scribblechic

Here, where I so often safeguard my thoughts by documenting our days, there have been broad expanses of quiet in the gentle busyness of summer distractions. It has been a time of indulgent simplicity, but also one of complicated questioning as my thoughts perpetually snag on a memory from earlier this summer.

It is a day I have hesitated to sound out but cannot exclude for its relevance to our experiences.

One evening in June, my husband and I found ourselves caught in an uncomfortable conversation with acquaintances who were guests in our home. They spoke in narrow platitudes and their conviction challenged our tolerance. I was tempted to end the evening, to name their prejudice and sit in judgment of their words.

I might have called out the offense, but their children were playing happily upstairs. Their daughter has been a kind and generous, thoughtful, friend to our daughter as she settled into our new community. And so I hesitated, wondering:

Is it better to offer a safe space for different beliefs or the illusion of a controlled environment? Could I refuse our children their friendship or were they stronger for the questions their differences might inspire?

There was no easy answer and I bristled against the trespass with a self-righteous indignation. How could we allow our child to spend time under the influence of those whose beliefs contradict our own? How could we not?

What if the greatest gift we could give our children was the ability to acknowledge the good within others to better speak through our disagreements, respectfully, with empathy? To see and be seen in a world that feels mapped by lines of hate.

I returned to these thoughts, day after day, as news stories kept these questions present in my doubts. I began to wonder what might happen if instead of responding to hate with anger we paused in our speech to listen. What if the ugliness in our world is really an echo that might dissipate in silence?

Of course my optimism might be oversimplified, but the work of offering uncomfortable kindness in place of polite performances of tolerance has created a different expectation of self.

This week, as our daughter celebrated her twelfth birthday, we included the child whose family’s beliefs are so very different from our own. I listened as the small group engaged genuinely on topics that invited conflict, but were met with genuine acceptance and realized that our children are living a kinder truth.

In the noise of so much heartache,  our children (collectively) are offering empathy where others might close their heart to compassion, exercising kindness where adults so often struggle against anger. Extending patience when emotions are passionately challenged.

They are listening and learning from our hopes and fears more than any of our certainties; sounding out their own truths, choosing their own friends.