With the conflict in the Middle East and everything else going on in the world today, I wanted to share something that happened to me that I think can make a real difference.

Yesterday morning, I went to the grocery store to grab a couple of things for breakfast. I got there before the store had opened so I had to wait outside in the cold for about 15 minutes.

As I was waiting, something truly amazing happened.

Two white men (one around 35 and the other closer to 60) walked up to the store and began waiting nearby. They were a not-unusual, rough cut of small town man with a flavor of cynical humor and an edginess that usually comes with living a life with less love and joy than is good for a human being.

We casually nodded at one another and the two began to chat. Not feeling a particular inclination to engage with them, I quietly waited, listening to their conversation about the unseasonably cold winter, how the local sports team is doing, and a number of nondescript complaints you might expect from someone looking at life through an unnecessarily limited and negative lens.

While we were waiting, a car drives by. In it was a woman wearing a hijab.

The younger man says to the older one, “Look, a terrorist!” The volume of the comment suggested it was clearly meant to include me in the good humor.

There it was.

We’ve all been witness to this dynamic in one way or another. That subtle flavor of the racism and cultural animosity so ripe and activated in our world right now.

I got that sinking feeling in my stomach you get when something not quite right has happened and you know it actually falls to you to address it in some way. Without overthinking my response, I simply and calmly said to the man who spoke, “That’s not really how that works.”

It is not a mystery to me why someone grows to hold the kind of worldview where this “joke” is said aloud. I’m not at a loss as to how people come to resent, hate, or even harm one another for reasons as absurd as the color of their skin or the clothes they wear.

What was also not lost on me was that the three of us were all white. It was a reality that played a central role in this gentleman’s sense that it was safe for him to say such a thing out loud without the sense that it would be a problem.

It also informed the relevance and impact of how I, as another white man, should engage with them, at least in their own minds.

After I spoke, I just looked at the man with the hint of a smile, expressing that this was not an attack on him, but a compassionate nudging toward a higher level of reason and understanding.

After a couple of seconds, he responded with, “I know. It was just a joke.”

At this point, a number of things came to mind as to what I might say or do to further drive my point home.

I could have gone into a speech about racism and its corrosive and divisive impact on the fabric of humanity.

I could have told him how out of line he was or that most people don’t find that kind of thing funny.

I could have turned his attention to the impact that comments of this kind, as benign as they may seem to some, have on people’s perceptions, sentiments, and their sense of safety.

I could have done any number of things to “educate” him or somehow level the score.

But, for some reason, I didn’t.

I didn’t do any of those things. I didn’t do anything someone watching the interaction could have put their finger on that might have made a difference.

I just gave an understanding nod, remained present and warmly open to them both, and stood with them in silence. I just left them to be with me and the moment we had created together.

Then, seemingly by magic, something amazing happened.

The older man chimed in and started talking about how they (referring to Muslims) are mostly really nice people. He referenced some positive experiences with Muslims he had had in his own life.

“Wow! ” I thought. “What a lovely, unexpected addition that was to the conversation.”

It didn’t stop there though. Next, the younger man responded with his recognition of the deeper, more nuanced reality behind acts of terrorism. He, the one who made the joke in the first place, began speaking to “the other side” of this dichotomy of us and them.

He spoke with more than a little insight about how and why acts of terrorism take place.

They both then had a meaningful conversation about the fact that there are “terrorists” and that they do hold views that make them dangerous. Not just to white Christians or atheists but to people from places and cultures all over the world.

These two men went back and forth on this until, almost on cue, the woman in the hijab walked up to the store. They immediately went silent. Just then, the store clerk came to the front of the store and opened the doors for us.

All of a sudden, things fell quiet.

For me, it was as if everything was running in slow motion, just like in a movie. Keenly observing, deeply fascinated, I wondered silently to myself how this scenario was going to play out…

As the woman wearing the hijab walked up, the older man simply smiled at her and said, “Good morning,” to which she replied warmly, “Hello.” He then motioned for her to enter first, which she did.

“Hmmm,” I thought. That was really something! I just stood there with a big smile overflowing in my chest.

After following them in and beginning my own shopping, I walked around the store secretly looking out for this odd trio. I saw the older gentleman and we shared a small smile and nod and both went about our business.

That was it.

Nothing Earth-shattering, nothing that seemed to make a huge difference in anyone’s life. And yet, I had the sense that this little interaction and what followed it had changed us all in a small, but meaningful way.

In that moment, at that time, based on our relationship, it was a subtle, yet deeply fruitful way to shift how the story around race and politics plays out.

We can often feel a need to come in with our guns blazing to address something that is such a huge issue in our world.

Unfortunately, too often, out of our own conditioning and orientation to such things, we can unconsciously compound the problem. We can further push people into their paradigms of belief and give them even more evidence to justify and fortify their position of division and antagonism.

When we use an elephant gun to address a mosquito, we create collateral damage that not only tends to fail to address the mosquito but turns the initial issue of the mosquito itself into a far larger problem than we started with.

That is not to say that more powerful interventions are never needed or never right.

This is simply to say that in the case of shifting human perception, sentiment, and ideology, less is so often more.

For us to cultivate a new world together where we can really be connected and together in the midst of all our human frailties and misconceptions, we must change. Instead of navigating and making choices out of our individual conditioning and sense of things, can come to be more open and receptive toward those who have yet to lay down their hard edges of protection.

This shift is all about mastering our ability to warmly see and recognize someone while they do whatever it is they are doing.

Just as a child who is acting out needs patience, love, and the right boundary for what the moment calls for, these people need our clarity and compassion, not our ire and resentment. This has us sharing compassionately something we are deeply clear about and looking to simply connect and interact as human beings.

This then gives others a kind space within which to see and feel more clearly, and time to open up to and explore the different ways of holding life.

I hope this story reaches you and supports more meaningful and impactful conversations between you and the people in your life. Especially those people who may see things differently than you.

We really are on the same team.

We just have to find more and more ways to remind each other of it.

I’m not naive enough to think it will happen overnight or that it’s going to be easy. I just know that, ultimately, it’s possible.

And, maybe that’s what we need to start focusing on.

Maybe we can’t change the world through big, overt actions. Perhaps it’s the tiny, almost invisible decisions we make each day to really see each other and to engage in understanding and care that can, over time, change everything worth changing.

Peace, my friends.

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