. . .we are each other’s

harvest:

we are each other’s

business:

we are each other’s

magnitude and bond.

from “Paul Robeson” by Gwendolyn Brooks

Godmothers are in the business of harvesting, of making others’ business theirs, of willingly becoming others’ magnitude and bond. Caroline Woolsey Ferriday was just such a godmother. And she made the business of the Ravensbruck rabbits both hers and the world’s.

There are letters in the archives at her family home in Connecticut addressed to Ma Chere Marainne or My Dear Godmother. Subjected to barbaric surgeries and sulfamide experimentation that left survivors horribly scarred and disabled,  female survivors (rabbits) from Ravensbruck looked to American heiress, Caroline Ferriday, as their dear friend, their benefactor, their godmother and savior.

Because the rabbits were Polish Catholics–and not Jews–their stories paled on the dark  stage of Jewish genocide. The post-war world was just beginning to comprehend that 6 million European Jews had been systematically killed, and the stories of 72 Catholic girls went largely unnoticed. That is, until Godmother Caroline Ferriday took up their cause.

Some may say that Ferriday was an unlikely godmother. Born into status and relative wealth, she was an only child who showed an early interest in the plight of others. To the dismay of others who generally viewed acting to be too risque for polite society , she took to the Broadway stage as an actress. Fluent in French, she left the stage to work as a volunteer in the New York French Consulate by the time Hitler had risen to power. Ferriday had a particular heart for French children who had been orphaned by the war. During the war, she worked tirelessly to raise funds and provide clothing and food for them.

After the war, she joined the ADIR, or National Association of Deportees and Internees of the Resistance,  a group founded by females who had served in the French resistance and who had survived German concentration camps. She was moved by the work and stories of ADIR members Jacqueline Péry D’Alincourt, Genevieve de Gaulle, Anise Postel-Vinay, and Germaine Tillon. All four women, political prisoners, had been imprisoned at Ravensbruck. Through her work with the ADIR and through relationships with Ravensbruck survivors, Ferriday learned that some of the special bonds created in the camp were in response to the plight of 72 prisoners referred to as the lapins or rabbits.

In 1958, Godmother Ferriday went to work. She contacted Norman Cousins, the editor of the Saturday Review, for she had learned of his work with the “Hiroshima Maidens”, a group of several scarred Japanese women brought to the United States for cosmetic surgery. She also met with Polish officials and worked to gain the trust of the Rabbits, so that she might arrange their trip to the U. S. for medical treatment. As a result of her advocacy, Cousins wrote a series of articles about the Rabbits for the Saturday Review, stories that struck deeply into American hearts and resolve for action. In one of these articles, Cousins writes of their trip to Poland:

Caroline Ferriday has an almost magical gift for inspiring confidence. Her first few days in Warsaw were not without their difficulties, but after awhile the project began to move. Then, at the end of the week, we received a cable saying that the Polish authorities were cooperative and gracious and that prospects were excellent.

An almost magical gift. That’s the stuff that many godmothers are made of, and Caroline Ferriday shouldered the mantle of justice with vigor. Unmarried and without children, she devoted herself to her charges, Polish women whose legs and souls were irreparably scarred.

By this time, only 53 Rabbits had survived, but 35 eventually traveled to the U.S. and spent an entire year–from December 1958 to December 1959–receiving medical treatment. Renamed the Ladies, the women were hosted in 12 cities across the country. Cousins wrote that the most remarkable change in the group as a whole . . . was in the emotional and psychological regeneration of the Ladies.

The best godmothers are healers of bodies and souls. Caroline Ferriday was a godmother extraordinaire. She opened her Connecticut home and her heart to the Ladies, who, in turn, opened their hearts and forged a bond that crossed social and national boundaries.

Soon after the Ladies toured the U.S. and even visited Congress, publicity and public support resulted in the German Embassy’s pledge to pay for the medical costs of 30 of the 35 who had traveled to America. In addition, they reported that the [German] Federal Government was thoroughly and urgently examining possibilities of further relief.

The world needs more godmothers. Not the plump, petticoated Disney type, but the nearly six foot tall Caroline Ferriday type. The humble type who, upon her death, would will the medals she had received, the Cross of Lorraine and the French Legion of Honor, to her Polish Ladies. Yes, the world needs more godmothers and godfathers, godsisters and godbrothers who will champion the interests of those whom the world has not seen.

Ultimately, godmothers know that the business of others, the bond we forge with them is the business and bond that Jesus speaks about in Matthew 12:46-50.

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him.  Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus’s words here are clear enough but oh so difficult to live. Our lives are filled with enough responsibilities and duties, peopled with enough family and co-workers to look beyond immediate boundaries. To godparent others, to consider them our mother and father, our sister and brother? To harvest in new fields where the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few? To champion and care for our own rabbits?

