Two songs popped into my head today as I thought about what I wanted to share. Two totally different songs; the first is the rather sweet one best known from the Golden Girls TV show (Thank you for being a friend...), and the other a commonly quoted hip hop song from my high school days, Friends, by Whodini.
These two songs reflect the constant conflict in my head that shifts from an almost innocent appreciation and idealism and the other a harsher, less-trusting view of the world.
A friend from the US posted on Facebook today how it hurts so much when you realize that people who you thought were friends really weren't. I responded to her that it certainly does - I experienced the same halfway around the world and it's taken months to get over the bitterness of it.
This post isn't about bitterness, though. It's about blessings.
Last night, I gathered with a small group of people for dinner; some of my very best friends. We are a diverse group, 2 from Indonesia (different parts of the island of Java), 2 from Greece (1 from Athens, 1 from Sparta), 1 from Australia and 1 from the US. I could further label us into subgroups, but that's not my point; my point is that even though we have 1 thing in common, we're all educated progressively-thinking people, roughly the same age (with one exception), we have different opinions on many things; the gender identities of women and men, the institution of marriage, the role of art in culture - what IS culture, even - and many other things. The thing is that sticks out for me, however, is how we listened to each other with respect, good-natured laughter and love. We tried to understand each other's perspectives and we all, I'm sure, grew in the relatively short time we spent together.
On Facebook the other day, I posted a status of thanks. I have such a diverse group of friends; conservatives, liberals, traditionalists, people of faith, agnostics, progressives, geeks, party-people, world-travelers, people who've never left their home countries, and I could go on. The thing that I love about my friends is that we never shut the other out - we may have different ideas about politics, morality, what it means to be a _______ (fill in the blank), but we do so civilly. We do so, consciously or not, with the end in mind to grow intellectually and/or spiritually, and the beginning of that journey is respect, appreciation, and even love.
There's a saying from where I come as follows "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar". Why do some people not understand that it's so much easier to hear, comprehend and reflect on things said and not screamed? When I was younger, I used to love a good yelling match, but the fact is, they're not effective. Even if you're scaring somebody into compliance, it won't last. As soon as there's a way out, they're gone, so what good is anything if it's forced?
Maybe another reason I love my friends, even the ones with whom I disagree, is that if we know we get overheated about a certain topic, we tread lightly, but can still say what we believe. We don't try to change the other - we don't denigrate, judge and hate. We dialogue.
Dialogue. The world would be a different place with it, that's for sure.
With the group of friends last night, we had nothing resembling disagreements, but we regularly had different paths of understanding that had led us to our common beliefs. We weren't trying to change any minds - we were only sharing. And laughing. And listening. And loving.
That's the kind of world I want to live in. How about you?
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