Catching a Wave
  
 In early summer, the wind pushes through 
 the tops of elms and dapples the road 
 below.
 It whips the pastures into waves,
 the grasses rolling surely 
 upon the shore of summer.
  
 This is high tide,
 and my heart swells.
 What once was dark and brittle
 is now a happy vapor, a lemon trifle,
 a lark.
 Oh, that I might sing the wind’s songs,
 that I might live in the land of lilac
 where prayers are always fragrant,
 always weightless.
  
 I grow old.
 But today, I feel like riding the waves
 of May apple and merrybells.
 I feel as though I may go beyond the breakers--
 beyond the shoal of age--
 into bright danger.
  
 Today, I think I will leave the shallows
 where I have hidden among the rocks.
 Here, as I am swept out of myself,
 I will scatter my 63 years, like shells,
 across the sand.
 
 And then,
 I will catch the closest wave
 and ride hard with the wind. 

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our heats? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? 
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

I stood in front of a class of 26 juniors whose homework had been to read the final six pages of Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Within the opening minutes of the class period, it became painfully obvious that only five of the 26 had actually read the assigned pages. This was not new, not an exceptional day. The majority of my students seldom read what was assigned but rather waited for me to summarize what they should have read. And tragically, this was necessary if we all were to move on to whatever task was at hand that day.

And so I asked (though I had long suspected the answer): What do you consider homework? They responded without thinking: math problems, worksheets, end-of-chapter questions. What if, I posed, your only homework was to read–not to answer questions, not to complete a worksheet–but to read? There were audible chuckles and visible smirks. Finally, one brave soul volunteered that reading would not even appear on the homework radar. I persisted: Really? You wouldn’t consider reading six pages if that was the only homework you were assigned? A resounding no followed. No, they would not consider reading because (it was all too clear) they didn’t consider it as real homework. At least not like a good worksheet or set of even-numbered math problems. In the galaxy of homework, reading was not even a quark or lepton. In most of their eyes, reading held no presence at all.

How could this be? Reading has transported me to historical and geographical worlds. I have looked through the eyes of characters who were so much like me and so very different from me. My world has expanded through reading, so that I was able to look and learn about the far reaches of this earth and beyond, as well as into the smallest, most intimate places and things. For years, I have had a ready-made answer to the question: What would you take if you knew you would be stranded on a desert island? Books! In any form–Audible, Kindle, print! Books, glorious books! For me, and I know for many, reading has been my greatest teacher, my most faithful companion, and the source of great wonder, wisdom, and pleasure. It has been–and continues to be–a sanctuary.

In 1955, author Rudolf Flesch published his ground-breaking and controversial book, Why Johnny Can’t Read–and What You Can Do About It. Flesch claimed that only the U.S. suffered from a remedial reading problem. British kids could read Three Little Pigs, for heaven’s sake! Only American children needed the dreaded remedial help. And this birthed a colossal industry of remediation specialists, curriculum, and materials. This industry continues to flourish, while parents and educators continue to lament the stagnant reading scores.

But let me be clear: my students were not in need of this type of reading remediation. They could read well enough; they simply chose not to read. They argued–convincingly, I must admit–that they didn’t need to read to pass classes. Some boasted that they hadn’t ever read an entire book, and they’d been on the honor roll for years. Most agreed that doing school was largely about showing up and completing paper work (worksheets, quizzes, tests, etc.). As a veteran teacher, I knew that what they were saying was true. I’d seen the honor rolls and the academic achievement awards passed out at end-of-the-year assemblies; students who didn’t read were standing proud and tall as they accepted a host of academic awards. And when some of my colleagues admitted that they had read little in college (some claimed to have never even bought the required books), I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Like many Americans, my students and some of my colleagues were not illiterate but alliterate: non-readers by choice.

Granted, there are–and always have been–happy, successful people who don’t read. They raise families, contribute meaningfully to their communities, and thrive. What I have seen in my lifetime and throughout my educational career, however, is that the percentage of non-readers is growing. Whereas once there may have been relative balance between readers and non-readers, the scales appear to be tipping heavily towards those who choose not to read. Some argue that this is due to the easy access of technology, while others contend that this is symptomatic of a society that values quicker, less rigorous rewards. Reading simply takes too much time and requires too much brain power. And reading, the old-fashioned print kind of reading, prohibits serious multi-tasking. I can testify to this, for I once walked into a parked car as I attempted to read and walk from the faculty lot into the school. I fear for many, reading is passé .

Like Annie Dillard, I read in the hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed. I read to live, and in the words of the Apostle Paul, to have life more abundantly. Granted, although I’ve spent a lifetime reading literature, I also read for information. Most of what I have learned about history, philosophy, theology, and science, I have learned through reading. The information imparted from the written words of the greatest historians, philosophers, theologians, and scientists has also brought me abundant life. In The Living, Dillard writes: She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. That’s me. I read to fill up and live, to take in each word as one would breathe air.

One has to choose to fill up, though. And herein lies the painful reality of reading–or non-reading–today. I applaud those who work tirelessly and passionately to intervene early, so that more children have the phonemic tools required to become successful readers. And I commend those who, like me, commit to teaching students how to read, that is how to comprehend, the texts of our disciplines. All of this is good and necessary. But it’s not enough.

