For Gracyn on her 9^th Birthday

Cross-legged, you sit before a pink plastic palace,

a remnant of your childhood now dormant

in the preteen years.

Brushing the mouse droppings and sawdust from its rooms,

you finger a canopy bed and mirrored vanity.

You suck in your breath

as you pull a yellow-haired doll from beneath

a tangle of tables and chairs.

Yesterday you delivered a handwritten birthday list:

shorts and tank tops,

cute sandals,

throw pillows for my bed,

decorative stuff.

I scanned the list for what was not there.

At nine, there would be no dolls,

no tea sets or tiaras.

At nine, we will talk fashion and décor

as we eat cake from yellow paper plates

with no trace of Disney princesses.

Oh, but you are so lovely

in this nether world of becoming.

Your freckles, once invisible, now spread across your nose,

a pale dusting of cinnamon.

Pink-polished now,

your slender fingers tease the air.

And your eyes, still blue enough to shame the sea,

speak light.

Still today, you will hold my hand

as we walk from my house to yours.

And palm to palm,

we will remember these last days

of April.

With love,

Your Grandma and biggest fan

Photo by Brian Schrack

The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.

Edith Wharton

Early in my teaching career, I sat with a community college student in an empty classroom at the end of the day. He had come to see himself as a poet in mid-life. For months, he had been trying on different voices, different forms, different perspectives. Now, he said, he wanted to learn to write traditional poetry with perfect meter and rhyme. The rhyme part was coming along, but the meter? I’m struggling, he confessed. Teach me to hear the rhythm, so I can master meter. 

Truthfully, I had never considered how I heard rhythm and counted meter. I just did from as early as I can remember. I inherited an ear and love for the rhythmic symmetry of perfect meter. Iambic pentameter? Its five iambs registered in my ears naturally and musically. And iambic pentameter gone wrong? Like the gash of a bow raked wildly across violin strings, its discord was an auditory assault for me.

As we sat together peering over a poetry anthology, I began to read aloud, exaggerating the meter of each line. My student listened intently through an entire William Wordsworth poem and then said, I just don’t hear it. I could make an educated guess at the meter, but I’d be guessing. I just can’t hear it. 

And he couldn’t and didn’t–even after several tutorial sessions. He conceded that he would stick to writing free verse and leave the meter and rhyme to other poets. He desperately wanted to hear that symmetry of rhythm, the predictable metric pattern of many classical poems, and he understood this compulsion to be one of the most inveterate of human instincts. This is the power of symmetry. Even when we can’t achieve it or wholly understand it, its instinctual presence lives to remind us of what is perfectly there, just beyond our grasp.

There is something in us that loves and seeks such balance. A candlestick on either end of a mantle. A pairing of photos on the wall. Two silos of the same height and width silhouetted against a Colorado sky.

Socrates writes:

If measure and symmetry are absent from any composition in any degree, ruin awaits both the ingredients and the composition. . . Measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue the world over.

To a great degree, there is beauty and virtue in symmetry. Consider the intricate beauty of a snowflake. Each snowflake is unique, but each is completely symmetrical with itself. Or consider the beauty we find in such natural phenomena as romanesco brocoli, an amazing example of fractal symmetry. Each part of the broccoli has the same geometric pattern as the whole.

Symmetry is such a show stopper. Ladies and gentlemen, in the center arena: the coneflower! To your left: the fern frond! And to your right: the chambered nautilus!

And the Master of Ceremonies? Such exactitude displayed in so many magnificent creatures and creations can only be the work of an artful and mathematical designer. Symmetry flies in the face of chance and thumbs its nose at randomness. Mathematicians kneel, awestruck, in the throne room of the Golden Ratio. Musicians bask in the faultless marriage of treble and bass. In adoration, lovers marvel in the light of their beloved’s face: one eye, one cheekbone, one nostril mirrored perfectly in the other.

Novelist and playwright Stefan Zweig writes:

Art knows no happier moment than the opportunity to show the symmetry of the extreme, during that moment of spheric harmony when the dissonance dissolves for a blink of an eye, dissolves into a blissful harmony, when the most extreme opposites, coming together from the greatest alienation, fleetingly touch with the lips of the word and of love.

And what of the symmetry of extreme opposites, coming together from the greatest alienation? What of that blissful harmony when the dissonance dissolves for a blink of an eye? When two individuals, two extreme opposites, come together in respect and understanding, this is symmetry that can change lives. And when from the greatest alienation one warring nation with one particular philosophy comes together with another warring nation and philosophy, this is symmetry that can change the world.

