A Retrofit
At the beginning of this quarter, we conducted an exercise to improve our
listening skills. My partner during that exercise was Reagan Billings and I thought
I did really well as an active listener with him. In conversing with Reagan, I
learned he and I shared a similar ethnic background with the only real difference
being his mother was Hispanic and his father was Caucasian. In my family, it is
the opposite set up, my father is Hispanic and my mother is Caucasian. Over the
next few weeks, I found I had not really heard him at all. In my mind our similar
backgrounds correlated to similar life experiences, which was a big mistake
altogether. I assumed being Hispanic automatically meant you were Catholic and
I even made the blatant conjecture about him having a “traditionally” tightly knit
family with his parents still being together. As we worked together in a group, I
commented on a family situation that I thought he would inherently understand. I
was completely mistaken and consequently puzzled. Then, on another occasion,
I made an uneducated remark about Mormons, which was a grave mistake on
my part. Luckily enough, Reagan is an easy-going kind of person and although I
could tell he took offense to my remark, he took it upon himself to educate rather
than fire back with some off color comment. At the time, we were in the middle of
a group project and I did not pay as close attention to him as I should have. I
gave him the formulaic nodding of the head and the properly interjected “O.K.’s”
but I know he could tell that I was not responding in a sincere way. We continued
to function well in the group setting even though I could sense there was a rift
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growing between he and I. Stemming from our weak initial connection, the bridge
of communication we had constructed between us was not as strong as I
estimated.
Our conversation during our first meeting consisted mostly of our dealings
with foreign language in our families. Both of us have Spanish-speaking relatives,
however neither of us were taught how to speak the language while we were
growing up. Our families refrained from teaching Spanish to their children
because they wanted to be accepted into the dominant white cultures of the
areas they had settled into. Little did they realize that twenty years later those
same areas would experience the type of minority growth that would change the
dynamic of the culture that they were trying to fit into. We both wished we had a
firmer grasp of the Latin dialect to make ourselves more marketable in the
workplace. After this brief exchange is where I made my biggest mistake. I just
assumed, using my rational mind, that because our family histories were similar
thus far that our entire histories were completely similar. I ceased with the
presumed needless questioning and carried on with the rest of our assignments.
I thought I had done enough to fulfill the active listening role, yet active listening
in itself means never assuming anything. An active listener clarifies what they
hear. A passage from our text of Bridges Not Walls states, “It just means asking
questions until you get more of the big picture. Since your intention is to fully
understand what is being said, you often have to ask for more information, more
background” (McKay, Davis, Fanning, 202). I stopped my questioning short of the
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whole truth and failed to fully connect with Reagan. This failure on my part set
forth some mild tremors that threatened to bring down this new relationship.
During one of our following group projects, we began discussing family
differences again. When our fellow group member, Yvette, started to tell us about
her husband being from West Africa someone made a comment about polygamy.
I made a joking comment about Mormons and polygamy. I never would have
guessed Reagan was Mormon and he would be offended about my bad joke.
Reagan quickly rebutted my statement with the fact that polygamy had been
banished from the Mormon Church quite some time ago. Quickly realizing I had
just made a “totalizing” statement about his religion, I apologized, but because
we were in the middle of completing our project, I cut him off rather promptly and
never let him fully explain himself. From then on, the foundation of trust we
shared began to break down.
When it came time to pick someone for this interview paper I truly felt it
would be a great opportunity to make amends with Reagan. As with any other
skill I have acquired, active listening would take lots of practice to get it right.
With this unique situation, I was getting a second chance to correct a previous
screw up. I thought I had better take advantage of this situation and make things
right in our relationship. I approached Reagan and explained that as this quarter
has rolled on I have come to realize that I assumed too much about him, and felt
the need to reacquaint myself with him. I asked if he would be willing to
participate in my interview paper and he graciously accepted. I knew that in order
for me to be successful this time I would need to let go of my rational mind and
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embrace my imagination to hear him whole-heartedly. I started with attuning
myself to my “felt sense.” As Simpkinson and Simpkinson state in The Wisdom of
Listening, “… how to detect and give words to what they felt in their bodies, what
Gendlin termed their “felt sense” … By attending to the “felt sense” in the
stomach or chest we at first get an unclear sense. But with steady attention, the
body sense opens up and we find how different the information is that comes
from the center of the body. We have the sense of being talked to by something
deeper, something that is not infected by fears and conditioning” (45). I
recognized that in my previous meetings with him that I was “out of tune.” In our
first conversation, I was just concentrating on completing the assignment and
when we were working in our group, I let my nonreligious beliefs interfere with
really hearing what he had to say. In reference to his religion, I permitted my
subconscious to allow me to be dismissive of his beliefs and not permit him to
say what he needed to say. Before we got started, I centered myself by taking a
deep breath with my eyes closed and felt my consciousness move towards my
abdomen.
