Author: jenion

Towards An Ethic of Decency

“Film director Scott Derrickson noted recently that things such as racism and misogyny are in our American DNA. It’s worse than that. It’s in our human DNA. That’s not pessimism. That’s good theology…Untaught, unrestrained, unaddressed, and well fed it will grow into a cancer that will consume us. What is needed is a community of ordinary men and women embracing a contrary ethic, an ethic of decency…” Randy Greenwald, Somber and Dull

The other night, I went for an evening walk in my neighborhood.

For context, I’ll tell you that the first week I lived here, someone was murdered less than a block from my apartment. One night, also in that first week, shots were fired kitty-corner from the Casey’s that sits next door. In other words, my neighborhood isn’t considered the best area of town.

Still, having lived in an even sketchier neighborhood in Minneapolis (where my friend Kathe often worried that I might be the anonymous victim discussed on that morning’s news), I wasn’t particularly concerned for my personal safety. However, in the year I’ve lived here, I’ve spent very little time actually out and about experiencing my neighborhood. Which makes me sad, since I believe that neighborhoods are important building blocks of community, no matter where we live.

Which brings me back to my evening walk the other night. It was still early, only about 6:30 p.m., but in late October that means dusk is quickly giving way to full dark. As I stepped outside my apartment and started walking down the street, I noted activity – children playing in front yards, adults in cars pulling into driveways, finally home from the day’s work. Every dog in the area seemed to be outside and barking. It all felt a bit alien to me – like I was just a visitor passing through, someone who didn’t quite belong here. After all, I didn’t know who any of these people were. Like an involuntary reflex, I felt myself hunching up, alert to any sign of possible danger.

Not quite a full block into my walk, I glanced up to see a man sitting with a small child on the steps of their porch. I said hello, and the man responded, “Nice evening, isn’t it?” And then, as I continued past, he said, “Excuse me. Don’t you work at the university?”

I stopped, and we chatted briefly – exchanged names, brief bios related to our mutual connection to the school where I once worked. As I continued on my walk, I chuckled to myself: I had been recognized. And just like that, the internal narrative that I had been spinning in my head (that I didn’t belong and, therefore, might not be safe on these streets) came to an abrupt halt. I continued, less inclined to see signs of the sinister everywhere I looked – in spite of the gruesome Halloween decorations in many yards (and the scent of marijuana smoke wafting out of an open window).

Later, as I thought about my walk, and how quickly my experience flipped from the alienation of stranger to the groundedness of belonging, I couldn’t help but see it as a metaphor for much of what has been troubling me throughout the past two years of political wrangling in America. We have focused so much on The Other – and the ways that other poses a threat to us, somehow – that we’ve forgotten to put our focus where it truly belongs: on the ways our choices make US the other. I’ve spent very little time thinking about the ways MY behaviors create division, reveal an uncharitable heart, even pose a perceived threat to my neighbors.

I can’t help thinking about the immediate assumption I made, as I walked out into my neighborhood, that if anyone was at risk that night it was I. The fear I felt led to a readiness to catalog my neighbors as physically dangerous to me. As I write this, I compare my experience with the photo I can’t get out of my head of a man at a political rally, wearing a t-shirt calling Hillary Clinton a nasty four-letter word beginning with “C”. (I’m not claiming that Clinton supporters haven’t said bad things about Trump, though I’m hard-pressed to come up with an equally nasty word that could be lobbed at a male candidate.) Clearly, the man in that photo thinks of Clinton as OTHER. Clearly, that allows him to respond to her in a particularly dehumanizing way. Sure, his language choice is one I would never make – but is his visceral response to “the other” all that different from mine? Fear? Anger? Blame? Yep, all there in me, and I would guess in him.

Over on his blog, Somber and Dull, pastor Randy Greenwald has been musing on decency. The quote, above, speaks very directly to what I’ve been thinking about. (I hope Randy will forgive my edit; the emphasis in bold/italics is mine). My theology and Randy’s might differ somewhat; whether in our DNA or in our cultural conditioning, the fact that we each carry a shadow within us is undeniable. That shadow can take many forms, misogyny and racism being two of particular note recently.

We are called by our humanity, and/or by our faith in a loving Creator, to see and address that shadow, to combat its negative expression and impact on our world. I can’t help but echo Randy’s call for an ethic of decency. But the ordinary woman I am calling to this ethic is me. I have to confront my own tendency to cast my fellow humans, citizens, neighbors as “other”. I have to confront my urge to be judgmental, to demonize, to dehumanize – even as I speak against behaviors or political realities that I find troubling. I must remember the community I hope to create, even as I walk down unfamiliar streets, or find myself in emotional spaces of fear or anger. Embracing an ethic of decency, it turns out, is often difficult in the face of today’s world. But I believe it is worth striving to do.

As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a prosperity of kindness and decency.   — Caroline Kennedy

 

(If you are looking for a decent blog to follow, written by a truly decent man, please check out Somber and Dull by Randy Greenwald, link above. Randy is neither somber nor dull, the blog’s title is a joking homage to one of his favorite books!)

 

Three little words…

I attended an event tonight recognizing 40 leaders in our community who are under 40 years of age. Four of the award recipients were my former students and current friends. It was such a moment of genuine delight for me to see each one recognized for their hard work, dedication and commitment to others.

Each award recipient was introduced with a brief bio, after which he or she was allowed to give a speech. The only hitch was that each was allotted three words for the speech. Well, three free words. Any number of words above three cost the speaker a per-word fee of $50. The funds raised hopefully went to a good cause, but the word limit also served the purpose of keeping an event at which there were 40 honorees from becoming obnoxiously long.

There were many clever three word speeches given. One woman generously used her words to share the important news “1 – 0, Cubs”. Another carried her drink onstage, pointed to herself and said, “Single!” After the laughter died down, she lifted her glass and completed her speech with the words, “Bottoms up!” Many in the audience were moved when my friend Nate, carrying his adorable daughter, stepped up to the mic and declared, “Adoption changes lives.”

Words are so powerful that three tiny little ones can convey a multitude of meanings, reveal unexpected layers and depth. I will never accept the lie, being promulgated all over the place these days, that something is “just words” and, therefore, doesn’t really matter.

Which brings me to a moment tonight when I made my own three word speech.

In the nearly 17 months I’ve been back in this city there are a number of people I haven’t gotten together with. Not because I don’t care about them, but because I haven’t felt right within myself – stressed and anxious and sometimes on the snarky side. This is an old (if not particularly positive) coping mechanism of mine – avoidance. I hole up at home and don’t make an effort to connect. At first, it feels ok. But the longer the period of time that elapses without connection between me and these friends, the harder it is to reach out, to cross that divide.

Anyway, as several of us stood chatting during the pre-dinner reception, an old friend joined us. When I moved to Minneapolis, it seemed that every time I had a particularly hard or bad day, encouraging mail from this friend would miraculously arrive. My particular favorite was a drawing she made of me as a superhero named “Captain Tenacity”. Honestly, her missives were so supportive and timely, they truly buoyed me up and gave me new strength. Many times I wished to thank her in person, to express how much her encouragement meant to me.

Instead, I had not seen or spoken to her since returning to town.

We greeted one another with hugs and smiles. I was faced with a choice – behave as if it was no big deal that we had been in the same city all this time without seeing one another, or apologize for being a lousy friend. Both felt very uncomfortable. But that drawing of Captain Tenacity popped into my mind, and I was overcome with the emotional memory of how much it had meant to me. I couldn’t just let this opportunity to finally say something pass.

I hugged her again, and as I did so, I said, “I am ashamed.”

Listen, I can’t say what impact those three words, or the explanation and conversation that followed, will have on our friendship. This all happened just a few short hours ago. What I can share, what I already do know, is how powerful those three words were for me. Holding them in, and holding on to the emotion that inspired them was toxic. Expressing my shame and remorse, owning those feelings, robs them of their power to hold me back.

I’m so glad I let them out, even if a cocktail reception filled with local leaders might not have been the ideal location. Words are important. If you have some hanging out inside you that need to be said, I urge you to use them. Just don’t underestimate how powerful they can be.

 

 

 

 

In Retrograde…

“Is something in retrograde? I feel like something is in retrograde…”

“…there’s a full moon coming on.”

“That’s gotta be it. Do you feel it too?”

“Yes! wth?”

“OMG, I have been having terrible nightmares all week, and I usually don’t have nightmares.”

“Ok. Its a collective wth…that feels better.”

 

I chuckled as I read the thread, above, on my FB news feed earlier this week. I might not have described what I was feeling in such astrological terms, but I knew what these women were talking about: something feels out of whack, not right, unsettling. I’ve been feeling it myself. And yes, there is some comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in what I feel.

On a whim, I looked up the word retrograde and found this definition:

1. directed or moving backward.

2. a degenerate person.

3. go back in position or time.

4. astronomy: show retrogradation

Seeing the actual definition of “retrograde” made so much sense to me. Given what has been playing out on our national stage, is it any surprise that many, if not all, of us would be asking “what the hell?”

Especially women. *

At the top of the Republican ticket we have an unscrupulous liar and cheat who also, it comes as no surprise, feels entitled to engage in sexual aggression any time he is confronted with a beautiful woman. And possibly 13 year olds – though that rape case is still in the courts and has yet to be decided.

At the top of the Democratic ticket, we have a woman whose life of dedicated public service (NOT mistake-free by any means) has often been overshadowed by the fact of her marriage to yet another sexual aggressor. That her opponent(s) wish to cast her in the role of responsibility for “enabling” her adult husband’s choices compounds the sexism of the discourse exponentially.

Clearly, “degenerate persons” abound in the week’s news. Adding to the atmosphere of retrograde (or moving backward in position or time) is the response to a news report suggesting that if women were not allowed to vote, Trump would win: his supporters began calling for #repealthe19th. Yep, let’s fix our political problems by taking away women’s right to vote. Shut the women up and we no longer have a problem.

This week feels retrograde as hell.

I remember the women’s movement of the 70’s, you see. I remember women fighting to be taken seriously, fighting for their voices. I remember the put-downs being resurrected all over social media this week. I knew then that the women fighting for their own lives, and those of other women, were fighting a battle in a war that stretches back into the far reaches of human history.

I remember being told to “lighten up”, to see that some people are just saying these things to be funny, or just engaging in “locker room talk”  (why would that be considered an acceptable excuse?).

I remember being told to shut up because I was a girl.

I also remember the many times I have personally experienced sexual aggression – sometimes it has been significant and dangerous, other times what might be called micro-aggressions. And I am so normal – I am NOT an outlier in any way. Except, perhaps, that I have never experienced the level of direct violence that so many of my sisters have. (If you don’t believe me that my experiences are normal, check out the Twitter hastags #NotOkay and #YesAllWomen)

These things pissed me off back in the 70’s, when I was in junior high. But that’s nothing compared to how angry they make me now.

Here’s what I have to say to Trump (and Bill too) and all of their apologists: go grope YOURSELVES.

Leave Hillary (and the rest of us) out of it.

My right to vote is not a joke – you better believe that I, and most of the women I know, plan to take it very seriously come November.

 

*Which isn’t to say that there aren’t other groups feeling the backward movement of our political and social milieu right now – and feeling it keenly. The spotlight just happens to be on gender politics this week.

 

 

 

 

 

Jinxed!

When I worked in Residence Life on a college campus, I learned never to say things like, “Wow, it’s been a quiet weekend so far…” because, inevitably, the very next thing that happened was all hell broke loose.

Earlier this week, I was chatting with my friend, Molly. Part of our conversation went something like this:

Molly:  You’ve been writing your blog a long time. You’ve never missed a Thursday, have you?

Me: Maybe once, but I don’t think so. For some reason, it is the one discipline I’ve really been able to stick with in my life.

Argh! Why did I say that? I should have known better!

So, of course, here’s what happend:

Last night, as I parked my car at home after work, I realized that I felt lousy. My body was full of aches and pains, my head hurt, and I just wanted to curl up in a fluffy blanket. Wednesday evenings, I usually get at least a solid start on my blog entry, but I decided to wait until morning.

This morning, I got up early to work on my blog post, even though I had planned to start the day later than usual (my colleagues and I spent the day doing post-flood service for a local nonprofit). I started three separate pieces: one on the difference between feelings and facts; one on the reason I’ve moved most of my political comments on social media to Twitter; and one comparing our current cultural milieu with The Hunger Games. None of them really gelled – for which we are all, probably, grateful.

Suddenly, it was time for me to leave home and I had no piece to post. I told myself I would be home early, and would just post in the late-afternoon.

Unfortunately, I was in pretty bad shape when I got home, after a day of hard physical labor (sandbags are heavy suckers). Even my fingernails hurt. I feel sheepish saying this, considering the heroic sandbagging efforts undertaken by so many of my fellow Cedar Rapidians in the past two weeks. But there you have it. I cashed out for a couple of hours with a heating pad tied across my shoulders.

When I was next capable of coherent thought, I sat again at my computer to write today’s blog post. The most coherent thought I had was, “I can’t think of anything to write.”

After two hours, I finally realized that I had jinxed myself when talking with Molly. Why oh why did I not at least knock on wood after I made such a fate-tempting comment?

 

What We Learned From What We Lost

2016-09-29-10-57-35

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness…

…Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

     —from “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye

In 2008, the city I live in experienced a catastrophic flood. It surprised us, the waters rising fast and destroying so much of what made our town unique. I’ll always be haunted by the memory of cresting the hill on the south side of town, after the main flood waters had passed, to discover the very heart of the city enveloped in darkness. The sorrow and loss of it.

For eight years, many people labored to not only bring the city back but to make it better, stronger, more distinctive until you could literally feel the energy of creativity and new growth.

And then the unthinkable: another flood threatened the city in the very same way. This time, we had some warning, a little time to prepare. And the people, remembering, rolled up their sleeves and got to work saving our city and each other. It was inspiring, and it was humbling – and it was an example of what we are capable of when we forget our differences in the midst of what we share.

We still have our differences. We still have our critics. We still have our imperfections. (I myself will still complain that there’s not even a decent cup of coffee to be had after 4:00 p.m. on Sundays.) However, what we learned from what we lost is ours now – we own it, and it has changed us for the better.

Stand or Take a Knee…

When I was in high school, I belonged to an inter-church youth group. Many Sundays saw my siblings and I attending services at the Methodist, Presbyterian or Lutheran churches in town with our youth group – and also attending mass at our own Catholic parish. Sometimes, our youth group friends would come to mass with us – not often, certainly not as often as we attended their services (I mean, we were teens – who would actually choose multiple church services on a single Sunday morning unless coerced?!). When they did come to our church, they refused to participate in the prayer ritual on the grounds that somehow doing so made them idolators or papists. They never asked me about the rituals of the mass, or why we sometimes knelt – they had learned elsewhere that it was antithetical to their religious doctrine. So they came to our church as a sign of solidarity with us (because my parents insisted on mass), but they used their presence as an opportunity to stage a silent protest against Catholicism.

I haven’t forgotten how it felt as a teenager, to watch my friends make significant eye contact with one another as they slowly, deliberately and with a clearly intentional flourish, took their seats – in the very front pew of the church where they insisted we sit – as the rest of the church dropped to their knees.

I felt shamed.

And then I felt angry. What made them think their church was better than mine? Their way of expressing prayerful reverence somehow more “right”?

Now, all that I’ve written about this experience is from my perspective – and not even my current perspective, that of my teenaged self. Today, I wouldn’t see or feel it in the same way at all! In fairness to my friends, their perceptions and perspectives of these events likely vary widely from mine. And it is so far in the past, we’re lucky to remember it at all, much less with any nuance or detail!

However, these memories of how I felt then have helped me to understand a bit about why the recent protests during the national anthem at sporting events have so enraged some folks. When someone chooses to act in a way that is deliberately different, we can’t help but pay attention. And when their action calls out something that we do or believe as a matter of course, we tend to take their actions personally. You kneeling when I stand, or remaining seated when I kneel, is not a political statement, it is a personal affront.

This initial reaction is visceral, not thoughtful.

And here’s where we get into trouble so often, I think: instead of engaging in reflection and dialogue about what is behind both the other person’s action and our emotional re-action, we stick with the visceral. Our responses are then always arguments designed to support our gut reaction, our feelings, rather than intended to bring about understanding of multiple perspectives. It keeps us in adversarial opposition to one another, rather than allowing us to truly listen, or to come to respectful disagreement – not to mention the even more desirable discovery of some middle ground.

Unfortunately, social media feeds this immature atunement to the visceral. In many ways, it has become a scourge to mature inquiry and and reflection. I say this sadly, as one who has benefited from all of the great things social media has the potential to offer. However, as both the algorithms used weed out more and more of what might be different from our own perspectives, more and more we also unfriend those whose perspectives differ. By the time both are done with “the weeding”, we’re left with a very sparse garden of ideas, indeed. One uninformed by the unique perspectives of others whose worldviews and life experiences differ from our own.

We find ourselves in a turbulent time. There are deep issues to be addressed. I do not have any answers, nor am I suggesting that I have a comprehensive theory on how to go about resolving these issues. I am, though, attempting to hold space – by listening, by checking my own gut-reactions, by seeking a broader set of opinions than my own – for what of Goodness and Truth and Peace and Justice might emerge from the turbulence of our times. Whether I stand, or kneel, or lay prostrate on the ground – I am trying to hold space for others to choose their own posture without casting them in the role of enemy or other. It is, honestly, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I am convinced that making the effort will be worth it, if only because it keeps me from a self-imposed solitary confinement of the mind and heart.

“It’s a fact—everyone is ignorant in some way or another.Ignorance is our deepest secret.

And it is one of the scariest things out there, because those of us who are most ignorant are also the ones who often don’t know it or don’t want to admit it.

Here is a quick test:

If you have never changed your mind about some fundamental tenet of your belief, if you have never questioned the basics, and if you have no wish to do so, then you are likely ignorant.

Before it is too late, go out there and find someone who, in your opinion, believes, assumes, or considers certain things very strongly and very differently from you, and just have a basic honest conversation.

It will do both of you good.”

— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

 

 

 

 

 

Passports

When the phone rang, I was attempting to get three things done at once. I sighed with exasperation at yet another interruption before picking up. A friendly voice on the other end of the line greeted me, then said, “I was calling to see if you’d be interested in an all-expenses paid trip to Italy.”

Without boring you with the details, I’ll just say that this was a legitimate offer to participate in a group experience with colleagues. Someone in the original travel group had dropped out, opening a spot – which was offered to me. “Of course,” my friendly benefactor added, “you’ll need to have a current passport.”

Flash back to January, when news reports cited anticipated lag times for passport renewals. Flash back to conversations with my parents, New Mexico residents, whose state-issued IDs did not meet federal standards – making passports mandatory for air travel. Flash back to the many, many times I said to myself and others, “I should get my passport renewed. You never know when you might need it!”

Flash back to all the times I hadn’t followed through on that thought.

Those of you inclined to forgive my lack of forethought on this one, may ask in my defense, “How often does someone need a passport without advance warning, really?” I appreciate the kindness motivating your words, but just judging by the stories I’ve personally heard from friends and family of their frantic efforts to get passports or have theirs renewed, it actually happens not infrequently. I could, logically, have seen something like this coming.

Let’s broaden the lens a bit, though. Suddenly, it becomes possible to see many situations that have blown up and opportunities that have been squandered due to a lack of application. I’m great at the forethought part – I often think about the things I should or could do to be prepared for possibilities or eventualities. Not often enough, though, does the thinking translate into doing.

As a Girl Scout, I memorized the three-finger pledge (On my honor, I will try to do my duty to love God and my country…) but don’t recall ever hearing that the Girl Scout motto, like the Boy Scouts’, is: Be Prepared. Still, I can hardly blame my scout leaders for not ingraining in me the impetus to be ready for what life might bring my way. My mother, Shirley, was always a believer in getting up and at the day’s chores early, just in case something fun came along (and chores must always precede fun). Plus, American culture is chock full of aphorisms (“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!”) and inspirational examples and quotes I should have learned from:

“It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready.” – Teddy Roosevelt

Embarrassingly, my own life history is littered with torn up tickets to adventure I’ve received and been unable to use due to my own lack of readiness. In virtually every one of these situations, I had thought in the previous days, weeks, or months that I ought to do the very thing that would have allowed me to say “Yes!” when Opportunity came knocking. Somewhere along the line, you’d think I’d have learned the value in listening to these thoughts – clearly my intuition providing wise counsel.

Recently, I went to dinner with a friend who had received good news after a health scare. She insisted that each of us raise our glass and solemnly swear to live every day to its fullest, with abandon and joy. As we clinked glasses, she beamed at us and declared, “Mischief managed,” with a satisfied nod. I wish it was as simple as a declaration pledged with margarita glasses (or, in my case, a giant glass of water). It may not be that easy, but it doesn’t need to be as difficult as I sometimes make it.

So, while I won’t be heading to Italy this month, I will be heading to the passport office to expedite my passport renewal. Contrary to popular sentiment, lightening does sometimes strike the same place twice. And I don’t plan to look that particular gift horse in the mouth a second time. Truthfully, at this point in my life, I don’t want to tear up any more golden tickets due to my own inaction – I’m going to try to listen when my intuition suggests I get up and complete my chores!

Skank

2016-09-05 15.46.14

I didn’t notice when the word appeared. One day I was looking at the abandoned house across the street, as I often do when I pause at my window, and something about the red paint impinged on my conscious mind. It wasn’t there when I moved in a year ago, but it is there now and has been for at least the past few weeks.

Skank.

The boarded-up house sits in the middle of the block. Of the four lots on that block, two have inhabited homes, one is an empty lot, and – smack in the middle – is the derelict: a relic of the flood that decimated this neighborhood eight years ago. My apartment building, a renovated warehouse converted into “urban lofts” sits across the street. Two floors of 8-foot high windows look out upon the other side of the block. From my shiny new apartment interior it’s hard to know who might be the intended recipient of the one-word message.

Skank.