Poet and Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott argues that if we break a vase, the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than the love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. Perhaps it is in the reassembling, the coming together, the matching and piecing of parts to the whole that we love the best. For if we take symmetry for granted (and I think we do), recreating it makes us painfully aware of its magnificence. And when symmetry is restored, for a time at least, all is right with the world.

Humans may duplicate the perfect designs they see all around them, but they neither imagined nor created them. Symmetry is, indeed, an exquisite effect of a more exceptional cause.  In the sanctuary of symmetry, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we can find this exceptional cause in God. And seeking God, too, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Emily Dickinson

In my middle years, I mostly lived in a hard-kept house with double-pane windows meant to keep things in. And to keep things out. Things like possibilities that glimmered tauntingly on the horizon. And doors? They were solid, oaken slabs that shut convincingly with no need for weather-stripping. Like most, my middle years were working years during which responsibilities and obligations left little room for possibilities. And in my middle years, my days marched with regularity inside the perimeter of these four walls.

Oh, but the earlier and later years! These years are a fairer House with numerous Windows. And there are superior Doors which, by their very nature, are open more than closed. This is a house that glimmers. This is a house of coming and going, of trying on and moving on. This is a fairer house, indeed.

Last week, I attended an event at my granddaughter’s school in which third graders researched and dressed up like famous figures. As I entered the gymnasium, I looked out upon a sea of possibilities, children who were living the lives of such men as Babe Ruth, Elvis Presley, and Albert Einstein and of such women as Rosa Parks, Indira Gandhi, and Annie Oakley–if only for a day. Gracyn stood along the north wall as Shirley Temple, her blond curls loosed by the April wind of two recesses.

Third grade houses are such fair ones! At 8, becoming the next Shirley Temple or Babe Ruth is not only possible, it is palpable. Just within your reach, a presence so tangible that you can see your life spread out before you, and it is glorious. Never mind that you can’t sing or hit a baseball. These are formalities, details to be swept out with the day’s dust. The doors are open, and you see yourself walking from possibilities into realities.

And if third grade houses are such fair ones, imagine the houses of preschoolers. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, admitted that Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. In this photo, Gracyn, as Alice, folds her arms against her chest as if to keep the possibilities from escaping. Her costume is merely the outside trapping of a heart whose windows and doors are magnificently flung open to impossible things of all shapes and sizes.

French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire writes that Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity. There is something akin to infinity when one lives in a fairer house. For seasons of my life, I remember how, in those minutes before sleep, I shaped and reshaped possibilities, creating stories into which I took on heroic roles of rescuing, creating, and inspiring.  And when I tired of one story, I tried on another and then another and yet another. From this springboard of infinite possibilities, I dove into magnificent dreams each night.

In my later years, I have found myself loosening the strictures of my formerly hard-kept house. As I wake many mornings–with the sun and not an alarm clock–it takes a few moments to realize that a bell will not ring every 45 minutes, that I won’t have to wolf down a meager lunch in 19 minutes, that I won’t have to plan bathroom breaks, and that I won’t haul a laundry basket of student essays home for grading. But when I do, a day of possibilities stretches out before me. I could take a walk along the old highway and stop to pet the horses in the small pasture off the south side of the road. I could read anything I want and for as long as I want. I could call my mom on the phone in the middle of the day. I could start a home project and finish it. Or not. I could wander the mall in search of something or nothing. English novelist, George Eliot, claims that the world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities. Oh the handsome, dubious eggs called possibilities of these years! I may not have been able to imagine them in my middle years, but they are real nonetheless.

Poet Wendell Berry writes:

A man cannot despair if he can imagine a better life, and if he can enact something of its possibility. It is only when I am ensnarled in the meaningless ordeals and the ordeals of meaninglessness, of which our public and political life is now so productive, that I lose the awareness of something better, and feel the despair of having come to the dead end of possibility.

I am painfully aware that despair growls at the door of even the fairest houses. It comes in the shape of chlorine gas and fatherless children. It peers in the windows with sharp eyes of hunger. And we are tempted to pull our blackout curtains tightly to protect ourselves from the dead end of possibility. 

Still, there continue to be those who go about the business of building fairer houses. They can imagine better lives and see the glimmering possibilities of something better on the horizon. They choose infinity over dead ends, and they press on.

As I helped Gracyn out of her Shirley Temple dress and tucked a loose curl behind her ear, she said, “You know what I want to do when I grow up?” Sing, dance, star in movies like Shirley Temple, I thought? ” I want to start a slime-making company. I think this could really be big, don’t you?” From Shirley to slime in a single day. Such a fair, fair house of possibilities!

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