Latest / Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community / The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Transcript
- 0:01One time there was a CarePortal request that came in for TV and there
- 0:05were some questions that came from some church responders on why the
- 0:09family was requesting a tv because they didn't quite see how that was
- 0:13a vital need, you know? And typically the requests that come in are
- 0:16maybe urgent things. Yeah. From the outside, someone might think
- 0:20that's not essential. Like, why would they ask for that when there's so many
- 0:24other needs that they probably have? But we take for granted that sense of
- 0:27normalcy. It's normal for a family to have a tv and they
- 0:31need those rhythms. It might be rest.
- 0:38Every one of us has done it. We see one moment,
- 0:41one decision, one reaction, one messy situation,
- 0:46and without even meaning to, we start writing a whole story
- 0:49about someone. Maybe they're irresponsible,
- 0:53Maybe they don't care. Maybe they should have known better. Maybe
- 0:57they're just difficult. But what if there's more going on than what we
- 1:01can see? Hey, everyone. I'm Johan, the producer of
- 1:04Neighbourly. Today. Shannon and myself are stepping back from our
- 1:08regular guest interviews for another reflective episode. And we're talking
- 1:12about assumptions, the stories we tell ourselves about people
- 1:16before we really know them. And this isn't a conversation where we're
- 1:19the experts, where either of us are pretending we've figured this out.
- 1:23It's more of an honest look about how easily we fill in the
- 1:27blanks and how Neighbourly Care invites us to slow down, stay
- 1:31curious and see the person right in front of us, not just the
- 1:34problem. Before we join Shannon at the table, we believe
- 1:38stories stick with us. They can change lives and they can
- 1:41shift our perspective. That's a big part of what we're doing
- 1:45with this podcast as part of CareImpact's message.
- 1:48Neighbourly is a CareImpact podcast produced in
- 1:51partnership with CARE Creatives company. Care Creatives
- 1:55helps organizations clarify their message through
- 1:58branding, design, websites, print and audio production.
- 2:02All for social good. Hey, if you need any of that, check us
- 2:06out@carecreativesco.ca. all right, come join
- 2:09Shannon and I at the table for this conversation.
- 2:14Shannon, we're back at it. We are.
- 2:18Woohoo. Yeah. Another one of those episodes where we get to
- 2:21step back from our regular interviews and just kind of reflect on some of the
- 2:25things that we've been hearing. What are we going to be talking about today?
- 2:29Today we are talking about assumptions and some of the
- 2:32stories that we tell ourselves about other people
- 2:36before we have a chance to know them. And as
- 2:40I was preparing for this and thinking about just being
- 2:44honest, like ways I've done that before. And so I don't think
- 2:47either of us are coming at this from a place of, like, we
- 2:51have it all figured out and everybody else is doing it wrong. I think
- 2:55we see over the years how we've learned in
- 2:58different ways, and now through the work we do, you know, we get to
- 3:02keep seeing that and providing some. Hopefully some
- 3:06education and some opportunities for people to
- 3:10see the human in one another a little bit more than
- 3:13maybe jumping to a conclusion about. About someone.
- 3:18Yeah. I think we all have our assumptions, and I assume the more you
- 3:21do care Portal requests a lot of those assumptions about
- 3:25people, they diminish over time, even, right? Absolutely.
- 3:29Well, Shannon, let's just start off. What are some harmless
- 3:32assumptions people might think about you that aren't totally
- 3:36accurate? Because people have assumptions about all of us, Right? Yeah. One
- 3:40I've heard before is that people assume I'm always,
- 3:43like, extroverted and always energized by others.
- 3:47And I am, to a point. Like, I love talking to people. I love
- 3:51connecting. I love learning and understanding
- 3:54what makes someone who they are. And I can be,
- 3:58especially in places where I'm comfortable, I can be pretty carefree. But
- 4:02other people and group settings really only energize
- 4:06me to a point. And as soon as I hit that point, then people start
- 4:10to train me. And so I. I sometimes just need to go and have time
- 4:13and space on my own. Yeah, I can really relate to that, too.
