I regularly walk by this couple, who are interminably celebrating dance together. Statues create a moment – feelings, emotions, activities that the sculptor suspends in time. Daily these two appear to enjoy their frozen, sculpted moment.
One day, the sculpture changed. A passer-by aficionado evidently believed that even statuaries have feelings. So to cover the nakedness of one of the dancers, a belt was draped around the figure in just the right place. Now, tastefully, the figure can dance endlessly, ashamed no longer.
How proper! How polite!
However, this act of kindness created an inequity. Now the dancer’s partner alone will have to dance on, immodest and unclothed. It will be the subject of staring eyes, while its partner no longer needs to dance, and cringe, unclothed, before the world’s eye.
The wanton act of injustice ruffles my ethical feathers.
I have only one choice; as I pass by, during cover of fall-lengthening night darkness, I’ll bring another belt.
The pre-dawn light left much to the imagination as I headed to work, trudging the two miles for my daily appointment with the 6:26 train. Headphones turned up, I heard little else. Until, that is, a bush suddenly — incredibly — hissed and snarled so loudly at me that it broke me mid-stride as I leaped away. The hissing, snarling, fierce bush spun me half around. I stared, disbelieving. Was there a mountain lion or bobcat lying in wait for me, hidden by the green growth?
I retreated, yanking the earphones out. What could this mean?
I hastened on my way, puzzled, and a bit shaken by the bush’s exploding ruckus. Where had I heard that ungodly sound before? Then I recalled — outside my back door one night, I exited to deposit garbage in the trash can. I had evoked that same hiss by shocking an opossum in mid-stride, rummaging for his dinner.
No, I had not discovered the burning, speaking bush that had appeared to Moses with the voice of God. Instead, I had been ambushed by an aroused and angry opossum, which I had interrupted from a deep slumber within the bush.
I thought back to an interaction with another opossum I had several weeks ago, while undertaking the same early morning walk to the train. I had come across an opossum, wounded, in the road, having been struck by a car. Largely incapacitated, he remained standing as best he could, staggering, jaw dislocated and face distorted from the impact with the car. I felt helpless, wondering what I should do.
At that moment, a pickup truck stopped. Out bounded a landscape worker on his way to the day’s first appointment. He asked about the condition of the unlucky marsupial. I drew a blank, over both his concern for the creature and his presumption that I should have a diagnosis.
Without hesitation, he carefully lifted the animal by the tail with one hand and gently cradled its chest with the other, as if this were his daily routine. He placed it, lovingly and out of harm’s way, by the trunk of a large palm tree. There, gravely wounded, it unsuccessfully attempted to climb the tree for protection.
Disappointed over my own indecision and lack of response, I had hurried onward toward my train, wondering all the while at the worker who had given his best to help the animal, for which I had no solution or comfort.
The lives of two opossums had invaded mine on two distinct and separate occasions. Several weeks ago, I had briefly met a dying opossum in the street for which I had no remedy. And today, the opossum-bearing bush had hissed angrily, scolding me, I imagined, over the demise of his brother. Their dying whimper and angry hiss are poor prophetic utterances compared with the awesome burning bush and the voice that spoke to Moses.
What do we make of such things? God had punctuated my workaday world with Mystery. If I could be so numb in understanding the workings of the world around me, how out of touch might I be to the world of people, and in responding to His concerns for each of us?
Life’s occurrences can seem mundane. But beneath, there is that Mystery – the message within, if we pause long enough to search it out. The events are markers, meant for our ears to hear.
What if each of us had only one person we could call to the witness stand, and the strength of that one person’s testimony could free us from being behind bars for the rest of our lives?
And yet, under the legal system, we are guilty. But that one person – the right person – might speak on our behalf, altering the conviction that, by law, we deserve.
Last week I received a subpoena from the Court of Los Angeles Attorney for the Defendant’s office. I am to appear at the sentencing hearing of one of my former parole office Literacy Classroom students. The defendant is a 45-year-old “two-striker” who, before coming into my classroom, had been imprisoned for twenty-five years. He was now on parole. One more felony would make him a “three-striker,” eligible for a mandatory life sentence.
While in my classroom, where I teach people who are on parole, the defendant never caused me any problems. He was polite. He had previously never even touched a computer, such as we taught him to use in the classroom. He had left my class suddenly; he just stopped showing up. I later learned that he had been arrested and convicted for the burglary of a 99 Cent store. That made him a three-striker, fully eligible to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Small theft. Huge consequences. He had just earned himself a life sentence.
His lawyer, the public defendant lawyer who had sent me the subpoena, asked if I would testify in court on his behalf as part of a plea bargain. I explained there was not much I could talk about except his classroom attendance record and his classroom demeanor. I couldn’t speak to anything else. She indicated that she was eager to have me in court, regardless.