Recently, I read the Facebook post of a friend and colleague’s daughter. She is completing a long-term substitute post, and her fifth-grade class had just finished Wilson Rawls’ classic young adult novel, Where the Red Fern Grows. In her post, she writes that she and the entire class were moved to tears. At the end of the novel, Rawls writes:

After the last shovel of dirt was patted in place, I sat down and let my mind drift back through the years. I thought of the old K. C. Baking Powder can, and the first time I saw my pups in the box at the depot. I thought of the fifty dollars, the nickels and dimes, and the fishermen and blackberry patches.

I looked at his grave and, with tears in my eyes, I voiced these words: “You were worth it, old friend, and a thousand times over.“

Is it any wonder that nearly 60 years later, Rawls continues to bring his readers to tears, to fill them with feelings and words they will never forget? What happens to these tender 10-11-year olds who cry not only because they grieve the loss of the coon hounds, Old Dan and Little Ann, but who grieve the ending of the world they have entered, the characters they have known as friends, and the story that has stopped? It’s clear that something happens, for as they move more solidly into adolescence, more choose not to read.

Later, some will reminisce about this book as the last–and only–book they read. They will recall it fondly and even recommend it to others. But many will move beyond it, as if it were the threshold into adulthood, a rite of passage. As they move forward, many will choose not to read. When adults and teachers press them, they will argue that they can read–if they choose–but they prefer not to read. When experts insist that finding the just-right book will jump-start the love they once had for reading, many students will smile and fake-read for countless, precious instructional hours. And these same experts often look on, believing that their methods have hit pay dirt.

The real reading crisis today is one of will—not skill. And this is a deeper, more potentially damaging crisis. For it pervades school in many forms, not just reading. More and more students are simply refusing to do anything but physically show up and inhabit a seat. They come to class with no notebook, pencil or pen. Their books remain in their lockers (or on the back seat of their vehicles) for entire school years. These students aren’t particularly disruptive and aren’t regular visitors to the principal’s office. They just take up space, waiting for the day they will legally no longer have to take up space.

We may be tempted to regard this as yet another educational crisis, one that will undoubtedly birth a new iteration of specialists. And we wouldn’t be wrong: this is an educational crisis. But it is so much more than this. Truly, this is a social, cultural, and political crisis. This is a crisis that we all must own. Its proportions are far too great for educators alone to fix. For students who choose not to read or to do school sometimes choose not to vote, not to work, not to parent, and not to commit to anything that doesn’t yield quick, short-term rewards.

Thankfully, there will always be those who champion reading and those who devote their lives to creating the conditions and providing the skills for others to become readers. And there will be those writers who take Dillard’s advice to heart:

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality? 
―The Writing Life

What if we were to read as if we were dying, to daily consume the greatest words written? What if we were to fill up with words as if we were terminal patients, enraged by triviality? Clearly, this would be a world-changer. But only if we first choose to read. Like anything, this type of reading begins with a choice.

Certainly that are those who, at one time or another, having chosen not to read turn again to reading. My greatest fear, however, is that when–and if–this desire returns, many will be so out-of-shape to read that any attempts will leave them discouraged and convinced, once again, that reading is just too much work. No one could convince me to run a 400 meters today. Once, I was in shape enough to win a state championship, but today? This would literally be the death of me. Even if I had the great desire to return to competitive running, I would understand that this would require years of re-conditioning and training. I couldn’t simply take the track and run well. But I fear that many naively assume that they can pick up serious reading at any time. Not without serious conditioning and time, I’m afraid.

I realize that there are those who will argue that there are other legitimate ways to fill up with wise, inspirational words. One can listen to others read, and one can view others perform. Still, even in this age of technological alternatives, there is a case to be made for reading. Like Dillard, I feel the real desire for the possibility of meaningfulness. I want to feel the majesty and power of life’s deepest mysteries. And much of this comes from the process of wrestling with printed words, from holding a book in one’s hands, from dog-earring pages and writing in margins, and from returning again and again to passages that perplex, inspire, and challenge us.

I don’t believe that all is lost on the reading front. I do believe, however, that the reading challenges we face today will require the efforts of a virtual village. This is a job much too big and much too important for teachers alone. Oh, teachers have done and will continue to do much more than their share. But if we are to resurrect reading for more than a few willing students, if we are to right the imbalance of non-readers to readers, and–most importantly–if we are to address the pervasive problem of individuals who choose not to fully participate in school or life, this will take a village.

 
 Wild Honeysuckle
  
 In mid-May, the wild honeysuckle
 is the first debutante of the season.
 While others work the room
 with sugared charm,
 here is a tart of the finest sort.
  
 Her gown is a slender white flute
 under which there is no petticoat.
 And when she twirls,
 its fragrant folds cleave the air.
  
 Soon, jasmine and gardenia
 will push their cloying blooms sunward
 and prevail.
  
 But for now, the honeysuckle flirts
 with reckless tang,
 sashaying among the seedlings.

For my Mom, the woman I want to be when I grow up

Don’t get your blood in a bubble!