- 4:17I'm kind of the same way where I need to recharge after. For me, I
- 4:20think people often assume that because I work in podcasting and they hear my
- 4:24voice online. I mean, you too, but. And
- 4:28that I've been in leadership, I've done preaching and all these things. I must be
- 4:32great at talking to people. I must be great at meeting new people. But
- 4:35honestly, I feel like that's one of my biggest weaknesses. I do
- 4:39know how to turn it on, though. When I'm in a group, I can make
- 4:42people laugh. I can ask questions and get curious, which
- 4:46is probably the biggest first step to actually communicating with people
- 4:49is asking good questions, but connecting
- 4:53personally with no agenda. That's where it gets really
- 4:56challenging. Because I hate small talk as well. Like, I can
- 5:00interview someone for an hour because I've had a chance to prepare for that and
- 5:03I've interviewed other people. Right. But small talk in a lobby, where you're just running
- 5:07into someone, or they approach you at church and you're in the. In the lobby
- 5:10and want to start a conversation, and they start talking about the Weather.
- 5:14I'm like, oh, not another weather conversation. So why
- 5:18do you think people are so quick to fill in the blanks about others?
- 5:22Yeah, I sat with this question for a long time, and I struggled to really
- 5:26even, like, make sense of why. Like, why do we do this?
- 5:30But as it kind of went further, even in my own self, I
- 5:34think we, especially in today's world,
- 5:38we're not great at sitting or tolerating with
- 5:41uncomfortable feelings or uncomfortable situations,
- 5:45and we don't like unknowns. We want things to be pretty
- 5:49black and white or right and wrong. And. And so sitting with
- 5:53some complexity, I don't think is our default.
- 5:56And this might not be true for everybody, but I think sometimes I
- 6:00see. Again, even just in myself, I tend to think
- 6:03kind of linear. Like, I see something, a behavior or a situation,
- 6:08and my default is, well, there must be a clear reason for that.
- 6:12You know, because of XYZ or they're acting this way, you know, just because
- 6:15of they're annoying or something. You know, this, like, clear cut point A
- 6:19to point B. And that's not
- 6:23usually the case. Yeah, that makes total sense. Even as a
- 6:26podcast person. Like, that's one of the reasons why we're actually
- 6:30doing Neighbourly is because we want to make those stories known so
- 6:34that there are less assumptions. And. And we want people to know
- 6:37there's always a story behind everyone's life. Right. And the thing
- 6:41is, we like clean stories. We like things to make sense quickly, but
- 6:44real people almost never fit into those clean categories. Like,
- 6:48people are messy, and real life's not a podcast episode that I get to
- 6:52edit afterwards. People are not edited episodes.
- 6:56And I try to keep real to these stories when we do these interviews
- 7:00as well, to keep the real voice and keep the honesty. But. But you.
- 7:03You can. You can always remove some of my extra fillers, you know?
- 7:07Yeah, the people don't need to hear that. The number of times I say, can
- 7:10we start over? Oh, exactly. So if
- 7:14anyone was hesitant to be on the podcast, we can edit
- 7:18all that stuff out. If you're afraid, don't worry. Yeah.
- 7:22And like you're saying, and I think that's where assumptions can be so dangerous for.
- 7:26We see one, One scene from someone's life, it might be the first time
- 7:30we encounter them. Our brain starts to try to connect those dots, and we
- 7:34try to assume, to understand the whole story. So why
- 7:37do assumptions happen so naturally? I mean, it's kind of like our previous
- 7:41question, but why does. Why is this so natural in us for us to have
- 7:45assumptions yeah, that's a great question. We're all coming from our own
- 7:48perspectives and our perspectives on life, and that is always going
- 7:52to be shaped by our worldview and our life
- 7:55experiences. And a lot of it is learned behaviors
- 7:59that we've seen from the people around us and
- 8:03people growing up and all these different things. And that's just the point of
- 8:07view that we move through life. And I
- 8:10think most people aren't intending to
- 8:14maliciously make an assumption about others, but it can
- 8:17happen almost automatically. And so I think that's really the
- 8:21core of this, is not to shame anybody for
- 8:25having an assumption. I think what we're really trying to help people do in
- 8:29this episode is pause and learn how to pause when
- 8:33we're making those assumptions. And instead of jumping to a conclusion,
- 8:36be a little bit more aware of ourselves and where that assumption
- 8:40might be coming from, a little bit preemptively. I
- 8:44think that's important. And you're right. I don't think most assumptions
- 8:48come from cruelty automatically. Sometimes they come from what someone
- 8:51has been taught in their home. Sometimes they come from what they've
- 8:55experienced. And quite often it comes from fear, just of the unknown, like
- 8:59you said earlier. And for me, sometimes they come from things we just really
- 9:02have. haven't taken the time to think deeply about before. And
- 9:06that's something I've had to learn over the years. That doesn't make assumptions harmless, but
- 9:10it does mean that we need to be honest about how easily these stories can
- 9:14form inside of us. So I just mentioned where I noticed it
- 9:18in myself or I just haven't had time to think deeply on a lot of
- 9:21these assumptions. Where do you notice it in yourself? Yeah,
- 9:25I'll be a. I'll be a guinea pig and put myself out
- 9:28there. One I see in myself that I'm constantly trying to
- 9:32work on and be aware of is when I'm out and about in public
- 9:36and I see parents and kids interacting.
