for Griffin, vicarious-living extraordinaire

Vicarious: experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person 

Each afternoon when Griffin gets home from preschool, he grabs his chaps, rodeo vest, spurs and cowboy hat and transforms from Iowa boy to Lane Frost. Lately, he’s even taken to wearing one glove on the hand he uses to hold the bull rope. This is a cool addition, I must admit, and has further authenticated his look. He already wears boots with any and every outfit. Jeans with boots, sweat pants with boots, shorts with boots–hey, even underwear with boots. Boots make the man, you know.

Griff has been living vicariously through Lane Frost (via the movie 8 Seconds) for the better part of a year. If they gave a lifetime achievement award for the one who has watched the most minutes of 8 Seconds, he would win hands down. But he doesn’t just watch the movie; he lives the movie. As Lane Frost is bounced, jerked, and ultimately thrown from the backs of various bulls, Griffin flails himself dramatically from his imaginary bull to the floor or ground. And then–and this is an extremely pregnant pause–he waits for one of us to say, “Lane, are you alright?”

He dusts the imaginary arena dust from his chaps, gives the traditional Lane Frost two-handed wave to the crowd, and says, “Yeah, I’m alright.” And then he repeats the entire scene again. And again and again. . .

If I were to bet today, I’d bet that Griffin will never see the back of a real bull. He talks a mean game and certainly has the rodeo garb to look the part, but in his words, “I’m afraid of getting stung” (his word for gored). Still, the tenacity of his vicarious bull-riding experiences moves me.

Author and humorist David Rakoff claims that there is nothing more cleansing or reassuring as a vicarious sadness. As a child, when the first notes of the television program Lassie filled our living room, I teared up. I loved Lassie, the beloved collie, Timmy, Ruth and Paul Martin, Doc Weaver, and Ranger Bob. And through the poignancy and sadness of each episode (which was resolved in the final moments, of course), I cried those cleansing tears of one who felt herself a genuine member of the Martin family. For those precious minutes of each weekly episode, I was emotionally transported into the Martins’ lives. And I loved it.

Canadian American businessman and engineer Elon Musk writes:

I think life on Earth must be about more than just solving problems. . . It’s got to be something inspiring, even if it is vicarious.

I’m all for inspiration through vicarious living. When I returned home from breaks during college, I was once again enveloped in an inspiring story that starred larger-than-life characters. The author and director? My brother, Chad. There was the Gilligan’s Island saga, starring Chad as Gilligan (naturally), my father as the Skipper, my mom as Lovey, and two of my sisters as Mary Ann and Ginger. Because there were no more “girl parts” for me, I was relegated as the Professor (I also was assigned the part of Sulu in the Star Trek days; I never scored a female role.) I watched my brother live vicariously through a host of characters, often dressing the part. One of my personal favorite roles was when he was Dr. David Banner/the Incredible Hulk. He wore a button-down shirt which he would quickly remove to reveal a T-shirt my mother had artfully ripped for him to simulate the effects of bursting chest muscles. This was vicarious living at its finest, and even with bit parts, I was blessed to be a part of it.

There may be a darker side to vicarious experience. Steven Pinker, a popular science author, writes:

We can make fun of hockey fans, but someone who enjoys Homer is indulging the same kind of vicarious bloodlust. 

Hockey fights, spectacular car crashes, ski runs gone wrong, Greek battles, Texas Chainsaw-type massacre scenes–there is vicarious bloodlust in these and so many other events. We love to live vicariously through disaster and horror. From the safety of the bleachers or our arm chairs, we gasp, we cover our faces (and peer out from our parted fingers), we shudder and utter the obligatory, “That’s so terrible!” And then, when the moment has passed or a commercial has interrupted the programming, we return to our popcorn and check our text messages. Such is the nature of vicarious bloodlust: these things are truly awful for others but, thankfully, not for us.

In his poem, “Out, out–“, Robert Frost tells the story of a young boy who is cutting wood with a group of men. Just as his sister arrives to call him home for supper, he cuts his hand so badly that the doctor is called to the scene. Frost concludes the poem here:

And consider the ultimate vicarious act. German theologian and Holocaust victim Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

A love that left people alone in their guilt would not have real people as its object. So, in vicarious responsibility for people, and in His love for real human beings, Jesus becomes the one burdened by guilt.

Christ acts with vicarious responsibility for us, taking on our guilt, our sin and sorrow. I might have lived vicariously through Mary in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, but when the film ended and the lights came up, I could begin the transition from Golgotha to my comfortable home in rural Iowa. Not so for Christ whose vicarious responsibility for his children and their sin is, indeed, the consummate vicarious act.

There is much to be said for vicarious experience. As for Griffin’s rodeo alter-ego, I’ll all for it for as long as it lasts. And when he grows weary of Lane Frost, I’m hoping there is another adventure waiting in the wings.

For Gracyn, soon to be 9 years old

The day before St. Patrick’s Day, Gracyn and Griffin came over to make leprechaun traps. We sat on the floor with two cardboard boxes, colored paper, tape, glue, leftover Easter basket grass, jewels (because jewels are always a positive addition to any project!), pom poms, and whatever else we could find in our craft cupboard. Thirty minutes later, they had created two authentic traps destined to lure any self-respecting leprechaun.

The next morning, however, Gracyn pulled me aside and said, “Grandma, my mom told me the real truth about leprechauns.”

“The real truth?” I probed.

