An Invitation to Radical Bridge Buidling

I am a radical bridge builder and I want you to be one, too.

Somewhere in my upbringing with the experience of many cultures, many races and many people, I came to the absolute conviction that human beings are more alike than different. It is really difficult for me to go to a place of ‘us’ and ‘them’ – though that thinking permeates our cultural and political landscape.

It is hard to be a bridge builder. As difficult as it is to be a vocal activist. Both require putting one’s self on the line. Both are the important work of change and justice.

Bridge building asks of us a different kind of courage. If your call is to put your body on the line as an activist, then do it. And, oh yeah, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Both types of work needs to be done.

What is the courage required to build bridges? First, is the courage of vulnerability. You have to be open about yourself to people who dislike, hate, or fear you. You have to be willing to expose parts of yourself that are real, and sometimes the parts of you that are tender, as an invitation to mutuality.

Then you must have the courage to listen. You have to listen to things that are repugnant, hateful, fearful and, often, ignorant. You have to listen without the immediate agenda of being heard. And you have to listen with a heart of compassion as well as with emotional intelligence. Believe it or not, this is change making. This is the slow process of mutual humanization that opens the door for new understandings and new relationship.

Here’s the thing: there will be many times when you speak and will not be heard. Helping someone to hear is an important task of bridge building. It requires patience and gentleness because when people can’t hear it is because they are afraid. It may present as anger, aggression, or hate but behind those leading feelings is profound fear. And when people are afraid the most radical thing we can do, the most loving thing we can do, is walk with them through their valley of shadows.

So… I invite you to join me and be a bridge builder, too. Know that it is difficult work that requires vulnerability with those who are hostile toward you, compassion for those who hate, and the strength to listen to those who disagree with you.

We who work for justice crave radical change. We work to change laws and systems because injustice saturates our culture. We must march. We must VOTE. We must speak and not be silenced. We must challenge ourselves to root out our own internalized racism, homophobia, sexism, ageism, ableism and classism.

And we must do the hard work of building bridges. Because who we are when we get to the other side is important.