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How to Have Conversations about Polarizing Issues (with Humility & Compassion)

June 25, 2020 by michelle 8 Comments

I recently gave a presentation to leaders of trauma-informed organizations here in Phoenix. The topic was chosen by the group’s organizer: ‘How to Have Polarizing Conversations with Compassion.’ Being an election year, the topic was timely. Then came COVID, and people declared sides over trivial things. George Floyd’s life was taken. Then protests and riots and more lines in the sand.

Polarizing. Still a timely topic, and certainly not a new one.

Jesus lived during times when choosing a side, declaring right and wrong, being offended and defensive were full-time hobbies – much like today. Jesus’s ministry was one of healing, silencing storms, and engaging in conversation with people of different backgrounds, views, reputations, and beliefs. The omniscient God of the universe came into a broken world and talked with broken people of limited knowledge about polarizing issues, and He listened. He loved. He responded with compassion, free of passive aggressive remarks and condescending pontifications.

Jesus knew all the rights and wrongs, but His message of truth and grace wasn’t called the ‘right news’. It was called the Good News, a message that says grace is for everyone. Paul calls it the gospel of peace, and when I read the conversations Jesus had in the gospels, I can see why. Within every interaction Jesus had with people ‘on the other side’, it is impossible to overlook the distinct peace.

The distinction is this: Jesus didn’t have polarizing conversations, He had conversations about polarizing issues. He was met with fear, pride, and knowledge, and He extended patience, affection, and mercy. He never wavered.

Which means I must ask myself, as a Christ follower, do my actions, words, and behaviors reflect a gospel of peace and a God of compassion? Am I loving my neighbor as myself?

If not, I’ve missed the point of receiving God’s grace. I’ve forgotten I needed it and need it still. I’ve forgotten that others need it, too.

There are viewpoints I don’t agree with and beliefs I don’t support, but a person is connected to these various ways of seeing the world, and Jesus says to love people. In this polarized environment, within polarizing issues, Jesus says to love people because He loves people. Love without cost or obligation – the same love He gives me. My obedience to Christ is measured by my love for others.

Can I be honest? Sometimes, I don’t know what to do with this.

Paul defines obedience in a practical way: finding common ground with everyone. In the midst of different people, cultures, behaviors, thoughts, rules, and customs, Paul doesn’t get distracted by the differences. Instead, he focuses on finding common ground. Not for his own comfort, but for the good and benefit of others. He finds the biggest patch of sameness he can find and welcomes others to join him, so that maybe – if trust is built and safety is felt– the gospel can be shared. Paul knows the privilege of sharing happens on common ground.

The truth about common ground is, I will never, ever find it without humility. Humility reminds me I am not God and there is an order to things that my finite mind can’t imagine or comprehend – or keep. If I believe I’m smarter, wiser, less ignorant, more educated, justified, more important, better than, more right, the most right, or the most special person on earth, it will be impossible to find common ground with anyone else. Without humility, it is impossible to hold truth, extend grace, and respond with compassion. Without humility, it’s impossible to talk about anything that matters.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing 5 steps for having conversations about polarizing issues with humility and compassion. These steps may challenge you (they continue to challenge me), but I hope you’ll join me. It’s gonna be good.

Thanks for sharing:

I Will Love

May 31, 2020 by michelle 4 Comments

My high school was next to an orange grove in central Florida. The property was beautiful, with rolling green hills and an open courtyard where students gathered before school and between classes. The campus was brand new my freshman year, and although it was still unfinished on the scheduled first day of school, we started classes anyway. We spent the first couple weeks dodging wires, plastic sheeting, and construction workers.

Being new, our school had things the other high schools didn’t have, like a state of the art computer lab, an engineering class, and a home economics room with commercial-grade appliances. We talked about these things with students at the other high school, because people like to talk about new things that make them better than everyone else.

