My friend,
You might not feel the friendship, though I hope you do.
I know you expected me to be on page with you when you put me on an email list of acquaintances a few years ago. The people on that list were probably much closer to you in their politics, and I can see why you expected me to be one of them. I’m sure they all were on board with the opinions expressed and I’m sure at first you thought I would be too.
And I stand with you, for if you cannot hear these words of mine, then I have not done all I am responsible to do.
You’re intelligent, well educated, a professional with impeccable hip, progressive credentials (yes, conformity to standards is a sin qua non of any group). You saw that I fit some of the boxes and you thought that I would of course embrace the creed of that group.
It’s true that I see myself as a part of that group. I value each of these markers, intelligence and education certainly. Hipness is something I value, too, if it means freshness and friendliness, openness and creativity, and the willingness to take a big chance when that’s what’s needed.
And being progressive, if it means I don’t believe the past has all the answers. It doesn’t. What is the future for if not getting better?
I guess my difference is that I have come to see intelligence in places where I didn’t look for it, the deep intelligence required to do everyday things well, the everyday things you and I depend on every day, often without thinking. I don’t see intelligence as the exclusive property of a certain class.
I guess I no longer believe that being well-educated means having a degree from a very expensive university. I know what educated fools look like and feel like, because I know I was one. Without vigilance, I would be one.
I thank my teachers and the Godly teachings they live and represent for helping me see better. One of the main things I came to see clearly through their challenge was that we can make an idol out of the intellect. It all depends on our choice of where to turn our minds.
I enjoy my own thoughts as much as you do yours, my friend. If I am thinking them, it is because I think they are true. If I see they are not, I will think other thoughts, just as you would.
Unlike you, my friend, I have not been stuck in one political box all my life. My father taught me to respect free inquiry into ideas. I took him seriously and battled his Nixon conservatism fiercely and nastily. It took some time to realize what a gift he offered me and the responsibility I assumed in accepting that gift. He offered probably knowing in some way that the full value of that gift might not be acknowledged in his lifetime. He gave it any way.
I took simple years to begin to see that every fault I see in others has some reference point in my own soul. I don’t mean anything silly like that. I am critical of bad things and don’t believe myself guilty in kind just for seeing the bad and pointing it out.
For you and I both value righteousness and are willing to fight for it. You fight me now with all the passion of a heretic hunter, aggrieved and, as you write, resentful that I have gone over to the Other Side. I am just as tempted to do the same.
But I have had models of modesty to learn from, who realized that it is easy to slip into self-righteousness without realizing it. They gave me examples of the kind of deep humility necessary to avoid that grievous pitfall.
I am glad you are dedicated to a higher good. I am glad you are passionate about what you believe is right. It is only reasonable and good that you want to share and preach that right to others.
But as anyone who tries to preach or proselytize knows, you can only win people over meaningfully if you see and know who they are. If your message does not know the core of their souls, you are probably missing who they are. You are not seeing how the struggle for righteousness is going on in their soul, and you hinder rather than help those you preach to in their progress.
I think you are aligned with a lot of people who do the same thing and so have had little feedback on just how poorly your methods achieve their goal. You have stopped conversing. There is no dialogue, save the pretend dialogue you carry on with the caricature of your own devise that you may even honestly think is me, or the other people like me.
I know of a righteous teacher trusted by thousands with the secrets of their own inner struggles. He was being seen all day long by people eager for some of his time, and anxious to use the insights he gave them to open their souls and bring more light into their lives. Suddenly, the teacher instructed his aide to tell those waiting to see him that he would see no one else. He gave no time when he would resume.
Eventually, after more than a day, he did resume and things were as before. But his aide was curious and asked him why he had stopped.
The teacher replied: Whenever people come before me with a problem, I always begin by locating where that same problem is in my own soul. They may complain of being far from God — I find where I am farther away than I want to be as well. So it is with any shortcoming or failure — I find the similar thing in my soul, in its terms and then I can come to be with that person as one person with one heart and mind, together to become better.
But yesterday, when a man was before me, I could only see the ugliness of his failure. I saw nothing at all related to it in my own soul. At that moment, I know I could not help him or anyone else. And so I stopped until I could again find my bearings and go to the place where I am together with my fellow.
My friend, I have slipped that way myself more than once. I have pontificated beyond the reach of my humility. I drove people away from the righteousness I wanted them to know. I hadn’t gone deep enough in myself nor wrestled sufficiently with my own lacking in order to be known as a loving comrade, engaged as an ally in the same battle. No wonder I wasn’t heard.
I wish you would speak words that would enter the heart and share what you have to give, for God has given each soul something no other soul has. But the key to getting across is not the superior credentials by which you differ from the others, but the soul core in which you know that we all are but the smallest reflection of the divine wisdom that sustains the coherence of our universe and our own lives every second. Only from that vantage can we see how what we know and who the other is intersect.
American democracy is alive again in the most basic way. The people who do not share your external credentials know well enough their souls — at least, they know them better than those who think themselves their betters. They do not want preaching or being talked down to. They will not defer to hollow credentials or accept uncritically what you hand them, any more than you offer that to them.
I stand with them. And I stand with you, for if you cannot hear these words of mine, then I have not done all I am responsible to do.
Politics is not enough. We must touch the core of our souls, the ‘I’ that alone integrates our lives into coherence and meaningfulness. That calls for reflection and humility before the words come. I’ll return to that reflection now remaining in that intention and in that contemplation.
Sincerely,
Your friend,
Shmuel
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