was to ask those questions with respect, seeking to understand the other person’s point of view. In the story from Luke 12:49-56, Jesus talks about how homes will be divided. Let me share another paraphrase of this story form Good As New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures by Rowan Williams
“My mission in life is to bring about a revolution, and I’m longing to see the sparks fly! I have a painful time ahead of me, and I can’t wait to get it over and done with! Some of you imagine I’m going to bring peace to the world as if by magic, it’s not as simple as that! What I have to say is more likely to lead to conflict. Families will be split down the middle, parents and children will fail to see eye to eye, and newlyweds will fall out with their in-laws.”
Then Jesus spoke to the crowds who were listening in to all this. “You’re very good at forecasting the weather. If you see clouds coming up from the sea, you say, ‘There’s rain on the way,’ and you’re right. If the wind changes to from the desert, you say, ‘We’re in for a hot spell.’ Right again! You have double standards! You like to show how bright you are in the world at large, and pretend to be dull! Isn’t it time you learned to have an opinion or your own? Think things out and come to a realistic view of your situation, before matters are taken out of your hands and you find you have no choices left. Once you’ve lost your freedom, it’s hard to get it back again.”
How have you been engaging in discussions about your faith? What are your opinions on this reading? Do you avoid conversations about faith? Why?
David Lose states, “if Jesus' call to a new way of relating to each other – via forgiveness, courage, and humility – stirred up division during his time and that of the early church, what does it bring today?”. Faith and religion continue to stir up controversy but I continuously hope that people handle controversy with understanding.
Change and growth comes from experiences and sharing of ideas. What recent conversations have changed your life or helped you to grow? Were you understanding, and gracious to the last person who disagreed with you? How did you share your opinion? Engage in the conversation, don’t be afraid, assume people will be respectful and listen?
What do you think of the story from Luke, has your home ever been divided over an issue? How did you resolve the conflict? Did you agree to disagree agreeably?
Please take a few minutes to share your comments here or join me on Skype Thursday August 12th at 7PM EST at "bythewaycommunity".
Showing posts with label respect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label respect. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Disrespect and Disreguard by Heidi Jakoby
At Bread for your journey Kari shared three readings the last being a poem she sung to the tune of Danny Boy. You can link to the readings by going to http://breadforyourjourney.blogspot.com
As we moved from the last reading into our discussion we were asked what struck us about the song and the poem. It brought images of the movie Pocahontas and the song "Colors of the Wind" to mind for some.
For me the last line of each verse "God Loves us, so let us love each other with no demands, just open hands and space to grow" is very powerful. The sense of loving someone with no demands but recognizing that they are growing and moving. We need to encourage and support the growth of people around us, to love them and to help them to know God's love. I also like the contraditions in the second verse about being free while we are being embraced and that it is this sence of embrace, support, love that frees us to take risks and seek out what God wants us to be. Often it is not only risky to seek out who we are truly meant to be it is also scary, uncertain and anxiety causing. Are you trying to figure out what God is calling you to do? Are there risks involved with the direction you are being pulled? Can you ever be sure about your next step or do you just need to trust that you have people who love and support you and you know God is always with you.
From the third reading we went up to the reading from Mark and also the first reading. In the first reading Grounded and Moving Richard Rohr talks about the key to wisdom: being grounded in the center and still, from that deep foundation, knowing how to move out. How do you hold on to your center and move out at the same time?
The reading from Mark looks at the ease of divorce in Moses day. A husband just needed to sign a paper and say we are done, but Jesus does not agree with this. Pretty much a husband could just dismiss his wife, the ultimate diss. We discussed how we sometimes disreguard one another, how we sometimes can easily overlook someone or stereotype someone. When we are in a hurry we often assume a lot about the peole we pass on the street. Sometimes we can be in such a hurry that we can miss God in our midst. One participant spoke about walking by an individual sitting on a loveseat on the front lawn of a house drinking some coffee just looking like he was watching the day go by. The person who shared this story said the site of this man seemed odd, and he had decided just to walk by but the man on the loveseat was friendly and wished this person a good day. It caused the participant to pause as he reflected he wished he woudl have had a longer conversation with the man in the loveseat. Another person pointed out that when political parties with differing opions go after one another they often attack the person with mean stereotypes or short phrases which do not do much to further the discussion. Dissing someone or disrespecting their opinion shuts down communication and doesn't allow either person to grow.
