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Last fall my family started a book club for the young women of the clan. I know what you are thinking: Ann, you are not exactly young. That is true. But I was the one who organized it, so I get to attend… along with my school librarian sister (because not only am I not young, I also know nothing about young adult novels and someone needs to pick the books.)
The first book we read last winter was Midnight Library by Matt Haig. The conversation that ensued was just so wonderful that we couldn’t wait to get our nieces talking about another book. It finally happened a couple weeks ago at our biennial family reunion in Kentucky. We discussed Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri.
Okay, okay. I know I mention a lot of books and say that they were the best book ever. But, truly, this is one of the finest pieces of writing I have ever read. The remarkable thing is that this was the second time that I had read the book, and it was even better the second time than the first. I suspect it is because of all that is going on at present in the news.
Even if “everything sad is untrue”, Nayeri’s story is true. It is an accounting of his journey from life in Iran to life in Oklahoma. Like Scheherazade in 1001 Nights, Nayeri tries to stay alive in a middle school classroom by telling stories that keep the listener/reading hanging until slowly they begin to form one thick description of what it is like to be a refugee in America. The story is harrowing; the narrator is hilarious. Nayeri will make you laugh aloud, but then shoot a sentence that goes right through the heart. Turns out there are some truths that are sad.
On the way home from Kentucky, I listened to the song from Christian artist Jon Guerra titled Citizens. Enchantingly simple melody yet with lyrics that also pierce the heart. You might need to listen a couple times to catch them all, but wow. There are some truths about who we’ve become as a country in relation to immigrants that are more than sad. They are also confusing and maddening. Guerra finds words I’ve been missing, and even though every time I listen to the song it crushes me, I am so grateful to him for finding the missing words.
Whenever teaching about difficult conversations, I talk about how the conversations we find tough are caused by different interpretations of the facts. We can both see there is a problem before us, but disagree about the cause of the problem, who is responsible for it, where we should go from here. What I’ve slowly come to realize over the years of doing this work is that we might never find agreement on the story line. We might never persuade another person to change their mind to look at the world we look at the world. But where we often can find some common ground is at the level of emotion. We might never agree on politics or faith convictions, but when I say “I feel sad” there is no way to disagree on that. When you say “I am angry,” I can hardly say, “No, you are not.” In many situations, we both are feeling sad, angry, confused, frustrated, and—rather than the “facts”—those common emotions can be our meeting place.
Scanning the landscape of our country at present, I wonder if rather than debating, rather than making our arguments stronger, maybe we read literature together. Maybe we listen to music together. Maybe we allow ourselves to get in contact with our own feelings again since feelings are what so often drive our actions yet we so rarely explicitly name the role they play in the decisions we make. Moreover maybe we allow ourselves to feel a bit of what other people feel—not to make those feelings our own, but in order to redevelop some capacity for empathy as a nation. The way we are receiving and digesting news events does not seem to be cultivating that capacity within us. Perhaps the arts still can. Important stuff. Because until we rediscover our capacity for empathy as a nation, we will not be able to recover our moral compass. Our very soul.
An idea for the week: maybe instead of sharing a news article, share a song? A poem? Read a novel together?
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It makes me quiver with both anxiety and anticipation to say this, but September is going to be here very soon and we should probably also start thinking about what we might do for the month of creation! My friend Fr. Jim Hug, SJ has prepared another beautiful resource for the season again this year, viewable here. Be sure to check it out! So many beautiful ideas for prayer and preaching during this month.
(photo credit: Nick Fewings – Unsplash)