Our school was unique in another way we didn’t talk much about – we were a desegregated high school. The boundary lines for our school were all over the county, bussing us in from middle-class neighborhoods, neighborhoods where all the kids would most definitely attend cotillion, neighborhoods with a lake, and neighborhoods that weren’t called neighborhoods – everyone called them the projects.

Being the South, we were generally polite to each other, but honestly, we quickly and instinctively segregated ourselves. I could walk you through those hallways and show you where the various groups gathered – the Puerto Rican kids, the kids that spoke Spanish but were not Puerto Rican, the black kids, the rich white kids, and the not rich white kids. It seemed natural to find people of a familiar lens and understanding. The regrouping was a reflex more than a recoil of hatred, at least that was my experience. The bell would ring and the groups would shuffle and blend in classrooms – a diverse mix of kids all sharing space in the highlands of Florida.

During my senior year of high school, I was a white, pregnant teen. There was no group for me in the hallway. My friend lost her brother to Cystic Fibrosis that year. There was no group for her in the hallway. I had a friend without arms, and she wrote with her foot up on the desk, and believe me, when I was putting her sandwich between her toes at lunch, there was no group in that lunchroom for her.

In crisis or loss, when life is completely rearranged, we don’t need a group that looks just like us or thinks just like us – we just need a safe person. Someone who receives us. Someone who will listen. Someone who doesn’t have a hundred answers or a hundred questions. They don’t have to understand – and they probably won’t – but they are understanding. They admit life is a privilege, but living it in a human body is hard. (Let’s not forget, Jesus took on a body. It was part of the sacrifice.) Safe people appreciate the human condition is complex and unique, joyful and painful, sometimes full and other times lonely, and they find common ground with anyone – any skin color, any class, any belief or viewpoint or party.

Nostalgia prompted me to dig my high school yearbooks from the closet last week. All those late-nineties trends – my kids and I had a good laugh. Turning those pages, I was reminded I had many safe people. There was Dr. King, the guidance counselor with the messiest desk I’d ever seen, who reworked my schedule to maximize my year. There was the dean of students who saw the office ladies hassling me after a doctor’s appointment. He not only reprimanded them, he told me to come directly to him for anything office related for the rest of the year. There was Raymond and Sara, Ian and Alicia, and Jessica who drove me to and from school. There was my younger sister, Cara.

I did not find these safe people congregated in a group in the hallway – I found them all over the school. They were white, they were black, they spoke Spanish. They were older than me and younger than me. They were comfortable with themselves without thinking too much of themselves. Beyond my situation, they saw a person. They saw me, they accepted me, and it made all the difference in the person I have become. This is what I believe: acceptance is the most generous gift you can give a person.

The world doesn’t need more people who are willing to love others, if. The world needs more safe people who say, ‘I will love.’ For those of us following Christ, we don’t have the option to love – Christ loved us first. We can’t say we don’t understand acceptance – we gladly accepted grace and salvation. We must – and I’ll write more about this soon – let go of being right and let go of deciding wrong, because only then will we be safe people. We must love free of duplicity – mind, heart, body, and will.

Oh, friends. We are well aware of the human condition these days. We are seeing the destruction caused when the human will is motivated by unchecked shadows that go completely dark. We are a diverse mix sharing space on this planet. We must pray to God He’ll help us see people as people, because only then will we pursue the most good. For all people.

Thank you for reading, and as always, thank you for sharing. One More Truth is for everyone.

Thanks for sharing:

What would you choose if you had nothing to fear?

February 28, 2020 by michelle 10 Comments

I did something this morning I’ve been looking forward to doing all week – I took the Friday morning classes at my gym.

I haven’t been to the gym on Friday for two months, because work obligations took me other places. I spoke at a women’s prison and met women soon to be released. I represented my organization at the Phoenix Open, attended a planning workshop and a donor relations training. On two separate Fridays I sat in on a support group for moms with substance use disorder who are trying to get (and stay) clean. They meet in a back office of a methadone clinic and I come to introduce my organization and all the ways we can help and support them, but I usually finish what I have to say in a couple minutes. For the other two hours, I sit and listen. That’s my favorite part.

