The fine art of mulling



Cinnamon, Clove, and Orange by Petr Kratochvil

I've not been posting to my blog regularly (which is obvious to anyone looking at the dates). As I age, I've come to embrace the fact that I'm a "muller." Much of the writing process happens in my head as I think over my ideas. I still need to engage in the physical act of writing (or typing, in my case) and revising, but there's often a stretch between the spark of idea and a first draft, or two draft versions, where the work is internal.

I suspect that if I forced myself to write everyday, I would train myself to move from internal mulling to mulling on the page; however, I'm happy at this moment to know this about myself. No matter how many weeks, months, or years pass by, my ideas take on flavor while simmering in my mind.

I've been mulling quite a bit lately about the recent, large-scale acts of violence in my country. On July 20th, James Holmes entered a crowded movie theater in Aurora, CO and opened fire. He killed 12 people and injured 58 others.  On August 5th, Wade Page entered a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, WI, shooting 9 people. 6 of those people died. After exchanging fire with police, Page shot and killed himself.

What can you say about such acts?  Are people like Holmes and Wade insane? Evil? Both? If insane, why is it that their alternate world is one of hate?  As I posted earlier this year in Sadness: update, pray is my default mode when I don't know what else to do. Is this enough, though? I can pray for comfort and peace for shooting victims, but doing so is much like turning off the water after the tub overflows. Even if it's an appropriate action, it's too late to prevent damage. So then, do I include in my prayers those struggling with rage and hate? (I have to admit, this is one action I tend to forget.) As powerful as prayer is, is it enough? What actions must we take, in our world, to shift lives from hate?

In his blog entry A Fertile Summer for Violence, (on the Huffington Post's Religion page), Brian D. McLaren gave me much to mull over the past few days. In his entry, he recalls the teachings of Guru Nanak (the founder of Sikhism), Jesus, and Paul (of New Testament letter-writing fame). All three religious leaders use the analogy of harvest to remind their followers that actions have consequences. McLaren extends the famous seed-sowing metaphor and asks, "What seeds have we been planting to produce this bloody harvest?" (2012).

McLaren is able to find one answer: building identity from the outside in. Instead of learning about ourselves to form a stand-alone identity, we take the short-cut of defining ourselves through exclusion. We come to know ourselves by how we differ from others:

Hostility is a great short-cut to building identity. If we know whom we hate, whom we fear, whom we resent, whom we consider inferior, whose wrongs we will never forget, we know -- or we feel we know -- who we are. Religious and political leaders routinely build identity this way. Even parents and grandparents do it, albeit unwittingly. Because it works. And fast. (2012)

Certainly, building identity through exclusion is a developmental phase each of us repeats as we move from infant- and toddler- to childhood, and a final time as we pass from adolescence into adulthood.  First the baby learns he or she is not simply an extension of mother. Later, primary school children begin to see differences in gender and often choose to play with members of their own gender. By the teen years, the focus is less on gender and more on age--are you young and with it, or old and clueless? (I'm sure anyone currently at this stage in life is snickering at my use of the phrase "with it.")

Is the problem, perhaps, that as humans we're fairly good at maturing physically and socially (and, okay, even emotionally), but not very good at maturing spiritually? It's spiritual maturity--a true understanding of our worth and place in the world, nurtured from the inside-out--that helps us complete the final leap from exclusion to inclusion.

When McLaren talks about hostility, he's looking at the origin of the word:

By hostility I mean opposition, the sense that the other is the enemy. Hostility makes one unwilling to be a host (the two words are historically related). The other must be turned away, kept at a distance as an unwanted outsider, not welcomed in hospitality as a guest or friend. (2012)

When we mature spiritually, we embrace our roles as host, whether it's by welcoming refugees and immigrants into our community (this is a topic worth a whole 'nother entry, as my city has struggled with this), or welcoming a not-so-liked neighbor into a conversation. We often use "welcome" to mean greeting with gladness, but it can also mean we greet with politeness.  We greet and acknowledge the similar, instead of shun and hate the different.



Listen to the hand by Bobby Jones Jones




This is not a quick fix; I'm not claiming that either Holmes or Wade would have forgone violence if only someone had been nicer to them. Rather, I'm reiterating McLean's point that "when you plant hostility in the field of identity, the seeds will grow. And you get shooters in Colorado, shooters in Wisconsin, shooters in [insert next site of violence here]" (2012).

What will I do with this knowledge? For one, I will take to heart McLaren's comment that parents teach identity through hostility without realizing it. I'm good at being a host and being welcoming on a large scale. My children go to school with many refugee and immigrant children. When they've focused on the differences, I've pulled them towards similarities. For example, when my-then-preschooler noted that the new boy in her class "talked funny," I told her he was from a country in Africa and that he would learn English in time. I then asked her how it would feel to be the only kid in her class who didn't speak the same way as everyone else. How would she feel?

Yes, I've had practice demonstrating hospitality and welcome over the years; however, the small ways I fail are insidious and erode my message of hospitality. When my 9 year old hears me complaining about some member of some committee on which I serve, I'm sowing one moldy seed.  When I complain, I mean I'm frustrated and (most likely) things are not going my way. What she hears, though, is a mini lesson in turning the other into The Other. He's not with me; he must be against me! It's not that I'm frustrated and fearful that I won't get my way, it's that he's Wrong and Irrational.  Or, how about the times I unwittingly foster sibling rivalry?* The "your sister does x, y, z, so why can't you?" times. I'm encouraging them to build their identity through hostility. 

Of course, I'm not perfect and I know I'll continue to slip into "us" versus "them" mentality. I'm certainly struggling with this as the United States moves closer to the general election this fall. It's scary to think that the Other Guy (with his Other Policies and Priorities) could win. I'm being very careful to avoid political discussions around the kids; not because I want to coddle them, but because I suspect they'd only hear the anger and fear and not the ideas behind the emotions. After mulling the recent shootings and McLaren's blog entry, I don't want to sow hostility. Awareness will be my focus moving forward. Awareness and prayer, but prayer rooted in the present, prayer for being aware of my own thoughts and actions, for being a welcoming host and not a sower of hostility. Please God, when, in my human weakness and spiritual immaturity, I slip, make me aware. Let me notice that moldy seed and pluck it from my--my children's, society's--field of identity.

Will you, reader, join me in this awareness?

Reference
McLaren, B. (2012, August 8). A Fertile Summer for Violence. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-d-mclaren/fertile-summer-for-violence_b_1753787.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false


*Check out Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish for tips on helping siblings build identity from within instead of through sibling rivalry. http://www.fabermazlish.com/index.php

While writing this entry, I had a certain song from the 1980s repeating in my mind. Perhaps it was in your mind, as well? http://youtu.be/zar_qHT9i_w