Today marks the third day of confirmation hearings for a new Supreme Court judge. Many in the public have had no contact or very little with the nominee and her positions, although she has operated within the legal field for years, and distinguished herself among her colleagues. She has finally come to a place to “get noticed” at the highest level in her chosen field by the recommendation of others. This has come when she already has a full life, it will not make or break her and her own path personally. Confirmation will only allow her to be a factor in the lives of others. Most Americans know who she is without knowing her in a deep way at all. As per the past confirmation hearings, there has been a very public discourse which included heated questioning, haggling over minute or unfounded issues, and often glaring disregard for the real matter at hand…a choice of a justice as viewed though a lens of better or worse.
It is politics after all.
But this method of determining of who people say they are, as opposed to who they really are, is vital in the justice confirmation process, and will result in the right choice. Why? Each nominee has been scrutinized through all types of means to get a clear picture. We could lob a few easy questions or allow the legislature or President to just assign our judges, but what would we really end up with in the end? Would this give us the unwavering confidence in those chosen to make good legal decisions on our behalf as a people? Likely not, it would be a superficial relationship at best, a constant exercise of keeping our fingers crossed, hoping we haven’t made a grave error in the choosing.
I have been thinking lately about how this corresponds to all life relationships, whether marriage, friendship, business or otherwise. A new someone enters our life almost daily unless we are a social hermit. During the covid crisis, this has been the case for many, the “hermitizing” I mean. I have even wondered if the pandemic and enforced necessity to stay at home more was merely a divine interruption, encouraging more self reflective opportunities for each of us. It would be interesting to take a survey to see how many of us have used our quiet time to reflect on past choices, relationships, and pursuits, and our part in the success or seeming failure of them.
I have been fortunate to reconnect with not one, but two friends from my high school and college years recently. With the college friend, I have had some conversations that are fun and silly, exclusively lighthearted, but will really provide no lasting depth to our current relationship. I have enjoyed each exchange, true. But I haven’t had to commit much to thought afterwards when we talk, and I have come to realize even in college, when we were very close and knew all about each other (or so I believed at the time), our friendship was very myopic /nearsighted. It only dealt with things that were instantly at hand and then quickly gone. We never really delved into who the other was, so I guess that is why when we each ceased to be there for the other (that friend moved away during college), it really left no deep impact on me one way or other over time. I married early, set forth on that portion of my life, and that friend went off into the sunset for 40 plus years.
In contrast, the high school friend I remembered, but didn’t know well at that time. We shared some classes, teachers, but never really were in the same circle of influence as far as peers…or so we thought. When we started talking recently, we have found more and more people we were each friends with during that period of time, albeit separately, but our own paths never really entwined in a distinctive friendship then. Our conversations have become very different than mine with the first friend. Although both started out the same, lighthearted and simple… the second friend and I have strayed into a bit deeper conversations, some that have caused me to think, and challenged me somewhat. Also in contrast, those conversations are more likely to come to mind during the day than the ones with the college friend.
It’s funny. I can’t really tell you what the college friend have talked about because it has lacked imagination in its nearsightedness and was more a rehashing of what was, and not what is or will be, and is the same friendship it was 40 years ago in all likelihood…here today, gone tomorrow, no harm and no foul. We were nearsighted then, we are nearsighted now. I am okay with that, and unchanged by the truth of it. It is what it is.
The high school friend’s conversations? More hyperopic /farsighted, kind of like our interaction during school days. The mutual friends and experiences then are acting as lenses to see each other in a different way now, and is giving me a different perspective on so many things over the last 40 years including these two people. I think back to how many friends I had both in lower grades of school and through my high school years, dated a lot, was involved in a lot of organizations and so forth…but rarely were any brought very close at all by choice. Even today I have very few people that I am close to or let into my circle, but my general public would think otherwise. I seem to be the person who is friends with everyone, “socially butterflying” here and there, but in reality not close to most in a lasting way.
In reflecting on both these friendships, I wish I had applied a “better or worse” lens back in school and college in making all my friendships. I regret I didn’t utilize more of even shallow friends to help clear my vision to see situations more clearly before they came to fruition. I think it may have even affected some of my latter decisions in life if I had developed a better discernment muscle then with a “confirmation hearing” of sorts on each relationship right at the beginning. I may have asked more piercing questions, watched others longer, reflected on my own inadequacies more deeply and honestly instead of focusing on the here and now when looking for just and good companions on my life path.
But then again, in not applying a ”better or worse” lens then and instead using past experience as the lens now I will see everything much more clearly. I love living my days now with an ability to simply look at things and people up close, and also far away, but with no more crossed fingers at my sides. Clarity delayed is still beneficial, even if the better must come after the worse. Perspective and time gives us a real and unadulterated look at ourselves in communion with what may be around the bend in the road. And it is often truly eye-opening…
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