The Sound of Silence

This time of year we often hear the beautiful old song "Silent Night,"  which speaks of the "heavenly peace" of  the night when Jesus was born.  As the song continues, it tells of how the silence of that night is shattered, and the witnessing "shepherds quake at the sight" of  an angelic choir heralding the birth of Christ.  The silence of that night represents peace and calm, but the end of that silence is welcomed because it brings something better.

The classic rock duo Simon and Garfunkel are also famous for a song about silence.  However,  unlike "Silent Night," which uses silence as a metaphor for peace and well-being, "The Sound of Silence"  has a different message.  As Art Garfunkel says in the video linked above,  the song uses silence to symbolize people's individual inability to communicate with one another, and their failure to love one another.  The song uses stark images of a vision the narrator experiences, a vision of city streets, neon lights, and the sound of silence, which, for me, represents the results of love-term isolation:

"And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more.

People talking without speaking,

People hearing without listening,

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence."

People not communicating. People not relating to one another.  People ignoring one another.  People going through the motions of interacting without really knowing each other.  People not having the courage to end their isolation.  Although Paul Simon wrote "The Sound of Silence" in 1964, its message is perhaps more relevant than ever.  A 2009  article  from Psychology Today calls social isolation a modern plague:  "Remarkably, 25% of Americans have no meaningful social support at all - not a single person they can confide in. And over half of all Americans report having no close confidants or friends outside their immediate family. The situation today is much worse today than it was when similar data were gathered in 1985. (At that time, only 10% of Americans were completely alone)."  Consumer Reports from 2010 says that such isolation is not only bad for a person, but can actually shorten one's life.

To personalize this topic, I know that my wife Dana and I are somewhat isolated from people outside our extended family.  We work.  We come home.  We are tired.  We are both introverts and we tend to be a bit anti-social (keeping it real!), so we don't socialize much (except on Facebook).  Very little.  Hardly ever.  Most of the people in our neighborhood are just like us, so we haven't had much interaction with them, either.  For the most part, we have been fine with this state of things, each of us being content with the company of the other, occasional visits with our children and grandchildren, who live out of state, and  with my mother and Dana's brother and sister-in-law, who are local.  

Usually, Dana and I are fine with this arrangement. I sometimes wish we had a more active social life, but I haven't done  much to change it.  I just chock it up to people being busy and the state of our society.  Instead of front porches and "y'all come" attitudes, most folks today, including us, have patios out back with privacy  fences and  "please call first" attitudes.  When I was a kid growing up, we had stay-at-home moms and neighbors who knew one another and helped each other out.  Now many people value their privacy over a feeling of community.  When they aren't working, they mostly want to be left alone. They don't want to be bothered and they don't want to bother anyone else.  I am convinced we are paying a price for these attitudes.

My attitude about how much community I need was changed drastically last Thanksgiving night.  Dana and I were at our daughter's house (380 miles from home), and, having enjoyed the holiday with her and her family, we were sleeping when my cell phone rang a little after midnight.   It was my home security company:  "Mr. Fouse, we have movement in your house."  They went on to inform me that the police were on their way.  I could not believe what I was hearing!  I reacted physically by beginning to shake.  I kept saying how cold I was, but Dana (an RN) later told me that I was experiencing a rush of adrenalin.  What do you do when there are thieves in your house and you are 5 hours away?  I eventually spoke to the policeman who was in my house responding to the call from the security company.  He told me that the burglars had thrown a rock through the glass patio door in our bedroom and entered there.  When I told him I was facing a long drive home, he asked me if I could call someone to secure my house.  That was an excellent question.  My mother was out of town for the holiday also, so I couldn't call her.  Being Mr. Independent, I hate to ask anybody for help.  But, in this case, I had no choice.  So, I called my neighbor Wayne.

Wayne is my neighbor to the east, and he has always been a better neighbor to me than I have been to him.  He is retired and has lots of time to visit with neighbors.  He is friendly and outgoing, but not pushy.  Remember Tim Taylor's neighbor Wilson on Tool Time? That's my neighbor Wayne. Except that I have actually seen his face   He had offered to help with things around the house a few times, so I knew he was the one to call, as much as I hated to. I found his number on the internet and called his house. When he answered, I told him I was sorry to wake him, to bother him at that hour.  He said he didn't mind, that my alarm had awoken him earlier.  He told me he had been outside when the alarm went off, but he hadn't seen anyone.  There wasn't any way he could secure my house with a gaping hole in the door, but he promised to keep an eye on it until I could get home.  Talking to Wayne calmed me greatly.  Just knowing there was someone friendly here made the situation seem less dire.

