Character Education: Political Correctness vs Civility

Years ago, when I was PTA Rabble Rouser in Chief, a parent came to a meeting with an elaborate presentation about something called “character education.” She said that children needed to be taught manners and how to be nice to each other, in school. She backed up her argument with charts and visual aids.  I was a bit taken aback because I thought that manners, tolerance and how to be kind to other people was MY job, at home, as a parent. After pointing out that recommendations for changes to the educational system needed to be implemented by the school board, not the PTA, I went home very puzzled.  A year later, character education became a state mandate.  How was it possible that we needed to mandate the teaching of common decency and civility?

I must be blind or completely out of the loop. It seems that not only did we need character education, a major sector of this country needs a refresher course. Suddenly, people seem to think they can say whatever they want, no matter how mean, intrusive or bigoted. At check-out lines across the country, nutty people feel emboldened to comment nastily on other people, without knowing anything about their challenges, their lives or who they are. A mother struggling with two special needs kids, another young boy and a toddler gets threatened with CPS by the woman in front of her. Wouldn’t it have been kinder to say, “May I help you?” The nephew of a friend, calmly waiting his turn on line in a store suddenly gets called a vile racial epithet for no reason at all, other than some bug-eyed man’s idea of “free speech.” Using the excuse that we no longer have to be “politically correct,” the crazies have come out of the closet.

Calling people names is not “telling it like it is.” Being rude, hostile, loud and threatening does not show strength of character – quite the opposite. What happened to offering assistance? To common courtesy? Tolerance?  Basic human dignity and kindness? Character is defined as the mental and MORAL qualities of an individual. Can we live up to our highest standards instead of the lowest?

Free speech does not mean you can say whatever hateful or hurtful thing that pops into your head. Good character dictates thinking before speaking, in case your words might wound.  Free speech is not verbal vomiting. In a civil society, we need to be just that – civil. Good character means good conduct in the best sense, not because it is politically correct but because it is good. We do not know what another person is going through and it behooves us to take a breath and at least try to be calm and kind. And if we are unable to do that, perhaps we should not speak at all.

"Hope is as reasonable as despair"**

On Wednesday, my colleague spontaneously gave homework to our bereavement group. She asked each member to grab a pen upon waking in the morning and write down things they are grateful. In fact, she asked that we all write 10 grateful things every morning for a week.  My first reaction was “cool, what a great idea.” Then I thought, TEN? That’s a lot!!  

In this new series of group sessions, we’ve decided to turn to the subject of resilience a lot sooner. We find that if we wait until the last two sessions, our group members seem more resistant to closing the group, begging for more.  While we encourage telling their stories many times and completely endorse crying and expressions of despair as a necessary part of grieving, we also see our role as guiding our clients towards living again.  Grief processing is easier when it includes a positive view along with the sadness.  For example, flashbacks of the final moments and the shock of the death itself can be alleviated through remembering the good times, all the years of love.  Just as one can’t stay stuck in abject sorrow, keening and wailing without end, it is imperative to let it go for a while. Put the grief on the shelf for an hour or so and take a walk in the woods.  Don’t suppress your feelings but balance them with some small activity of daily living. Breathe.  Relax.  Laugh.  Be grateful.

When I woke up this morning it was with a rather ungrateful thought. I sat with it for a while, noticed it, then took out a journal.  I chose one from several years ago, with many blank pages.  The first pages were scribbled with a few random daily descriptions and one of my favorite poems by ee cummings: i thank you god for most this amazing day.  I smiled, picked up a green pen (for gratitude) and completed my 10 Grateful Statements.

What are you grateful for?  It doesn’t have to be a huge thing; my first statement was that I am grateful for morning birdsong, even in Manhattan.  I am grateful for each of my children of course, and I am grateful for my new career and the people I work with.  I am grateful for every insight I am privileged to witness from a person who is mourning and rediscovering the meaning of their life. 

Try it - tomorrow when you wake up, write down some Grateful Statements.  It doesn’t matter how many…

***from Healing after Loss, Daily Meditations by Martha Whitemore Hickman.

Being IS Doing

Today marks my one year anniversary as a bereavement counselor for Hospice.  It has been a heart-expanding year; a year of daily karuna practice. Every day, I have been called to open hearted listening, just Being with someone, compassionately. 

