Choosing to Love Anyway w/ Jeremy Courtney

Episode Summary: In this episode of The Diversity Gap Bethaney sits down with Jeremy Courtney to discuss what it really means to love anyway.  They explore power, pain and what it means to be a human navigating differences. 

Jeremy Courtney is the founder and CEO of Preemptive Love, a global organization providing relief, jobs, and community to end war. His newest book, Love Anyway, casts a bold vision for how we can heal all that’s tearing us apart. Jeremy is a sought-after speaker and authority on peacemaking, conflict resolution, and the integration of activism, spirituality, and leadership. He lives with his family in Iraq.

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, conversation, power, life, talking, speak, thinking, love, question, challenged, nuance, systemic, world, learning, diversity, iraq, hear, posture, enemy, real

SPEAKERS

Bethaney Wilkinson, Jeremy Courtney

Bethaney Wilkinson  00:00

So a few months ago, I picked up the book Love anyway by Jeremy Courtney. And for those of you who don't know, Jeremy Courtney, he is the founder of a nonprofit, an international nonprofit relief agency called pre emptive. Love. And it's interesting because when I hear a title like love anyway, part of me thinks, Okay, that sounds great. I actually would like to be able to do that. And then I think about what it might feel like to choose love, when really confronted with, whether it's my weather with my enemy, or with just people I disagree with, like, what does it mean, to really put yourself on the line like that? And yeah, I just imagine for a while my first thought is, wow, that's terrifying. And then my second thought is, that can be really painful. And that it can be really costly. So yeah, love anyway, it's both a beautiful invitation, but it's also one that we can't take lightly. Welcome to The Diversity Gap podcast, where we are exploring the gap between good intentions and good impact as it relates to diversity, equity and inclusion. My name is Bethaney Wilkinson and I am your host. Hey there, welcome to another episode of The Diversity Gap podcast. For today's conversation, you get to listen in on me talking to Jeremy Courtney. Jeremy is the founder and CEO of Preemptive Love, a global organization providing relief jobs and community to end war, his newest book Love Anyway: cast a bold vision for how we can heal all that's tearing us apart. Jeremy is a sought after speaker and authority on peacemaking conflict resolution, and the integration of activism, spirituality and leadership and he lives with his family and Iraq. Man, this conversation felt like it could have almost been counseling or therapy. I just had so many questions like, what does it mean to love anyway? Really? And how hard is that? And does it ever get easier, and we spend honestly a lot of time talking about power and pain and suffering and, and risk taking? Yeah, it's a really good conversation. I'm excited to share it with you. And I'm excited to see how it lands. Because it's different than a lot of my other conversations on organizational culture and diversity. In many ways this conversation was about what it means to be to be human. And so check it out and enjoy for today's conversation. Quick disclaimer, we are recording in Atlanta, Georgia at pilot place. And for those of you who don't know, this is a new building, and they are working on the roof this week. And so there might be some drilling hammering loud thuds. Yeah, we'll see just as a heads up if some of the audio gets a little crazy. That's a part of it. Also, we were recording this conversation across the globe. Jeremy was in Iraq. I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. And so there might be parts for sounds a little funky because of internet connection things. So just letting you know. So my project is called the diversity gap. And I'm exploring the gap between people's good intentions for organizational culture, and the impact of those intentions on teams, communities, neighborhoods, and more. And so for me, when I often think of diversity gaps, I am usually thinking about them in terms of race and ethnicity. I'm thinking a lot about the context of the United States. I'm thinking especially about the southern United States, because that's my home. But because of you and your work, I'm wondering when you hear this idea, diversity gaps, what comes to mind for you, especially given your context.

