For those in the business, this meant basically soaking yourself in a steady stream (sadly again) of mostly negative soup. I likened my job as a talk show host to someone back in the 50s who'd landed a gig in OakRidge. Everybody wanted those high paying jobs, but even those who had 'em sorta suspected they were getting cancer from the toxins.
For the last 5 of our 20 years together, Nashville legend Teddy Bart and I crafted a non-profit entity called The Public Forum, a think tank of political policy and happenings featuring his popular Round Table morning show.
Now Teddy, for those unfamiliar, had a knack for these sorta things. Anyone who could bring polar opposites together around one (big round) table and manage two hours of civil discourse is a pro in my book. (Face it: this is a rare beast we hardly see anymore these days.) I'm often asked if I miss those mornings and the excitement of the exchanges and my answer is consistent: miss the people; do NOT miss the anger.
The anger was just beginning when we came off the air in 2005. We saw the tip of the iceberg and fortunate for us (I say in hindsight), our ship went down early. As I came home to rethink my life, write a few books, start a garden, I came to realize that my creativity quotient was inversely proportional to the amount of "other people's stuff" I consumed when it came to politics.
But something about this last election got to me~
Like a recovering crack addict who thinks one party hit for old times sake won't phase things, I soon found myself back with the monkey. First it was Meet the Press. (What's one hour in a week?) Then I started rearranging farm chores to catch another hour...then another. But because weekend political shows fed off the evening news, I started setting the phone alarm so as to not miss the opener of each evening newscast. Before long, I was flipping on the TV to catch morning reports, pausing at mid-day to see what the markets were doing in aftermath (and I don't even own stock). Before I know it, I'm watching like an addict, not only the chaos of what I can only describe as an embarrassing presidential race (and I don't care which side you're for, it was beneath our dignity as a country to endure this)...but more important, watching a country I love and thought I knew, split itself right down the middle with anger, bigotry and depression.
I honestly did not see it coming; nor did I know how hard it had hit me until day after the election when I felt like I'd been hit by a bus. Why in the world would I take this so personally? I, like most everyone I had talked to, wasn't excited either way, but suddenly I found myself sucked into the gut-wrenching emotion of it all...feeling lost as to who's going to lead us and saddened as for what it might take to turn this ship around. (Because honestly, if this is our best...there is no simple answer. To me, the only hope of an answer MUST come from the inside out.)
Day after the election I padded about in my fuzzy slippers and fought the urge to even turn on a TV, but then gave in as I really wanted to see how Hillary handled the speech. I did take a little comfort in her choice of purple. I know it was a (not so subtle) gesture to blend our red and blue country, but more than this, purple is a spiritual color. To me it said, "Don't look to earthly thinking...Look for inspiration...DIG for deeper meaning...PRAY for Divine intervention."
Two days after the election I noticed a slight shift in my depression (again, this was not about sore losing, as it was "When did we get so angry?" "How did this creep up on us so quickly?") Then I heard from (first) one friend....by dark ... another. But the discussions were different. Sure friends are there to comfort us, but with these 1st conversations, the questions were "What can WE of all low-totem-poll people DO to affect change?" (Spoiler alert: That may've been the question we started with; but the question that replaced it was: "What can I...you...us little folk do to keep OURSELVES in check so as to not lose the only true asset any of us have and that is our hope, our peace of mind...our sanity.")
Then a funny thing happened on the way to the (no longer here) Forum... (little inside humor there) ... The conversations I was having...with friends on BOTH sides of the aisle...hit new depths. These were longer than usual because we couldn't sum up so easily what we were feeling. These were not quippy updates or jabs at things that stuck in our crawl. These were soul-searching, gut-level, friend-talking-friends-off-ledges kinda conversations, like you have when your world has been turned upside down. (Usually things like the death of a close friend, or loss of something held dear do it...In this case, an election...What's that about?) Since when did I let Politics get under my skin this way? Then it hit me. This isn't about politics. This is about something in YOU, Evins, something that's bothering you ...something that's been ignored...Might be time you dig deeper under those 20 mattresses to find just what that annoying little pea looks like~
I next reached out to my minister and I shared my feelings...along with an idea that I was mulling...designed as a little test market survey in a sort of spiritual support group therapy setting...
