fear of abandonment in the US Congress

To hear Brandi read this essay, click here: https://youtu.be/zj15FBXYuBQ

2020 was a year spent outside. Bike rides, dog walks, scooters, skateboards, hikes, and long runs. This week I ran the dog while the 2 younger kids rode their scooters. I paused while the dog did her business, and then jogged over to a trashcan to dispose of said business. I returned to find my youngest in tears. Big ones. “I was afraid you left-ed me.” I knelt down, held her close and promised to never leave her.

As 2021 begins, I’ve been thinking a lot about our fear of being left behind. I can’t help but notice how pervasive it is. We see teenagers suffer when we don’t let them go to parties. We see grades drop as learning is stunted. We watch grief simmer as we fail collectively to mark the impact of a life. We miss so many moments that seem important to our maturation: from seasons to travel to graduations to marriages to memorializing celebrations. We see colleges not attended, jobs not started, bills not paid and apartments lost.  

Every individual has a story about the moment they felt left behind in the last year. It is fruitful to name these losses and fears, but we must also consider how our fear of being left behind rips at the fabric of our communities. The fear of missing our moment, of being excluded, can be consuming. It isolates and diminishes us, but we can battle those feelings by placing ourselves in context. Our moments of isolation do not occur alone, but before a backdrop of communal isolation. Many of us are alone, disappointed, worried. Together.

When we don’t confront our fear of being left behind with intentional efforts to contextualize our experience with the similar (and worse) experiences of others, our fears create a tunnel vision that highlights our own needs, often leading us to take action that hurts others. For those in power, the fear of being left behind can destroy communities.

This week, our Congress will count and accept the votes of our Electoral College. I scoff when I think about naïve Brandi from 60 days ago, who thought elections are daily events, which rarely take a week or more to resolve. We are now painfully aware that American elections were designed to take forever to resolve. Many states legally receive ballots after Election Day. The pandemic prompted a few changes to existing law, approved of in advance by state judiciaries, legislative bodies and executive branches. Every state has laws that preserve the right of watchers to watch and then to complain, laws that trigger recounts, and laws that allow for judicial contestation. States bake in time for these processes to occur, certifying the election days or weeks later, followed by appointing electors, certifying the electoral college vote, and then presenting that vote to Congress. Such a time line exists in order to ensure we get this right.

This year, more than ever before, we had front row seats to watch each line of election law exposed, pushed and prodded. After multiple recounts were executed, affidavits recorded, 60ish lawsuits litigated, resolved or thrown out, accusations and threats tweeted, our electoral college—endorsed with the bipartisan confidence of election officials, governors, state legislatures, secretaries of state, and every court involved—has certified and presented the results. Our current president did not win reelection, and a new president has been chosen by the American people.

The process, divisive and hard—but ultimately fruitful in that it worked, and we had an excellent and just presidential election—will officially end this week when Congress votes to accept the will of the American people, expressed through the ballot box and presented representationally through the Electoral college.

Sort of.

As January 6th approaches, more congresspeople are announcing they will contest the results of the election. Their choices are, I believe, adult manifestations of my 5 year old’s fear: They don’t want to be left-ed behind. Rather than realizing they serve in a representative democracy, they seem intent to act only in their individual interest. Their fear of being left behind, of losing power and prominence, of being called out by their guy, exposed and found wanting, fuels them to act in a way that damages the communal fabric holding us together.

Their self-absorbed, short-sighted decision to reject the results agreed upon by every state and branch of government through due process could have dire consequences. When we let our fears of being left behind motivate our actions, we often hurt those around us.

As we wrestle with our own angst in facing 2021, one hopes we will see the way their fear is wreaking havoc on their communities as a cautionary tale. How are we interacting with our fear of being left behind, 10 months in to this pandemic? How are we handling our fatigue at being alone, with no stability for future prospects, unsure of what is coming next? Are we allowing our fear to isolate and depress us? Even worse, are we letting it guide us to make short-sighted decisions with potentially devastating consequences for those around us? Let’s hope we the people are braver and wiser than our elected representatives.