- 9:40And one example might be, you know, I'm at the grocery store or a restaurant,
- 9:43and I see a parent respond to their child a certain way and
- 9:47think, ooh, like, that's not what I would do if I were a parent, you
- 9:51know, thinking I have all this experience and I must know better
- 9:55or, you know, even if I'm just interacting with someone and
- 9:59I might kind of put a label on them as, like, being a little bit
- 10:03more difficult to work with or talk with and
- 10:06just assuming that's who they are, like they're demanding or they're annoying
- 10:10or, you know, these. This is kind of the internal dialogue.
- 10:13And I say that not because I. I am proud
- 10:17of that by any means, but I'm trying to notice and be self aware in
- 10:21myself of that's where my kind of internal
- 10:24judgment starts to go. And those can be assumptions that I can
- 10:28make quickly without considering, oh, maybe that
- 10:32family's having a really hard day and that mom is doing the very
- 10:35best she can and that kid just did that thing again that she told them
- 10:39not to do. Or, you know, I'm, I'm with a person
- 10:43and they just had a phone call from a family member and they are really
- 10:46struggling. Like, I don't know if, but at the same time, that's
- 10:50where we can start to think of ourselves and just be like, oh, I'm justified
- 10:54and I would do it differently or I would do it better. And yet we
- 10:58just don't. We don't know. We don't know what's right underneath the surface.
- 11:02Yeah. That reminds me, when I used to work as an EA many, many years
- 11:05ago, there were times sitting in the staff room with the other staff where they
- 11:09talk about the students. There'd be a student that misbehaves on a regular
- 11:13basis or they'd act out. The staff would just assume like they don't care,
- 11:17that they're lazy, that they weren't raised well. I've actually heard them
- 11:20say, and this was heartbreaking when I've heard it, that that student is a waste
- 11:24of space. And my heart just broke when I heard that.
- 11:28Just knowing, like from a Christian perspective, that they are
- 11:31God's image bearers. Yeah. And the more I sat in the
- 11:35context, working with these students, asking them questions about
- 11:39their life. I mean, they don't often share much anyway.
- 11:42But I've heard about some of these students whose siblings went
- 11:46missing, or if they've witnessed violence in their home, or they had to
- 11:50protect their mom from her new boyfriend, Stuff like
- 11:53that. They're dealing with that. We just can't understand that context.
- 11:57Like, we've never been in a lot of that context. Yeah. So from the outside,
- 12:01the behaviors look like defiance and laziness, but underneath
- 12:05there's like, fear, there's trauma, frustration, shame,
- 12:08exhaustion. So a student not doing homework
- 12:12might look like laziness from the outside, but there's a real story
- 12:16of fear and trauma, like I was saying, and a learning disability
- 12:19sometimes where they're just, they. They really do care so much,
- 12:23but they have trouble reading, so it becomes really frustrating. And they act out
- 12:27behaviorally. Those are some of those assumptions that even
- 12:31caregivers, those in authority, like teachers,
- 12:35they have assumptions about students sometimes. I'm not painting everybody with this
- 12:39broad stroke, but there's some out there that are caring for these kids that just
- 12:42don't take the time to understand. So, Shannon, where do you see this show up
- 12:46in churches and neighborhoods and community care, especially working with Care
- 12:50Portal? Yeah. Something I've noticed in these
- 12:53environments, and this is often just under the surface a
- 12:57little bit, it's not something we'd maybe say outright, is
- 13:00that we, the collective, we, the church, the community, the
- 13:04neighborhood, can often assume what people need. And again,
- 13:08going back to what you're saying in the beginning, this isn't
- 13:11malicious, but it's sometimes just our default. And
- 13:15especially like me, if you're a helper, you want to fix things,
- 13:19you want to right wrongs, you can quickly jump into like, oh,
- 13:22well, I know what that family probably needs. An example of
- 13:26this is one time there was a CarePortal request that came in,
- 13:30and the request was for tv. And there were some questions that
- 13:33came from some church responders on why the family was
- 13:37requesting a tv, because they didn't. They didn't quite see
- 13:40how that was a vital need, you know, and typically the requests
- 13:44that come in are. Are maybe urgent things. And what
- 13:48they didn't know was that that family was needing a smart
- 13:51TV because it was going to have multiple purposes. One of their kids was going
- 13:55to be able to do something, some schoolwork, using that tv, and it could then
- 13:59also be used for other things. Yeah. And so when we see that request come
- 14:02in, we don't necessarily know the whole story.