I love my job and the work I get to do. I love the people I meet. I love spending one Friday with nonprofit directors and another with convicted women or addicted women. I love all the things I do in between – writing grant proposals, training people in trauma-informed care, writing content to share and post, and delivering goodies to those who support our work. There’s never a dull week. Perfect for someone like me.

I love what I do, but the truth is, I don’t always feel qualified. And that’s a very real feeling.

At the Friday workshop, the morning icebreaker required each of the attendees to choose a magazine clipping that most resonated with them. I chose the picture of the woman eating an ice cream sundae in the pool. She wore bright red lipstick and large sunglasses, and her head was tilted back in carefree confidence. When it was my turn to explain why I chose the picture I did, I shared that I’ve recently adopted the question, ‘Michelle, what would you choose if you had nothing to fear?’ Some days, especially on a Friday, the best answer to that question is, ‘I’d eat ice cream in the pool.’

There are much bigger fears, of course, and there are variations of the question: ‘What would you choose if you were guaranteed _________? What would you do if you couldn’t fail? What would you try if hesitation didn’t have the first say? ’ These are good questions, the kind that drain confusion from a moment of indecision, so all that’s left is a pile of fears and one crystal clear desire.

‘I’d raise this baby as a single mom.’

‘I’d move across the country.’

‘I’d start a blog and put myself out there.’

‘I’d follow the passion, live in my natural design, and trust the Designer to fill in the gaps.’

One very good question draws out all sorts of answers.

The only question to ask next is, ‘So you gonna do it?’

My word for 2020 is free. (Yes, I have a word for the year, and yes, I feel basic.) I’ve been reflecting on, digesting, and applying truth for five years, and freedom follows truth. I know this well. I love freedom – a whole lot, in fact – but I respect the fact that freedom is not without fear. Freedom is wide open, untucked, uncovered, and usually, a little chilly. I’ve stepped into it before and stopped dead. I had to recalibrate, had to get my bearings. Where was I and where was I going? I’ve asked those questions in freedom – because I’m a normal human being.

A sense of freedom, ironically, comes with a sense of lost – ask Paul. Freedom comes with a sense of weakness – ask Gideon. Freedom comes with a sense of doubt – ask Peter. Freedom comes with an overwhelming awareness of underqualification – ask Moses. Freedom will put you face to face with your mortality – ask Esther.

His permission to live freely is essentially an invitation to step into places where I don’t feel qualified. Why? Because freedom activates the faith relationship. In faith, I create space to depend on Christ more, and in His faithfulness, He meets me there with all the strength, wisdom, power, and grace to finish the work. And then the best part – we celebrate together.

So, I’ll leave you with a challenge: What would you choose if you had nothing to fear? What would freedom invite you to do, try, risk, or believe?

Don’t expect the answer or the action to come easy. Fear is quickly learned and the unlearning process is incredibly slow. I know this well, too.

What would I choose if I had nothing to fear? Maybe ice cream. But mostly, I’d trust Jesus more.

Thanks for sharing:

Shooting Stars and the ‘Just Because’ Wonders of Jesus

October 24, 2019 by michelle 6 Comments

Fall is slow in finding its way to the desert. It shows up one morning on a thermometer that reads in the 60’s, leaves by mid-morning when the sun scorches car interiors and skin, then returns with a bedtime breeze. No colors and no leaves, but after surviving months of three-digit temps, I’ll take it.

When I saw autumn on the thermometer a few Saturdays ago, I carried my coffee outside and watched the sky brighten. The open sky has an effect on me. I see stars, or the sun, or the horizon for miles, and prayer is my Pavlovian response. I have a theory about this response, that it’s biologically wired through the vagus nerve, a long and complex nerve that connects the brain to the body. The vagus nerve begins in the roof of the mouth, flows down the length of the torso, stretches little fingers along the vital organs, and ends in the gut. Relax the tongue from the roof of the mouth and you’ve relaxed the sensory nerve associated with performance jitters and common anxiety. My mouth naturally opens when I look up, relaxing the vagus nerve, and the signal between brain and heart – my gut instinct – is prayer. God’s creative design is the coolest.

