Peace Hacks

Earlier this week, a Karen walked maskless into a Starbucks and was refused service by a barista, Lenin. She recorded the encounter and posted it on Facebook which has since gone viral. According to the barista, Karen cursed at everyone, called them “sheep” and walked coffeeless out the door.

Masks have been a tricky problem for us. At this point everyone knows that a cheap mask is unable to protect the wearer from COVID-19, but what’s escaped so many is that masks have been proven to reduce the spread. We don’t wear masks to protect ourselves, we wear them to protect others.

How is it that there are still people, in this second peak of COVID-19 that’s eclipsing the first one, who are operating with only a half-truth about masks, accusing anyone who doesn’t think like they do of being a mindless sheep.

It’s what we do. Armed with a partial story, unable to articulate the other world of facts and data that we’ve recused ourselves from, we forge ahead into the unknown, convinced that we’ve gotten things figured out. Our view is so righteous that there’s no need to step into the dark, evil realm of someone else’s point of view.

And because of America’s current media problem, it’s gotten way too easy for us to limit our diet to those who tell us what we want to hear. Granted, there’s not much lying, or “fake” news coming from these voices, just things that are spun enough to keep us coming back for more. So, when my favorite media outlet says a mask can’t protect me, that’s truth. When it leaves out the part about masks and protection, that’s spin.

Either way, we’re left wondering why, if masks can’t protect us, are people wearing masks? Lacking a fuller picture, we tell a story of “sheep” blindly following everyone else at the expense of our great nation. Ironically, the story that we embrace makes us right, our perspective righteous, and the people who don’t hold it, mindlessly forging ahead in a cause that doesn’t exist.

And so, on June 14th, as COVID-19 cases began to again spiral out of control, Karen wrote:

“If you think a cheap lil mask is going to protect you, you are not thinking clearly. stop judging people who don’t comply and start judging the ridiculousness of the useless requirement, if you think covid is going to kill you, your [sic] not thinking clearly, it’s the mal practice [sic] of a doctor that works at a bankrupt hospital desperate enough to kill you for $$$ that will.”

Wherever it is that Karen’s gotten her information from has failed to give her a fuller understanding, or at least a bit more of the other aspects of this current issue so she can make an informed decision. In the absence of a fuller story, she’s understandably chosen the mindless sheep narrative.

The same phenomenon is happening with America’s current race discussion. Black Americans are accusing whites of injustice, and groups like Black Lives Matter have some pretty harsh things to say about race in our country. The white world is divided on this; one side embracing the “Blacks in America have never had it so good” narrative, and an increasing number of whites, myself included, who’ve embraced an entirely different story, seeking to be allies.

So, if I kneel in support of BLM, or invite my friends on the other side of the story to operate with a bit more compassion, I’m a sheep; someone has convinced me to follow a large herd of people who’ve gotten things wrong and I’m too dumb to know the difference.

But I didn’t get my perspective from CNN, though I’ve been told numerous times that I have. I once lived fully in the other story, convinced that Blacks just need to be a bit more thankful, feeling like a victim when their protests turn violent and echoing the fearful statements that my white forbears have cried out everytime America takes a few steps away from racist expression. Then I married a person of color and moved to a popular urban area, crawling with liberals, and was introduced to the other side, a narrative that I didn’t know existed.

I’ve also spent the majority of my adult life as a conservative Christian, a southerner no less, and have lived fully submersed in the half stories that drive America’s current resistance to our next iteration of racial justice.

For me, changing stories was painful, but there’s too much evidence, data, and eyewitness accounts indicting my former understanding of things. I was compelled to change sides. My biggest complaint now is not that people need to think like I do, it’s that there are too many from the other side who can’t even articulate my version of things, much less understand why I think the way I do.

My friends on the other side constantly remind me that Blacks have nothing to complain about, that the injustices we’re addressing are merely the entitled rantings of people who’ve never had it so good. Karen herself reflected:

“…still black men are incarcerated more, however they are mostly young adolescent gang members engaged by criminal activity.”

