reading the news

A word about this post. This is a post about how I’ve been reading the news these past few weeks. I wrote it and published it here before I’d read yesterday’s news about the Charleston shooting. It feels important to me to clarify that this essay wasn’t written about the horrific tragedy that took place this week. I have some other words, and tears, and prayers, for that. And for now, this.

***

“You didn’t give me any warning!” my friend exclaimed to me.

“You’re right.” I replied. “I didn’t. Sorry.”

I had sent her something I’d read in the news – a moving essay by a woman who was writing about a tragedy in her life. I texted my friend the link and said, “You must read this.” And so she did.

Then she spent the afternoon crying about it.

My friend had a good point- I hadn’t told her to read when she could be moved to tears.

I had cried when I read it too.

I also noticed something when I read it. Although it was written by stranger, someone I don’t know at all, by the time I’d finished reading, I felt like I did know her. In fact I felt like I cared about her so much it was almost as if this woman suddenly felt like a sister, or a friend, or a daughter – even though I’ve never met her and in fact don’t know her at all.

For the next few days, when I’d see the headlines about her pop up in the news again, I’d feel that way – that this was, in some way, a friend or sister being talked about.

And then I realized this: it was only because she had particular gifts – that she was a great communicator with the ability and platform to powerfully tell her story – that I had come to feel that sense of sisterhood to her. But she wasn’t my sister any more than any other woman in the news, or any other woman on the planet. And she wasn’t any more my sister than any man on the planet was my brother. She’d just had the ability to tell the story in a way that made me feel that sisterhood.

I realized (and yes, this is my conviction, certainly not shared by all) that I believe every person on the planet has their true tale of their trying and pain and fear and loss and goodness that would invoke in me that very same feeling of, This person, I feel for. This person I love. 

Sure, many of those people can’t articulate the story of their lives honestly enough and in touch with their own goodness enough to invoke that compassion in me, or in their other readers. In fact most of us can’t articulate our stories that way. We are too defended and too cut off from our own basic goodness, our bare and burning desire to love and be loved. But I believe beneath the layers, that story – the story of our deep goodness and trying and wounding – is there in all of us.

So that day, thinking on all this, I decided I would try to read the news differently for a while. I decided I would try to read any news story about an individual as if that individual was my brother, or my sister, or maybe a dear dear friend.

I don’t mean a metaphoric sister or brother, a spiritual sister or brother. I mean I would read as if so-and-so in the headlines was my actual sister, now being covered in the news. That so and so, my brother, had been the victim. That so and so, my sister, had been convicted of that violent crime.

I would digest the words with that lens. I would feel the story through that lens.

I am reading this way when I read the stories of criminals, survivors of abuse, presidential candidates, celebrities, dictators– everyone. This is my sister who did this… This is my brother who this happened to…

Reading as if each person is someone I know and love – my brother, my sister – I read with a softer heart. I get to feel how much I want the best for each person, for all of us. It makes it much harder to say that anyone is not like me, separate from me, other than me. It also means, because I want to protect my brothers and sisters, that I read with razor sharp eyes and mama bear protective moves, discerning between what kind of journalism is in service of anything whatsoever and what is just – frankly – gossip, shaming, fluff, othering.

Mostly, it means that I read these stories, to the best of my ability, with an attitude of love, which is what I want.

This is my sister. This is my brother. All of them.

Now how do I feel? Now what do I see?

Love,

Tara

Click to tweet: Try this experiment. Read the news as if each person you read about was your brother or your sister. 

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