- 14:06Another common one I can see show up in conversations
- 14:09with community and just in friendships even, is
- 14:13how people view homelessness. And sometimes the
- 14:16narrative is often, well, why don't they just go get a
- 14:20job? And from the outside, that's really,
- 14:24really easy to say. And. And I think for me, coming from a place
- 14:28of not experiencing poverty and not
- 14:31experiencing major hardship in my life, I kind of used to think that way
- 14:35too, of, like, well, you know, if you're able to stand outside
- 14:39with the sign, like, why. Why not just spend that time, you know, looking for
- 14:43a job? And I'm so glad that over the
- 14:47years, God has humbled me and I've kept my heart soft to
- 14:50remain curious and compassionate, because
- 14:55obviously now as I've been in this space a little bit
- 14:58and asked some more questions, there's so
- 15:02much beyond the person standing on the corner that I don't
- 15:06see. I don't know if they're battling active addiction or
- 15:09untreated mental illness, or they
- 15:13lack access to, you know, shower facilities or
- 15:16transportation to get to a job interview. We. There's so many
- 15:20factors that it is not as simple as just going and getting a
- 15:23job. And it, it can really oversimplify
- 15:27what people are navigating. Yeah, so that's one
- 15:31example where I've seen in my own self,
- 15:34learning and really wanting to help. Communities
- 15:38and churches look at themselves in that
- 15:42way as well. And again, not to shame anybody, but to
- 15:46help open our eyes to different perspective.
- 15:49Yeah, I've heard that phrase before too. Like, why don't they just get a job?
- 15:53And that's one of those clean story assumptions. Right. It gives,
- 15:57it gives a simple explanation, but it skips over so
- 16:01much complexity. And I think sometimes those simple
- 16:04explanations make suffering feel more manageable from a
- 16:08distance. Like we have the answers if they just got a job like that.
- 16:11It's simple and they give us no reason not to wrestle with those harder
- 16:15questions. And again, for me, it's thinking deeper on these things.
- 16:19But real care, as we've learned, really begins when
- 16:23we're willing to sit with that complexity, when we're willing to
- 16:26sit with that curiosity. The TV example that you
- 16:30gave, that's a great example. Because from the outside, someone might think
- 16:34that's not essential. Like, why would they ask for that when there's so many
- 16:38other needs that they probably have? But we take for granted that sense of
- 16:42normalcy. It's normal for a family to have a TV and they
- 16:45need those rhythms. It might be rest. It might be a
- 16:49time for a parent to connect with their child and have that connection time where
- 16:53their child's not distracted by something else or behaviors. They can just
- 16:57sit together in quiet. It might be creating that sense of
- 17:01home, because that's a normal thing to have in your home.
- 17:04This doesn't mean every request is simple, obviously, and it doesn't mean we
- 17:08can't ask wise questions. But neighborly care
- 17:12starts from curiosity, not suspicion. So I
- 17:16think we all just need to be more curious. Okay, let's shift the conversation a
- 17:19little bit and talk about the damage of assumptions.