I do not doubt, however, that there is an intended recipient. This word is a sharp weapon, used with a soft target in mind. “Derogatory term for a female, implying trashiness or tackiness, lower-class status, poor hygiene, flakiness, and a scrawny, pock-marked sort of ugliness. May also imply promiscuity, but not necessarily,” says the Urban Dictionary and all of my 1970s high school.

Skank.

One night, in my former life in college administration, a student nearly died as I watched paramedics attempt to revive her from an alcohol-induced stupor. Later, I was told, she coded in the ambulance – I was in my car waiting to follow them to the ER, but the ambulance sat for more than forty minutes before leaving the campus. She was legally an adult at 18, but the hospital called her parents anyway because they were next of kin and it was not a given she would live through the night. Later – technically the next day, but as I had never been to bed it seemed like one nightmarishly run-on day – I interviewed students about what had happened. The first person told me, “She had a reputation.” I asked what kind of reputation. “You know, she’s kind of a skank.”

Interview after interview I heard the same things. Always, first, the definition of what she was – skank, slut, ho. Then stories that made my heart break, stories that would normally have led the students on our campus to intervene or seek help for their classmate. But not for this skank. Even my usually empathic resident assistants had stood back and watched, judging but not intervening.

A lot of students felt bad after the fact: after they’d spent months sharing salacious gossip about her, but never reaching out to her; after they were forced to confront their tacit complicity with a campus-wide “freeze out”; after the skank had been returned to her residence hall, unconscious and dumped on the floor by several guys who then fled before any questions could be asked. But until she nearly died, no one questioned their indifference or compassionless judgment.

Skank.

I knew a young woman who was nearly annihilated by that word.

When I see that red scrawl on the boarded up porch across the street, I think of her. And I remember the incredible power of words. I think about the interplay of the words people use against us and the choices we make – a stranger in a car yelling “fat bitch” at me as he passed didn’t make me fat. But it did affect choices I made that day, including whether I felt strong enough to face the world, or worthy to even be in it. Over time, their accumulated impact was a wall of isolation I had to tear down brick by painful brick if I wanted to live my best life.

I hear a lot of angry rhetoric about “political correctness”, how it has harmed us, made us weak and unable to confront hard truths.

I’m calling bullshit on that.

There has, in my lifetime, been a movement away from using the harshest and most derogatory terms. A movement away from the weaponization of words to harm, hold back and harass whole classes of humans. Compassion and clarity are never misplaced, and they unify us rather than make us weak. What makes us weak? This backlash against “political correctness” being used to call forth all of our racist, misogynistic, jingoistic tendencies. Because we human beings have these proclivities – just as we have the propensity to feel empathy and care for others in distress.

Which of these tendencies do we really want to call forth in ourselves, to bring out into our world? I know which I always hope to share. That doesn’t make me politically correct, it makes me someone who consciously chooses to bring my best self to the world.

Every day I have an anonymous tagger with a can of red spray paint to thank for reminding me of that. Skank: every day, I see that word and I remember that I choose kindness.

 

 

 

Showing Up

I have a friend who, for years, has talked with her retired father on the phone each morning. Over time, these daily telephone conversations became a source of jealousy between my friend and her siblings. Her adult sibs would grumble about how she was “the favorite” and that they wished they got daily time with their dad. After listening to their complaints, my friend finally threw up her hands in exasperation. “Go ahead, YOU be the one to listen to him endlessly recount what he said to the guy at the meat counter yesterday, or repeat word-for-word what every single guy at the retired men’s coffee klatch said this morning! I’m happy to let you in on these scintillating conversations!” Faced with the reality of long, mostly one-sided, and sometimes boring interactions – as opposed to the idealized version in their heads – her siblings reconsidered. They told my friend, “No, no. You go ahead. It was your idea in the first place.”

Here’s what my friend understood, that her siblings didn’t necessarily get: what makes her interactions with their dad meaningful is that she shows up for them every day. No matter what else is happening, or what size the mountain of tasks she is facing that day might be – regardless of how mundane the conversation –  she shows up. Her siblings wanted the end result, the closeness, without the responsibility or the tedium of doing the daily thing.

And really, isn’t that true for most of us in at least some of our relationships?

Unfortunately, it is too often true about our relationships with ourselves, as well. This became especially clear to me the other night. A friend who is a cross-country coach posted an invitation on Facebook to come to his annual open meet. I typed the following reply: “I’m too fat to come this year.”

Of course I erased that self-shaming message before I hit send. Besides, what I really meant was, “I don’t feel good enough about myself right now to show up for you.”

