We Can Do Better

Yesterday, something really cool and increasingly rare happened on Facebook. Nineteen people gathered in one spot to discuss/debate a very hot button social issue. These nineteen people brought with them a rather wide spectrum of views on the subject at hand. How wide? Here is a brief demographic breakdown of the participants:

A widely respected attorney from Bon Air, who once served as a groomsman at my wedding.

A newly minted young attorney who was once one of many knuckleheads in the youth group of my former church.

Some random friend of the Bon Air attorney.

My son, the shockingly opinionated young musician from Nashville.

My daughter, the gifted educator from South Carolina.

Some random friend of my son.

Another knucklehead from the youth group, who played college football.

Yet another youth group knucklehead, this one an architect, and brand spanking New father.

A CFO of a big hospital in Atlanta.

A new friend from church, wife and mother of two girls.

Hard working, African-American single dad who should have his own show on ESPN.

Some random friend of hard working African-American dad.

A Unitarian, Universalist minister and gifted composer/musician from Nashville.

My daughter's first college roommate, a hard working spitfire of a single mom raising an adorable daughter in Florida.

Yet another knucklehead from the old youth group(an inexhaustible supply), this one an unashamed Indians fan.

Young entrepreneur and accomplished businessman and former student of mine who is still primarily a knucklehead.

A financial software rep who claims to root for the Tenneesse Vols and eats barbecue like it's his job.

Recent college graduate and and adorable former neighbor of mine.

We went back and forth on the hot button subject of what to do about confederate statues in the United States. It went on and on for most of the day. We didn't agree. We came to no conclusions. Although I personally did hear some interesting ideas, I'm not sure any of us changed anyone's mind. So, what was so "cool and rare" about it? I'll tell you what was so cool and rare. The entire debate was carried off with no name calling, no insults, and large doses of respect. In America in 2017, this is no small accomplishment.

I look around at my country and I see a great unraveling, a vanishing civility. In our public discourse, we start from an assumption of bad faith, then everything becomes an accusation competition, and swiftly descends into dark places. I start these conversations on Facebook because I believe now, more than ever, that we can and we must do better than that. At one point in the discussion yesterday, a couple or three participants went from hearty disagreement to jokingly debating the merits of tacos vs. burritos without missing a beat. It was awesome.

So, it can be done. Every disagreement doesn't have to collapse under the weight of suspicion and anger. We can listen to someone on the other side of an issue respectfully, really listen, with our whole hearts. If nothing else we come away with a better understanding of their arguments.

At a time in our country's history when we seem to be governed by a middle schooler, it is critical that the rest of us learn how to engage each other like fully formed adults, even and especially when we disagree.

Thank you.

The Heritage Argument

A brief follow up to yesterday's post about statues...

One argument I hear a lot from staunch supporters of the "statue status quo" is the notion that the Civil War and its rememberance is about honoring heritage.  It's about heritage, not hate, the slogan goes. This idea has some appeal for me. If the notion of heritage refers to the traditions, achievements and beliefs which are part of the history of a nation, then yes, I am all for holding my heritage in high regard. My own family's heritage is a perfect example of a history that I want to make sure gets immortalized for future generations of Dunnevant's yet unborn. There is much to be proud of in my family's name.

But the idea of heritage doesn't just highlight the best moments of history, it refers to all of the qualities, traditions and features of life from our past. This is where , I think, the heritage argument goes off the rails. Viewing the legacy of the Civil War only as honoring the gallentry and skill of accomplished generals personified by statues is an incomplete picture. A more healthy attitude about our heritage as a nation would also examine the mistakes of our past, the bad ideas, the low moments. The past is, above all else, a teacher. Yes, we look back to the past for inspiration, but we also look back at the past to learn from our mistakes. It doesn't make us weak to admit and examine error. A more faithful retelling of our history would honor our ancestors by telling the whole truth, not just the more romantic slices of that truth.

Further, some of the loudest defenders of the hands off our statues crowd I know are Christians. This is a mystery to me. My faith teaches me that my past isn't something to worship. In fact, often, the past is something that must be overcome. The baggage of the old ways, the old ideas are what holds us back from living in the grace and truth of the gospel. Our greatest loyalties aren't to our earthly heritage, no matter how glorious we might think it is. Our allegiances are to Christ, and to living a life of purpose and character in the here and now with eyes towards the future.

What About The Statues?