“You know, about how leprechauns are just make-believe. That truth,” she explained.

In that second, I was transported back to my third grade year, the year I learned the “real truth” about Santa. I may have cringed visibly, but I hope it was just internal cringing, the cringing of a grandmother who loves a little-girl-soon-to-be-a-young-lady.

But she smiled and winked. Then I breathed again and ventured, “It’s fun to be the one in on the secret, the one who can make it special for Griffin, isn’t it?”

She nodded, and I could see that she was already thinking, imagining, planning what she would do with her brother’s leprechaun trap. The girl has a memory and mind like a steel trap, and she remembered that I had a small leprechaun gift tag that had been in the bottom of the craft drawer for several years. She told me to distract Griffin, and she headed to the basement–the dark basement, the basement she never enters on her own–to retrieve the leprechaun and hide it in her coat pocket.

When I visited their house the next day, Griffin ran out carrying the leprechaun that Gracyn had lovingly placed in his trap. “Look, Grandma! I got one!” he cried.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Gracyn beaming. In an instant, she had transitioned from leprechaun-getter to leprechaun-giver. In an instant, she looked less like a little girl and much more like a young lady. And in this instant, I felt the promise of a new season, which would undoubtedly prove to be just as lovely as the last.

In truth, I witnessed the first sprouts of this season several weeks earlier. Classroom queen for the week, Gracyn invited me to sit with her and two chosen friends for lunch. As we unpacked our lunches on the special table reserved for just such occasions, one of her friends began to tell me of all the pets she had. She had pets at her mom’s house, and–she said expectantly–reptilian pets of all sorts at her dad’s house. For ten minutes, she and the other friend regaled me with pet stories, each one more curious and spectacular than the last. All the while, Gracyn nibbled away at her sandwich and listened.

As the lunch period was coming to a close, Gracyn looked at her friend with the reptilian multitudes and said, “Tell my grandma about. . .”

And there it was: the tangible sprouts of transition. My sweet granddaughter deferred the entire lunch period to her friends, allowing them to take the throne that she, as classroom queen, was gifted for the day. As the other lunch tables began to empty and students lined up at the door, Gracyn smiled, gave me a quick hug, and said, “Thanks for coming, Grandma. See you tonight.”

Be still my heart! Such graciousness, such magnanimity, such guileless generosity. This was the sprout that would soon blossom in a single act on St. Patrick’s Day.

Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris, biologist, speaker, and consultant, writes:

Caterpillars chew their way through ecosystems leaving a path of destruction as they get fatter and fatter. When they finally fall asleep and a chrysalis forms around them, tiny new imaginal cells, as biologists call them, begin to take form within their bodies. The caterpillar’s immune system fights these new cells as though they were foreign intruders, and only when they crop up in greater numbers and link themselves together are they strong enough to survive. Then the caterpillar’s immune system fails and its body dissolves into a nutritive soup which the new cells recycle into their developing butterfly. 

The caterpillar is a necessary stage but becomes unsustainable once its job is done. There is no point in being angry with it and there is no need to worry about defeating it. The task is to focus on building the butterfly, the success of which depends on powerful positive and creative efforts in all aspects of society and alliances built among those engaged in them.

Just as the caterpillar is a necessary stage but becomes unsustainable once its job is done, so is the necessary but unsustainable innocence of childhood. In a world of increasing darkness in which schools and shopping malls are no longer safe places, we might wish to sustain this innocence–if only for a few more years, a few more months.

But the task is to focus on building the butterfly, and the cells of the failing caterpillar give way to the nutritive soup from which the butterfly will emerge. I like to think of childhood as the nutritive soup from which adolescence and then adulthood will develop. And believing this, I can consider Gracyn’s fading childhood as a rich broth that is giving way–moment by moment–to something magnificently more hardy.

And if her transition wobbles on awkward legs for a time, I can take heart in the promise of coming attractions. During spring break of my sophomore year of college, I was at home one morning when a friend of my mother’s and her teenage daughter came for coffee. The woman asked my mom if she could take her daughter upstairs to see our wall of portraits. Actually, most of these were school pictures that ranged from kindergarten pictures to more professional senior photos. As the pair was coming down the stairs to rejoin us, I heard the mother say, “See Kim, I told you these girls were pretty homely in middle school. But they turned out just fine, didn’t they?”

And there you have it: the homeliness present in my sisters’ and my adolescent photos was living proof of the inevitable wobbling towards something more comely and less awkward, the caterpillar yet to become a butterfly. That our homeliness might also serve as the nutritive soup for another struggling adolescence makes our middle school “row of shame” quite bearable.

Author and journalist Teresa Tsalaky writes that Light precedes every transition. Whether at the end of a tunnel, through a crack in the door or the flash of an idea, it is always there, heralding a new beginning. As my granddaughter is about to turn 9 years old (how can it be?), I can celebrate the light of her childhood and anticipate the light that has already begun to herald a new beginning. 

There may be those who wish to expedite transitions, uneasy with their awkwardness and all too eager for what is to come. Not me. I’m all for a season of transitions, for I have smelled Gracyn’s first blossoms, and the fragrance is more alluring than I could have imagined.