That thought gave me pause. I have excused myself from exercising regularly due to tendonitis in my shoulders; I have allowed myself to eat fast food frequently because it is late in the evening when I arrive home; I have treated my minor depression and other menopausal symptoms with snack foods and junk TV. In other words, I have not been showing up for average me, much less my best me.

As a result, I just don’t feel like showing up for my friends or my family if it requires any effort on my part – or when doing so means they might notice how I’ve let myself down.

When we stop showing up for ourselves – when we consciously forego the kind of daily self-care that allows us to feel good in our own skin – we are much less likely to have the energy or ability to be present with, to or for others. And that is no way to live.

“Growing into your future with health and grace and beauty doesn’t have to take all your time. It rather requires a dedication to caring for yourself as if you were rare and precious, which you are, and regarding all life around you as equally so, which it is. ”  — Victoria Moran

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How $8 Changed Me

When I moved to Minneapolis in 2013, I went with a good deal of confidence in my professional skills and abilities. I have a masters degree in counseling and student affairs, and I had worked in increasingly responsible positions in higher education administration, crisis response, judicial affairs; I had excellent supervisory experience. I was fairly certain that, even though I was making that move without having already secured my next position, I would find a job that utilized my skills and offered me the opportunity to engage with my community.

There were tons of job for which I was qualified. I applied, I made phone calls, I received assistance and introductions from friends. Nothing materialized. When it became clear that I needed an income even if it wasn’t from an ideal position, I looked for an hourly job that would ease my financial worries while still allowing me the time and energy to continue my job search.

I found a part-time job (which quickly became full-time) at an upscale grocery store, as a barista in their Starbucks kiosk. When I was offered the job, I was told by my new supervisors that they understood where I was in the job search process – both of these managers were also women with excellent backgrounds who had found it difficult to get professional positions. They hired me, primarily, because they had empathy for me – and I was grateful for the opportunity.

My starting hourly wage was $8.00 an hour.

I had been poor before, but it had been nearly thirty years since I had truly been poor and not just “cash strapped” periodically. Being poor takes skills, and you lose or forget those skills if you are not called upon to regularly use them. You don’t exactly forget being poor – rather, you forget just how truly wearing it is on your psyche. If you live for very long in the relative luxury of middle class, your experiences become anecdotes of your scrappy past, rather than painful stories of survival. At least, that’s how it was for me.

My fellow baristas were a font of information for me on how to get by, how to recover my skills for living small. First, they found out that I was paying $800 a month for my COBRA insurance, and it was eating up my savings in giant gulps. My coworkers informed me that I likely qualified for county healthcare assistance (this was just as Obamacare was coming into being, and I ventured onto Minnesota’s health care marketplace and discovered that my colleagues were right). I entered the rolls of public assistance for the first time in my life.

Coworkers told me about the best food pantries – where they would go to get actual meat once every two weeks, or fresh produce that was still really edible. I didn’t use these resources, because I could supplement my earnings with some money from savings, and I was suddenly viscerally aware of the very real people working side-by-side with me who were trying to raise families on their $8.00/hour. I didn’t want to take food that a family might need.

I liked my job. But it meant eight hour shifts on my feet and I could never afford shoes that met dress code AND were comfortable on my feet. It meant closing one night and opening the next morning, on way less than eight hours of sleep. It meant working weekends and evenings; never two days in a row off, never a set schedule. I had a hard time adjusting, difficulties juggling my own life needs around the schedule. I missed out on a lot – and, again, I just had me. Many of those I worked with were juggling their families’ needs as well. Working in food service, we were supposed to call in sick if we had any illness that might be communicable. But we had no sick leave, no PTO. If we missed a shift, we didn’t get paid. I began to understand how e-coli spreads in fast food restaurants – diarrhea is not always a good enough reason to miss a fifth of your weekly pay.

The other store employees were unionized, we were not. They received scheduled pay increases, benefits. We did not. It was a very strange dichotomy within one store – everyone assumed that we had the same deal they did. To compound this, customers and coworkers alike kept complimenting us on Starbucks’ “generous” benefits – which we didn’t get because we were store employees, not Starbucks workers. Also, like baristas everywhere, we listened patiently to our customers complaining about their days – wealthy people complaining to struggling ones about the cost of the private schools their children attended, or that insurance didn’t pay for their cosmetic surgery. Many days, I left work feeling the strangest kind of dissonance – grateful to get back to my neighborhood and grab a coffee at The Boiler Room, where the general shabbiness felt welcoming and unpretentious.

