Episode 7: Relating to Respect with Jeremy Sabella
february 9, 2021
Charles Vogl welcomes Jeremy Sabella who shares his experiences on sharing respect. He shares how people can communicate and collaborate by signaling respect for one another.
Dr. Jeremy Sabella has a Master of Divinity in Yale Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Theology from Boston College. He studies religion and politics in the post-World War II Era.
His first book, An American Conscience, examines the life and legacy of the twentieth-century theologian, and social critic Reinhold Niebuhr. It serves as a companion work to the award-winning PBS documentary of the same name.
He recently created an online symposium on sin and virtue in American public life for the humanities journal Syndicate.
He has taught at Yale Divinity School and is now a lecturer in religion at Dartmouth College.
SHARED WISDOM:
WISDOM #1 Respect is a powerful social currency. Use it well.
As a third-culture kid who routinely went back and forth between Central America and the U.S., this basic lesson helped Jeremy build and maintain relationships across barriers of culture, race, and class. As an adolescent, I figured out that I could transition from one cultural space to another much more easily and effectively if I figured out how to communicate respect to my audience. I can discuss various moments where this lesson clicked for me: as a high schooler who in the same weekend would attend Quinceañeras thrown by the richest families in Nicaragua and spend time working with street children, watching doctors interact with clients during my M.Div. internship at the Connecticut Mental Health Clinic, etc.
WISDOM #2 When you can, be tactful. But always be truthful.
My dad is one of the most honest people I've ever known. He also has no innate sense of how to read the room. I've watched him offend people by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time more times than I can count. This embarrassed me deeply as an adolescent. As an adult, however, I've also grown to appreciate how unique it is to be raised by someone who always tells the truth. I've known a lot of people who are great at reading the room but struggle to be honest with themselves and with others. The damage caused by this behavior has cost them reputations, relationships, careers.
WISDOM #3 Tact is a beautiful thing.
It helps us read the room and put people at ease. This facilitates the process of building relationships. As the passage from Proverbs puts it: "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." But if you have to choose between being honest and being tactful, choose honesty. It may make things awkward in the short term, but you won't have to live with the long-term damage that lying does. Prioritizing truth allows us to be tactful with integrity.
Until next time, take it slower than you think you should.