At my age, I’ll take a bubble over a clot any day. Still, my mom issued this odd-sounding warning as sage advice. As I look back over my life, I would be hard-pressed to count many situations that were genuinely worthy of blood-bubbling. Oh, at the time I believed there were, as I furiously contemplated the possible–but highly improbably–consequences of whatever set my heart pounding. Truthfully, however, when calmer minds (like hers) prevailed, these were just hurdles on the track of life. Even if you had to step over them, dragging one reluctant foot at a time, you would see how puny they were once you were on the other side. When I didn’t make cheerleader, when I had relationship problems, when my colicky babies screamed for hours, when I faced a mountainous stack of student research papers, and when I sobbed as my adult children left for new lives and homes, I repeated these words until I believed them. Don’t get your blood in a bubble, don’t get your blood in a bubble. . .

And when something or someone angered you? You could stoke the fires of your life blood until you stood over a boiling cauldron of outrage. Or you take Marcia Welch’s wisdom to heart: you could turn down the heat until a lukewarm reason took over, blessedly tempering all you’d planned to say and do. Although I know my mom got angry, I never saw her fly into an outrage. Her blood percolated at a steady room temperature and refused to bubble.

Own it!

I remember the day I came home from college to find my kindergarten brother heading out the door for school. But wait! I said to my mom. He still has his Spock ears on–you’re not really going to let him wear those to school, are you? My mom smiled and shrugged. I persisted. Really? They’re green cardboard ears attached with rubber bands! But I momentarily forgot who this woman was. This was the woman who wore an infamous pair of homemade earrings to a faculty wives’ gathering. As a gift, my sister had attached a string of paper clips to two rubber bands to create a stylish pair of dangly earrings. As my mom looped each rubber band over her ear and stood back to admire herself in the bathroom mirror, she proudly owned the look. Just as my brother did as he zipped his jacket, adjusted his ears, and stepped out to face the day with his best Spock face.

When my younger sister wanted a floor length-purple cape instead of a coat, my mom made her one. I can only imagine the feat it was for my sister to stuff yards and yards of purple fabric into her school cubby at Park Elementary School, but such is the price of style! With confidence, she owned the look, for she had learned from the master. As did I. I still recall the day when, on a Target run, my toddler son reached into the cart, grabbed a bedazzled headband I’d picked up for his sister, and wore it atop his afro with unabashed pride as we tooled through the aisles. I remember thinking, you come from a long line of homemade earrings, Spock ears, and cape wearers. Own it, buddy!

This, too, shall pass

Although my sisters and I desperately wanted a horse, we never got one. Living in a residential area with a small yard ruled this out. Still, over the years, we had a steady stream of smaller pets–many reptilian and amphibian, and some from the rodent family. At the end of the school year when we brought home three-legged salamanders from my granddad’s biology classroom (they were the victims of regeneration experiments), my mom removed her collection of milk glass from the dining room shelf to make room for our terrarium. Later, when we added a lizard and attempted to add a garter snake (it escaped when my sister tripped in the back yard, and the lid of the cardboard box flew into the bushes), I’m sure that my mom sighed and thought this, too, shall pass.

Seasons of amphibians and reptiles did pass and gave way to new seasons of hamsters and gerbils, sun fish, and tadpoles. Actually one summer day, after a few hours of diligent hunting at the park, we brought home a pickle jar of what we believed were tadpoles. When my dad announced that they were not tadpoles but leeches, my mom declared that the season for swimming things had passed., and back to the park they went. Following my mom’s lead, I’ve created terrariums for the snails my grandchildren and I have collected from the yard, brought home a gerbil and two parakeets, raised five rabbits and a slug of kittens, and helped to rescue at least a hundred minnows as they were being washed from our pond and sent to their deaths in my daughter’s yard. Seasons of snails, gerbils, rabbits, and minnows may pass, but the summer is young. (And just yesterday at the pond, I spotted a handsome looking bullfrog just begging to be someone’s forever amphibian!)

Home is where the heart is

I love my home which is situated a mere stone’s throw from my daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren’s home. In the winter when the trees have shed their leaves, I can stand at my bedroom window and see the silhouettes of Gracyn and Griffin as they stand by their sliding glass door, look out, and wave across the large ditch which separates our houses.

Still, much of my heart resides at 611 West 27th Street in Kearney, Nebraska. It remains seated there around the large oval dining room table, flanked by my sisters and brother, my mom and dad. Here, it celebrated birthdays, graduations, and holidays. Here, it learned the art of listening and loving. After years of living in other homes, here, it continues to find refuge in the special place my mother has made for us.

When I recently discovered that the renowned poet, Mary Oliver, stayed at our family home years ago when she was visiting and reading at the University of Nebraska Kearney, that she slept in the very bed that I sleep in when I visit my mom, I was momentarily aghast. Mary Oliver, the Mary Oliver, in our home? But then I considered the decades of visitors whom my mom has welcomed. She may not have originated the saying mi casa es tu casa, but she gives it true meaning.

My son attended college at UNK for two years and used our house on West 27th Street as home base. When my mom would ask him how many of his football player friends would be coming over for dinner, and he would say I think 6–or maybe 8, she would simply respond with I’ll make cake AND pie. And when the group was sated, and many ended up sleeping on the floor in front of our family television, it seemed all too natural. This was home. This is home. For any and all of us.

