Living in an un-civil society
04/03/16 05:15
Three seemingly unrelated experiences in the last week have gotten me to thinking.
A little before 8 am yesterday, I took my car to the shop to have some repairs. I decided to wait for a few minutes for a diagnostic machine to be connected to the car so I had a sense of what the repairs would be before getting a ride back to the church. I wandered into the waiting area in the car dealership. I sat on a stool and checked my email on my phone. As I did so, I thought about how pleasant the room was. There were a couple of other customers chatting and looking at magazines. An employee came through and got a cup of coffee. I had plenty of peace to do my business. I later commented to Susan about how pleasant that room is when the television is turned off.
The second was a minor outburst at a church meeting. The way an issue was raised by one member of a committee offended another member of the committee. Tempers flared. A few harsh words were said. Then people calmed down and the meeting proceeded. Checking in with the involved persons the next day I know that it isn’t a major incident in the church’s life, just one of those things that I wish could have been handled a bit more smoothly. The incident took me by surprise, even with my experience in the church, I didn’t see it coming. It will not affect the running of the church and we will move on to more important business.
The third experience came yesterday afternoon. I was visiting in the hospital. The television in the room was on, but the patient lowered the volume during my visit. Still, I’m not used to watching television, so I found it a bit distracting as I listened to the patient and offered my prayers. It certainly was an everyday kind of experience. I didn’t think of it much at the time. On my way out of the hospital, I stopped by the emergency room to check on an unrelated item and passed through the emergency waiting area where there were two different televisions blasting with two different channels. I thought as I walked through the area that I would find it very difficult to have to wait in such an environment.
So you can probably see where I’m going with this blog already. Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m not a big fan of television and that I don’t invest much of my time watching it. There’s no surprise there.
As I walked to my car in the hospital parking lot, reflecting on the events and activities of the week, it occurred to me that there is a relationship between what we see in the media and the way we treat one another. Even though I don’t watch much television, it is hard to avoid. There are televisions is most waiting rooms in our city. Once quiet doctors’ offices are now invaded by television soundtracks. I still take a look at our local newspaper in the quiet of our kitchen, but most of my news comes from reading online versions of national and international newspapers, which often have clips from television embedded in the stories. It is obvious that the tone of the headlines is steeped in angry rhetoric.
The lead article on the Washington Post website this morning reports how last night’s Republican debate included “ferocious sparring and name-calling.” Other lines on the front page include: “Trump’s jabs negate any pivot to statesman mode.” “The more he talked, the worse he came across.” “Things turn awkward.” “A Texan who called Obama a gay prostitute.”
You know what I mean. Civil discourse seems to be a thing of the past in the public arena. People don’t think twice about hurling personal insults, attacking public figures with no respect for the office, name calling, and even boldface lies to tear down their opponents. And we are subjected to that tone of conversation with every trip to a place of routine business. There is even a television blaring in the pharmacy where we pick up our medicines. I could write an entire blog about the big screen televisions in every nursing home and assisted living facility in our community, and the inappropriate choices of programming that go on in those settings.
We have listened to so many insults and aggressive behaviors that we have come to accept them as normal and everyday. There are people who aren’t even surprised to hear that kind of talk in church meetings. I know that churches have politics. I’ve become somewhat at ease navigating those politics. But I refuse to accept the ways of the wider society as “business as usual.”
In the church we are called to be different from the society. In many ways we are a counter-cultural institution. The feelings of others matter. It is not acceptable to advance one’s cause by attacking another. We are called to practice hospitality in the midst of disagreement.
Having said that, I know that I have to cut the participants in the church meeting some slack. It isn’t all about the tone of politics on the television. People see things from different perspectives. The insult that was felt was not intended. Participants in the meeting have difficult lives. There were people in the meeting who have immediate family members struggling with terminal illnesses. There were others who have recently lost family members. Like all churches, we are a gathering of wounded people. We don’t expect perfection. We need to be practiced at forgiveness. In pursuit of that aim, I know that there are several people who I need to visit and to whom I need to listen before the next meeting of that particular committee. We are a church. We are in the business of forgiveness. We know that pain can be healed.