- 17:24So if assumptions are often automatic, and if
- 17:27we all do this in different ways, then maybe the next question
- 17:31is what damage do assumptions actually do? Because I think
- 17:34assumptions create distance. We don't get
- 17:38closer to people because we have assumptions about them. They can reduce people
- 17:42to their worst moment, reduce them to their, to their need, their
- 17:45behavior or financial situation. We can reduce them to their
- 17:49parenting stress or Whatever visible struggle we happen to see. But, Shannon,
- 17:53how can assumptions keep us from seeing the person in front of us?
- 17:57I think you said it right there. We can see one moment and start
- 18:01to make this whole story in our head and. And then we end up missing
- 18:05the whole person that's standing right in front of us
- 18:09and start to maybe put
- 18:13a label on someone and start to define them by
- 18:16that one moment rather than really seeing
- 18:20them for the whole person that they are. Yeah. Because
- 18:24we all have bad moments, and if that's our first
- 18:27impression or our only impression someone gets of us, we walk away
- 18:31just cringing. It's like, oh, my goodness,
- 18:35that's what I put forward for this person. Some of these people
- 18:38live with that more often because of their situations. And that.
- 18:42That must be heart wrenching for them to live with that on a daily
- 18:46basis sometimes because there's so much more to them, Right?
- 18:50Absolutely. Yeah. So that makes me think about
- 18:53something smaller, but still real. People sometimes assume
- 18:57that I'm disengaged because I'm. When. When there's more than
- 19:01two people in a room and there's conversations, I'm usually
- 19:04the quiet one. Believe it or not, even at home, my wife has
- 19:08experienced this too. She'll ask me a question, and then there
- 19:11will just be silence, and it drives her crazy. The truth is, I'm
- 19:15not not listening. I'm usually processing because I.
- 19:19You know, biblically, you want to be slow to speak. Right,
- 19:23right, right. But I tend to need time to digest what people
- 19:27are saying. Mostly because I don't like the
- 19:30taste of my foot in my mouth. Yeah. But it's a small
- 19:34example of how easily we can misread people. We can
- 19:38misread silence. We can misread behavior, or we can misread
- 19:42tone. We can misread the struggle or the day that they're having.
- 19:45When we're at a grocery store and the teller's not smiling and
- 19:49grouchy, we can say, well, they're really bad at customer service. Maybe they're just having
- 19:53a bad day. Yeah. And once that label gets attached, it can be a
- 19:57lot harder for us to see a person clearly, especially if that's our first
- 20:00impression of them. So how does curiosity
- 20:04protect dignity? Yeah, it's a great question.
- 20:08I think. I think it protects dignity because curiosity
- 20:12helps us resist the urge to make somebody simple.
- 20:16And most people are carrying grief, pressure,
- 20:20history, often fear, even trauma.
- 20:24And these are all kinds of things that we can't immediately
- 20:28see. And curiosity also reminds me that my
- 20:31own perspective is limited. I might have an
- 20:35interpretation of someone's behavior, but that
- 20:38interpretation is definitely not the whole truth.
- 20:41And I think there's just something deeply dignifying about
- 20:45really listening and curiosity helps. Tell someone,
- 20:49I want to know you. And there is safety really
- 20:53here to be yourself. And I think when someone feels safe
- 20:58and you can be trusted with whatever it is they want to say,
- 21:02that's really where someone feels dignified. That's good.
- 21:06And if you know me, I like to bring in scripture into these conversations
- 21:10because, as it says in Timothy, Scripture is profitable for teaching
- 21:14reproof, correction, and for training in righteousness.
- 21:18And obviously, Jesus is such a beautiful example
- 21:21of what we're talking about today. One of the things that we see so clearly
- 21:25in his life is that he consistently saw people beneath the
- 21:28labels, beyond their labels that others have placed on
- 21:32them. We see it. The woman at the well. And
- 21:36specifically, I'm thinking right now, I don't need to go to a sermon here, but
- 21:39the story of Zacchaeus, he really fits into that conversation. Everyone
- 21:43already decided who Zacchaeus was. He. He was a tax
- 21:47collector. He was corrupt. He was compromised.
- 21:51He was not the guy people wanted Jesus spending time with. I'm pretty sure
- 21:54they. They tried to counsel him against it. Why? Yeah,
- 21:59let's maybe not talk to this person. Can we just
- 22:02move it over here? So, Shannon, when you think about Zacchaeus,
- 22:06what stands out to you about the way Jesus treats him?
