Picking Up Poo

My sister picks up poo.

Now before you start wondering what kind of people we are, let me give you a little background. My sister has dogs that she walks several times a day. Being an all-around good neighbor, she picks up her own dogs’ deposits.

She goes a step further, though. If she happens on an unknown dog’s poo, she picks that up, too. If you’ve ever stepped in a pile (an who hasn’t!), you’ll appreciate this Good Samaritan act.

Seeing my sister on poo patrol got me thinking: What if we all picked up poo? Literally when it comes to dogs. That in itself would make the world a little bit better,

What if we took it a step further? What if we tried not to leave (metaphorical) poo in the first place? What is “metaphorical poo?” It could be a snide remark about a co-worker. It could be an offhand comment about what a bad day we’re having. It could be a complaint about the job. What if…we just didn’t say those things? Bit our tongues and moved on? The piece of the planet we inhabit would be a little bit cleaner.

Then…what if we started picking up other people’s (metaphorical) poo? What if, when someone made a snide remark to us, we absorbed it and moved on? Not complaining about it to a co-worker. Not stewing about it. Not retorting with a snider remark. Just abosorbing it without a comment beyond “uh-huh” or something equally non-commital…then nothing. That particular pile of poo would go no further. No one else would have to deal with it.

My sister has inspired me to be aware of the ways I might be leaving poo for someone else to deal with. I try harder to think before I speak. To avoid passing on gossip. To criticize less.

Leaving poo behind is natural for animals and young children. Picking up after ourselves takes maturity. Helping other people with the task takes compassion.

(photo by Ryan Wyatt on Unsplash)

Resurrection

One veined hand

In another clasped,

Love grasped

When even memories die.

A breath,

A sigh,

No asking why.

They know, these two,

Love reaching beyond death.

Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash

The Customer

The first thing I noticed about him was how he didn’t lift his eyes from the counter in front of him. People approach my counter tentatively, confidently, aggressively…and they look at me. This man doesn’t.

His hands are always dirty, but that’s not unusual. Homeless people often come into the store, so dirty hands aren’t uncommon.

What he buys isn’t uncommon either: oatmeal cookies, maybe a cheap frozen meal. For some reason, though, it makes me sad to see a grown man buy nothing but this kind of cheap, quick food. I’ve never seen him buy cigarettes or alcohol.

He always pays with coins, or maybe small bills. I’ve never had to break a twenty for him. I’ve never seen him use a credit card.

The most striking thing about him, though, is that he doesn’t look up at me. At most, he glances up briefly, then looks back down at the counter, or at the change he’s counting out. What happened to him, that he can’t even look up at me?

It’s easy to speculate about him. He’s probably homeless. He probably gets his small change from recycling aluminum cans. Maybe he does drugs. Maybe he has a mental illness.

Or maybe I should just leave him alone – even in my own mind. Maybe I should just let him what he is in that moment.

A customer. A human being.

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash

Right-Handed Writing

For years now, I’ve been writing with my left hand.

You know how it is. You’re doing something that isn’t among your skills or gifts. You do it because you think you have to. You have to pay the mortgage. You have to because your boss is depending on you. You have to because you’ve been doing it a long time, and it’s too late to change.

Even though you’ve been doing it a long time, it’s still uncomfortable. It still feels awkward. You feel like you’ll always be catching up.

Have you ever written with your right hand? Have you ever done some work that felt natural, that felt too easy to be work? You almost felt guilty for calling it “work” because it came so easily that it seemed to happen in spite of you.

You still had to put forth effort. It came naturally, but it still had to be honed, as a diamond is honed from carbon. But it was there, part of you, just waiting to be developed. You delighted in seeing that diamond emerge.

Left-handed writing doesn’t feel like that. Whatever that is for you, it never feels natural. It never comes easily, even after years of practice. It might be acceptable, even good – maybe even excellent. But it never comes naturally. It never feels as if it’s part of you.

I’ve done both right-handed and left-handed writing, so I know the difference. Right-handed writing feels like a gift. I still have to work at it. It doesn’t spring forth fully formed the first time around. But I know there’s a diamond there, and I know that I will reveal it, so I’m willing to chip away patiently until the glory emerges.

I never feel at ease when I’m writing with my left hand. Even after years of doing it, it doesn’t feel easy or natural. It may look alright from the outside. It might even look good. But it’s a constant effort, done in the constant awareness that what I’m doing is not natural for me.

It’s time to start writing with my right hand again. It’s time to do something that, although demanding, comes naturally. It’s time for the diamond to emerge.

