(HOST) Commentator Deborah Luskin plays a child’s game to cope with troublesome adult behavior.
(LUSKIN) A friend who has just retired for the third time from a long and dedicated career in early education once taught me a game called ‘The Good Thing’. You play the game when something unhappy happens, like when a child forgets to bring her lunch to school. What’s the good thing about that? Well, a good thing might be receiving tastes of new and delicious foods from friends willing to share, or dipping into the school secretary’s stash of peanut butter and crackers, or the teacher’s secret supply of instant noodles.
Even though I learned this as a game to play with children, it’s a strategy I use all the time, especially when listening to the news. Instead of despairing when I hear stories about unreasonable human behavior, I play "The Good Thing."
Two recent events have me playing the game a lot lately: people objecting to the building of an Islamic Center in lower Manhattan and Terry Jones’ much publicized threat to burn copies of the Quran on September 11.
I confess, I was initially dismayed when I heard these anti-Islamic reports. In the case of the mosque near the former World Trade Center, it seemed as if one prominent person after another was noisily stating objections to what I see as one of our country’s most valued rights, protected by the constitution – the freedom of religion.
At first I fumed. Then I started hearing reports of one prominent person after another speaking up in defense of religious freedom, and I was reminded that the good thing about someone speaking in favor of what amounts to organized bigotry or socially sanctioned prejudice is that it provides an opportunity for other people to speak up and remind us about our equal rights, about the separation of church and state, about everyone’s right to worship in a manner of their choice.
I played the game again, when the Dove World Outreach Center announced their plans to burn copies of the Quran in a blatant display of hate that is antithetical to the tenants and ethics of most major religions as I understand them, including Christianity. Again, I played ‘The Good Thing." The good thing about some people making what I consider to be such a display of intolerance is that it forces those of us who would rather just putter along with our eyes on the ground to look up and speak out.