Nope. But again, this is half of the story, i.e., that Blacks are incarcerated at higher rates than whites. Karen dismisses this with the culturally driven narrative that, yes, mass incarceration is real, but Blacks deserve it. To embrace this, the facts and data that very clearly tell us who’s incarcerated and why must be ignored. From there, we can tell a story of mindless sheep giving Black voices authority, God forbid, supporting them in a cause that doesn’t exist.

Crying “sheep!” is a dangerous game for our country. It adds fuel to the fire of our already raging division, refuses the painful albeit maturing process of sacrificing our deeply held beliefs for the sake of a deeper truth, and in the case of America’s race problem, a deeper healing for everyone on this rock. Most importantly, this pastime keeps us from seeing the white fluffy backside of our own crowd.

But I get it, labels make us feel good, like we’re on the right side of things, the smart, righteous ones.

But we have no business calling someone else a sheep until we’ve done the very difficult work of trying to understand why they think the way they do. Too many times we’ll let people from our own herd tell us why people from the other herd think the way they do instead of actually going to the other herd to get a fuller picture. But those people are evil, and if I’ve already gotten everything figured out, what purpose does it serve to talk to an idiot? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

I’d prefer not to be called a sheep. So would you. It’s a deeply insulting lable and, well, it hurts my feelings, inciting me to hurt back. I can’t tell you how powerful it would be for someone to sit me down and ask for my perspective, to listen to my side of the story, without challenge, to the point that they could accurately articulate my position and how I got there.

But again, that’s a painful proposition that the majority of us will reject.

For now, I continue to be labelled by people who got their understanding of my perspective from someone who doesn’t know me, or the painful story of how I came to see things as I do. It’s a product of the non-listening world that we find ourselves in. I’ll do my best to not fire back, with the exception of a few late night rants this week, and pray for forgiveness when I lose Jesus’ plot.

Sometime in his 60’s, my grandfather singlehandedly built a cinderblock wall on the western border of his property. It was beautiful, and 300 feet long. All of this after he pulled up the 300 feet of bamboo forest that stood in its place.

That brother was a machine. Hardest working man I’ve ever met.

He was in great physical condition, a guy who built his own chain of tire stores and was never afraid to get his hands dirty, or get a workout with the guys in the garage. As such, he was active and mobile until he passed, serving as a great reminder that some form of strenuous exercise will need to be a regular part of my life from now on. Without it, my 60’s won’t be nearly as active as I’d like them to be, 70’s will be significantly more restrictive, and 80’s will be a decade of comfy blankets and crossword puzzles.

So, over the past three years or so, I’ve tried to workout 4-5 times a week with weights, cardio, and a few exercises that require balance. But there are barriers: motivation, equipment, time, motivation, energy, motivation, etc. In my attempts to be a bit healthier, I’ve come to the conclusion that exercise, at least the way I do it, sucks, and there’s nothing worse than the 30 to 250 minutes between the time I realize I need to workout and the time I actually strap my feet in to the exercise bike.

I’ve learned a few tricks that help; best one is the fact that the first 5 minutes of a workout are crucial; that’s when your body warms up and the idea of continuing to workout doesn’t seem too awful. So, instead of committing to workout for 30 minutes, I commit to 5, and make my workout decision while I’m warming up.

Still, it doesn’t help. Thinking about working out today, on my 54th birthday, sucks.

But I have a new thought this morning, one that’s unique to older Americans hoping to make exercise a regular thing. Hang with me as I’m still fleshing this one out:

We work hard. Many of us are still raising kids and/or dealing with difficult relationships and overall doing our best to navigate the troubles of middle age. When it comes to emotional effort, we’re all building a 300 foot fence, constantly. It seems like there’s always something we have to deal with, always some trouble on the horizon to replace what’s currently in our lap.

When it comes to physical exertion, our lives are almost the exact opposite – our minds are constantly tasked while our physical being gets a hall pass. I don’t think our body/soul/whatever works well that way. There needs to be a balance between the emotional workouts and the physical ones.

So the pain, monotony, discomfort, discouragement etc. that comes part and parcel to working out is a good thing, much needed for people who spend too much time in the emotional gym. And that cold, lonely, awful feeling we get in that span of time before our workout begins isn’t something that we have to give much weight to. It goes away almost as soon as we begin, definitely RIP’d by the time our workout is over.