Years ago, chalk in hand, I recall facing a class of high school students moments after I had written “grace under pressure” on the blackboard. I had assigned Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “The Undefeated,” and we were just beginning our discussion of Manuel Garcia, the protagonist. An aging, washed-up bullfighter, Garcia continues to beg his promoter, Retana, to find him work. Finally, Retana consents and finds him a fight for much less money than the younger, more promising bullfighters are earning. Garcia then pleads with a friend, Zurito, to “pic” for him (serve as a picador or horseman who uses a lance to help the bullfighter).

Looking on, a bullfighting critic writes that the bull Garcia draws is “all bone.” It takes Garcia five tries to stab the bull. Although he finally kills it, he is gored and rushed to the doctor for surgery. As Zurito looks down at his friend on the operating table, Retana hands him a pair of scissors. Hemingway writes:

That was it. They were going to cut off his coleta. They were going to cut off his pigtail.

Manuel sat up on the operating table. The doctor stepped back, angry. Someone grabbed him
and held him.

“You couldn’t do a thing like that, Manos,” he said. He heard suddenly, clearly, Zurito’s
voice.

“That’s all right,” Zurito said. “I won’t do it. I was joking.”

“I was going good,” Manuel said. “I didn’t have any luck. That was all.”

Common sense, age, and injury should all lead Garcia to the inevitable decision to quit bullfighting. Cutting off his coleta would symbolize an end to the bullfighting career that had defined–and continued to define–his life. Even as he approaches surgery, he insists that he “was going good” and that he can continue, that he must continue fighting.

In a profile titled “The Artist’s Reward” which appeared in the the New Yorker on November 30, 1929, author Dorothy Parker asked Hemingway: “Exactly what do you mean by ‘guts’?” And Hemingway replied: “I mean, grace under pressure.”

To some, Manuel Garcia is a foolish old man who clings to a romantic notion that he can continue to fight bulls; to others, like Hemingway, he is “grace under pressure.” That is, he refuses to meet defeat with fear or resignation. He will not let them cut off his coleta, which would signal utter defeat, and instead, insists that “he was going good” but didn’t “have any luck That was all.” Like Santiago from The Old Man and the Sea, Francis Macomber from “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” Lieutenant Frederic Henry from A Farewell to Arms, and many other Hemingway heroes, Garcia has a special kind of “guts” which literary critics attribute to many Hemingway “code heroes”.

Until recently, I had never heard of John Woodruff, the 800 yard runner who took gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Like most, I had read about Jesse Owens and had marveled at his accomplishments as both athlete and individual. But Woodruff? I can’t recall ever even hearing his name.

Unusually tall for a middle distance runner, at 6 ft. 3 inches, John Woodruff had earned the nickname “Long John.” Although he had college running experience, he had little international experience prior to the Olympics. The grandson of former Virginia slaves and a star high school football player, he quit football because his mother insisted that the practices were interfering with his chores at home. Later, he dropped out of school at 16 to seek employment. During the Depression, however, work was scarce, particularly for African Americans, so he returned to school.

Woodruff joined the track team whose practices ended early enough for him to complete his chores, and his mother gave her blessing. After success at the high school level, he attended the University of Pittsburgh. During his freshman year (1936), he placed second at the National AAU Track Meet and first at the Olympic trials. In spite of his age and inexperience, his impressive times made him a favorite for an Olympic medal.

During the first 300 yards of the Olympic 800 finals, an inexperienced Woodruff found himself boxed in by more experienced runners. He understood that if he broke free from this box, he may foul other runners and risk disqualification. And so he committed what the New York Herald-Tribune called the “most daring move seen on a track.” Woodruff explained that he “stopped and moved over onto the third lane of the track. I let my opponents pass me by, and then I started the race all over again.”

In a New York Times article describing the race, we read:

“I didn’t panic,” he [Woodruff] said. “I just figured if I had only one opportunity to win, this was it. I’ve heard people say that I slowed down or almost stopped. I didn’t almost stop. I stopped, and everyone else ran around me.”

He didn’t panic. He literally stopped and restarted his entire race. With 500 yards to go, he took off again from a dead stop. Refusing to panic or to give up and setting his sites on winning? Indeed, these are the traits of one who exhibits grace under pressure. If Woodruff were a literary character, he would certainly find himself among the ranks of the finest Hemingway code heroes.

It goes without saying that running at an Olympic 800 pace is a feat by itself. But stopping, restarting, and then exceeding your previous Olympic pace? I have no words for this.

Woodruff’s incredible story has made me wonder why I had never heard of him. Having scratched twice, sprinter and long-jumper Jesse Owens nearly didn’t even place in the long jump during this same Olympics. But with advice from his German opponent, Lutz Long, Owens not only successfully completed his final jump but won the gold medal. An African American winner of four Olympic gold medals, Owens could also be considered an authentic example of grace under pressure.

But what of Woodruff’s gold and his story? Owens’ accomplishments continue to shine, but Woodruff and his accomplishments have been seemingly lost.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about Woodruff’s bold decision to simply stop, to move aside, and then to start again. When we consider courage, we most often think of one who acts and continues to act–not one who stops and steps aside. Hemingway’s code heroes persevere. If Manuel Garcia had not been gored, he would have finished his fight and urged his promoter to schedule the next. For most Hemingway heroes, there is really no stopping or moving aside.

But what if, in certain circumstances, true grace under pressure may require more than forging ahead? What if it asks us to stop whatever we are doing, to let others move ahead, and then to start again?

