Let's Find Common Ground - Break Out of Your Bubble to Build Friendship and Empathy

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Our last show focused on finding common ground when talking to strangers. In this show we explore friendship and empathy with two guests who are friends themselves, a Catholic priest and a Protestant pastor.  Father Tim Holeda leads Saint Thomas More Co-Cathedral, and Latricia Scriven is pastor of Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church, both in Tallahassee, Florida.  As religious leaders, our guests offer a perspective many people don’t have these days. They grapple with moral questions in their work that we often don’t consider, and draw on the wisdom of ancient texts to help them navigate our complicated modern world.  Tune in to hear more on this latest episode of Let’s Find Common Ground. Thank you to The Village Square and The Village Square's God Squad, a politically diverse group of faith leaders, for making this show possible. Please tell us what you think! Share your feedback in this short survey. For every survey completed, we’ll plant 5 trees.  Common Ground Podcast Feedback Survey (qualtrics.com)

Our last show was about finding a spark of common ground when speaking to strangers. And this time we talk about the joys and challenges of friendships. Friendships are important because friendships are life-giving, friendships are like breathing, and especially with people that are different or have different perspectives, we get to grow together. We get to grow together. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Richard Davies. And I'm Ashley Muntite.

Friendships are a vital part of our lives. They provide love, support, and a sense of belonging. Sometimes friendships help us see each other more clearly. They can also be challenging when I've used diverge. In this show, we draw on the wisdom of two religious leaders who are friends themselves, a Catholic priest, and a Protestant pastor. Father Tim Halida leads St. Thomas Moore co-cathedral.

The Trisha Scriven is pastor of St. Paul's United Methodist Church, both the Rentalahassee Florida. Our guests have a perspective that most of us don't. They grapple with moral questions in their day-to-day work that many of us never really think about. And they often draw on the wisdom of ancient texts to help them navigate our modern world. Both Patricia and Tim are members of the Village

Squares God Squad. This is a politically diverse group of faith leaders in Tallahassee who gather together to discuss prickly topics where faith intersects with politics, and thanks to the Village Square for making this podcast possible. We have links to them and their work on our website. We began our interview by asking Father Tim Halita, what friendship means to him? What does friendship mean to me? I think on like a fundamental level, what gives it value is, is somebody who chooses in freedom to be around me, or to know me to be in relationship with me. They are not doing it because of money, or because I can offer them something in terms of power, or they're not using me. I have many friends, and if someone asks me, why are you friends

with them? I could list all these things, perhaps. Like, oh, he also likes to fish, or we share some of the same interests or something like that But there's something deeper than all of that. I just like them. I just want to be with them and they want to be with me I think for me friendship the words that come to mind are safety community love and and mutual exchange. So when I think of friendships, I think of home. I think of spaces where I can be totally and completely

authentically myself, the other person can do the same. We engage in a mutual exchange that feeds both of us or all of us. Why are friendships important to you? And especially friendships, maybe with people who don't always agree with you. Latisha? Yeah, well, first I'm a people person, so I like people. And also friendships are important because friendships are life-giving, friendships are like breathing. Friendships give me the ability to see and be seen,

to grow, and especially with people that are different or have different perspectives, I get to grow, right? We get to grow together. I think of the phrase, I am because we are because we are. Therefore, I am that my reason, my existence depends on other people and other people and creation, right, depends on my existence. And so, that's why it's important. It's life. It's life. Father Chen?

I think part of the human condition is a need for relationship and both the Shish and our Christians. So, our faith teaches a statically in Genesis. It says, it's not good that man be alone. And so, he creates a suitable partner for Genesis. It says, it's not good that man be alone. And so he creates a suitable partner for him. So it gets important for me, is I need it. I'm a social person. I'm not happy totally by myself. I need friends in my life.