Jeremy Courtney  03:53

Look, I'm also a white guy from the south. That's where I grew up. That's my that's my background. So I am also keenly aware about racial dynamics in the US about historical realities about systemic things so that's, that's always in my purview, even as I live in Iraq or work in Syria. I mean, I'm, I'm influenced by where I was raised and the worldviews that were handed down to me but I've I've learned to become more conversant and more aware of those those realities in the places that I live in work today so like in Iraq, or Syria, I'm, I'm thinking of kind of religious dynamics like a religious group called the Yazidi people, a small, tiny little people, numerically speaking, that made international headline news In 2014, when ISIS committed genocide against them, and one of the conversations that I think needs to be had in a place like Iraq and Syria, why was this small little ethno religious group, so susceptible to genocide. And it's, it's because we don't know them. It's because in a place like Iraq and Syria, their voices aren't heard and their religion is misunderstood. And to the degree that we don't have Yazidi friends, it makes it that much easier for a group like ISIS to come in and tell us what they believe, Oh, they're devil worshippers, they worship Satan. And if we can put those kinds of labels on people, then it makes it a lot easier to exterminate them and wipe them off the face of the earth. So I think about kind of the the genocidal implications of representation. And the way that labels and religious beliefs and practices and cultural things like that how we're all prone to letting someone else tell us the truth, rather than being able to let people speak for themselves. Mm hmm.

Bethaney Wilkinson  06:20

What would you say are some of the some of the things or realities that maintain that space because a part of me so as you were talking, I started thinking about proximity, and maybe the lack of proximity to the other, however we define them. And that lack of closeness would, of course, create opportunity for new for narratives, whether they're true or not true, to kind of get in the way, do other things come to mind for you when you think about what allows us to come to believe horrible things about other people, just because we don't know them?

Jeremy Courtney  06:53

You know, the the acidy cases particularly confounding to me, and I think it's a good case study in a way because I also was preaching a bit kind of like, gospel, he'll all have proximity until 2014. I, I moved into the Middle East, I preached proximity to Muslims or proximity to Arabs, thinking that that proximity was really what Americans needed to get over our bigotry, to heal our traumatized psyche after 911. And then I came to the US of the genocide perpetrated by ISIS perpetrated by their neighbors, I mean, literally, you would have your city people and Sunni Arabs, living side by side together. And one day in a in like Rwanda style fashion, ISIS springs up or comes to town or sounds the alarm and neighbor turns against neighbor. And so it wasn't just about proximity. It's, it's something unfortunately, more complex than proximity. I think power and proximity have to be referenced together. The cities were always outnumbered. The the fact that they didn't represent a real meaningful block inside Iraq is part of the issue. The fact that Islam has a 1.7 billion strong voice across the world. And any as it is, would never be able to marshal any kind of controlling narrative on that order, just because they are such a small group of people. So I think we can't just talk about proximity, that's my point, we have to talk about proximity and power, it's not enough to just be near someone, if that person doesn't have any power, to, to actually speak for themselves to challenge the system to to challenge the one who is near to them.

Bethaney Wilkinson  09:08

Yeah, wow, that's so that's such a good word it makes me think of so like I'm working with this is a very, very different context. But it makes me think of a big conversation that happens in like the organizational culture dei space right now is okay. It's not just about a seat at the table, but it's about a voice being able to be heard at that table. And, and I feel like, I suppose people aren't as practiced or as I don't have awareness of the right word, but the power piece seems to be missing, I guess from like, a lot of the conversations that I get to be a fly on the wall. And so I don't know if I have a question here, but I just really appreciate that. That nuance, that it's not just about being close to each other, but it's about having a kind of relationship where you can both speak into what's happening. Okay, So you use the word and I got this from your book, it was I think I read this towards the beginning, maybe the intro, maybe chapter one. But it was a quick comment about complexity and nuance. And that's something that I appreciate so much about preemptive love. And, and just the stories that you tell and the ways that you kind of, it's not it, I don't know, if it's, I think you told enough sides of the story that it makes it more complicated. And there's also a historical piece that you bring to how you're telling stories about where you are. And yeah, I also find some times that in talking about complexity and nuance, it's, it makes me think of that quote, that says, if you if you're neutral, and you've picked the side of the oppressor or something, I don't have like a I don't know that I have an opinion on this. But I really just wanted your thoughts on it. Do you ever feel like leaning into complexity, and nuance specifically, is a narrative that serves to maintain the status quo in some ways, it's just a thought that I had when I was reading your books, I wanted to ask you.

