If I want people to believe what I believe, think what I’m thinking, see what I see or hold the same opinion as me (is it true?), I only have one hope:
Meet them where they are.
It’s the only place I can ever meet anyone. They aren’t anywhere else. If I need people to be anywhere other than where they are in order to meet them, I am the one making the meeting impossible.
The ground on which someone stands is their foundation. Their safety. The ground they know and need in order to survive. When I tell them they can’t have that ground and they are unaware or untrusting of any other ground, it’s like I’m pushing them toward a cliff’s edge beyond which there’s nothing to hold them up. The reasonable response to being pushed toward a cliff is to desperately hold one’s ground. The harder the push, the more desperate the resistance.
I may be convinced that I’m bringing them to safety, but until both of us come to understand the safety of my new ground FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THEIR CURRENT GROUND, they will never willingly move, and never willingly stay if forced to move, and, if forced to stay, will never be able to rest their heart. Because they do not see safe ground there.
For this reason, when I demand that someone hold different views than they do, I am serving to harden their views.
If I want to bring someone into the joy and safety of the ground I walk on, I first have to establish COMMON GROUND. And there is only one way I can ensure that: to move onto THEIR ground (without abandoning my own) and share that ground with them without threatening to destroy it.
Only when we are walking together on the ground they understand as safe and firm, only when they can trust that they can lean on me and know that I will not abandon them when they stumble, will I be able to invite them onto less stable ground and expect them to follow.
If I expect a change before that, I’m dreaming.
When I am not afraid of losing my own footing, new ground is entirely available to me. I can just meet people where they are and walk with them. When I’ve earned the right, I can show them the safe new ground I see.
And who knows? If I’m open and honest, I may even discover that they can show me some safe new ground for myself.