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Wait for it… Wait for it!

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Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount. ~ Clare Booth Luce

For nearly a year now we’ve been talking about the nature of courage and courage development in children, and talking about courage as the mechanism for activating other values or qualities (some might like the word “virtues.”) Today, here are my thoughts about one of those values, qualities or virtues: patience.

Patience can be activated by physical courage if it requires sitting still or restraining an impulse; it might be supported by emotional courage if it requires a belief in a loved one’s ability to fulfill a promise; it might be activated by spiritual courage if it requires willingness to live in uncertainty about purpose or meaning during chaotic times. I’m sure by now our faithful readers can extrapolate their own examples for the six types of courage as they relate to patience.

We know that fear is inspired by uncertainty and lack of control. While we are waiting for something we are uncertain: will it happen at all? will I like it? will it be what I imagine? will I get a piece with blue frosting or yellow frosting? On top of that is the uncertainty of how we will manage our disappointment if IT doesn’t fulfill our expectations. While we are waiting for something we usually have no control, since we can’t speed up time or manipulate events. Thus, the ability to tolerate this uncertainty and lack of control requires courage, which then allows for patience.

I’ve been noticing recently how waiting has changed since my own childhood. The Wizard of Oz was broadcast on television once a year, and missing it meant having to wait another year. Likewise for The Sound of Music, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and countless other “big” or seasonal movies. In just the four years since my daughter arrived here from Ethiopia at the age of eight, we’ve gone from being able to buy a movie on DVD to watch anytime, to being able to download or stream movies instantly to laptop, tablet or t.v. You don’t even have to go to the store to buy the DVD (or to the library to borrow it). No waiting required. Same with music, many television shows, and books. Instantly has become the one of the dominant motifs of our children’s growing-up years.

As I see it, we seek to quell the fear inspired by uncertainty through instant gratification.  The insidious problem with that is that it’s never enough; there will always be something else just one step ahead of us in the future, creating uncertainty.  On top of that, the false promise of instant gratification obscures the fact that some things can never be instant – skill does not come instantly, for example, but must be developed through hours, weeks or years of steady practice.  Without patience we quit early, grumpy and disenchanted by the tedious slowness of it all.

This is not a rant about how much better things were when I was a kid, or how much worse they are now (they weren’t and they aren’t). I’m just saying that they are different as it relates to organic opportunities for learning the skill of waiting. We are swimming in instant: instant foods, instant entertainment, instant messages, instant downloads, instant photos, instant feedback, etc.. Because of this, I find I have been looking for opportunities to teach this skill of waiting to my daughter. In my post “I Can’t Do It. Yet.” I wrote about the word “Yet” as a great tool for coaching patience – as in, “it’s true you can’t do it yet, but keep trying and eventually you will.”

Very young children live in the present, so for them, waiting for anything is a baffling torment of “why? why? why?” Sometimes the only thing that a parent can do is distract, as in this story from India, Birbal Shortens the Road.  But as children get older and the concept of time becomes more concrete, cause and effect begin to make sense. At twelve, my daughter is young enough to be highly reactive and suggestible (Mom, can I get this song on my iPod right now?) but old enough to recognize that Mom doesn’t play that tune, if you know what I mean. To help her with learning patience, I try to take some of the sting out of the uncertainty of waiting: I am boringly predictable and consistent with routines (dinner at six, regular bedtime, daily chores, etc.) I make sure she understands what she has to do to earn the next download to her iPod. I try to be clear about when things will happen in the future, such as when she will achieve the sparkling dream of cell phone ownership. I tell her what new privileges and opportunities she can look forward to next year or the years after that, and involve her in planning future events or activities.

At the same time, I point out that although I have expectations about the future, I can’t control it. I expect it will take about twenty more minutes to get home from this BORING car trip, but we could run into traffic, or we might see an awesome tag sale going on, or something unforeseen may occur. I tell her that I acknowledge my uncertainty and my lack of control over the future, and demonstrate by my own patience that it’s possible to survive both. (By the way, I’m talking about best-case scenarios, not the ones where I lose my temper and my patience!)