I believe we all need to try to respect and listen to one another. Think back to a time when you felte dissed or disrespected, how did that make you feel? For me I felt worthless, I felt that my thinking was in someway flawed that I was flawed because this other person did not want to have a civil conversation with me. Through conversation and listening we can help each other to grow and stay grounded. I encourage you to think about who you may have dissed this week and figure out ways of listening and respecting all the people around you.
Finally at the end of the reading from Mark, the disciples try and shoo the children away from Jesus and Jesus tells them to bring the children to him for, "unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child you'll never get in." Children were often dissed in Jesus day and Jesus wanted everyone to notice, respect and learn from them.
My parents always taught me that you can learn something from everyone and they never put an age on it. They also taught me to treat everyone with respect and to try not to make assumptions about them. These are great lessons but they are not always easy.
Well these are just a few of my thoughts about last Thursday's Bread for your journey. Hope to see you next week.
As we moved from the last reading into our discussion we were asked what struck us about the song and the poem. It brought images of the movie Pocahontas and the song "Colors of the Wind" to mind for some.
For me the last line of each verse "God Loves us, so let us love each other with no demands, just open hands and space to grow" is very powerful. The sense of loving someone with no demands but recognizing that they are growing and moving. We need to encourage and support the growth of people around us, to love them and to help them to know God's love. I also like the contraditions in the second verse about being free while we are being embraced and that it is this sence of embrace, support, love that frees us to take risks and seek out what God wants us to be. Often it is not only risky to seek out who we are truly meant to be it is also scary, uncertain and anxiety causing. Are you trying to figure out what God is calling you to do? Are there risks involved with the direction you are being pulled? Can you ever be sure about your next step or do you just need to trust that you have people who love and support you and you know God is always with you.
From the third reading we went up to the reading from Mark and also the first reading. In the first reading Grounded and Moving Richard Rohr talks about the key to wisdom: being grounded in the center and still, from that deep foundation, knowing how to move out. How do you hold on to your center and move out at the same time?
The reading from Mark looks at the ease of divorce in Moses day. A husband just needed to sign a paper and say we are done, but Jesus does not agree with this. Pretty much a husband could just dismiss his wife, the ultimate diss. We discussed how we sometimes disreguard one another, how we sometimes can easily overlook someone or stereotype someone. When we are in a hurry we often assume a lot about the peole we pass on the street. Sometimes we can be in such a hurry that we can miss God in our midst. One participant spoke about walking by an individual sitting on a loveseat on the front lawn of a house drinking some coffee just looking like he was watching the day go by. The person who shared this story said the site of this man seemed odd, and he had decided just to walk by but the man on the loveseat was friendly and wished this person a good day. It caused the participant to pause as he reflected he wished he woudl have had a longer conversation with the man in the loveseat. Another person pointed out that when political parties with differing opions go after one another they often attack the person with mean stereotypes or short phrases which do not do much to further the discussion. Dissing someone or disrespecting their opinion shuts down communication and doesn't allow either person to grow.
I believe we all need to try to respect and listen to one another. Think back to a time when you felte dissed or disrespected, how did that make you feel? For me I felt worthless, I felt that my thinking was in someway flawed that I was flawed because this other person did not want to have a civil conversation with me. Through conversation and listening we can help each other to grow and stay grounded. I encourage you to think about who you may have dissed this week and figure out ways of listening and respecting all the people around you.
Finally at the end of the reading from Mark, the disciples try and shoo the children away from Jesus and Jesus tells them to bring the children to him for, "unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child you'll never get in." Children were often dissed in Jesus day and Jesus wanted everyone to notice, respect and learn from them.
My parents always taught me that you can learn something from everyone and they never put an age on it. They also taught me to treat everyone with respect and to try not to make assumptions about them. These are great lessons but they are not always easy.
Well these are just a few of my thoughts about last Thursday's Bread for your journey. Hope to see you next week.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Re-respecting the Dissed
by Kari Henkelmann Keyl
There are so many reasons for dissing people. Though we don’t all have the same ones.
