Good Morning! I want to thank all of you for allowing me to join you this morning. I especially want to thank Shanda Taylor for her kind invitation. I understand that I am in presence of like-minded individuals, dedicated to equity and social justice. I am also very privileged for the time that the preparation for my comments allowed me, in concentrated ways, to tap deeply into my faith. My story begins with a family dedicated to the Jewish tenet of tikkun olam or “repairing the world” and there were tremendous expectations that members of the family be dedicated to service. From a very young age, I was obsessed with the concept of a moral compass, and specifically our responsibilities to others. I was especially taken with the faith-based concept that in healing others, we not only create community, but we heal ourselves. I had the good fortune to have a life where I have developed my mind and my spirit and have learned that my intellect must always be in service to my spirit and through the ties that necessarily bind us, to the spiritual, intellectual, and physical wellness of others. Principally, doing this well means having conversations—to effectively listen to people speaking to their needs and challenges, their hopes and dreams, their fears and failures.
What a week! Listening, speaking, seeing, words and words and more words. We have so many conversations coming across our airwaves, our communities, our politics, and our minds. So many conversations and so difficult to keep up. Conversations about justice mainly. So, I know that this is Coming Out week and in part, I am here to discuss the current state of affairs re LGBTQIA+ in the state. The long and short of it is that since the shooting down of HB1523 and its unconstitutional nature, conversations about human and civil rights for issues for LGBTQIA+ community members in the state of Mississippi have gone rather silent. In fact this was the quietest “Coming Out” week in my memory. I cannot decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Folks continue to work on important grass roots levels to make individuals’ learning, living, and recreating spaces safe and thriving. Many individuals are using their vote to demand that legislators, local and national, place these issues on their radar. Beyond that, the conversations have largely gone silent, with the exception of an achievement or an act of terror and then perhaps it hits the Facebook cycle and then. I was confounded on how to speak on this because this conversation is not larger than any others. In fact, we have dozens of social justice conversations happening. All related to the ideas of human dignity and equity, be them based on race, class, gender, sexuality, nativity, or any other identity. Together these conversations are both loud and silent and mostly unfinished. I would like to train our attention on--incomplete conversations.
As you may know, Jews around the world have just completed their days of awe or days of decision, known as “yamim noraim,” the Days of Repentance. For Jews, 10 days beginning with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur, this is a deeply introspective time. With the busy pace of our lives, complexity of our local to global situations, our persistent fears holding forth over our love for one another, it is good to take long and concentrated moments to find a quiet space, away from internal and external din, to reflect on our place in the world, our transgressions against our local and broader community members, good deeds, our continued responsibilities and how we relate and communicate with each other. And because we love equity and justice, so we must reflect deeply. In these times, we must turn our focus inward with honesty and truth, with bravery and trust, with love and empathy, for ourselves and others, and take a full accounting of our thoughts and actions. Where have we risen and where have we fallen? When have we firmly grasped the hand of our neighbors and when have we loosed the grip? When we have fulfilled our aspirations and when we have not. We must think about the conversations that we had, that we didn’t have, those we needed to have and those still left unfinished.
When reflecting upon my words this morning, I reached into my faith, as I frequently do, and examined this week’s Torah portion. Well, this week’s “parsha” or portion is quite relevant. Haa’zinu is a poetic song delivered by Moses and Joshua. Haa’zinu means to literally “give ear” or pay heed, listen up, pay attention. The opening phrase is “Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; may the earth hear the words of my mouth.” This is a particularly strong statement made by Moses, who the next day will climb Mt. Nebo and will see The Promised Land but, because he disobeyed God, he will be denied entry and he will die. This 70-line song is delivered to Moses to the children of Israel on the last day of his life. It is a conversation with his community of the utmost importance. It demands meaningful listening and speaking. The song serves as a prophecy of what will transpire to the Jews, the good and the bad, until the end of times. While it is delivered as a song, this is a stringent warning to the faithful that their salvation depends on their own will and actions towards both God AND importantly, those who walk the Earth.
While this portion is rich in intent and purpose, I’d like to return to the subject of conversations. I’d like to focus on the differences outlined in this Torah portion between to “give ear” and “it shall hear.” Talmudically, there is a vast difference between these two words. To “give ear” refers to our relationship to the heavens or to our creators. “It shall hear” refers to a much more vulnerable earth. Our earth—its people fragile, beautiful, weakened, pained and empowered. Because of this and for this commentary, our sages suggest that when speaking to each other we should try to adopt a softer tone and strive to use methods where we can be understood, heard, our words taken in as important as profound. Fulfilling expectations includes understanding the art and spirit of conversations. The sages ask us to meticulously choose our words, and when we speak, move with the person as opposed to against, find empathy and compassion. Instead of driving a point home and instead of winning, we might consider welcoming and encouraging individuals to stay awhile and stay in conversation.