Dana and I drove all night and made it home about 7:30 the next morning.  Not much was gone, but our sense of safety had been shattered along with that glass door.  When the police arrive later, Wayne talked to them, and commiserated with us.  Richard, my neighbor on the west, came out and said that he had also heard my alarm.  He helped the police locate some items that were stolen from my mailbox, items that the police used to try to get the culprits' fingerprints.  When I brought home the replacement door from Lowe's the men who live across the street helped me move it into the house.

Simon and Garfunkel have another song about isolation.  Long one of my favorites by them," I Am a Rock" is about the ultimate anti-social person, who proclaims, "I am a rock; I am an island.  I build walls, their fortress deep and mighty, that none may penetrate...."  Many people today, although they might not overtly express those ideas, live them out  in their lives.  I know that I have been prone to self-imposed isolation, although not to the extent of the Rock in the song.  Cutting yourself off from those around you becomes a habit, a way of living that is hard to overcome.  I have come to realize that, as "The Sound of Silence" puts it, "silence like a cancer grows."

‎"Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say." -- Samuel Johnson

However, my experience with the burglary taught me some things relating to our places in society, and about myself.

First, whether we know it or not, we are part of a community.  My neighbors are part of my community, and I am part of theirs, even I don't know them well or rarely speak to them.  I know that  because I realized that morning when the police were at my house that Dana and I weren't the only victims of that burglary.  When my security was breached, theirs was also.  When my alarm sounded and woke them up, their silence, their peace was shattered, too.  Because if my house could be violated, theirs could too.  If hoodlums could destroy my property and steal my possessions, it could happen to them to.  Indeed, in a way, it did happen to them.

Secondly,  no matter how independent I prefer to be, I really do need people --  for practical things like helping me carry heavy objects, and for emotional support, like a friendly voice on the phone when I am facing a crisis.   Like it or not, I need other people, just like they need me.

So, what am I going to do about what I have learned?  I know that I am not going to become an extrovert, but I do intend to be more open to being in community with people, to whatever extent our relationship calls for.  I want to look for ways to be more sociable, to reach out to people.  Writing this blog has taught me that when I am honest about myself, even just in a blog, when I talk openly about things that matter to me, things that might make me feel vulnerable, I give other people permission to do the same.  I want to do that more in my  real-world interactions with people as well.

About a week after I was burglarized,  Wayne was out front when I came home from work.  He and I visited  on the curb for several minutes, talking about the burglary and about our families.  Before he left to go in, he told me that he would like to give me a key to his house, and to let me know when he was going to be out of town.  He asked me to watch his house during those times.  I told him I'd be glad to and asked him to do the same for me.  He said he'd be glad to.

I guess that's a start.

Circles

 If you have wandered away from Facebook into that mysterious new world called Google+, you know that on that social network, instead of sending and accepting Friend requests as on Facebook, you add people to your Circles.  The people whom you add can add you to one of their Circles, or not, as they choose.  There are various pre-established Circles, such as Friends, Acquaintances, and Family.  Users can create and name whatever Circles suit their purposes.

Left-handed?  Who knows.....

So if you know a lot of people who are Left-Handed Cross-Dressers, you can create a Circle to group those people together. People being added to circles don't have to approve of your adding them (unlike accepting a Friend request on Facebook), and they are in fact unaware of what Circle you put them in.  Some of the Cross-Dressers you know might not be left-handed at all, they might be right-handed, or even ambidextrous, but you are making the Circles, so they don't get a chance to correct your mistaken ideas about them.    

Human interaction, both on the internet and in the real world, is so often about categorizing other people.   I suppose the most basic categories we all establish are Like Me/Not Like Me.  (Or maybe Acceptable/Unexceptable.) We all make judgments about other people based on all kinds of things, some of which are not very fair or accurate.  How often have you made a mental judgement about someone you just met based on how they look or what they are wearing?  If you are like me, it has been pretty often.  We do this without even thinking about it, sometimes without even realizing that we are doing it.  "Look at that person.  He/she is so (fill in the blank).   He/she is probably one of those people who (fill in the blank).  He/she (is, is not) someone like me.  Therefore, he/she (is/is not) acceptable." 

I learned a big lesson about myself a couple of years ago, when my wife and I were on an outing with our daughter Rachel and her son Ian, at an art museum in Oklahoma City, I think.  Ian was about 2 years old at the time, and we encountered a young woman in the museum who had a child about that same age.  I am ashamed to say that the young woman immediately fell into my "Not Like Me" category because she was extremely tattooed and pierced, much like the young man in the photo above, except that she was wearing a shirt.