Over my lifetime, I’ve had so many opportunities to learn from books and experts in all sorts of things. The truest, the most valuable lessons, however, continue to be those I’ve learned from my mom. So Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. You really are the woman I want to be when I grow up.

Love, Shannon

for Griffin, our minnow rescuer

It’s a hard world for little things. 
― Davis Grubb, American novelist

Last week, the water level in our pond had risen from recent rains, and the overflow traveled through a culvert under the pond dam into my grandson’s yard. There it built up steam, cascading through the grass, down the hill, and into the cattails in a large ditch near the highway. Wearing rubber boots, Griffin traced the water’s path, occasionally stomping in the water-sodden grass. Until he crouched, more closely inspected the small stream and announced, “Hey, there are minnows in the grass! They won’t live without water! We can save them!”

Sure enough, hundreds of minnows had been–and were currently being–deposited into the grass along the small stream. Some were furiously flopping, their silvery blue bellies flashing in the sun. Some had already met their Maker, and some were traveling down the center of the stream towards the ditch. With a plastic cup to scoop and a Folger’s coffee can to transfer the living back to the pond, Griffin got to work. Soon, we were all crouching to locate live minnows for rescue. No one had the heart to tell him that those he rescued and returned to the pond would undoubtedly become lunch for the growing school of bass that lived there. And certainly, no one had the heart to suggest that saving a handful of minnows was a futile endeavor, a small and negligible act. In the whole scheme of things, rescuing five coffee cans of minnows does not a hero make.

And yet, perhaps this is precisely what’s wrong with our world, a world in which the big, larger-than-life acts performed by big, larger-than-life folk are much more likely to be commended. Those of us in the peanut galleries have grown to expect that our small contributions may be necessary but are unlikely to garner attention. Small acts are literal minnows who take refuge in aquatic plants, while prize-winning tuna and marlin flaunt their stuff before charter boats of trophy-seekers. Like my grandson, Griffin, you must have eyes to spot small things and a heart to do small acts, even if others do not.

Recently, I watched a feature film, Alone in Berlin, that received mixed critical reviews and sadly, that was not a box office hit. This film portrayed the true story of a German working class couple, Otto and Elise Hampel during Hitler’s regime. In 1947, their story was first made public in Hans Fallada’s fictional account, Every Man Dies Alone. The fact that I’d never heard of this couple or their story is testament to David Grubb’s claim that it’s a hard world for small things.

After learning of the death of Elise’s brother (in the novel and film versions, it is Otto and Elise’s son) who had been conscripted to Hitler’s military service, the couple committed to passively resisting Hitler and Nazism one postcard at a time. From 1940-1942, the Hampels wrote and distributed over 200 postcards on which they wrote passionate messages that urged their fellow Germans to resist and renounce Hitler, to refuse to cooperate with or to donate money to the Nazis, and to refuse military service. Placing these postcards in public places around Berlin, they hoped to incite others to condemn the Third Reich. These were small, individual acts committed by two ordinary people, and yet they were capital offenses, punishable by death. After two years of trying to identify and capture the infamous postcard authors, the Gestapo finally caught them. They were accused and convicted of preparing for high treason and were guillotined in the Plötzensee Prison on April 8, 1942.

I sat in silence after watching Alone in Berlin. I considered how for two years, two of the most unlikely heroes dedicated their ordinary lives to small, but heroic acts. Booker T. Washington, African American author and educator, wrote:

The older I get, the more I’m conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made of tiny matters, isn’t it?

A universal postcard, 5.8 by 4.1 inches, is indeed, a tiny little thing. But the Hampel’s distribution of over 200 cards was no tiny matter. When I consider their story, perhaps what moves me most is the Hampel’s wholehearted commitment to what they could do. They might have justified doing nothing, for they were simply two working class individuals with no real credentials or power. After all, what could an ordinary couple really do to resist the political and military leviathan that had become the Third Reich?

American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote:

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.

It seems that the Hampels were not troubled with great ambitions. They embraced their simple tools of resistance. Each handwritten postcard enraged the Gestapo. They were so successful in their small things, that they escaped detection and continued their resistance for two years.

I would do well to take a lesson from the Hampels and from my grandson, Griffin. Truthfully, I have often found myself troubled with great ambitions that ultimately paralyzed me from taking any action at all. I have languished in self-pity and self-consciousness, believing that I was powerless to make a significant contribution or to effect change. I often convinced myself of my smallness, a condition that I believed justified my inaction. Sadly, if I’d only put pen to postcard or picked up my coffee can and plastic cup, I might have done my part. And doing our individual parts, small as they may be, is infinitely important.

In the Talmud, the Jewish book of law, we read:

Whoever destroys a soul [of Israel], it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life of Israel, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.

This is the line that Steven Spielberg chose to feature in the closing scene of his film, Schindler’s List. In this scene as the war ends, Oskar Schindler has tearfully lamented that he couldn’t have saved more Jewish lives. A group of Jews he had saved presented him with a gold ring on which was inscribed: whoever saves one life saves the world entire.

There are some small acts that become big, public ones when they are reported, written into books, or featured in films. But so many–so very many–quietly live in the lives of ordinary people like you and me. And thank God that they do. For publicized or not, they matter deeply.

