Being misunderstood.
I wrote a reflection on July 3rd that I intended to publish on July 4th, and didn’t. At least, not in the normal way. I usually schedule posts to hit Facebook automatically at 6:00 am Mountain Time, but after writing the post, I decided not to publish it, because I figured it would offend someone, or at least be misunderstood and create discord when my hope is to promote peace.
It was late in the evening when I finished the post and my sweet wife, Holly, was already asleep so I couldn’t ask her advice about it. So I didn’t post it until the middle of the day on Wednesday when she had read it, and encouraged me to post it.
I trust Holly’s opinion, and so the reflection went up. It seemed to be well received, until later in the evening when one person reacted in the way that I was afraid of.
After reading the post (hopefully the whole way through at least) a woman seemed to take offence at my thoughts, and immediately seemed to extrapolate a whole myriad of my opinions from it.
I’m not going to assume what they were; I would rather give her the courtesy of not assuming the worst of her. Apparently the opinions she assigned to me were in contradiction to her own, and her considered solution to the problem of our perceived disagreement was precisely the kind of reaction that I expected, but hoped we could rise above.
For the crime of having an opinion different to hers, I should leave the country and as she put it “go be not proud somewhere else”.
That’s her solution. I should leave.
Rather than engage me in a dialogue to find a deeper understanding of my opinion, try to find common ground, and start a conversation that might lead both of us to a greater respect of our differences (which I suspect are largely conceptual rather than material), her solution was my banishment.
If she had bothered to engage me in a dialogue, she might have discovered that our opinions probably have much more in common than she seems to believe. She would have found that I am profoundly grateful to live in the United States of America.
She could have come to understand my respect for the military of this country; a military without whom I would either never have existed or grown up speaking German.
I feel a profound debt of gratitude to the men and women of this country who died defending a country that was not their own, and likewise my respect and gratitude extends to those who serve today, including her daughter.
She might have even learned of how humble I feel writing and publishing these thoughts in the shadow of the great minds whose rebellion and subsequent creation of a system of government preserved the very foundations of free speech that enable me to write without fear of reprisal from a totalitarian government that would curtail my liberty, freedoms and even my life.
But none of this occurred, because we seem to have differing conceptual understandings of the idea of pride, and that was enough to warrant my departure.
If we are to survive as a nation, I feel we need to be better than this.
We need to talk with those with whom we disagree, and find a common ground. Maybe we could make sure that we understand someone’s point of view, even better than our own, before we engage in a comment or a behavior that demeans or disavows their rights, and we really need to take a look at the blackness in our soul that drives us to fight with those whose only crime is to think differently.
If we are going to hold true to the values that ‘being an American’ suggests, then I believe we need to be willing to talk and listen before we assume and assign judgment.
I can’t think of anything that is a greater testament to the legacy of America than that.
(Out of respect to the lady who wrote the comment, I have hidden it from view)
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings