We recently co-directed our first film together. And we screened this film in Boston several months ago, the theater was packed. People there included past presidents of Planned Parenthood along with the current administration. A few rows back was the president of the largest pro-life organization in Massachusetts. Women who advised the Pope on abortion advocacy were in attendance. People who had seen friends gunned down in an abortion clinic shootings attended. There were pro-choice and pro-life activists—people who had protested and been arrested. These were people who really cared and desperately disagreed personally, politically, and publicly.
They had come to see our film, The Abortion Talks (now called The Basement Talks). We don’t know, but we imagine this may have been one of the most politically diverse screenings of any film in history and certainly any film about abortion.
This story started with two murders. And then a whole court case. We interviewed the prosecution and defense attorneys. Both colorful characters. They talk about how the case became a media circus. The pro-chocie and pro-life movements trying to control optics, jockeying for publicity, and putting their spin on the story. And the case was never resolved because John Salvi was probably murdered in prison. That’s the story everyone saw. It’s a tragic story. It’s a true crime story. It’s a sensationalized story.
But there’s another story. And it took place in a basement in Watertown. Three pro-chioce and three pro-life leaders began meeting secretly. I mean nobody knew about them. Fran Hogan, one of the pro-life women, would sneak off to these mysterious meetings and her secretary thought she was having an affair. These women met for six years, a total of 150 hours of conversation. And in the documentary you get to hear from the actual tapes, the actual conversations
Let me introduce you to some of these women.
Nicki Gamble was the president of PPLM. She opened the first Abortion Clinic in Massachusetts. She grew the organization from an operating budget of 200K to multiples of millions. Today, there’s an abortion clinic in downtown Boston named after her. But do you know what she says was one of the most important experiences of her life? It was talking with these six women.
Another woman was Barbara Thorp. She was arrested for protesting the Vietnam War. After the war ended, her anti-war sentiments were funneled into the pro-life movement. She became the director of the pro-life office of the Archdiocese in Boston. Later, she was appointed head of victim outreach after the Spotlight article shed light on pedophilia in the Catholic church. After that, she was appointed by the state of Massachusetts to lead the One Fund victim services following the Boston Marathon Bombing.
And one of the most profound moments of her life was eating cake. The six women had gone out to eat together. They’d finished the meal and the waiter asked if anyone wanted dessert. She says everyone wanted dessert but no one wanted to say they wanted dessert. But somehow, a dessert was ordered, and the waiter brought out a bunch of spoons. She describes partaking of that sweetness together, as a sacred experience.
And perhaps, there are few things more Christian, than sharing bread, in this case, highly sweetened. Two thousand years ago, there was a similar event. Instead of women, the attendants listed are all men. Instead of cake, it is flat bread, broken, shared. And some wine, drunk. And of course the people. Friends, Jesus calls them. Traditionally, the seder was a family event. And this was the creation of a new family. The family of Jesus. His church.
And they eat together. And then Jesus washes their feet. And Peter protests. Don’t wash my feet, he says. Because what else can you say when divinity not only sees your dirtiness, but starts to wash it away. And then Jesus gives his first commandment, the base layer of code for his new family. The bedrock upon which his church would be built. He tells his disciples to continue these two acts. To break bread together. And to wash each other’s feet.
Let’s consider our involvement in this most foundational call. Who do we share bread with? Whose feet do we wash?
As we consider this important question, we no doubt will come to the hard decision of where do we draw the line? Who do we welcome in? Whose feet do we wash? And who do we cut out? Do we call some people to repentance or conversion first? And what about the people who will never, ever agree with us, with whom compromise or common ground is actually impossible? It’s a hard question, one we have to answer ourselves because Jesus does not draw a line for us. Instead, he simply says do as I have done.
And who was at his table? The man who would betray him, had betrayed him already in his heart, yes, he was there. The man who would deny him three times, yes, he was there. The man who would not believe his resurrection, yes, he was there too. The family of Jesus, his disciples, the people who would build a church, tell his stories, create a movement. They would disagree passionately, dramatically, constantly. And yet they met together, and broke bread, and washed feet. And somehow, they persisted. Against all odds, they created a movement that overtook Rome. It spread faster and more completely across the world than any other religion. And how has it survived and persisted in the millennia since? How has it moved from culture to culture, from continent to continent, from race to race?
I think the roots of its success can be traced to its origin. Which in a real way was the breaking of bread, and the washing of feet. But what is so powerful about sharing a meal, and washing some feet? And why eat with people who sin, or who are wrong, or who look or think differently? People who will betray you? People who will deny you to the world. Why include them in these sacraments?
How far can this charity go? Didn’t Jesus also say there would be wolves in sheep’s clothing? Aren’t we to project the flock? Ensure the integrity of our movements?
Yes, we ought to protect the flock. But I don’t think we do this best by being on the lookout for wolves we can exclude or call out or cut off. This was the approach of Captain Moroni, who was so infuriated with the atheistic beliefs of Amalickiah that he provoked a mob to chase Amalickiah out of the land. They banished him. And to what result? Amalickiah joined the Lamanites and raised armies and became much more dangerous than he’d ever been as a Nephite. That is the problem with rage. That is the problem with anger. Feuds grow, they do not resolve easily.
I think Jesus’ plan was more subversive and more effective. To protect the flock, Jesus gave us two rituals. Eat together. Wash each other’s feet. Because this is how we turn enemies into friends. This is how we preserve who we are without shrinking into unholy orthodoxy. This is how we continue to grow in particularly turbulent times. This is how we survive persecution. This is how we continue to remain relevant. Because we have these traditions and these rituals at our very base. Traditions that enfold people in, that build bonds of belonging. They heal wounds, they end feuds, they temper range, they ward off jealousy. They are traditions that don’t shrink from difference and are not scared by a few fangs.
So how does this work? Let’s look at the women of The Abortion Talks and what they were able to accomplish together. And actually, what the women didn’t accomplish is perhaps as important as what they did. Each of the women who participated in the Abortion Talks independently said that this dialogue was one of the most important things they had ever done. And yet they did not come to common ground. They did not come to an agreement. They did not change each other’s minds. But they did change their opinions about each other. And in turn this changed everything. It changed how they spoke to the media. In fact, a random journalist in Boston who had no clue that these conversations were happening, wrote an article saying that opinions of abortion had not changed, but the rhetoric around the issue had. And how had it changed. Because six women were breaking bread together.
Now imagine if that had happened with Moroni and Amalickiah. Would enemies be made friends? Would history have changed? Would thousands of lives been saved? Perhaps, perhaps not. But let us not underestimate the power of our founding rituals.
And while they are powerful, they are not always easily done because you are not just gaining a friend but losing an enemy. One of the women of the Abortion Talks named Madeline explained it as an internal battle. Because she felt that what the pro-choice women were doing was evil. But after spending so much time with them, she couldn’t help to feel that they were well intentioned. And that was hard for her. Yet the struggle blessed her life. Later, when a member of her organization approached her with an op-ed, Madeline refused to publish it because it misrepresented the pro-choice position.
This work is not easy. It takes some courage because you will realize that your enemy is not so different than you as you hoped. You both take baths and yet you both have dirty feet. This, I believe, is actually the most effective approach to purifying and protecting your movement. It might not kill wolves, but it makes them less dangerous.
Why? Every time we screen this film, we get this question. Why bother talking with people who will never agree with you, who will never change their minds? After telling the story of the abortion talks, I see three answers. The first answer I came to was what it did for these women.
After six years of dialogue with their opponents, they reported feeling more comfortable, more confident, and more convinced of their opinions. And they spent most of that time talking about the very issues they disagreed about. And they called this a gift. They reported understanding themselves better as well as understanding the other side better. They reported being better leaders in their respective organizations. Each of them furthered their movements.
And this was only accomplished because of the hard work of understanding their enemies as full bodied, intelligent, well-meaning, good people. If you do this work, you will realize that your enemy is not only like you in many of the best ways, but that you are like them in many of the worst. That is why Andrew Sidorkin believes that “Dialogue with mean others may be in many cases more important for our psyche than dialogue with a nice, understanding therapist.”
