Chutzpah and humility
Friday morning, I was listening to a September 22, 2016 podcast of a conversation Krista Tippett, the host of the NPR program On Being was having entitled “The inner life of rebellion” with Parker Palmer whom I know as the author of A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life and Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation as well as the founder and Senior Partner of the Center for Courage and Renewal. The other guest was Courtney Martin, the author of six books including Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists and The New Better Off. She is also co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network.
As usual it is not my intention to insult Mr. Parker, MS. Martin, Ms. Tippett or the reader of this blog by repeating what is well said by all three of these eloquent and thoughtful individuals. If the reader is not familiar with these individuals or the program On Being, I strongly urge them to make their acquaintance. They will be richly rewarded by having their heart, mind and soul tickled and fed.
I do want to share a few comments about a couple of quotes from Mr. Palmer. He said:
“It is an act of rebellion to show up as someone trying to be whole-and would add-as someone who believes that there is a hidden wholeness beneath the evident brokenness of our world.”
He also says, “My last book is called Healing the Heart of Democracy, and in that book, I talk about the five habits of the heart. But when I give talks about it, I say if five is too many for you to hold onto you really only need two. You need chutzpah and humility…You need the chutzpah to know that you have a voice worth speaking and things worth saying, and you need the humility to know it’s vital to listen because you may not have it right at all or only a partial grasp on the truth. So I think it’s in holding these paradoxes that we start to sort things out.” He also talks about the necessity of recognizing that we must do this in community.
I spend a lot of time speaking my truth or listening to others speaking their truth. I am not talking about those words we speak when we have a goal in mind other than to be heard. Our goal may be to convince the other person that our truth is the only possible truth and their truth is absolutely wrong. Our goal may be to win a political election. Our goal may be to avoid our hurt, fear or other emotions by blaming or hurting the other person. No, none of those is what I am thinking of when I hear or read the words of Mr. Palmer.
If I say, for example, that I believe that it is safe to not react and set a goal of being a loving presence and my only goal is to put this possibility on the table then I am exercising chutzpah or courage to offer an opinion without having to convince others that my opinion is the only possible one or the only right one. If I say that I am a difficult time hearing you when you raise your voice and seem to be shouting I am not intending to suggest that you are wrong for raising your voice. I am merely attempting to speak my truth which is that I have a difficult time hearing you when you shout. It is not wrong or right for you to shout. If I say that I am having a difficult time ridding myself of all the layers of racism which I internalized growing up in this culture, I am not accusing anyone of making me racist. I am merely speaking my truth. If, however, my goal is to blame others so that I do not have to accept that consciously or unconsciously I came to accept some of these racist thoughts as my truth then my goal is not being heard or fostering a sense of community.
Humility in my mind takes courage or chutzpah. Humility requires that I accept the possibility that my truth is not the only truth; that my truth is not the “right” truth; that I am whole without having to be right and I can recognize and accept your wholeness even if our truths are very different.
When I am honest with myself a part of me cringes when someone says that my truth is wrong or bad or stupid or crazy. Often it is not enough that I have spoken my truth. I want or feel a need for the listener(s) to honor my truth as the truth. I feel a need/desire to be right. If I am right, then the other person needs to be wrong.
Earlier today I was responding to a letter to a person in prison who admitted to continuing to have thoughts or images in his mind of the sexual abuse of children. He desperately wants to not have these thoughts or these images. I was suggesting to him that a path to healing was to practice just noticing the thoughts and images without labeling them as good, bad, right, wrong, perverted, or sick. The goal, as Pema Chodron or other spiritual teachers might suggest is to just notice the thoughts or images without adding to the story by internally commenting on them. This approach might seem to be without merit or even contradictory if we want this person to not act on those thoughts or images. Yet, commenting on them feeds them and may make it more likely that they will become so powerful that one would be more likely to act on them.
Basically Mr. Palmer, Ms. Martin and other teachers are suggesting that we need to practice listening to our own truths as well as the truths of others without the need to assign the label of “the truth” to any of them. Only then can we live in community with each other and only when we live in community with each other and the universe(s) can we hope to do our part of opening the door (or even a window) of hope to a more loving and just world.
I am indebted to Mr. Palmer, Ms. Martin, Ms. Trippett and the host of angels via way of poems, songs, art, spoken and written word which they bring with them to these conversations.