- 22:10Yeah, well, like you said, tax collectors in those days
- 22:13were not at all viewed highly. Well, I don't think we still like
- 22:17paying taxes. That's true. But especially in those
- 22:20days, they were corrupt, like you said, and would
- 22:24often take more than the tax somebody owed and just
- 22:28keep that for themselves. And so, you know, I think
- 22:31if I were, you know, one of the people who were
- 22:34viewing Zacchaeus this way, like, I'd feel pretty
- 22:38righteous in my anger towards this man. And yet
- 22:42Jesus not only noticed Zacchaeus, but he moved
- 22:45towards him, and he said, I'm gonna stay at your
- 22:48house. And that just doesn't make sense. Zacchaeus
- 22:52treated people unjustly. He was what we'd call a bad
- 22:56guy or, you know, a sinner. I would probably be offended, actually.
- 23:00Yeah. And so. So culture would say,
- 23:04like, this guy's. He's not who you want to hang out with. Like, we need
- 23:07to call him out and chastise him because he's been doing wrong. And like you
- 23:11said, he's a tax collector. So to be fair, some of that story was probably
- 23:14based on real Harm where. Where he actually did harm to people
- 23:18by collecting taxes when it probably wasn't justified. He'd
- 23:22probably taken advantage of people. He. And he probably benefited from this
- 23:25unjust system. And we feel like we're all righteous when
- 23:29we stand up against these things. But this isn't about pretending.
- 23:33None of that mattered. And Jesus didn't excuse what Zacchaeus
- 23:37had done, and he also didn't reduce what he had done.
- 23:41But the crowd saw that label, and Jesus saw the person.
- 23:46And being seen differently opened the door to living
- 23:49differently. Jesus didn't ignore the truth again,
- 23:53but he saw more than one piece of it. Yeah, those assumptions that
- 23:57we have coming in. When I was reading
- 24:00this short passage of Zacchaeus before today, it kind
- 24:04of just struck me again. And this is a story that
- 24:08I. You know, I've been singing the Zacchaeus song since I was a little kid,
- 24:11and yet this is what Jesus says. He says, today, salvation
- 24:15has come to this house because this man, too, is a son of
- 24:18Abraham. For the son of man came to seek and to save
- 24:22the lost. And even in all of the. The
- 24:26harm that Zacchaeus had done, Jesus didn't see that as
- 24:30the end of the story. Yesterday, I saw a video. It
- 24:33reminds me of this, and it. It just. It stopped me in my tracks.
- 24:37Well, probably cry as I tell this story again, but it was a video of
- 24:41a young woman. Her name is Shelby Brown. And in the video,
- 24:44she was speaking to inmates in a prison. And she shares
- 24:48this story that her dad was a police officer. And when she was
- 24:5218, he responded to a call and he was
- 24:55shot four times and he passed away. She shares that in
- 24:59the pain and the brokenness she felt, the Lord was prompting her
- 25:03to make a decision. And this is what she felt like. The Lord said,
- 25:06I felt like. He said, shelby, close your eyes. I
- 25:10want you to picture the face of Jesus. What did his eyes look
- 25:14like on the cross? And for me, she says, they were looking
- 25:18straight at me, filled with tears. And I felt like he said,
- 25:22shelby, I did this for you. But do you know who I also
- 25:25did this for? I did this for the man who shot your father.
- 25:29Wow. And she goes on to talk about how she chose to forgive the man
- 25:32that killed her dad. And now she brings the hope and the
- 25:36redemption of Jesus to men and women in prison.
- 25:41And I can't stop thinking about that. Because where we see labels,
- 25:45where we see a grumpy neighbor or a tax collector
- 25:48or even a murderer, Jesus still sees
- 25:52a person. And that does not excuse the Behavior. It
- 25:56does not say that it was okay. Jesus says it's still
- 25:59not too much for his mercy and his grace.
- 26:03It's really good. So we need to wrap up pretty soon here.
- 26:08So this is where we need to get a bit more practical. How do we
- 26:10actually move from judgment, these assumptions,
- 26:14into curiosity? Curiosity doesn't mean that we throw
- 26:18wisdom out the window. I like the quote. Don't be so open minded
- 26:21that your brains fall out. Yeah. It means that we refuse to
- 26:25reduce a person to what we actually see in that moment. I can mention
- 26:28before I would say an unhelpful version of this would be
- 26:33don't judge anyone, everything is fine. But I think a better version
- 26:37of that is use wisdom, keep healthy boundaries,
- 26:41and don't let your first assumptions become your final answer.