Jeremy Courtney  11:00

I think a lot of this has to come down to intentions, because you can wield the same tool toward different ends. And so the tool itself probably isn't the only thing that should be discussed, it should be the tool in whose hands toward what end? The tool in this case is nuance. The tool in this case is a phrase like, well, it's complex. That tool in let's say, some of today's conversations in the United States about racial justice. I mean, there are certain people who would be allowed to say it's complex. And there are certain people in certain settings who would be completely disallowed from saying it's complex. One, one person would be seen as more woke one person be seen as upholding the status quo, as you said, and I got to know who's talking, you got to know your audience, you got to know the context. And I think we have to do a better job of not just attacking the tools, or phrases to be more specific that certain people use. I think at a gut level, we do all know that things are complex. We do want nuance when it comes to us. But we can be slow to forward complexity nuance, to others to the other side. So I guess, to say it more succinctly, of course, calls for complexity. And nuance can be used to uphold the way things are and to defend the status quo. Of course, that isn't reality. And we've seen it done all over the world, throughout history. We should convene a study, we should get a panel together, we should, you know, quietly kick the can down the road and really do nothing and just try to survive this crisis of the day. Of course, we've seen that. But the alternative is to flatten everything down into simple statements, that denial complexity, that pretend that pithy bumper sticker policy can, can really move us into the more just fulsome future that we want for each other. And, and that's not true.

Bethaney Wilkinson  13:40

Yeah. So even in that response, it sounds like you're talking about power again. And so what do you in your opinion, like, what, what do we do with such big power imbalances? Like in the case of the genocide that you just described? And when I think about racial injustice in the US, I don't know, I'm just wondering, what do you think about how to like, how do you begin telling the story in a way that empowers the minority in that instance? And I mean, like, collectively not necessarily individual's?

Jeremy Courtney  14:14

Well, I'd say, throughout history, you probably have something like two or three broad options that come to my mind. One, you can try to overthrow the power to you can try to work adjacent or separate from the power and build your own thing. Three, you can work with the power work with the enemy, and that and you know, there's some sub strata that you could push that even further but I don't know off the cuff, I would say those are the three general options. You don't like the way things are, burn it to the ground and start over. But But what we don't talk about very often in that option is how painful it actually is to burn everything to the ground and start over, and how violent and how much suffering on the way back to the top, it can actually create. And in the very least, as someone who's lived through those cycles of violence in Iraq and Syria, or work in Libya, I just want to offer a caution from the frontlines and say, burn it down as a great political slogan. But when, when you actually have to be the one who's getting shot at and bombed from the sky, and you see entire cities wiped out, I mean, I just, it's harder than it looks, take a full accounting of what it would cost to really rip the entire system down to its studs and try to start over. But it's an option, burn it to the ground, build your own thing. That's, that's a viable option to a degree, but you're still always left with this looming power structure as your neighbor, and if you refuse to engage, then you're, you're always going to feel like you're living under the threat of the power if you choose an isolationist, or we're just going to build our own stage, or we're going to build our own country, or we're going to build our own economic system that's completely separate from yours. Historically, you've still got a very powerful neighbor, then that can squash you if you become too much of a threat, you know. And so that still essentially leads you back into options. The other two options, either you got to confront them head on, or you've got to cooperate with them. So I would say most of our strategies, and most of our work essentially says we work with our enemies. That's what we do, we work with the power. And it's not fair. But it is what it is you, you work to transform the power, your co op the power, you work to Trojan horse the power, or you work to convert and change the ideas that lead to violence, but But generally speaking, in given all the options that we have, we're inclined to promote systems and approaches that that are essentially about engagement, rather than burn it down, or isolationism.

Bethaney Wilkinson  17:27

That's really great. And I wonder, how does that so I'm thinking about your team? And I'm wondering, do people who join your team? Are they already bought into this as, like, this is what we're doing? Like we're gonna love anyway? Or is that a learning curve for most people? Because as I read your book, that's clear. It's like your conviction for sure as a leader, but I'm wondering, how do you I don't know, how do you help people make sense of what it means to show up and to unmake violence in this way?