In the end, patience may simply be a matter of accepting reality. No amount of fretting and agitation in the present can alter the space-time continuum to make time speed up, so just let it go.  Just wait.

Courage Quote of the Day

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“We don’t conquer this world’s mischief and wrongdoing and malice once and for all, and then forever after enjoy the moral harvest of that victory.  Rather, we struggle along, even stumble along, from day to day, in need of taking stock yet again, with the help of a story, a movie, not to mention the experiences that, inevitably and not so rarely, come into our daily lives.”

~ Robert Coles, The Moral Intelligence of Children

For more about moral courage,  click here!

Truth to Power

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On this blog we’ve been discussing moral courage quite a lot lately.  One sign of a lack of moral courage is hypocrisy.  A story the Lovely K. has enjoyed hearing is from the Jewish tradition of midrash, or tales that fill in some of the sketched outlines of Bible stories with more detail. This is one of the more famous of the traditional midrashim, Abraham the Idol Smasher. 

In his youth, Abraham lived in Babylon, in Iraq, and his father was among the elite favored by the king.  Abraham had the habit of turning a studious gaze on power, and he had plenty of opportunity for doing just that. His father was a prominent idol merchant, who manufactured statues of this god, that god, any god his wealthy customers asked for. “How old are you?” Abraham might ask a customer, over his father’s protests. “Sixty,” might be the reply. “Strange, how a man of sixty will bow before a stone statue carved yesterday,” Abraham would point out. (This was not so good for business!) One day, Abraham’s father reluctantly left his son to watch the store while he made an out-of-town delivery, and woman came in with an offering of grain to leave before one of the statues. “I’ll take care of it,” Abraham assured her as she left.

When she had gone, he put the grain before one of the statues. And nothing happened. Then he put it in front of a different statue, and again, nothing happened. Certainly there was no argument from the first god who’d been offered it! Abraham then picked up a hammer and methodically smashed all the statues except one, and left the hammer in front of that idol.

Upon his return, Abraham’s father was horrified to see the mess in the shop. “What in all gods’ names have you done!” he cried out to his son. “Me?” said Abraham. “This idol here did it,” he continued, pointing to the one unbroken statue. “What are you talking about, that stone has no power!” the father roared. Abraham nodded. “Exactly my point.”

My daughter laughs at this story (okay, I use funny gestures and expressions as I tell it; it’s not especially hilarious on its own). This one is always food for conversation about how often we see people say one thing but then turn around and say or do the opposite. We sometimes discuss why that might happen, and I try to keep the speculation compassionate – I don’t want either of us to become sanctimonious or self-righteous about it, after all. From people with no power, saying one thing and doing another may be a matter of survival. But it is important to know what speaking truth to power requires, and it’s always worth shining a spotlight of attention on doublespeak and hypocrisy from people in authority. I do include parents in that group, in the context of the family. Our children are always watching us, and noticing if our deeds and our words are in alignment. So I tell my daughter this story, and I ask myself privately, what idols am I paying lip service to that she may one day smash?

About Stories

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“The true meaning of a story is not something one can extract from the story itself. The whole story — character, setting, plot, theme, language – is the meaning…. Meaning in a story reflects our belief that there is a meaning in the universe, that no matter the disorder that frames our lives, in the center — in the place that reveals who we are — there is order.”

~ Katherine Paterson

Flourishing or Withering on the Vine

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Lisa’s recent post describing how moral courage has its roots in empathy had me thinking. What about those times when empathy is blighted or stunted? What becomes of moral courage then? We can look back into history to find periods of what we might call “low empathy” – times when public torture and execution were carnival attractions, when heavy-handed corporal punishment of children or slaves/serfs/servants was commonplace, when mockery and abuse of the disabled was the stuff of fun and games, when might made right, life was cheap, and persecution of selected out-groups was sanctioned by law. Under these conditions, how did “moral action” occur? How did the “family” of humanity uphold mostly positive behavior and tend toward care and flourishing rather than harm? In other words, how did the family make enough “right” or “good” decisions to survive in these times? We are born hard-wired for empathy, but someone has to teach us how to turn it on. As a gardener, I think of it in gardening terms, and so I see empathy as a seedling that must be nurtured and cultivated, or the flower can wither on the vine. How did this plant stay alive under some of the harsh conditions history has witnessed?

