Time to Lean In

I heard this morning that a childhood friend of mine passed away unexpectedly.  While I've never been very close to him, he was part of my circle.  This morning his wife, children, family, and friends are missing him dearly.

Sometimes we let differences get in the way of friendships.  When I was a teenager, we didn't have Facebook.  Life happened, people moved on, and when Facebook came up we had a chance to catch up.  People opened up on Facebook and you get a chance to see them differently.  Maybe you decide that that person's thinking doesn't line up exactly like yours and you find yourself another little circle to hang out it.  And sometimes those friends slowly slip away to someone you just say hi to when you see them.  And that's not really a bad thing.  It's not like you had a blow up argument about it. Or maybe you did.  But more often,  you just moved along.  And I'm saying today that it's not worth it.  At one point in your life those things didn't matter, you were friends.  That's what's important.  Those little things still shape you and maybe if you'd stayed closer those differences could form compromises.  Because people are more important than a label.  We can work together as friends and form a place where all people feel they have a place and a voice.

This morning I was talking to someone close to me about our friend.   In their emotional state they saw their dog licking the dishes in the dishwasher.  When told so, the dog usually vacates the dishwasher but this time dog didn't.  So dog was given a helpful shove only to find a his collar stuck on the rack which resulted in the dishes spilling all over the place.

When we find someone we care about in a place we don't like, why don't we lean in? Why do we push them away.  Perhaps when we lean in and find out why they are there we can empathize.  We can understand why they are stuck there.  We may find that we understand why they are where they are and they'll understand we we share another viewpoint.  Maybe we can help them out of the dishwasher and hand them a dish to help clean, cleaning them is the goal right?  And don't we rinse the dishes first anyway?  See how we can work together if we just lean in.

See what happens when we don't, a mess.  And we're left upset that we didn't lean in AND we have a mess to clean up.  And the dishes are still dirty.

Lean in.  Listen.  Understand. Compromise. Heal. Work begins for the common good of us all.