Written September 23, 2016
Friday morning, I was listening to a September 22, 2016 podcast of a conversation Krista Tippett, the host of the NPR program On Being was having entitled “The inner life of rebellion” with Parker Palmer whom I know as the author of A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life and Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation as well as the founder and Senior Partner of the Center for Courage and Renewal. The other guest was Courtney Martin, the author of six books including Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists and The New Better Off. She is also co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network.
As usual it is not my intention to insult Mr. Parker, MS. Martin, Ms. Tippett or the reader of this blog by repeating what is well said by all three of these eloquent and thoughtful individuals. If the reader is not familiar with these individuals or the program On Being, I strongly urge them to make their acquaintance. They will be richly rewarded by having their heart, mind and soul tickled and fed.
I do want to share a few comments about a couple of quotes from Mr. Palmer. He said:
“It is an act of rebellion to show up as someone trying to be whole-and would add-as someone who believes that there is a hidden wholeness beneath the evident brokenness of our world.”
He also says, “My last book is called Healing the Heart of Democracy, and in that book, I talk about the five habits of the heart. But when I give talks about it, I say if five is too many for you to hold onto you really only need two. You need chutzpah and humility…You need the chutzpah to know that you have a voice worth speaking and things worth saying, and you need the humility to know it’s vital to listen because you may not have it right at all or only a partial grasp on the truth. So I think it’s in holding these paradoxes that we start to sort things out.” He also talks about the necessity of recognizing that we must do this in community.
I spend a lot of time speaking my truth or listening to others speaking their truth. I am not talking about those words we speak when we have a goal in mind other than to be heard. Our goal may be to convince the other person that our truth is the only possible truth and their truth is absolutely wrong. Our goal may be to win a political election. Our goal may be to avoid our hurt, fear or other emotions by blaming or hurting the other person. No, none of those is what I am thinking of when I hear or read the words of Mr. Palmer.
If I say, for example, that I believe that it is safe to not react and set a goal of being a loving presence and my only goal is to put this possibility on the table then I am exercising chutzpah or courage to offer an opinion without having to convince others that my opinion is the only possible one or the only right one. If I say that I am a difficult time hearing you when you raise your voice and seem to be shouting I am not intending to suggest that you are wrong for raising your voice. I am merely attempting to speak my truth which is that I have a difficult time hearing you when you shout. It is not wrong or right for you to shout. If I say that I am having a difficult time ridding myself of all the layers of racism which I internalized growing up in this culture, I am not accusing anyone of making me racist. I am merely speaking my truth. If, however, my goal is to blame others so that I do not have to accept that consciously or unconsciously I came to accept some of these racist thoughts as my truth then my goal is not being heard or fostering a sense of community.
Humility in my mind takes courage or chutzpah. Humility requires that I accept the possibility that my truth is not the only truth; that my truth is not the “right” truth; that I am whole without having to be right and I can recognize and accept your wholeness even if our truths are very different.
When I am honest with myself a part of me cringes when someone says that my truth is wrong or bad or stupid or crazy. Often it is not enough that I have spoken my truth. I want or feel a need for the listener(s) to honor my truth as the truth. I feel a need/desire to be right. If I am right, then the other person needs to be wrong.
Earlier today I was responding to a letter to a person in prison who admitted to continuing to have thoughts or images in his mind of the sexual abuse of children. He desperately wants to not have these thoughts or these images. I was suggesting to him that a path to healing was to practice just noticing the thoughts and images without labeling them as good, bad, right, wrong, perverted, or sick. The goal, as Pema Chodron or other spiritual teachers might suggest is to just notice the thoughts or images without adding to the story by internally commenting on them. This approach might seem to be without merit or even contradictory if we want this person to not act on those thoughts or images. Yet, commenting on them feeds them and may make it more likely that they will become so powerful that one would be more likely to act on them.
Basically Mr. Palmer, Ms. Martin and other teachers are suggesting that we need to practice listening to our own truths as well as the truths of others without the need to assign the label of “the truth” to any of them. Only then can we live in community with each other and only when we live in community with each other and the universe(s) can we hope to do our part of opening the door (or even a window) of hope to a more loving and just world.
I am indebted to Mr. Palmer, Ms. Martin, Ms. Trippett and the host of angels via way of poems, songs, art, spoken and written word which they bring with them to these conversations.
Written September 23, 2016
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