The Valuable Practice of Widening Our Perspective

Music Always Music "Where You Been", February Preview & The Poem "Flat Tire"

One Inch Photo by Carrie Newcomer

“Story was the stuff of life, and to realise you were inside one allowed you to sometimes surrender to the plot, to bear a little easier the griefs and sufferings and to enjoy more fully the twists that came along the way."— Niall Williams, This Is Happiness

Every woman who appears wrestles with the forces that would have her disappear. She struggles with the forces that would tell her story for her, or write her out of the story, the genealogy, the rights of man, the rule of law. The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolution.” ― Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me

I love stories that retell an old tale, a historical event, sacred text, or even current events from the point of view of a “side character” or from the understanding of someone who’s experience is rarely, if ever, considered. I think of the retelling of classic or spiritual stories like The Red Tent or James or Demon Copperhead, or even the retelling of the American experience in The 1619 Project, or the losses and gains experienced in a small community experiences the coming of a new technology in This is Happiness. It is an interesting literary device, but it is also a powerful practice in widening our perspective and dispelling myths that may be taken as common knowledge.

I remember attending a lecture at The Kinsey Institute, and listening to a professor speak about a coming of age practice used by the Northwestern Native American Tribe to which he belonged. When a child turned twelve years old, an elder would take the young person to the center of the village that was situated in a beautiful valley. The elder would then ask the child to look around and tell the elder what they saw. After the child responded, they would begin a day long journey, trekking halfway up the mountain. They would stop and have lunch and the child would then be asked again to look at the village and tell the elder what they saw. Then they would continue to the very top of the mountain and look at the village that was now far below. And again the elder would ask, “What do you see.”

The point of the practice was to widen the child’s understanding of perception. The story we tell, and the way we perceive things, may depend upon where we are standing. The practice was to encourage a more welcoming and expansive sense of difference, and to illustrate that true compassion is more possible when we know the importance of taking into account how others may see the situation or how they are effected.

The importance of telling a story from an alternative perspective was powerfully illustrated in a message given during the National Prayer Service by Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She told the story of mass deportation and “othering” from the viewpoint of the people who are most vulnerable, urging the new president to show mercy toward marginalized communities, including LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and refugees fleeing violence. She told the national story of those this administration is determined to frame as “other” through the lens of a deep and abiding love-ethic and a call for mercy, compassion and full human dignity saying, “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.” You can hear her final words, or the entire sermon on NPRs website HERE.

Bishop Budde has been standing firm in the value of respectful public dialogue and alternative perspectives even after attacks by the president on social media and threats of violence by his followers. I want to lift up Bishop Budde for speaking truth to power but also for reframing the story through the lens of love.

In the next months and years we will be asked to stand courageously with the stories we hold dear. It is going to ask us to be bold, to speak our truth, to tell our stories and the stories of others in peril. It’s going to get uncomfortable, and listening to the genuine will always ask us to press right up to our growing edge and then step across. We will be telling the stories that lift us up, that expand our thinking, that speak the truth that can sound like a gunshot when everyone in the room is agreeing to a lie. We will be singing our stories, painting our stories, writing our stories, telling our stories…and as always, stories of courage and truth and revolutionary love will always give us the grounding we need, even when the way forward is unclear.

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Question

Have you ever encountered a new understanding or expanded sense of things when you heard a story from a new perspective? Perhaps a book that changed how you saw an historic, classic or spiritual story? Perhaps when you really heard a story from another person’s perspective, it expanded your perception?

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Note About February Posts

In February, I’ll be focusing on the idea of love in all its many forms—romantic love, love of the natural world, love of community, love expressed in friendship, love of justice, love of homemade things, love of dogs and art, music and poetry, love of this wild and precious life, love of a spirit of place, love of tea, joy, humor, kindness, gratitude and more.

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Note Of Gratitude

Thanks everyone for supporting this ongoing conversation about music, poetry, art, spiritual experience, presence and progressive thinking for the better world. It would not be possible without your help and support as free and supporting subscribers. Please feel free to share post, like or leave comments - it’s the best way to bring new voices and perspectives into the conversation.

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Music Always Music

Here’s a song I wrote thinking about taking an old story and viewing it from a new perspective. This one is called “Where You Been” and was recorded on my The Geography of Light album. You can listen to the full album on Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music. It explores what it might look like if Jesus, a teacher of radical, revolutionary love, showed up today. Maybe he wouldn’t have ridden into jerusalem on a donkey, but rather cruised into Chicago in an El Camino during the Pride Parade. Maybe instead of the sermon on the mount happening by the sea of galilee, it would have taken place in a downtown parking lot with a lot of homeless folks there for the free bagels and lox…..