Jeremy Courtney  17:58

Yeah, I think it's a very astute question. And I think we are still in the throes of figuring out how to do it. Well, quite frankly, for you know, the first 10 years or so we thought it was clear what we meant by that. And in a way, our the clarity of our work was drawing a certain kind of person to us, in Iraq, in Syria. But when we started building out our US team, I think we still had many rivers to cross that we hadn't been communicating directly on. So people would join the team. And as long as we were talking about work over there, Syria, Iraq, ISIS, Muslims, those people, there was a certain kind of swagger, a certain kind of like, yeah, we're these kind of people who love anyway, that was fairly easy for us all to agree on my reading of it, and you might talk to some of my teammates who see it differently. But my read on it is that that was a fairly progressive posture in the world, with with a lot of saber rattling about Muslims, about refugees and immigrants, about ISIS, about Muslims against Christians, it was a fairly progressive liberal posture, just say, we're going to press into this. And we're going to love our enemies, because it had a way of kind of poking back at conservative voices, who seem to be like hair on fire hand wringing about all those people over there when our work came home, so to speak, into the United States, and that kind of happened for us in a way around the Trump election. Hurricane Harvey, Charlottesville, Mexican rapists and detentions at the border, all that kind of rhetoric Suddenly, for us to take the same words, love anyway, for us to take the same philosophy, we work with our enemies for us to take the same posture, press into pain and apply that in an American context. Suddenly, that didn't feel very woke. It didn't feel very progressive, it didn't feel very liberal. It, it felt very threatening. I think we made some assumptions that the thing we were doing over there on the other side of the world, would just be naturally understood in our home contexts on the frontlines where we live, because peace is peace, peacemaking, peacemaking, loving your enemies, loving your enemy. And if it's good for those people over there to do it, to fix their land, well, then surely, it's good for us to do it if we want to fix our land. But that was, that was a bridge too far. And we, we were naive in making that assumption. So we've had to, we've had to take a slower approach. In some ways, we've had to learn how to do interviews better for people joining the team, we've had to learn how to do onboarding a little more clearly. We've learned had to learn how to articulate ourselves better how to spell out what we mean, and not make as many assumptions. Yeah, there's a lot of ways to be alive and active in this world, working for a better future. And not all of those legitimate ways of being are going to be a good fit for what preemptive love is trying to do. And so we're just, we're learning how to have those conversations better on the front end, so that we can promote all the diverse ways that we are together trying to build a more beautiful world while still staying true to our particular posture and strategy that that we have.

Bethaney Wilkinson  21:59

Okay, yeah, that makes it super interesting to hear how it translates differently when you bring those same messages back to the US. And I guess, as a black woman, who does a lot of racial justice work, or at least has a lot of racial justice conversations, I love the idea of loving anyway. And you've probably had this conversation million times by now. But my first feeling is like anxiety, and, and fear and sadness. And like, I don't know, I don't know if it's a good idea for me to love my enemy as crazy as that sounds, or at least to love them up close. And they feel this sense that like, Oh, I'm supposed to, I need some distance. And I can love you from over over there. I don't know it just all of my feelings, and I hear it or like, that sounds terrifying. I'm not gonna do that. Yeah, what do you what are your thoughts on that?

Jeremy Courtney  22:50

Well, I think that's exactly what your response should be. And if you don't have any of that response at all, at any point in your journey, then you don't know what we're talking about yet. If if you can say love, anyway, glibly, then you're not ready, because we're actually talking about losing our life and the war, you know, like, whatever the war is, whether it's whatever our group versus your group is, me versus you, us versus them, like, whatever that thing is, it's set us against each other, if we want to end that someone's gonna have to walk to the very brink to put their life on the line, if they want to see change. That's the only people we really celebrate as heroes are the people who have done that. And somehow we think we're going to get out without risking the same. And so I think it's very, very important that we count the cost well, and that we speak honestly, about our trauma. And we speak honestly about our fears. And that if we, if we dare put it on a t shirt or a bumper sticker, that we are constantly reminding people the weight of what that phrase actually means and what it would require us

Bethaney Wilkinson  24:13

As you are working with your US team to build out your strategy here, what are some of the things you're doing to help move people in that direction? Because I, I mean, like I said, for myself, Oh, that freaks me out. I need to like not because it's a crazy one is kind of a crazy idea. What am I saying? Yes, it's crazy, but I also believe it. It also makes sense like that. Yeah, we should be moving in that direction. And so for me, I know that there's like a process of formation almost that has to happen. And as I was reading your story, slight side note, I was just thinking through, it's almost like the idea of loving like love has to be a big enough container that as you say yes to and I imagine that it grows, and so it becomes, I don't know, maybe at some point it becomes easier to into that love as opposed to opting into violence. That's just a side note that I'm thinking about. But when it comes to your US strategy, how are you helping people enter in wherever they are, into moving in the direction, where we're stepping into that love is like the natural, the natural choice if it ever becomes that