My assistant is well known for her blunt, direct assessments. Last Thursday, upon seeing me for the first time after my incident, blurted out, You don't look good! This morning, after a full week's recovery, she once again greeted me with, You don't look good! Some would be put off by such tactless honesty. Not me. Besides, if you dish it out, you've got to be able to take it. She's right though. I look tired, because I am. But, today has been a turning point. I have had no headache, for one thing, which always helps.

Having something scary happen to your health takes an emotional toll every bit as damaging as the physical one. You get reminded of your mortality, and for a few weeks every flutter of the heart, every dropped word churns your stomach in a knot. Before long you have become entirely self-obsessed. It is this self-obsession which is so exhausting. I know it will soon pass. It will dawn on me that not every symptom that I imagine is actually real. I will soon realize that every flutter is not the angel of death. Then, I will feel like myself again, and life can proceed on its way. 

Looking back on the events of the weekend, Charlottesville could not possibly have happened at a worse time for me personally. No one does their best thinking when they don't feel well. So, a very bad, shameful situation in Charlottesville seemed even worse to me, post stroke. I look back on some of the things I wrote and they seem, upon greater reflection, a bit overwrought. I was already wound tight, edgy and nervous from the trauma and new medications. Then I see a bunch of freaking Nazi flags flapping in the breeze up in C-ville, and I went a little crazy. Probably shouldn't have posted the picture of the redneck woman with the 20 gauge slung over her shoulder, along with the snide put down. Maybe I should have backed away from the poorly timed joke at the expense of UVA's football program. After news came of three associated deaths, a clearer head probably wouldn't have posted the First, they came for the Mosquitoes meme.

But, I haven't taken them down. They were mistakes in judgement, but they were honestly made, and I have no desire to whitewash my own history any more than I want to whitewash my country's history. Having said that, I believe there exists lots of room for compromise when it comes to historical statues. I'm for expanding the number of statues that tell a more expanded version of our shared history. Maybe some statues would be more appropriately displayed in a museum, than on a public street. Maybe additional statues should be erected along side Civil War generals, that testify to what that war meant to African-Americans who were in bondage at the outset of that conflict and newly freed after Appomattox. There are ways to address this issue that don't include lawless mobs tearing them down, as if their anger justified the destruction of public property. 

When it comes to this entire statues controversy, I am not an absolutist. Each generation should have some say in how they interpret history. Although I happen to believe that the Monument Avenue statues are astonishingly beautiful works of art, and think that they are a valid record of the fact that our city was, in fact, the former capital of the Confederacy, I also understand how they might be viewed differently by a rather large segment of the city's population. The legacy of the Antebellum south was one of human bondage, the buying and selling of human beings. This is a fact of history that for many Americans is something that can't and shouldn't be celebrated.

 I am conflicted even as I write this. For over my shoulder on the wall behind me is two portraits hung in my library, one of Robert E. Lee and the other of Thomas Stonewall Jackson. I studied each of these men extensively in college and found them to both be fascinating men, complex, and tortured, whose lives were shot through with great tension and contradictions. Jackson, perhaps the finest  tactician in the history of this country, also nearly was kicked out of his Lexington Presbyterian church for teaching a class full of slave children how to read. The ironies were overwhelming. But, I came away from all of that study with a profound respect for each man's character. So their portraits hang in my library. For some of you reading this, you might be nodding in agreement. Others might be scratching your heads. I get it. I understand the tension, and the disagreements that flow from different readings of history.

But, here's the thing. What would I do if I knew that a family of African Americans were coming over for dinner? And suppose that this particular family had just lost a child at the hands of a white supremicist mob. What would I do with the portraits? You know what? I think I would remove them before they showed up. Not because I no longer cared about Lee or Jackson, but because I care much more about the tender feelings of my friends than I could ever care about a couple of dead generals. This is the essence of my position on statues. Let's all be a little less entrenched in our own positions, and more in tune with the point of view of people who might view them in a different light.

Come, let us reason together.

What I Want To Hear From The Pulpit Today

Yesterday will not go into the scrapbook as a red letter day. First, we said goodbye to a couple of thirty-plus year friends who have retired and moved away, then that debacle of racist evil in Charlottesville, and finally Bryce Harper blows out his knee. And this morning, I still have a headache.