We might infer at least two things about this from a quick glance back at history. First, it is clear that there were often eras when civilizations did not flourish, but declined into darkness or anarchy. Historically, periods of chaos were often precipitated by environmental assaults (famines, plagues, extreme climate events such as prolonged droughts) or social upheavals (invasions, wars, and revolutions political, ideological, or technological). Often the social catastrophes followed hard on the heels of the environmental ones, magnifying the disruptive effect of both, and the chaos prompted by these crises sometimes took many generations to recover from. Scarcity of resources can narrow the scope of our empathy from concern for all others, to concern just for those most like us, to those closest to us, and finally, to ourselves alone.
 
         Secondly, we can see that extremely domineering law/justice systems (autocratic kingly dynasties, strict or wrathful theologies and political dogmas) can enforce good or “moral” behavior, or at least constrain immoral behavior, but primarily by threat of punishment (in this life or after), rather than by promoting empathy.  This suggests a tendency to rigidly adhere to the letter of the law, ignoring the spirit behind it.  Just as toddlers obey rules because they fear punishment, rather than because they have internalized the “spirit of the law” or the values behind the rules (fairness, accountability, cooperative flourishing, etc.), societies held in check by a totalitarian or despotic state or ideology can easily devolve into anarchy when that system collapses. (Remember Yugoslavia, to cite just one example from recent history?) A breakdown in empathy, or concern for others, which is prompted by disruption, upheaval and fear (on the family level or the societal level) may thus compel the parent or the state to lay down stricter and stronger rules/laws and punishments. This is a downward spiral that takes significant moral courage to reverse.

        Yet it is out of scenarios such as this that great moral heroes can emerge, from some hidden garden where the seeds of empathy were kept watered and sheltered. Because the norm in these scenarios is low empathy, these moral heroes almost seem to appear by superhuman agency, giving rise to mythologies and heroic legends. Yet we all have the capacity for empathy, and thus for moral courage. When times get tough we can run for cover and let the Devil take the hindmost, or we can stand our ground and focus on raising good citizens of the world. How does your garden grow?

Four Dragons

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In the West, we frequently use dragons as a metaphor for evils, wrongs, or unnamed fears that must be conquered. In China, however, dragons are benevolent. Powerful, yes, but benevolent. One beautiful legend from ancient China speaks of the Four Dragons: Black Dragon, Yellow Dragon, Long Dragon and Pearl Dragon. Here it is, as I retold it to my daughter:

A very long time ago, there were no rivers in China. No lakes, no ponds, no streams or springs or waterfalls, either. There was only the great ocean in the east. Fortunately, the land was watered by rain, sent by the Jade Emperor, who ruled in Heaven. A time came, however, when the Jade Emperor stopped paying attention to the earth, and forgot to send the rains for a very long time. The earth began to dry out, and crops withered.

One day, as the Black Dragon, the Yellow Dragon, the Long Dragon and the Pearl Dragon were gliding through the air, they noticed an old woman kneeling in the dust below, her face streaked with tears as she prayed. Then they noticed that the earth was cracked and brown. “Why has the Jade Emperor sent no rain?” the Pearl Dragon wondered. “Let us go to him in Heaven and ask.”

When they arrived at the throne of the Jade Emperor, he was annoyed that they had come to him, pointing out his failure. “I’ll send the rain, now go away,” he snapped.

The dragons left, relieved that all would be well again on earth. Yet when ten days passed with no rain falling, they knew the Jade Emperor had forgotten about the people on earth again. “Let us help them,” said the dragons to one another. “We can fill our bellies with water from the great ocean and spray it onto the earth, can’t we?” And so this is what they did. The moment the water touched the dry soil the wilting rice and wheat stood tall again, and the people rushed to catch the water in bowls.