I intended the interview to last about twenty minutes maximum. We ended
up speaking for almost an hour. I had Reagan start all over from the beginning,
talking about his heritage and how his parents met each other. Part of his
mother’s ancestry came from of the Aztec tribes in Mexico and the others came
over from Spain. He was not to sure about his father’s side because “he never
felt the need to ask his father about his background.” He couldn’t explain why he
never felt the need to ask his father. I just left it at that. We laughed about the
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topic of ethnicity because we both have the similar dilemma. When someone
asks about our ethnic background, we both answer back with, “Well, that is a
good question?” Reagan said that in describing his father’s background he just
responds by saying, “He is as white as it gets!” We both agreed on the
conclusion that we’re both just American. His immediate family history turned out
to be quite different from mine (different from what I originally expected). His
mother was born in Othello, Washington and his father was born in Yakima. His
father was born into the Mormon Church, but his mother was baptized into the
church when she turned eighteen. His father went on a mission to Texas when
he was twenty and fell in love with the Mexican culture. Upon returning to
Washington, his father met his mother and they got married. They promptly had a
child, his older brother, and about five years later, they adopted a little girl to help
lessen the burden on a single mother from their church. About a year and a half
after the adoption, they had Reagan. Before he was a year old, his parents got a
divorce and his mother moved to Provo, Utah. His parents never got into a
custody dispute over the children. They just decided to share the children by
alternating custody year by year. Reagan switched homes and schools summer
after summer until when he was in high school when his parents decided Reagan
need more consistency in his life. Now he lives with his mother full-time. His
father has since moved to Louisiana and Reagan doesn’t see too much of him
anymore. Reagan said, “Most people see my moving around as a hardship, but
looking back on it now I see it as a valuable learning experience.” He learned to
value diversity and it has helped him meet people. Both of his parents remarried
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within five years of their divorce and Reagan’s family grew even larger. His father
and new wife (he calls her Mom too) have four children that he doesn’t consider
to be stepsiblings. Reagan remarked, “Even though they have blonde hair, blue
eyes, and look nothing like me, they are still my brothers and a sister.” I asked if
there was ever any animosity between him and his siblings over parental
ownership and he said no. They were his family and that was that. His mother
remarried to a man from Taiwan and they had a baby boy, Titus, who is six and a
half years younger than Reagan is. His mother’s second marriage did not last
and her second husband moved back to Taiwan. Since his departure, Reagan
and his older brother, Michael, have become father figure types for Titus. He
does claim Michael takes more of the father figure role whereas Reagan
maintains more of the older brother role. I inquired if he has ever sat down and
tried to compare and contrast his family relationships and he replied that they
don’t compare. They are what they are and he wouldn’t want it any other way.
From there I started asking him about the Mormon religion. Thus, the education
began with his description of how Joe Smith received his direct revelation. God
spoke directly to Joe Smith and asked him to reunify the church of God.
According to Joe Smith’s teachings, no one religion is completely right or wrong,
but their problem is that they function separately. The Book of Mormon is a
testament of how Jesus came to the America’s after he died to teach the word of
God and unify all peoples. A Mormon’s oath not to drink or smoke is their way of
showing their thanks and devotion to God for giving them life. Also keeping
themselves pure in this life will help them ascend to heaven in the afterlife. This
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dedication to their religion is called their “testimony” undertaken at baptism at the
age of eight. They wait until the age of eight because that is when a person is old
enough to make the conscious decision about their dedication or “testimony” to
God. He continued to fill me in on the workings of the Mormon Church and how
polygamy began only to help unify families that were being torn apart by war.
Husbands with multiple wives typically did not have new children with their new
wives, they just helped raise the otherwise fatherless children. When the massive
loss of life from wars ended, the church ended the practice of polygamy because
it was no longer necessary. My view of the Mormon Church ultimately changed
after conversing with Reagan.
The one thing I took away from my latest conversation with Reagan was
his sense of dedication to family. There is no doubt the Mormon philosophy plays
a huge role in Reagan’s outlook on life. His sense of dedication is something to
be truly respected and admired. Being able to truly open up to what Reagan had
to say not only changed my perception of him, but improved my perception of the
Book of Mormon and those who follow its teachings. Their perception of a family
is something we can all learn from to try getting along with one another. I am
pleased that I took the time to mend that relationship with Reagan. This second
chance helped to retrofit that weakened bridge of communication between us.
Before this occurrence, the slightest negative tremor could have turned us into
foes. Now, I’ve learned to appreciate him more and our relationship should be
able to hold up against any type of earthquake that may come to pass.
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