I talk to God all day long, but truth be told, I don’t always listen for what He has to say. I typically go from activity to activity with my prayers, drifting into different lanes of thought or remembering something I’m supposed to do, abandoning prayer altogether. Sometimes I pray a list of things while I’m driving, ending when I arrive, never once getting quiet with the Lord. The vagus nerve was named for the Latin word ‘wandering’. Appropriate description of my prayer life.

While watching the sun rise that Saturday morning, I jumped into praying a few days’ worth of stuff. God said, ‘Whoa, Michelle. One at a time.’ I knew it was His idea because one at a time is a God practice. My ideas run fast and tangled, and seventeen at a time is my ineffective approach. I liked His idea better.

I prayed one request, pausing to ask God what He thought of the matter, allowing Him to cool my confusion, hurt, or need. I’d forgotten how reflective prayer feels like rest and I shifted easily into the slower pace. It was so peaceful, I committed the next two weeks to morning prayer, first thing – no phone, no Bible, no exercise, just me and Jesus. And coffee. Sorry, I’m basic.

Two weeks under the stars of early morning required some adjustments, but not many. I hadn’t laid under the stars as if there was nothing else to do for years and I awoke ready for prayer and the quiet rustle of palm trees. The moon filled and then emptied, carrying me a week past my two week challenge. My challenge has become a practice. It’s too good to quit.

I’d prayed for one thing at the beginning of the prayer challenge – to see a shooting star. I’ve seen at least six so far. It wasn’t a prayer with utility or importance, just a prayer to witness the wonder and smile. I can’t explain why God would grant my request with such extravagance, other than to reflect His generous nature. He’s reminding me that as much as I need prayer time with Him, He delights in time with me. He wants my prayers, and I’m glad, because I have a lot of them.

The first recorded miracle of Jesus happened at a wedding celebration. The wine ran out – an embarrassment, yes, but certainly not the end of the world – and Mary told her son about it in such a way, He understood she was asking for a miracle. Mary had never seen Jesus perform a miracle, but she’d experienced the miracle of having Him drop into her womb in the most perplexing fashion. She’d witnessed the miracle of watching her son grow in distinction, beyond human limits, yet fully attune to the cry of humanity. She believed the God who had sent her a son had indeed sent His own Son, and as He grew, her faith grew with Him, moving from head to heart to lifestyle.

Jesus answered his mother’s request with, ‘It’s not my time.’ He could have left it at that. But Mary’s response to the wedding workers, ‘Do whatever He tells you,’ communicates wild faith. She believed Jesus was capable of every impossibility and she boldly and humbly trusted He would act – not because He had to, but because He loved her, because He cared, because He’s the giver of all good things. Just because.

Jesus looked at his mom, felt her faith, and knew – His time had come early. He turns water into wine that night. I like to imagine Jesus smiling to Himself, thinking, ‘She’s going to be so tickled about this.’ I don’t doubt He delighted in watching Mary taste the goodness and look His way, completely overwhelmed by the miracle, completely thankful she’d been there to ask, and by doing so, experience the wonder.

Stars streak the sky all the time; I only notice them when I’m watching. So I’m making space in my life to sit under the sky and look up. Prayers are answered all the time, but how often do I notice? I’m making space in my heart for bigger faith, the kind that asks for simple joy as well as the kind that releases those deep-down gut prayers. And when I’m too tired to talk or make sense of my own thoughts, I don’t say anything. I just watch for His wonder.

Every once in awhile, one of my kind readers asks, ‘Is it ok that I shared your post?’ For heaven’s sake, YES!! Yes you can! Any time, my friends. And thank you!

Thanks for sharing:

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