- 26:45So, Shannon, how do we stay compassionate without
- 26:49ignoring harm? Yeah. Well, I think it's important to say
- 26:52this. We are talking about pausing and being curious
- 26:56before we make assumptions. And. And that's not the same
- 26:59thing as excusing harmful behavior. Just like I talked about in that last
- 27:03story, accountability still matters. Using wisdom
- 27:07still matters. But staying compassionate can look
- 27:10like acknowledging that there's more. We don't see whether that's
- 27:14instability or fear or trauma. And that can help
- 27:17us to understand someone's behavior without excusing
- 27:21it while still wanting to know the human underneath the
- 27:25surface. I think multiple things can be true at the
- 27:29same time. Yeah. I think curiosity doesn't mean pretending that harm
- 27:32is okay. It means refusing to let harm become the only thing
- 27:36that we believe about a person. Yeah. So even sitting with a story
- 27:40and, and showing that you're understanding someone's story doesn't mean
- 27:43that we're justifying everything that they do. It just means
- 27:47that we're starting to understand. Yeah. So we're going to transition to the end
- 27:51here. So maybe a practical invitation this week. We'll keep it
- 27:55simple. So when we notice ourselves making these assumptions about people,
- 27:58when we encounter them, here's three questions I think that we can ask ourselves.
- 28:02I'm sure there's more, but these are just three that we've thought of. First of
- 28:06all, what story am I telling myself?
- 28:10Number two, what might I not know? And
- 28:13lastly, what would dignity require here? And
- 28:17that might mean asking a better question. It might mean offering patience.
- 28:21It might mean learning someone's name. It might mean softening our
- 28:25tone. It might mean praying for the person. It
- 28:29might mean choosing not to repeat the assumption as gossip. Yeah.
- 28:32And it might mean moving closer with wisdom instead of pulling away in
- 28:36judgment. Because again, being curious actually brings us closer to
- 28:40people and it breaks that distance that we have.
- 28:43Shannon, you have any final thoughts before we close out this episode?
- 28:47Yeah, I think all of what you just shared is really what it means to
- 28:51be neighborly. You know, not pretending that we know the whole story,
- 28:55but still staying curious enough to just see the person
- 28:58in front of us. And again, we say this. I think
- 29:02hopefully we've said this before, but Care doesn't have to be perfect.
- 29:06We don't have to get it. All right, Sometimes you're I. Plenty of times,
- 29:10you know, connect with somebody and I'm trying to say something that I think is
- 29:13smart or wise, but at the end of the day, it
- 29:17just means being present and listening
- 29:21and caring about someone and caring
- 29:25about who they are underneath the surface, beyond
- 29:28what we just see on the outside. And I think that is
- 29:32really what can help us look a lot more like Jesus
- 29:36when we move towards those who people tend to move away
- 29:40from and when we ask the questions instead of
- 29:44staying off at a distance, that's what it really means to be a
- 29:48good neighbor. And hey, listeners, we'd love to hear any
- 29:51stories if you've gone from judgment into curiosity, if you've
- 29:55been able to make that transition and have some specific
- 29:59stories to tell, because those are great stories to share on
- 30:02this platform. So reach out to us. podcast@careimpact.ca.
- 30:06We'll see you next time. The stories we share here remind us that
- 30:10CARE does not have to be perfect to be powerful. It just has to be
- 30:13present. Neighborly is an initiative of CareImpact, a
- 30:17Canadian charity equipping churches, agencies and
- 30:20communities with technology and training to care better
- 30:23together. This episode was produced by CareCreatives
- 30:27Company, a social enterprise of CareImpact. If
- 30:30you're building a podcast
- 30:34and want help with
- 30:36strategy, editing, or full
- 30:40production, visit
- 30:43CareCreatives Co to
- 30:45connect with us. I'm Johan.
- 30:49Thanks for listening. And
- 30:53be that kind of neighbor
- 30:56Someone will never forget
- 31:00in a good way. When I see you
- 31:03in a stranger I no longer
- 31:07stay Turning over tables
- 31:10Tearing down walls.