A woman from South Carolina messaged me this morning, she has followed my blog for years, her comments about my work have always been gracious and thoughtful, she is a poet of skill and feeling.
Today, she was disappointed in me, as sometimes happen to people who read me regularly. Being open is often about letting go. And I have no need to pretend that everyone loves me all of the time.
This woman, schoolteacher, was unhappy about my work and writing on behalf of the refugees and immigrants who I believe are so much a part of America, and my own life.
She wondered, she said, why I had so much empathy for the refugees, “but so little for the people whose jobs they take, who undercut our wages, drain our budgets and services, and who too often rob and harm us.” Why, she wondered, didn’t I ever write about the people the refugees immigrants hurt and the damage they do?”
“You say you are doing good”, she said, but what, she then asked, “but really, what are your own true motives?
I wrote back to this woman, I told her I could not answer her question in an e-mail or perhaps at all.
There wasn’t space, and I can’t say what my motives are, I no longer believed a dialogue in that format was either useful, or really possible. I did not believe I could change her mind, I was certain she could not change mine, and if we were to part company on such an important issue to both of us – I knew that was where we were heading, I have danced this dance before – I would rather it be amicably and swiftly.
I wished her no harm.
I do not argue my beliefs, I prefer to live them. And I did think to add that my motives for doing good are purely selfish, I’ve always known that. It may be good for others, but it certainly is good for me.
She did not reply, I imagine she is gone.
A friend e-mailed me a column in Psychology Today by Dr. Lisa Firestone.
She wrote that generosity – the quality of being kind and understanding – is often defined as an act of selflessness. In fact, she said, many studies have shown that generosity can selfishly be in our own interests.
Hate and anger erode the spirit and the body, and even kill. But practicing generosity is a mental health principle that could be a critical element in a happy and healthy life. Generosity is found to reduce stress, enhance one’s sense of purpose, fight depression, and even prolong life.
Generosity, says Dr. Firestone, doing good also improves relationships When we give to others, we don’t only make them feel closer to us, we also feel closer to them.
As I often say and say and say, doing good feels good.
My good friend Ali, father to the refugee boys, called me today, the team desperately wants to join an eight week soccer tournament that would run through April. It will cost a lot of money. Was there any way that I could help? He sounded uncharacteristically anxious and uncertain. Ali dreads asking for anything, it almost makes physically ill. But he fights for his charges all of the time, and happily swallows pride.
Ali and I have become close, we call ourselves brothers, and he told me that he was worried that he was asking too much, and that I would do too much, and then I would become resentful and walk away from him and the boys.
I told him to stop there, I said he didn’t understand me, this was all quite selfish, a great gift to me, a way to feel happy, good and grounded in a turbulent world. It wasn’t what i was doing for them, it was what he and the boys on the team were doing for me, and for many other people.
In one sense, I live in solitude. I share my life happily with Maria and the animals and a few friends I know mostly online and on the phone. I have lots of people around me and in my life, but i will be honest, I have always been alone and felt alone in many ways, especially when it comes to the forming of the interior self. I live in a state of aloneness and carry it around with me like a shroud.
For much of my life, I was divided into parts – the man I wanted to be, the man I was. As I grow older, I find myself getting closer and closer to the man I wish to be, generosity and empathy my tools, and it has become one of the most exhilarating – thus selfish – experiences of my life.
In solitude, I can grow freely and am less preoccupied with money and success or even usefulness.
I can offer some things to the world that I had never offered or done before. The spiritual author Henri J.M. Nouwen, a favorite of mine, writes about the loss of “dependencies” as we grow older – father, mother, children, career, fame and money, or any of the other rewards we sometimes strive for, or are frightened into striving for.
I have little to defend, but much to share. I find that I have drifted somehow into a community of faith, I call it The Army Of Good. We take the world seriously, but never too seriously, we feel passionate and angry, but never too angry, we can hate, but are not too hateful.
Our community is founded on trust and the belief that generosity is better than argument and conflict.
As a community of faith, we care deeply and work hard, but we are not devastated or even discouraged by failure or the lack of results. We are swimming upstream all the time, our fingers are always in a dike.
As a community of the faith we must constantly remind ourselves that we are a fellowship of the damaged and the weak, we seek out the vulnerable and frightened and needy and we say to them and one another: “Do not be afraid, you are accepted.”
And we accept one another.
There is nothing more selfish than that.
Like this reader I, too, am a long-time reader. Your blog makes me think in ways I never imagined before. For the first 53 years of my life I was terrified of dogs. While my family pleaded with me for many years to get a dog, I refused. I was reading a great deal about your life with dogs and decided it was time for me to overcome my paralyzing fear. I accepted the gift of a goldendoodle puppy from a friend which has completely changed my life. I love my dog very much and am no longer afraid of others. Thank you for your part in that transformation in my life.