Up in Heaven, the Jade Emperor caught sight of what the dragons were doing, and shouted with anger that they had taken it upon themselves to help the earth. “Bring mountains!” he roared to the Mountain God. “Crush those dragons!”

Faster than wind over rice paddies, four mountains came and bore down upon the dragons, pinning them to the earth. Yet the dragons were still full of water, and continued to pour it out, even as they were crushed. And so the four great rivers of China were formed, the Yellow River, the Long River, the Black River and the Pearl River, bringing water to the people forever.

I asked my daughter how many kind of courage she thought were involved in this story. “It took courage to show the emperor he had forgotten his job,” she said. “And it took courage to go ahead and do the job themselves.” “Do you think it also takes courage sometimes to pray for help?” I asked. She shrugged. “Maybe.”

Compare this story of self-sacrifice to the story of Fenrir the Wolf, from Viking mythology, and The Legend of the Banyan Deer, from the Buddhist tradition. In all of these stories, the powerful put themselves at risk to help the weak. Endurance, love, charity, compassion, stewardship, responsibility and leadership are values that parents can model in their own behavior toward their children as examples of all six types of courage. Of course, it’s often much easier said than done!

I know that, for myself, explaining to my daughter why I’m making a sacrifice is key. The sacrifice might be giving my money, or my mental time, or my physical effort to something other than my myself and my own immediate needs. Because fear is correlated to lack of control, we can infer that the opposite is true: courage is correlated to taking control. When I see something in the world that grieves me (poverty, injustice, hunger, etc.) I could allow feelings of helplessness overwhelm me. I could begin to fear that the world is a hopeless place. On the other hand, if I take even a small step, make a small sacrifice of money or time or effort to help alleviate that problem, I gain a measure of control. As a result, my feelings of futility diminish, and my fear subsides. Dr. Lisa has explained this eloquently in her posts about an internal v. external locus of control.

When we help others, we truly help ourselves. The greater our sacrifice, the less fear we will experience. Two quotations say this better, and more succinctly, than I have:

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage.” ~ Dale Carnegie.

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed. ~ Napoleon Hill

The Bloody Hook and Halloween Candy Poisoners

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When I was a teenager, we heard that two kids from a rival high school had been “parking” near the reservoir late one Saturday night. A news broadcast interrupted the music on the radio to warn that a dangerous serial killer with a hook for a hand had escaped from a hospital, and was being hunted by police in the area. The teens heard some scratching on the car, and without pausing to investigate, the boy put the pedal to the metal. That car spit gravel as they spun around and sped back out to Route 35. When they got back to the girl’s house, they were horrified to find a metal hook dangling from the rear bumper, still bloody from where it had been ripped out of a man’s arm. Swear to God, totally true. My cousin’s friend’s dentist’s baby-sitter knew them.

This spook story made the rounds when I was a teen in the 1970s, whispered in huddles of girls in the school halls and in the cafeteria. In fact, it had been steadily making the rounds since at least 1960, when this particular urban legend was first “reported.” We greeted the news as marginally credible, totally gross, and perfectly thrilling. Sociologists and folklorists have been collecting such urban legends for years, trying to tease out what these contemporary “myths” reveal about our culture, just as anthropologists search for cultural clues in ancient myths. In the case of the Bloody Hook, the consensus seems to be that it’s an effective warning not to go out necking with your boyfriend on Saturday night. Sex = mortal danger, in other words. We were happy to repeat the story, enjoying the thrill of grossing out friends who hadn’t heard this “totally true story,” yet, and speculating on how likely it was that it actually had happened.

