Longing For Connection & Bridging The Gap
There is a cry for fusion blazing throughout the nation. We are polarized. We are cruel. We tear each other apart, criticize difference, and scream our own opinions to drown out the noise of other ideas. Instead of celebrating the beautiful blend of experiences, cultures, faiths, and identities, we buy into a society that is designed to segregate us from one other.
We cross to the other side of the street in the name of safety. We avoid eye contact with the people experiencing homelessness for fear of looking directly into the eyes of our own selfishness. We clutch our purses a little closer to our bodies. We judge people who make more money than we do and scoff at those who make less. We invalidate, blame, and shame each other. We are impatient with English language learners. We work for companies who profit off of suffering.
Some of these things we may never say out loud. We may go through our day without saying a cruel thing to anyone and go to sleep feeling good about ourselves at night- but the things that go unsaid cut even deeper. From the silent judgments we make to the way we spend our time, we are cultivating a culture rooted in envy and inhumanity.
But behind all of the twisted and cruel things we think, say, and write about one another is a deep, fearful unease. We are terrified that we aren’t important or necessary. We have a sweet, desperate longing to be recognized and validated for our stories and experiences.
WE ARE LONGING FOR ONE ANOTHER.
There is a deeply flawed social system at play in today’s world that is constantly pitting us against one another. We are constantly encouraged to target people who are different than us — to pick who we support and who we don’t.
So often, we buy into the dialogue that our participation isn’t necessary in the fight for justice and that our problems are greater than the problems of “the other”. But the second that we don’t see our participation as necessary, we devalue the humanity of those around us. Progress will never be achieved until the unaffected choose to stand up for the affected. We need to go beyond finding common ground in order to ‘tolerate’ each other. Common ground is not enough to bridge the gaping void between us. We need to recognize and honor the fact that we are one.
we are one.
But how do we convince each other to care? How do we inspire people of all races, backgrounds, ethnicities, faiths, and identities to fight the good fight — to fight every fight in the name of justice?
Well, we can start by inspiring people to rejoice in the fact that we are one collective being of exceptional, unique, and important individuals. We can start by changing the systematic way we raise our children. We need men to raise daughters and women to raise sons to do more than respect and tolerate each other — teach them to choose, over and over again, to make deep connections to each other regardless of how they express their identities. It’s going to take individual, person-to-person, human-to-human relationships.
We can start by choosing to know someone. Choose to know someone who is different than you. Choose to care about them. Choose to love them. Communities and the people who populate them need allies who choose to step outside of themselves and enter into understanding to fight with them.
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO SEE OURSELVES IN THE EYES OF OUR HURTING BROTHERS AND SISTERS?
You’ve been raised how you were raised, you grew up where you grew up, and you have trauma, loss, grief and pain in a way that is uniquely yours. So how will you take your hurt and turn it into healing? Your life experiences will dictate how your ‘ah-ha’ moment hits you, and when, but there will undoubtedly be a moment where you’re going to be called forward to fight for people. So how are you going to abandon your biases and preconceptions to better love humanity? How are you going to show up to do the work to bridge the gap?
“tell me more.”
THAT IS HOW WE START TO BRIDGE THE GAP.
In the intricacies of shared stories, we can find touchpoints that reflect our own experiences. Sit with someone who is different than you, someone who you don’t know or don’t understand. You need to be willing to say, “Tell me more”.Don’t make it about you. It is not a debate or an argument. It’s not intellectual. You need to leave your brain behind and bring your heart to engage your emotion and spirit. It will be messy. It will be hard. It will be worth it.
In the moments of repulsion, where we are utterly disgusted by the hurtful words, criticisms, or biases– these are the moments where it is even more vital to seek to understand each other. Why are they sharing what they want to share? Where’s the human element of their story that I need to hear? Only within our plight and our struggle will we find connections between our separate truths because we can recognize ourselves in the collective stories of our life experiences. We need to sit in the hurt together so that we can better understand.
So, let’s talk about the misogyny, the racism, the homophobia, the sexual misconduct, the xenophobia, the discrimination, and the systematic failure of our nation. Let’s talk about parents being torn away from their kids at the border. Let’s talk about the targeting and violence against the LGBTQ+ community. Let’s talk about hate speech. Let’s talk about why children are afraid to go to school. Let’s talk about our trauma and our pain and our guilt and let’s show up to do the hard work, together.
BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT AN ISSUE.
WHO YOU ARE IS NOT AN ISSUE.
YOUR EXPERIENCES ARE NOT AN ISSUE.
YOUR EXPERIENCES CHANGE LIVES.
YOUR EXPERIENCES CHANGE YOUR ADVOCACY.
We all want to know that we matter and that our experiences are human. That this is who we are, and that we are more than something to be tolerated. We deserve to be celebrated and celebrated in community with one another. We are phenomenal people with stories to be shared and embraced.
Tell me your story, why you’re important, how you grew up and how that changed you, where you feel safe, how you express love, what makes you cry, who your first love was, how you dance when you’re listening to your favorite song, your grief, your hurt, your hopes, fears, and joys.
