An Interesting Question

Last weekend I had the wonderful bounty of attending the Alberta Winter School. Not only was it a good reminder that -20 isn't all that bad when it's dry outside, but I learned a lot, too. And even better, my son was there with me. That was just light upon light, as they say.

During one of the sessions, about being relevant, the idea of an elevated conversation was brought up, and how it wasn't just mentioning a virtue, or saying the words "Baha'i" or "Baha'u'llah", wonderful as that is. No. It was pointed out that a far more relevant example would be if you were talking to two people, one of whom was adamantly pro-guns, and the other extremely anti-guns, and recognized that they were both concerned about security. One is more aware of personal security, while the other is more concerned about communal security. When you raise the discussion to this level, then you help bring them together on a real topic where they can discuss the issue at hand, and not just talk past each other based merely on a sound-bite.

Anyways, it was a very interesting discussion, and a few different points were brought up.

But what really interested me was the gentleman who asked how you would bring together two people arguing over both sides of the abortion issue. First, it was pointed out that it's not "pro-choice" and "pro-life", for the division there is actually artificial. Also, those who are generally "pro-life" are actually "pro-birth", as their interest in the life of the child generally seems to end with their birth, if their stance on other issues is at all accurate.

The discussion on that particular issue didn't really come to any conclusion, other than to dive into it and ask them why they each have their particular stance. Asking questions to learn more about why they believe what they do seemed to be the prevalent conclusion.

But this is not what I really wanted to talk about today. No. This was just an intro to my real story.

You see, dear Reader, the day after the Winter School my son and I went to the mall to meet up with a friend and her son. I hadn't seen my friend in over twenty years, and we were both real excited to get together again. Meeting occurred, lunch was eaten, and a good time was had by all, especially since ice cream and bubble tea were involved. But as always happens, our getting together had to come to an end. It was time for her hubby to pick them up.

So we headed over the pick-up point, and discovered we still had about 10 minutes.

What did we do? We walked into an electronics store. Both our sons are sort of geeks. (Don't tell.)

While the two kinder were looking at various thingies, my friend and I were standing around. One of the employees, Jay, came over and asked if we had any questions.

Now, dear Reader, I must tell you, the friend I met is not a Baha'i, but she sure is conversant with the Faith. And she knows me really well. So when I said that yes I did in fact have a question, she was just waiting to see what I would bring up.

"How would you", I asked Jay, "help bring together in conversation two people who are arguing both sides of the abortion question?"

Jay looked at me a bit curiously, wondering if I was serious or not.

My friend piped in, "You never said the question had to be about electronics."

"Fair enough," he replied, and proceeded to answer the question cogently, coherently, and with a fairly good spiritual insight into the concept of unity. The resultant conversation was pretty awesome. And we learned that the reason he was so good at bringing about unity to differing viewpoints was that he is Hindu and his girlfriend is Muslim. He's had lots of practice.

I often hear people say that it takes time to talk about spiritual ideas, and honestly, I don't know why that would be. When you're given an opening, grab it. Talk about the big issues. Ask the difficult questions. Don't lead with what you believe, because most people don't really care. But when you ask what they believe, or what they would do, then you're off and running. Once they explain their perspective, many will also ask for yours. And you know what? When you ask their opinion first, you often learn a lot.

So I just wanted to share that today. It was a great weekend, and it got me thinking about a difficult issue. The next day when I was innocently asked if I had a question, well, I did. I was still thinking about it.

Now I think I'll make sure that I always have a question on the go.

Oh, and when my son and I walked past the same store the next day, Jay recognized me and remembered the conversation. It had gotten him thinking, too.