conversing with the other
I grew up a narrow minded person. Either you agreed with me, and were right (right can mean either correct, or conservative here- back then those words were interchangeable to me), or you didn’t and only needed to be shown how wrong you were. As you probably can guess, this approach doesn’t go over well with people. I remember one friend in particular, I have no idea how that person continued our friendship, she was quite liberal (and still is) and I was convinced she was going straight to hell. We haven’t talked in a while (I didn’t tell her on facebook that I’m a far bit more progressive now than I was back then), but I still look back on that friendship with a fair bit of awe. It truly takes a great person to deal with someone so set in their ways as gracefully as she did.
At our cohort we’re discussing the Values and Practices set out by Emergent Village, the idea being that these are the (losely) binding princibles amongst those who would fall under the emergent tag. These values represent some beautiful ideas of our common interaction with the rest of humanity, but the fourth of these stands out to me far more than the other.
4. Commitment to One Another
In order to strengthen our shared faith and resolve, and in order to encourage and learn from one another in our diversity through respectful, sacred conversation, we value time and interaction with other friends who share this rule and its practices.
We identify ourselves as members of this growing, global, generative, and non-exclusive friendship.
We welcome others into this friendship as well.
We bring whatever resources we can to enrich this shared faith and resolve.
I’ve been dwelling on this for a while now, realizing that, at least from my perspective, this value is the true binding ingredient and defining value of emergence Christianity.
It also happens to be the very thing I struggle with the most.
It was an interesting revelation when I realized that I was indeed shutting out voices. You see, I thought that I had been doing a good job of listening to the other for a while. I find myself quite willing to be conversant with those that I had previously considered other to myelf, but after much thought, I realized that my definition of other had been off. While before I simply considered the other those outside of Christianity, there is certainly a degree of otherness within Christianity itself.
What really brought this home for me was a recent cohort meeting. I have the pleasure of partaking in a cohort full of quite diverse voices, in which we certainly have our more conservative members, as well as more progressive members (such as myself). While my first reaction is to push away the voices that come from where I was, I realized the need to listen to every voice. I liken this revalation to a symphony, while (this is personal opinion) Violins sound incredible by themselves, when added in with other strings the sound is only improved upon.
What does remaining conversant mean to me?
- A desire to understand the heart of the other.
- A desire to learn from the other, and to teach if the other desires to learn.
- Attempting find the common ground, and build a relationship from there.
- An understanding that we must live within the diversity.
- A willingness to open up your own ideas to the other without forcing those ideas onto the other.
What does conversant mean to you?
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