Twenty minutes into a high school English lesson, I realized that I was wobbling and then (gasp!) teetering on the edge of instructional disaster. The lesson I had planned, the one that had seemed so right and destined for success, was moments away from utter failure. Students were lost, and I was floundering. This was not my first brush with classroom disaster. I had found myself on this very precipice countless times before, and I had soldiered on. Some may have called this courage. This forging ahead in the face of imminent disaster. This persistence that fueled that final 25 minutes. This refusal to quit talking, as if I could talk my way out of confusion. Two paths had diverged in the instructional woods, and I had not only taken the one less traveled, I had taken one that no one would ever travel!

But on this particular day, I stopped the lesson. I looked up from my text book and said, “I’m really sorry. What I had planned seemed like such a good idea, but now I can see that you’re hopelessly confused. And to be honest, so I am. We are just going to stop and forget this whole lesson. Instead, we’re going to look at . . .” What I had chosen to study next has escaped me. But I did a John Woodruff. I stopped, let others catch their breath, and then I started again. In short, on this day under these circumstances, the most courageous thing to do was to stop and begin again. Ironically, this may have been one of my finer moments as a teacher, a moment of true grace under pressure.

Sadly, how many other times in the face of impending failure have I just kept going, desperately trying to keep my head above water and–at the very least–to save face? And how many times have I believed these acts to be courageous? Too many, I’m afraid.

I’m not too old to take a valuable lesson from John Woodruff. Honestly, once my momentum is going–in whatever I am doing–it’s hard to slow down, let alone stop. But Woodruff instinctively knew that, if he had a chance to succeed, he must stop. It’s also worth noting that he could have pushed his way out of the box, hoping that officials wouldn’t see the contact. I fear that there are far too many athletes who bullishly push forward regardless of the potential consequences.

John Woodruff was a class act. He played by the rules, he gave his fellow athletes the courtesy he believed they deserved, he restarted his race, and he won. If this is not grace under pressure, I don’t know what is.

Last fall, Amy L. Wax, Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego Law School co-authored an op-ed entitled “Paying the Price for the Breakdown of the Country’s Bourgeois Culture” [The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 9, 2017]. In their op-ed, they had the audacity to identify and endorse behavioral norms that were collectively endorsed between the end of WWII and the mid-1960s:

Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

They went on to argue that these norms “defined a concept of adult responsibility that was a major contributor to the productivity, educational gains, and social coherence of that period.” Immediately after publication, a fire storm ensued. There were letters, petitions, and proclamations from both students and staff at the University of Pennsylvania Law School denouncing Wax’s position as” racist, white supremacist, hate speech, hetereopatriarchial,  xenophobic, etc.” There were demands for her resignation from committees and removal from the classroom. In addition, law students were invited to monitor Wax and to report any “stereotyping and bias” they might experience or perceive to be present.

Finally, in an open letter to the Daily Pennsylvanian, 33 of her colleagues condemned the op-ed and a subsequent interview she gave to the school newspaper. In this letter, her colleagues rejected all of her views and charged her with “sin of praising the 1950s—a decade when racial discrimination was openly practiced and opportunities for women were limited.” Her colleagues offered no counter arguments, no substantive reasoning or explanation as to the error of Wax’s and Alexander’s views.

In a speech delivered on December 12, 2017 at Hillsdale College’s Allan P Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D. C., Wax said:

I do not agree with the contention that because a past era is marked by benighted attitudes and practices—attitudes and practices we had acknowledged in our op-ed!—it has nothing to teach us. 

Wax continued:

The reactions to this piece raise the question of how orthodox opinions should be dealt with in academia—and in American society. It is well documented that American universities today, more than ever before, are dominated by academics on the left end of the political spectrum. How should these academics handle opinions that depart, even quite sharply, from their ‘politically correct’ views? The proper response would be to engage in reasoned debate—to attempt to explain, using logic, evidence, facts, and substantive arguments, why those are opinions are wrong. This kind of civil discourse is obviously important at law schools like mine, because law schools are dedicated to teaching students how to think about and argue all sides of question. But academic institutions in general should also be places where people are free to think and reasons about important questions that affect our society and our way of life—something not possible in today’s atmosphere of enforced orthodoxy.

Enforced orthodoxy? Now, that’s a mouthful. And it is perhaps one of the most terrifying academic, political, and social forces today.

Twenty five years ago, I stood outside my community college classroom as my Advanced Composition students exited for the night. As I turned to make my way down the hall to my office, a student stopped me. “I want to ask you what you believe, what your views are,” he said. “What I believe? About what?” I asked. “About anything and everything. I just need to know because I am NOT taking this class again.” His eyes flashed with anger.

I asked him what had happened that had made him so angry and fearful that he would fail and have to repeat this class. He explained that his experience at another university had jaded him and that he simply couldn’t afford to repeat classes. I probed further. “You failed composition? Tell me about that.”

And he did, recounting his research paper in which he argued that military women should not hold combat positions. He explained that he received an F for the paper, which counted for most of his grade. “Let me guess,” I queried, “was your instructor female?” “Why yes,” he said. “And was she a self-professed feminist?” I asked. “Why, yes again,” he said, “how did you know?”

How did I know? Because I had encountered far too many students like him who had not survived professors who held tightly to such enforced orthodoxies.

In deference to another composition instructor and with the knowledge that there are many factors that contribute to a failing grade, I asked a final question, “Did you receive any comments on your writing, any suggestions for improvement?” He looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “Just one: This position is unacceptable.” I attempted to reassure him that I would evaluate him based on the strength of his argument and his supporting evidence, that what I personally believed would not color my assessment of his work, but I could see that he was skeptical, at best, and unconvinced, at worst.

