If you want to understand tolerance, it's helpful to have teenagers. I have four of them. Four wonderful, brilliant, engaging creatures brought to this earth by their mother and me. They are entertaining, they are well-read, they are courteous and insightful. And they are each, at times, surly, self-centered, lazy and stubborn. (You know; like every human ever born on this earth.)
I would give my life for any one of my children if they needed. I would stop a bullet, stand in front of a train or give them a kidney. I believe I've already demonstrated my love by watching 'ironic' sitcoms with them for hours on end.
But sometimes, they drive me absolutely crazy. And never more than when they think they know everything. Which is pretty much every. single. day. It's a huge conflict because their mother and I, in fact, know everything.
Not a week goes by that they do not remind their parents about another social injustice in the treatment of women or minorities, another philosophical quandary (are chickens sentient and if so, what about factory farming?) or the latest research suggesting video games are good for mind, body and soul (and give you a shiny coat as well). They quote statistics on global climate change, they argue with one another about licensing parenthood. And they seem to go out of their way to pick "hot button" topics to challenge the apparently irrelevant education and moral authority of their parents. In our house, "because I said so" is a long lost trump-card.
This is particularly interesting because my wife and I are what you might call "conservative." Or what others would no doubt call "right-wing, Bible-thumping, Southern nut-jobs." In the colloquial, that is. And it's even more interesting because our children were home-schooled. (I know! Can you believe it?)
Our children were raised in the Baptist church, in the sultry, Confederate Flag waving "Buckle of the Bible Belt" (where damned progressives would go for eternal torment if they believed in such things). Our four kids, stewed for years in all things Southern, are each deeply concerned about their pet causes, among which are included social justice, renewable energy, global climate change, animal rights, fairness, equality, racism and feminism.
So, as you might guess, we disagree on certain issues from time to time. But here's the remarkable thing: Their mother and I may not always share their opinions, but we don't love them one iota less. Nor do they love us less! Dinner conversations are always fascinating. We all learn from one another. They lift their Baby Boomer parents to new ways of viewing old problems. And hopefully (can you hear me, Lord?) we anchor them in traditions and truths that have remained relevant for thousands of years and hundreds of generations of their ancestors.
I am so proud of them. I see in their eyes, and hear in their passionate words, the fire I first saw in their mother when we met in college. Their mother, who still has a t-shirt from the first Earth Day, and who was aggrieved to be born too late for Woodstock. Their mother who learned to tolerate a staid, gun-loving, tradition-following Republican, who became their father. I became more like her and she became more like me. We "tolerated" each other so well we ended up with four children in about seven years. And they're like both of us. We all tolerate one another in abject, breathless, unquestioning love.
This is how it works. We can banter about the word "tolerance" if we want. But it's too easily a weapon of suppression. Tolerance is the word we now use to say, "you have to agree with my views." However, as one sees with teenagers, tolerance in truth means to disagree, but to respect. And in its highest, most beautiful incarnation, to disagree and yet love.
We all change over time. I don't know exactly how my kids will end up; where they will lie in the political, moral and spiritual spectrum of the future. But I know that even when we disagree, I'm proud of the people they have become through this wonderful mixture of reading, listening, arguing and discussing. (And no small amount of parental prayer.)
The thing is, if a bunch of rural home-schooled kids can grow into the kind of people who can endure the views of their parents without screaming, and if those parents can face the emotional and intellectual wanderings and pilgrimages of their children without shipping them off to boarding school, then there's hope for a world of tolerance. As long as we understand that tolerance doesn't have to mean agreement. But it does have to mean love.