Jeremy Courtney  25:18

I guess it's helpful in a couple of ways to talk about what our square one looks like what our starting point is. So in the United States, just by virtue of where I come from, and the history of the organization, we are, you know, probably 70 80%, white Christian background, with a pretty half the proportion in the south. And, you know, not everyone is, therefore a monolith, or have the same exact, psychographic way of thinking about things, but but there are certain things you can extrapolate from, from those demographics. And I think one of the things that has happened over the last decade or so, and has been very accelerated over the last five years, four years is, is a meaningful, waking up among a lot of white people in the US to historical injustice is systemic problems that are keeping people down systemic things are helping set other people way ahead. Racial and justices that are more than simple conversations about your racist, no, I'm not. And as people are waking up to some of these realities, they find themselves searching for friends, searching for new friends, searching for something like a safe friend with whom to process these new questions or new feelings or new concerns. And you see an increasingly active black community probably starting maybe, Ferguson, Black Lives Matter kind of 2014 era seemed like things, maybe back to Trayvon, I mean, things started gaining some real momentum through the Obama era. And you see a lot of black America obviously increasingly fed up with the conversation. And having not a lot of time for, for some of the slowness of waking up in the slowness of the conversation going down on the white side of the equation, as it were, and, and that, that presents a real tinderbox in a lot of ways, where were the very people who are looking to do better, are sometimes finding themselves clueless or scared, as to how to do better as to how to find those friends that can help them along, and you find them exhausted, these are broad strokes, obviously, but an exhausted activist, black community who just wants things to be better, and doesn't want to keep doing the educating and the hand holding. But, but what I've found is that there are, there's a middle ground to be had here. And there are a lot of people on both sides who are are interested in coming together, who aren't easily painted into the broad strokes and want to find a space to help each other. So we've been working in the West to bring these these kind of groups that want to find a way through together. And we represent we recognize it, like our way of doing things is not the only valid way. But but there's a whole community of people out there who want and they're they're Muslims, they're part of the LGBTQ community, they're, they're part of black America, they're any number of marginalized groups or voices, that many people in our or in the majority haven't been hearing enough from, who actually are ready and eager to play that guide role. And so we're asking those people to partner with us and asking them to make their voices heard, asking them to carve out spaces, mutual spaces, where people can come together and listen and learn from one another. We call this love anyway gathering. And it's not just a US strategy. It's actually something that we're building out all over the world, small gatherings of people something like a cross between a book club and a 12 step program where we, we break our addiction to bias and We We learned to overcome together the things that are tearing us apart.  Because in any systemic imbalance, like, like the ones that we find ourselves often talking about, everyone is damaged, everyone is hurt by the system. And so both sides end up needing to meet each other afresh, in some ways, but, but that happens best when it happens on some kind of level ground. And so we asked two people from two different sides to come together might be a Muslim, and Christian might be gay guy and a straight guy, I mean, any number of differences that drive us apart, we ask these people to come together, they raise their hands and volunteer together to come together, and basically bring their communities to the table. And they form a new space together, where they are co leaders co hosts, and they share the power, they share the group, they share the responsibilities, and they bring their communities together to listen and learn. It's not a place for conversion, so to speak, it's not a place to, to impose your view on anyone else. It's a it's a way to speak from your own life, and a way to speak from your own experience and a commitment to come and listen to other people and their own life and their own experience. And it's been profound, watching people humble themselves and commit to come month after month after month, to listen, not to preach, not to teach, but to actually listen to other people tell them what it's like to live in their skin. What's it like to grow up black? In America? Yes, but also, what's it like to grow up white in America? You know, like, these are, these are things that, that if we know that we are aiming toward the same thing, if we know that we are trying to love anyway, in spite of our differences, we we find that this mutuality for listening to one another has has been very profound. And in helping us overcome our biases and find our way back to each other. Maybe for the first time.