I confess that it would never have occurred to me to speak to her, because her outward appearance said all kinds of negative things to me, based on my assumptions about people who adorn themselves that way.  So I was surprised when my daughter spoke to her, asking her her child's age, and generally engaging her in the kind of conversation young mothers often share about their children.  I was further surprised when the young woman seemed pretty much like Rachel in her demeanor, her love for her child, and the way she spoke.  It was clear to me that despite the way she looked, the young woman had more in common with Rachel than I would ever have imagined.  In fact, she seemed like a sweet person.  The fear and loathing her appearance has inspired in me disappeared.

 "Just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn't mean it does not exist. " -- Margaret Cho 

People my age remember very well the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and how African-American people struggled to gain rights and privileges afforded to other races in this country.  As children, we were taught that racial discrimination is wrong and destructive to those who are victims of it.  It is now unthinkable to me that I would despise someone based on that person's race.  If I ever find myself making assumptions about someone based on that person's race or ethnicity, I become aware of it and admonish myself to adjust my thinking.   In general, racial bigotry is now considered socially unacceptable, at least among the people I know.  However, unfortunately, other kinds of bigotry, categorizing of people, and "circle drawing" are still second-nature for lots of people today, engaged in  without their even noticing they are doing it.

The kind of thing I am talking about is based on people putting others into their "Unacceptable" category based on what those other people believe.   In our politically fractured society, it is common for politicians and everyday people to demonize those "on the other side of the aisle" because of their belief system.  This kind of thinking about "Outsiders" is also common among religious communities as well.  I was reminded of this yesterday when I read an interview with Jim Palmer, author of Divine Nobodies, Wide Open Spaces, and the upcoming Being Jesus in Nashville.  In his books, Jim writes about being a follower of Jesus outside traditional Christian institutions.   In  this interview, Jim talks about the his controversial upcoming book, in which he describes his experiment of attempting to be Jesus to the people he encounters.  The interview also discusses the fact that the content of that book  caused him to lose his contract with a major Christian book publisher, who deemed it too unorthodox.  

Jim also discusses his observations about how often people in religious communities indulge in the practice of excluding and demonizing other people:  "The hallmark of Christianity seems to have become who is excluded, which can include anything from a theological litmus test to what you wear to church on Sunday mornings. Since leaving institutional church and writing about my journey of shedding religion to find God, I have received hundreds of emails from other nobodies who feel judged and marginalized by Christianity, including Wanda the Waffle House waitress who’s only crime is having tattoos and wearing her Waffle House uniform to church, where people stare at her like she’s a whore and avoid talking to her after the service. "

How often do we exclude others, make them feel judged and marginalized, based on what they believe or how they look?  This happens in all areas of our society, not just churches.  Why do we do this?  What is it about people that makes us need to draw circles that include some, but exclude others?  I have thought a lot about those questions, and I have reached some conclusions about them.

First, it is natural, and not always destructive to make judgements about people and to categorize them.  On Google+, the purpose of the grouping people into Circles is to create sub-communities of people with something in common, so that that grouping can better enjoy their cyber-socializing.  In the real world, we do similar kinds of things through clubs and other kinds of organizations. Also, some of the judgments we make about people are useful, while others are not.   In the case of the young tattooed woman at the museum, it would have been logical for me to assume, based on her appearance, that she liked unconventional (to me) modes of self-adornment.  However, I made the mistake of assuming lots of things about her that may not have been true, and some that were definitely not true based on my daughter's conversation with her.  In short, I dehumanized her.  I made her one of them rather than the individual that she is.  I rejected her without knowing her.  As with the my imaginary Google+  Circle for Left-Handed Cross-Dressers, I did the categorizing, I made the decisions about her without her input, indeed without her knowledge.   

I believe that we often dismiss people, both within ourselves and through our actions towards them, in ways that diminish both them and ourselves.  I believe that this is contrary to what was taught by Jesus, who told us to love God first and to love others as we love ourselves.  I also believe that,  through this kind of thinking, we often cheat ourselves out of knowing someone different from ourselves, and from enriching our own experience by what we might learn from them.  I am proud that my daughter spoke to that young woman at the museum, and I am glad that I was there when she did. 

For me, Rachel was drawing the circle a bit bigger.  I hope to do the same. 

"He drew a circle that shut me out—

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. 

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!"

--Edwin Markham