(Photo courtesy of Cathryn Lavery – Unsplash)

 

Crossroads

When I was in college, having a minor in Italian, I studied the Divine Comedy. The circles of hell were the most fascinating to my 20-something self; Dante’s “middle of life’s journey” was incomprehensible. Forty seemed unreachable then.

I’m beginning to understand that midpoint now. It seems like a crucial time – “crucial” as related to the root of the word, “crux,” or “cross.” I’m at a crossroads, and the choices I make now will shape the kind of elder I become.

According to Erik Erikson, the developmental choice during the middle years is between generativity and stagnation. The choice is a stark one, and the temptation to stagnation is terrible. How easy it would be to coast until I die! How tempting to stop trying, to stop fighting, to stop challenging myself. It’s like syrup, that sticky temptation.

The other pull is to generativity – the pull to pass on what I’ve learned. This includes a direct transmission of knowledge, but also the passing on that is done through action and behavior, as well as through words.

For most of my life, I’ve considered myself a loner and a writer. My volunteer position is challenging me on both counts. I’m challenged to work on relationships – relationships with executives because I hold the volunteer equivalent of an executive position, and relationships with people younger than I am who have different skills than I have.

In both cases, one of the challenges is to stand up straight and act out of my gifts, to hold my head up and say, in action if not in words, “Yes, I am leading a team. We are doing this work that enables my supervisor to do other work. Without us, this amount and quality of work would not get done. And without me, the team would not be as strong as it is.”

I’m afraid of responsibility, and there have been times in my life when I’ve ducked out from under it. Responsibility can feel like a burden. It can feel overwhelming. For me, having responsibility carries the fear of failure.

It is important that I not duck the responsibility this position offers me. I have opportunities to recognize and facilitate the development of others’ gifts. Part of my responsibility as a leader is to ask myself, “Who on the team could some day hold the position I hold now? What can I do to help that person grow into such a position?”

This position also offers me ongoing opportunities and challenges to recognize and develop my own gifts. Yes, I am a wordsmith. I will love words as long as my mind allows me to use them. There is comfort in putting that label on myself.

But I am also able to lead a team. I am able to relate successfully to a variety of personalities, to recognize and facilitate the use of others’ gifts. I am able to acknowledge my own mistakes and to move on without wallowing in them.

So, as uncomfortable as it can be, as tempting as stagnation is, I must continue to move ahead. My control over the aging of my body is limited; for my spirit, I must continue to choose expansion and growth.

And We’re Off!

My sister and I are beginning to plan another trip. For me, the planning is part of the fun of the trip! It’s the beginning of learning more about another country. In this case, we’ll both be learning “survival German” as well.

I speak Spanish and Italian and a bit of French already, but German is another story. German has declensions! The form of a noun changes depending on how it’s used in a sentence. Is it the subject? A direct object? An indirect object? These nouns have identity crises!

The fun thing about learning another language is that you pick up a taste of the culture as well. The Romance languages have formal and informal “you” forms; so does German. So speakers have the option of indicating degrees of familiarity just by their grammar choices.

This is not a feature of English and I miss it, although English is my first language. I can’t use grammar to indicate that someone is a friend or a peer, as I can in French, Italian and Spanish (and soon German!). I can’t, with a simple verb form, indicate respect for an elder.

German will be more of a challenge than Spanish, Italian and French were. I was 16 when I started studying Spanish, which was not as foreign as it might have been if I hadn’t taken Latin. And I am older, long past the prime years for learning a new language. I expect my mind to be more resistant to the language, my spirit more resistant to the culture.

But the new world that will open to me will be worth the trek ahead. Onward!

Ego

My job looks very boring and ordinary, and on one level, it is. I’m a customer service clerk for a supermarket. I solve customers’ problems and answer their questions.

Sometimes customers’’ behavior is rude and demanding. Sometimes they scam the store. Sometimes they get angry because I won’t violate a store policy, or even the law. And I want so badly to retaliate, to give them a taste of their own medicine!

I have a mortgage to pay and pets to feed, so I smile. But it costs me. It costs my ego to bite my tongue and keep smiling. “Ego.” Coming from the Latin for “I.” It’s hard to tell “ego” to be quiet, please. My first instinct is to rise up in my own defense, to return the rude behavior inflicted on me. My first instinct is to focus on “me.”

It’s a natural instinct learned in the crib. As an infant, I cried when I was hungry. I cried when I was wet. I cried when I was lonely. And someone came and took care of the problem. I was the center of my universe.

So, like most children, I decided it was all about “I.” When I didn’t get what I wanted, I learned to say “no.” I learned well how to use those words. I used them often. I wasn’t a brat. I wasn’t a juvenile delinquent, the terror of the second grade. I was just a normal kid learning how to get my way.