His instructor taught and evaluated according to a code of enforced orthodoxy: there is one acceptable, established, and passing position. Other conflicting positions were wholly unacceptable, regardless of the strength of their logic and evidence.

Like Wax’s 33 colleagues who instructed students to report her heresies, this instructor may have believed that she was protecting her students from harmful, false positions. But Wax contends–and I agree–that “Students need the opposite of protection from diverse arguments and points of view. They need exposure to them. This exposure will teach them how to think” and that “Democracy thrives on talk and debate, and it is not for the faint of heart. . . We should be teaching our young people to get used to these things, but instead we are teaching them the opposite.”

Enforced orthodoxy shuts down debate. It excludes and shuns unorthodox ideas. Its persistent attempts to protect individuals from all that is incorrect are tragically undemocratic and even more tragically unethical. We are so weak, so faint of heart these days that we demand safe spaces and cry foul at the first hint of something or someone we may not like. In truth, we are simply not in shape to face encounters with positions contrary to our own. Given few opportunities to practice such confrontations, we are flabby, unskilled, and destined to hang out in the locker room with like-minded folks. Only the fit will cry, “Put me in, coach!” Sadly, the unfit grossly outnumber the fit in college classrooms, in politics, and in general society.

In her closing words, Wax offers a stern warning:

Disliking, avoiding, and shunning people who don’t share our politics is not good for our country. . . It’s possible that people we disagree with have something to offer, something to contribute, something to teach us. We ignore this peril.

Civil discourse, reasoned debates, substantive arguments? Listening to and learning from those with whom we disagree? Aren’t these precisely the types of opportunities that we should expect institutions of higher education and governments to offer their students and citizens? In a season of enforced orthodoxy, however, these opportunities are increasingly rare. Finally, enforced orthodoxy threatens freedom, and this threat, above all, is one that we should not ignore.

Dichotomy: a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different

Dichotomy is really an ugly word. It might as well be a communicable disease or a species of invasive fungi. Like a dry, hacking cough, its ragged edges lacerate the air with each forced breath, again and again and again. Once used to identify conflicting literary themes and management systems, it has wormed its way almost exclusively into the worlds of politics, social media, and news. And it’s killing us.

We have always been, by nature, a people of division, I think. That is, there have always been those who hold fast to one belief, one practice, one system, and those who hold contrasting views, practices, and systems. Google a list of dichotomies, and you’ll find evidence to this truth:

good vs. evil

static vs. dynamic

absolute vs. relative

body vs mind

sacred vs. profane

open vs. closed

The list goes on, testifying to the power of dichotomy, both past and present. We are eager to identify these dichotomies in our classrooms and boardrooms, in how we live and how we govern. I can still recall feeling as though I’d won the lottery when I correctly identified good vs. evil as the dominant dichotomy and theme of a novel we were studying in high school. There was one correct answer (still another dichotomy: right vs. wrong), and I had delivered up the Holy Grail. A trophy for me, and consolation prizes all around for the losers.

Lest you think I will lapse into a defense of relativism or inclusivism (as defined by the current intellectuals and forced onto the collective consciousness), I cannot ignore the rational and absolute parameters of dichotomies. A dichotomy says This, not this. It reasons If A is true/right/good, then B cannot be. A dichotomy argues Choose a side/position/action and reject the opposing side/position/action. And within these parameters, even parameters for those who advocate You can have your truth, and I can have mine, there are those who reject others who argue My truth is THE truth, and yours is not. Their inclusive position–ironically but logically–excludes those who do not share their claims, and the parameters of dichotomy remain intact.

But it’s not the intellectual or philosophical properties or parameters of dichotomies I fear. It’s our physical, emotional, and spiritual responses to them that frightens the bejesus out of me and threatens to push me over the precipice of despair and futility into abject hopelessness. There is a necessary and life-giving force in dichotomies. In the tension between one side and another, we may give birth to clarified, qualified ideas and positions. That is, tension may breed productive struggle, which may in turn, result in something new and better than either original idea or position. In some occasions, compromise may rise, like a phoenix, from the ashes of this tension.

Sadly, may is the conditional word here. And even more sadly, we see little evidence of this type of phoenix rising from political, social, economic, educational, or cultural ashes today. When we stand solidly on one side of a dichotomous issue, there appear to be more of us who fail to consider the potential of productive struggle and choose instead to stand at the edge of the chasm that separates us from our foes, armed and eager for the battle. Our cause eclipses our civility and humility. We see an enemy that bears no resemblance to ourselves or to any decent, thinking individual for that matter. Then, armed with a cause and facing an evil enemy, we believe we are more than justified to use any means to win, to tip the dichotomy successfully and permanently towards our side. In this world of dichotomy, the end always justifies the means, and Machiavelli, a willing flag bearer, confidently leads the way forward.

So when we face our enemies, we take courage in the belief that we do not have to listen to them, do not have to respect them, and, above all, do not have to acknowledge any part of who they are or what they believe as legitimate and worthy of consideration. Dichotomies often bring out the adolescent in us. We say or write snarky things about our enemies–behind their backs or to their face. We wage smear campaigns, using whatever resources we can muster. We take heart in our conviction that it is all about me because, quite simply, we choose to believe that it is all about me. And as we wield the sword of righteous indignation, we take no prisoners.