So, today I will go to church. While ordinarily I don't like any sort of political opinionating from the pulpit, today I want to hear a word about Charlottesville. For one thing, what happened there yesterday wasn't politics. It wasn't even protest, correctly defined. It was a violent outburst of hatred, of enmity one for another. Those who paraded the grounds of Thomas Jefferson's University carrying Nazi flags weren't making a political statement, they weren't airing legitimate grievances. They were attempting to start a race war. They used the fig leaf of a statue removal as the barest of coverings to gather together and celebrate their hatred. The man who plowed his car into that crowd was not attempting to persuade anyone, he was bent on murder.

So, I want to hear a strong voice from the pulpit this morning calling this assault against my country exactly what it is, and calling us to repentance for our apathy. I don't want to hear any mealy mouth temporizing, no moral equivalence claptrap. The entire sermon doesn't need to be about Charlottesville. The transcendent is more important to me than the temporal. But I'm not interested in having this swept under the rug either. Yes, there is hatred and violence coming from both sides in America. But not yesterday. Not in Charlottesville, Virginia, less than an hour away from my home.

Charlottesville

Maybe it's the fact that I've now had a headache for two consecutive days. Maybe it's because I'm still trying to recover from an upsetting physical setback from earlier in the week. Maybe it's because I'm a proud Virginian and can't bare to have this state's reputation dragged through the mud on nationwide television. As I watched it unfold, my first reaction was to make wisecracks on Facebook. It's my default reaction to repulsive ugliness...attempts at humor. But as the day has worn on, humor isn't working and no longer seems appropriate, even for me.

No, the sort of thing that's happening in Charlottesville is something for which I have lost all patience. What follows isn't a fair and balanced accounting of root causes. I'll leave that to more knowledgeable voices. No, this is just me getting a few things off my chest. 

For starters, the instigators of this protest seem to be a conglomeration of aggrieved groups which include white nationalists, KKK members, neo-nazis, white supremacists and others comprising the movement referred to as the alt-right. This is quite a target rich environment for my particular brand of snark, so I will pick one sub-set in this Petri dish of extremism for discussion...the white supremacists.

Full disclosure: I am white, so I feel fairly qualified to opine on the relative merits of my race, although in all honesty, I don't tend to view myself as primarily a person who has a race. If I were trying to describe myself to someone, the modifier white would be way down the list of words that would leap to mind. It would probably wind up like number 16, just before opinionated and right after handsome. But, if someone were to ask me to name some notable contributions made to civilization by my race, I suppose I could come up with a rather impressive list. Shakespeare leaps to mind. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, the guy who cured polio, he was white, I believe. Henry Ford. Thomas Edison. Thomas Jefferson. Galileo. Michelangelo. The Beatles. So, if I were the kind of person who draws their sense of self worth from their racial identity, these examples might give me great pride. I could think...I'm white, so was Michelangelo. That must mean we're like related or something! The only problem with this sort of thinking is that once you start going down the path of race identity, you must confront some uncomfortable truths. Jeffrey Dahmer was white. So was Joseph Stalin. Jack the Ripper? White. Paris Hilton? White. Justin Bieber? About as white as you can get. This race thing turns out to be an extraordinarily mixed bag.

So, if you decide to think that whites are superior as a race, then you have to also think that other races are inferior, which is fine if you spend all day looking at film footage of riots in Baltimore...look at those terrible thugs stealing cans of Pringles while they burn down their own neighborhoods!! But, then you hear Magic by Count Basie. You watch Denzel Washington on the big screen. You read Alexandre Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo, and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. What's a white supremacist to do upon being confronted with such greatness? Of course, the obvious answer is that no self-respecting white supremacist would be caught dead at a Denzel Washington movie, nor would they ever be caught dead reading any book without pictures, and be honest, if you're a white supremacist who happens to be reading this, admit that you're probably right now Googling the name Alexandre Dumas because you had no clue he was black! Don't you feel ashamed of yourself for loving that book??

Seriously now. In 2017, after ten freaking years of Keeping Up With the Kardashians there are still people out there trying to sell white supremacy? 

I've just had it with people who show up at a political rally wearing cheap baseball helmets, dressed in army fatigues, carrying homemade fiberglass shields with shotguns slung over their shoulders claiming to be part of come master race. As far as Charlottesville goes, something tells me I wouldn't be writing this and you wouldn't even have heard about this alleged protest if the counter protesters had just stayed home and ignored them. All these alt-right people want is violence and attention. All the better to feed their persecution complex and paranoia. If nobody showed up at Emancipation Park but them, they wouldn't have had anyone to be violent with...end of story.