In the historical novel, Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly creates a romance between Caroline Ferriday and Paul Rodierre, a French actor she first meets in New York and later nurses back to health after his imprisonment in a concentration camp. She weaves their romance between Caroline’s unfailing devotion to her work at the French Consulate and, after the war, to her commitment to the ADIR and the Polish Ladies. For the purposes of historical fiction, I suppose she intends this romance to give depth to a character who could appear to be one-dimensionally too good to be true, a character whose sole foundation appears to be service to others. The real Caroline had no romance with a famous French actor that spanned decades and continents. For most of her life, she did, indeed, set her sites on helping others. Perhaps she was one-dimensional, but what a wonderful single dimension this was! In the end, she was as good as she appeared to be, and she made the world a better place for many.

There will be rabbits, but thankfully, there will also be godmothers. So let’s hear it for Caroline Ferriday and all the godmothers to follow. We will always need them to mend and to love the wounded.

Ravensbruck Concentration Camp

In 1939, Ravensbruck, a concentration camp built to house women enemies of the Reich, opened about 50 miles north of Berlin. Most of its residents were Polish, and 72 of these young Polish women became known as “rabbits.” Used in gruesome medical experiments that rival the worst experiments conducted by the infamous Dr. Mengele, the rabbits who survived were left horribly scarred and disabled, some destined to “hop” for much of their lives.

One of the Ravensbruck “rabbits” after surgery

Each rabbit suffered six separate surgeries under the direct supervision of Dr. Karl Gebhardt, Chief Surgeon in the Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police and personal physician to Heinrich Himmler, and Dr. Herta Oberheueser, the only female doctor convicted in the Nuremberg Medical Trials. Doctors made incisions in the rabbits’ legs to break bones, sever tendons, and insert contaminated materials–rusty nails, glass, splinters–so that the Nazis could research new treatments for battlefield wounds. Without pain medication, rabbits lay in casts for weeks in crowded and secret hospital wards. Their infections resulted in high fevers, dehydration, and for some, death. All the while, Dr. Oberheueser studied her rabbits and recorded her findings to her Furher.

Dr. Herta Oberheueser

Sarah Helm’s nonfictional works,  Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women and If This Is A Woman, as well as Martha Hall Kelly’s historical fiction, Lilac Girls, offer intimate views of the rabbits’ struggle to survive and the physicians who gave themselves to Nazi ideology. Both stories are equally tragic, equally horrific in distinctly different ways.

For the Nazis, the rabbits were little more than experimental opportunities. Hitler himself was invested in this experimentation because a friend died from battlefield wounds that he believed were treated incorrectly. Karl Gebhardt sought to redeem and defend his surgical treatment of contaminated war wounds in the face of new antibiotic treatments of such injuries. And Herta Oberheueser, a young, promising surgeon before the war, welcomed surgical opportunities to advance her career. There will always be rabbits to justify research, to defend practices, to promote careers, to explore solutions and onto which we can pin our hopes, our principles, and onto which we might take out our rage and helplessness.

For the Ravensbruck prisoners, the rabbits were their protecorates, their precious children and their unflagging belief that something good might come from something so very, very bad. As the Allied troops began to win the war in Europe and the inevitability of loss grew imminent, the Nazis were determined to kill all the surviving rabbits, leaving no evidence of the surgical atrocities committed. Still, the prisoners hid them, traded numbers with them during daily attendance, gave them extra rations of food, and encouraged them to live so that, one day, they might be living testaments to the horrors of Ravensbruck. There will always be rabbits to protect, to provide for, to encourage, and onto which we can pin our hopes, our principles, and truthfully, our courage and love.

Even today, there will be rabbits and their doctors. Sadly, both will be our friends and neighbors, our teachers, our employers and leaders. With the advent of new ideologies and practices, the lure of experimentation will convince even the most previously rational, compassionate individuals that they are called to new work. And with this advent, innocent others will give themselves over to the seemingly capable hands of such physicians.

In my own state, a handful of educational leaders–armed with research they claim is comprehensive and reliable–have succeeded in implementing reading testing that will determine whether a third grader may move to fourth grade or will be retained. This test measures fluency,  whether or not a child reads accurately, quickly and with expression. Clearly, there is a body of substantial research devoted to the role that fluency plays in effective reading. The key word, however, is “role.” Fluency itself is not the whole of good reading. Recall the cute, Shirley Temple-like girl from the former Hooked on Phonics commercials. Cute as a button, she stood confidently at a podium and read complex text fluently. It didn’t take a reading specialist, however, to question what–if anything–she understood from this text.

The fact that fluency experimentation is well-intentioned from those who sincerely believe that this measure will ensure that no child is left behind is still little defense for its mandatory state-wide execution. But the reading physicians have spoken, and the rabbits will be tested. In the future when fluency research will be inevitably and resoundingly replaced by new research (hopefully with comprehension playing a much bigger role), some of these reading specialists and the teachers who were forced to do this work will sincerely regret their actions and, regenerated, will jump on the newest reading bandwagon. Others will claim they were only doing their duty or following the research or taking the path of least resistance. Some will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to new practices which force them to denounce their former fluency allegiance.

And the rabbits? Only time will tell, but it stands to reason that at the very least, many will turn their backs on reading forever, the bitter taste of repeated testing still lingering in their mouths. They will live a life in which they are functionally literate but simply choose not to read. And this aliteracy will be as personally and socially devastating as illiteracy.