Bethaney Wilkinson  32:16

I I appreciate you saying are talking about how you have to kind of create this level playing field in these in these gatherings because it makes me think again of our earlier conversation about power. Because I I would imagine that across and I've experienced that across power differences, it can be really difficult to have that posture of humility and listening and choosing to listen again and again and again. Especially if you have experiences of feeling really not heard or not understood or not listened to. I guess I'm wondering, and I kind of conflated this in my previous question. Does it ever get easier to love anyway? Like, does it Yeah, does it ever get easier? Is it a muscle that you build? And then it works? Or is it just as hard as the first time every time?

Jeremy Courtney  33:06

Man, I think I need to qualify this with acknowledging that we don't, we probably don't all experiences the same way. I think some of that is biological and psychological. But some of it is systemic and, and cultural. So all I can do is, is give my, you know, good faith answer from my own life and the anecdotes that I've collected from around our work. I think it gets easier. Or let me maybe this the safer way to say it is I think it can get easier. I think it can become a stronger muscle that we exercise, I think the lift can can happen a little more naturally once we've done it a couple 100 times. But that alone doesn't necessarily mean that you won't, let's keep the metaphor that you won't suddenly pull a muscle doing the same thing that you've done every other time with ease like you can, you can still pinch something you can still pull something doing a very routine activity and that pain is real. And, and the sudden jolt of pain still needs to be treated as a true pain as a legitimate injury. And it doesn't need to be marginalized or explained away just because you've you've done it 100 times before. When the pain comes, the pain comes and it needs to be dealt with and respected.

Bethaney Wilkinson  34:43

Wow. Yeah. I'm really challenged by this. I'm really challenged by this. Because I guess my next question is about trust because I'm trying as I'm listening to him like okay, what is the thing in me that feels really like that's being stirred up? And then I'm thinking it's like how a Across power differences. Am I supposed to come to a place where I trust that whoever my quote unquote enemy is will not cause more harm even in the level playing field that we're trying to create? Together? Yeah. Do you feel like or what are your thoughts like, is trust essential to this process? Is it not essential? I often find myself wondering, do you have to feel love in order to do the loving thing? How do love and trust what role do they play in this peacemaking, unmaking violence work that we're all up to?

Jeremy Courtney  35:34

Yeah, some of our words start to betray us, because they can be used to speak about a unit directional thing, or they can be used to speak about a multi directional or mutual kind of thing. So love, for example, Love your enemies, I mean, that can often be used or said to just speak about me and my character, and what I'm going to do with this one, beautiful life that I have, and the idea that we could go out in a blaze of glory, rushing headlong into violence with the people that we know have vowed to kill us. That that's, that's one way to love and, and their, their stories written about, you know, the few times that we see that happen in history. But that's not what most of us mean, when we say love. And it's not even what most of us mean, when we use a word like enemy, what you just described, kind of metaphorically joining up with one of our love anyway, gatherings, being a co host, building a mutual space, a space of mutuality, where people have committed to come together to listen and learn that person. I mean, we can call them an enemy in a way because there's a lot of society and a lot of history that has framed us up as enemies of one another black, white, Muslim, Christian, gay, straight, whatever, there's, there's a real reason there to have suspicions of one another. But on the other hand, you're talking about two people who have shook hands and agreed become together to build a more beautiful future. And if we're going to go ahead and call that person, our enemy, then the word is starting to lose all meaning whatsoever. So I think trust is imperative for cooperation. But trust is not imperative for Blaze of Glory, one directional final act of love, it just, we just need to clarify what we're talking about, you know, there, there have been times where we have rushed, we, our organization, preemptive love my team, we have, we have rushed into some extremely violent environments to serve people who are caught in the thick of it. We were trusting the people at our side, we were loving the people who were innocent and caught in the snare of violence. And in a, in a very tangential way, I guess you could say we were loving ISIS, so to speak. Because we were hoping that our selfless acts of love might have some kind of transformative impact on them. But But that wasn't really the point. The point was to love the innocent people who were caught and had no, no real option. Otherwise, it was it's a mix of things, I guess. Or to go back to our original question. It's, it can be complex. It can require some nuance, but I think you're not wrong. You're, you're wise, you're normal to be asking the trust question. Anyone who says they can just engage in some kind of self sacrificing love, without any regard for the person on the other side, and whether that person would would take their life or love them back or be trustworthy? That doesn't seem it doesn't seem to be appropriate to the complexity of what we're really talking about here. I think it would be psychopathic. Perhaps it would, it would perhaps represent a kind of pathology. If you if you knew the person was completely untrustworthy, you knew they were going to take your life kidnap you abuse you torture you. Uh, you know, and you just gave no heed to that whatsoever that would be pathological. So I think, to ask the question about trust is entirely appropriate and essential.

