Like many of my fellow Americans, I’ve been deeply moved this month by so many stories and photos and interviews recalling the terrorist attacks on our country twenty years ago. But perhaps what moved me most – to my own surprise and wonder – was the speech by former President George W. Bush at Shanksville, Pennsylvania. You can read it here. 

He praised the courage of passengers and crew on Flight 93, who brought the hijacked airplane down, losing their own lives but saving the terrorists’ probable intended target, the United States Capitol.

President Bush was eloquent. His language was often lyrical, always tough and true. “The world was loud with carnage and sirens, and then quiet with missing voices that would never be heard again.” He spoke of horror – “the audacity of evil” – and “the solidarity of grief and grace” rising to face “the brute randomness of death.”

Other speakers praised the bravery of first responders who died saving people in the towers. The day was thick with grief – we heard stories of widows and their children who grew up without a father. Survivors still wonder why they escaped and friends were lost. But no one else I heard dared to address the spiritual challenges raised by so much pain. President Bush did.

He acknowledged there is no simple explanation for unearned suffering. “All that many could hear was God’s terrible silence.” He didn’t offer an explanation or solution. Then this: “But comfort can come from a different sort of knowledge. After wandering long and lost in the dark, many have found they were actually walking, step by step, toward grace.”

A cynic could say, “He has a good speech writer.” Yes, but Bush has a reputation for telling his speechwriters what he wants to say. These remarks seem too personal, vulnerable even, not to have come from the speaker’s own tough conversation with his Maker. And I suspect it’s still going on.

On a single day, May 31, 2021, The Washington Post carried obituaries of three very different men. They probably never met, but their lives had something very important in common.

As adults, each had made a life-changing shift in the path he was taking. And that shift redounded to improving the world.

Robert L. Smith, Educator
Age 96

Robert L. Smith made decisions that changed the lives of countless thousands of young people, thousands in person, more from a distance. He died on May 24, 2021.

Robert’s family were Quakers, a faith he deeply embraced as a young person. He was attending Harvard College when World War II broke out. 

As a Quaker, Robert was expected to be a conscientious objector. It grieved him as a Quaker, but he was convinced that Hitler was so evil it was morally imperative to fight the Nazis. He fought in active combat, including the bloody Battle of the Bulge. 

Back home, in 1949 Robert graduated Berkeley and earned a Master’s degree in English at Columbia in 1952. He eventually became a dean at Columbia, but he never stopped being a Quaker. In 1965, after reaching the highest levels in academia, he pivoted to a downward path. For the next thirteen years, from 1965-1978 Robert served as headmaster of a Quaker school (Sidwell Friends) in Washington, DC. 

He influenced the children of Presidents Nixon, Clinton, and Obama. He increased the number of Black and Jewish students. He could personally call all 1000 students, from kindergarten to graduating seniors, by name. He led children to Quaker values of simplicity, humility, and peace making. Graduates of Sidwell have taken their places as leaders in every area of United States life.

After thirteen years at Sidwell, Robert pivoted again. He enlarged his quiet circle of service to become an adviser to Congress and the Executive Director of the Council for American Private Education which, according to The Washington Post, is a coalition of more than 33,000 elementary and secondary schools. He influenced the education of all the students who attended them.

After 61 years of marriage, Robert’s wife Eliza preceded him in death. When he passed on May 24, 2021, he left three children and eight grandchildren. But the number of children he influenced for good can only be counted by God.

Paul J. Hanly Jr., Litigator
Age 70

Paul J. Hanly, Jr. grew up exposed to seeing both sides of the law up close. He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, where his father worked for a time as a prison warden before he became a hospital administrator. 

But obituary author Emily Langer writes, “his maternal grandfather, John V. Kenney, was mayor of Jersey City and a local political power broker who served time in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges of income tax evasion.”    

Paul studied philosophy at Cornell and Cambridge in England. His apparent attempt to understand his background then led him to Georgetown Law School, where he graduated in 1979. [Full disclosure: I graduated there in 1977 so we’d have been contemporaries, but I do not remember him.]

According to Langer, Paul began his legal career in 1979 defending corporations accused of harming the public. For instance, he represented one of the world’s largest asbestos companies. He was very successful, highly regarded, and I imagine well paid in this role for nearly 22 years. 

But on September 11, 2001 everything changed. The attack on our country, according to his son, inspired him to practice law as “a public service.” 

Hanley changed sides. Here’s how Langer described the pivot:

— He helped represent hundreds of victims and families in lawsuits related to the attacks.
— He helped win a $60 million settlement for victims of alleged sex abuse at a school in Haiti.
— He represented plaintiffs sickened by defective drugs and medical devices.