And every Halloween, there were “reliable” reports and warnings about people who gave out poisoned candy and apples with razor blades in them. We didn’t really believe it then, but I’m sorry to say that the “reliable” reports have gained potency year after year until now there are communities where Trick-or-Treating is a relic of a “safer” past. Parents are too fearful to let their children go door to door and risk being given chocolate laced with strychnine or arsenic. However, if you go to Snopes.com (the premier hoax-busting website) you will discover that there never has been a case of a person maliciously poisoning candy to give to Trick-or-Treaters.

Why are we so ready to believe our neighbors are capable of such things? Why, when hearing patently dubious claims, are we so gullible? Why do we not ask to see the police reports or news stories? Why, when someone tells us that such-and-such causes cancer, do we not ask for the source of this “information,” but dutifully forward it to everyone in our address book? It’s tempting to surmise that people just like to believe they are beset by dangers on all sides (otherwise why would they so willingly believe it?). With the Internet handy it’s often the work of just minutes to bust a hoax, and yet hardly a week goes by when I don’t find some heartfelt warning in my inbox, urging me to share it with my loved ones.

I think back to my teen years and the thrilling sensations I experienced when hearing about The Bloody Hook; among the feelings I relished the most were the ones relating to how safe I felt that my friends had shared it with me! We had each other’s backs! No crazy Hook Man was going to get me because my girlfriends were looking out for me! That feels awesome, and it’s worth having a crazy Hook Man on the loose. Maybe nameless teen angst needs a scapegoat, a boogeyman we can circle the wagons against.

But seriously. If we actually want to be safe, instead of just feeling safe, it’s up to us to be critical consumers of information. A feeling of security is pointless without actual security, and a false sense of danger can distort a secure life in truly harmful ways, not the least by trampling joy and freedom. Intellectual courage can help us dig for verification of the alarms and warnings that come our way. It can help us teach our kids what healthy skepticism is, and teach us to be better at risk assessment (e.g. air travel not statistically dangerous, driving without a seat belt statistically really dangerous). Intellectual courage can save us from the bloody hook.

Don’t Be Scared!

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I grew up in an old farmhouse that had two dim and musty attics, a dark, multi-chambered and cobwebby basement, a ramshackle garage and a variety of derelict outbuildings – corn crib, wood shed, henhouses, outhouse. The barn didn’t actually come to us when my parents bought the house, but there it was right next door: huge, weathered, and full of mysterious, rusted farm equipment. All of these shadowy spaces were populated by wasps and/or spiders and/or mice and/or bats, bristling with potential splinters, and cluttered with hard-to-identify objects the previous (original) family had left behind. You can either interpret this landscape as spooky and ominous or fun and exciting. At various times in my childhood they were all those things in turn; what I can assure you is that at no time was I indifferent to these places. I was always attracted to them, either with a creeping dread or with a spirit of discovery, and I spent a lot of time in them.

Other friends lived in similarly old, minimally electrified, cavernous houses on large properties with tumble-down barns, sheds, guest houses, gazebos, stables, etc. This was the 60s and 70s, in rural New York, and the gentrification push from New York City hadn’t yet begun. One of my friends actually lived on the grounds of a sprawling old mental hospital, and we wandered freely, poking our noses into rooms, or trying to wipe the grime off the windows of locked buildings so we could spy. We played in settings that have become horror movie standards, but back then it was just normal: usually fun, occasionally mysterious, with a once-in-a-while dip into real fright. But still normal. It was the brand-new homes with wall-to-wall carpeting, bright overhead lights, and shiny matching appliances that were truly foreign to me. Only one of my friends lived in such an outlandish house as that.

I don’t know how many kids today get to roam around by themselves in such liminal spaces. As you may recall from my post about bedtime stories, liminal refers to thresholds. These places are neither here nor there, inside nor outside, inhabited nor empty. They are all between. They are openings, waiting in suspended time. It is here that the hero can experience the call to adventure, the invitation to step into the unknown and begin the quest. Yes, there is fear in the unknown, and fear in shadowy spaces. But I think that I, for one, spent much of this time unconsciously testing myself, measuring my courage against the courage I discovered in stories. If I had discovered a wardrobe that led into another world, I would have been ready.