Finding Common Ground with Grace

 Transcript from the audio:What is up fam? Welcome to Monday Musings with Kissa, where I share what the heck happened last week, what I have planned for this week, and a story time, not in that particular order. This is an audio companion to my Substack newsletter, and I send it out every Thursday. So if you're not already subscribed, there's a button here on my Substack somewhere where you can do so and content as of this recording is currently free. Hi fam. So if I may, will you allow me to kind of freestyle this podcast because there is something on my heart that I just feel like I need to share and it's just something that is so ingrained in me, , because I have just been someone that. The process is the best when I am expressing myself, whether it be through writing or through talking it over with a friend and since you guys are my friends, why don't we hash it out together. So let's talk about last week. Last week was is, I don't even know, we're in a time where being one party or another or having one belief or another pits people against each other. And so last week for me felt incredibly heavy.Community is just such an important aspect of my life, and it's just something that is so important to me that I seek community. And if I don't find it, I'm so bold as to create my own. I've done this my entire life. My now husband, we were dating at the time, we started a dance group together that was not a paid dance company it was just for fun. I also started an Entrepreneur's Life group with him at our church just recently, and it's just something that I think is such an integral part of the human existence. Community is a group of people, those beliefs can be different things. And as things have been leading up to last week, as life has played itself out there has just been such a lack of authentic and gracious and loving community online and probably in person, but a lot of it was online. And I was just so done.I was so done with seeing that, and I was so done with feeling that because it was spurring on this anger that was in my, in my heart, and it was being planted, and that seed of anger was being fertilized and it just was not who I was or who I am. It really got to me and I had to pause for a second and I just said, this is not who I am.I am a person that is a realist but also someone that seeks the good in the people around me, in my communities, in people that I don't agree with and with people that I do agree with. And I felt like I just needed to take a stance. I needed to take a stance for love, for grace, for just who I think more of us need to be toward each other - and that's kind, loving…and I just wasn't seeing it. The thing that actually tipped the scale over for me was last week everyone talking about how divided people are, whether you're on the left or on the right. And how the right is saying this about the left and how the left is saying this about the right and what each side needs to do and the lack of what they're doing.But one thing that I didn't hear that was being shared was those of us in the middle, those of us that were hurt by violence but don't necessarily see the world the same way as others. Those of us that believe that we can disagree, but also can come to the common ground that violence and hate toward another person is not okay.There was not enough of that rhetoric, not enough of the understanding of finding common ground, but seeing other people's points of view. And disagreeing is okay too. You don't need to be all one way or all the other way. You can believe what you believe. You can stand for where you stand, and it's not my job or anyone else's job to convince you to change your mind. That's not why we are here. We are here because we need each other. It's built into our society, into our DNA. We are not meant to be alone.As I come into this upcoming week, I had to write something. So I wrote an extra bonus post on my substack. I invite you to go check it out. And it's because I've been really thinking about, when it comes to be my time and I'm no longer here, what do I want my kids, my family, my friends and loved ones to remember me by?How do I want to be remembered? One of those things is gracious. It's one of the most important things to me and it's because it has been what I've seen ever since I can remember. My mom is such a huge inspiration, and you can read more about this in the post, but she was just such a gracious person and the impact that she had on her friends, loved ones, her community was big. She was never the type to hide behind anything or anyone. She had friends of all kinds of walks of life, all kinds of cultures, all ethnicities, and she was beloved. And the reason why, and I can tell you this from seeing it with my own eyes, was because she was gracious, but she was also real.And as a person that so inspired by the way she led her life, it has been ingrained in me to do the same.So this week I had to write that post and I'm going to live it out. That's my goal this week is to be a little more brave, a little more emboldened to show graciousness love and the good 'cause. You could go anywhere and find the negative, but that's not why I am here. I am here because I know part of my purpose is not to convince anyone to sway one way or the other, or believe one thing or not believe the other. My role is to find common ground, show people from different walks of life or polarizing opinions and views to see and find some common ground. So that is my new goal, especially for this week, but really moving forward.For my story time this week, this is going to go in tangent with the post I posted yesterday on Sunday. So I invite you to go read that.But one of the things that I do feel like I have to share was something that I shared in my mom's eulogy it was this moment that I still, I can close my eyes and relive over and over. It was when I was probably six or seven years old. I had a best friend. And we had gotten into a big fight about God knows what, but it was definitely something that we were disagreeing on. I was crying. I ran to my mom and basically I just tattled on my friend and told her what she said to me and how I didn't like it, and it made me so upset and. I can just remember my mom's face listening to what I had to say. And then when she realized I was finished, she came down to me, she looked me in the eye and she said, “That's okay. You can be angry, but you need to forgive her. Don't let that anger fester in your heart. Don't let it stay in your heart. Let it go. And be friends again tomorrow.” And I remember being a kid and being like, “What?! No!” And I could tell my mom knew, probably saw it in my eyes. And she said, “You don't need to agree on everything. But what matters is that you show her love and you continue to be her friend.” And at the time, being seven years old, I didn't understand. But that is how my mom lived her life. And now that I have grown, I am now an adult with my own kids and seeing where life has brought us - not just my immediate family, but us as a society. I realize how important that advice that my mom gave was. Regardless of if I disagreed with my friend or not. That doesn't mean I need to cancel her or shut her out of my life. In fact, there might be something that I could learn from her because we don't see the world in the same way. We have our own sets of eyes, our own lived experiences and her perspective could be completely different from mine. Even if we're looking at the same thing. But that doesn't mean we need to stop being friends.I wanna thank you so much for letting me just kind of spill my heart out and do this podcast episode in more of an impromptu and casual way. So thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed this audio edition, please share it with a friend. For the full Monday musings experience, please subscribe to my Substack at justkissa.substack.com.Until next time, thank you so much for listening. Know that you are blessed and I am so glad you're here. Bye friends. Get full access to Kissa - the Notion Mama at justkissa.substack.com/subscribe