The emotional part of working out, i.e., the “gett your @ss off the couch” piece, is extra difficult for people who spend too much time emotionally working out. None of us should expect that part to get easier. We tax our minds too much and can’t expect them to get excited when we ask for more.

While I realize just as much as anyone else that 30 minutes of boredom and discomfort sounds like a miserable idea on this side of it, I’m coming to realize that a) it won’t kill me and b) I need it on multiple levels.

If you’re someone who loves your workouts; your 10 mile run, your 5-day-a-week trip to the crossfit gym, etc., good for you. I’m happy to hear that you’ve found a way to motivate yourself. I’d prefer to hear about it a little less, maybe not so many social media pics of shirtless you, but bravo.

Wish I could get there.

For the rest of us, I don’t think enjoying our workouts, or finding joy in exercise should be the goal, like we’re doing something wrong if 30 minutes of 143 BPM doesn’t feel like a party. The physical pain that comes with a good workout, and the drudgery of walking out the door for a morning run, though they feel like hell, are OK, normal, especially for the emotionally taxed.

All of this runs counter to the contemporaty American idea that pain is a bad thing, that something’s gone horribly wrong if we’re hurting, or bored. Our country was built by people who spent the brunt of their lives plowing fields without machinery, or crafting cities with little-to-no power tools. Boredom, drudgery, and physical exertion have been part of 99% of humanity’s existence.

Adding 30 minutes of it to my day isn’t going to kill me, and so far, though I still struggle to believe, has brought just as much to my life as the other painful/boring disciplines I’ve managed to embrace.

A friend recently challenged me to rethink American Christianity’s growing division over issues of race. “Shouldn’t the church be carving a way for unity in this arena?” she asked. As I have 0 answers here, her question has bothered me since.

Leaving aside the mountain of bad theology that drives division in the church, one of our biggest problems is that we’ve refused to listen to each other; I’m not listening to you, you’re not listening to me.

So, I’m wondering if you’d be up for joining me in an experiment.

I’m not sure many of you will be interested as this would require some work for all of us, but it has big potential to change the way we posture ourselves towards one another. If we pull this off, we probably won’t come out on the same page, but that’s not what’s currently ripping us apart.

Here’s my idea.

We’ll have somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 weekly Google hangouts at one hour each. Before we begin, I’ll write an essay defending what I believe to be your position on race in America, specifically on the topics of systemic racism, law enforcement, affirmative action, and the current protests.

I’ll ask you to do the same – to not merely outline my beliefs, but to write from the perspective of someone defending them. Don’t worry, this doesn’t need to be exhaustive, covering every single detail, or super lengthy. We’ll all agree on a word limit before we begin.

The ability to articulate and defend the opinions of others is an important aspect of truth finding, and crucial for a family of believers who more closeley adhere to the teachings of the Hatfields and McCoys. As such, though I appreciate the role of debate in Christian/human unity, that’s not the purpose of this project. There won’t be much room for arguing, prosyletizing, or attempting to wake each other up, though I do expect us to experience some good change.

Next, we’ll have our four week discussion where I listen as you critique my essay, filling me in on the pieces I’ve missed and helping me towards a deeper understanding of how you see all of this.

I’ll ask you to do the same for me.

At the end of four weeks, we’ll rewrite our essays and submit a final draft to one another. Again, we’ll most likely hold our previous positions, but if we read, interact, and understand to the point of defense, we might manage to put a few stitches in our current problem.

At the least, we’ll come off a bit more informed whenever we attempt to articulate how the “other side” is thinking.

You in?

I’m in.

Following are the details:

• • I learned in my last hangout that 6 is a magic number, so we’ll limit our class to 5 people + me.
  • Obviously, this works best with folks who lean more toward the conservative side of the political spectrum.
  • There will be 2 assignments: first, an initial essay attempting to defend my position/perspective on race in the areas mentioned above, as well as some time reflecting on my initial essay to you. Second, a final essay where you take what you’ve learned from me and add it to your first essay. I’ll write a final one to you as well.

If you’re interested, please sign up below.

Either way, thanx for taking the time to read through this.

Peace.