Princesses waiting to see us act?

Practicing gratitude, grace and curiosity in times of furious sadness

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I was struggling to find a photo for this post …. and then looked out the window this morning.

“How can these people possibly think that? Do that? Say that?”

How often do we ask ourselves some version of this question? Hopefully, it’s a silent thought, soon forgotten. More often, it lurks until hours later, surrounded by our tribe of similar thinkers, we drum up the nerve to say it aloud and are rewarded with a pat on the back for our brilliance.

For me, the past three years living with my 88-year-old has been a constant practice of living with and loving someone whose views are entirely different and usually infuriating. During this time, the pandemic also brought to light my brother’s conspiracy leanings, which ultimately resulted in the two of them being totally estranged and their differences unreconciliable when my dad passed away a couple of weeks ago.

Before I go any further, I want to welcome the flurry of new subscribers this week–it seems my Huffington Post story, “My Brother is a Conspiracy Theorist …” lives on and has been re-posted again (almost a full two years later!) on Smart News and Huff Post UK.

The importance of this is that it reminds me that so many of us, millions, are trying to reconcile our commitment to relationships–not just with our family and friends, but with our communities and our nation–while at the same time becoming more rigid and obstinate about being right.

My gift living the past three years with my dad has been coming back to the dinner table or the cribbage board, night after night, week after week, year after year, and each time trying to be a little better, a little less judgemental, and a little more curious.

• I’ve learned that insulting the person just before making an argument shuts down any chance you have to influence someone. For example, “Unlike you and your communist president …blah blah”)

• I learned to aspire, especially in my writing, to try to have a conversation versus flat-out trying to prove my point.

• I learned to recognize the power of hateful ideas fueled by fear and what it takes (from a LOT of failures) not to let their energy suck me down.

• I learned how to turn up the radio nobs labeled “patience, joy, gratitude” in my brain to drown out destructive thoughts.

• And I’ve learned never to be afraid to change my mind.

A few weeks before he passed away, we were playing cribbage, and, as he often does, he complained about the “damn liberal colleges shutting down free speech.” Then, as he often does, he went on to contradict himself by asking, “Could I believe that the damn liberal colleges allowed a pro-Palestine rally on campus?”

Right?! You can imagine how this conversation could have gone.

But instead of pointing out his contradictory thinking, fueled by just enough but not too much whiskey, we both softened and ended up having a really great conversation by recognizing common ground. It was going so well, in fact, that I asked if I could record it.

Warning: If you are triggered by political incorrectness, read no further.

Gramp: It’s like Seria and the other Arab states. Why are they so angry with each other? At least 50% of it is a religious thing.

Sue: So what if people stopped forcing their religion on other people? What if people could recognize that everyone has a choice …

G: As far as wars? Throughout the world? They have gone on forever.

S: And where’s that gotten us? It’s gotten us to a place where we are close to annihilating each other.

G: Catholics, Protestants, Jews against the Arabs, Arabs against the Buddhists, Buddhists against the Hindus, you can go on and on. I mean, it’s the history of the world. And there have been no solutions. You can’t just step up and say, “I’m gonna solve this problem.” It’s been going on for thousands of years.

S: But don’t you think people can evolve?

G: What?

S: Could we evolve?

G: Yeah, we could evolve. Religions haven’t evolved; they have just gotten more sectarian and more belligerent. You look around the world. Religions have caused almost all the wars in the world. Catholics, Protestants … Muslims against everybody.

S: It’s people fighting to be right for something that none of us knows is right.

G: Unfortunately, you do have these factions, but then you have these little radicals. I mean activists. And they start it all over again. I don’t know the history of Hamas and who is leading this, but there shouldn’t be a Hamas individual left in the world, and then you can deal with the other sects in Palestine. We’re not going to deal with radicals who sit there and lob shells into a town. What if you were sitting here, and someone was lobbing shells at you? What would you do about it?

S: So I’m curious about how you feel about that, being a non-religious person? You know, you’ve told me, “When I die, I go to dirt.” I don’t go to heaven. What I understand is you don’t really believe in the Christian religion. What I understand is you believe in Christian principles.

G: I don’t believe in the Christian religion, but I’m not going to go start a war over it.

S: So I’m curious, what do you think about all these people fighting these wars when none of us really know if we are right or wrong? It’s based on faith. We are killing people on stuff none of us can prove. You are a scientist what …

G: I’m a student of history. I love history. People have been doing the exact same thing for thousands of years. If we’re going to change things after a couple of thousand years, I’m not sure how you’re going to do that. I think we just have to accept that these local-scene wars are just going to happen. What we have to be concerned about is if they start a world war. The problem with Iran, for example, is what they are trying to avoid. Iran could start a world war. That’s what we have to worry about. It’s not going to be Hitler and Stalin; there’s going to devastation.

S: So, Gramp, you aren’t going to be here much longer; how do you think that plays out?

G: I’m going to leave it up to you guys. You need to elect more astute politicians cause we ain’t there now. I mean, the goddamn Democrats and Republicans are both trash. We need a leader. A real leader.

There’s more to this conversation if you care to listen further … including recognition that, if one were to consider indigenous perspectives, the last 2000 years is a mere blip in the history of humanity.

Gramp pontificating. Poor guy, surrounded by a bunch of “damn liberals.

It’s getting a little lonely around here. Thank you for joining me on this journey.