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.

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

Mercy

I’ve decided to do less self-editing because it’s impeding my writing, so back to the topic of what I’m learning at work. One thing I’m re-learning is how much of what I think, say and do is driven by ego.

What is this “ego” that can create so much unreal drama in my life? It’s an intellectual construct! You can’t see it or draw it or take a picture of it, yet it has such power.

Ego has its uses, of course. I probably wouldn’t write if I had no concept of “I” as distinct from others. But it is time (again) for me to step back from “I” and look at what she drives me to do. When she feels threatened, she drives me to act before I think. She can feel disheartened for hours by a comment from a customer whom I don’t even know. She wants to be first and best and favorite.

Those desires are part of human development. Who has never tried to be among the first in line to buy a concert ticket? What child who has siblings hasn’t yearned to be the favorite? Which of us has not wanted to be  the best at what we do, especially if we consider our work a vocation and not just a job?

It’s obvious how these desires, if unchecked, can harm others, but they can also harm me. They lead me to compare myself with others. Eventually, I – all of us – will see that we are not first and best and favorite most of the time.

So I’m learning to step back from ego and comparison and self-criticism. I do not have enough wisdom and knowledge to “rate” anyone else on the human scale. Nor do I have enough wisdom and knowledge to rate myself.

I believe that there is One who rates and judges. And my deepest hope is the name of that One is Mercy.

 

 

Drama

I am trying to milk my job for everything I can learn from it, since in  itself it isn’t very satisfying. Even in this insignificant retail job, I see the range of human behavior, from the people who comes back to pay for something they forgot in their carts, to the ones who try to scam with gift cards or leave containers of half-eaten food around the store. It disheartens me to observe bad behavior, and even more to realize that some of these folks were never taught that what they are doing is wrong.

Sometimes working with my colleagues is like revisiting middle school. I jockey for position, as if it matters in the long run, on any particular day, whether I “win” a power play or end up “giving in.” It doesn’t matter, except to my fragile ego, but I can let it grow to Shakespearean dramatic heights.

Experiences such as these, on this small scale, give me insight into why the world scene is so troubled. Many on the world stage are also acting out of middle-school motives, but they have the power to cause national and global crises.

That my place of employment continues to function can seem miraculous, given the mini-dramas those of us who work there can create among ourselves. That we human beings continue to exist in a world where our leaders “act out” on the world stage is an argument for the reality of grace.

Soul

Who am I?

Such a basic question, one that my paid job is forcing me to ask. Am I only what I do? Of course not, but sometimes it feels that way. I work at the “front end” of a supermarket. I am a cashier and self-checkout attendant, training to be a coordinator.

Is this all I am? NO, I want to say vehemently to the people who come through my line with their buy-one-get-one specials, their coupons, their complaints. I am so much more than this. I’ve taught in an inner-city school. I’ve traveled to Spain and Peru and Zimbabwe. I’ve been the communications director for a 1600-member faith-based organization.

Yet with all of these protests, I am still focusing on what I do. Who am I? I am a lover and user of words. I love to taste the nuances of two words that are considered synonyms. Do they really  mean the same thing? Which better expresses what I want to say? Which is more easily understood?

Then it’s on to the larger structures of English. Do I write this thought as two shorter sentences, or as one longer complex sentence punctuated with a comma? Which “sounds” better? Does the meaning shift if I write it one way or the other? Which way is more likely to keep people reading?

Who cares, anyway? I do. In the age of communication by emoticon and vowel-less abbreviations, I care. I use abbreviations when I text, but I don’t love them the way I love words. They are like Morse code: They do the bare-bones job of communication, but they have no soul.

I have soul. What I write must also have soul. So I will continue to ponder the weight of words, the cadence of sentences, the beginnings and endings of paragraphs.

Because this is who I am.

Words

I’m aware that I haven’t posted in over a week and am feeling self–imposed pressure to write, so here goes. It’s my birthday, anyway, so it is appropriate to use one of God’s best gifts to me today.

Words have been a gift to me from the time I could first read a “Dick and Jane”-type primer. I would walk to the library so many times a week that I was embarrassed to have the librarians see me again. I took refuge from the chaos of nine people in a small house by hiding out and reading in our basement.

I remember well the “aha!” moment when I discovered how to use rhyme and meter  to write poetry. Many years later, I delighted in making my living by writing for causes that I believed in.

I am a “geek” when it comes to words. I care about whether an adjective or adverb is used in a particular place, or a pronoun is placed close enough to its antecedent. I love the kinds of words that show up on the SAT, not because I want to show off, but because they help me say what I want to say. I love being able to figure out the meaning of a word because I recognize its root in another language.

I realize that these are esoteric loves. It’s like loving the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast.” For most people, it requires explanation. But those who know me recognize this truth about me even when I forget it myself.

After a sabbatical of several years, I’m writing publicly again. Once more, words are a refuge from chaos. They will help me find my place again in a world that has felt alien and disorienting.

Step In! the Water’s Fine!

The work had become boring. It didn’t start out that way; I had reasons for taking the job, and those reasons were fulfilled. But I had learned the job and was bored.

So what did I do? I scared myself but good – by accepting a promotion! I briefly gave in to my fear and backed out but, with the encouragement of bosses and family, changed my mind – again! – and accepted the scary monster.

Know what? At the moment, I like it! It’s energizing! Problems constantly arise – and I’m able to solve them! Who knew?

So what’s the point? I feel as if I am becoming a new person – not only because of this new job, but partly so. I spent the first half of my life as the Queen of the Introverts, with my nose in a book. Recently, and to my great surprise, I’m finding that extroversion isn’t all bad.

Do I still relish time alone? Of course! This isn’t the Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, after all. But an unexpected side of myself is emerging, and I am eager to meet and welcome her.