Our fear of being left behind does not lose power as we grow up. Feeling excluded, and seeing our prospects for inclusion diminished, hurts as kids and as adults. It is up to us to make sure our very real hurt and fear do not negatively impact the way we treat others. Do not let your own disappointment hurt your community; instead, strengthen your belonging by protecting the vulnerable and elevating the voices of others. Acknowledge your fear of being left behind, and then pay attention to so many others facing the same fears. Even when we are scared of what will happen next, we belong to each other, and will only thrive when we remember that truth.

rules of engagement: how do we talk to each other?

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, visit the Expand Your Us YouTube Channel, or click here: https://youtu.be/Z3n0moOzyqs

I begin every class of every semester with a discussion about class discussions. I tell my students I am obnoxiously committed to helping them fully participate in my course, and that I care about their full engagement more than most professors. I tell them, with alarming authenticity, that I believe the magic of the classroom offers a collaborative learning environment hard to duplicate elsewhere. I tell them, with vacillating sincerityJ, that I do not think I know more that they do. I promise to listen well, to learn from them, to be fully present every single time we meet together. Since I value it so highly, I think it only fair to first lead them in a moment of metacognition—where we think about the way we think—about discussion, about how discourse happens, about what we mean when we say we shared a conversation.

I think we find ourselves in a similar moment in our country. We are shifting gears, transitioning from one way of thinking and talking about others to another path forward. We have taken power away from one way to be in the world, and are investing in new habits, new practices. But the stakes are high. The political engagement is high. More people voted on November 3rd than ever before in the history of the USA. People care, deeply. And we are very divided. Even though Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won more votes than any American ticket has, Donald Trump and Mike Pence also won more votes than they ever have before. Our teams believe very different things about America, about American people, and about how we live together.

What now? How do we talk to each other? I admit, I have almost been thankful that we are re-entering smaller worlds as we stay safer at home. Upon reflection, I am nervous about talking with folks who think really differently than I do about who belongs here in our country. I’m embarrassed about it because I believe relentlessly in our ability to appreciate each other. My life’s work concerns how we might come together, reaching across lines of difference, expanding our us as we learn to claim each other as family. And yet, here I am, wondering what healing conversations might sound like.

What does good discussion require? What does communal meaning making demand of us? These are questions we have to ask ourselves if we want to be a part of the coming together that is hopefully upon us. 

In the spirit of new beginnings, here are some of the takeaways from my classroom discussions about classroom discussions.

1)   You must be present and engaged. We can’t talk to each other if we don’t talk to each other. Do you have friends you either avoid or avoid certain topics with? Do you think about a thing all day long, but then suppress it around certain people? As my friend David Dark says, the price of admission cannot be the suppression of my conscience, of my thinking and wondering about the world. There is a way of living now that suggests “staying out of it” is the better path, that apathy is holy somehow. I disagree. Show up. Mention things that worry or fascinate you. Be present.

2)   You must listen. In order to collaborate in the work of making meaning with others, we have to listen to them. Often, a student will have a thought, put her hand up, and stop listening to anyone around her until she gets the floor. This is a terrible way to discuss anything. Instead, we must do two things at one time. Listen, think, process, listen more, watch body language, look in people’ eyes, and contribute when you can. We have to be curious about what someone else might offer, how another’s thoughts could change our perspective. We have to be as invested in understanding their thoughts as we are in sharing our own.

3)   You must speak in context. Our ideas do not exist in vacuums, and they will not flourish in isolation. Many of us have a habit of repeating a thing, whether or not it is relevant to the conversation at hand. This is not helpful, but reduces any conversation to a series of one offs, where no one listens, and where communal meaning making becomes impossible. Good conversations require contextualization. Rather than drilling down on the point I hope to make, I need to listen to, understand, and then summarize and respond to another. When we do this, we share our ideas in a meaningful context. Allow an idea to interact with your experience by bringing it into the context of your life. Does it resonate? Does it not? Explain how it works or doesn’t work by sharing the ideas and experiences that form your own background. Make ideas personal. Not heated and loud, but contextualized by your own life.

