Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Emerald Coast
“Toenails and Roadways”
Rev. Rod Debs
November 21, 2010
The poet, James Baldwin grew up in the ghettos of New York City, black and gay. He wrote of how self-loathing grows in a culture that teaches a child the feeling that his presence is not welcome, how a sense of the sacredness of others is lost, relationships severed, and how ugliness permeates all aspects of living and despair hangs like a cloud over people’s lives. One might expect people who feel self-loathing to strike out with destructive behavior toward others and toward themselves—we see that enough, for sure. (Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now, Rebecca Ann Parker, 2006)
But in his essay, “The Fire Next Time,” James Baldwin speaks of the rhythms of jazz, the resilience of the people, and the freshness of the children growing up. He writes: “The question remains: What do we do with all this beauty?”
What do we do with all this beauty? This is the spirit of gratitude, of deep thanksgiving.
We are not of the highest privilege, but I suspect that we might agree that you and I enjoy relative privilege in our lives. We have our complaints, our aches and pains, taxes, household chores, car repairs, children’s weak motivation at school, unfriendly, dishonest people, war, poverty and injustice, aggressive religious ideologues, depression, grouchiness, mosquitoes, barking dogs, lint, people who smile too much, stupidity, everything going to hell in a hand-basket! You buy a bumper-sticker that says: If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention! Relatives give you and your wife two mugs: One reads “She Who Must Be Obeyed” and the other, “Old Grouch” —and you know which one is yours. Then, to top it all off, the Minister is preaching some drivel about gratitude on Thanksgiving!
Robert Fulghum tells of working nights at a motel as a teenager. He complained that the motel’s so-called “free lunch” of wieners and sauerkraut, was unfairly deducted from his pay. The old book-keeper, numbers tattooed on his forearm, listening to Robert complain about wieners and sauerkraut day after day, said: What’s wrong with you, Fulghum, is that you don’t know the difference between a problem and an inconvenience. Your house burns down, you break a leg, that’s a problem. Wieners and sauerkraut? That’s an inconvenience.
Most of my problems are really only inconveniences. A culture that forces self-loathing in the ghetto, now that’s a problem. Despite the tangible despair of the ghetto, a real problem, James Baldwin saw “all this beauty”! Simply to see its beauty is to transform ugliness from despair to hope. It is possible to shape the world by the perspective we take!
Denis Waitley said, and I think you’ve heard it before:
“I had the blues / because I had no shoes,
Until upon the street, I met / a man who had no feet.”
Despite my relative privilege, the difficulty is that my perception of reality is shaped by the brain’s survival instinct. It’s of evolutionary survival-value for human attention and focus to lock onto perceived threats, and to pay little attention to all the good stuff in our lives. An example: When I have a toothache, my conscious awareness is over-whelmed by the tooth-ache. I am not aware of toe, foot, ankle, shin, knee, thigh, butt, stomach, chest, shoulders, neck, ears, tongue, eyes, arms, wrist, hands, fingers, not to mention healthy inner organs. Our unconscious selective attention allows us to take all the good stuff for granted.
So let’s reframe some of our complaints so as not to take for granted the good stuff. Take taxes. We can choose to understand taxes as funding social programs. I consider taxes, a sacrament. “From those to whom much is given, much shall be required” (Luke 12:48). “Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me” (Matthew 25:40).
If we open our eyes to all the privileges we take for granted, we might realize that we were born on third base and, no, we didn’t hit a home-run. There is so much of our childhood we took for granted to get where we are today: employed parents, food, clothes, housing, not in a war zone, education, able bodies, medical care, civil society, uncorrupted police and courts, tax-supported public services of roads, sewers, sanitation, water, and, yes, electricity, internet and free press guaranteed by government protections. Our lives are full of nature’s gifts, from toenails to trees, water, food, air and sunshine. Our lives are filled by society’s gifts from roadways, houses and technology to parental nurture and community services handed down from many generations.
Though we may be in the habit of complaining, we can choose to reframe our life experiences with gratitude. We can be thankful for taxes that make possible our lives of privilege, the general welfare in a civil society. We can be thankful for mortgage payments or rent that mean we live in houses that other people built. We can be thankful for aches and pains, that we are still able to get out of bed, walk and move around without assistance. We can be thankful for willful children, not traumatized by war or deprivation. I can be thankful for my 98% scoliosis curvature, that my body has adapted and remains relatively pain-free! We can be thankful for irritating family and friends, that we have companions who put up with us! We can be thankful for political opponents who humble us and force us to relinquish arrogance and uncompromising control. We could look at the challenges of our work places and see job security; we are actually needed to influence things for the better. Thomas Edison saw the good in experiment failures. He said: “I didn’t fail ten thousand times. I successfully eliminated, ten thousand times, materials and combinations which wouldn’t work.”
Call it “rose-colored glasses” and lack of realism, if you wish, ostrich with his head in the sand. Let me ask: What, in your experience, works better? –the old grouch who is always the devil’s advocate, head in the mud, pointing out everyone’s failures, insufficiencies and short-comings? Or the one who frames the good and reframes what at first appears discouraging? Like the child in the dark horse stall, shoveling declared: With all this manure, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!
When it comes to simple pragmatism, scientific research does not support the “old grouch” approach as effective for good results. Children perform better when they receive positive reinforcement six times as much as criticism; they perform worse when they receive anything less than three times as much praise than criticism. Criticism is powerfully destructive. In the adult world, Appreciative Inquiry implemented at Cleveland’s University Hospital was more effective in achieving over-all health by promoting wellness rather than by fighting disease. In the AT&T corporate setting, Appreciative Inquiry improved the bottom line profit by focusing on successful areas of productivity rather than by focusing on problem areas. Appreciative Inquiry shovels for the love of the pony.
Our ancient brain, unfortunately, finds morbid satisfaction in latching onto problems and threats to survival and in waging battle, rather than nurturing positive energy. Being an old grouch may be more fun. It’s just not very effective.
Now I can understand the spirit of gratitude that my colleague from upstate New York, Richard Gilbert celebrated in this poem:
“Each morning we hold out our chalice of being to be filled
With the graces of life which abound ‑‑
Air to breathe, food to eat, companions to love,
Beauty to behold, art to cherish, causes to serve.
They come in ritual procession ‑‑ these gifts of life.
Whether we deserve them we cannot know or say.
They are poured out.
Ours is the task of holding steady the chalice of being.”
Look for the pony.