While I will leave you to understand the tones in which you speak and hear from your higher selves or higher creators, I am hoping that you do not mind if I address how we speak and hear one another. My entire work life is dedicated to productive and compassionate dialogue on difference. Certainly when we pursue justice we are in fact, pursuing happiness for individuals. Thus, I want us to consider how we hear and what we hear, the words and tone, the melody and the beat when we exchange communications. I want to speak about the important series of exchanges of listening and hearing known colloquially as a conversation. How important these exchanges are. If done incorrectly, how much devastation they can wreak and more potently if done correctly, how much individual and collective power they can bring. I stand before you quite humbly and quite conscious that I am not immune nor apart from the very observations that I am about to make. I stand before you speaking as a social justice activist, as someone deeply committed to ending those thoughts and behaviors which harm us as individuals or community members. I speak as someone who has risen and fallen to the challenge and opportunity of hearing and speaking meaningfully.
Returning to Ha’azinu--“It shall hear--” It can be viewed almost as a question, as if we are unsure about the methods and motivations of the sender or receiver of words. In these challenging political, social, and economic times, we are an injured people. We are an unsure people. We want to extend love, yet fear of losing our own place and our own resources encourages us to not adequately listen or forcefully speak. We fail to hear because we have been taught that words matter and words can deeply hurt and thus in a world where we have chosen competition over compassion, words can be used as danger and daggers. So under this threat we go silent. We also know that words can lift and empower, but we often scatter about to find the best words and also consequently, we go silent.
“It shall hear” It can be unproductively heard as a demand. These demands emerge when conversations facture. We are so very desperate to be heard, and if our pleas are not heard, we often yell, exhale defeated, or walk away. To be explicit--actions and abandonment are forms of listening and speaking. We speak and listen with aggression, we speak and listen with ego, we speak and listen with violence, we speak and listen by withholding life sustaining resources from people, we speak and listen and encourage division and hierarchy and prioritize every single one of our needs over the needs of others. We speak and listen and encourage willful ignorance and atavistic amnesia. We speak and listen in profane and putrid ways. And strangely but not surprisingly, we speak and listen and demand humanity while we refuse to extend the same to others.
“It shall hear— It can be a question of audience. “Who hears? How do we hear? When do we hear? Do we hear it all or just the parts that resonate or injure? I have spent the past four years crafting, delivering, and witnessing words and mostly, I become concerned when we see disconnects because we exist in cacophonies and dissonance. We are bombarded and assaulted by words dripping with hurt and hate. And we often return in kind. And unfortunately, the possible and beautiful long-lasting symphony is often lost and in the air is literal and metaphorical atonality. We reserve soulful speaking and listening to friends, family members, and people who resemble us. In today’s world, the “it” will hear only if we deem them worthy.
“It should hear”—When do we stop before the “should hear?” I’d like to refer us to a repeated issue when it comes to the acts of listening and speaking—we quite frequently stop listening and speaking before the conversation ends. Why is that? Why do we maintain shortened attention spans? Why, as a nation and as communities, have we stopped comprehensively speaking and listening about Black Lives Matter, LGBTQIA+ rights, education, mass incarceration, school to prison pipelines, national and international tragedies and other vital issues? Why are we no longer covering systemic racism? Why, for example, after HB 1523 was deemed unconstitutional did we suddenly go silent and or at the very least, the conversation dimmed? Why when Initiative 42 failed did we, in concentrated ways stop talking about education in our state? Where is the continued conversation about our states disastrous criminal justice system? Why are we no longer comprehensively and as a community speaking about our “school to prison pipeline?” Why have we, en masse, stopped having conversations about our failed legislature? Where is our concentrated attention? Where is our stamina?
I am so very interested in the ways in which we are able to initiate conversations but not see them through past immediate challenges. We have great fortitude and energy to begin such conversations. I notice that this energy, heretofore coded as finite, is able to be expended in tremendous spurts. And when we have pushed the conversational boulder over the initial challenging hills, we become reasonably fatigued. I often wonder why. How is it that for a concerted amount of time we can concentrate our totality of focus, we accomplish impossible things, really difficult tasks AND then we, for lack of a better phrase, we lose steam or interest? I argue that in this moment when others begin important conversations, we listen and hear and then when these conversations become difficult and challenging, when they ask us to self reflect, to change our thinking and our behaviors—we stop speaking and we stop listening. We know how to initially make folks aware, engage them, and move them. We quite well understand the initiations of meaningful listening and speaking. We must learn to continue the conversation.
