Better "Human Beans"

The topic for Sunday seems to have been on emotional intelligence. At church, the reflection was on the dichotomy of knowledge-based vs emotional-based decisions, on how people will strictly be guided by what they know or what they feel. The story was one of healing, in which the speaker took a moment to live in the moment with their emotions before their father passed away. They also quoted Thich Nath Hahn with regards to the Lotus flower requiring mud to bloom. Like the Lotus flower, we, too, need mud in order to bloom.

On NPR after church, I listened to a story on how research has shown that people who consider their emotions when making major decisions often make better decisions than those that decide based on facts. On the other hand, I have seen really bad policy that doesn’t take into account all facts, and indeed filters the “facts” based on a confirmation bias.

We need both. We need both the facts in front of us, and how the facts make us feel. When we do this, we can often expose underlying biases that we may have. Emotional awareness is something that we can do, with ourselves and with each other, so that we can ferret our where our intuition is leading or misleading us.

I plan to start asking myself the following questions when dealing with a situation or a problem: What do I know? What do I feel? What do I need to know?

In A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, Madame Defarge reveals that her husband found and brought home a letter that damned Charles Darney’s family when the Bastille fell. He affirms that it is true. At that moment, she had shared a long kept secret with her husband.

Al Forsyth, in More Stars than Grains of Sand, informs us that our memory is weak compared to dolphins, cats, ravens, and octopuses. Identifying whistles of other dolphins are easily remembered, even after 20 years of separation. The stronger synapses of a tiger give it a short-term memory that is thirty times better than that of humans.

In A Still Life, by Penny Louise, Agent Yvette Nichol races around the home looking for her wallet. She pleads with her Dad that he must have seen it. He plays a game with her in which he secretly slips money in her wallet.

At a meeting at Sûreté headquarters, Jean Guy Beauvoir reports on his conversation with Robert Lemieux of the Cowansville Sûreté. Yolande Fontaine, while clean, has performed some suspicious practices as a real estate agent, and her husband and son are well known to the police. Gamach asks if the husband has done any jail time.

Later on, Inspector Armand Gamache finds a door at the back of a bistro leading into the bookstore Myrna’s Livres, Nuefs et Usages. Holding a copy of Being, he is reminded of his first grade’s English homework in which she was to name three types of beans, she wrote “green beans, yellow beans, and human beans.” He remembers the book as a noteworthy study of arrogance, humility, and over all, forgiveness.

Ruth teases a gay couple, calling them “the village people.” Gabri waltzes in Peter and Clara’s home crying out “Bonjour, mes amours, and Ruth.” His partner struggles in, carrying in two shephard’s pies and a couple of paper bags which he deposits on the counter.

When police cars roll up at Matthew Croft’s house at three minutes past eleven, Matthew is set to remember where he was for the rest of his life, having waited for them since seven am. His wife Suzanne’s mother, Marthe, invariably asks every canning season, “When does a cucumber become a pickle?” Sometimes change is sudden, but often it comes gradually as an evolution.

During his investigation, Armand needs to know what Timmer Hadley said when Myrna was sitting with her. Myrna doesn’t see how it matters to anyone now. Armand comments that she’d be surprised. Myrna had sat with her on the side of her bed, while Timmer was wrapped in hot-water bottles and blankets. Timmer had told her a story about how happy Jane Neal was on the last day of the county fair when they were young, which was plainly evident in an old grainy photograph.

This has me thinking about cultural change. I was hoping that we’d be a lot further along in social acceptance of individual needs, and societal needs, including access to necessary education, housing, healthcare, and shifting toward a more eco-friendly way of life. These changes are happening, but the backlash where the cultural shift has still to permeate can feel painful with all the good we have shifted toward. Even Sarah McBride has agreed to use the men’s restroom in government buildings if she needs to because one congresswoman complained. She is willing to do that to continue to be an advocate. I couldn’t. I have come to far to go back now. If congress requires all trans women to use the men’s bathroom, I won’t. I would rather risk imprisonment and fines and see them in court, a battle that could take the rest of my life. My guiding principle is that I belong here just as much as anyone else.

We have come a long way. I have seen it. A lot more people understand. A lot more people are out, and a lot more people are comforting and supportive. The cucumber is pickling. It just might not be quite to the point where we’d like it, but in the whole, we are slowly getting there, and we need to do it together. We have people working with the unions to make them safe as well. As long as we stay visible and we tell our stories, we are the living visible counter examples to the false narratives that are being put by people whose spirituality has not expanded to be as welcoming as they need to be. I have confidence we will get there. We are all on the journey there together, after all.

Our work now is to not shrink, but to stay put. We need to stay visible, stay safe, stay together, and stay strong. We’ve got this. We are "human beans" after all.