What has happened to us? How have we become so entrenched in our current dichotomies (conservative/liberal; absolute/relative; open/closed) that we actually prefer to hunker down and plan the next attack rather than pull ourselves from the trenches and walk in an attitude of cooperation and humility towards our enemies? When did we become such fascists with such searing passion to suppress opposition?

I have spent the better part of my life trying to help students look critically at opposing ideas and positions, in hopes that they could ultimately and wisely discern which side of the dichotomy they would assume. I have spent an equal amount of time teaching students how to respectfully disagree with their opponents. Once, I actually put my career on the line when I advocated to a group of educators that there would always be dichotomies made up of exclusive sides and that our role as educators was to help students understand these sides while living respectfully and compassionately with those on other sides. On the surface, this seems like an educationally and morally responsible thing to advocate. But dichotomies will be dichotomies, and the other side of this one? Well, this is the side that argues that it is not enough to help students understand differing views. This is the side that insists that we teach students to accept and live according to the right view. And the right view, of course, is the view of whomever is in power or believes that they should be in power.

Stalemate is a real and probable consequence in this Season of Dichotomies. In demonizing our opponents and their ideas, we can find no way productively forward. So, day after day, our airwaves are filled with name-calling and dire predictions of what the world will become if one side or the other wins. Night after night, we are whipped into frenzies as political, social, and cultural battles rage brightly. Exhausted, we drag ourselves into sitcoms or funny cat videos, hoping to entertain ourselves into oblivion. Oblivion at least for one night, for we know it will all begin with a vengeance again tomorrow.

Honestly, I don’t believe we have reached stalemate because of the strength of our opposing views but more so because of our inability and unwillingness to respond to these views with civility and compassion. There will be dichotomies as long as there are humans to identify and use them. This is not–and really should not be–the issue. The issue is how we choose to respond to them. Clearly, there are things worth defending and fighting for, and we have countless historical examples to prove this. Few will argue that we should not have fought in response to Hitler’s Final Solution. And even fewer will argue that Hitler’s truth–that all Jews were vermin and therefore should be exterminated–was as legitimate as any other truth.

If we have exhausted all attempts at genuine understanding, at respectful disagreement, and at compromise, then there are times when we must fight. Thankfully, there have been more times when we could–and did–choose other responses to conflict. Regrettably, we seem to have forgotten this.

Biologist, paleontologist and scientific historian Stephen Jay Gould writes:

I strongly reject any conceptual scheme that places our options on a line, and holds that the only alternative to a pair of extreme positions lies somewhere between them. More fruitful perspectives often require that we step off the line to a site outside the dichotomy.

Stepping off the line to a site outside the dichotomy? For some dichotomies, this is certainly an idea worthy of consideration. There are may instances when thinking outside the box or off the line has resulted in satisfying and lasting solutions. And for those dichotomies characterized by more extreme positions? I think we could take some instruction from novelist Tom Robbins who writes:

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better. [Still Life with Woodpecker]

There is something to be said about being smart enough to know that, at our core and certainly in the eyes of our Maker, we are brothers and sisters who share common struggles, common joy and pain, and a common world. If we are smart enough to know this, surely in response to our shared humanity, we should be smart enough to treat each other as we would like to be treated. And if we are smart enough to know this, certainly we should never forget that the opposing ideas we hold have their very humble beginnings in matter, in human cells that look far more alike than different under a microscope.

In the end, we can choose to let our response to dichotomies refine us or kill us. I’m all for responding in such ways that refine us. We can start by affirming our opponents as fellow human beings and by genuinely seeking to understand their views. Then, we can respond with civility and earnest empathy, even as we engage in the difficult and necessary work regarding our political, social, cultural, and philosophical differences.

And as for Machiavelli? We simply have to fire him as our flag bearer and castigate him for a view which we must abandon. In this Season of Dichotomies, the end should never justify the means.

Peg puff: A young woman with the manners of an old one (Old Scots language)

Who knew that there was even a term like peg puff? Archaic now, I’m starting a campaign to bring it back. We need more peg puffs, and we need the language of the past to remind us, once again, of the power and value in good manners.

Of course, I admit that I am one who grieved for days after I finished the last episode of the last season of Downton Abbey. This was a world that could be literally falling apart, and you still dressed for dinner. This was a world in which there was something larger and more valuable than yourself. And although this world had legitimate–and sometimes tragic–flaws, those who lived in it, both the upstairs and the downstairs folk, generally shared a sense of what was right and what was true. Manners mattered in this world and mattered deeply.

Today, we are parched for manners, our sense of otherness withering under the sun of self. I recall telling a class of high school students that when people speak, we should look at them. Twenty-three juniors looked at me, amazed and puzzled. “But you can still listen without looking at someone. I do it all the time,” said one young woman. Her peers nodded knowingly. Still, I persisted. I explained how most adults expected eye contact, how it was a hallmark of courtesy and conscious engagement with another. In this teachable moment, I told them that, in spite of how they felt, their future employers, their military officers, their college professors, and the adult world at large valued face-to-face human contact and would consider their failure to look them in the eyes as a mark of rudeness and arrogance. I may have convinced a few, but I left the others mildly amused and wholly skeptical.

Miss Manners, Emily Post herself, writes:

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use. 