Since about age two, though, I’ve been unlearning that lesson. I’ve been learning how and when to give way to others for the good of the whole. But what I’m talking about here goes beyond even that. It goes beyond socialization and learning how to live in polite society. Some religious traditions call it “dying to self.” This is a tricky concept, because there’s a sense in which “self” – the essence of who I am – deserves my protection. I have an obligation not to allow anyone or anything to violate that essence.

In the second half of life, I’m learning by experience the difference between my “ego” and my “essence.” It’s a tough lesson. Sometimes it leaves me in tears. It means I bite my tongue a lot, go home and talk myself out of foolish, pride -driven, ego-driven behavior.

But I’m also seeing the fruits of that self-discipline. One obvious fruit that benefits me in the long run is that I’m able to keep my job and pay my bills. And maybe, by returning courtesy for rudeness, I break a negative cycle in someone’s day.

A similar dynamic plays out in my volunteer position with a nonprofit. I work in the communications department, and my responsibilities include supervising several other volunteers. Time and again, I’m confronted with ego. I might think, “That’s not how I would write that blog post,” or “Why is she going over my head to my boss? What’s wrong with me?” Or, “She gets to shine here, but what about everything I do?”

Lots of “I” and “me” running rampant through my thoughts, lots of hurts and grudges growing. Curbing the “I’s” and “me’s” bears more important fruit in this situation. Stepping back from my own ego makes space for others to use and be recognized for their gifts. The team of volunteers no longer depends on one egocentric person but grows to include many voices – as well as my own.

Letting go of ego also gives me more space and freedom to develop my own gifts. If my ego isn’t always on the line, I can try new things and develop new gifts, because fear of failure no longer cripples me. If I can tolerate not being the best at everything I try to do, I can risk trying to do more things – and discover gifts I wasn’t aware I had.

Photo by Nathaniel Tetteh on Unsplash

Words

I’m a wordsmith. I love words. I love new words and old words. I love learning where they came from, information that isn’t in most dictionaries anymore. I love putting words together, growing sentences and paragraphs into a whole. I love looking at the puzzle of other peoples’ words, shifting the pieces around, shaping them into someone else’s whole, in that person’s voice rather than my own.

Words matter even more when you are speaking them in someone else’s name.  You may be putting them together on the spot, and you must do so in a way that communicates the message without leaving room for misinterpretation. What does the audience think they already know about the topic? What feelings impede their hearing? How can I cut through those thoughts and emotions with the message I bring in another’s name?

It’s an awe-some responsibility. I’m responsible to the one I’m speaking for, responsible to communicate that message without editorializing. I am also responsible to myself: I must never let my skill with words run away with my integrity. Even though the message is not my own, I must ask myself: “Do I believe this?”

There are people speaking and writing today who are also skilled with words. They know how to use language to elicit strong emotions, emotions spilling out onto the Internet and onto the street.

What kind of action is following from these words and emotions? This is not a question of “right” or “left,” “liberal” or “conservative. It’s a question of responsibility. We all must choose our words carefully. We are responsible to ourselves, to believe what we say. And we are responsible for the actions that result.

(Photo courtesy of Antonio Darius Sollers.)

Confederates, Confrontation, and Columbus

The recent and violent disagreements over what should be done with Confederate statues and monuments has hit Middle America: Columbus, Ohio. The violence was perpetrated in Camp Chase Cemetery. on the city’s West Side, where vandals beheaded the statue of a Confederate soldier and made off with it, leaving behind the headless statue and its hat. This, or course, is nothing compared to the violent altercation that plagued Charlottesville, and the violent talk that erupts whenever the subject of Confederate monuments and statues comes up.

There are at least three possible positions to take on the issue. The first is the one white supremacists and their sympathizers take: that people of color are a threat to Caucasians, that Caucasians are superior to everyone else and that the key figures of the Confederacy are symbols of this supposed supremacy.

The second position is that these statues and monuments are part of history, and the fact that we don’t agree with the ideology of those depicted doesn’t change historical fact. In other words, it’s wrong to do revisionist history and, in effect, pretend that these people, who held positions that we now recognize are wrong, did not have a significant impact on the history of the United States. Those who hold this position don’t think the statues should be dismantled, but for a different reason: This is history, and you can’t dismantle history.

The third position holds that it is morally wrong to maintain the statues of those who held racist views, people like Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. Those holding this position might say that these are not people we want to emulate, so why should we continue to honor them with statues?