And so the next time that Griffin wants to save the minnows, we’ll rescue as many as we can until the sun goes down, and we can no longer see to scoop. We’ll set about saving one minnow life at a time and, by doing so, save the world of minnows entire. I understand how well these small acts define who Griffin is and who he will grow up to be. And, hard as the world may be for doers of such small things, I hope to be his biggest cheerleader and his faithful minnow-rescue sidekick.

Hampel postcard

April

The absence that has wintered here
sheds its woolen coat.
And here in the hollow of its shoulder,
spring pins a bouquet of dandelion
and sun. 

I lean in
to smell the top notes of cut grass
and joy.

I run my fingers down spring’s arms
where hopeful buds preen and pink,
eager to open.

I place my palm upon its heart
and feel the wings of thrush and finch
thrum expectantly.

Oh, lie with me in fields of violets,
our purple mouths drinking in
this day!

For all those who have knelt in Gethsemane and soaked the earth with tears

For most of us the prayer in Gethsemane is the only model. Removing mountains can wait. C. S. Lewis

I often forget that Gethsemane is a garden. For gardens are enchanting spots with flowers, manicured rows of vegetables, and lovingly weeded berry patches. Gardens—at least the good ones—shout life and abundance. They offer Crayola signature crayon names like periwinkle, marigold, fushia, rose, olive,  blueberry, carnation pink, and pea green. They enchant us, encourage us, and feed us.

Gethsemane was such a place, a quiet grove of olive trees that offered a respite from the world, a place to pray and recharge. But for all its quiet beauty, the night that Christ brought his disciples there to pray, it was less garden than wasteland. I can recall the first time I saw Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ.  The scene in Gethsemane still haunts me. Head to the ground, blood beading on his forehead, Jim Caviezel, who played Christ, prayed. His arms outstretched, his body prostrate, he prayed. His was an agonizing prayer: Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done. In Gibson’s film, here he wrestles with evil, battling the very human temptation to flee and live, to take his own cup into his own hands.

Gethsemane is the dark night of the soul, the valley of the shadow of death. When you have reached the end of your rope, when the beautiful garden of your life turns black, Gethsemane beckons you. German theologian and Holocaust victim, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

When a man really gives up trying to make something out of himself—a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called clerical somebody), a righteous or unrighteous man, . . . and throws himself into the arms of God. . . then he wakes with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith, that is metanoia and it is thus that he becomes a man and Christian.

Gethsemane is just this: throwing yourself into the arms of God. Stripped of any pretense of trying to make something of yourself, you leap into the abyss of shame and sin and fear. You join the communion of the forlorn. You prostrate yourself and weep, searching for—but not finding—the words to pray. In agony, you ask for your cup to be taken from you. Here, Bonhoeffer claims, is where you find Christ. And he should know. His Gethsemane was a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. There, he threw himself into the arms of a suffering God.

Bonhoeffer’s cup was not taken from him. Two weeks before the Allied soldiers liberated Flossenbürg concentration camp, he died on April 8, 1945. In a letter (July 16, 1944) Bonhoeffer writes:

God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us . . . The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help.

Bonhoeffer understood that only the suffering God can help us as we kneel in our own Gethsemanes. This God holds our hands and our hearts as we weep. When others forsake us, this God remains steadfast in His love.

This God agonized as His son prayed in earnest. C. S. Lewis reminds us:

In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him. It did not.

Like me, like you, Christ soaked the garden ground with tears and called upon His father. He became an intimate friend of suffering—human suffering in all its awful, life-stripping forms. And in spite of his repeated prayers, the cup did not pass. How can we measure the love of a God who willingly submits to the most human agony? Why do we feel alone in our suffering when we know that our Gethsemane is the very garden that Christ visited? And when we fall to the earth, when the night threatens to consume us, how could we forget that He kneels beside us?

As a young woman, I was well acquainted with despair, and I often forgot that Christ knelt beside me. I remember nights during which I teetered at the edge of an abyss so deep and so dark that all I could do was to literally hang on by my finger nails. I remember how adrenaline coursed through me, urging me to act, to do something—anything—to keep the blackness at bay. In desperation, I turned to others to convince me that these days would pass. I buckled down and muscled my way through fear and despair by working harder and longer. In misguided pride, I recall thinking that certainly suffering was a solitary venture for hardworking, thinking people like me, wasn’t it? Undoubtedly, God had enough work to do, comforting those who really needed it. He’d given me the resources I needed to take care of my own suffering. I just had to put them to good use.

How painfully arrogant I was in those days! And how incredibly ignorant to forget Christ’s prayer, which is—as C. S. Lewis argues—the only model.  No, I squared my shoulders, gritted my teeth, and set to work. Single handedly, I would move the mountains of my despair. Bulldozing my way through dark days, I would be both contractor and worker, fixing my eyes and heart on the job–not on God. And when despair threatened to undo me, I would simply make a better plan. I owned my cup of suffering, and I would not ask God to take it from me.

