If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. (Matthew 10:14)
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13: 34,35)
integrity noun [U] (HONESTY):the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change (Cambridge English Dictionary)
When I was a team member of the at the old Kingston Psychiatric Hospital, way back in the Dark Ages, we were all discussing some issues that had occurred with one of the people we were charged to care. As far as I could tell, we were all weighing in with what we had seen and heard, and what our assessment of the situation was, and so I had done the same. However, one of my teammates took huge offense to one of my statements about need, and got quite hostile with me, stating that I was wrong and simplistic. I’m a “just the facts” kind of person, and knowing my usual way of working, probably had my assessment results right in front of me, so I fully believed that I was right and was completely blind-sided by the hostility of this team member. I silently mouthed to my most trusted colleague “what just happened?”, and she mouthed back “I’ll explain later”, and she did.
Basically, the team member I ran up against had a completely different way of communicating and understanding the world; one that placed a higher demand on demeanour and ‘pleasantness’ and less value on data and information. My team member saw my ‘information’ as reductive (or lessening) them as a person and as a professional, and that it was frankly disrespectful. I was incredulous. How could clear information and data be anything but helpful? Isn’t this the only way that you can make clear-headed decisions? My whole framework operating on this team was the complete opposite way – all information should be presented and then thoughtful decisions can be made.
I still think my way of operating on that team is right and necessary! But it certainly didn’t help when I had to work with people who found it rude and obstructive. So, I greatly modified how I operated on this team in meetings; presenting all of my analysis of situations ahead of time for people to read (or not), but at least know that I had done what I believed was good and right. Having strong principles is part of who I am, and I work hard to have integrity.
But it often doesn’t make me easy to live with in many settings where I have to communicate with other people; other people who value kindness and manners higher. My values tell me that ‘plain-speaking” is loving. Other people will say that plain-speaking is demeaning and unkind. So juggling situations like I have just described is kind off the story of my life.
All of you know that I am also a huge justice kind of gal, too, right! This shows up in how I advocate for Rural and Small Church ministry, and for Equity and Inclusion within the church. Most of the time I operate with “If you just give people the information, they will change this practice in the church and make sweeping and helpful changes to the way we operate in the world”. But I always forget to factor in that this kind of thing way of operating; this plain speaking “just the facts” kind of manner is often perceived as ‘judgey’ of peoples manners and kindness. When I was lamenting to my colleague about this problem that I have with the church leadership, she laughed and said “Lynne, people don’t like to be called on their stuff”. (Well, she used another word, other than stuff, but you get the drift). Again, I was thrown. But why not? Isn’t change only possible is you have the correct information? My wise colleague pointed out that in order for someone to change, they need to be able to ‘hear’ what I have to say, in the full sense of the word, and most people can’t just ‘hear’ information; they need something different than that.
All of this is just a way of telling all of you, my lovely Bethel friends, is that I had originally written a pretty pointed blog earlier this week about some glaring issues of Equity and inclusion that I had seen in our Region during the Annual Meeting and 100th Anniversary weekend. I worked on it straight up until late last night – its really well written, contains many facts and many observations, and I have some pretty coherent theological reflections in it. And late last night I realized that I couldn’t publish the blog. I couldn’t because it has already been read by people that I trust very much who have said that it will come across as a rude and disrespectful of people who poured their hearts and souls into planning for this weekend. And my prior experience tells me that this will mean that they won’t be able to hear what I say. Even though I see it as factual and as facilitating change.
Ultimately, what I want for all of you, what I believe is the most loving and most caring and respectful thing for all of you is for the higher courts of the church to ‘hear’ you and make changes so that you can be fully at the Table of this remarkable church of ours. So I’m not going to publish what I had to say about Equity and Inclusion. I’ll save it as my notes and send it on to anyone who asks. But in the meantime, I will ‘shake the dust off my feet’ and wait for God to give people ‘ears to hear’.
Blessings today, and remember you are Loved (me n God!).
~Rev. Lynne