Inside the practice of karuna and active presence, the practice of managing chaos resides.  How much of life is chaos and how much of life is predictable?  A psychologist posed this question to me a few weeks ago and I've been asking it to others. Most people rate chaos quite high; some people go for a 60/40 split with predictability having an edge. That was my position too, but it was surprising when this doctor stated that only 5% was actually chaotic.  Of that 5%, he asserted, 4% was merely irritating or annoying.  The only real out of control chaos in life is about 1%.

Of course, in hospice work, we are helping people who are in that 1%. They are panicked, watching their loved one deteriorate, providing medical care they never imagined they would have to do. While many people prefer to die at home, the toll on their families is enormous. Wives, husbands, children, grandchildren and even family friends step up and gamely administer medications, change and clean the frail bodies, tempt them with tasty treats that can no longer be swallowed. And they are grieving in anticipation, not knowing when it will "end," and dimly recognizing that the end of life will not end the grief.

Daily, people ask me, "what can I do?" I smile gently and lean forward.  Just BE, I answer. Sit with him and tell him you love him, or don't even say it out loud.  Hold her hand and sing quietly. Open your heart and just BE with your loved one, as calmly as you can, pulsing with love, light and gratitude.

Afterwards, come and sit with me.  I also will hold your hand and walk with you for a while.  And if you are wondering what to do with all this pain, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. They won't fix it or make the sadness go away.  But they can help you manage it, learn from it, grow with it. And one of the best lessons I've learned this year is that sometimes, you don't really have to do anything.

Just Be with it.

Somewhere packed away, I have my Certificate of Being, bestowed by a humorous professor from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.  I think I will dig it out and put it on my desk.

The Movement of Moving

The dust has settled and it feels like there is so much of it, as if it were rising in drifts up to my knees.  I am tripping over boxes, bags filled with off season clothes, suitcases half emptied because I have not decided what to unpack into. 

I have always been about movement – when I have something to say, I gesture, move, pantomime. In crisis I seek ways to move the energy, release negative and overwhelming feelings that are coursing through my body, mind and spirit.  I hate being stuck and while most of the past seven years have demonstrated steady movement, there is a part of me that was glued in place. Now, prying and wrenching, discarding and tossing, gathering and grumbling, I have moved.

The old place was a cocoon, dark and embracing. Nestled into a hill and facing north, its eyes were hooded with shades to keep out the chill. Even when they were rolled up, only dim light came in to the family room, the place we spent a lot of time. The living room was brighter but for some reason we did not use this room as much.  The kitchen had big windows, looking out on the hill and the fern forest in spring and summer, shaded by a black walnut tree and desiccated cedars, one of which hosts a swarm of bees. The new tenants are city folk and are concerned: will their son run into the road? Will the bees chase him?  "Just don't throw things at the bee hive," I advise, in my best country girl, nonchalant manner. 

In contrast, this house floods with light from early dawn till dusk. It is quieter here. At the old place, there was constant lawn mowing as if the neighbors were members of a secret competitive club, with a prize for how often one could mow. Red tractors, green ones, stand on the back mowers, which the neighbor across the street used while wearing a black back brace around his plaid shirt. My own John Deere stopped working years ago and the new lawn guy wears an acid green tee shirt as he walks behind his orange mower, delivered in a horse trailer.  At the new place, I have yet to hear anything more than birdsong, frogs and the cicadas right now, signaling another searingly hot day. Maybe the lawns are mowed by pookahs silently in the middle of the night. I have to admit it is pretty here. The deck is bordered by a small pond with pink water lilies tucked under a straggly wild blackberry bush. The land in back includes more than 50 acres of forest, wetland, hill and glen, with lovely mossy paths and tenacious trees growing out of granite cracks.

I took the long road home last night, winding around an old country highway, over the Bear Mountain Bridge. I drove past the road I lived on growing up, past the park where we'd go to see the bear cubs. It took me through the town where my eldest went to nursery school, past the turn off to our first house. It was as if I were moving through remnants of the past as I drove to the present.  Along with the boxes, pots and pans, my collection of colored crackle glass, hundreds of books, records and cds, I have moved with memories, carrying them in my heart, into this place of light and hopefully, new possibilities.

