The Valleyist Papers
A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS
WRITTEN IN FAVOUR OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF STEPHENS VALLEY
Author – William Ray
Edition 2. Issue 12.
Another Year in SV – Looking Back and Looking Ahead
With Thanksgiving behind us and most of 2023 finished for us in Stephens Valley, it seems appropriate to examine what the year has brought us, and also look ahead some at what we might make of 2024. Whether this is your first, or your fifth Christmas season in Stephens Valley, you will certainly enjoy the Currier and Ives beauty of decorations applied to the architecture of the homes on our streets. Prepare to be proud of how much you have accomplished in finding your way to our place.
We made a lot of improvements to our community this year. A lot of new members of the SV community joined us in 2023, and they made our bonds stronger. It is hard to forget that early in 2023, Nashville experienced the heart-breaking horror of the murders at Covenant School, but it is also important that SV pulled together to help heal that wound. Many members of the community volunteered to walk next door to the Stephens Valley Church and run the vehicle parking operation during the funeral service for Mike Hill, one of those killed on March 27. That day brought many SV residents to know each other better as they served others.
We also enjoyed some additional infrastructure provided by Rochford Realty and Construction. Trees, finished streets, and even new pickleball courts were provided for us, and we all are enjoying these amenities. But maybe the most valuable amenity for our goals of becoming a unique and rewarding community came with those new residents. The new residents moved into new homes, and most of those new homes came with SV’s most effective feature in the march toward community. Those homes came with front porches, which have mostly been adorned with porch swings and comfortable chairs. Perhaps the most valuable infrastructure we have in SV is those front porches – not the other features we expect from Rochford Realty and Construction.
To support that supposition, let us borrow heavily from the recent book by NY Times columnist and author, David Brooks – How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. We didn’t move to SV, a community dedicated to fostering connections, by accident. We want to connect. Like most other members of the Homo Sapiens species, we long to have another person look into our faces with love and acceptance. Our problem is that we are not born with the practical knowledge about how to give one another the attention we crave, and the architecture of our neighborhood can only support these connections – not automatically provide it. We have to work in concert with our architecture, and since the Christmas season in SV will bring many opportunities for us to converse with each other, let’s consider David Brooks’s suggestions on how to make those conversations make good feelings consistent with the beauty that surrounds us.
Brooks offers these suggestions that you can use during the upcoming social events, and at every opportunity thereafter.
Be a loud listener. When another person is talking, you want to be listening so actively that you’re burning calories. Using responses like a congregant at a charismatic church is a great way to listen actively. Affirmations like “amen,” “aha” and “yes!” make you someone others want to talk to.
Storify whenever possible. Don’t just ask someone what they think about a subject. Instead, try: How did you come to believe that? That get them talking about the people and experiences that shaped their values. That gets them telling their story.
Do the looping, especially with adolescents. When we converse, we are not as clear as we think we are, and we are not as good at listening as we think we are. If someone tells you something important and then you paraphrase it back to them (what psychologists call “looping”) you can correct any misimpressions that might exist in the conversation.
Turn your partner into a narrator. People mostly do not go into enough detail when they tell you a story. But, if you ask specific follow-up questions showing your interest in understanding the whole story, they will revisit the moment in a more concrete way and tell a richer story.
Don’t be a topper. If somebody tells you he is having trouble with a teenager, don’t turn around and say: “I know what you mean. I’m having incredible problems with my own son.” You might think you are trying to build a shared connection, but what you are really doing is shifting the attention back to yourself.
Obviously, what we're doing here is suggesting that you read the David Brooks book. His conclusions and advice are far too complex for me to summarize here. But it seems clear that his observation that we sometimes think that really great people perform the sorts of epic acts of altruism that might earn them Nobel Peace Prizes, when that isn’t really the case. The novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch argued that the essential moral skill is being considerate to others in the complex circumstances of everyday life. Morality is about how we interact with each other minute by minute.
It seems that the SV community can be strengthened by following these suggestions from great writers and philosophers, and this simple advice from a guy who lives among you. Use your front porch. Listen for the bells of St. Matthew Catholic Church. Take in the stunning views of the SV homes and decorations that adorn them during the rest of 2023. Make coffee and take it to your front porch while you enjoy the view, and actively listen and see those who stroll down the sidewalk in front of your porch. Reward and congratulate yourself for being a member of the SV community by adding a chocolate biscotti (preferable from Trader Joe’s) to your front porch visit, and dipping said biscotti in the coffee. You deserve this gift! Oh, and have a wonderful Christmas!
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