Human
Connection
“We're
having a spiritual crisis. The key to building a true belonging
practice is maintaining our belief in inextricable human connection.”
Brene
Brown (“Why Human Connection Will Bring Us Closer Together”)
Brene Brown speaks very
plainly in her books and interviews. In her latest book, Braving
the Wilderness, she teaches us how to “speak truth to
bullshit.” She believes that even though we are polarized and
abrasive at the moment, there is no way to truly sever our human
relatedness. Fear is the fuel the fires our sense of disconnection.
One step on the path back to belonging to one another, and to
understanding that all humans are one family, is civility—learning
how to speak our truth clearly without dehumanizing or disrespecting
those who disagree with us.
For example, gun control
is a very divisive issue in America. We experienced a school shooting
in Florida yesterday in which 17 children were murdered—that's the
18th school shooting in the first forty-six days of 2018.
Anyone who still believes that we have no need for reasonable gun
control is, simply put, not rational. We circle around this issue
with people lining up on either side to hurl insults at one another.
In the meantime, nothing changes, and each week, another school
shooting occurs. This is not something that can continue unchecked,
and it should not require hundreds of dead children to solve the
problem. What it does take is cooler heads, less posturing, less
brinksmanship and a recognition that we have a terrible problem. All
of us together must put our best selves into finding a solution.
That's where the human connection comes in. We must recognize that we
are all the same, and that when our children are shot dead for no
reason, we all suffer. Our society is rent apart by feelings of
futility and grief over young lives lost forever. The blood of our
children is poured out on the floor of school after school because we
don't have the courage to confront the problem head on. There is a
solution, and we must come to it together.
There comes a time to
“speak truth to bullshit.” And there is a way to do that without
degrading one another. Just as our better angels step forward when we
confront a natural disaster, they are waiting in the wings to help us
right now. We must trust one another again, and ask them to help us
to bridge the divide.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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