Clearly, manners are more about people than cutlery. They demand a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. A true peg puff puts herself in another’s position and, before speaking or acting, asks herself this: How would I feel if. . . And if the answer is that she wouldn’t like it or that she would be hurt by this, she softens her words and tone and acts with restraint. Never a pushover, the peg puff is ever aware of how her words and acts affect those around her. When she must confront or correct another, she does so with civility and compassion. A peg puff is not one for sarcasm, name-calling, or unsubstantiated accusations. These are the tools of the ill-mannered.

Horace Mann claimed that manners easily and rapidly mature into morals. As illogical and silly as it seems, I’ve heard many adolescents argue that they will develop and use good manners and good morals when they need to. So the incivility, the habitual disregard for others, the all-about-me-ness that may characterize their K-12 years will magically morph into civility and regard for others after graduation? Right! And I have some prime real estate in the Everglades that I’m willing to let go for a song. . .

Recently, two Google studies–Project Oxygen and Project Aristotle–reveal that the demand for “soft skills” has trumped even the demand for STEM skills. In his article, “English Majors Among Most Desirable Employees, Says Google,” Emer McKeon writes:

‘Project Oxygen’ concluded that among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in last. The top characteristics of success at Google are so-called “soft skills,” such as communication, good leadership, possessing insight into others’ values and points of view, having empathy and a supportive nature towards others and possessing good critical thinking and problem-solving skills, along with the ability to create connections across complex ideas.

For Google and other employers, a peg puff would be a top contender for almost any position. Possessing insight into others’ values and points of view? Check. Having empathy and a supportive nature towards others? Check. Communication, leadership, and critical thinking may be taught. But the willingness and ability to consider others and their perspectives? Not so much. This, any true peg puff understands, is rarely taught and more often bred.

Interestingly enough, however, these particular soft skills (the ones that concern good manners) are increasingly taught in schools and workplaces today. Our collective failure to develop and nurture these skills at home has resulted in the expectation that schools will take up the mantle. Because they are in the business of preparing students for the world beyond the classroom, we have come to believe that schools must teach students how to consider others’ feelings and perspectives and how to respectfully disagree. In almost any school today, a peg puff will shine. She will rise above the crush of demanding, impolite peers as a lady in the truest sense of the word. Others will offer her the key to the city, perhaps to the entire world. And with gloved hand, she will humbly accept it.

And what of our apparent failure to raise boys and girls, men and women of good manners? In Utopia, English lawyer, philosopher, and saint Thomas More writes:

For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.

What else to is to be concluded but that we have first made ill-educated, ill-mannered individuals and then we punish them for their ignorance and incivility? Ouch. Writing in the 16th century, More’s words may have been true for his age, but how much more true are they today? While many lament the rudeness that pervades schools and workplaces, government and media, More might argue, what else is to be concluded from this corruption of manners but that you first make thieves and then you punish them? 

Recently, I listened as my granddaughter expressed concern that one of her classmates might feel badly that she didn’t have something that Gracyn had gotten for Christmas. How could I begin to tell her that this awareness of others’ feelings would distinguish her among so many others? How could I begin to describe how my heart bloomed in the wake of her empathy? And in an ill-mannered world, how will I begin to protect and sustain the burgeoning peg puff that she is?

Dear Jesus,

How quickly this season goes. And how easily our hearts turn sallow, the colors of Christmas running carelessly off the page. As if we hadn’t just knelt at the manger. As if we hadn’t raised our voices in adoration.

We try. We really do. With each gift we wrap and card we write, we remind ourselves of the reason for the season. We have such lovely nativity sets with glorious kings and immaculately groomed animals. In candle-lit churches, we sing to you with voices full of promise and rich with love. And when we sing, we mean every word of every verse.

But after we return gifts-in-the-wrong-sizes and buy discounted wrapping paper for the next season, something happens. We begin to forget the whole thing: the light, the miraculous birth, and the wonder of it all. We scoop snow, make resolutions, and suffer the long, cold days until spring. We put our noses to the grindstone and plow ahead towards what? Better days? Leaner bodies? Efficiency and resiliency and expediency?

We try at all the wrong things. In spite of ourselves–or perhaps because of ourselves–we mess up. We pick ourselves up, dust off every vestige of failure, and begin again. Sadly, we believe that it’s all about us and all we are willing to do. When we should be carrying Bethlehem in our hearts, we carry intentions in our heads.

So I’m asking for your help, Jesus. I do the things I don’t want to do, say the things I shouldn’t say, and dream such scant and skimpy dreams. Bring me to the foot of the manger. Envelop me in the mystery of your miraculous birth. And remind me of the love that birthed You and nailed You to the cross. Each moment of each day.

This is my Christmas wish, Jesus. For me and for all.

With much love from one of your adopted children,

Shannon

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.   Galatians 4:4-5

Dear Mary,

Kudos to the many artists who have tried to capture you as you held your baby boy and looked into the face of God. But throughout the years and in spite of their talents and devotion to this aim, they have largely failed. Consider the task, though. What pigments, what brush strokes, what vision and sleight of hand could result in more than a valiant approximation of this sacred moment? Knitted together in your womb and fashioned from pure God, how could any artist do justice to the light that shone from this holy child? And what canvas could contain a love that pours endlessly from heaven?

But they try as they might for even their crudest efforts draw us in. Closer then, our hearts take up where shapes and shades only begin. Here in your presence, something inexplicable, something akin to bliss takes over. Color pales here, and vapor-like, floats into the night. Lines lose their purpose and curl helplessly at your feet.