I need my parishioners. I need the Lord. Ultimately for me, like having communion with God in prayer is extremely important for me. And then people who disagree, I'm fascinated by the other. I'm fascinated by my friends. I'm fascinated by humans. with God in prayer is extremely important for me. And then people who disagreed make, I'm fascinated by the other, I'm fascinated by my friends,

I'm fascinated by humans. As the church has said to, like, she loves people. I do love people, they drive me crazy at times, but I'm sure I drive plenty of people crazy at times, but I'm very fascinated, especially when someone doesn't see things the way I do. And my joke is that I wonder why how people could come to different conclusions

because I'm right. So they should have the same opinion as I do. And of course, I mean that in jest. I want an opportunity to grow. And so I think it's important to know, okay, I have, there's still much more to know. There's so much more to learn. And being around people who may see things differently,

like I'm fascinated, I want to know, how did you arrive at this? I have friends that are atheist, for example. Like, I want to know like how did you arrive at this? I have friends that are atheist, for example. Like I'm very fascinated. Like how do you arrive at this conclusion? I want to know about it. And they're fascinated by me. Like why is it you're a Christian?

Why did you become a priest? And there's something I think really beautiful there for all of us. Well talking about seeing things differently, Father Tim, our show is let's find common ground and we often talk about politics. But do you think that many conversations today focus too often around divisive topics, such as politics, religion or money? It might not be the frequency of the conversations is the issue, but maybe the level of importance that's been given to them. I live here in Tallahassee and we have a city, we have a commission, a county commission,

we have a mayor, there's a sheriff, like there's local officials here. And what's amazing is that I think if we're going to be super interested in politics in our community, that's what we should really be focused on is these things actually affect us in a real way every day. But it sends to be the conversation, it sends to be what's brought to us by the national media and what we're told is important or whatever. It's like an amazing thing, like how sad or how happy people are based on some of these national elections,

where if I recount to you my entire day yesterday, which was pretty long and beautiful, not once did the current occupant of the White House or Speaker of the House or the Congress or whatever party, like none of that affected my day yesterday. So why are we always talking about that? And why does that become my identity? And why is that so important that it could determine friendships and relationships for how I see the world? Let's try to how do you feel about that?

I think on a large level, yes. And no. So let me tell you, we have a need for belonging and love. And I think that in our dysfunctions, we find deep belonging along lines that become divisive, and in ways that we sometimes don't know how to come out of. So we find deep belonging around, I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, I'm an independent, I'm this or I'm that. And because our identity and belongingness is so steeped in those terms and in those boxes. I think that people begin to talk about it because that's what they have. And we know that media has to sell things,

right? Ratings have to happen. And so the more we talk about things that divide, the more that happens. And we tend to follow the leader that's not great. But at our deepest level, I really do believe that people on a quest for belonging, find belonging in silos, and we have not learned how and sometimes have not exhibited the emotional capacity to go beyond the small groups to embrace otherness and to belong to an even larger humanity.

Can I just ask you this is personal to you, Latisha, but you're a black female pastor. I imagine that you've ministered to many largely white congregations. What is that like? What in the world? Actually, I can tell you and I serve as the senior pastor of one now. It's been great. And there are moments where I recognize that we, and this is humanity in general, and specifically where it concerns race, sometimes we just don't, because we don't have the same experiences, traditions, histories, we are literally seeing through a different lens. It's nobody's fault that we do, but I get to bring a different perspective to the table and say, let me show you how I'm engaging this.

And so I have actually found it deeply rewarding. Number one, because it's people, I love people, right? And I get to do the thing that I love. And when we hit up against cultural things that are different, and we're seeing through a different lens, I get to say, hey, have you considered it this way? And watch people go, you know, no, I never did have to see that. And one thing that helped me get there

more than anything else in my life is my son, who is now 20, was born with cataracts. Last year, he got his cataracts removed. When he got the cataracts removed out of the first eye, he walked outside. He looked up in the sky and he said, Oh, that's what y'all mean by leaves. So here is a 20-year-old who knows what a tree is, has described a tree, but suddenly because he is literally seeing through a different lens. He's able to see what he's never seen before.

I think that we walk through the world through our lens and our experience. And so I have found it deeply rewarding to serve in these kinds of spaces because we get to share perspectives. basis because we get to share perspective. As the Bible would say, I think, remove the logs from your eyes. Yes. You know, it's something because I just preached that recently. And I thought, you know, why is it so difficult to remove the logs from my eyes? I think it's because the logs are growing internally and then extend out. And so we don't even know that they're there because sometimes the logs are formed by our insecurities,

by our fears, by our desire not to be fully seen because we may not be accepted and loved by others if they see the flaws and imperfections. And so because this log is growing from the inside and then extending outward, we've lived with them for so long. We don't see the log. Other people see our logs clearly. We see theirs clearly, but because we've lived with our so long, it's become such a part of us. Father Tim, have you preached about removing logs from your eyes? Absolutely. It's kind of a fascinating, kind of a challenging thing that happens in our tradition in the Gospels, which is that some people recognize Jesus and some don't.