For years, my own propensity for self-help made my Gethsemane a private hell. What I didn’t understand, and only later came to realize, was that Gethsemane could also be a life-giving sanctuary. For in Gethsemane, I had only to fall into the arms of God, who waited patiently there to suffer with me. In this sanctuary, I could find the well trodden path to redemptive suffering.  Here, I could look over the edge into the abyss of my own fear and despair and not look away. I could see it for what it is and, more importantly, for what it might be. I could take heart, knowing that God suffers with me, and that others, too, suffer with me and I with them. In community, suffering loses much of its power. And the power that remains is largely redemptive. From the tear-soaked earth, I could rise with others in the assurance of God’s saving, suffering love.

Perhaps the most important thing that I had forgotten in my early years was that Gethsemane gives way to Easter. Christian author Max Lucado writes:

The Bible is the story of two gardens: Eden and Gethsemane. In the first Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. In the first, God sought Adam. In the second, Jesus sought God. In Eden, Adam hid from God. In Gethsemane, Jesus emerged from the tomb. In Eden, Satan led Adam to a tree that led to his death. In Gethsemane, Jesus went to a tree that led to our life.

In Gethsemane, Christ took a stand, suffered, died, rose, and brought us new life. As I think of my own suffering and that of my fellow humans, I see how our Gethsemanes might offer redemption if—and when—we follow Christ’s model. Our garden stories are surely ones of darkness, but they may also be sanctuaries of beauty and blessing. Jesus offers us the way to restore beautiful gardens from our sorrow-soaked patches of earth. His is the model of redemptive suffering. Moving mountains can most certainly wait.

1 Peter 2: 19-21

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.  For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

You can have no influence over those for whom you have undying contempt. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Recently, I had the privilege to speak to a group of college students who were being honored for their academic achievements. When I began my banquet address by telling them that I wanted to speak about motive attribution asymmetry, you can imagine the looks on their faces. Say, what? Motive what?

A big term, a big mouthful. Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard this term and would have responded with similar skepticism. And then I read an article in The New York Times by Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute and a public policy scholar. In “Our Culture of Contempt,” Brooks claims that Americans are suffering from motive attribution asymmetry, the assumption that your ideology is driven by love, while your opponents’ is driven by hate.

Brooks cites a 2014 study in which researchers discovered that the average Republican and Democrat suffer from a level of motive attribution asymmetry comparable to that of Palestinians and Israelis. In a nation more divided than at any time since the Civil War, this discovery shouldn’t surprise us.

Years ago, when I was teaching a high school English class, a group of juniors and I were discussing potential issues for their upcoming argumentative essays. In the discussion that ensued, two girls engaged in a passionate debate over one of the issues for the better part of the class period. Their classmates looked on, sorely amazed at the intensity of their debate. When the bell rang, one of the girls hung back, waiting for her peers to exit. Then she pulled me aside and, in hushed tones said, Mrs. Vesely, I don’t think we should talk about things like this again, do you? She didn’t wait for my response. Honestly, I don’t think she expected or wanted one.

She had a point: this had been uncomfortable. Friends disagreed. Friends raised their voices in rebuttal. Friends left the room in righteous indignation. And this, she argued, was not good. Her conclusion was that we shouldn’t have discussions like this in the future.

Like the conclusion my student reached, Brooks claims it is tempting to argue that we should disagree less. But this is wrong, he says. We should seek ways to disagree better. This was the message I brought to my high school class on the day following the great debate. I told them that we should learn how to argue with conviction—but conviction tempered with empathy and understanding for those who held views contrary to our own. We should learn to disagree better.

When we disagree badly, Brooks believes that the tragic consequence of this is contempt. In the words of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, contempt is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another. Incivility and intolerance are bad, Brooks argues, but contempt is the real cancer. If you are convicted that your opponents are worthless, you believe you have the moral high-ground. And from this moral high-ground, your contempt often makes compromise and persuasion nearly impossible. Adding insult to injury, the by-product of your contempt is often hate-speech that is intended to rally your own troops and to reinforce the belief that while you motivated by love, your opponents are motivated solely by hate. I agree with Brooks when he writes that no one has ever been hated into agreement. 

I don’t imagine that there is a single individual who has not been cast as an opponent driven by hate at some point in his or her life. Several years ago, I was verbally accosted—via an hour-long telephone call—for a position on tolerance I had presented to a group of teachers. In my presentation, I argued for a better definition of tolerance, one that countered the definition that had become culturally popular. I proposed that genuine tolerance meant that we respectfully acknowledge and consider—not necessarily accept—views that were contrary to our own. I argued that we couldn’t expect our students to accept opposing views, for these students came from diverse cultural, political, socioeconomic, and spiritual backgrounds. To expect them to accept opposing views would be asking them to abandon their own. We could—and should—however, expect our students to honestly listen to and consider such opposing views and to treat those who held them with respect.

The gentleman who called me disagreed. In no uncertain terms, he told me that teachers must teach tolerance, which means acceptance. After nearly an hour, he concluded with demands that I retract my definition of tolerance, and then he hung up. Stunned, I sat in my office replaying the phone call. I realized that there was never any point at which I was being heard. Before he even picked up the phone, he had already determined that I was a person driven solely by hate. This was motive attribution asymmetry at it best—or worst. 

And this was contempt, up close and personal. The initial contempt he dished out was ideological, but this escalated into contempt that was acutely personal. Samuel Johnson writes,

Contempt is a kind of gangrene which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees.