How you bend towards your son. Now this is a line that arcs towards mystery with a grace that defies all. This is a line that intersects with heaven and ends in your arms.

Oh Mary, I want to think that I have loved this way. Cradling my children in my arms, I want to believe that my joy was your joy. And I want to believe that, in the fellowship of mothers, my spirit leapt just as yours had. In the middle of the night as I held my sleeping babies, I have known the peace that passes all understanding. As their tiny hearts beat against my chest, their downy heads tucked under my chin, I knew that there was nowhere I would rather be. Time stood blessedly still as shafts of moonlight fell across their faces.

But in truth, these moments must kneel at the manger. From your son’s first steps to Calvary, you loved a Savior.  A virgin, God’s bride, you faced shame and humiliation, fear and uncertainty, so that your child could save the world. How could any of us really know how this love blessed you and cost you?

But on that glorious night, you treasured up all these things–the light, the angels’ song, the breath of your infant son on your face. On that night, Madonna, you were blessed among women.

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Luke 2: 16-20

Dear Shepherds:

I have to admit that your role in the whole nativity story blows me away. Absolutely and joyously blows me away. Seriously, who but God would charge a group of shepherds with spreading the good news of the birth of our Savior?

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. God charged a lot of folk–the nondescript, the poor, the cast-off, the untouchable and the unequipped–to do His work. So the fact that he chose you to be His son’s first visitors fits right in with the rest of His narrative.

But still. What a bunch of men you must have been! Men whose hands had only known a hard day’s work, hands coated with dirt and wool wax, hands that gripped the gnarled wood of a staff, and hands who would quake as they reached out to touch the infant king. I’ve known others like you. Women who sat in the back of my college classrooms where they attended, day after day, to better themselves, women who had sent their children to school with cardboard in the bottoms of their shoes and who gave profound meaning to what it means to “make do.” Men with shattered dreams who were beginning again, men who had once lived in cozy ranch homes with two-car garages and swingsets in white-fenced yards and then had lost it all. Men and women who have served me food, cleaned the places where I’ve worked, stocked the shelves of the places where I’ve shopped, taken care of my garbage, my plumbing and wiring, cleared the roads I drive on–all of those people who work to serve. Like you, they are nobodies. And like you, they are truly somebodies.

For you see, there has always been much shepherding to be done. In lonely fields, in early morning stock rooms, after hours in hospitals, schools, and office buildings, shepherds work. And sadly, when we look down upon them and send our condescending words and pinched smiles their way, they go about the business of tending to whatever it is they are to tend. As they have and as they always will.

When the angels appeared to you, I’ll bet you looked away at first, believing the words to be for someone else, someone worthy and important. It is a mistake, you probably thought, certainly a huge mistake. For after years of fields and rocks and sheep, days and nights of wary solitude, you could not have imagined such a night as this. And on such a night, this is the part that really moves me: how wisps of air from angel wings softened your weathered faces, how the light of all lights flooded your watchful eyes, and how your hands flew into the night air, awestruck having taken on lives beyond themselves.

The fact is that we need shepherds today more than ever. Most of us simply need tending to. Because when our toilets break and shepherds show up with spud wrenches, pipe sheers and stem pullers, we stand back sorely amazed. And when we’ve scraped a night’s worth of ice from our windshields and find the streets plowed and salted, we count our blessings. Indeed, it takes a whole lot of tending to make the world go round.

So here’s to you, shepherds, tenders of wayward sheep! Take your place among God’s chosen. And when the nights are long and cold, take heart in this: we couldn’t have done it, and we still can’t do any of it without you.

From one who’s in constant need of tending,

Shannon

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.  Luke 2:8-20

Dear Innkeeper,

You didn’t even get a name. In the Bible, that is. Actually, you aren’t even identified as innkeeper. There is only your implied presence at the doorway that night in Bethlehem. Still, in churches all over the world, someone always takes up your cause, dresses the part and delivers the single crucial line: There is no room at the inn. No respectable nativity pageant would be worth its salt (or myrrh, if you prefer) without an innkeeper. A bit part, but a necessary part nonetheless.

Actually, I’m a big fan of bit parts. Consider the world without those of us who play bit parts for most–if not all–of our lives. Behind every leading role–say a cancer researcher or a legislator or a New York Times best selling author or a Savior–there has always been the implied presence of some nameless individual: a parent, a friend, a teacher, a mentor. These are bit part people at their truest and finest, those who inauspiciously go about the necessary work of guiding, redirecting, encouraging, criticizing, and loving, always loving.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking: But I wasn’t a supporter or mentor or friend. I just opened the door and told a desperate young couple that there was no room for the night. Then–and this is the really sad part–I offered them  shelter in a stable. A stable! For a woman about to give birth, I gestured toward a stable and closed the door. 

But this was your part, you see.  God sent his Son into the world as a baby to be born in the lowliest of places. The baby and lowly parts were absolutely crucial, for this birth was going to turn the world on its head, ushering in a kingdom with a king no one expected: the King of Kings born to common parents, a Son who would grow and live in an ordinary home, a Savior who would live, love, and suffer among ordinary people. God with us, God within us, and God through us. And you were there at the very beginning to play the part you were destined to play.

So when the curtain call comes, take your bow. Your fellow bit players are waiting in the shadows to give you a quiet and long overdue ovation.

From one bit player to another,

Shannon