A Hurricane Dance Party

The news is playing endless loops of bright red and green spirals, the animated edges of Hurricane Irene which is heading our way. The dark clouds are Irene's tentacles reaching out to cover us, about to open up. We sit in suspension, before the deluge. People have been in excited panic for days; stores sold out of D batteries and large containers of water in a matter of minutes after opening, and someone told me gleefully that one store sold $24,000 worth of generators in an hour on Friday morning.

Even as I attempted to liken the hyped up terror to those 6 pages of possible side effects (including death) that come along with prescription drugs, I too have been very agitated. Perhaps it is the energy of nervous people around or maybe it is the anxiety of my daughter, trying to finish her last week as a nanny while packing for a four month trip to Italy. She has insisted on taking only one suitcase which required several elimination sessions, color coordination choices and teetering around in various shoes, with a quizzical expression. "Should I take the neutral heels or the hot pink ones?" she wondered. I reminded her that Florence is cobbled and heels might not be the best choice at all. She snapped at me because apparently I know nothing about dressing for night life, which of course is true.

The packing dilemmas are all moot now. New York City has completely shut down; for the first time ever, all modes of transportation have been halted. The airports are closed. Even Broadway is closed. Over 370,000 people have been evacuated. After hours on hold, we finally got through to the travel agency and the earliest she can leave is on Friday.

One thing is clear: Irene is bigger than all of us, bigger even than Europe and we have no control over what she will do. She may weaken and everyone will feel a bit foolish. Or the predictions could hold; lower Manhattan with its honeycombed tunnels and subway tubes could be underwater. We could lose power here in the country, but we are prepared for that.

So why am I so agitated? It always comes back to uncertainty. Not knowing touches an edge of extreme fear in my psyche and in my body; before I am aware of it, I am tense and churlish. I overreact to the slightest tone. You would think I would get this at some point – the lesson of sudden death should have taught me that I have no control anyway. All my talk about staying in the moment ought to have honed some skill. Yet I feel like an unhinged possible projectile, waiting to be caught up by a hurricane wind and thrown against a tree.

Oh well. I can't control Irene, I can't control the airlines or the newscasters. I can calm down though; I could bake something nice. We could put on some loud music and have a Hurricane Party until the lights go out, then continue by candlelight. Sounds like a plan….one which I can control.

Buttercup in the morning

This morning I ventured out to Buttercup, walking quietly, following the path, following my breath, listening to bird song and squirrel rustles in the trees. Two deer ran across the path; two beaver stood on islands of their own creation before slipping in to the water and gliding away. I tossed a pebble into the water and watched the ripples change the reflection of the bare trees standing above the beaver dam. The geese on the other side silently swam away.

Stillness has never been comfortable for me. I am so action oriented; I want to DO rather than just BE. I want to BE something – writer, dancer, mother, wife.

This is how I describe myself, by a list of activities. There is some trepidation to claim the fullness and wholeness of who I really am, a struggling, evolving human trying to BE the best I can be. And even that is an activity – I am always trying to do something with my Being. Birds, frogs, beavers do not worry about this - or do they? They are busy building, nesting, swimming in the swampy water. But I treat my life as if it were some lump of unformed clay that I am supposed to mold into a beautiful, useful shape. I treat my losses as if they are obstacles rather than gifts for discovering a deeper way of Being. The losses, the gains are part of the shape of my life. Why do I always want to make them into something else?

It doesn't matter, really. I followed the path and my breath. I squatted on the wooden bridge and smelled the algae in the water. Bugs buzzed around my hair; they touched the water creating tiny ripples. The beavers did not return but it did not matter. I filled my basket with ferns, daisies and flowering branches. I filled my body with the sound and smells of the woodland. I walked back home, quietly.

Intuition

Last week I did not follow my intuition again. I was traveling from the top of Manhattan to the bottom, heading for a water taxi across the Hudson to a restaurant in Liberty State Park to meet my daughter for lunch. I took the A train from the last stop – or first, depending on how you look at it – down to the World Trade Center. Surfacing, I oriented to the west and trekked across town, through the winding streets towards the river. I passed the PATH train station and my inner voice said, "you should take this train."

