A child falls down and begins screaming. It’s common. You did it as a child. I did it.

What happens next?

For me, my parents said, “Get up off the floor! Boys don’t cry!”

When this happens at an upscale pre-school nearby, I’m more likely to hear, “You feel sad!” Or, “That’s frustrating, isn’t it?” Or, “You’re so angry!”

What’s the difference between the two parental responses?

Fact is, any time I cried as a child, I got the same response: “Boys don’t cry.”

Consequently, I learned to suppress my emotions rather than expressing them.

That child outside the pre-school, on the other hand, is being taught the difference between anger and sadness and frustration and fear and embarrassment. That child is developing a palate of emotions with nuance. That child is developing “emotional intelligence.”

Kids treated as I was learn that emotions need to be suppressed. We learn “men don’t do that.” We learn “women are hysterical.”

And so the cliches go, ‘round and around.

And so does the drinking and drugs and physical violence and abuse that come as a consequence of the suppression of emotion.

Now, allow me to add that my parents were preparing me for the world that they lived in: working class people learn to be very careful about emotion. You can’t let the boss see your emotion.

My father was in the Boiler Makers Union. You don’t cry among your fellow Boiler Makers. And you don’t get angry when the boss yells at you.

We were also farmers, and farmers in traditional communities aren’t allowed to get angry either. You can’t show anger when the bank won’t give you a loan . . . and on and on. It’s a life of oppression and suppression in which a show of emotion can be interpreted as dangerous.

That’s the world I was prepared for. Everyone has a story.

We call the result “stable.” But at what cost to both the individual and society?

Professor George Rowan did a study called “A Multicultural Investigation of Masculinity Ideology and Alexithymia.” It wasn’t a best seller, but the study tells us what we already have intuited: In many social groups, men are afraid to express emotion, especially in the presence of other men.

“Alexitymia” describes the result of this suppression: an inability to describe emotions; an inability to sustain social connections; and an inability to sustain interpersonal relationships.

The result is a socially-created sociopath. The result is a dangerous person created by the desire to live up to the social definition of masculinity.

That pretty well describes the men in my extended family.

Think for a moment about how many—and different—lives you lead. Partner. Friend. Manager. Co-worker. Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy . . .

We learn to use different vocabularies in these different niches. We learn to express our emotions differently. In addition, as the dad of two children in the GLBTQ alphabet soup, I know that the gender binary is an inconvenient fiction. Men aren’t from Mars and women from Venus. We come from many planets.

Yes, there are differences in the emotional lives—and the ability to articulate—that can be called gender difference. Still, we have an obligation to try to use our words, no matter what planet we’re from.

The Twentieth Century writer Anais Nin started writing when she was eleven. She continued, obsessively writing of her inner life, for more than sixty years. She said this:

I am a series of moods and sensations. I play a thousand roles. I weep when I find others play them for me. My real self is unknown . . . I create a myth and a legend, a lie, a fairy tale, a magical world, and one that collapses every day . . .

It isn’t that Nin had some super-complex emotional life. Or that she was mentally ill. Rather, she had the tenacity to pursue her many selves to the essence of the self. Much like the Buddha. And, like the Buddha, she discovered there isn’t one.

There is no constant self. The evidence is right before our eyes. And right behind them too. What we have instead is an ocean of sensation and reaction. We have emotions, some fleeting, some stable enough to be called moods. These add up to what we call a self. Yet it’s a fiction.

The dangerous and damaging idea behind this insistence on a stable self is what has been called “soul” in the Western tradition. That tradition tells us that the soul is incarnated. Lives in the flesh for a time. Then goes somewhere forever, still constituted as the self that lived on earth. In some traditions the soul is rewarded with heaven or hell. In others the soul blissfully resides . . . well, somewhere.

Such an idea is a dangerous illusion. The only constant is change. And the self and the soul it creates are stories we tell ourselves.

When we figure that out, the Buddha said we are enlightened. Anais Nin put it this way: “I see myself and my life each day differently. What can I say? The facts lie.”

Recently we have had a front row seat to observe low-level panic and smoldering fear. The headlines have been shrill:

“Ebola Spread to the US Inevitable.”
“Why America is Not Ready for an Ebola Outbreak.”
“My Daughter’s Ebola Scare.”

Polls show that forty-percent of Americans believe there will be an Ebola outbreak in the next twelve months, and twenty-five percent believe their family is in immediate danger. (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/08/26/3475698/americans-ebola-myths/)

Now, it’s probably a tip-off that the magazine with the vague but scary cover story “Ebola Spread to the US Inevitable” is called “Business Insider,” not “Physician Insider.” Furthermore, Ebola spreading to the US—inevitable in our interconnected world—does not mean that the scenes from Liberia will be repeated here.

But what’s a poor media source to do? It’s hard to catch our media-saturated, jaded eyes, and it’s all about “eyes on screens.” We all know “if it bleeds, it leads.” Fear sells.