I was, she explained, the only person he wanted to appear in his defense, to testify in his behalf. I was speechless. My appearance could determine whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison. My decision is made; I have no choice but to appear.
Since then, I continue wondering, and perhaps it is good to ask ourselves two questions:
Whose lives do we affect to the degree that we would be asked to show up in their defense?
And: Do we have friends in whose lives we have invested well enough, that we could ask them to show up at our own defense?
– “I, struggling and feeble, floated, detached, along with other river-traveling rubber ducks.”
He is a well-know motivational speaker with insights that chip away at my preconceptions in just the right places. Most of us recognize a high-quality speech when we hear it:
– Excellent, stimulating content.
– Well-selected illustrations.
– Appropriate tone and delivery style.
– Well-paced presentation.
– Ahh, not too longwinded! (Research says that most of us can pay good attention for only about twenty minutes. I think I max out at fifteen.)
But just why was I having such a hard time listening to his discourse? Why was this battle of resistance within me? Well…he seemed aloof, above it all, having conquered his own shortcomings and now obtrusively barreling in on mine.
What could be the matter with me?
As he spoke, I started identifying categories of words, and that’s when I realized what was going on.
He shoveled out barrels of certain pronouns in his homily. I tripped over the quantity of them and quickly lost count. By the end, I drowned in the pronouns “I” and “You,” which separated him from me. He seemed to have “arrived” by constantly referring to his audience as “you.” He seemed above the fray.
Other pronouns received nary a mention. Scarce as gold veins in a mine, I was at a loss to find any of them. Not once did he mention the inclusive pronoun “we,” which would have indicated we were on this life journey together.
Noticing the imbalance was unavoidable.
I never heard him once utter the inclusive pronoun “We,” which would have linked our successes and struggles together as people with common challenges. Instead, my life (“You”) was juxtaposed against his (“I”).
It appeared that he had successfully run the rapids, dodging life’s obstacles, now a river’s length between us; it seemed that he, successful in all aspects of his life, had crossed the currents without me, while I, struggling and feeble, floated, detached, along with other river-traveling rubber ducks (“We”), still weighted down by our shortcomings. His success and his advice was unapproachable.
Unlike those in my previous two posts, he was not “We”-centered. He did not appear to join with us to help meet our common needs. The well-known motivational speaker did not include us as part of his family. He was exclusively “Me”-centered, and that made all the difference.
Morro Bay can be a tough spot to find reasonably-priced, comfortable, cozy, breakfast restaurants. Geared to tourists, many eateries feel like a cold gastronomical production line. Then we found The Coffee Pot. It faces opposite an ocean view; diners require the capacity to enjoy a good view of the parking lot.
Upon our second visit, the place was packed, and we understood why. Our first visit was punctuated with overhearing pleasant conversations and the enjoyable care of an industrious, agreeable staff. This time, we joined others who waited on sunny benches outside until tables became available.
Within moments, the owner himself came out with a steaming pot of coffee, sweetener and creamer, and cups enough for all of us. He shared a magical smile as he stooped to offer us refreshments and to apologize for the delay. After we were seated within the restaurant, he flitted from table to table, touching regular customers on the shoulder as he greeted them, sitting and chatting with an elderly couple near us for a long while. Then he stooped to gather spilled items beneath a table, near the waitress’s feet—never reproaching the server.
I observed his winning ways during our entire meal, and as we departed, I thanked him for being an unusually hospitable host and an outstanding example to us all.
“I don’t do this for the money,” he explained. “I do this because I love what I do.”
He was not “Me”-centered. Instead, he wanted to help meet our needs. The owner of the Coffee Pot Restaurant included us as part of his family. He was inclusively “We”-centered, and that made all the difference.
Tootling along a country road near Paso Robles last week, my wife alerted me to a sign for the Kenneth Volk winery. Now we know that winery, one of our favorites, and the tasting room, are in Santa Maria, not Paso Robles. We stopped to investigate and discovered that this weekend was the grand opening of this brand new location’s tasting room. Once inside, we began a tasting, and shortly thereafter, the dirty worker near us went to the back room. We asked about this new venue, and our server replied, “Why don’t you ask Kenneth Volk himself? I’ll get him.” Out from the back room came the same dirty, disheveled “worker” who had just been with us, his hands soiled from planting tomatoes. He apologized. “Hi, I’m Kenneth Volk,” he announced. We were astonished. THE Kenneth Volk, the owner of the winery, then spent the next half hour with us, pouring wines and explaining the subtleties of the Art of the Grape. When we asked for a picture with him, he insisted we take two—one in the shade and one in the sunlight.