Bethaney Wilkinson  39:59

So I guess what I'm wondering next as we land the plane here is we've stepping back when you think about. So diversity gaps or or building across divides peacemaking, loving. Anyway, kind of all the different things you've talked about over the past 3045 minutes. What are you learning now, like currently, in this moment in this season, about what it means to love anyway, in your life and in your work,

Jeremy Courtney  40:28

I'm learning that we all have a kind of ceiling on our love that is appropriate to the stage of development that we're in. And we can only love as high as that ceiling will allow us. And that ceiling is not just about volition, it's about something much more complex. And so I'm learning this right now. So in the spirit of learning, I don't fully have the words or how to articulate it yet, but but we don't expect a child to have the capacity for nuance and love that we expect an adolescent to have, that we expect an adult to have, we don't expect a 20 year old to have the capacity that we expect a 60 year old to have, we somehow know intuitively that different, at different stages of life, we kind of open up and unfold into greater capacity, or nuance, at least, I think we have a vision that that's how it's kind of supposed to work. And so in the spirit of learning, I'm learning that the capacity I have now when I when I bump up against my limits, that does not mean it's the height of all the capacity I will ever have, I actually believe there's, there's a further unfolding for me, I can blow the roof off of my current capacity for love and inclusion. But the only way to blow the roof off, is probably going to come through some great pain or suffering catapults me catalyzes me into a new stage of life. And similarly, when I look behind me to people who I feel like may not have the capacity than I, I have attained to. It helps me be gentle and compassionate with where they are at their stage in life. And it helps me say, Well, maybe they just haven't learned that yet. Maybe Maybe they just haven't been through the kind of catalyzing experience that I've been through, that's helped them break through that current ceiling that they're up against. And here's hoping they find it, here's hoping they, they get that awakening, here's hoping they get that experience that pushes them forward. But for where they are right now, that level of engagement, that level of pressing into the pain that that level of risk tolerance is entirely appropriate to the ceiling that they have on their life right now. And so, judgment and condemnation and shame, doesn't do anything. They've got a very real systemic ceiling, on their love, just like I have a very real systemic structural sealing on my love. And all we can hope to do is posture ourselves in such a way that that we accumulate experiences that help push us through to the other side.

Bethaney Wilkinson  43:31

Wow, wow, that's so that's such a good place to land i I'm it's interesting, because as we've been talking, what I've been trying to figure out is like, how do you love anyway, in a way that doesn't feel like Kumbaya, like we're all best friends. And we haven't done any work to actually build the kinds of relationships that we need to be in the world in a way that's generative and healthy. And and I think what I so appreciate about what you just said, is, yeah, as I look at my own story, the things that have pushed my ceiling higher, I guess, in the metaphor, are things that have been really painful, really, really painful. And I think that I returned to your challenge that are your encouragement that we count the cost of what it means to step into this kind of work. Because yeah, it's painful and scary. And I know that that's, there's different degrees, right? Like me, maybe having a difficult conversation with my supervisor is very different than being on the frontlines of actual war. Of course, they're different things. And yeah, I would imagine for listeners that there might be a painful next step for us each to take in our various contexts that might stretch us and be really hard, but will also increase that ceiling. So my last question for you, Jeremy is the one I close all my interviews with, and the question is how Do we close the diversity gap, it's really broad on purpose, then we've been talking about it and a lot of different ways. But if you were to name one thing that we can need to do to close diversity gaps in our lives and leadership, what would it be?

