Yesterday morning my dog Floey and I went for a long walk and a long talk. It was already a hot day, but I figured if we walked on country roads rather than sidewalks, we might catch a little breeze. I was right. As soon as we turned off Water Street onto Highland Drive the setting was just right. The birds were singing, the frogs were croaking, and the red-winged blackbird that greets us most mornings landed on the tallest cattail and began her usual chatter. We stopped for a moment to feel the breeze and listen to the bird songs, and then continued ambling south on Highland.
Floey looked up at me and said, “Hey, Mom, there’s something I want to talk about. Something serious.”
“Okay,” I replied. “What’s on your mind?”
“You were really mad at me last night, weren’t you. You yelled at me twice.”
“I guess I did, Floey. I’m sorry, but I had reasons to be angry and to speak harshly to you. The first time was when Peggy and Buddy came over for a visit. You really pounced on Buddy. You could have hurt him. He’s smaller than you, older than you, and has a bad back.”
“I know, Mom. But I was so excited to see him and I wanted to play. I really like Buddy. He’s the best little white dog I know. I would never hurt him.”
“You wouldn’t hurt him intentionally, but sometimes, if you’re not careful, it can happen. Like the second time I yelled at you, after Buddy and Peggy were gone, and we went out for a little walk before going to bed. You really hurt me, Floey.”
“No, I didn’t. I wasn’t even near you. You just started to yell at me. I have no idea why.”
“Did you forget what you did as we went out the door? You charged after a rabbit. I wasn’t even through the door yet. You jerked on your leash so hard that my hand banged into the door frame. The back of my hand and my first finger are still swollen and have turned black and blue. As soon as we got back in the house I put an ice pack on it for half an hour. We’re lucky none of the little bones in my hand and fingers were broken.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mom. I had no idea you were hurt. I was just trying to protect you from that big rabbit that was close to jumping onto the front porch. Fortunately I was able to chase him away. I’m sorry you were hurt in the process. Are you still mad at me? I would never try to hurt you.”
“No, Floey, I’m not still mad at you. But I think it’s good you wanted to talk with me about this. Obviously, we have different perspectives on what happened last night. I now see, from your perspective, you were warmly welcoming your good friend Buddy to our house and inviting him to play with you – and I yelled at you. Then you chased away a rabbit to protect me from him – and I yelled at you again.”
“That’s right, Mom,” Floey replied. “And from your perspective, you were trying to protect Buddy from getting hurt, so you yelled at me, and later, I accidentally hurt your hand when I chased away that rabbit, and you yelled at me again. I’m sorry. But now I understand.”
“You know, Floey, perspective is a funny thing. We can always see everything that happens to us from our own perspective, but often that’s not the whole picture. We need to try to understand other perspectives as much as we can.”
“That’s for sure. If we hadn’t had this little talk, I still wouldn’t understand why you yelled at me last night. Now I know, and my feelings aren’t hurt any more.”
“Good, Floey. While we’re talking about perspective, let me tell you about an email I received a couple days ago. It was about my last blog post, What Can I do? Remember, it’s the one where I talked about children being taken away from their parents at the US/Mexico border.”
“I remember it,” Floey said. “It’s the one where you talked about Ellen Finn’s book, Emotional Witness. That book was scary. I’m sure glad we don’t have to live in Honduras where there’s so much violence.”
“The email I received was from Tim, the husband of an old friend of mine from our Chicago days. He was pretty upset with me about writing that blog post.”
“Why was he upset, Mom? It was sad to read about all the violence in Central America, but you shared some good ideas about how we individually can support at least one or two children to be sure they have food, clothing, education, and so on. Was Tim really mad at you for writing about this?”
“Yes, I think he was, Floey. You see, he’s a world traveler and avid bicyclist. He’s been to Honduras several times. A few years ago he took a solo bicycle trip from Mexico City to Costa Rica. During that trip he spent several weeks in Copan, Honduras. In his 4-page email to me, Tim wrote:
The reasons for writing this are to give another opinion about Copan. The town is struggling and needs more tourism. Would a foreigner who is contemplating a first visit to Central America consider Honduras or Copan after reading Ellen’s book or your blog post? Highly unlikely…. During my 2015 solo bicycle tour through Honduras, en route from Mexico City to Costa Rica, I neither experienced nor witnessed any violence. I had expected to at least hear gunshots, but did not.
“From Tim’s perspective, Ellen’s book and my blog post may actually hurt the people of Honduras by discouraging tourism rather than helping anyone.”
Floey looked up at me and said, “I think I can see his point, Mom. I know I wouldn’t want to travel to Honduras. I’d be afraid of getting shot.”
“I don’t think I’d like to go there for a vacation, either. But remember our friends Liz and James go to Copan almost every year to visit the kids they support. They love the trip. They have found safe places to stay and really enjoy their visits. From their perspective as tourists, they feel safe.”
“Hey, Mom. There’s that word PERSPECTIVE again. Ellen’s perspective of life in Honduras is quite different from Tim’s.”
“You’re right, Floey. I’m sure the people living in small villages in the mountains of Honduras have a different perspective on life in Honduras than wealthier people living in the larger cities and more prosperous suburbs, or from tourists traveling through the country. Another very important part of the whole picture is the perspective of Honduran immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. Many of them see the violence in their homeland as unbearable.”
“Life sure is complicated, isn’t it, Mom.”
“This conversation has taken us a long way from our different perspectives on why I yelled at you last night.”
“It sure has. I’m glad we talked about perspectives. I learned that one perspective rarely provides the whole picture. I need to remember to try to see other perspectives as well as my own if I really want to understand what’s happening.”
“That’s right, Floey. Maybe when we get home from this long walk and long talk, I’ll bring up Tim’s blog about his bicycle tour of Central America, to try to see more of his perspective on this part of the world. I took a peek at it yesterday, and he includes lots of beautiful pictures along with his narrative.”
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=1mr&doc_id=15328&v=qE
“Great! That will be fun to see, especially with lots of pictures.”
We continued on our walk in silence for a while. Then Floey added, “Hey, Mom, do you think the need to understand different perspectives applies to all our political differences, too? Like, lots of people hate Trump and all his policies. Other people love him and everything he does. I know people on both sides. Can a complete understanding of any issue ever come about by really trying to understand both sides?”
“I don’t know, Floey. But the first step is to be willing to listen to the other side. I don’t think most people are even near the first step yet. And I don’t know how to get there.”
“I know!” Floey said excitedly and grinned at me. “Everyone needs long walks and long talks, just like this!”
When I was a little girl growing up on a Wisconsin farm, I thought of four families as being our neighbors: the farmers across the road just west of us – the Henry Henderson family; the farmers who lived on the farm immediately south of us – The Mulcaheys; the farmers just east of us – the Scotts; and Ruth and Merrill Kenseth, a brother and sister who were double cousins of my mom (their moms were sisters and their dads were brothers) – and they lived on the farm across the road north of us. I didn’t really know any of the neighbors very well, except the cousins. Sometimes, on a nice summer evening, I would walk over to the Kenseth farm to play with their barn cats while Merrill was milking the cows, especially when there was a brand new litter of kittens to play with.
Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.