In just my concentrated work over the past 4 years, I have seen tremendous social justice change but I am a bit concerned because the conversational social justice and human rights paths are littered with open ended and incomplete conversations. I wonder if this is happening because we need to alter or differently view our framework of speaking and listening.
“It shall hear” So let us reconsider how we approach conversations. Friends, we cannot accomplish that which we must accomplish in the realms of freedom and social justice, if we don’t learn how to continue conversations. Perhaps speaking and listening as it relates to justice and making sure that people are valued and honored is not a limited communication engagement to be finished, it is, I would submit, a lifelong endeavor and we are engaged in multiple lifelong relationships. To do that we must listen to be heard. We want to be heard and I humbly suggest that in order for us to be meaningfully heard, we must learn how to meaningfully listen. Can we understand that the acts of listening and speaking are not just expressions of rights, an expression of self, an expression of needs, wants, hurts, loss, and strength? Maybe we should understand conversation as a holy endeavor. A conversation is a moment where spirits may be joined, may double or triple their power. It is a gift of the highest level. I would argue, speaking and hearing isn’t just an act of voices, ears, and brain function. No, dear friends, those are mere conduits to the true phenomenon. Meaningfully speaking and meaningfully listening is where grace happens. It is where grace happens. Language and sound are merely the conduits for the initial energy plugging in. They are the gifts of symphony of comfort and embrace. Even the most difficult conversations, those that deal with inequity and justice can be viewed, instead of a struggle, as synergy.
“It shall hear—“ How shall we meaningfully hear and meaningfully listen? To speak to be heard, to listen to understand, we should consider these things. We must commit ourselves to the act. We must initiate, continue, and complete the act of meaningfully listening and speaking. We must acknowledge the importance and holiness of the act. We must not understand our conversations to just be acts of communication but acts of communion. Before we engage in this act, we must prepare for it. And when we begin, we must first find our spirit, find our humanity. We also must locate the spirit and value in the person we wish to engage in conversation. We must allow judgment to be replaced with wonder. We must train our mind to seek out and excavate the holiness of the beings and social justice issues before us. We must commit mind, body, and spirit to hearing and speaking with reverence. We must replace ego with empathy. We must quiet our limbic systems. We must lower our defenses. We must listen and speak to each other as the cherished beings that we are. We must speak and listen, not for deficits, but for potential. We must speak and listen, not for exercises of unproductive power but for sustainable equity force. We must speak and listen through the hurt of past experiences and the knowledge gaps. We must speak and listen in ways that promote healing. We must remember that our strength and salvation rests on each other. Perhaps we might perceive disagreement as demonstrations of past injuries and trauma.
What if instead of speaking and listening into the wind, where our words are carried off and above, we spoke and listened to each others’ spirit and fire? What if we upped or increased our expectations regarding our stamina for meaningful listening and action? Might that impact our stamina to continue the conversation and therefore enable us to continue to fight for justice and equity? I wonder-- what if we approached our conversations on justice as perhaps the last ones we will be permitted to have? How might it change our empathy, compassion and effort? I would submit that we might understand our words as sacred as life sustaining for ourselves, the people we impact, and for generations to come. We must remember that we aren’t just speaking for ourselves We are speaking and listening with the guidance of our ancestors. We speak drawing from the speech and hearing of those that have come before us, those in our presence, and those still unborn. So dear friends, let us commit ourselves to meaningful listening and speaking. Let us imagine the chaos and anger and fear as holograms and instead reach across commonalities and differences in the same way—understanding that we each carry the divine and that our access to that divinity is dependent upon each other.
“It should hear”—And so I close where I began. How will we move forward? Will we make the choice to access the grace and the divine in each of us to meaningfully listen and hear? Will we find the fortitude and stamina to pick up unfinished conversations and see them to their end where justice and equity are achieved? Will we be brave enough to engage in conversations that do more than satisfy the immediate danger ahead or push our own goals forward? Yes, I think so. But this is a +1 kind of deal. We cannot wait for others to engage in the conversation. We must rely on ourselves to do the work. We must summon our strength and move forward. We must train our tin ears to hear the symphony. We must raise our voices beyond the rasp of our own needs to echo across the mountains of the needs of others. We must listen to the silences. Regardless of our faith positions, we are all the Israelites in the desert—awaiting freedom and safety and security and communion. Maybe we are Moses because as we stand on the mount of social justice and though we might be denied entry into the promised land, but we must engage in these conversations so that our future generations may. If we finish the conversations dealing with securing equity and justice then we ensure that we have fulfilled our responsibilities to our fragile earth and the divine beings that walk among and with us. This is the covenant we make with humans. I believe that is the intent of “it should hear.” Thank you.