The Slow Way Newsletter: Dignity, Value, and an Invitation to Meekness
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Dignity, Worth, and an Invitation to Meekness
Last night in the forty-degree rain we watched Brooksie’s final tackle football game of the season. He played safety for the first time and made three tackles, but his biggest success was the way he turned on the sidelines to to face the miserable, shivering, wet crowd of parents (and sad younger siblings) and raised his outstretched arms, palms open like an upside down bird, asking the crowd to make some noise as if he was a rock star getting the audience pumped. His sideline persona has grown throughout the season, and honestly, that’s my favorite part of these games. I could do without tackling in general, and yelling masculine coaches in particular. But to see Brooksie bouncing up and down on the sidelines when a great play is made, or pacing with his buddies holding his breath, and smacking his helmet on his head when the defense is trying to hold the line? I love it.
He and Chris went out for a late night burger and milkshake after the shivering game, and Chris asked him how he was feeling about the season ending. He told him he just couldn’t wait for next year. When Chris asked what he loved about playing football Brooksie said, “I just really like being on a team. And I like all the practices and how hard we had to work.” All. The. Practices. I’ve said before that I’m not a great sports mom. I tend to think one practice per week is ideal for my lifestyle, especially when it comes to ten-year-old children. But Brooksie has been going to two hour practices 3 to 4 times a week since mid-August. And that, he was telling Chris, is why he loved being on this team.
Yesterday, August’s tiny one-room middle school celebrated Halloween by putting on a terrifying haunted house for the willing (and older) elementary students in the same building. He then celebrated his friends’ birthdays (they’re twins) after school with every single one of his classmates (there are only nine total!) by eating burgers and riding in a limo to a real haunted house in a country town in New Jersey. One of the sweetest parts of August being at this small alternative school is the way everyone is part of the community. Of course there are kids that he connects with more than others. There are definitely frustrating personalities he’s learning to accept. But, in general, this crew of eight other middle schoolers has become his community. He belongs, and everyone else does too.
On Monday, I’ll be spending my morning at Ace’s school in the outdoor education space (parents still aren’t allowed inside because of Covid) giving a presentation on Down syndrome and how it’s great to be different. I’ll speak one at a time to every first and second grade class in the school. I have posters made and a couple of pages of notes. It’s a presentation I gave for years at our school in San Francisco, and one I’ve been waiting to give here, where Covid protocols have kept any kids in Ace’s school who aren’t in his class from knowing or interacting with him until this fall.
Last May, when I brought Ace late to school after a doctor’s appointment and checked him in at the office, I watched an entire classroom of kindergarteners---a shuffling line of masked faces---walk past my son on the hallway, all staring at his unique features and round glasses like he was a separate creature, as if they’d never seen him before. It broke my heart. I’ve been waiting for my chance to get in front of his peers and tell them what Ace would say if he could: that he’s fun and friendly and that he wants to play. That it’s okay to be friends with someone who is different, even if they can’t talk to you. That life is better when when we welcome every person, especially the ones who are different than us, into our spaces.
I’m telling you all this because I woke up this morning thinking about belonging. Why did football mean so much my ten-year-old this year? Because being part of a team, suffering together, working toward a shared goal--these are things that form us deeply. We humans love our groups! We are made for groups. We need shared beliefs and shared purposes. We all need to be known and loved.
One of things I’m finding in my study of the Beatitudes is that meekness (which is not the same as “weakness”!) is a posture of belonging, of building the kind of community where every one of us can be known, welcomed, and celebrated. Mark Scandrette in his book The Ninefold Path of Jesus defines meekness as “strength under control.” He says that meekness occurs “when you know your inherent worth” and “can be at ease, not striving or competing or feeling inferior to anyone.”
That’s when we can create real community and a kind of belonging that flourishes: when we know our own value so that we can be at ease, welcoming everyone else into the fold, recognizing that we don’t need to compare ourselves to anyone else in order to be loved. It’s Brooksie on the sidelines celebrating his teammate’s touchdown with wild joy. It’s August’s hodgepodge of awkward middle school classmates, some already looking like teens, some still very much like kids, some naturally cool, some a little awkward, all terrified together at a haunted house. It’s the dream I have for Ace’s school, the hope I have for him. That he will be embraced and welcomed into the play of his typical peers, despite his having no words to give them, despite his natural responses to social situations being completely different than what most of the other kids expect.
Strength under control, Scandrette says. Meekness is not “passive submission,” but as the dictionary.com tells me, it’s “patient restraint.” It is a way of being where we honor in one another something deeper than our talents, our intellects, or our tendency to win. Meekness begins by understanding our own worth, given to us by our Creator, and it flows from there into the ways we honor the dignity and goodness of those around us. That’s where true community and belonging begin: In the space where we release our value-judgments and instead see one another as inherently worthy, to use Scandrette’s language.
“[Jesus] invites us into a community of interdependence where we all need help and we all have something to give,” Scandrette says.
That’s the world I want to build for Ace, and really, the world I want to build for all my sons. A world where everyone has something to give, where everyone is valued, both the kid who makes the touchdown and the kid who pumps up the crowd. Both the first grader who directs the game of chase and the first grader who hovers closeby, unsure of what is expected in the world of play.
The meek will inherit the earth, Jesus taught on the hillside two thousand years ago. Maybe that teaching has something to do with the kind of earth we build while we’re here. Let’s be the kind of humans building something where everyone is welcomed and honored, meek people submitting to the dignity of one another, using our gifts not to compete, but to build something beautiful together.
a slow practice
Today’s contemplative prayer is something we can do out in the world. In fact, you might just want to go out into your community alone so you can practice it! If you live in an urban setting or a walkable town, this practice may be fairly easy to do. All you need to do is get outside and walk down the sidewalk, or wait for the subway. If you live in a driving community you’re going to have to seek out people. Maybe you practice this today at Target in line, or maybe you practice it on the sidelines at your kids’ game, or in your yoga class. Or maybe you can practice it tomorrow night during trick-or-treating as you meet kids and families (and teenagers who take more candy than they should and don’t say thank you!) at your door.
Wherever you are, your prayer practice today simply involves paying attention to the humans around you and reminding yourself of your worth and theirs. Begin by placing yourself in a position where you can see and possibly interact with other people. Maybe you can stay safe behind the social distancing prop called a grocery cart! Or the social distancing prop called a dog on a leash! However you go out into the world today, do it without a podcast or an audiobook or music in your ears. (So hard, I know!) Instead ask God’s spirit to go with you and give you eyes to see yourself and others the way the Divine sees them and you.
Keep your eyes open as you walk or sit. When someone is passing by you can say in your mind, “I honor this person, who is worthy and valuable.” When no one is walking past you, you can say, “I honor myself, loved by God. I am worthy and valuable.”
That’s it, friends. Over and over today. Those are the prayers we are invited to pray. We are invited to honor ourselves, worthy and valuable. We are invited to honored the people around us, whatever their choices concerning vaccines and masks, or how they voted, or whether their kids are nice to yours, or whether they pick up their dog poop! We are invited into meekness, controlled strength. Strength to pronounce the truth about every human around us, including ourselves: We are loved, we are worthy, we are good.