Your work with refugees is fabulous. Growing up with refugee families living in my home (Chile, Vietnam, Laos) I learned young to live a life of quiet, open-hearted generosity and acceptance. I don’t work with refugees anymore as I am very busy with our 16 children, 15 of whom were adopted from the worst circumstances in countries all over the world. Your refugee/immigrant stories are familiar and comforting to read. I feel sad for the woman for North Carolina and others like her who miss out on a life of family, friendship and love among these amazing people.
Thanks Laura, I appreciate your message. It’s good to see it and think about it.
I can’t pretend to not be shocked at the teacher’s attitudes, because I really am saddened and disappointed that one who is working with young people, molding their minds, has an attitude such as was expressed at the beginning of your writing. My paternal grandmother, as well as her sister, brother and parents were born in Germany, emigrating here when she was a young girl. There were no ESL classes for them, no community organisations to help them assimilate. They had to find their own way. And find it,they did. My grandmother and her sister were determined that their children would be college educated, and all were. It was a struggle for them, particularly during World War I, because they still had family in Germany. Letters came, begging for money to me sent “back home”. These letters were opened at the local post office for inspection, and stamped in red as such, for my grandparents were suspected of being German spies. Even after graduating from Bucknell University as an engineer, my father worked like a dog, for there were no jobs available for engineers in 1930. He hauled bricks at the local brick factory, cut trees and brush over mountains with an axe for utility lines to pass, working 10 – 12 hours /day. And this is exactly what many of these immigrants are doing, too. We have a Chinese couple that runs a small restaurant nearby, 12 hour days, so their son can go to Drexel University to study computer engineering. There was a Greek family in my hometown who did the same thing, so that their five children could go to college: two became teachers, one a college professor, one a dentist and the other a businesswoman. That’s what works in this country for immigrants. They are doing jobs that the white people refuse to do, just so their children can have a better life than they left in Europe, the Middle East, wherever they came from. When the Vietnamese immigrants were coming to our area, one disgusting person sent a letter to our local paper that they were taking jobs from “red-blooded Americans” because they were picking cherries in one of the local orchards. I picked cherries as a teen, and it is hard, dirty work. The migrant workers did the work,too, but no one else could be bothered. And how those migrants worked, their fingers flew through the ripe cherries, picking far faster than I could ever do. That’s what this country is about: immigrants coming here for a better life, not just for themselves, but for their children and their grandchildren. That teacher should be ashamed at her attitude.
Greetings Jon, I hope your bout with pneumonia has passed and you’re feeling healthy again. That nasty bug also attacked by cousin in Manchester, VT and unfortunately, ended him up in Albany Medical—nasty stuff that?
I’m writing today to share something I recently learned that may interest you. Your sharing today took my brain back to a book I read recently, “How Democracies Die” by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky, two Harvard professors of Political Science and Government. During my 62 years of life and residing in the U.S., I’ve watched the soul of our country deteriorate to the sad state it’s in today and have wondered how we got to this terrible place. The universe led me to this book, which explains (CSPAN-Books presents a one-hour video by the authors) that the polarization of our two political parties and therefore our citizens, began as a result of the civil rights movement and over the 52 years since then, the chasm between the party members has widened. As a result of studying democracies around the world that have died and survived, it’s the authors belief that until we can bridge our great divisions we will continue on this downward spiral. I believe the AOG is working diligently to help bridge the divide and I’m grateful to be a member. Thank you, Jon for all you do to make our world more wonderful!
Thanks Brenda, the AOG has also made me hopeful, there are so many good people out there just waiting for the chance to be generous and kind.
It’s amazing how many people forget that with the exception of the Native American Indians, the United States is an entire nation of IMMIGRANTS! Hopefully the irony that she’s a teacher isn’t lost on anyone.
Man, wouldnt you just love to be an immigrant kid in her classroom? Its idiots like these that voted for our current idiot President. I know this is a rant but people like this make me crazy to the Fth degree. Ok. Rant over.
Jon, I fired off 2 rants immediately after reading the quote from the woman. Trump and those who voted for him make me crazy, as I said. After the second rant I went back and read the rest, so beautiful it made me cry. The part about being alone – I too choose to be alone mostly. I never thought about aloneness in just this way before – that one can choose to be alone and yet be caring and involved with community. Thank you for this post.
Thanks Nancy, I appreciate the note. I don’t see it as a rant, I am quite at ease about it, those kinds of messages are always good for reflection, I think. I’m getting too old to be angry, I just need to be me.