These are not new values or ideals. As long as there has been strife and hunger and exploitation and cruelty, there have been visionaries, humanitarians, and people of goodwill who have advocated another life-affirming way. Mary Gordon, Roots of Empathy
This Sunday I’m going to use some Braver Angels materials and do a micro message/workshop on having conversations using the Golden Rule. It’s a warmup for more difficult conversations.
When I was briefly researching the Golden Rule, I found a place that collects Golden Rule-like scriptures and sayings from philosophers and religions across time. I had thought I would share it, but then I realized it is almost fifty pages! A lot of wise folks over the ages seemed to get it about the ethics of treating another respectfully, considerately, kindly. And it helps us even today if we think about how we do or don’t want to be treated ourselves.
The simple version for me is “treat others as you want to be treated.” Also, a good version is “treat others as they want to be treated.” All of these sentiments help us have good relationships.
More and more we are realizing how crucial good relationships are. Yes, for strong marriages and friendships and cooperation and collaboration, but we are now collecting more and more solid evidence that good relationships significantly affect both our physical and mental health.
I saw a quick interview with Robert Waldinger, the psychiatrist who wrote The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness (2023) and numerous scientific papers. He is the founding director of the Lifespan Research Foundation and also has continued the Harvard Study of Adult Development which has tracked men and their families for nearly eighty years. It’s one of the longest running studies we have on health and well-being.
Waldinger said at first they really couldn’t believe their research – especially that the strength of our relationships could affect physical health. And they are continuing to unravel the mechanisms. For now, it’s good enough for me to see that research is keeping up with the wisdom literature. For a long and healthy life, have good relationships – and a little tip to help us, treat others as you want to be treated.
John and I had a couple of teens, young friends, in our car several weeks ago. They were squabbling. The older boy, and I’ll mention here that this young man had been tragically abused as a baby and toddler but normally behaved quite well, had grabbed the younger girl’s bracelet. She didn’t like it. The teen boy thought it was just fine for him to wear the bracelet for a while.
After a bit, I broke in. “Do you know the golden rule?” I asked. There was silence for a moment. The girl replied. “Yes, we learned it at school. Treat others as you want to be treated.”
Something seemed to click. “Okay, okay, “the boy replied and flung the bracelet back to the girl.
Braver Angels is a secular group aiming to help people bridge divides, especially political divides. They also have some faith-based materials. Really, who better than religions to teach the Golden Rule? And applying the Golden Rule to our behaviors and conversations with those who disagree with us politically (and theologically) I think is seriously good work right now.
In 1960 about 3 to 4 percent of people said they would be upset if their child married someone of the oppositive political party, now the percentages around being upset are 35 (red) and 45 (blue). And the stereotypes, the dismissiveness, the disrespect, and particularly the contempt for each other, we all know, is out of hand. Braver Angels encourages good debates and is fine with disagreements, it’s the lack of skill and the hatred with which they are done which has to stop. It’s not good for anybody.
So we’ll be doing a skit on Sunday – showing the Golden Rule in action from a behavioral standpoint. And then we’ll be practicing Golden Rule conversations. The idea is to practice some skills, warm us up, for more difficult, potentially “triggering” conversations.
When we practice our conversations, we’ll be working with five skills.
1. Remember the Golden Rule, keep its importance in mind
2. Connect first. Be curious, ask a question; share something personal about yourself
3. When you get into the discussion (this one won’t be very controversial or triggering yet – in fact the discussion will be about the Golden Rule – when we have used it and when we have struggled with it – when it’s harder for us to use), aim to understand the other’s perspective. Try to say back what the other person thinks, feels, what they have experienced.
4. Ask if the person would be interested in your own experience, thoughts, feelings, stories. Your perspective. DON’T try to “win” or correct the other or change their minds. Rather aim to connect and understand.