Then there are the conspiracy theories, such as the emerging one that Al-Qaeda is spreading Ebola. I don’t doubt there will be—if there hasn’t already been—a headline such as “Biological Attack on US Soil Inevitable!” And I’m sure “ISIS” will be next on the conspiracy list.
I have provided a link to a great video that underlines how we misplace our fears.
The meme that toasters are much deadlier than sharks began at an aquarium in Cape Town, South Africa. The numbers are clear: 791 people killed by toasters worldwide, nine by sharks. But I suspect no one reading this will harpoon your toaster.

Fact is, far more people are killed by their toasters than by sharks. And far more Americans are crushed by their television sets than are killed by terrorists. Yet we fear sharks and terrorists. We fear Ebola but not Diabetes.

Baseless panic can change the way we live. Take, for example, Halloween. Once, Halloween was a community event. Kids ran around the neighborhood in the dark collecting homemade cookies and candy apples.

Then reports spread that people were putting razor blades in apples. Hospitals opened their doors offering to x-ray apples. Then reports went around that people were poisoning apples. And soon churches began to sponsor neighborhood Halloween parties so that kids wouldn’t have to go out in the dark.

Fact is, there has never been a single instance of a razor blade in an apple. There HAVE been two instances of poisoned apples given to kids at Halloween. In both cases it was a parent trying to kill their child and disguise the murder by pretending the poison came from Trick-or-Treating.

Fear.

Speaking of Halloween, how ‘bout those haunted houses?

Novelist Neil Gaimon says,

Fear is a wonderful thing, in small doses. You ride the ghost train into the darkness, knowing that eventually the doors will open and you will step out into the daylight once again. It’s always reassuring to know that you’re still here, still safe. That nothing strange has happened, not really. It’s good to be a child again, for a little while, and to fear—not governments, not regulations, not infidelities or accountants or distant wars, but ghosts and such things that don’t exist, and even if they do, can do nothing to hurt us.

An interesting insight from a writer who creates fear in small doses for a living. Could it be that haunted houses and scary rides function as relief valves? We don’t have to worry about terrorists when we are in a haunted house. Or looking for a ghost. (Though I’m quite sure some haunted houses will feature scary terrorists this Halloween season.)

It’s more comfortable to fear a shark than a toaster, isn’t it?

But what about Ebola? Like razor blades in Halloween apples, Ebola feels tangible, doesn’t it? Blood. Death. Something we can really sink our fear into.

As we’ve seen, it’s difficult to get a large number of people worked up about global climate change. Psychologists argue that the reason lies in how our brains picture danger. We can picture a tornado, so we are afraid of it, but when asked whether tornados or asthma kills more people, most people say tornadoes. That’s far from true.

I used to live near the Gulf coast and spent a lot of time on the beach. There are sharks out there. People do get bit. But getting an arm or leg torn off or getting swallowed just doesn’t happen. Even people who spend time in the water where sharks live are three hundred times more likely to be killed by a deer than a shark. But Jaws feels more scary than Bambi.

I like what entrepreneur Seth Godin has to say about fear: “Worry is not preparation, and anxiety doesn’t make you better . . . We dance with the Resistance, we don’t make it go away. You cannot make it go away—you cannot make the voice go away, you cannot make the fear go away, because it’s built in. What you can do is when it shows up, you say ‘Welcome! I’m glad you’re here. Let’s dance about this.’

Godin is getting at an important truth: Courage is not the opposite of fear. Courage is what you are able to do despite the fear.

Fear sells. Reason is slow and difficult. Chances are there will be frightened people attacking Liberians. It’s time for some courage and wisdom.

Recently Christine Organ (a blogger for this UU Collective) published a lovely post on “good enough” parenting in this competitive age. Frankly, as someone who feels like “good enough” parenting is pretty much the top of my game, I appreciated the reminder that plenty of other folks are perfectly fine parents without living up to their own—and perhaps other people’s—expectations.

But I think we can take this a step further. In a world where we are constantly exhorted to “dream big” and “pursue excellence,” maybe it’s time to admit that there are all sorts of areas of our lives that might benefit from a realistic dose of “good enough.” Once we accept that we are unlikely to win a Nobel prize, solve world hunger or marry a movie star, we might consider the possibility that for certain things, at certain moments, we would be just as well off striving for sucking less, rather than magnificence.

Here then, are ten tips for sucking at life just a little less. Please post additional suggestions in the comments below.

