You may be familiar with Canadian best-selling novelist Louise Penny, whose book series set in the fictitious Québécois town of Three Pines features a wise and sometimes misunderstood police detective named Armand Gamache.
My wife is rereading the second book in the series to prepare for Ms. Penny's upcoming novel in which she apparently alludes to things in the earlier books. One of the great things about marriage is having someone to share gold nuggets with when they are discovered. My wife shared this nugget with me this morning, which resonates with me as someone who is consistently burdened by the polarization of our culture.
At the discovery of a homicide, a young agent in training under Gamache remarks at how the murder method "just doesn't make sense". Gamache's reply:
"You need to know this. Everything makes sense. Everything. We just don't know how yet. You have to see through the murderer's eyes.... You need to know that it seemed like a good idea, a reasonable action, to the person who did it. Believe me, not a single murderer ever thought, 'Wow, this is stupid but I'm going to do it anyway.' ...Our job is to find the sense...." [And] we listen. We listen really hard. We listen till it hurts."
And later...
"Here's lesson number two. If you don't know something, ask. You have to be able to admit you don't know something, otherwise you'll just get more and more confused, or worse, you'll jump to a false conclusion. All the mistakes I've made have been because I assumed something and then acted as if it was fact.... I often think we should have tattooed to the back of whatever hand we use to shoot or write, 'I might be wrong....'"
That'll preach.