By Erin Payseur

Trump. Ferguson. Gay marriage. Planned Parenthood. Immigration. National Debt. Living Wage. Religion. Politics. Do you cringe when these topics come up? Do these words automatically bring to mind the same old heated sound bites we’ve heard over and over? For some of us, hot topics like these create a visceral emotional response that seems to yell & scream at us, “No, don’t go there. You better not open that can of worms! That’s too heated of a topic. That’s too sensitive. No one wins in these conversations.” Sometimes, I wish I could heed those voices. Sometimes, I wish I could opt out of the conversations. I would much rather avoid the conflict and the messiness of conversations about which I know others will disagree. After all, who likes conflict?

No matter how much those voices in me say don’t bring it up, though, truth be told, I sense a calling to talk about these issues. As a student affairs practitioner, I sense the need to guide students in making meaning of the world and to understand why these issues provoke such strong responses from all of us. I sense the need to give them courage to enter the conversation instead of run from it, to engage instead of retreating in silence. While these issues are sensitive and controversial, they are also vitally important in terms of who we want to be as a society and how we choose to live with one another in community. If we leave them to the pundits, will we solve the problems? Will we find ways forward together?

Make no mistake, engaging in this kind of work is often a messy process. It means being willing to have the hard conversations. It means being willing to listen and to love the other. It means celebrating moral courage and conviction, even in those with whom we may disagree. For my students, though, I want to give them skills to have these conversations – to go beyond the surface of the sound bites, to understand & respect multiple viewpoints, and to truly connect with others across difference to make our world a better place.

I don’t just want that for my students, though, I want that for all of us. I want it for my church, my neighborhood, my city. I want that for myself, to have the courage and conviction to listen and to learn and to love others well.

This is why I am so excited about the upcoming Civic Life Summit we are hosting in Waco. We are creating space to learn together how to have these kinds of conversations, how to engage when it is not easy, how we can talk about tough issues respectfully and identify ways to work together in community and to be community together.

If you share that desire for something better, come join us! You’ll see examples of a better kind of conversation across difference, and you will leave with tools and ideas for being a part of changing the conversation in your community.

Erin Payseur is the Associate Director of Civic Learning Initiatives at Baylor University. She has over ten years of experience in civic engagement and higher education. As part of the Office of Community Engagement & Service, she develops sustainable frameworks civic learning initiatives to guide students in considering their roles as leaders and citizens. She has authored several articles and presented nationally on civic engagement, service, and leadership. She has a B.A. degree in Religion/ Philosophy from Presbyterian College and a M.Ed. in Higher Education & Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina. Erin is a co-founder of Baylor’s Public Deliberation Initiative and is a current fellow with the Kettering Foundation New Centers for Public Deliberation.

The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.

by Craig Nash

Over the past year I have used this space to highlight the “embarrassment of riches” Waco has with regards to organizations and individuals who devote themselves to addressing poverty and alleviating food insecurity in our most vulnerable citizens. We truly are a model for what can happen when stakeholders in a community see a need and spring into action to ensure that the need is met. Long before out-of-towners were trekking to the Heart of Texas to linger around two abandoned, rusted out grain silos, they were coming here to learn how to organize around a common good from our many churches and nonprofits who have been at this for a long time. I hate to think what this city would be without all of this, but I wonder sometimes if, in the process of all this helping, we have inadvertently created a situation that we need to be helped out of?

And I’m not talking about the “savior complex” that do-gooders often get labeled with, though that is certainly a concern. But that is a diagnosis best left to professionals, not armchair therapists looking for a reason to assuage their guilt over not being a part of social action. Instead, I’m referring to the lines of demarcation that are reinforced in communities between those who are giving help and those who receive it.

There’s a quote from Fred Rogers that makes the rounds on our social media feeds when a tragedy of some kind occurs—

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

Quick, without thinking, when you read this, who do you picture in your mind as the “helper?” If you are like me, you thought of paid, professional helpers—Cops; Firemen; EMT’s; Doctors; maybe clergy. But more importantly what do these helpers look like in your mind? Their vocations aside, do they look like people you go to church with, have over for cookouts, or sit next to at the bar during Happy Hour? Or are they people from “other” neighborhoods, who go to “other” churches and frequent “other” establishments of commerce? It’s likely that they looked more like the former than the latter. They did for me.

We have fairly fixed categories in our minds for who the helpers are and, conversely, who is receiving help. In some ways this is inevitable. But when we aren’t deliberately conscious of this, we create harmful lines of separation and, really, of elevation. These lines not only heighten the stigma of needing help, they also make it difficult for the helpers to make connections with their neighbors, connections not based on what can be given away, but what can be mutually shared with each other. Helpers need to be open to be helped, and not just in the sense of being “blessed by helping,” but in actually being in a place of dependency on “the other.”

I don’t know this looks like across the board, though I do have some possibilities swirling in my mind, and I suspect you do as well. I’d love to hear how you, dear Act Locally Reader, wrestle with the idea of breaking down these lines of distinction between “helper” and “helped,” and if there are any practical suggestions you have found to guide our community along. Do you see anyone in Waco doing this especially well? In your “dream world,” how does this play itself out? Please share your thoughts in any of the numerous venues we share our thoughts these days— comment sections of Act Locally or Texas Hunger Initiative, when you see me at the coffee shop or when you decide you want to email me your thoughts at [email protected]. Especially helpful thoughts and conversation may just make it in my next Act Locally Blog.

Craig Nash has lived in Waco since 2000. Since then he has worked at Baylor, been a seminary student, managed a hotel restaurant, been the “Barnes and Noble guy,” pastored a church and once again works for Baylor through the Texas Hunger Initiative. He lives with his dog Jane, religiously re-watches the same 4 series on Netflix over and over again, and considers himself an amateur country music historian.

The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.