So why did Kenneth Volk make such a deep impression on us? In his humility, he did not question our credentials. He didn’t ask if we were Kenneth Volk club members. He didn’t rush away to other chores, though his new establishment’s grand opening would be the next day. He didn’t apologize for his working-class appearance.
He was not “Me”-centered. Instead, he wanted to help meet our needs. Kenneth Volk included us as part of his family. He was inclusively “We”-centered, and that made all the difference.
The fuzzy worm man is good! How long has he practiced doing that trick with a fake worm, for hours a day, every day, every month? Maybe 10,000 hours?
Social psychologist Malcom Gladwell claims that the way to succeed in any field of endeavor is to pay the price of much practice. It takes 10,000 hours of practicing a task to get really, really good at it. It doesn’t matter so much what the task is. This “Rule” separates one person of outstanding skills from all the other want-to-be practitioners who don’t pay that high a price.
Perhaps you’ve seen the artist who creates a sculpture within the eye of a needle or on the end of his own eyelash. It takes a microscope to see them. Unbelievable. And he’s still not content. His greatest work, he says, is yet before him. And it’s much smaller still. Ten thousand hours and counting.
When we observe a great pianist, a fine artist, or a masterful teacher, we wish we ourselves could do that. And perhaps we could, if we had single-mindedly sacrificed at least 10,000 hours toward that endeavor. It takes doing something over and over and…
Fuzzy worm man, maybe we’re a bit like you. Have we yet to find the One Thing that’s worthy of our practice?
We can still watch reruns of Willliam Frawley playing the grumpy old landlord, Fred Mertz, in the long-running I Love Lucy television show. He was often called upon to bring the air-headed Lucille Ball back to earth. After the show went off the air, Frawley spent five years playing in the situation comedy, My Three Sons.
Frawley’s health declined such that the studio could no longer provide him with health insurance, and he was released from the show, bringing an end to his long acting career, which spanned from 1933 to 1965.
I recently discovered that William Frawley died at the Knickerbocker Hotel, one block from where we attend church in Hollywood. After watching a movie on March 3, 1966, Frawley suffered a fatal heart attack on the sidewalk in front of the Knickerbocker, where he had previously lived. He was brought into the lobby, to no avail.
More about the Knickerbocker Hotel:
Rudolf Valentino used to hang out at the hotel bar and liked to dance tango here. On July 21, 1948, famed director, D.W. Griffith, died of a stroke while standing under the lobby’s $1 million chandelier. Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio honeymooned here in January of 1954. Elvis Presley stayed in suite 1016 while filming “Love Me Tender.” Frank Sinatra, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Mae West, Laurel & Hardy, Larry Fine (of the Three Stoges), and Cecil B DeMille all lived here.
What else is happening within one block of where I – or any of us – live our lives?
Fifty years ago, they began hanging the Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Or, rather, inserting the Stars bearing the names of film celebrities into the granite sidewalk. The first Star was placed in 1960 to honor Joanne Woodward.
The Walk is homage to the film industry’s greatest contributors. Today it was packed with those seeking the names of favorite personalities. They paused and squatted as their companions furiously snapped pictures for souvenirs. This tradition occurs endlessly, day after day, week after week, decade after decade.
The Walk of Fame is the intersection of the living and the dead. In a cemetery, we expect to see the names who have gone on before. When we view the Walk of Fame Stars, kneeling as we do at a cemetery, something odd happens. The dead and living are united on a single, long plane that extends for several city blocks. Here, with no dates appearing anywhere on the Stars, their contributions are brought alive together, as if all are resurrected.
The devotion and hard-earned contributions of saints living, and saints gone on before, all are viewed together. That’s how I re-frame it. I reassign names and deeds of those who are dearest to me: saints both famous and anonymous, the apostles, my family, friends who walk beside me, mentors and teachers. There, together, they are part of the tapestry that is my life.
My personal Walk of Fame will turn 60 next year. How wonderful if, in time, our names may adorn the Walk of another.
Just one railcar missing from the morning train commute can easily demonstrate how far civility has plummeted. The five-car train reduced to four cars meant standing room only. The train was packed. Still, packages clustered on seats from earlier-boarding passenger remained unmoved so that other passengers could not be seated. The passengers who stood in the aisles numbered more women than men. Not one seated male passenger offered his seat to a standing woman.
Just as an English grammarian notes the gradual demise of the subjunctive case in English grammar, something feels missing. Mostly vanishing from English usage is the classic subjunctive phrasing, “If I were you,” replaced by the colloquial but grammatically incorrect, “If I was you.”
So, likewise, courteous behavior is apparently vanishing from our societal deportment. For a seated man not to give up his seat for a standing woman was once unthinkable. Now—not so much.
What I missed on this morning’s train ride was anything resembling the notion, “If I were more civil, I would give up my seat for a woman.”