And Jesus doesn't fit into any particular team. I think we were talking about earlier with politics and so I think it's devolved into kind of like similar to what team sports looks like. I'm in Tallahassee, I'm a big Florida State Seminole fan, have been on my whole life. And so if someone says anything positive about the University of Florida Gators, I'm kind of like whatever, you know, I don't want to hear about it. They can't do anything right. If they have a great victory or a great comeback or anything like that, you know, I'm just I'm not gonna see it because they're not my team. And that limits me. And that might work for sports,

but I think in the rest of life, it's not good. I'm very afraid that like one day, like I'm going to miss Jesus in my midst and because of my logs in my eyes, that I'm going to miss something happening because I'm stuck in this particular way of thinking. So I do preach about it. I think a line I heard when in this in this particular way of thinking. So I do preach about it. I think a line I heard when I was in philosophy studies in Seminay was,

you can't take our eyes out and look at them. And I think that's a challenge that we all have and that's where friendship can come in because they can see my eyes and maybe they can see this lens I'm looking through that may be affecting how I interpret the world around me. You're listening to the Reverend Latrisha Scriven and Father Tim Halida on Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Richard. I'm Ashley.

And we have a live event coming up in the next several days that we want to tell you about. On Tuesday, April 4th, Common Ground Committee is co-hosting the annual Climate Forward Conference with the University of Southern California Dawn Sive Centre for the Political Future. We'll explore realistic solutions to the challenges of a changing climate. It's an impressive line-up. The first panel is going to feature a discussion between former members of Congress Val Demings, a Florida Democrat, and Republican Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. They have different views about navigating the policy type rope between transition, sustainability, and equity.

Our second panel will bring together Gina McCarthy, former EPA chief and White House national climate advisor in the first two years of the Biden administration, with New York Times columnist Brett Stevens. He's a conservative whose views on climate change evolved after a trip to Greenland in 2022. This event is free to find out more good on our website, comangrowncommitty.org. You can get in-person tickets for the event, or register to view it online. Again, it takes place on April 4th, between 12 and 4.30 Pacific time. That's 3pm to 7.30 Eastern. Now more with Father Tim Halida and the Reverend Lettrisha Scriven. As members of the clergy, you must both at least sometimes counsel people who are very different from you. I

wonder what have you learned from those experiences? What I've learned is that we share a common humanity. What I've learned is that we exist in a world that is broken in many ways as well as being life-giving, and that we all have certain things that we need. We need to be loved. We need to feel like we matter. We hurt. We are fearful. We are fearful. We want somebody to care and to hear, to listen. We want to share life because we are relational beings. And that at our essence, much of who we are and how we experience the world is about seeking love and healing in some form from somewhere however we can get it.

That's kind of beautiful, Father Tim. Can you top that? I would, I mean, I would just echo everything that she said. I think the only thing I would say is that when I discover, when I'm meeting with somebody who's struggling or having, you know, I'm needing counseling is that we're, there's a lot more in common with, with each other than, than maybe, rough to think. We're both human.

And as Lutitia said, we have these needs, I think, are common. Tall humans and tall people. And Frank, in the midst of what she was dealing with, hiding from people who wanted to kill her because of her ethnicity and her beliefs wrote that in the end, I think people are good. And I believe that. I feel that even when we act in a so-called evil way

or a sinful way, I like the classical understanding of sin is missing the mark. And that even in our sins, there's an attempt at the good that we fought short of. And yet today, and I think especially after the COVID pandemic that we're now emerging from after three years, which is a long time. There's a rise in anxiety and fear and polarization among many. Do you both see that? Yes. Yes. I do. I would go back to, there was something we said earlier about the sort of the need for love and for acceptance and all those things.

We also have, it seems to me like a need for, like a narrative about my life and like a goal, you know, purpose, meaning, those are very important and at least isolation, just trying to figure out my life, trying to figure out my purpose and my meaning. And so I think that contended to result in tribalism, and result in I'm trying to find something that will like a meta narrative that will kind of tie together the pieces that are seemingly disintegrated in my life to create some kind of a whole.