She’s just a Freshman. He’s a drop-out. She’s too intellectual. He’s a socialist. She’s an atheist. He’s a bigot. She’s missing teeth. He’s handicapped. She’s blonde. They’re Yankee fans.
So many ways to dismiss people as irrelevant. To cut them off. To close our minds when they start talking. To see them as somehow less than human.
Just recently I was involved in a big group discussion. I offered what I thought was a powerful point. The moderator waved me off with a few words, dismissed my point entirely, and I felt personally disrespected. I got over it and moved on. But it got me thinking about people who are regularly dissed, and how I sometimes do it myself, as hard as I try not to.
I feel awful when I spot my own prejudices, the ways I categorize people without intending to at all. And when they really start bugging me, I take those pre-judgments into my prayers and into my conversations with friends. Somehow, exposing them is the beginning of overcoming them. For me, it’s a journey of learning to respect beyond the lines, learning to see the way God sees.
This week many Christians around the world will be digging into the story from Mark’s Gospel where Jesus talks about the issue of divorce and then about how children are respected (or not) in his culture.
Take a look at this story: Mark 10:2-16 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2010:2-16&version=MSG
There’s so much to talk about as far as what divorce was like then as opposed to how it is now, and we’ll do that on Thursday night at Bread for your Journey, but I’ll just get us going a bit here… Jesus is talking about the kind of divorce that a husband could do simply by writing a letter of dismissal, leaving his ex-wife to fend for herself in a woman-unfriendly world. She’s dismissed, disrepected, and terribly alone. She’s damaged goods and will never live the label down… unless…
Unless someone breaks through old attitudes and prejudices and does something about it. Unless someone creates a new kind of community where the dissed can be re-respected. Even children, the most dissed of all, can be seen and held as people of worth we can learn from admire. Is that what Jesus was getting at?
How are you someone that is dissed sometimes and needs to be re-respected, re-connected, re-deemed? And what difference does it make that Jesus is working through us to restore respectful community? What needs to change inside of us for that to begin?
Let’s explore some more this Thursday night 7pm at the Crowne Plaza. And we’ll continue as well on here on the blog this weekend.
There are so many reasons for dissing people. Though we don’t all have the same ones.
She’s just a Freshman. He’s a drop-out. She’s too intellectual. He’s a socialist. She’s an atheist. He’s a bigot. She’s missing teeth. He’s handicapped. She’s blonde. They’re Yankee fans.
So many ways to dismiss people as irrelevant. To cut them off. To close our minds when they start talking. To see them as somehow less than human.
Just recently I was involved in a big group discussion. I offered what I thought was a powerful point. The moderator waved me off with a few words, dismissed my point entirely, and I felt personally disrespected. I got over it and moved on. But it got me thinking about people who are regularly dissed, and how I sometimes do it myself, as hard as I try not to.
I feel awful when I spot my own prejudices, the ways I categorize people without intending to at all. And when they really start bugging me, I take those pre-judgments into my prayers and into my conversations with friends. Somehow, exposing them is the beginning of overcoming them. For me, it’s a journey of learning to respect beyond the lines, learning to see the way God sees.
This week many Christians around the world will be digging into the story from Mark’s Gospel where Jesus talks about the issue of divorce and then about how children are respected (or not) in his culture.
Take a look at this story: Mark 10:2-16 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2010:2-16&version=MSG
There’s so much to talk about as far as what divorce was like then as opposed to how it is now, and we’ll do that on Thursday night at Bread for your Journey, but I’ll just get us going a bit here… Jesus is talking about the kind of divorce that a husband could do simply by writing a letter of dismissal, leaving his ex-wife to fend for herself in a woman-unfriendly world. She’s dismissed, disrepected, and terribly alone. She’s damaged goods and will never live the label down… unless…
Unless someone breaks through old attitudes and prejudices and does something about it. Unless someone creates a new kind of community where the dissed can be re-respected. Even children, the most dissed of all, can be seen and held as people of worth we can learn from admire. Is that what Jesus was getting at?
How are you someone that is dissed sometimes and needs to be re-respected, re-connected, re-deemed? And what difference does it make that Jesus is working through us to restore respectful community? What needs to change inside of us for that to begin?
Let’s explore some more this Thursday night 7pm at the Crowne Plaza. And we’ll continue as well on here on the blog this weekend.
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