Oh yes, there will be doctors and rabbits, I’m afraid. Such is our human nature: to experiment and to succumb to experimentation. For the doctors, there is something profoundly enticing and noble about exploration and its rewards, about committing yourself to a cause, to a body of research, to a charismatic leader(s), to a golden principle. And for the rabbits, there is something profoundly innocent and vulnerable in the release–willingly or by force–to another’s cause.

In these super-charged post-election months, I am painfully aware of how some may read this metaphor, for the current administration has been compared to Nazis, their ideology to fascism, and the state of the nation to the inevitable demise of the Third Reich. Most certainly, it is not my intention to feed into this frenzy with the mention of Ravensbruck and third grade reading testing in the same blog post.

It is my intention, however, to lament the real and present danger of experimentation that has not been tested ethically, practically, and humanely. It is my intent to call physicians from all fields and in all leadership roles to task. Even those of us lay people understand that you can find research to support almost any claim. The real professionals are those who have examined the larger body of research, considered conflicting results and claims, and have decided upon the best treatment for the most patients. They are those who consider the whole and unique person, as well as the effects that any given treatment may have on him or her. The good news? These individuals are out there, but they are often marginalized by louder, more influential folks.

And it is my intention to offer caution to potential rabbits, as well as to the friends, parents, or caretakers of potential rabbits. If individuals can voluntarily submit to experimentation, then they should do so only after they have wisely considered the consequences. If they are forced to submit through laws and regulations, through social or commercial expectations,  or through prevailing ideologies, then there must be those who are willing to pick up the pieces when things go badly and to testify to the tragic consequences. Cliched as it sounds, history must not repeat itself, for most rabbits’ stories do not have happy endings.

As I read the accounts of surviving rabbits from Ravensbruck, I am sorely amazed at their will to live and to tell the world of all they experienced. Likewise, I am humbled by those prisoners who risked all to hide and feed these Polish girls.

I am also amazed at the resolve of such doctors as Dr. Herta Oberheueser. Once a promising young medical student with an entire life of helping others before her, she became a butcher convinced that she was serving the Reich with her God-given talents. How easily she transformed from healer to butcher, how devotedly she served until she was captured and tried for war crimes.  Even after serving a 20 year sentence, she began a new family medical practice and life. Until a Ravensbruck survivor recognized her and turned her into the German authorities who disbarred her from ever practicing medicine.

How did she live with what she had done? How did she muster the resolve to open a family practice? After two decades, how could she continue to claim that she had been “forced” to conduct these experiments? Herta Oberheueser was a living testament to the great power of those who relish the role of experimenter.

There will be rabbits, but we can pray that there will be fewer of them and that they will suffer less. And we can pray for the doctors, too, who often begin as idealistic, driven and talented individuals and end at best, as misguided explorers, and at worst, as fiends.

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Mother Teresa

Lately, I have begun thinking that I have the math all wrong. For much of my life, there has been one abiding equation that has driven me: 1 + 1000. That is, I have looked at most of my life as a very small number that would, God willing, eventually culminate is a really large number, an ultimate act or accomplishment that would finalize a life well-lived. When I perceived that this had not–and would not–happen before retirement, I set my sites on post-retirement. Maybe then, I would score the big number. Maybe then, I would do something to warrant the math that had lingered like the proverbial carrot in the distance. Maybe.

Sitting at the bedside of my father in his final weeks, I knew that I was in the presence of a life that had been very well-lived, a life represented by the largest of numbers, by words and deeds unparalleled in my eyes. Today, as I sit at my desk, the volumes of his life’s work sit before me as reminders of the numbers that doubled, then tripled, then grew exponentially into greatness. Not merely the number of books he had written or poems he had published–or even the number of students he had taught. But the indelible presence of something greater than himself. This was math to defy even the finest calculator.

As children, we feast on the words and encouragement of America: Dream big; You can be anything you want to be; The sky is the limit. For a season, celebrity and professional athletic status hang from low branches, like ripe fruit to be plucked by any and all. For a season, life spreads out like a smorgasbord, and all one has to do is choose from the bounty before them, returning a plate uneaten if it isn’t to one’s liking and choosing again. And again. When my daughter declared that she would be in the Ice Capades, I smiled over the pile of student essays I was grading, unfolded laundry, an empty bag of Cheetos, and a pile of unread newspapers at my feet. Oh, to be five years old and dreaming of sequined splendor on the ice!

And even as we grow into adulthood and our life’s work begins to unfold before us, there is that lingering echo: You can be what you want to be. It’s not too late if you work hard and commit yourself to your dreams. We put our noses to the grindstone, we keep our eyes on the prize, we persist. For the spoils go to the victor, and surely, we are destined to be victors at some point in time. Right?

Just the other day, I was talking with a friend who said that we should arrange a play-date for his daughter and my granddaughter. In a world of little girls who grow up far too quickly, these are girls who love to be home, to play imaginatively, to care for their little brothers, and–for want of a better word–are genuinely “nice” people. They may not be sports stars or leaders of the middle/high school pack, but they will be good friends to all. In the world’s eyes, their numbers will be infinitesimally small, their equations a series of quarters and halves, a math of ordinary kind acts that pale on the stage of district championships and most-likely-to-succeed honors. But years after the senior prom and the state softball championship, they will be young women whom others seek as confidantes. Their kindness and loyalty may not be defined by a single great deed but by too many small acts to count.