Right now it just sends me, I think, a lot of its politics. That offers to me a sort of cause, something to rally behind a team that I can be a part of, and that becomes kind of like what defines me. And I think it's been exacerbated by the pandemic, but I don't blame the pandemic. I mean, this was going on before. We've just sort of lost a narrative for our country and for our culture.

I think that we often fall into the trap of experiencing others experiencing life, experiencing the world from a place of fear and a place of not wanting to be hurt and be vulnerable. And we are both looking for and learning how to love. And the closer we get there to this love, this big love idea, the Scripture in first John says that perfect love casts out fear. And I do think that that love comes from learning ourselves, being open to other people's narratives, a willingness to know that falling and scrapes and hurts

are part of what it means to live a full life and that's okay. And this healing, I think that on our road to discover what it means to be fully healed, we protect ourselves by putting on these labels. And I do believe that at our core, people want to be better, they want to love most people, many people, and want to love. But we feel that we've got to protect ourselves because we are afraid of what might happen to us. And so we put on these cloaks that we call labels because they protect us because it's hard to be naked and not ashamed and to be vulnerable and to love ourselves and to be love and extend that outward. It's hard work and it's intentional work and it's the work that is necessary. I want to ask you a question, a practical question,

about each of you potentially how you've dealt with differences in your own churches. I'm just going to tell you a quick tale from a church I know. And it's all about COVID. At one point in the pandemic, I can't remember exactly when a decision was taken or almost taken to let people into church only if they could show proof of vaccination. Through the grapevine, they will let know

that if that decision were made, certain very well-established parishioners who had been going there for decades would not come to church. And it ultimately forced to rethink on that policy, but I just wonder if you've come up against issues like that in this very divisive time that we've been living through and how you've dealt with them. Yeah, we can probably do a whole podcast. I'm like experienced during the pandemic. It's very fascinating.

So my church is very diverse. I mean, I have a lot of different political opinions that are here. Different income levels, lots of education. I'm right across the street from the university. A lot of people who are educated, doctors, professors, and so on. We also have working class folks and poor people and people who haven't been educated. All kinds of people. Different cultures, different, if you look at my congregation and and we have people from every continent, you know, essentially, it's Catholic. So in other words,

it was quite the challenge. We had people who didn't believe the virus existed, that it was a scam or a phony or whatever, to the other extreme, which was, it was going to kill us all. I think myself, and my predecessor, I was the assistant here during the time, not the director. So we had the best interests of our people in mind. And that's what we were trying to focus on. I was like, what's the safest thing for our people? And what we ran against were people who had, their minds are made up, it had the ideology,

they had the way of looking at things. It was hard to make them budge. If we were all struggling with how to respond to this. And to have a hard-nosed approach, like everyone's got to remass and have vaccinations, and we have to do these things, or the other extreme, which was like, have no restrictions in place,

I think this wasn't prudent. And being a pastor during that was very difficult, trying to like, again, just navigate it, and try to keep people eyes fixed on each other, and each other's good and be patient and flexible for another. In the church where I worship, it was pretty tense some of the time. Latrisha? I did experience some of that in a space, not necessarily where I was serving at the time. not necessarily where I was serving at the time. And my question to a group who felt like,

this is a need, it's gone too far, you know, will be fine, was to say, let's say we will be fine, let's say you feel healthy and confident that you'll be okay. What does it mean to care for other members in our community, who may be a little bit more vulnerable? What does it mean to show that we are listening to the concerns of other people? It's still difficult.

And it pushes, I found, pushed people to think outside of themselves or to simply say, you know what, being selfish is all about me. And that's a core honesty, but owned honesty that says, I really care about myself right now than anybody else. And when we can push each other to broaden our circle of concern, I think we can come to better decisions. It still does not mean that we will agree. People hold onto things very tightly. I think it gets us closer to something that we can have in common. Another thing if I could add just the made that challenge was just and I think this is what's important here. I talk about friendship again and I think the trickier kind of hit on this

too is like so she brought up, think about the care of others. And, but then there's also, where does, at what point are we enabling fear, right? And then at what point are people just being selfish and unwilling to give up and sacrifice? And there's a line there, much like there is between freedom and rights in our nation that is a kind of moving target.