But Paul’s service to victims was just getting started. By the time he died Paul was best known for representing victims of opioid addiction throughout the country. These drugs, according to The Washington Post had already resulted in more than 500,000 deaths. Beginning in the early 2000’s and continuing to his death on May 22, 2021 from thyroid cancer, Paul Haney’s single-minded drive was to win justice for opioid addicts. 

Beginning in 2007 he and a law partner, Jane Conroy, won a settlement of $75 million from Purdue Pharma on behalf of 5000 clients addicted to OxyContin.

He kept going, building cases and winning settlements. In 2018 he and two others were appointed co-lead counsel in multidistrict litigation against opioid producers throughout the country. In 2019 they reached a $325 million settlement in two counties in Ohio. 

Paul Hanley’s work will continue. His team is on a crusade to eradicate opioid addiction. Multidistrict lawsuits are pending throughout the United States. According to Jane Conroy the work involves “thousands of cities, counties and tribes” seeking redress. 

Paul’s life path took several twists and turns. It began with a search for meaning through philosophy (perhaps inspired by trying to understand family members he loved), then to personal success, and finally, inspired by a terrorist attack, to a commitment to serving those who could not speak for themselves. One imagines that was where he found his truest self and deepest satisfaction.

B. J. Thomas, Singer-Songwriter
Age 78

I’m embarrassed to confess I didn’t recognize the name. I should have. I would certainly recognize “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” the song BJ Thomas made famous on the sound track of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” He died on May 29, 2021 from lung cancer.

As a singer, BJ was hard to pin down. He grew up listening with his father to country favorites, Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb—music that seemed to make his father happy. BJ’s own music would also be influenced by “gospel, soul, pop, and early rock music by Mahalia Jackson, Jackie Wilson and Little Richard,” according to Washington Post writer Harrison Smith.

This Texas boy started performing in his early teens with a band called The Triumphs. At the age of 23 he struck it big when his single, a version of Hank Williams’ cover, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” rose to No. 8 on Billboard. He said he wrote the song for his father.

Unfortunately, Dad’s example had a dark side: he was an alcoholic. The boy too started drinking heavily and using drugs in his teens.  

In his twenties he married Gloria Richardson, whom he loved. But he had become addicted to Valium and was using $3000 worth of cocaine every week. He overdosed several times. He claimed he once was pronounced dead but was revived. His marriage failed.

In 1975 his life was in the toilet. He wanted his wife back, and turned around. He became a Christian and got sober. He and his wife reunited and  had three daughters together. He’d regained the self-respect lost in his childhood and was determined to pass it on to his family. 

Two years later BJ made his last Top 40 hit, “Don’t Worry Baby” and then began to devote himself entirely to gospel music. Out of seven Grammy nominations for best inspirational performance, he won four, with a fifth for best gospel performance. Although he still sprinkled in some old pop and country hits in concerts, gospel was the only music he recorded  from that time on.

BJ had found his purpose in life. He said, “I want my music to have a positive effect on people. When I perform live I hope the audience will leave with their heads lifted up.” 

By pivoting for good, this man found his deepest calling.

In my tough conversations about race with African-American friends, the two words that most powerfully describe the systemic racism they experience daily are Trauma and Exhaustion. Not momentary or situational trauma or temporary exhaustion. By no means. These conditions, I have learned, have been etched into the psychological DNA of many African- Americans whom I respect, and in some cases, revere. Many live with trauma and exhaustion throughout their day. Everyday.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to feel continually traumatized and exhausted. I might were I a Jew in Nazi German or for that matter, a Jew in much of Europe during the 1940’s. Or, in a concentration camp not knowing whether I would be among the next to be exterminated. Or, for that matter, what ISIS victims must feel if their village was overwhelmed by these zealot-killers.

Imagine getting up each morning and not knowing whether I will be stopped when driving because of a minor infraction and then knowing that I could be the next George Floyd or Philando Castile. Imagine waiting at a department store counter for a clerk to show you a piece of jewelry… for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES as what happened to a dear friend of mine. Or just for a moment wondering what it would feel like to be white for just one day. Or, knowing that the slightest move could touch off an incident. Or that a family member might not receive the same level of care as a white patient in a hospital or clinic. Or that the sentence I would receive for a crime is more severe than what a white person would receive. Or, knowing that my children’s education would be inferior to what a white child would receive. Or, or, or?

Knowing all this, how should I think when I come in contact with a Black person? Should I feel pity? I hope not. Sympathy? Not that either. Empathy? Getting warmer. Empathy suggests putting yourself in the shoes of the person whom you’re listening to and trying to imagine what they are feeling.