Mother Teresa was a better mathematician than most. She understood that the sum of small acts done with great love is a large sum. In the slums of Calcutta, she loved greatly–one man, one woman, one child at a time. In the midst of great throngs, her love was laser-focused, endowing each recipient with the very best of what she could give. I sincerely doubt that Mother Teresa had her sites set on a single act of greatness which would define her life. She was far too occupied with small acts committed with great love. In the eyes of God and the countless individuals she helped and loved, these small things are clearly and blessedly equal to any one great thing.

If my father’s math featured large numbers, my mother’s, like Mother Teresa’s, featured a series of many small numbers added, lovingly, over a lifetime. She, too, has always committed herself to small things done with great love. And in the most wonderful paradox, those small things are honestly huge. Their size and worth dwarfs almost any and everything in their midst. Ask anyone who knows my mother, and they will testify to this, for they have been beneficiaries of these acts and this love. She anticipates what others need before they are often even aware that they need it; she opens her house and her heart instinctively. Those who visit are loathe to leave, for they find magnificent comfort and peace in her presence. And if there is coffee and pie, so much the better.

I think I have been waiting for my life to begin. And to end with a bang, with a huge number, some marvelous thing to hang my hat upon. But in truth and in spite of my best laid plans, my math has been quietly working itself out. The fact that I have not truly understood nor taken to heart the good math of the Mother Teresas and Marcia Welches of the world is sad. But then, I was never good at math–not the old math or the new math. I shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the most important math of my life has eluded me until now.

I sincerely doubt that my children will sit at their desks with the volumes of my written work, the large sum of my life, before them. What I can hope for, however, is that many small acts done with great love will live in their memories and light their way. I can hope for the laser-focus of living fully in the moment, giving all in love. I can hope that I grow up to be my mother. And that is the best math, indeed.

All that is gold does not glitter; not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by the frost.
― J. R. R. Tolkien

There is much glittering and wandering that has no tangible presence, that is largely unseen by most. Sharon Olds and her mother know this as well as Tolkien:

Wonder as Wander

At dusk, on those evenings she does not go out,

my mother potters around her house.

Her daily helpers are gone, there is no one

there, no one to tell what to do,

she wanders, sometimes she talks to herself,

fondly scolding, sometimes she suddenly

throws out her arms and screams—high notes

lying here and there on the carpets

like bodies touched by a downed wire,

she journeys, she quests, she marco-polos through

the gilded gleamy loot-rooms, who is she.

I feel, now, that I do not know her,

and for all my staring, I have not seen her

—like the song she sang, when we were small,

I wonder as I wander, out under the sky,   

how Jesus, the Savior, was born for, to die,   

for poor lonely people, like you, and like I 

—on the slow evenings alone, when she delays

and delays her supper, walking the familiar

halls past the mirrors and night windows,

I wonder if my mother is tasting a life

beyond this life—not heaven, her late

beloved is absent, her father absent,

and her staff is absent, maybe this is earth

alone, as she had not experienced it,

as if she is one of the poor lonely people,

as if she is born to die. I hold fast

to the thought of her, wandering in her house,

a luna moth in a chambered cage.

Fifty years ago, I’d squat in her

garden, with her Red Queens, and try

to sense the flyways of the fairies as they kept

the pollen flowing on its local paths,

and our breaths on their course of puffs—they kept

our eyes wide with seeing what we

could see, and not seeing what we could not see.

Oh the wandering and the blessed glittering that takes place in private places and moments, when there is no one there, no one to tell what to do. In these moments, we might taste a life beyond this life–perhaps earth alone. In these moments, perhaps we are not lost but found as we wander the crooks and crannies of souls imagined in new places, surrounded by new people and possibilities. Just as we have lived vicariously through others–fictional and real characters who dare to do and to be what we are not, what we have not–we live through wandering.

In the Sanctuary of Wandering, there are starts and re-starts, there are do-overs till the cows come home. If you can wonder as you wander, there are infinite possibilities of lives to live and places to go. Others may look into your situation and see a luna moth in a chambered cage, but you are marco-poloing your way through another adventure from the confines of your own sitting room or porch. Your virtual reality is one you create daily in your wanderings. Neither electricity nor technology is needed.

As a fellow wanderer, Plato writes:

I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with.

Small bright pebbles to content ourselves with are enough in the Sanctuary of Wandering. And if one will have but eyes to see, there are, indeed, bright pebbles to be found. For one who wanders is not bound by time or space, by responsibilities or expectations, by physical abilities or disabilities. If you can imagine it, the corridors will be well-lit and the doors unlocked. Treasure awaits with each turn of the knob.