I don't think anyone has the corner on exactly where that line should fall. And I think that line can change. That's the thing the challenge here is recognizing that it's not fixed, it's not an ideology, it's not determined by my team or my politics, but again, it's something that can move and it can kind of change.

I think that's something we need to maybe explore more and our nation and get away from these ideologies, but be more fluid and try to understand one another. I don't think we actually want to understand each other. I think we want our way. And I think we don't want to say that we want our way. Which is pretty good. But we're still good people. But we're still good people.

We want to do all the things and still be called good people, because we have a need to be seen as good. And we want our way, but it doesn't sound fancy or spiritual to say, I want my way. And so we couch it in behavior and other things. I do think sometimes what we have a problem with is actually telling the truth. What do both of you think you know about discussions involving difference in seeking common ground

through your work, through your life experiences, members of the clergy, that most of the rest of us do not. I know that it's hard work. I know that we need to be healed. I know that we want love. I know that we want love. I know that we are afraid. I know that we come to the table with lenses that make it really hard to see difference and to be empathetic. I believe that at our very best, we actually want these things. I believe that at our worst, we protect ourselves through our silos.

I don't know if I could say I know something that maybe the majority of people don't know. I guess we could say. I experience again a lot of a lot of difference in opinion, beliefs and so on. I would say, I mean, at least what works for me is to try to really have a healthy suspicion of my own beliefs. That doesn't mean I'm wishy-washy. I became a priest and saved my life on this imperfectly perhaps, but I'm trying. I'm not afraid of air, I would say. I'm not afraid of truth. of of of error, I would say, and I'm out of faith of truth. And so to have that, I think helps, you know, then that makes me fascinated by others and their beliefs. And I think if we could get there instead of seeing each other as enemies or combatants, I think that would be a really good thing. Thank you very much.

Yeah, this was a wonderful conversation. Thank you. And we thought we were done with the interview, but we weren't quite, because just before we turned off the recorder, Latresha mentioned she'd just returned from a trip to Israel and Palestine, with others from the United Methodist Church. And during her time there, she'd realized something. We engaged all kinds of people on the ground. We talked to Jewish Israelis, Palestinian

Israelis, Palestinians on the West Bank. We talked to ambassadors. We talked to teachers and educators, all kinds of people. And what rang out all the time was this danger of a single story. And because we engaged the world, we engage people in snippets. It is so hard to see beyond the narrative that we have created for other people. And often we've not really even engaged our own narratives and we're living out of our trauma and that makes things tough. And when you factor in our faith traditions and imagine that we've brought together, you know, people from religious perspectives and often the religion seems to be the problem, How do we get at this common ground? When sometimes it means for people the need to go beyond the things that we think we believe

because they are written and we've made it live in certain ways that it becomes the problem. There are some, it is written that I had to decide the spirit transcends the letter. And so it's interesting coming together from faith traditions when those often seem to be the things that make us have less common ground rather than more. Even when we say we share the same faith. You know, that's a great story. Both father, Tim and Reverend Latricia

had a lot to say about love in this interview and honesty. Real friendships are about both and they help us see ourselves for who we really are to remove the logs from our eyes. Right, although removing the logs may have been harder for a lot of parishioners in COVID than ever before, I really love the stories they told about how tricky it was to try and get congregants

to see things from one another's perspective, especially at the start of the pandemic. And what Latricia said about most of us just wanting our way in the end, I thought I thought that was spot on. And one more thing, both Latrisha and father Tim talked about diversity of opinion, a diversity of race in their congregation. So clearly they have a lot of experience about seeing things from others' points of view. And before we go, a note about another podcast we think common grounders will like. Reading the news is about a lot more than getting the facts. Our friends at the Christian Science Monitor believe it's their job to report each story with a sense of shared humanity,

paying attention to the values that underline our shared human experience. In the Monitor's weekly podcast, why we wrote this, writers and editors explain how their work informs the monitor's unique approach. Behind the headlines, they find respect and resilience, dignity and agency, hope and even joy. It's news that's respectful and constructive. So listen to why we wrote this at csmonitor.com slash common ground.

And here are the stories behind monitor journalism. It's kind of a masterclass in news. That's it for this time. I'm Ashley Miltite. And I'm Richard Davies. Thanks for listening. And thank you to the Village Square and their podcast Village Squarecast for making this show possible.

This podcast is part of the Democracy Group. you