Ripples #961: Find The Bridge!
Oct 23, 2017
PEBBLE
It’s when you try to find the bridge where two people can meet that I learn the most about the people around me.
-James Altucher
shared by Donna in Owings, MD
BOULDER
To me the really defining question of our humanity and of our civil society right now is not can we agree. That’s kind of idealistic, and it’s not helping us. It’s more about how can we live together while we disagree about these things that are so personal. This requires much more of us spiritually and practically than the illusion that we’ll force agreement.
—Krista Tippett, “Talking with the Other Side”
shared by Maureen in Winona, MN
PONDER
This week I presented at the 2017 GABLE Conference, an annual event coordinated by Procter & Gamble that gathers LGBT+ employees along with allies and external partners for a day of support and growth. We spent some time reviewing the Riddle Scale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddle_scale) that identifies eight ascending levels of support: repulsion, pity, tolerance, acceptance, support, admiration, appreciation, and nurturance. While Dr. Dorothy Riddle created this scale based on research of attitudes towards gays and lesbians, I find it useful to consider its broader implications for assessing levels of support for other marginalized groups.
I’m both proud and humbled by the fact that readers of these weekly splashes represent a diverse array of political, religious, and philosophical perspectives. And I am immensely grateful that most of you are well beyond merely ACCEPTING or begrudgingly TOLERATING these differences, and instead see them as something valuable to APPRECIATE and perhaps even NURTURE. It has been my fervent hope for the last 18 years that these emails could serve as not only a consistent source of inspiration, but also strengthen our bonds of commonality while they build bridges between our differences.
Many of you have let me know that you value the resource links I sometimes share, so here is a YouTube Playlist I created for GABLE to explore: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLecRxAeiYrM6kxPIl4H2bmk_UG3U7_rpc In particular, I think Heineken’s “World’s Apart” https://youtu.be/8wYXw4K0A3g and TV2 Denmark’s “All That We Share” https://youtu.be/jD8tjhVO1Tc might help you extend your curiosity to Find The Bridge between you and those who experience the world differently than you do.
Peace,
Paul
The Ripples Guy
