conversation is an engine

And I feel fine.

We’ve come to the end of our Social Media Marketing class.

In this class, our intent was to explore what it means to reach outside our bubble. Some of us focused on reaching into areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul that we’ve never been to. Some of us focused on asking questions and entertaining discussions across intellectual and empathic boundaries. Some of us looked at gender and sexual identities, others reached across religious boundaries to visit mosques and temples. Others looked inside and found the great fear of moving outside–a fear we could all agree on.

We noticed that something happened when we reached out: the people and the stories we encountered humanized issues. We started to see flesh and blood beings with histories and hopes and humor and fears. People just like us.

Plus: we realized reaching across boundaries and through bubbles requires humility.

C…

Keep Reaching.

I pay a compliment with a silent expectation that it will return. I give a gift in the same way. When the word or gift does not return I am hurt, though I try to talk myself out of that response. After all, the gift is for the recipient, not the giver.

Why am I hurt? Maybe my intention was wrong. Maybe I was fishing for a compliment rather than simply wanting to give. Maybe I envisioned a more generous version of me, a me who gave without expecting something in return. But the reality was a more a needy version of me—someone eager for kudos.

Social media shares similarities with gift economies: both are about presenting a bit of work to someone else. We present something we value to others as a gift. Maybe the gift comes back, maybe it doesn’t. In our more generous moments…

Heading into Monday night’s first presidential debate, an ABC/Washington Post poll found Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton among white evangelicals, 71%-22%. Much though Trump’s boorish, unprepared performance in the debate embarrassedeven political conservatives, I’m not sure that my fellow evangelicals learned anything new that night that shouldn’t already have dissuaded them from backing Trump. As a FiveThirtyEight profile pointed out Tuesday, his support from evangelicals has grown significantly since the primaries.

Like evangelical writer Philip Yancey, “I can understand why maybe you choose these policies that you support” — and, I’ll add (before returning to the Yancey quotation), I can understand why one would rather stay home or pick a third party candidate than vote for Hillary Clinton — “but to choose a person who stands against everything that Christianity believes as the hero, the representative, one that we get behind enthusiastically is not something that I understand at all.”

It has me tempted…