Life Diagrams
   It’s a beautiful, snowy Sunday afternoon, and the view out of every window in my house is postcard-perfect. Every scene is just what anyone would conjure up in their mind when they think of Vermont. It’s very quiet and peaceful, but I’ll be grateful later to hear the scraping noise of the plow guy in my driveway. And before dark I’ll head out to shovel the walk, again. (I have a fairly, short bricked walkway to my front door, but why anyone would build a walkway, here in Vermont, wider than the width of a shovel, is beyond me.) The whole scene of this calm Sunday afternoon is in such stark contrast to what we witnessed just a few days ago when the Capitol was overrun by Trump supporters. There was death, destruction, terror, violence and vile slogans shouted and worn on t-shirts. That all seems like a world away from here in this comfy snow globe where I sit. If you were to put a snapshot of the Capitol building last Wednesday in one circle of a Venn diagram, and a snapshot of the winter view out my kitchen window in another circle, there would be absolutely no overlap.
   I’ve been wondering a lot about Venn diagrams lately. I recently learned that they were created in the 1880s by John Venn, an English logician. My daughter Molly uses them while teaching history and has her students create Venn diagrams that “compare and contrast” urban and rural life during the Gilded Age. My sister, Kate, a K-12 school librarian says that Venn diagrams are great visual aids to help her younger students sort out information, like how their lives are different from, or similar to, the characters in the books she reads to them. But I’ve been thinking about how Venn diagrams might work with people. For example, I’m guessing that my twin sister, Ann, and I might have Venn diagrams that almost totally overlap. We share similar interests, we’re both mothers, swimmers, field hockey players, live in Vermont, have the same political leanings, drive Subaru Crosstreks, enjoy the same books, love family reunions. There are some places, however that would not overlap. She climbs 4,000-foot mountains. I belong to the Meat Loaf (the singer) Facebook fan group. I don’t think Ann does. She has dogs. I have cats. Although the “intersection” of our Venn diagram would be quite large, there are still some places that don’t overlap.
   After thinking about my personal Venn diagram with Ann, I wondered about other people I know. What are my common, intersection, shaded areas, with other friends and family members? What about people I don’t think I have a lot in common with? Could we both still be fans of poet Mary Oliver, or have grown up in a small town or love swimming in the ocean off the Outer Banks? Could the man I chatted with in the grocery line (from six feet away) be a Meat Loaf fan?
    When I was talking with Molly about my new interest in applying Venn diagrams to people, she told me about a Venn-like exercise she did at a conference with a group of people who didn’t know each other. The attendees were told to find one other person that they had something in common with. Not too difficult. Another history teacher, another parent, another runner. Then the pairs were instructed to find a commonality with another pair. Then the foursomes had to find something in common with another foursome. This process continued until the entire group had to find one trait, like or dislike, theme, interest, something that they all shared, other than that they were all humans and lived on Earth. (For the record, everyone involved had “non-traditional pets,” as in not a dog or cat, as children.)
   While watching the news footage of the destruction of the Capitol building, played over and over the past few days, several intruders were highlighted by the press, clearly gaining the attention they were seeking by their dress, the flags they were waving or the disrespectful poses they struck for photo-ops. The slogans on the t-shirts were so disgusting. A “staff” shirt from “Camp Auschwitz.” And “6MWNE,” meaning six million were not enough. I truly can’t fathom creating such shirts, buying them or wearing them. And I understand that these people were the extremists in the crowd. They are being arrested and charged, as they should be. I put these people in a separate category of true, unashamedly, White Supremacists. And as my friend says, “I have no interest in understanding them or talking to them. They want me dead.” But we’re also finding out that the crowd included police officers, veterans, business owners, state legislators, ordinary citizens who are so disillusioned with our country and the verified and valid outcome of the presidential election, that they were incited into a frenzy of violence. The crowd at the Capitol building included a busload of Vermonters.
   Stretching my interest in personal Venn diagrams to its limit, what would my Venn diagram with any of these people look like? If I were to sit down with someone who was in the crowd at the Capitol last Wednesday, where could we begin a conversation? Maybe we are both parents. We worry for our children and our future grandchildren, and what their lives will be like. I worry because I believe that, without government intervention, climate change is going to drastically affect the world I leave for my grandchildren. And she worries because she believes liberal, lefty, Democratic Socialists are going are to ruin capitalism and all she has worked hard for, and wants to pass on to her grandchildren. We are likely on opposite ends of the political, cultural, social and spiritual spectrums.
    And at the same time, could there be any commonality? Maybe she also endured the death of her mom at a young age. Maybe she also has four tattoos. Maybe it is too soon to even go there. I am in no way making light of the divide that that exists and is tearing at the seams of our country and our democracy, and I understand that a Pollyannaish approach will not be helpful or effective. But what will be effective? Common ground, even if it’s as fragile and as simple sharing the role of being mothers, and then a conversation? Behind the conversation needs to be a true desire to know where we “overlap,” understand where we don’t, and more importantly, why we don’t. So where do we start? Maybe with “hello,” and see where are circles line up from there.
   The National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, addressed this in her beautifully lyrical poem “The Hill We Climb,” which she so elegantly recited this week at President Biden’s inauguration. She said our nation “isn’t broke, but simply unfinished.” She offers some hope, stating: “We are striving to forge a union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man. And so we lift our gaze not to what stands between us but what stands before us.” And then, she gives us this challenge, which should be the words that linger in our minds and our hearts. “For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it; if only we’re brave enough to be it.”
 