I’d be the first to admit that all too often, contempt feels pretty darn good. To be contemptuous of another person, group, or ideology seats you squarely in the good guy corner. You and your people think, speak, and act in love. Your enemies can be clear targets for contempt because they think, speak, and act in hate. It’s often easier to rest in the moral indignation of contempt for others. It’s an emotionally and morally heady feeling to be in the right, when others are in the wrong. And when contempt seizes one part of you, like cancer, it can corrupt all the rest.

I also like to win arguments. I like the way that a strong rebuttal makes my nerve endings quiver and my blood thicken. I love the scenes in legal films when a passionate prosecutor or defense attorney makes such a compelling argument that the jury has nothing to do but accept it. Trial over, justice served. But I admit that my own compulsion for argument has often come with a price. The fact that this price has been contempt is not one that I’m proud of. I’ve gone for the kill, so to speak, in arguments with ideological opponents. And momentarily, it felt remarkable. In bed at night, however, it often felt petty and wrong.

Writing about motive attribution asymmetry in a 2014 article in The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman claims that you don’t need to like your opponents, and you certainly don’t have to agree with their positions, in order to look at them the way you’d like them to look at you. If you were to consider your opponents as those who are also driven by love—albeit love for different ideas and people—this would make the potential for compromise and genuine persuasion more likely. It would also make it more likely that you may have to consider the merit of their causes, for people driven by love are generally those with worthy causes.

As I concluded my banquet address, I challenged the college students to lead us towards a better way: better ways of disagreeing, better consideration of our opponents and their motives, and better, less contemptuous living. This is a personal challenge for me, as well. It goes without saying that our nation could do without the level and type of contempt we’re experiencing now. American journalist H. L. Menken writes that the only cure for contempt is counter-contempt. And as with so many things, counter-contempt begins first in the lives of single individuals. Like me and you.  

Here’s the thing about earnestness. Our culture discounts it; but the people are yearning for it. Jeffrey Zaslow, author and columnist for The Wall Street Journal

I’m sure that earnest is not a household word for most of us. It’s not the kind of word you casually drop into conversations or dust off for those times when you seek to impress. Earnest seems like it might live in the lexicon of some fussy, old-fashioned matron who sits stolidly on her divan contemplating the state of the world. A matron who might brandish such a word as she lectures her nieces and nephews on the virtue of character. Above all, live your lives earnestly, she might say as she pours tea from her grandmother’s china teapot.

If you look up the definition of earnest, you will find something like this: characterized by or proceeding from an intense and serious state of mind; grave or important. Herein lies the problem. Proceeding from an intense and serious state of mind is not really fashionable today. It’s fashionable to be cool, to act as though you don’t really care, to perfect a respectable state of aloofness. It’s stylish to refrain from excessive displays of emotion, particularly joy and wonder. It’s très chic to live in a world of intense irony.

American novelist Lauren Groff writes:

I feel like in American fiction we’re moving out of a period of intense irony, and I’ve very glad about that. I feel like irony is fine for its own sake but it shouldn’t be the sole reason to write a book. It has been an ironic world view: that the best way I can describe it. I’m a fan of earnestness. I feel like there is a new wave of earnestness and I’d be happy if I’m some small part of that.

I’d like to write Ms. Groff and tell her that I, too, am a fan of earnestness. Actually, I’m a card-carrying member of the earnestness fan club. I’ve long tired of the ironic world view which flattens all that is serious and intense, all that purports to feel.

Writers Matt Ashby and Brendon Carol argue that Lazy cynicism has replaced thoughtful conviction as the mark of an educated worldview. They lament that fact that this cynicism has permeated our culture and has influenced contemporary literature and art through post-modernism. Jeffrey Laslow agrees that our culture discounts earnestness, but he claims that the people are yearning for it.

I’m yearning for it. Which is why I have developed a keen eye and ear for it. And I didn’t have to look far to find a lovely example. The photo above of my grandson, Griffin, is a typical photo. When asked to smile for the camera, he routinely looks away or looks directly into the camera with serious intensity. Griff is an earnest kid. I’ve watched him in his kindergarten classroom as he goes about his business. What some may perceive as indifference or reluctance to engage is really a serious intensity that often prompts him to watch from the edge of the rug. While others are eager to share, he frequently looks on, considering how he will proceed. Earnestness in a five-year old is unexpected and often misunderstood. In a classroom of kids who have clearly learned to do school, Griff’s earnestness distinguishes him, and I’d like him to know that there are those who value its virtue.

Novelist Gillian Flynn writes: Ironic people always dissolve when confronted with earnestness, it’s their kryptonite. As a fan of earnestness, I can attest that I have seen it bring ironic people to their proverbial knees. In a graduate poetry class, my classmates and I were asked to bring a poem we admired and be prepared to share it with the class. The first student to share read a poem I will never forget: Outside my window, a sparrow chirps. That was it. Short and sweet. And what? When asked to comment on his choice, the student ventured that it was so short that it was deep, wasn’t it? Here was the ironic worldview at its best–or worst. There was really nothing in this poem, and therefore it was deep? When my father, the professor, asked him earnestly how the poem was deep, it was this confrontation that dissolved him. There was nothing much in this poem, and the emperor had no clothes. For the remainder of the class, he sat silently as others read poems that were unabashedly earnest.