For many, the offense is deeper and more personal. They are the descendants of slaves. They may have lived under Jim Crow, endured discrimination in housing, lived through school busing that sometimes led to violence. To see those who perpetrated torment honored? I can’t begin to imagine the wrenching emotions these monuments and statues evoke for those who suffered and continue to suffer racial discrimination.

I think both those who think we can’t change history by dismantling a statue, and those who find those statues so painful, are both correct. This is where context becomes important. Put these statues and monuments in museums, within an historical context. Talk and write about the moral evil of slavery and the role Confederates had in supporting it. Tell their whole story: that they supported slavery, why some people at some point thought they deserved a monument, and how we as a nation came to realize that they do not.

Camp Chase also has an historical and cultural context. Camp Chase was a camp the Union operated to hold Confederate prisoners of war. The men buried there were Confederate soldiers.

Showing respect for Camp Chase doesn’t fall into the same category as respecting the monuments of past Confederate leaders. Burial of the dead is a mark of human culture. Burial honors them not for being Confederates, but for being human beings. To respect a Confederate cemetery is not to say that we agree with Confederate ideology. To respect a Confederate cemetery is, in fact, to take a stand against a Confederate ideology that said some are less human than others.

To maintain and respect a Confederate cemetery is to say that, however morally repugnant their actions may have been, these were human beings.

As are we.

The Church’s Stepchildren

If the Roman Catholic Church is a family,she has a lot of stepchildren. These are the folks who hand around, Cinderella-like, on the periphery. They sit in the back of the church. They may come to Mass only for major life events, or holidays. They don’t know where they fit.

Who are these people? They may be LGBTQ. They may be divorced and remarried. They may be at odds with one or more of the official church teachings.

For some people, these are not reasons to feel like stepchildren. Some people have a vision of church that allows them to take what makes sense to them , leave the rest, and still have a sense of belonging.

The Church’s stepchildren aren’t like that. Her stepchildren take the Church at her word. They think that if they don’t believe a certain way and act a certain way, they’re not really part of the family. They’re second class, at best.

If the institutional Church is a family, why can’t she be more like a blended family? In a blended family, there are still blood ties, but they aren’t the only ties, and they aren’t the most important ties. The most importany ties are those of shared life and love.

This image of Church-as-blended family doesn’t say that doctrine and dogma and teaching aren’t important commonalities; it just says they’re not the most important commonalities. For the Church to be a blended family, its leaders and teachers don’t have to change an iota of doctrine or dogma. They can adhere to all of the creeds and councils and codes.

What they would do, however, is act as if the most important bonds are those of common life and love. The Church lives a common life most visibly at the Sunday Eucharist. Receiving Eucharist is a significant aspect of Roman Catholic life. What if leaders communicated this, but also communicated that worthy reception of the Eucharist is a matter of conscience, and conscience is first of all between the individual and God?

This is not a devaluing of the Eucharist, but rather a re-valuing of it. Instead of people receiving Eucharist outside of theirhome parishes so as to avoid the priest who know they are divorced and remarried, they could join their parish family at the table, and deal with God about the divorce and remarriage. Instead of LGBTQ people deciding to stay int he closet rather than forgo receiving Eucharist, they could deal with God about their sexual orientation and practice.

This is a time-honored tradition in Roman Catholicism. It’s called the the primacy of conscience. “Primacy of conscience” doesn’t mean “anything goes.” It means I stand before God in the transparency of who I am. What is the truth about me and my actions? Is my heart open to God, and am I willing to continue opening it, no matter what that costs me? If we are God’s children, we have a right and a responsibility to stand before God in just this way. And there is no fooling God.

If the Church taught openly about the primacy of conscience and encouraged people to form and honor their consciences, she would have many fewer people who feel like stepchildren. The weekly family gathering would be messier. There would be a much greater variety of people there. Some would be those whom others consider “unworthy.”

Some might feel they have earned their place at the table. They’ve kept all of the rules since they reached the age of reason. They were married “in the Church” and they used Natural Family Planning. They’ve dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s.

When Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” to those about to execute the woman caught in adultery, all of her accusers walked away. Like them, each of us, when we lie awake in the wee hours of the morning, knows  that we are not without sin; our sin may just be less visible than someone else’s.

One of the hallmarks of Roman Catholicism is that the institutional church doesn’t change with every shift in society and culture. She establishes a benchmark. At a time and place in history when so much is left to how an individual “feels” about something, establishing and holding to a benchmark is valuable. Let it stand.

But realize that, in one way or another, we all fall short of that benchmark. None of us  is “worthy” to be God’s child and to sit at God’s table. Let each of us trust God as the only One who has the right to judge, and welcome each other to God’s table.