“I work with stories.
I don’t need to define it. I just need to do it better.” – Participant
“To find a meaningful
story is simply to walk around in the world with your eyes open, listening.” –
Jacqueline Banaszynski, Missouri School of Journalism
I’m at the Restorative Narrative Summit,
a conference and retreat organized by Images & Voices of Hope. The
organization believes “that media can create meaningful positive change in the
world. Our global community includes journalists, documentary filmmakers,
photographers, social media specialists, gamers and more. …It’s about
amplifying the best in human nature and whenever possible shining a light on
the steps we can take towards the future we want.”
The Summit opened with members of its Fellows
program, which provides five journalists with a stipend to spend six months
telling Restorative Narratives. These are defined as “stories that show how
people and communities are learning to rebuild and recover in the aftermath, or
midst of, difficult times…[These narratives] locate the opportunity in
disruption and move beyond questions of ‘what happened?’ to questions of
‘what’s possible?’”
When asked what they have learned, one
Fellow, Alex Tizon, offered, “It’s hard to give up narrative as central to the
conflict. …I like the benevolent pressure I feel from this group, it forces me
to work hard, to strive for empathy.”
Another Fellow, Rochelle Riley,
observed, “It takes longer, because you have to wait for people to move
forward.”
Time and patience continued to emerge
as key components of empathetic storysharing.
Many participants have self-identified
as recovering advertising people. There’s also a cohort of former broadcast
journalists who are now therapists. Having worked in advertising myself (after
going to college at 16 to earn a B.S. in advertising), I was prompted to
reflect on this convergence.
I was attracted to advertising because,
on 10th grade career day, we visited an advertising agency with a
focus room group. Upon seeing the two-way mirror, I thought it was so cool that
you could actually find out why people do what they do and want what they want.
At its core, advertising is giving
people what they want. That focus group room was inviting the ad agency to
listen to what participants were thinking and reflect it back to them. There is
a generosity – hear me out, please! – at the heart of the work. Ideally, you
can help people be heard.
Felix Richter, of Droga5, shared the
incredible ads he made for Under Armour. Felix was speaking on a panel about how
media can challenge stereotypes and change perceptions. In approaching the
Under Armour work, he said they didn’t want to be patronizing to women – “You
can do it!” – nor did they just want to tell women to exercise more.
Instead, Droga5 championed the
campaign, “I will what I want.” He explained, “Advertising shows extreme
stereotypes all the time, and they become accepted as true. Showing the
opposite of that can help us get to the real truth.” To that end, I was
delighted to see his ad featuring Gisele Bündchen, "in a raw workout, while real social
comments, from both haters and supporters in response to the signing of
Gisele to Under Armour just two days earlier, invade her space. Gisele
remains focused, willing what she wants."
I’m guessing the cohort of reformed
advertising folk were not as lucky or talented as Felix, or simply not working
with adventurous clients. Our desire to be generous in giving people what they
want, and allowing people to be heard, led us to journalism, arts, education,
or advocacy. There is an inherent generosity in desiring to respect and reflect
people’s lives back to them.
Here is Kim Cross, author of What Stands in a Storm, explaining her
motivation in writing a book about a community’s resilience in the wake of the nation’s
most destructive tornado event, focusing on a family that lost a child:
I wanted the reader
to know what it was like for a parent to lose a child. Instead of walking a
wide arc around them in the Piggly Wiggly, they would engage them.
Kim also offered a meaningful
distinction between pity, sympathy, and empathy:
In sympathy, you are
looking down at someone. In sympathy, you are
looking at someone. In empathy, you are
sitting next to someone.
Listening to people and enabling them
to be heard is necessary and time consuming. Letting go of assumptions and
allowing the time for people to find their voice and establish enough trust to
share what they are thinking takes patience (and practice). Patience, purpose,
and passion are gifts we give one another.
At the closing reflection, Jacqueline
Banaszynski offered this wisdom, “You don’t have to rush just because you’re
under time pressure.”
The conference is being held at Peace
Village in the Catskill Mountains. Internet and phone access is extremely
limited. Friday was an extraordinary day of news to be spending with
journalists in almost total blackout! At the close of the day, I wept with joy
and sadness – with empathy -- while going through my Facebook feed celebrating
marriage equality, and the transformative power of the eulogy President Obama
delivered in Charleston:
He was full of
empathy and fellow feeling… He embodied the idea that our Christian faith
demands deeds and not just words; that the ‘sweet hour of prayer’ actually
lasts the whole week long – that to put our faith in action is more than
individual salvation, it's about our collective salvation; that to feed the
hungry and clothe the naked and house the homeless is not just a call for
isolated charity but the imperative of a just society.
Empathy: the
imperative of a just society.