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Poetry Too

This is a poem I wrote about an experience that happened to me while driving between Louisville and Indianapolis…and about a change of perspective.

Flat Tire

It's a long wide stretch from Louisville to Indianapolis
I was driving in a Honda with an odometer reading
Well within range of unreliable.
I was traveling with a friend,
We were talking about politics,
Lamenting the loss of civility,
Describing our despair 
At the ever widening chasm of separation
So clearly present in our divided world.

Then, without any forewarning,  
My tire started to make that stomach dropping flapping noise 
That sounds like flat, flat, flat, flat, flat.
But miraculously, just ahead, 
A  sign announced 
A garage for commercial trucks,
Huge tires for the biggest vehicles piled around the peremeter. 
We limped into the parking lot
Knowing that most likely 
They could not help me.
But every now and then
Necessity or circumstance will force your hand,
Will leave you no other choice 
But to give it a Last-Chance-Texaco try. 

A mechanic emerged out of the enormous mouth of the garage. 
Oil soaked overalls and a camo ball cap.
He had a blond stubble and a sunburnt face. 
Big hands strong enough to budge even the most stubborn lug nut.
And most likely an NRA card in his wallet.

He took in the scene, 
The flat tire
The guitars piled in the back,
The "War is not the Answer" bumper sticker
He looked at me,
He looked at my friend,
And I just knew, 
that somehow
he knew,
I was a registered democrat
Traveling with a gay theologian
in a foreign made car
with an eco coffee mug in the cup holder. 

We were of different tribes.
All the signs were there,
The team jerseys and war paint.
Calling our code words across a great divide.

I said, "It appears this garage is for commercial trucks,
But can you help?"
He looked and me and gestured to the garage
No hint of a smile, and said, "There."
And so I gave him the keys.

For the next 20 minutes
My friend and I wandered around the office waiting area
It smelled of old coffee, metal and transmission fluid.
We kept looking at one another whispering
"Do you think he saw the bumper sticker?
"Do you think this is going to cost an arm and leg?"
"Do you think they'll miss us in Indianapolis?"

Eventually the car pulled up to the office door.
And our monosyllabic mechanic got out. 
When we approached him he nodded and said, 
"fixed"
I nodded back, " Thank you, that's great.
How much do I owe you?"
He responded with a smile that happened 
Only at the corners of his eyes
"Naw, di'nt take long."

So we climbed into our twice blessed car
Our new best friend 
In camouflage and coveralls
Touched the tip of his cap
And then turned, disappearing like a holy man
into the dark cave of the truck garage.

Back on that long stretch of highway
The road seemed to have expanded out
in all directions.
It had gone beyond linear,
And all the billboards proclaiming 
That there is only one way
To get from here to there,
Were gone. 

"Never assume"  I said
"It is still possible" my friend answered.
And yes, It is true
We still live in a world of unvarnished kindness
Of unearned and unexpected grace.
The myth of not much in common had been dispelled. 
Despair had been averted by experience.
Hopelessness had transformed
From an unavoidable certainty
To only a failure of the imagination.

by Carrie Newcomer from The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays & Lyrics

And…….Why I Left X

I deleted my account on X(formerly Twitter) this week. I’ve kept my Facebook & Instagram pages for the moment. Facebook primarily because my dear friend Parker Palmer has a beautiful Author page and continues to regularly post really insightful commentary. As many artists, arts organizations, musicians, small businesses, churches, authors and other kinds of users, leaving a social media platform is weighty decision. Many of us have spent a great deal of time and resources to create our presence and connect with a community we appreciate deeply. But X (Formerly known as Twitter) is now owned by a billionaire who essentially bought himself an unelected seat of power at the highest levels of our government. At the inauguration rally he made a gesture many interpreted as a Nazi salute. He has already aligned himself with authoritarian and Supremacist groups in Europe and the USA. When the offensive gesture was questioned, he then escalated the controversy by posting a series of Nazi-related puns on X, including jokes referencing Nazi leaders who were the architects of a holocaust. He has been promoting misogyny, xenophobia, racism and other forms of hate speech and hate ideology on X since he took over ownership. For me, the salute and his response were just the final straw for me. I no longer in good conscience continue to use the platform. Again, this is a big decision, for those who really appreciate the communities they’ve created on these platforms. I’m not suggesting that everyone do as I did.

I’m just letting folks know why I’m not there anymore. BUT that I’m here on Substack and grateful for the community we’ve created together.

Until next week….

Carrie