The passing of Dolly Parton, one of our era’s most beloved people by just about everyone, has been a good reminder of how powerful simple human kindness is. She supported the Black Lives Matter movement, wrote a song that talked about accepting gays and lesbians in her family, praised drag queens, and appeared in a feminist movie about sexist bosses oppressing the women who worked for him, and was as beloved by conservative Republicans as she was by everyone else. Dolly had shown too much kindness and love to too many people for anyone to attack her.
Dolly’s human decency reminded me of a story from my family. My brother David was a Methodist minister in the Nebraska Conference for 40 years prior to his retirement. There was a big fight in the Methodist Church over the marriage equality issue nationally for many years, but it had flared up especially hot in Nebraska in the late 1990s because a minister in Omaha officiated a lesbian marriage service, which was still against church rules. My brother was unlucky enough to be the head of the Nebraska Conference’s Judiciary Committee, so he had to be right in the middle of the fight..
David at the time was the minister at the North Platte Methodist church. North Platte has both the strong conservatism of a western Nebraska town combined with an intense blue collar culture coming from being a railroad town, so gay marriage in the 1990s wasn’t what you would call a popular issue with the congregants at his church. But David gave a sermon one Sunday, which I was lucky enough to be there for, telling people why he was in favor of marriage equality. I have always been proud of him for the courage it took to give that sermon.
Being the curious political person I am, I asked a lot of the churchgoers that Sunday what they thought of the sermon. A small number said they agreed with David on the issue, but mostly what I heard was some version of “I’m not sure I agreed with your brother, but I didn’t mind what he said. He is such a good man…” Then they would tell me about David being there for their family when someone died or got sick or went through some terrible thing in their life. Because he had been there for them, they were willing to listen to what he said and still wanted him to be their minister.
That decency reminds me as well of my consulting partner Heather Booth. Heather is a legendary organizer, coalition builder, and progressive movement leader, but one of her greatest assets is her decency. People want to follow Heather’s lead not only because she is smart and skilled, but because they love her. She pulls people together more skillfully than anyone I know because she recognizes everyone’s humanity. And she is the first to call you on your birthday, the first to call when she hears you are sick or have had a loved one die, the first to offer help when you are struggling.
When I was about five years old, I had figured out that there was no Santa Claus who flew around with reindeer in a sleigh. There was a girl in my class that I was mad at, so I told her that Santa didn’t exist. When my mom heard this story, that was the angriest she ever got at me. She told me that cruelty was the greatest sin there was, and that kindness was the most important virtue. And that was how my mom lived every day of her life.
Those of us who care about politics and policy debates would do well to think about people like Dolly Parton, Heather Booth, my brother, and my mom. What they teach is that the power is not all about winning the debate, being clever on social media, or raising the most money. We all need to remember to build community, to help people who are lonely and not doing so well. Being kind is at least as important as being clever, in politics and in life.