“I have this great memory of working with your son at a youth retreat. We had a small group of young people who were misbehaving and they had become the main topic at one of our staff meetings. Numerous staff members were referring to these youth as the ‘bad kids’ and at one point your son spoke up and said, ‘How about we not call some of the participants bad and others good? How about we see them all as good and a few are making not the greatest choices?’”
I was actually in that staff meeting when my son made that suggestion. I remember feeling both proud as a parent and also impressed with his gentle yet important reminder about how we view others.
In our present reality there is a lot of framing in a good – bad paradigm. And, it’s important to note in many instances there is not consensus on who fits into which box. Republican – Democrat, Israel – Palestine, Tech companies – Congress. Notice that I used ‘who’ is good and ‘who’ is bad. I intentionally did so because the framing of good and bad is most often done in a personal manner rather than a particular perspective or action.
Imagine if we all refrained from viewing some of us as good and others as bad and solely focused on the idea or the action. What if we did not start from the place of diminishing, discrediting and demonizing the person but rather listened and observed their words and actions, and reserved our opinions for those only?
One of my favorite quotes by theologian Richard Rohr is, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same.” In my experience when we approach others as bad we have already succumbed to a negative place. On the other hand if we start from a place of believing that the person, just like you and me, is created in the image of God and as such is inherently good, then we can distinguish between the person and the action.
One of the things that impresses me most about the stories of Jesus of Nazareth is how he interacted with others. Even those that most considered the ‘bad’, for example tax collectors and prostitutes – Jesus clearly did not denounce their personhood. Rather, he embraced who they were as children of God – and – invited them into a new way of being.
As a wise elder once shared with me, “The container is good and holy…just sometimes we put less than good and holy things in the container that inevitably spill out on others.” Grateful for my son’s reminder.
BP