I have this friend.
She thinks a little different than me.
She is, in fact, a reader of this blog. I so appreciate her opinion!
But news flash: her opinion is often different than mine.
Many a time my friend and I have met at the local coffee shop. We have talked and bantered and chilled and sometimes conversed for hours. Sometimes we’ve just laughed. We’ve intentionally avoided no issue. And never have we said, “Ok, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree,” because never has there been an issue we couldn’t talk about.
Do we always feel the same?
Of course not.
But on those issues when she’s felt one way and I’ve felt another, we’ve had the guts and integrity and courage and sincerity to say “tell me why you feel that way.”
And then we do this outrageous thing: we listen.
Follow me here… One of my teenage sons often attempts to tell me he’s actually, truly listening. “I’m listening! I hear you.” To which I typically, semi-humbly retort, “To listen does not mean to simply hear. To listen means to both hear and consider.”
My coffee shop friend and I both hear and consider.
The challenge in the way our political system has evolved is that far too many people are discouraging the coffee shop.
And even more discouraging is that the people most discouraging of the coffee shop are not people like my friend and me… it’s not our families nor extended families… it’s not even our friends and social circles.
The persons who most discourage the coffee shop conversation?
The candidates themselves.
The candidates encourage division. The candidates have something to gain from division. Yes, you heard me correctly. The current President of the United States and his primary challenger are intentionally attempting to divide us. The more they can distinguish their differences and separate themselves from their opponent — the more likely they believe we are to vote for them. And so they must vehemently frown upon coffee shop meetings.
You see the purpose of the coffee shop is to dispel impure notions and intentionally work at understanding different opinion. Allow me to share a brief example…
On Thursday, last week Hollywood actress, Eva Longoria, tweeted to the world that she has “no idea why any woman/minority can vote for Romney. You have to be stupid to vote for such a racist/misogynistic.”
Now let the record show that even though many are passionate in their opinion, there are no facts nor a majority of opinion that prove either Gov. Romney or Pres. Obama are racist or yada yada yada [insert disrespectful name here]. Hence, Ms. Longoria’s opinion is exactly that: her opinion. To say she has “no idea” how someone could possess an opinion different than hers tells me one primary thing…
Ms. Longoria has never spent time in the coffee shop.
How impure and disturbing it is that our candidates discourage what is good; they discourage what is good for their own, self-serving benefit. That is foolish.
With less than 3 weeks until this country takes its next national vote, allow me to encourage what our so-called “leaders” will not… what fair-weathered Facebook friends may not… and what partisan pundits cannot…
Meet me at the coffee shop. Good stuff happens there.
Respectfully,
AR