4)   We must actively listen. Active listening is a tool my mom taught me. It requires me to listen, to restate and even refine her point in an effort to understand, and to build on her perspective. When we do this well, as I tell my students, we sometimes stumble into writing a beautiful paper aloud together. I contribute an idea, contextualizing it with my own experience, making it relevant to the discussion. Someone else complicates it in her retelling, adding more nuance or experience. A third soul expands the idea even further, bringing in challenge and a new perspective. Active listening communicates to others in the discussion that we find them valuable, that we find them worth listening to, that we appreciate their perspectives, even if they ultimately prove faulty.

I have participated in truly marvelous classroom moments, and they do not require everyone to start or end on the same page. These experiences give me hope that as a nation, we do not have to freeze in this moment of discord. We don’t have to stay here. If the last few years have taught us anything, I hope it is that Washington DC will not save us. Do not wait for Republicans and Democrats to respect or value each other. Don’t wait for salon-like moments on the Senate floor, where curious thinkers create solutions together. Instead, start small, and engage fully with those around you. Listen to them. Try to understand. Share your ideas, in context with theirs. Speak precisely, from your experience, and be aware of the fact that you belong to a larger group of people. Your family and your ideas are not islands. Share your whole self with those around you, and imagine a better way to belong.

grounding election day

To hear Brandi read this short essay, visit the Expand Your Us Youtube channel or click here: https://youtu.be/vFv-0w0LOIs

As the results of today’s American Presidential election impact our lives, some folks will feel jubilant. Others will be terrified. Some will hit their knees to pray. Some will grab their guns to do violence. Some will be thrilled to move on. Some will miss the energy and the fight. Some will huddle in their homes, scared of what is coming. Some will go out for drinks, celebrating their win.

All of us will continue to wonder who we are as a country, where we want to head as a nation, what we represent to a watching world. All of us will continue to get calls telling us that someone we love has COVID-19, that someone we care about is in the hospital, that a family we love has to isolate at home, losing income, education and moments that matter.

For today, as the anger and angst rise, reject that mess out of your own body. You need not be the repository for someone else’s hate or fear. Our bodies are hurting. We are suffering! COVID is killing people. Black lives do not matter to all in our country. Christianity means wildly different things to the people who follow Christ. Millions of Americans are on the brink of losing their business, their home, their educational foundation. The results of this election will devastate some lives and will protect others.

2020 keeps throwing punches, and we keep taking them. We need it to end. We need the climax to come so we can find the ground beneath our feet again. It is tempting to think this election is that climax. It is not. We are swept up in the flood of forces bigger than we are, and we can’t find our footing. The ground is there, dear friends; you only need remind yourself. Do what you can to bolster yourself, to protect your community, to remind yourself that your feet can feel the earth below you, and that your body has the air it needs.

Today, take a moment to ground your body and your soul. Close your eyes.

Breathe in, slowly. Hold your breath, thanking your Maker for lungs that expand.

Breathe out, pushing your toes into the earth, then lifting them to the sky as you rock back on your heels, thanking God for the balance always available to you.

Breathe in quiet, exhale all the noise.

Breathe in rest, exhale manic work.

Breathe in belonging, exhale divisive hate.

Breathe in hope, exhale fear.

Marvel at the fact that your body naturally and unconsciously breathes in and out, sustaining your life even when you forget to tell it to. Our bodies and spirits are battered, but we are not broken. The world is heavy, but still turning. As a praying person, I pray that we will remember that we belong to each other, that we share the ground that holds us up, the air that fills our lungs. Pull yourself back from the edge, check in on each other, breathe, and be.

See you on the other side…