I developed some of the skills necessary to survive earning so near the minimum wage: I learned what stores and shops had specials when; I never walked past change lying on the ground; I became a connoisseur of the best cheap toilet paper (and I shopped for it regularly at the BP gas station next door to my apartment). I rode my bike everywhere I could – and I enjoyed it – to save money on gas and vehicle maintenance. I managed when my apartment had no running water or no heat (and when it did have mice) – the rent was affordable and it wasn’t a horrible place to live, in spite of these occasional hardships. I learned to cut my own hair, or to go to Cost Cutter on the days of their $6 specials. I said goodbye to pedicures, to having facial hair waxed, to television, to shopping. I waved a fond farewell to artisanal cheeses, charcuterie boards, movies, theater tickets. I had internet, but only because I lived close to downtown Minneapolis and could use the city’s subsidized service.

What I couldn’t ever get the hang of was trying to live this way and still maintain a sense of self-worth. I know I made choices, and those choices resulted in where I was. But it felt as if other people controlled my outcomes (the people who had no issue, for example, telling me they wanted to hire younger professionals despite the fact that age discrimination in hiring is illegal). And there were systems in place that felt actively hostile to my efforts to make a better life. For example, when I needed assistance to get signed up for health care, it took two days worth of navigating telephone call trees to finally talk to a human being – who informed me that I had the wrong agency. He gave me a number and I started all over on another phone tree. (Folks, I have a masters degree and worked for decades in higher education – if I couldn’t follow the convoluted directions successfully, I submit that it would be difficult for many others to do so!) Another example: the two years I made the least money of my entire adult life were the ONLY two years I owed federal AND state income taxes, to the tune of several hundred dollars. Thinking about the panic and anxiety that induced can still make my pulse race.

Why am I writing about this now? We are in a political season, and things have been ugly. In the process of all the mud-slinging and the intentional lie-telling on both sides of the political fence, I am afraid that many of the real issues that we should be paying attention to, even fighting over or for, are getting lost in the rhetoric.

I was so much better off than people who are truly living in poverty and struggling to make it. I had family and friends who could (and did) offer support in both financial and emotional ways. I had retirement savings that I could, if needed, dip into. I had some excellent, quality goods that I already owned prior to my downturn in fortunes that prevented me needing to find ways to purchase them (a car, a bike, good quality clothes, etc.)

And it still ground me down. The more I learned about how my coworkers struggled, the more I became convinced that change is needed. These people worked full-time jobs – some of them had other part-time gigs as well. Sometimes their children had special needs, and often these needs went unmet or only partially attended to. One minor setback – like a car battery that dies in Minnesota’s polar winter – could sink them into a hole it would take them years to scramble out of. Working their butts off the whole time. God forbid they should break a leg or get cancer and be unable to work.

Now, as I am vetting candidates at the local, state and federal level, I am listening closely to what they say. And I am reading their platforms. And I am asking them questions when I can. I want to know what they think about the minimum wage. I want to know what priority they place on making sure that every working American can feed his or her family. I want to know how they will ensure that people on a fixed income will be able to afford both food and health care. I met a local candidate the other day who said his goal is to eradicate poverty in our county within the next 50 years. That’s a goal I can get behind – but I want to know how he plans to start that ball rolling – I want to know it isn’t just a hook being used to get him elected.

I’ve heard so many arguments that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, because nothing changes. Being poor for a couple of years in mid-life has taught me the lie of that response. Who holds office, who sits at the table when decisions are made, has a very real impact – especially for those who are at the bottom of our social class structures, those who are living in poverty, those who have been disenfranchised in some way. Safely ensconced in my professional, white, middle-class world, I am not as susceptible to the immediate pendulum swings. But the people at the edges feel every slice.

I have kept this piece intentionally personal, and I haven’t argued for one side or the other of the political heads/tails of our two-party system. What I am arguing for is the fact that our votes do make a difference. Being an educated voter, therefore, is crucial. I have always voted, though often I have been a lazy citizen, accepting what candidates have said without looking closely at what they actually mean – what programs and planks and platforms have their votes and ongoing support. Having experienced and compared different cities, counties, and states has taught me that real differences exist on the basis of how these communities have voted. Communities are made up of individuals like you and me.

Please, don’t fall prey to voter apathy and disenchantment; don’t believe the lie that your vote makes no difference. My vote is one drop in a vast ocean, I know. But an ocean’s waves are powerful, and they shape the shoreline. How you vote, how I vote, makes all the difference to people living at the water’s edge.