When the circumstances of this world darken and threaten to suffocate us, we often need to wander to survive. I recall reading a memoir of a Vietnam veteran who was held as a prisoner of war for years. He recounted that he played 18 holes of golf on the world’s finest courses daily. His mental wanderings down well-kept fairways and on manicured greens literally kept him alive. His mind buoyed his failing body, and hole by hole, he drove, chipped, putted, and wandered himself into one more day of living.

In Wandering: Notes and Sketches, a collection of poetry, prose, and artwork, Herman Hesse reveals his longing for a new life closer to nature. He, too, understands the necessity of both physical and soulful wandering:

I feel life trembling within me, in my tongue, on the soles of my feet, in my desire or my suffering, I want my soul to be a wandering thing, able to move back into a hundred forms, I want to dream myself into priests and wanderers, female cooks and murderers, children and animals, and, more than anything else, birds and trees; that is necessary, I want it, I need it so I can go on living, and if sometime I were to lose these possibilities and be caught in so-called reality, then I would rather die.

Like Hesse, I want my soul to be a wandering thing, able to move back into a hundred forms. I also need this to go on living.

Oh, there are times when I curse the many stops and starts of my mind. As a writer and a wanderer, I am all too eager to say no, that is not it at all and begin again. I dismay at my attention-deficit-disordered wandering that, untethered as a kite loosed from one’s hand, moves at the command of the wind. And try as I might, I often find that the string is just beyond my reach. The kite of my soul flashes its colorful tail as it heads east, or west, leaving my trembling fingers empty.

Still, I want my soul to be a wandering thing. Even if my hands are occasionally empty, there will be another kite and another day. That’s the true gift of wandering: the promise of another life, another place, another day.

And if you can’t see a destination? In the Sanctuary of Wandering, you can simply embark. Author D. H. Lawrence argues that the place to get to may be nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own nowhere. [Women in Love]

I can live with that, for my own nowhere is often a necessary respite from the world’s somewheres. As my grandchildren and I walk the 50 yards from my house to theirs, wandering soulfully into ocean and jungle adventures, living the pioneer lives of those we can imagine and those we have yet to imagine, none of us can imagine anything better. There will be toys to pick up and baths to be taken, but in these moments, we float above the day’s doings. We are more than content to wander.

Eat your heart out, Marco Polo.

righteous:  acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin

indignation: anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment

I have been a fan of righteous indignation, an attribute and attitude that has generally eluded me. In the second season of Dallas, the night-time soap opera that aired from 1978-1991, Miss Ellie, the silent suffering matriarch, turned to her husband, Jock, the heavy-handed ruler of their oil dynasty, and proclaimed, You sicken me. Three simple words delivered quietly but with the power of a right, left, right uppercut. I lived vicariously through these words for weeks, marveling at the clarity of Miss Ellie’s indignation and the righteousness that founded her blow. There she was, an aproned, gray-haired woman who schooled her oil baron, bourbon-drinking husband. What a woman, albeit a fictional one in a network melodrama.

Most of my moments of pure righteous indignation have occurred in those minutes–sometimes hours–before sleep. In the dark and privacy of my own bedroom, I have silently spoken strong, indignant words to countless recipients of my anger. I rehearsed the words I would speak, perhaps should speak, but words that would never leave the confines of my silent rants. Still, I had some moments of stellar indignation, if I do say so myself.

Aristotle wrote: Anyone can get angry, but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy.

Anger directed at the right person, to the right extent, at the right time with the right motive and in the right way–that is righteous indignation. But just consider all those “rights,” all the qualifications that come with righteous indignation! It’s enough to make you exhausted you before you begin. And that is it exactly. Aristotle knew that we should be exhausted–or rather that we should exhaust every concession, every caution, every consideration before we release our indignation, righteously.

Today, righteous indignation has become a legitimate genre in and of itself. In print, online, through radio or television, voices are almost always sharp uppercuts intended to knock-out the opposition in a single round. There is no time for careful research or corroboration of sources. There is no time for conversation or reflection. There is only now and the gratifying release of anger. To hell with those feeble, overly cautious namby pambies who, in solitude and armed with a host of sources and a humble spirit, deliberate until they arrive at a worthy position.

But just as music performed with constant forte becomes little more than loud noise, persistent moral indignation becomes little more than barking at the wind. 19th century French poet, essayist and philosopher, Paul Valery says it well:

An attitude of permanent indignation signifies great mental poverty. Politics compels its votaries to take that line and you can see their minds growing more impoverished every day, from one burst of righteous indignation to the next. 

The election and the presidential inauguration have passed, but we cannot seem to shake the attitude of permanent indignation that characterized the campaign months. My greatest fear is that, perhaps, we will never shake it. That its permanency is actually permanent. And one day, when a voice cries out in righteous indignation that has been carefully forged through reflection and study, after years of voices who have cried wolf, we will simply smile and turn to our own affairs.

Permanent indignation does reveal great mental poverty. Poor is the mind that cannot discern what is truly worthy of righteous anger. If, as it seems today that, everything and everyone is worthy of indignation, then ultimately nothing and no one is. And all of our rantings become little more than tales told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. [Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5]

In truth, as much as I fear this contagion of righteous indignation, I also marvel at those who feel wholly, utterly confident of their anger and the targets of this anger. These individuals likely sleep well at night. They walk with shoulders back, taking deliberate strides and commanding the centers of hallways and sidewalks. They tremble with anticipation at each opportunity to unleash the fury born from their guiltless, sinless certainty.