Still it wouldn’t hurt if we simply turned off the television sets more often.
A little before 8 am yesterday, I took my car to the shop to have some repairs. I decided to wait for a few minutes for a diagnostic machine to be connected to the car so I had a sense of what the repairs would be before getting a ride back to the church. I wandered into the waiting area in the car dealership. I sat on a stool and checked my email on my phone. As I did so, I thought about how pleasant the room was. There were a couple of other customers chatting and looking at magazines. An employee came through and got a cup of coffee. I had plenty of peace to do my business. I later commented to Susan about how pleasant that room is when the television is turned off.
The second was a minor outburst at a church meeting. The way an issue was raised by one member of a committee offended another member of the committee. Tempers flared. A few harsh words were said. Then people calmed down and the meeting proceeded. Checking in with the involved persons the next day I know that it isn’t a major incident in the church’s life, just one of those things that I wish could have been handled a bit more smoothly. The incident took me by surprise, even with my experience in the church, I didn’t see it coming. It will not affect the running of the church and we will move on to more important business.
The third experience came yesterday afternoon. I was visiting in the hospital. The television in the room was on, but the patient lowered the volume during my visit. Still, I’m not used to watching television, so I found it a bit distracting as I listened to the patient and offered my prayers. It certainly was an everyday kind of experience. I didn’t think of it much at the time. On my way out of the hospital, I stopped by the emergency room to check on an unrelated item and passed through the emergency waiting area where there were two different televisions blasting with two different channels. I thought as I walked through the area that I would find it very difficult to have to wait in such an environment.
So you can probably see where I’m going with this blog already. Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m not a big fan of television and that I don’t invest much of my time watching it. There’s no surprise there.
As I walked to my car in the hospital parking lot, reflecting on the events and activities of the week, it occurred to me that there is a relationship between what we see in the media and the way we treat one another. Even though I don’t watch much television, it is hard to avoid. There are televisions is most waiting rooms in our city. Once quiet doctors’ offices are now invaded by television soundtracks. I still take a look at our local newspaper in the quiet of our kitchen, but most of my news comes from reading online versions of national and international newspapers, which often have clips from television embedded in the stories. It is obvious that the tone of the headlines is steeped in angry rhetoric.
The lead article on the Washington Post website this morning reports how last night’s Republican debate included “ferocious sparring and name-calling.” Other lines on the front page include: “Trump’s jabs negate any pivot to statesman mode.” “The more he talked, the worse he came across.” “Things turn awkward.” “A Texan who called Obama a gay prostitute.”
You know what I mean. Civil discourse seems to be a thing of the past in the public arena. People don’t think twice about hurling personal insults, attacking public figures with no respect for the office, name calling, and even boldface lies to tear down their opponents. And we are subjected to that tone of conversation with every trip to a place of routine business. There is even a television blaring in the pharmacy where we pick up our medicines. I could write an entire blog about the big screen televisions in every nursing home and assisted living facility in our community, and the inappropriate choices of programming that go on in those settings.
We have listened to so many insults and aggressive behaviors that we have come to accept them as normal and everyday. There are people who aren’t even surprised to hear that kind of talk in church meetings. I know that churches have politics. I’ve become somewhat at ease navigating those politics. But I refuse to accept the ways of the wider society as “business as usual.”
In the church we are called to be different from the society. In many ways we are a counter-cultural institution. The feelings of others matter. It is not acceptable to advance one’s cause by attacking another. We are called to practice hospitality in the midst of disagreement.
Having said that, I know that I have to cut the participants in the church meeting some slack. It isn’t all about the tone of politics on the television. People see things from different perspectives. The insult that was felt was not intended. Participants in the meeting have difficult lives. There were people in the meeting who have immediate family members struggling with terminal illnesses. There were others who have recently lost family members. Like all churches, we are a gathering of wounded people. We don’t expect perfection. We need to be practiced at forgiveness. In pursuit of that aim, I know that there are several people who I need to visit and to whom I need to listen before the next meeting of that particular committee. We are a church. We are in the business of forgiveness. We know that pain can be healed.
Still it wouldn’t hurt if we simply turned off the television sets more often.