But, it is true that we have a long and storied history in this country of putting Nazis in their place, so it's hard to blame those who came out to stand against them. I've just had it. I don't care about turning any of this into a political pissing contest...Did McAuliffe do the right thing? Was Trump harsh enough in his condemnation? That sort of political bean counting is for losers. All I care about if finding the cretin responsible for plowing that car into a crowd of protesters, and locking him up for the rest of his miserable life.

Verbal Errors

Last night, the small group I'm a part of at Hope met at our house. The Bible study was from the 3rd chapter of the book of James, all about the destructive power of the tongue, how the words we speak carry with them great potential for both good and evil. Since earlier this week I had temporarily lost all ability in this area, the topic was especially relevant. It produced a memory from probably twenty years ago...

I was in Atlanta at a Million Dollar Round Table meeting listening to a very wise man give a motivational talk. Among many profound truths he dispensed was this bit about verbal errors, which I will attempt to paraphrase here:

How you say things is often just as important as what you say. Suppose you're talking to your spouse and what you meant to say was, "what's troubling you?"...but what you actually said was, "what's wrong with you?" That's a verbal error that might be tolerable for a newlywed, but ten years into a marriage is inexcusable.

It's interesting that twenty years later, of all the things that this great man said, this paragraph is still etched into my memory. The reason for this is because, as someone who is well known for his hair-trigger wisecracks and speak first, apologize later style, this thoughtful truth resonated. What's troubling you sounds like a question that comes from a place of empathy and concern. What's wrong with you sounds like an accusation. Later the man said that whenever he was about to have any delicate conversation with his wife, he made a habit of rehearsing every sentence in his head before allowing it to come out of his mouth. I would like to say that I have always put this into practice over the last twenty years. Sadly, not true. But it has never been far from my heart. After all, the last thing anyone wants to do is say something hurtful to those we love.

It is a great mystery to me why some things come flying out of my mouth when they do. It's like, sometimes I'll say something and then think, where did that come from? Sometimes it's something really smart and insightful, which is always a shock. But more often than not, it's some ill-chosen phrase with the potential for great harm to its listener. My Dad had a theory about such verbal errors which used to give me pause...What's down in the well, eventually comes up in the bucket! If that's always the case, then my well needs some work. I think it's more a case of just being too anxious to be heard and less willing to listen. If we would just give our thoughts a minute to organize themselves first, we could avoid a world of grief.

So, each of us has a thousand opportunities each day to speak both blessings and curses. Each of us are in a position to make someone's day or ruin it with a word. This is the power of the tongue. Use it wisely.

Good grief! Reading back over this, it sounds an awful lot like a sermon. My apologies. Probably just post-stroke stress disorder or something!

Clam Chowder, Delayed

As the perky African-American girl wheeled my gurney down a long, narrow, largely deserted hallway, I watched the fluorescent lights pass overhead, wondering how I had gotten here. She left me directly under one of the lights, locked the wheel with a foot brake and tapped me on the shoulder...You're up next, honey. The light above had an inlaid cover picture of palm tree leaves against a Carribean blue sky. I remember thinking how the guy who came up with the idea of putting pictures in fluorescent light fixtures was an evil genius...genius for the idea, but evil for making it pictures that made the patient wonder whether he would ever see something so beautiful again. 

This was the fifth of eight tests I was to be administered in a bizarre 24 hours. The sign on the door said, vascular lab 2. Across the hall there was an echo lab 2. I was getting both. Another cheerful nurse joked, Mr. Dunnevant here is getting a twofer today! It has been my experience that medical professionals make the world's worst comedians, but their attempts are so endearing, it doesn't matter. A third woman in a steel blue uniform and a thick accent of unknown origin yanked me into vascular lab 2 unceremoniously. I will be administering this test, Mr. Dunnevant. Have you ever had this procedure before? She was all business. No, I answered. Don't worry, it is entirely painless. Good to hear. 