According to Isabel Wilkerson, author of the New York Times bestseller, Caste, we white folks should consider radical empathy. She defines radical empathy as “putting in the work to educate oneself to listen with a humble heart to understand another’s experience from their perspective, not as we imagine how we would feel.” Radical empathy, she continues, is “not about us and what we think we would do in a situation we have never been in and perhaps never will.”

In other words, radical empathy is not just putting ourselves in others’ shoes and listening with a humble heart. It’s not just viewing their experience from their perspective. For me, it’s more: it’s putting in the work to educate ourselves about our country’s past and, for good measure, to evaluate our involvement in its future.

As the race for President heats up, I sometimes feel challenged by comments from friends who have political opinions averse to mine. I’m tempted to do one of three things:

1.  Try to persuade the other that their view is wrong and mine is right; or

2.  Say nothing and leave the impression I agree with the speaker; or  

3.  Say, “I don’t agree,” terminate the conversation, and walk away in disgust (or hang up or unfriend the former friend). 

• 

The first choice won’t work and may start a political food fight. The second is dishonest and not very brave. The third may damage a relationship beyond repair.

So, what can I do instead? As a mediator I can mentally step back and ask myself, how would I treat this conversation if I were an onlooker, not a participant?

A mediator listens closely to try to discover the underlying interest (or need) of each person in a dispute. Often the real interest is hidden, even from the persons themselves. When it’s my dog in the fight, I tend to focus on a particular proposed outcome, without examining my underlying need. 

Back to politics. Underlying issues, for instance, may be public safety and equal treatment. Store owners want protection. Police officers want to be respected and allowed to keep order. Protesters want to be heard and respected. Black moms, like white moms, want their children to be safe. There’s a broad area for agreement here, if we’ll stop to listen to each other. We can find a win-win.

Or a disagreement may focus on medical care. One side says, “I want to choose my own doctor and insurance plan.” The other side says, “I have diabetes (or asthma or heart trouble) and my insurer won’t cover it.” Or “My boss doesn’t provide insurance and I can’t afford it.” So the issues are freedom of choice and affordability. Are both possible? Again, a wider range of potential agreement comes into view.

When my neighbor says something that pushes all my buttons, I hope I can (lovingly) ask, “Are you saying …” and reframe the feeling (probably fear or anxiety) I’m hearing. “Let me see if I understand what worries you.” 

Then I may truthfully say, “That worries me, too.” Listening for the underlying concern can open the door to a fruitful discussion – or at least to a potential for more conversation and continuing friendship. 

The poet Rumi said, “There is a field beyond right-doing and wrongdoing. I will meet you there.” Looking past the “solution” to the underlying fear or need can help us find a meeting place.

For two years I have been a member of a group of five (originally six) African-Americans and six Jews who have met monthly to listen, learn, and lean together toward social justice. That the white people are Jewish does not preclude any white persons from initiating and engaging in this kind of gathering.

Our process of give and take is partly modeled on circle practices*, which in their essence call on circle members to first build mutual understanding, trust, and acceptance before embarking on efforts, for example, to improve conditions for less fortunate neighbors or other common goals. In other words, it’s personal before becoming transactional.

Each meeting has a different facilitator (or in circle parlance a “keeper”) and theme. Our group has retained the same 11 members since it began.  Once formed, the group’s membership doesn’t grow or change. It retains the same members. Twelve is an optimum size. Meetings begin with a check-in in which members reflect on the past month, what’s gone well and what hasn’t. In this way and through stories we share, we have built a community in which we have developed a genuine affection for each other.

During check-in we talk about our losses, e.g., a death in a family, and our gains.  We find ways to support each other whether in sadness or joy.  Throughout, we’ve been open to sharing our fears and our dreams. We can disagree (often), but still maintain our trust and affection for each other.

Mind you, it takes time and energy to build such a group. Finding individuals willing to be vulnerable, commit to meeting for two hours monthly, and stick with the group for an extended period is challenging.

We call our group “Cross River Dialogue.” The river is the Anacostia which flows through Washington, DC, and is more than a geographic reality. The east side is mostly African-American, poor, often overwhelmed with street violence, and other chronic urban ills, due largely to systemic and institutional racism. The west is the Washington tourists see when visiting here.

For me the learning can come as a jolt, like when one member exclaimed she’d like to be white for one day just to have that experience, or when another said he hadn’t planned for retirement because he never thought he’d live long enough to enjoy it.

I admit this is a micro step. But it has brought us close and united us in ways we never anticipated. You can find us attending each other’s events, testifying before the DC Council on behalf of each other’s causes, and volunteering in ways we never imagined.

We are truly a circle of trust. 

*The Little Book of Circle Practices, Kay Pranis. Simon and Schuster Digital Sales. 2015