Consideration

Some of you are familiar with Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot’s 1971 song, “If You Could Read My Mind.” It’s a great song.

The song was inspired by the divorce that ended Lightfoot’s first marriage. In the recorded version of the song, Lightfoot sings,

If you could read my mind, love,
what a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie,
'bout a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong.
with chains upon my feet.
But stories always end,
and if you read between the lines,
you'd know that I'm just tryin' to understand
the feelings that you lack.

Lightfoot and his first wife, Brita Ingegerd Olaisson, had two children, Fred and Ingrid. At their daughter Ingrid’s request, Lightfoot started singing an altered version of the last line. Now he sings, “I’m just trying to understand the feelings that we lack.” As his daughter pointed out to him, divorce is seldom only one partner’s fault.

Lightfoot changed the lyric out of consideration for his daughter’s feelings. Perhaps he took his ex-wife’s feelings into account as well, albeit belatedly.

Some folks will take Lightfoot’s lyrical adjustment as a sign of weakness. They’ll ask, “Why should he care what anybody else thinks?” Some folks will also take his daughter Ingrid’s request that he change the lyric as a sign of weakness. They may call her a snowflake or something similar.

I think that, while it is right and necessary that we speak the truth, it is good to do so with as much consideration for others’ feelings as possible. It’s always good to think about how our words will affect other people.

I recognize that sometimes that’s difficult. For example, I don’t know how to be considerate of someone’s racist, sexist, or otherwise hateful and prejudiced attitudes, words, and actions. Besides, any consideration I might try to have for them disappears in light of the consideration I must have for those who get hurt by the attitudes, words, and actions of people who practice and promote racism and sexism.

I guess we have to leave the hateful people aside, except for praying for them and trying to offer a positive witness to them. They’re not going to contribute to any solutions, anyway.

Most of us are in this together, though. Being considerate of each other’s feelings is just basic kindness, which we can never have enough of. Even if telling the truth means that I must disagree with or challenge your perspective or position, I don’t have to try to harm you.

But it’s hard to speak the truth in a loving way. That’s true for several reasons.

For one thing, it can be hard to know the truth. The truth we know is the product of our experience. We need to try to understand why we think we know what we think we know. We need to try hard to be as informed as we can be about the facts of a matter.

For another thing, even when we’re convinced, after we try to filter out our unfounded assumptions, inherited biases, faulty conclusions, and emotional reactions, that we know the truth, it can be hard to say it. This is especially true if the truth we need to say is contentious or controversial. We might be afraid that our speaking will make things worse. Or, we might be too considerate of others’ feelings—yes, I think that’s possible—with the result that we won’t risk saying anything that might offend someone, even if it needs to be said.

For a third thing, it can be hard to speak the truth in a way that takes other people seriously—that treats them as equal partners in the human enterprise. The key to being considerate in expressing our viewpoints is to recognize that everyone is a fellow human being and to treat each other with the respect that our awareness of our common identity should produce.

It is unfortunate that we often can’t have civil and constructive discussions about the issues that really matter because our default settings are (1) to take things personally and (2) to attack others personally.

It’s interesting how out of the same mind, mouth, and social media account can come these two statements (or approximations of them): (1) “I’m going to say what I think and I don’t care how it affects anyone” and (2) “How dare you say that!” Too often we don’t want to give others the same respect and consideration we expect.

I believe that one way out of our unfortunate situation is to learn what Gordon Lightfoot learned that led him to change his song lyric: it’s not about you and it’s not about me—it’s about us.

Being considerate is about being kind, and we can always use more kindness.

You may not think that we need to be kind and considerate as we deal with the challenging issues and situations confronting us.

If you don’t, I’ll try not to take it personally.

Mike the Poet

In late spring of 1964, I joined my fellow graduates of Miss Sylvia’s Kindergarten on the stage of the Gordon Grammar School lunchroom in Barnesville, Georgia. 

At a designated point in the midst of all the pomp and circumstance, I stepped forward and, with trembling knees and shaking voice, recited the first poem I ever uttered publicly. It was “The Swing” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

How do you like to go up in a swing,

   Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

   Ever a child can do! 

Stevenson was a pretty good writer. Thinking I could do better, I eventually wrote some poems of my own. It was when I was a student in Mrs. Key’s creative writing class at Forsyth Road School. The one I remember was about space. It was a moving piece with great depth and insight. The closing line was,

The biggest space I know of

is the space between your ears.

I don’t know which of my classmates I had in mind. If you think it was you, let me know and I’ll apologize.

I wrote a few poems over the next half-century, but I’ve only recently begun writing poetry in a disciplined way. I try to write one every week. Some of them are about my life, while others are about my perspective on the world and related matters.

I thought I’d share two of them to let you know where my thoughts have been lately. The fact that they don’t rhyme tells you how deep and serious they are.

The first one is called “Uneven Spaces.” I think it’s about how I want to live.

The sign in the passageway

between the terminal and the plane

said, “Caution: Uneven Spaces.”

It meant, I think, that the junctures

between the passageway’s sections

created a tripping hazard.

It set me to thinking about how

we always need to watch our step

because life isn’t level or uniform.

Some parts are high, some low.

Some are wide, some narrow.

Some are predictable, some surprising.

A problem: if you spend all your time

looking down for the uneven spaces,

you’ll miss seeing lots of amazing things.

Some things are worth the risk

of falling flat on your face.

The second one is called “Hardening.” I think it’s about how I want to grow old.

Three score and ten seems fair.

But if you feel pretty good as you get near it,

four score starts to sound reasonable,

four score and ten attainable, and

five score not out of the question.

Then you think about how

your minor arthritis might become major,

your occasional forgetfulness might become frequent,

and your declining hearing might go all the way down,

and you tell yourself well, none of that would be so bad.

Minor inconveniences requiring bearable adjustments.

But what if you become

more set in your ways,

more stuck in your perspectives,

more callous in your sympathies,

less open in your search for truth?

And you find yourself realizing

you’d rather go sooner with hardened arteries

than later with hardened attitudes.

You may not write poetry. But I hope you take time to think deeply about your life in the world.

We only get to do it once, and we need to find as much meaning in it as we can.

To read my weekly poems, follow me on Instagram at michaell.ruffin.