Jeremy Courtney  45:13

Somebody is gonna have to take a risk, everybody's gonna have to take a risk, frankly, and because of systems and power being what they are already, because of the entrenched oddness of the way things are, and this is true around the world, whoever's up and whoever's down, there's some system that's there to support it, the the risk will not land equally on everyone, the people who are down are going to have to keep taking a risk on the people who have the power. And if anything's gonna change, I come back to kind of my three fold model before either either the people who are doing without are going to burn it all to the ground, and we're all going to be forced to start from scratch, which, you know, we have some models around the world where that's happened, and it's not pretty. Even if it ultimately results in something beautiful, the process to get there is tortures. And so if if the people who have the power, the people who are in systems of power in positions of power, want to avoid getting their whole house burned to the ground, then it's going to require a humbling of one's self, a humbling of whole people humbling of old systems to say, we're going to have to surrender some stuff, and we're going to have to work to to give up some privilege or give up some opportunity, we're gonna have to prioritize others. We're gonna have to do it in a way that is, I think, then the challenge that we come to is talking about speed, you know, what's, what's the appropriate pace for change? And that's something that seems to be very much an issue in the American context right now, what's the appropriate pace for change? That's kind of what the this presidential election is probably going to center on? In a lot of ways.

Bethaney Wilkinson  46:58

Yeah, for sure. Taking a risk. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your story. Thanks for me making the time to talk to me and to this community. What can what what can we do for you? Are there? Is there a project we can support? What can The Diversity Gap community in the listeners do to support your work?

Jeremy Courtney  47:24

Yeah, I mean, first of all, thank you, I love your work. I love what you're focused on any chance to support it and cheer you on? There? I think given given the focus of your work, and the focus of everyone listening in, I would, I would say, let's, let's keep figuring out how we could partner together with love anyway, gatherings. It's basically your podcast, in your listeners, living rooms with real life people like these are the conversations that we need to be having. And we need to be having it not just in our earphones, listening, voyeuristically to other people talk about it. But we need to be more conversant in it and more humble to just sit and let other people tell us their experience. And so I would say, check out what we're trying to build with you at love anyway.com/gather. Love anyway.com/gather will give you more information about our love anyway, gatherings and how you could reach out with someone who's a little different than you, maybe in your life in your neighborhood in your workplace. And start bringing this conversation to Life Month after month after month and seeing your community change your neighborhood changed. This is part of what we're trying to do around the world to stop the next war before it starts.

Bethaney Wilkinson  48:43

So powerful, we will definitely link to that in our show notes so that people can find it. And I'll definitely check in with some of your Atlanta based team to figure out if there's anything we can do together.

Jeremy Courtney  48:56

Grateful for you. Thanks, Bethaney. 

Bethaney Wilkinson  48:57

Thanks, Jeremy, you have a good one. Gosh, so many good takeaways. That conversation was like there are parts where my heart was beating faster. I was like, oh, man, what does this mean for me and my life and my work? I'm not prepared. I love there are two points that really stuck out to me that I'm thinking about right now. Number one is how Jeremy talked about how painful it is to actually burn everything to the ground. I think I'm in a lot of circles, where we talk about, oh, we're just gonna burn it all down and start over and it sounds great. But I've never talked to someone who could actually say, hey, when that's literally happening, it is incredibly painful, incredibly violent, and really, really difficult for everyone. And so I appreciated Jeremy's ability to speak so honestly about what it looks like when we say hey, we're going to burn everything down. That was just that really challenged me. The second thing that resonated was, towards the end when Jeremy and I talked about or when he talked about how We each have a ceiling on how much love we can give just based on a variety of factors, and how we can raise that ceiling. But it often comes through suffering. And that really challenged me because when I as I said in our conversation, when I look at my own life and leadership, it's been the most painful things that have increased my compassion, increase my ability to extend grace, and increase my ability to be more generous as I move through life. And so I'm really thinking for me and for you as a listener, like what is that next risk that we have to take as we are trying to create new cultures and new organizations and new teams? What's the risky thing that we're being invited to do? Even if it's really really hard? So leaving you with more questions and answers today, friends, but thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to The Diversity Gap podcast. If you've been challenged or inspired by what you've heard, please rate and review the show. You can also subscribe to make sure you never miss an episode. If you have thoughts or questions I'd love to hear from you connect with me at thediversitygap.com or on Instagram @TheDiversityGap. The Diversity Gap podcast is recorded on Muskogee Creek land in Atlanta, Georgia. This episode was produced by Matt Olin for Soul Graffiti Productions.