5. Find areas of agreement.
Now I’m going to take what might seem like a lateral here. And it takes us back to the previous two posts about the question, the are-people-good-or-bad question. The Golden Rule seems to rest on the assumption that we’re all pretty good folks. If we are kind and considerate, things are going to ultimately work out pretty well for us all. But for many, that’s not so believable. Again, just look around. See all those bad people?
Several of you responded to your own notion on the question of are-we-good-or-bad. You mostly subscribe to the philosophy of human nature as told by the Cherokee elder in the story, Two Wolves. We can go either way – toward the bad or toward the good, it depends on our choices. That story resonates with me too. It doesn’t over commit me to the goodness of humanity which really takes a leap.
Nevertheless, it does seem to me that the people who have the wildest, most successful positive outcomes in working with others (including really difficult others like those in prisons and gangs) are those who unshakably believe we ARE ALL born good. The task from their point of view seems to be to believe that we are all good and to connect with that goodness and nurture it. Like Father Gregory Boyle in the previous post.
Another one that comes to mind is Mary Gordon who developed the Roots of Empathy and developed a school program to go along with it. Gordon has willing mothers bring in their babies periodically throughout the school year and children learn to connect with the babies AND they learn to connect with themselves in a more loving and understanding way.
In Gordon’s book and also in Dr. Frank Roger’s book, Practicing Compassion (I’ll use Frank’s version simply because I can put my hands on it faster. And, by the way, Frank is one of those who is totally committed to the idea that we are born good and all bear the stamp of the image of God however dim, however damaged, or however hardened it may be) is a powerful story about Damian, an eighth-grader in an inner city school in Toronto, Canada.
Damian had multiple tattoos and piercings and looked as tough as he behaved. He challenged his teacher and seemed incapable of focusing on schoolwork. He could not restrain his angry outbursts and often accosted other students if they came near him.
The teacher understood that Damian had suffered some tough stuff. At four years of age, Damian had witnessed his father shoot and kill his mother. Damian spent the next years in twenty different foster homes.
But here comes Mary Gordon with a baby. Damian resented the intrusion. Scowling with annoyance, Damian studied the situation perched across the room while the other students listened to the cooing and took turns holding the baby.
After some time, the mother indicated that the baby probably needed to take a nap. To everyone’s shock, Damian came over and asked if he could walk the baby to sleep. Despite the teacher’s look of caution, the mother seemed to trust Damian.
Damian slipped on the baby’s Snugli and held the baby against his chest. An instinctive care seemed to kick in. Like a seasoned and affectionate father, Damian softly rocked back and forth around the room. The baby glanced for her mother, sensed that she was safe, closed her eyes and fell asleep. Damian grew wide-eyed with wonder, he whispered around the room, “Look I got her to sleep. See, she’s really sleeping.”
When it was time for the baby to leave, Damian handed the baby to her mother. He caressed her head and said good-bye. Then he turned to his teacher and asked, “Do you think if nobody ever loved you it’s still possible to be a good dad?”
What Frank Rogers believes is that despite the fact that Damian had been damaged by heartache and horror, he still carries his True Self fashioned in the image of God…though it may be buried beneath the façade of hostility and rage. It’s still there.
Most of us are not going to routinely run into homicidal gang members (though Father Boyle probably sees a few), still we do see people who have been hurt and it’s easy to demonize anyone who offends us. That person with their abhorrent politics becomes a dogmatic bigot in our eyes.
Dr. Frank Rogers, who was himself tragically abused throughout his early life, urges us to remember Damian and all persons, even those we are tempted to write off, to remind ourselves that they do possess the capacity for care and connection...for responding to and living by the Golden Rule.
Frank, who teaches those studying to become pastors at Claremont Theological School reminds them that even the most tortured and barbaric, sadistic murderer of Jesus and Christians was transformed into a poet of love, his name was Paul of Tarsus who wrote one of the most famous passages in the Christian New Testament. I Corinthians starting with verse 13:
13 If I speak in the tongues[ a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[ b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
How might we journey together to The Good life having strong relationships by believing that we can indeed trust in things like the Golden Rule and perhaps babies as well to unlock empathy and goodness residing within us all?
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