I can only guess how many of these individuals would respond if Jesus were stand before them and say, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” My guess? There would be a sizeable pile of rocks and a frenzied hoard whose hands had already gripped the first stone, eager for muscular release. Throw first, and worry about your sin later. Or perhaps never.

I fear too often, as H. G. Wells claimed, that Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. Jealousy of those whose voice is being heard, jealousy of those with power equal to, or maybe greater than theirs, and jealousy of views, that they privately fear, may be proven more “right” in the end. But once they have donned the halo of righteous indignation, they often rest easily on platitudes and charisma. America is a land of immigrants, America can be great again, A true feminist believes in choice, A real woman is pro-life. Platitudes fill the air around us until we are suffocating in righteous indignation.

Don’t misunderstand me. There are causes worthy of righteous indignation, and these causes will surely represent opposing views. It’s just that these causes can never truly be reduced to platitudes, no matter how often and how passionately they are delivered. These causes require Aristotle’s wisdom: right person, right extent, right time, right motive, and right way. They yearn to be tempered with humility by servant leaders.

Open the borders to all? And how many families will you be willing to sponsor in your own homes and communities, which–in the spirit of openness–will forever remain ungated? Will you be willing to open your children’s schools to those who can’t speak the language, who haven’t been formally schooled for years and who will require the majority of the school’s attention, efforts, and services, leaving your children to largely school themselves? And will you be eager to forgo private schooling for public schooling, particularly public schooling in the inner cities? Will you create college or vocational training funds for others’ children, sacrificing your standard of living for the opportunities of others? Will you lead by example?

Close the borders to all? Will you be willing to pay much, much more for fresh produce, to send your sons and daughters into the fields to harvest it? Will you be willing to populate the meat packing plants, the construction sites, your favorite restaurants, etc. with your own family, friends, and neighbors to ensure that all individuals have rights to affordable meat, housing, and fine dining? Will you sit in air-conditioned churches on padded pews extolling the virtues of caring for the least of these?  Will you lead by example?

I think our nation could benefit immensely from servant leadership, from  the expectation that, until–and unless- we are willing to lead by example, we must refrain from public righteous indignation. We could expect our citizens to remove the plank in their own eyes before attempting to remove the speck from others’ eyes. I could honestly get behind this kind of righteous indignation, for its origins are divine–not man-made.

Two rooms away from the television where I can’t detect individual words, I can hear the fevered and prolonged pitch of someone’s indignation. This, I fear, is the genre of the season. My greater fear, however, is that I will become one of many whose disillusionment leads to partial, and then complete, deafness. When the next great philosopher, statesman or woman, business or technological leader, theologian, artist, social or educational advocate comes along, I fear that I will be humming to myself, blissful in a self-imposed cocoon of simple song, wholly unaware that there is genuine cause for righteous indignation. Wholly ignorant to the fact that, right there before me, is one whose anger is directed towards the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive and way. Wholly deaf and blind towards acts and attitudes that are clearly not aligned to moral or divine law.

Certainly, such ignorant bliss will not make America–or anything else–great again. And in the proverbial words of Miss Ellie, this sickens me.

As far as television series go, I have perpetually lagged behind contemporary viewing audiences and felt woefully out of place during water cooler conversations concerning “the last episode”. So, in true form, I missed Downton Abbey–all six seasons. I could honestly say that I heard about it, generally speaking, but knew little specifics. People whom I respected spoke of the series in glowing terms, so I assumed it must be worthy of viewing. Sometime, that is.

That time arrived for me a few weeks ago when, armed with a set of DVDs from seasons 1-4 and an Amazon Prime account for seasons 5-6, I embarked on a binge-viewing session while my husband was in Honduras on a mission trip. I know him well enough to safely say that Downton Abbey would not be his cup of tea. (Sorry for the horribly obvious pun!)

To say I have been smitten with this British series, with the characters and the setting, with the costumes and the accents, is one of the largest understatements I have ever made. Most certainly, the people of Downton Abbey–the upstairs and the downstairs people–have their share of problems which often center on the growing conflict between a traditional, aristocratic world and an emerging modern world in the early 20th century.

In this world, a virtuous appearance is everything; a hint of impropriety is disaster. And this is true for both the aristocratic class and their house staffs. When the head butler enters the staff dining room, everyone stands out of respect for his position. Ladies and gentlemen, house staff and visitors disagree, sometimes passionately. But there are no raised voices, no vulgar comments or ad hominem attacks. Traditionalists and progressives spar over five course meals or soup and bread. Still, civility reigns supreme in the formal dining hall and the kitchen alike.

For the inhabitants of Downton Abbey, no one is entitled to be cruel in his or her advancement of an idea or position. Individuals may disagree and move on to the business of the day. When the day winds down, disagreements may be revisited over tea served in china cups with saucers. Or they may be slept upon, reflected upon, or settled upon.