Quickly, without fanfare, she slapped a cold, slimy probe against the carotid artery of my neck. For what seemed like the hundredth time I got asked the question, So, what brings you to us today, Mr. Dunnevant? I began my well rehearsed answer...Well, about 5:30 yesterday afternoon I got home from a workout at the gym, suddenly for about five minutes I was unable to speak. I knew what I was trying to say, but just couldn't say the words...not garbled words or nonsense words, rather, no words at all. After five minutes, I was fine. My wife freaked out and probably overreacted by insisting on taking me to the ER last night...and now, here I am.

My coldly efficient medical professional, clearly in the early stages of developing her bedside manner, was having none of it. You're wife did not freak out, she made very wise decision. Sounds like you had a stroke.

No, no, the ER doctor said it was probably just a TIA, not a real stroke.

Did he now? 

Then it was on to echo lab 2 with its own slimy probe. I was growing weary of listening to the static sound of my own heartbeat and was releaved to be wheeled back to my room through the labyrinth of cold hallways and clunky elevators which is Henrico Doctor's Hospital. The results of each battery of tests were negative, making me more and more annoyed that I had allowed my wife to win the argument about coming to get checked out. In my mind I was calculating how much all of this modern medical technological advancement was going to cost me. By the time these eight tests were done, I was going to be presented with one of those insane bills that infuriate ordinary people. One baby aspirin, 81 mg...$28.

I was having a hard time processing the idea that it was even possible that I might have had a stroke. Strokes are things that happen to old people. Sick people. And yet, if true, I was about to add stroke to open heart surgery at the top of the list of medical conditions I've experienced prior to my 60th birthday. This is the sort of thing that might strip a person of their self confident optimism, if they're not careful. This is what I get for watching my weight and working out four times a week for most of my life? Not possible.

I had convinced myself shortly after my five minute "incident" that it was just one of those senior moments that everyone over the age of say 50 gets from time to time. We stumble around for words sometimes, that's all. Like when you suddenly, momentarily can't recall your child's name, or you can't remember the name of the place you had dinner a couple of nights ago, or what you had for breakfast this morning. The medical term is brain fart, I believe. And now, with each test result coming in negative, my diagnosis seemed correct. So I privately started to steam at all of the bother, fuss and expense.

The last test of the day would be the MRI of my brain, whereby I would be slid inside a giant tube, instructed to lay perfectly still for twenty minutes and almost immediately be attacked by a phalanx of killer attack ants laying waste to the inside of my nose. All the while these ants were busy brushing my nasal hair with tiny peacock feathers, another army of construction workers began pounding on the side of my head with a thousand jackhammers. As I lay there I recalled seeing the name Siemens emblazoned across the entrance of the machine. I thought, leave it to the Germans to have manufactured such a contraption. Then I thought of clam chowder. Pam was to have made homemade clam chowder last night for dinner. But I had to lapse into my Harpo Marx impersonation, and now I'm having an MRI. Funny how quickly things can change.

As they wheeled me back upstairs, I thought of Pam, alone in my room, and what she must have been thinking. My wife, generally speaking, is a glass half full sort of gal, so maybe she was searching for the silver lining. Of all of the bodily functions that her husband might lose to a stroke, speech clearly had an upside. She must have been dreaming about what it might be like not to have a husband who might at any moment blurt out something entirely inappropriate. What would it be like not to have to worry about your husband embarrassing you by saying something that, while perhaps being true, still should never be said out loud? What a relief it would be not to have to listen to another baseball story, political diatribe or horrible pun! Always look on the bright side, that's my wife.

When the results of the MRI came in, the news was delivered by a white-coated Neurologist, complete with the obligatory stethoscope dangling from his neck...So, the MRI confirms several acute infarctions in the front left lobe of the brain, all in a limited area and all recent indicating a stroke.

After this sentence pierced the air, he was all encouragement, citing all of my positive risk factors, talking about starting me on a couple of medicines that would fix me right up. But all I heard was stroke.

Within a couple of hours of the good doctor's pronouncements, I was back home...like nothing ever happened. I finally got my clam chowder. It was delicious.

Soon enough, I will get over this. By the time I'm in Maine, this will all be a distant memory. But for now, it's still fresh. Every time I have struggled over a word the past couple of days, my heart has skipped a beat, but this too will pass. We human beings have a remarkable ability to cast out bad memories, to blot out scary things. I will with this. In a week I can resume my gym workouts, and I will with a vengeance. Before you know it, there will be no more thoughts about strokes, no more obsessing over dropped words or mangled phrases. 

But, for now...you'll have to give me a few days to get over a weird 24 hours.