Poet, playwright, and religious writer, English woman Hannah Moore writes: Prayer is no eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech but earnestness of soul. As one who has felt herself prayer-disabled for years, I, too, have come to know prayer as earnestness and not necessarily eloquence. Earnestness cuts to the chase, to the heart. It doesn’t bother with figures of speech or fancy words. It is the language of God’s heart, and it is with this serious intensity that we pour out our fears, our sins, and deepest longings.

I say let’s dust off our old-fashioned notions of earnestness. Let’s make it fashionable and preferred. Let’s speak, act, and pray in earnest. And if we do, perhaps we can send the ironic worldview packing.

From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew; that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended.
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

I remember the first time I read Randall Jarrell’s poem, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.” I was struck with the fact that the ball turret which hung underneath a WWII B-17 was an awful reminder that people are material things, easily torn, not easily mended. The gunner, by necessity a short and small man, crouched in the fetal position inside a retractable, spherical glass and metal bubble equipped with two fifty caliber machine guns that pivoted 360 degrees, so that he might defend the vulnerable belly of the B-17. An incredibly small sphere, the ball turret made it impossible for gunners to wear full parachutes. As the gunners hung below the plane, they frequently had to endure temperatures that dropped to 50 below zero. In spite of their heated and insulated flight suit (which often came unplugged and left the gunner to make his own heat), many gunners suffered frost bite in their extremities and faces. The mortality rate for B-17 crews was a staggering 30%, but for ball turret gunners, an agonizing 60%. Ball turret gunners submitted themselves to a potentially deadly vulnerability, one from which both man and machine were all too easily torn. Still, we marveled at and even encouraged such vulnerability as heroic.

There are those who may regard vulnerability as a cross to bear, something to endure if they are to mature, overcome, and triumph. Like ball turret gunners, they may cautiously lower themselves into glass spheres from which they become wholly visible to those who are eager to attack the soft underbelly of their brokenness. They may even argue that vulnerability is a season (singular) to get through–a kind of rite of passage. Show the world who you really are. Embrace the initiation. Spend three days and nights in the wilderness with only a compass and canteen, and earn your life badge.

But is vulnerability really a just stage you pass through, just another life badge that you earn? Not so, according to author Madeline L’Engle who writes: When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability… To be alive is to be vulnerable. If vulnerability is a season (singular), it is a very long one that spans a lifetime. Accepting vulnerability, as L’Engle suggests, is the business of children and adults alike. It is an element of the human condition. And it comes with a guarantee of an infinite number of life badges to be earned.

A season of vulnerability, however, is not only a public airing of one’s victimhood (e.g. the Olympic backstories of athletes who choose to compete in the midst of, or just after, personal loss or the candid confessions of reality talk show guests who have survived incredible pain.) This kind of vulnerability has unfortunately grown into no vulnerability at all. It’s become standard fare–expected and even sought after–as if this status alone might gain one entry into a preferred and protected class. No doubt, there are occasions during which this may be authentic vulnerability, but too often it takes a more plastic, cultivated form. And thus, it may be boutique vulnerability at best.

The real stuff is the stuff of life. Writer and research professor Brene Brown continues to champion the role of vulnerability in our lives. In her best-selling book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, she writes:

Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.

She is not the first, nor will she be the last, to embrace authentic vulnerability as the path to better life and love. Poet Theodore Roethke claims that Love is not love until love’s vulnerable. Christian writer and theologian C. S. Lewis writes that To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal . He continues by warning that you can lock love up, and it will not break. It will, however, become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. Researchers, poets, and theologians seem to agree that vulnerability is, indeed, the birthplace and best incubator for love.

In his book Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, English poet David Whyte writes:

The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.

And if we were to truly inhabit our vulnerability, to walk fully through its door, what would that look like? Certainly, being transparent about personal loss can be cathartic and necessary. We live in a fallen world, and the consequences of this are apparent in its generous citizens of loss. The fact that these consequences don’t prevent the work of generous citizens of comfort is nothing short of a miracle.

But what about those who dance around the edges of vulnerability, who risk revealing other things? While it may be socially acceptable to comfort and accept our brothers and sisters who share their losses, it is not so kosher to comfort and accept others who struggle with anger, shame, guilt, doubt, pride, judgment and fear. We tend to tell these individuals–directly or indirectly–to keep these things to themselves or to share them only with licensed professionals. Rather than risk authenticity, we often counsel deceit. Undoubtedly, you could benefit from opening up about your anger or shame or fear, but this vulnerability will just alienate and/or condemn you. Better you just keep this to yourself. This is the uglier side of vulnerability: that for some, vulnerability should not be a legitimate choice.

American psychiatrist M. Scott Peck writes:

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.

There can be no community without vulnerability. This, I agree, can be the redeeming power of vulnerability. If we invite real vulnerability–warts and all–into our relationships, we have the potential to build real community, the kind which takes shape as we embrace our common, messy and occasionally ugly humanity. Clearly, there is much risk involved as we lower ourselves, like ball turret gunners, into glass spheres which will expose us as merely human, easily torn and often not easily mended. But, together, I think we might inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss. And this generosity might just save us.