Which has led me to wonder if our country needs some serious tea-time, complete with china cups, silver serving trays, and chintz-covered chairs. How have we become a nation of individuals convinced that we are entitled to pressing our views regardless of the costs? How have we convinced ourselves that we are entitled to incivility disguised as freedom of expression?

I concede that freedom of expression is a hallmark American privilege and right. Still, the fact that we are free to express our opinions and positions does not excuse the often uncivil manner through which we bludgeon others.  I agree with John Gerald Zimmerman, famous American magazine photographer, who wrote:

Incivility is the extreme of pride; it is built on the contempt of mankind.

Words that maim and destroy, voices raised in blind anger, ideas thrust like spears into opponents’ hearts, kill shots that pierce with force and leave victims bloodless. This is incivility at its best. And worst. It is contemptuous and inhumane. At its heart (dare I say incivility has a heart?), is extreme pride. Uncivil individuals are excessively and tragically proud. Armed with righteous indignation and a certainty that often defies logic, they cannot, they will not consider another perspective or person. They leave a trail of victims in their wake.

The words of Peter Kreeft, author and philosophy professor at Boston College and The King’s College, may be perhaps the best remedy for incivility:

Be egalitarian regarding persons. Be elitist regarding ideas.

It is possible–and clearly preferable–to be egalitarian to others, particularly those with whom we disagree. They are entitled to share their views; they are entitled to our genuine and polite consideration. We must, however, be elitist regarding our ideas, for our failure to be discerning will ultimately result in these once solid ideas watered down into a moral mush unfit for human consumption.  Civil people can most certainly hold fast to ideas and principles and yet honor those who oppose those very ideas and principles.

Every time I read Martin Luther King’s “Letter to Birmingham Jail,” I am struck by the power of his arguments delivered so powerfully, so eloquently, and so civilly to fellow clergy who have criticized his words and actions. Consider his opening paragraph:

 My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

My Dear Fellow Clergymen? Men of genuine good will whose criticisms are sincerely set forth? These are men who have called his civil rights’ work “unwise and untimely.” They may be fellow brothers in Christ, but they are real opponents who argue that he should not engage in non-violent civil disobedience and should, even after 300 years of discrimination and subordination, continue to wait patiently for change. Clearly, King could take his place at the head of the dining table in Downton Abbey, comfortable and well-versed in the civility that transcends time and place, race and position. King can passionately but civilly disagree. In his world, everyone is entitled to this civility, friend and foe alike. In his world, no one is entitled to cruelty or violence as means of protest.

Tom Allen, former member of the House of Representatives representing Maine’s 1st Congressional District, wrote:

Incivility is a symptom, not the disease. We’ve always had partisan conflict in Congress, and we always will. Yet when I worked for a year (1970-71) on the staff of Sen. Ed Muskie of Maine, this was a different place, more collegial, more sensitive to data, more concerned about all of the American people. I think because the for-profit media prizes conflict above cooperation and sound bites above analysis, politicians have learned to adapt to those tendencies. Consequently, our public debates are dumbed down as our problems grow more complex.

If Allen is correct, and incivility is a symptom, not the disease, it stands to reason that we must cure the disease if we are ever to get rid of this painful symptom. In this Season of Entitlement, I could make a legitimate case for the claim that all Americans are entitled to this type of health care. Call it CivilityCare. Call it what you wish, but, for heaven’s sake, cure it! (Although I’m not sure that Lady Crawley of Downton Abbey would approve of my my bold and unladylike use of the exclamation mark here, I will beg for forgiveness later.)

There are hours of my life I will never regain during which I modeled and taught the virtue and necessity of civil disagreement in countless high school and college classrooms. Today, some may seriously argue if these hours have been worth my time and effort, for the world into which these students emerge seems to be increasingly apathetic–if not outright disdainful–towards such civility. Just as I grieve for those who will not know the virtue and blessing of work, I grieve for those who will never know the virtue and blessing of civility and civil disagreement. These, too, may be lost after generations who have fed solely on dramatic conflict and angry sound bites.

In his book How Now Shall we Live? Charles Colson warns that:

People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government… without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well.

How now shall we live? That is, indeed, the million dollar question. Around us, there are daily reminders of those who cannot or will not restrain their baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility and who are not capable of self-government. Incivility floods the airwaves, the internet, the sidewalks and hallways, rural and urban settings. It is an equal-opportunity choice for liberals and conservatives, educated and uneducated, old and young, rich and poor.

In my ideal world, I would round up all of these folk and require them to attend years of professional development and training at Downton Abbey. If they became proficient at civility, they would be invited to eat in the grand dining hall. If they chose to remain uncivil, they would eat with the pigs at the edge of village, out of sight and earshot from the civil folk. They would receive a life sentence of trading slop for slop. They could spew vicious, venomous words into the pig lot, endlessly. Unlike feeling, thinking humans, the pigs could care less.

I write this post with a heavy heart and a list of genuine concessions:

1. Everyone is entitled to understanding. That is, everyone deserves to be understood by those who will compassionately listen and learn.
2. There are those who have benefited–and those who will always benefit–from financial, educational, emotional, and spiritual support. Their support is well-deserved, temporary, and essential for a new and better life.
3. Single parents with low-paying jobs cannot often afford to work, for the costs of daycare and transportation prohibit it.
4. More money can solve some problems for some people, but not all problems for all people.

