Be a Learner
I was walking home from work on Thursday evening with my AirPods in...as I often do.
In Chicago, we’ve been blessed with a fairly mild winter which has allowed me to continue biking and walking to work, and for that I am grateful! It’s one of the things I love most about living in this city.
I’ve developed what has come to be a pretty healthy post-work routine — I’ll either bike home from work, or, on the days when it’s too snowy and cold to bike, I’ll walk the first mile then catch the Belmont bus, riding east until I get to my stop.
The physical activity is good for me. After eight hours of mostly sitting at a desk thinking and writing about heavy and important things, it’s nice to breathe a bit.
I’ve been listening to this new podcast. It’s called “The Choice” and features the New York Times Editorial Board interviews with the top seven Democratic presidential candidates. I’ve really been enjoying interviews like these. They give me such a better look at the candidates than does the debate stage, and I definitely get a clearer picture of who they are than I can in any news reports.
Tonight, I was listening to the board’s interview with Andrew Yang. Yang is such an interesting candidate. While he has no political experience, he’s got plenty of other qualifications that would bring a lot of value to the presidential office. He studied economics and law, started his own company, worked at several startups, was CEO of another company, and currently runs a non-profit he started to help create jobs in places that were most affected by the financial crisis of 2008.
He’s charismatic, honest, has lots of good ideas and new ideas. He’s also the son of immigrant parents, which I think is important considering the growing need for diverse leadership in our country.
As I was listening to the interview, he and the editorial board members started talking economics. They were spouting numbers and stats and words that I had no idea what they meant. For a split second, I got discouraged. Shoot, I thought. Here’s another thing that I still don’t know enough about!
Over the last several years, I have increasingly become interested in politics and how policies affect people both here in the United States and across the globe. I’ve listened to more podcasts, read more articles, stayed up-to-date with what is going on in the news, and more recently, I’ve opted into a free online course through Harvard University’s edX called American Government: Constitutional Foundations.
Slowly but surely, I’ve started to learn. I’ve developed opinions. I’ve changed those opinions. I’ve developed a viewpoint and have started shaping a worldview with a lens through which I’d like to make my future decisions.
BUT… I still don’t know everything.
My discouragement while listening to the Andrew Yang interview subsided when I reminded myself that I will never know everything, but the important thing is that I just keep learning. Keep learning! Be a learner, be a listener, be a person who is constantly expanding.
One of the reasons I think so many people choose not to engage in politics — whether it’s on a local level or a national level — is because they feel like the don’t know enough and the issues are so big that they will never know enough. And while there is some truth to that, there’s also the truth that there will always be more to learn so why not just start from where you are. Start with what you know, then pick one book… one podcast… choose to read one news article a week, and go from there.
What I have found to be true over the last several years is that the more I engage with things I don’t understand — the more I keep reading and listening even if it feels like I’m not comprehending — the more my understanding grows. If I stopped short in discouragement everytime I realized I “don’t know enough” I would never learn anything, and neither would you.
Last week, I wrote a post about how there is always more to learn when it comes to our spiritual lives.
I would say the same is true when it comes to our political lives. As our world changes, so should we. We should hold fast to things that we value. We should hold fast to Jesus and his command to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength and to love others just the same. But we should do so with the God-given creativity and flexibility that comes with being a learner.
I want to end by drawing a bridge from last week to this.
Some of you who come here for your weekly dose of spiritual encouragement might be reading this and thinking, “Why is she talking about politics?? Politics doesn’t matter. Jesus does!”
And on the one hand, you’re a little bit right. But on the other hand, so I am I.
Politics is important because people are important. Politics affects people, and often they most affect the people who are given the least opportunity to speak into them. So if we’re going love people, then we ought to engage in politics — at least a little bit. We ought to vote. We ought to question others, and also question ourselves. We ought to read and learn and pray and learn because that, I think, is another way we love God with our hearts, souls, and minds.
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