TJ Hirst

My husband and I were reading in the evening. I would occasionally look up from my book and start an impromptu conversation with him over the day’s happenings. After one explanation of an exchange with someone that day, I wondered out loud over the meaning of the words in that conversation.

I looked over at him and realized he was just reading. Feeling a little silly just talking to myself, I stopped. He is probably uninterested, I thought. But still, I went searching for the reason why.

“Women talk about feelings,” I said. “Don’t men do that?”

“We do,” he said. “We just don’t give the play-by-play, blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute account.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Analyzing is a woman thing,” he said.

A few minutes elapsed. I looked up from my book, again, and on a different topic I randomly said, “Why does my body’s full sensor not register until an hour after I’ve overeaten?”

“I don’t know why,” he said.

Realizing I was setting myself up as an example of what he had just concluded, I said, “There I go analyzing something again. I didn’t mean you had to answer my question.”

“Why don’t you just say rwhy instead of why so I know you mean a rhetorical why?” he said.

Much has been said of late about patriotism in the news. As we celebrate our independence today, I reflect on these words that remind me that real strength is not just evidenced on days of prosperity where the grass is always green and the sunsets stunning.

. . . The year 1776 had been as dark a time as those devoted to the American cause has ever known—indeed, as dark a time as any in the history of the country. And suddenly, miraculously it seemed, that had changed because of a small band of determined men and their leader. . . The year 1776, celebrated as the birth year of the nation and for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too, they would never forget.

David McCullough, 1776

In our nation today, some feel like we are a nation falling apart as we face economic hardship, political struggle, cultural conflict and natural disasters. These could destroy our hope and optimism for the future or instead, through the darkness we can discover our own courage and grow to develop characteristic American commitment to our families, communities and our nation.

My nine-year-old daughter, KH, has an artist’s eye. She see images of beauty in her mind that she wants to create, but the challenge comes in making those images real with paint and paper, a computer or just an ideal setting of physical surroundings.

I can relate to her quandary, not only in my creative world but in the practical one, too. That is why I don’t like to shop. I know what I want but I can never quite find what I am looking for.

When KH and I had to replace her nice dress shoes because the old ones were beat up and mysteriously missing, I felt that same perfectionist pressure rising in me. Time became tight and shoes she wanted were too. But, minutes before we had to leave the store for another outing, we tried the clearance racks and found shimmery gold flats in her size for $2.99. Ah, sometimes we do get perfection. Or at least satisfaction.

I’ve been considering our circles of socialization in life and how our circumstances influence our thought and belief system and our influence on others.

Minnesota Public Radio’s Midmorning with Kerri Miller interviewed Howard Fineman: Senior Washington correspondent and columnist for Newsweek and author of “The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country.”

While I have not yet read his book, in the broadcast, “Divided, and United, By Debate” he talked about the importance of debating issues. Essentially, he says that as a nation we have been “born and bred to argue” about fundamental things that we may craft and participate in the political system of our government.

In my view that participation in talking and listening to one another is a means to “figure out” what’s working and what’s not, what we believe and what we don’t, and what is right and what is wrong, not only in politics or government but any aspect of our culture and modern lifestyle. However, as I try to live, talk, write and listen to create a conversation about ideas, I continue to bump into a barrier in all my circles that I haven’t been able to put into words.

Here are Fineman’s words:

There is a whole bubbling conversation taking part in a million different directions every day. My concern is not that the lack of sophistication is there—although that’s a problem sometimes—it’s that there’s a tendency for people stay in their own bubble, that whatever is reassuring to them, they’re constantly in it and they’re not getting out and listening to other people.

It is more comfortable to be in a bubble of people who are like-minded because we can relate to what they are dong and thinking. I have discovered this comfort zone in any community I’ve ever entered whether it be in a leadership capacity, a class at the gym, a neighborhood, church or even in the blogosphere. It feels awkward when we see a group of people around us that seem to fit together and we are on the outside of that. However, the more important point is that when we are in a bubble, it is difficult to see who and what are on the outside of it.

Fineman’s solution is to get out and listen to other people. While he admits that “most people would say that the hardest thing for any human being to do is to listen,” I would say that in my experience it is even more challenging to take the first step, to get out.

Can I really remove myself long enough from my own circumstances, concerns, insecurities and beliefs to get out of the bubble and see and hear those around me who have different circumstances, concerns, insecurities and beliefs?

On the broad scope of debating he suggests accepting the “fundamental humanity of the other people who are speaking.” On a more personal note, I suggest listening occurs more effectively when we let go of our own defensiveness.

Ultimately, the small ways I move outside my own thoughts, perspectives and conversations to listen to others enlightens my belief system to expand and strengthen it. Unfortunately, I realize I still only occasionally really listen outside my own bubbles and feel hampered in popping those bubbles altogether.

I sent my children to pick strawberries in Grandma’s garden while my mom and I cleaned the kitchen after dinner. They came back after only 15-20 minutes with just a handful of berries and said, “There weren’t very many there. They were either too ripe or not ripe enough.”

The next morning I took a turn picking strawberries. I worked from one end of the patch to the other, looking under leaves. I checked each plant. I checked each berry. With slow but deliberate effort, I picked a tub of strawberries from the patch they said had been all picked.

They must have expected to only pick strawberries whose appearance was uniformly perfect, like a grocery-store strawberry. Maybe, too, they did not know that each strawberry ripens at its own pace, making multiple pickings of the same patch essential.

KH came out, saw the fruit appearing from my diligent work and worked alongside me. The value of each strawberry grew in our eyes. She saw visions of berries atop pancakes with whipped cream. Now, the treat itself would mean more. Certainly, it would taste better.

For me came the realization of one of the pitfalls of our modern lifestyle. We are far removed from those who produce our goods and services. As a result, we come to expect more and better fruit for the same or lower cost without a recognition of the cost or value involved. In the case of strawberries this means cheaper labor from sources who will do the work we no longer want to do. In the end, we lose sight of that work’s value and the fruit it produces.

While our family is not going to move to my parent’s farm and produce all our own goods and services, the lesson that “whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap” reminds us of the true value not only of the fruit but the laborer as well.