1. Procrastinate better. We all know that there are some projects we’re just going to put off as long as possible. Sad but true. But it is possible to be more productive in one’s procrastination. Choose cleaning the kitchen or doing laundry over solitaire or leaving nasty comments on YouTube.
2. Be more creative when you yell at your kids. Yeah, excellent parents don’t yell. If you’re already excellent this post is not for you. For the rest of us, it would be good enough to holler “If you two don’t stop bickering I am going to need to claw my eyes out! Either knock it off, do it somewhere I can’t hear, or find me new eyeballs!”
3. Decide earlier in the day what you’re not going to manage to get around to, and let those expecting your efforts know that they’re going to have to wait. Bonus points if said informative email does not contain the phrase “Hold your freakin’ horses.”
4. Eat healthier junk food. Yeah, OK, kale chips. Maybe. But really I’m thinking along the lines of darker chocolate, take-out that contains vegetables, dried fruit instead of candy. Unless the candy is dark chocolate, which is a health food.
5. Take a walk. For bonus points, bring along a kid or a dog. Or not, and have a few minutes to yourself. I’m sure going to the gym or yoga class is excellent, but getting out for a stroll for a few minutes sucks less than sitting all day and all night.
6. With your spouse/partner, agree to give each other a free pass on one annoying habit apiece. Excellent people fix their flaws. Good enough people pursue forgiveness.
7. Find something you enjoy so much you can’t wait to do it, and treat that as a spiritual practice. Sure, meditation and prayer are excellent, but singing in the shower or playing tennis is pretty good. Good enough.
8. Fix something little. The world is full of really huge problems. Climate change, economic injustice and racism are not going to get solved today, most likely. Find something small you can do, and celebrate that.
9. Don’t obsess over arbitrary standards of what is “enough.”
10.  See #9 above.

Yesterday after church, my family and I stopped at a favorite cafe in Hartford. It’s a funky kind of place with a diverse clientele and a good Sunday brunch. I walked in while my spouse got the baby out of the car. I asked a white woman who was standing by the door whether she was waiting to be seated. She directed me to the counter where I was greeted by the hostess:

“Hi there, will you be joining us for brunch today?”

Me: “We’d like to. What’s the wait like for two and a baby?”

Hostess: “We can seat you right away when your party is complete. Do you need a high chair?”

Me: “Great! They’ll be here in a minute. And, yes, a high chair would be great.”

Hostess: “Wonderful! Let me just get a high chair and get your table set up.”

Now, there was the other white woman waiting near me and there were three tables open: two two-tops and a four-top. While I was talking to the hostess, an African American man had come in the door and was standing behind me. The white hostess walked away (to get our high chair) without acknowledging him. Her white co-worker stepped up to the counter just as the man did, greeting him with a very different tone that can only be described as “icy,” saying:

“Are you all set?”

Customer: “Well, I wanted to have a seat.”

Hostess 2: “We are just serving brunch right now, is that what you wanted?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Hostess 2: “How many in your party?”

Customer: (Holding up one finger and his laptop) “Just one.”

Hostess 2: “We have nothing open right now, do you want to give me your name?”

Customer: (Looking at three open tables and a completely open counter.) “No. Forget it.”

And he left.

The original hostess came back seconds later just as my spouse and baby came in. We were seated right away at one of the open tables with a high chair. Soon after we sat, the other white woman’s friend who was African American joined her, and they were seated at the other two top.

The restaurant buzzed with conversation. People’s food came. Our waiter took our order. My daughter ate Cheerios with abandon; my spouse looked at the menu; and I sat there trying to process what had just happened.

I wasn’t sure what to think about it then, and I’m not sure what to say about it now, except that it hurt my heart. Oh, we could talk through the myriad reasons why the second hostess may have greeted the customer who came after me in such an unprofessional manner. And we could talk about the complexities of restaurant seating, who comes first, holding tables for waiting parties, not seating one person at a four-top. (Full Disclosure: I hated being a hostess.) And we could say that she might have had the exact same interaction with a white person, maybe that’s just her style. Or maybe the dude just decided he wasn’t in the mood for brunch anymore, but I don’t think so.

Instead, I think that I witnessed one of many “micro-aggressions” that people of color experience on a daily basis. (Read more on micro-aggressions here.) After what I saw yesterday, I understand even more clearly how such interactions take their tole, day after day, year after year. It is worth saying that women and LGBTQ people share this experience, albeit in different ways. (I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been told how surprisingly insightful my sermons are for a young woman.)

Yesterday, I did not know how to respond to what I saw. We debated leaving. We debated saying something. But I didn’t know what to say, and I am not sure yet what I would have or should have said. I regret, though, not saying something.

I wonder how many people have received a similar unwelcoming “welcome” on a Sunday morning at church. No matter how hospitable we may want to be, it is quite possible that we may greet visitors and long-time members alike with unintentional micro-aggressions. Sunday morning – be it at brunch or Sunday services – is a time to widen our welcome as we greet all who come through our doors with equal respect and genuine hospitality.

I, myself, am working to examine my own interactions with all sorts of people, on the look out for times when I may be, despite my best intentions, a “micro-aggressor.” The work of dismantling racism starts with adjusting how we see our world and shifting our (inter-)actions toward openness, welcome, and love.

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Shapes our work today

Courage, friends!