Gems of advice
from the Emerald City

What the world needs now is not love, sweet love — though it sure could use a bit of that in places like Gaza, Ukraine, potential wind farm locations, and wherever presidential candidates and pundits gather.

What we really need, appropriately enough for Kansans, are more Totos — unassuming folks willing to pull back curtains, cut through billows of smoke, and turn boisterous bellow into melodious mellow.

When Toto reveals reality, statements like “Do you presume to criticize the great Oz, you ungrateful creatures?” quickly become “I’m afraid it’s true. There’s no other wizard than me. I’m a humbug.”

Truth finally flows in the Emerald City throne room, and fear and loathing give way to love. Despite a wayward balloon necessitating reliance on ruby slippers, everyone lives happily ever after.

We all too often nowadays tend to reside permanently in a pre-Toto mode: Love it or loathe it. Both are blind. To be true, they must be based on transparency and candor — a willingness to tell the truth, hear the truth, and follow the truth.

That’s hard to do when everyone is so cocooned in individual lives and Facebook fantasy that they keep their eyes, ears, and mouths closed when dealing with people outside their increasingly isolated circles of acquaintance.

Unable or unwilling to obtain or dispense new ideas, their heads are filled only with preordained biases for or against various people, ideas, and institutions inside or outside their circles.

As a community, we of course want to be stronger together. But “together” doesn’t mean marching in lockstep. It means celebrating diversity of opinions by regularly sharing them — talking as well as listening, so we all have a chance to grow rather than simply be bound by policies or practices that reject asking questions or arriving at different conclusions.

A tornado doesn’t have to drop a house on us for us to know that a community divided cannot stand. But we also need to recognize that we’ll never be able to slide into ruby slippers if our feet are too trembling in fear to ask questions or if our leaders fail to facilitate communication by inviting criticism instead of shunning critics and stoking the billowing smoke that often greets questioners.

Hearts, brains, and courage aren’t just for hitchhikers along the yellow brick road. We need them as well. And just as they did, we can find them in ourselves — if only we’re willing to look.

— ERIC MEYER