Of course, I did not listen. I had my plan and I was sticking to it, even though I was already late and probably missed the 11:30 boat. I look across the water and see the restaurant, just north of the Statue of Liberty. I arrive at the ferry terminal; no boats. Realizing that I actually do not know where the taxi dock is, I run down to a nearby marina, circling through the roller bladers, tourists snapping photos, children eating snacks. A man emerges from a schooner and says, "I don't think the taxi runs on the weekend."

My daughter calls. I am becoming frantic. She has limited time and now I have to dash back across town to that train. Off I go, asking various people which train to take, where to get off; I jump out at the first Jersey stop and ascend on the world's longest escalator up to a nearly deserted square. Now I can see the back of the Statue, and Battery Park across the water. I ask again and find that I have to take another train, called the Light Rail. I am at Liberty, but do not know where the restaurant is and she doesn't know where the train station is. The trip has taken two and a half hours and I am still not quite there. I do the most natural thing; I burst into tears. Her fiancé says they will pick me up. I calm myself and finally we sit down to lunch and a nice, short visit.

It occurs to me that this journey is actually a metaphor for my life right now. I am stuck in my plan, running around in frantic circles, feeling like I am not quite getting there. My intuition tells me that I must take the PATH and I ignore the message. Yet, when I backtrack, get on the path to the unknown, ascend into new territory, everything works out.

I keep circumventing the obvious. The river can't be pushed or even crossed; in fact, I had to go deep underneath it in order to emerge into the sunlight. My own worry and fear kept me from getting there sooner; I did not investigate the alternatives. I was not prepared to shift from my original plan but change was required. It was only when I lightened up, trusted my instincts and asked for help that I finally arrived.

Presence

There is a quality we can achieve sometimes, a heightened sense of integration and focus. It is a transpersonal, extra-ordinary way of being, an indescribable sense of being more than the sum of our ordinary responses. When we enter this zone, we often generate a presence that is more centered, concentrated and open at the same time.

I have experienced this state of integration during artistic performance, when singing with others or dancing on stage, or in moments of sharing or intimacy. I have also experienced it during meditation practice, something I engage in rarely, I must admit. I am not particularly scheduled or disciplined in this regard, but have learned over the years how to drop into a calm state of open awareness for short spurts. The best meditation practice for me is a walking meditation, and sometimes a walk can generate this calm, quiet focus naturally, without engaging in a personal lecture to me on the benefits and necessity of meditating in the first place.

In preparation for my first public workshop, I invited a dear friend for a nature walk. We did not do this silently; we always talk about many things when we are together – our feelings, worries, relationship issues, goals in our fledgling endeavors – yet about halfway through the walk, everything came together. Time slowed, and my sensory awareness heightened, even as we continued to talk, stopping to notice the shape of green algae on the water, separated by patches of clear, reflection filled stream. The scent of goldenrod and butterfly bush caressed us and the breeze blew our hair around. She gathered acorn caps for an art project; I picked a yellow flower and stuck it behind my ear. We took the long way through Buttercup Nature Preserve, walking through tall pampas grass by the lake, skirting the fence on the hill behind a farmer's hay field, passing the stone Folly, which we could hear before we could see, its creaky metal flag calling to us as it turned in the wind. As we moved from a rolling field into a mossy, tree lined forest lane, she said, "A nature walk is a meditation."

That quality of awareness, of heightened presence floated me to my workshop. It carried me through my slight surprise at the age of my group – they were much older than I expected. The focused feeling helped me easily adjust my plan to fit the seasoned hospice volunteers, and to begin by saying there was much I had to learn from them since they had so much more experience with Active Listening than I did. To be in the presence of a group of compassionate volunteers, who regularly sit with the dying as they move through their transition, was an honor.

This sense of concentration and calm stayed with me all the way home. It seems to have been felt by the participants too, since the feedback was mostly positive. One person even mentioned my "calm presence" as a workshop leader. Considering how jangled I have felt in the last month, I am grateful for a meditative nature walk. I think I should take one every day.