Coming Together in Community

I heard a provocative piece of advice from Manu Aluli Meyer this past summer on a panel hosted by Hanahau‘oli School, exploring the relevance of progressive education in today’s current context. Aluli Meyer, an amazing elder and an indigenous epistemologist said, all chill-like over halfway into the panel: “Stop talking about the problems and get to know each other as people.”

Here’s the deal. I love talking about problems, the hard stuff. My husband, who has a sunny, outgoing, more-on-the-light-side disposition, has been known to whisper in my ear at a five-year-old’s birthday party as I’m mid-sentence, “Really, Melinda, the school-to-prison pipeline?” He’s leaned over to me and whispered, just as I was about to really bring home a most excellent point: “The gender wage gap as they’re cutting the cake?” It’s true. I just go there, soccer game sideline or not. I want people to lean into uncomfortable conversations – to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. To *talk hard* as I learned from watching Pump Up the Volume multiple times as a teenager.

I’ll warn you here. I thoroughly interrogated Aluli Meyer’s advice. I tried it on and self-reflected (which I’ll share a bit about below.) And ultimately rejected it! We must get to know each other as people AND talk about the problems. It’s not an either/or paradigm; I believe it’s both/and.

My reflection started with closely examining the essential question: How do we meaningfully connect with each other? My gut, my heart, and my mind went to compassion, curiosity, empathy. I went to love.

In his book All is Well, Dr. Albert Rossi advises his Eastern Orthodox readers, “Every human person is a mystery that must be learned slowly, reverently, with care and tenderness and pain, and is never learned completely.” Maybe love begins with this notion, the idea that we can never fully know someone and all of the very complex parts of how their identity and experiences shape them. We can love them though, through and through. We can get to know each other, a lifelong task.  

In this same book Dr. Rossi quotes a saint, Nocodemius, who speaks of each human as a “macrocosmos in a microcosmos.” This notion reminds me that we must keep trying to get to know each other, understanding that we’ll never totally succeed. Rossi invites readers to consider that if we try to get to know each other, we can be a healing presence for one another.

This past fall, within the span of a week, I had separate conversations with two parents who each admitted, coincidentally, that they thought of themselves as underachievers. It perplexed me, because I see them both as talented and successful. But each hinted at the grind of their work and expressed their doubts about whether their work was doing enough for the world. In their individual ways they both reflected upon what they wanted for their children, and remarked upon how quintessentially not special they were as adults. Yet, I have always been taken by each of their forms of specialness, their strengths and complexities, and the way they use their minds and hearts. I love being in the same room as each of them. But I think there is a societal and cultural tick that causes us to focus on our flaws, gaps, and deficits. Maybe I should have invited these two parents to see and subsequently build upon their strengths, discovering the depth and expansiveness of their inner macrocosmos. I’d like to call these parents and leave a voicemail. I’ll shout: “You are the macrocosmos!” I extend this message to all of us, myself included: Let’s ask, “Are we being a healing presence to ourselves? Can we see the beauty and complexity in ourselves and each other?”  

Whenever I make Greek food, my friend Billy always thanks me for going “Deep Med.” (Deep Mediterranean.) He’s catchy like that. I realize I have incorporated this verbal equation into my own vernacular. I recently read a New Yorker article and handed it to my husband, proclaiming it, “Deep Arc.” (Deep Architecture.) It was Alex Ross’s “Richard Neutra’s Architectural Vanishing Act,” a total nerd fest for architectural aficionados like my husband. The article delves into the history and work of mid-century architects and “frenemies” Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler. It’s rich in research and history about their relationship, architectural reform in the context of mish-mashy Los Angeles, the history of the housing project that existed before there was a Dodger Stadium, high beams, preferred hues, floor plans, landscape design, the intersection of psychology and architecture. Deep Arc indeed.

What blew me away was the closing line of the piece. To reiterate, Ross goes into great detail about mid-century modern architecture, down to the doorknobs. But the closing line (spoiler alert!) takes a drastic turn from the entire premise of the article. It concludes: “No house can be greater than the life that is lived inside it.” This macrocosmos message came out of nowhere! No matter what we’re talking about: art, architecture, politics…it’s our living and being human, the capacity of humans to connect in community, that is paramount.

Being told to stop talking about the “hard stuff” invited me to ask if maybe I’m conditioned to overly focus on it. On a deep societal level, in some ways we’re set up to root into competitive frameworks, into conflict, to hyper-focus on deficit and what’s not working. But what if we saw conflict – the hard stuff – as just one part of a bigger whole, but not the only focal point? I want to normalize talking about the hard stuff and be comfortable with not being comfortable. What if we had well-formed tools to communicate across differences? I invite us to look at what we are missing when we focus too much on conflict and not enough on connection. In community, are some of us undervaluing commonality, connection, harmony, and wonder? And are some of us hyperfocusing on what isn’t working, overvaluing the hard stuff? Re-balancing might be a key to greater equilibrium and inner peace: to be able to talk about the hard stuff we must also take seriously the pursuit of getting to know each other in community.  

In her poem “Honey Locust,” Mary Oliver wrote, “If the heart has devoted itself to love, there is not a single inch of emptiness. Gladness gleams all the way to the grave.” With the obstacles Omicron has served up these last months, and as we approach year three of this pandemic, we must strive for increased love and connection in our community. Especially now, we need to take in and take on Aluli Meyer’s advice. When we get to know each other, emptiness can be filled with richness, connection, and a currency of care. We can start small in our own school community. So…  

Ask me about Greek dancing and I will ask you about your relationship to dance. Ask me about my fear regarding karaoke and I will ask you about your small, funny fears. I have a collection of sadnesses and I want to know what you collect. I think we should be able to end sentences with prepositions. What do you think we should be able to do? I will ask you about what games you played in childhood, how you’re like your parents and how you’re definitely not. Ask me about a favorite teacher and tell me what your relationship to donuts is, which is very important information because if I had to choose one sweet for the rest of my life it would be donuts. What would you choose? Ask me about camping and I’ll ask you about how you access nature. Ask me how I’m doing and I’ll ask you how you’re doing and we’ll actually answer and not just say “good.” We’ll listen.  

We can also talk about the hard stuff: the rise in anti-Semitism and how it’s covered in the media, institutional racism, the impact the pandemic has had on women in the workforce, LA’s housing crisis, Critical Race Theory, Indigenous frameworks to approach the global warming crisis, how we are activists in our local communities, the ups and downs of parenting, and of course more. We can talk about these topics and get to know each other. We will experience the ways we are distinct and unique, how we are alike and how we aren’t. There is always more hard stuff – in society generally, and in our community on an interpersonal level. By getting to know each other, repair and forgiveness may be more at the ready when we need it.

Our Westland community can be fully present in seeking connection and fully present in unpeeling and leaning into differences. The arc of our story can be steady, harmonious, and rooted in respect and openness, even when there are rough patches.

Amanda Gorman’s beautiful “New Day’s Lyric” advises us: For wherever we come together/ We will forever overcome. Yes. A coming together and an overcoming. (Because there will always be conflict and strife to overcome.) We will come together, so that when we dig into the hard stuff, we won’t come apart. We will overcome, because our conversations, no matter the variety, will be rooted in curiosity, empathy, respect, love, and both/and. We can discuss the problems and get to know each other as people – heart to heart, mind to mind, macrocosmos to macrocosmos.