That is why we must break bread with others. And we must wash feet, particularly the feet of those we disagree with. We must do this for ourselves and our own sake. It will reveal us to ourselves. It will keep us humble, meek, and pure in heart. Breaking bread and washing feet is the profession of peacemakers. This is how we inherit the earth. In an article they co-authored, the abortion talks participants wrote:
When we face our opponent, we see her dignity and goodness. Embracing this apparent contradiction stretches us spiritually. We’ve experienced something radical and life-altering that we describe in nonpolitical terms: ”the mystery of love,” ”holy ground,” or simply, ”mysterious.”
My second answer I’ve come to is that there is a long tail to real progress. A legal or legislative victory is only temporary. Whatever advancements you make while you have control of the white house, or senate, or court, can be undone when the parties are switched. Victims quickly become oppressors. Lasting victory only happens when we turn enemies into friends. Saint Francis did not quell the violence of the child-eating wolf of Gubbio by driving him out. Instead, he tamed the wolf by giving him food, and holding his paw.
But a peacemaking approach to activism does not just benefit us or our movements. And it will not always win us converts to our special causes. Because issues like abortion might never be resolved. This country has been split about 50/50 for over 70 years. Not much has changed. And if nothing is changing, why talk? Why meet? Why break bread? Why wash feet?
I came to a third answer recently, listening to an amazing man who led reconciliation efforts in Guatemala after the war. To him, these types of conversations were not about obtaining some potential resolution to conflict. Democracy, he said, is and will always be full of conflict. We cannot eliminate it. But we must not ignore it. To preserve democracy we don’t need conflict resolution, but conflict control and conflict mitigation. And we must work hard to preserve human connections across our most intractable issues if we are going to prevent them from ruining us.
Polarization in our country is quickly becoming our greatest threat. It won’t take another civil war, the damage has already started. We are becoming, as a society, addicted to rage in the same way someone becomes addicted to heroin. That’s why toxic polarization is what Peter Coleman calls A First Order Problem. That means it’s an issue that metastasizes into all the other issues. It renders us incapable of working together to solve basic human problems. Problems like healthcare, gun deaths, mass extinctions, poverty, etc.
Just as polarization is a 1st order problem, breaking bread and washing feet must become a first order practice. It is the ground on which everything else is built or everything else falls. It’s the secret sauce to democracy. Learning to peacefully dialogue across difference is what allows a democracy to continue or what will lead to its downfall. It is how we turn enemies into friends, an outward reaching, inward growing motion. It is how we lengthen and strengthen the stakes of Zion. We do all this by never stopping, never relenting, never failing to practice our founding rituals. Breaking bread and washing feet.
Let’s go back to that screening of The Basement Talks in Boston. When the film ended, there was a standing ovation. Pro-choice and pro-life leaders, activists, and pundits cheered together. They cheered the work these six women had accomplished. Everyone there was united for the first time in a long time. And that was something to see, because after all we have been through, we are still the United States of America. E Pluribus Unum!
Every student in this country or any democracy should know that there is a side of history that is hidden, kept secret, untold. It takes place in upper rooms and in basements. It is a corollary to activism. There’s a piece of democracy that doesn’t make the news very often. There’s a work of politics that is slow and long and hard to explain. But when you get it, it changes your life.
And at some point, you will probably realize that your enemies are rarely to be feared. And for your health and for your church’s and your country’s health you must meet them as the full-bodied, well intentioned people they are. These are the people who will correct your assumptions. These are the people who will see your blind spots. These are the people who will expose you to yourself. What you thought was a curse might become your greatest gift.
This is not to say there is no risk and no stakes. They are not just to be overcome, but to be wrestled with. And they will dominate you at times. And you will be tempted to break the connection. But before you do, please know that our country, like our church, is held together by these connections. And that maintaining them just might be the most important thing you will ever do.
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All images from The Basement Talks
Watch The Basement Talks
The Basement Talks is available to watch now as a six part series on Amazon Prime, AppleTV, or Google Play.
Read “Talking with the Enemy”
After meeting for more than 150 hours, the women of the basement talks co-authored an article for publication in The Boston Globe. Every single word had to be agreed upon by all the women. It took more than two years to write.
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