 
 
Ann sent me the link to this short Danish video that she uses in her classes at Mt. Abraham Union High School to illustrate we often put people in “boxes” without knowing their whole story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD8tjhVO1Tc
 
 
  

First John Lewis, and now RBG. I mentioned to a coworker today that if Jimmy Carter dies before 2020 is over, it will seem like we’re doomed, like our world will be missing the necessary ingredients of integrity and compassion that will enable us to move forward. I know this isn’t true, but it feels like that today. I know there are strong, moral people out there, like Emma Gonzalez, with voices that won’t be silenced, but to realize that both Congressman Lewis and Justice Ginsburg are no longer with us, has really set me back in a hole that I hadn’t expected.
When I was a 10-year-old kid, the first well known person I considered a hero was Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz. And man, did he fit the role. There he was, the summer of ‘72, with those seven gold medals hanging around his neck. I suppose watching his success that summer may have done something to encourage me and my teammates to dive into the cold water of the Vergennes Memorial Swimming Pool at 8 a.m. on chilly summer mornings where we practiced, lap after lap. My friend Tim even had the same stars and stripes Speedo suit as Spitz. I didn’t know anything about Spitz’s personal life, his belief system or his political leanings. I was just impressed with the results he achieved in the water. After spending most of my summer mornings at swim team practice, I had some idea, although small, of what it took for Mark Spitz to swim 100-meter freestyle in 51.22 seconds. He was impressive and made us small town swimmers feel recognized in some way.
A few years later, I focused on biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Robert Kennedy. I moved on from Spitz to politicians, two of whom I believed had integrity and a sense of obligation to make their worlds better. I was impressed with how Lincoln sought out the advice from people who didn’t agree with him, and how RFK felt compelled to fight the sources, and results, of poverty. There have been other people I’ve grown to admire. Statesmen, like George Mitchell and George McGovern. (One of my first assignments for the Coos County Democrat was to cover McGovern’s stop at the Balsam’s Ballot Room in Dixville Notch in the early 90s.) There were the writers, Robert Frost and Harper Lee, both of whom I admire a great deal.
But in recent years it’s been John Lewis and RBG. It’s still a bit unbelievable to me to think that as a young man, a college kid, John Lewis literally put his life on the line when he put on his overcoat and knapsack and set out to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as a young Jewish mother with a law degree, decided she could change the world for women. They could not tolerate injustice.
In a recent NYT Op-Ed piece, Dr. Amitha Kalaichandran, wrote about grieving for public figures - “grief is a symptom of letting go when we don’t want to.” I think that is just the kind of grief many of us feel about Congressman Lewis and Justice Ginsburg. I don’t want to let go of their presence in our world. Because how do we replace that? Then the question for myself becomes, what do I do to be emboldened by their courage?
It seems a bit trite to say - do what you can, wherever you are - but that’s where I’ve landed with all this. What can I do where I am? I’m working on it. I put up a Biden/Harris yard sign in my yard. I put a Biden/Harris bumper sticker on my car that I drive through this very red pocket of a blue state. When someone says, “But don’t you think all lives matter?” I’ve got an answer now and I’m not afraid to use it, even with coworkers and neighbors. Because my Jewish friend was attending a statewide on-line Shabbat service last Friday evening and the participants were “zoom bombed” with photos of the Holocaust and comments about Hitler “not killing enough of you,” I will continue to say that there is absolutely no place for Lord’s prayer in any of our public buildings or schools. Even if it’s just a response to a meme circulating on Facebook.
Whatever it is that calls us to be our strongest, emboldened selves, we need to listen to it. It might be our religion, our faith, our spirituality, our moral compass, our humanity. Whatever it is, we need to listen, and respond to it.
There isn’t a major world religion that doesn’t have the “golden rule” as one of its main tenants. The golden rule is essentially a rule for justice and equality. Humanists, Animists and Atheists would likely agree that caring for others is a basic principle of a well-intentioned life, and pursuing equality for all is an extension of that. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said, “My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.” There’s a start. We can make kindness our primary intention. John Lewis stated in his last op-ed piece, that he requested be printed the day of his funeral, “Answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe in.” He concluded: “So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.” It’s that simple, and it’s that complicated. And I will let Ruth be my guide, as I continue to travel with her bobbing likeness on my dashboard.