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It is surely time for lunch

October 5th, 2007

Leading into our first big “Dinner at the Square” last Tuesday night, we did the press rounds and from that, I met a new friend who - after hearing us on the radio - sent me a link to a New York Times op-ed by Patricia Limerick. Limerick writes, four months after her husband’s death, of my favorite Founding Father story - and so much more. . .

Founding a democracy, rather like living in a democracy, can be very tough on friendship.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson began as friends. The tensions and frictions of the early Republic took care of that. Then, after years of silence between them, a mutual friend persuaded them to write to each other. In 1812, they launched into a correspondence that continued until it was ended by their deaths.

That ending point was on their minds and drove their correspondence. As Mr. Adams wrote Mr. Jefferson, “You and I ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to each other.”

I fell in love with this quotation 30 years ago, about the same time that I fell in love with Jeff Limerick, and for some of the same reasons. Honest, self-aware and articulate, Jeff made “explaining himself” into an art form, but his performance soared past his fellow mortals when it came to the tougher side of this transaction. Jeff had a genius for listening and giving people the best opportunity to explain themselves and to become his friend.

On Feb. 1, 2005, Jeff died of a stroke. Having trained with a master, I carry on with the methods I learned from him.

When I find myself puzzled and even vexed by the opinions and beliefs of other people, I invite them to have lunch. Multiple experiments have supported what we will call, in Jeff’s honor, the Limerick Hypothesis: in the bitter contests of values and political rhetoric that characterize our times, 90 percent of the uproar is noise, and 10 percent is what the scientists call “signal,” or solid, substantive information that will reward study and interpretation. If we could eliminate much of the noise, we might find that the actual, meaningful disagreements are on a scale we can manage.

Limerick tells the story of a present-day seemingly intractable dispute, then admonishes, “It is surely time for lunch.”

A successful outcome would be a vindication of the faith held by Jefferson, Adams and Jeff Limerick. But even if I dine alone, I’ll still hold to the conviction that American citizens have the ability to explain themselves to one another, and to let friendship redeem the Republic.

I like to think that last Tuesday, inside one church, in one city, there were beginnings of just such friendships.

Entry Filed under: This I Believe, Village Square 101, Civility 101