A matronly figure in her mid-50’s was jostling her luggage into the overhead bin. She paused to study me and my ponytail sitting by the window, then she maneuvered into her aisle seat. Holding her matching seat-belt ends in position, she turned to me and announced: “I’m a dyed-in-the-wool conservative”. She punctuated, “click!” with her seat belt.
I was suppressing my vertigo and considering my options. We would share our flight from Salt Lake to Spokane for nearly two hours, a calculation I suspected she had already made. With a mixture of excitement and reticence I decided to take the risk. I decided to request a peek behind her “Conservative” curtain.
I introduced myself, then I said: “Thank you Helen. Now I know something particularly important about you. But I would like to understand better. ‘Conservative’ means so many things that I get confused. Would you be willing to tell me a few of your beliefs that feel fundamental to your ‘conservatism’? I want to understand what it means to you.”
Helen gazed toward her shoes with face clinched in lines of effort. I felt a pang of regret. Was she angry, was she sad, or was she trapped in a painful memory? A dozen long seconds had passed when she said: “I feel ashamed. To tell the truth, my son is the REAL dyed-in-the-wool conservative. He’d be angry that I don’t have a ready answer to your question.”
I was stunned, arrested by the flash of beauty in her unexpected sincerity. I was moved with gratitude and I wondered: “How did she do that? How did she manage such instant openness after her initial challenge?”
Wanting to reciprocate, I said: “I’m taken aback by your honesty.” Then I said: “Let me see if I understand. For you, being ‘conservative’ connects you with your family, your clan, your community of support. Perhaps this is one of your fundamental reasons to for being ‘Conservative’. Does that sound right?”
Helen paused pensively, then she smiled. She said with visible gratitude: “Yes. It’s true.” Her sincere disclosure was the beginning of our growing connection.
I wanted to invite more, more exploration, more connection. I asked: “Are there other intentions behind your conservatism, other beliefs close to your conservative heart?”
Forced intermission, the speakers came on. The stewardess began her safety speech. Helen sat back. When the drone silenced, Helen was beaming and nodding knowingly. She turned and said: “I’ve got it. I know why I’m a conservative!”
I said: “Great, what do see!”
She slowly formed her words to say: “I’m concerned that our government’s social programs undermine local community.”
I said: “What a penetrating insight! What a gift!”
Helen gave voice to a long held concern of my own, the irony that our strategies often act counter to our intentions. From our intentions to help, we unfortunately form anonymous institutions to respond, institutions that lack the necessary healing comfort of personal warmth.
I checked to see if I had understood properly. I said: “So you believe that when we get outside help from faceless institutions, we lose opportunities to help each other; we lose opportunities to create and connect in community?”
She said: “Yes, that’s it.”
I responded: “Helen, if that’s your ‘Conservative’, I’m your kind of Conservative.”
We formed our clan of two, and pressed on to test our bonds of vulnerability.
At one point I asked Helen a question that I suspected it would challenge her family beliefs: “Are you concerned about businesses, like private insurance companies, undermining community? Insurance companies seem like for-profit social programs by other means.”
I told Helen about our experience. My wife and I evacuated from Los Alamos, New Mexico during the Cerro Grande Fire (May of 2000). We hoped that when we returned, we could support community and friends by digging through ashes to find what was left of their lives. While evacuated, insurance companies and FEMA announced their intentions for significant financial reparations and assistance. The payouts were going to be generous. I heard one home owner whose house burned say: “I’m glad I didn’t knock myself out cleaning out our garage. We can start clean, and build new.” Some, whose houses were narrowly spared from the fire, expressed jealously for “missing the lottery”.
After some consideration, Helen said: “It would probably anger my son, but I think it’s true about insurance companies. Thank you. I may not be able to discuss this with my family and friends, my clan.”
We had each challenged the standard Left-Right strategic views of our clans, and we were closer than ever.
Time passed easily in probing conversation until we landed. Helen was waiting in the isle when she looked back and said: “I didn’t ask if you’re a ‘Liberal’?”
I said: “Thank you for that.”
She grinned warmly and nodded. She turned and left.
I’ve borrowed stories constructed by those alive before me. I’ve borrowed to survive. Cultural stories are borrowed stories, and borrowed stories are cultural-righteousness stories. Cultural-righteousness stories are born from love, honor and fear. From love, honor and fear I defend my cultural-story citadel to earn my right to take refuge within my community. Cultural-righteousness is tribute.
Our cultural strategies separate us. Our life serving intentions create space for connection. Helen had the courage to disrobe from her cultural narrative with a stranger, perhaps particularly with a stranger. She offered the courage to connect across forbidden boundaries.
Thank you Helen.