"More than sadness, I'm feeling a little lazy" I confessed... "...not in a physical way, but mentally...Spiritually." I've gone back to lazy thought habits and my muscles need a workout. The fact that something so worldly as elections run amuck or gossip replacing substance tells me I'm as much a part of the problem as the problem itself. I can't speak for them, but "I" gotta get fit. After all, I know better. I've been trained better. But what I haven't been doing is applying that training...And how better to do that than to start a workout schedule?
For lack of a better title, I dubbed it Spiritual Boot Camp ~ (Something I was challenged on first day in, when one of my attendees asked "Isn't that a bit harsh? I mean, Boot Camp doesn't suggest kinder or gentler. It suggests training to punch somebody~" (Valid point.) But MY emphasis was on the spiritual. We've all found ourselves wanting to punch and jab. Heck, we were sharpening our chops just to prep for office Christmas parties, but were we devoting the same kind of training toward our own spiritual beliefs?
Spiritual Boot Camp isn't about winning debates. It's not about converting people to your ideology. It's about sharpening your own inner skills so as to know how to step away if necessary, or at the very least, not let things get to you to the point that you're taking it out in road rage or snapping at your spouse.
Spiritual Boot Camp is about creating a safe place where we go back to the basics of civil discourse and learn how to separate a person's political beliefs from the soul of that individual, after all, we are more than our thinking when it comes to talking the soul of an individual. Beliefs are just one aspect of us...One facet. They are certainly NOT the entire individual. I, for one, needed a refresher course.
As an example, I opened the first class by asking "How many of you have unfriended someone because of this election?" (Go ahead...Visualize the response. You'd be right.) When we allow something so "out there" get to us "in here" and AFFECT OUR blood pressure, or our health, or our sanity, then it's time to get spiritually fit.
It is a delicate undertaking, I admit. Keeping the balance, keeping the peace, keeping calm as you watch person after person take someone to task in ways that are far from civil as if it's the new norm. I refuse to let this become my norm!
It's not our differences we hate. (Our differences MADE this country folks.) It's the tone toward slamming each other personally. It's sensing we've removed all respect from the conversation. It's the emptiness we wind up feeling as we drive home from a job we once loved, no longer feeling safe to crack a joke or enter a water cooler conversation for fear of the backlash...Somehow with this last one, the wounds cut deeper than usual it seems. Or maybe we've grown hypersensitive.
Like any new venture, (if it winds up at all) it will wind up being nothing like the image I started with. This I know from many years and many creations working with Teddy. We'd have an idea for a show, and once started, the show would show us what it wanted to become. I suspect this will follow a similar trajectory or else it will be a vent-fest that gets us through the transition and we all go back to being the way we were, but depending on who you were, I dare say we can never go back...We can only go forward.
And it is with that forward-thinking discipline, that Spiritual Boot Camp was created.
Our next forum is lined up for January 15th ~ You're welcome to join us.(Promise, you don't have to sign up as a member of my church, but my minister would love to have you if you're looking for a church home.) Bring a journal. Bring your experiences. These become great fodder for approaching the days ahead with a more civil tone and a more grounded spiritual outlook.
Think of it as a group think-tank for your own individual response to the increasing anger out there.
I'm especially fond of the song "Let there be peace on earth" but as anyone knows whose ever sung it, the hook is "Let it begin with me."
SBC is about finding that first step, then a second... then a third ...for YOU personally...the individual. We're not into infantry cadence drills; we're exploring ways to apply spiritual principles as we each march to the beat of our own inner drummers (while allowing those who disagree with us to do the same--AND respecting 'em for it).
Next Spiritual Boot Camp: This Sunday: January 15th.
1 - 3 pm Center for Spiritual Living Nashville
6705 Charlotte Pike ~ Nashville
Suit up/Join us/Be there
(OK, attire is way casual...We're not really marching, marching... We're mentally marching.)
No comments:
Post a Comment