Responding in love: Conversations around the dinner table
Anxieties can run high at holidays like Thanksgiving. When engaging in political debate this holiday season, it's important to respond from a place of love, not from a desire to win.
Holidays like Thanksgiving bring families together. We often break bread with people we might only see a handful of times the rest of the year. This can mean happy and joyful reunions.
This can also mean hard and challenging dinner conversations.
Most of have been there. Someone makes a not-so-soft comment about politics, religious practice, a neighbor’s behavior or a teacher’s tone. Voices rise, stomachs tighten, bodies stiffen and anxiety heightens. Everyone begins to talk over each other all at once.
We have lost the art of listening. Relationships, which might otherwise be as rich with acceptance and laughter, become full of anxiety, fear, frustration and anger.
We ask ourselves, what is this about? Of what are we afraid? What do we need to prove? What inside of us needs to be heard? What has become of us?
A story about St. Francis of Assisi might help us understand what’s going on here.
The year was 1219. The Crusades had been raging for more nearly 125 years (and would last another 72 years). The desire to covert and dominate was deeply engrained in the Christian communities.
Francis traveled to the southern part of Egypt where he met with Malik al-Kamil, the sultan. He entered the sultan’s tent with a plan: convert al-Kamil to Christianity or die trying.
Francis developed talking points to engage the sultan in a theological debate. He came ready to defend the trinitarian understanding of God. He came to prove Islam wrong.
Francis assumed that if that didn’t work, the sultan would have him killed. Prepared to die for Christ, Francis decided that if the sultan threatened, he would offer his life in forgiveness and love.
The sultan had a different approach. As Francis started to debate, the sultan silenced him.
“Creatures debating about God is irrelevant,” the sultan said.
Francis offered to die. But, the sultan refused. He said, “I can tell the difference between a holy man and a crusader. I have no intention to kill a holy man.”
Francis was surprised and humbled.
After this encounter, Francis instructed his friars never to insult the people again. He instructed them not to engage in the theological jousting of which Christians are so fond. Instead, they were to perform the humblest service propter Deum, on account of God. They were to be in service to the people.
I think this is a model we can adopt in our lives.
When we approach the world trying to dominate and convert people, we forget to love them.
That isn’t to say we should ignore the white supremacist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-immigrant comments at the table. We have a responsibility to move our world — and our families and friends — toward justice. We must respond, not out of a desire to win, but out of a fullness of love.
