Friendship and peace

I'm a bit of a rare bird on NewGathering - I'm conservative.  But we're friends (I think and hope).

Politically, and as the church measures these things, this is a liberal place.  I suppose, on the liberal spectrum, NewGathering is not *that* liberal on the whole, but to dyed-in-the-wool, traditionalist conservatives (like my parents, whom I am pretty sure have never read this nor any other blog), some of the opinions on offer here would make their hair stand on end - a reaction that would be emblematic of the social fissures that run through our country.

I'm aware that the rest of you, though more liberal than me, aren't monochromatic in your progressivism.  Each of us has our own sets of views.  And that is what makes this such a readable forum.  It would be comparatively rare, and probably pretty boring, if we were all perfectly aligned on a given topic.

But what I wish to highlight here is not the fact that we're all different, but that, by and large, those differences haven't led to the division and dysfunctionality in which social media seems to specialize.

That we all get along (usually), or even more than get along, is not something to take for granted.  I recently saw this exchange between Bari Weiss of the New York Times and Eve Peyser of Vice.  These two women did not know one another personally, but had encountered one another's tweets in the Twitterverse.  Their cyber-relationship went the way that so many go: the more they read each other's tweets and commented on, replied to and sniped at one another's contributions, the more they started to loathe one another.

What makes their story even more interesting is that, in a number of respects, they're similar.  Both are Jewish women and media professionals who work in social media in New York.  Politically, both are liberal.  It seems likely enough that, had they known each other the way that adults used to know one another - had they shared a newsroom or taken the same yoga class or their kids been in the same pre-school or some such - they would have found areas of compatibility and common interest, and would have had a friendly relationship.  And in fact, once they actually met face to face, that is what transpired.  But social media is so corrosive of human relations that it had overridden all those possible areas of positive connection so long as the relationship was electronic-only.

That the two women met at all is worth commenting on.  They met at a conference they both happened to be attending.  It would be cute, and perhaps film-script-worthy, had they encountered one another by chance without knowing who the other was; but it didn't happen that way.  They met because Peyser suggested that they meet one another.  Does that sort of reaching-out strike you as extraordinary?  I think it is.  Or if "extraordinary" is too strong, I think it's pretty unusual.

Initially, Weiss didn't exactly see Peyser's outreach as a good-faith overture:

I thought there was a solid chance you were going to try to James O’Keefe me, which is why I suggested swimming — quite hard to wear a wire in a bathing suit

Lest you think that Weiss was being paranoid, she had just had another real-life encounter with some other denizens of Twitter which did not bolster her faith in the goodwill of the human race:

The night before I had had a horrible experience with two other people at the conference who confronted me in a bar about my views in a particularly vicious way that was intended to humiliate me.  I was shaken up by it.  You had actually heard about it from the guy involved, who was bragging to you about bullying me, thinking he had come upon someone like-minded. 

I recommend reading the entire exchange here.  The tone of the two women is not what one would get from a couple of old, lifelong friends: there is a sort of cautious friendliness in their addressing one another that seems to acknowledge that the friendship that is sprouting between them is still young and perhaps vulnerable, and so both seem to be working hard to tend to the relationship.  It strikes me as honest and authentic.

This story of an incipient friendship appeals to me during the beginning of this Advent time.  Although Peyser and Weiss may not be inclined to use the theological language, I see Peyser's outstretched hand of friendship, and Weiss's grasping it, as a real life, practical example of metanoia - the sort of conversion, perhaps tinged with penitence, to which the church calls us during this season.  These women weren't complete strangers, but rather two people who had become antipathetic to one another.  The contour of this story isn't one of strangers becoming friends, but rather of the healing of a feud through personal encounter.

The appointed reading for today's Morning Prayer is one of the stock Advent readings.  These words were written down some two and a half or so millenia ago, but they have never not been contemporary, and the divisive reality of social media may lend them a fresh currency and urgency:

In days to come,

The mountain of the LORD’s house

shall be established as the highest mountain

and raised above the hills.

All nations shall stream toward it.

Many peoples shall come and say:

“Come, let us go up to the LORD’s mountain,

to the house of the God of Jacob,

That he may instruct us in his ways,

and we may walk in his paths.”

For from Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations,

and set terms for many peoples.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks;

One nation shall not raise the sword against another,

nor shall they train for war again.

House of Jacob, come,

let us walk in the light of the LORD!

      (Isaiah 2:2-5)

On some days, it seems easier to believe in the Virgin Birth or the Second Coming than that He will bring peace.  That makes me grateful for NewGathering: I'm grateful for all your contributions, and especially grateful that, on most days, this is a place of peace.  Let us continue to cultivate peace here.