A pile of neatly folded laundry, a stack of graded student essays, late summer flowers cut back, lawn chairs hosed and housed in the garage, and windows so clean that the scent of Windex persists for days. The fruits of my labor. Still, as satisfying as these tangible fruits may be, there is something profoundly more satisfying in the virtue of labor, the very act and completion of a task–any task, great or small, extraordinary or menial.

As I was painting my entry way last week, my granddaughter begged to help me paint. At age 7, she loves to play, but she yearns to work at grown-up tasks in much the same way as I do. She understands–and is wise beyond her years–that as much as well-meaning adults wish to give her a self of worth, ultimately only she can find this worth through what she does and what she contributes to greater causes. The fact that the greater cause is an entry way to her grandmother’s modest home in rural Iowa makes no difference. It is the virtue of the work and a cause beyond herself.

How I wish that all humans could know the genuine virtue of work , the profound satisfaction of completing a task, a day’s labor, and ultimately, a career. After seven months of retirement, I would be less than honest if I did not admit that there are days during which I flounder, restless in the present hours without school bells signaling the start and the finish of a day, the passing of one class to the next. There are mornings that open terrifyingly with countless possibilities, choices to be made–all of which are at my discretion. What to do, what to do. . .

I have become increasingly burdened with the knowledge that there are many around me who have not known, and probably will not know, the virtue and satisfaction of work as I have known it. Many of my students are third generation Welfare recipients. Their grandparents and parents have not worked, and–in truth–many of them will not work either. Others may look upon their lives as nothing more than subsistence: an inferior dwelling, a vehicle on life-support, and no real prospects. Still, many have televisions, cell phones, internet, and enough food to eat.

When a high school student of mine blew off a full-ride scholarship to a welding program at the local community college, I asked him what he planned to do after graduation. To which he responded, “Party with my friends.” Another female student answered the same question with, “I don’t really know. Probably sit at home and watch television with my mom.”

In increasing moments of clarity, I began to realize that, as I was pulling out all of the educational/motivational stops I had to prompt my students to work at reading, writing, and thinking, I was little more than an alien in a land that I no longer recognized. These students had no role models who had worked or aspired to work. Why would they work at something that did not at least produce a tangible, and preferably financial, reward? Why would they aspire to something different and more than their parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends? Why would they work?

They regularly asked me to give: extensions on deadlines, passes on assignments they had missed, higher grades to prevent their failure. I am quite certain that most expected me to give my time, my efforts, and my compassion to meet their requests. This is what teachers do. This is what “nice” people do for those who are in need. This is the way the world works for them.

I grieve for these students and their families. And what about my students’ children and their children? Will the legacy of entitlement persist? Will the virtue of work be lost on whole generations?

I concede (as I did above) that there are clearly times and circumstances during which those of us who can and will work must do so for the sake of others who cannot. I am painfully aware that there are those who may be willing to work but who literally cannot afford to, that there are those who need a temporary “leg up” to move ahead independently, and that there are those who simply cannot work because of disabilities and injuries. These individuals are entitled to our help: financial, emotional, and spiritual.

And I admit that it was often much easier for me to simply give some students what they wanted than it was to hold them accountable for what they had actually earned. I could extend a deadline, raise a grade, and send them on their way. As they walked away, I might even feel good, knowing that I had helped a student in need. But had I–really? Or was I perpetuating their expectations that well-meaning others, like me, would give regardless of the circumstances? These were students who could work at reading, writing, and thinking but who simply chose not to do so. In the education world, we often classify students as “the cannots” and the will nots.” The students to whom I was giving were “the will nots.” In the face of work, they stood their ground and proclaimed, “I will not.”

At the heart of this issue is a spiritual void. Educators cannot teach it away, social workers and government institutions cannot program it away, and lawmakers cannot legislate it away. People of faith must engage in honest dialogue about what constitutes real “help” for those who have chosen not to work. This dialogue will certainly require discernment, openness, and compassion. But it will also challenge some of the prevailing attitudes and practices that have often become easy fixes for a real and growing problem. More money is not always the answer for all people and their particular circumstances. This, I realize, is not a politically correct admission; still, it is an honest one that people of faith should embrace for all the right reasons.

If we have been blessed by the virtue of work, we should want others to be blessed similarly–even those who may refuse this blessing. For their refusals may be made in ignorance and from the security of what they have known and experienced. In short, how would they truly know what they are missing if they have never known it? How would their children and grandchildren?

All individuals–working or not–are entitled to our understanding, our compassion and genuine interest. And they are entitled to our help. Certainly, I do not have as many answers as I have questions. The questions that persist and keep me up at night continue to be these: What does it really mean to help? And does help look the same for all?

It is my prayer that those of us who know the virtue of work and its power to bless individuals with genuine satisfaction and self-worth will lead the dialogue in our churches and communities. These conversations will be neither easy nor conclusive, but they will be a necessary beginning.