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Day of Remembrance: Leading with Love

This is the Day of Remembrance, honoring the memory of the recent spate of suicides due to bullying for being gay or different. One in particular, Tyler Clementi, took place in central Jersey where I live, and it really touched a nerve in the Rutgers Community, and around the world.

Is it possible to get inside peoples' minds and make them understand why no one should ever be harassed because they are gay, or different, or don't fit in?

Some are calling for more stringent laws and harsher punishments, but you can't legislate hatred out hearts. The only thing we can truly change is our approach to the people we engage with every day. If we can recognize that what we are about to say may be taken the wrong way, or may come across as mean-spirited, let's all agree to run it through a filter of kindness before we say it.

Case in point: in the blog post Up in the Air, our very own Chief of Pray talks about feeling bad for having letting someone go who was holding back the potential of Prayables. This may be airing dirty family laundry, but I too was once fired by the Chief after very briefly holding a position I did not do so well. She was right to let me go, but I still felt a little attacked.

Even though I'm still obviously writing for Prayables, and still consider Sue Diamond to be an important part of my faith family, there are major issues on which we don't see eye-to-eye. One in particular is that, even if you have to do something distasteful like firing someone, it can be done in a spirit of kindness. Even though we're a family here at Prayables, and we love one another, we don't always get things across to one another well. Now how can the rest of the world be expected to work or go to school together, deal with pressure, have intense conflicts, and still not kill each other or themselves?

So we've all got work to do, and this is one job we'll never be fired from, no matter how many times we mess up. That job is, as I say to my son daily, to always do the right thing. Think about the fact that there is always a backstory you know nothing about, and lead with love. You might be the one person to make a difference in the life of someone who has lost all hope. Assume that you're speaking to someone's child, someone's mother, just another child of God on a journey to somewhere, who deserves your respect, no matter how much you may disagree with them. That simple act of kindness could really make a world of difference.

The Truth About Troubles

Calloused hearts, empty stomachs, aimless souls.
Tail-gaters, back-stabbers, nay-sayers.
It seems that civility
has become a casualty.
Human is no longer
the standard state of being.

Yet I know the truth about troubles.
It's the wind, the rain, the compost of life,
that give rise to a
blooming thing of beauty.

Sustain me through these times of trial.
From seedling to morning glory,
bursting from the ground,
reaching toward the sun.
Hope springs eternal.

-Ruth Williams

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