The earliest life lesson on character that I can recall began when I was 10 years old. My dad was running for an elected county commissioner position.
We kids, all 5 of us, helped on the campaign trail, going door to door with our “Smile, Go With Kyle!” bumper stickers and pamphlets that extolled the many wonderful attributes that rendered my father, the Democrat candidate, clearly the best one for the job.
I remember being at a campaign rally, and telling an adult that lots of candidates said they were honest and upright, but my father actually was. I was emphatic and sincere as I spoke with conviction about his righteousness.
As I was finishing my proud proclamation, I caught sight of a friend of Dad’s across the room who had been looking on and was smiling as if to say, “Aw, isn’t that sweet… her dad is the best!” and me then thinking, “This isn’t an ‘aww” moment. I’m serious, my dad IS the real deal!”
Dad won the election, and for several years thereafter looked after the roads, bridges and parks of Platte County, Missouri.
This lesson about character came full circle several years later, during my adolescent years when I had grown a bit more savvy about the world of politics.
In a similar spirit of extolling my father’s virtues during his campaign, so then was I extolling the virtues of being a Democrat, who is “someone who really cares about the people” and how glad I was that Dad was a Democrat.
Upon hearing this my mom informed me that Dad wasn’t and never had been a Democrat, but in truth was a staunch Republican.
I’m sure the color drained from my face as she went on to disclose that the reason he ran on the Democratic ticket was to get more votes, because he perceived his constituents in Platte County to have Democrat leanings.
Both she and Dad, I learned that day, were always and remained Republicans.
Not only was that a coming of age moment for me politically, but it also ushered me into the sobering realization that adults, even parents, even my parents were still on the road, shall we say, to developing character.
In fairness I can tell you that, to my knowledge, Dad carried out the duties of his office dutifully and diligently, providing solid service to the fine people of Platte County.
I imagine that, at that time in his life, Dad considered the misrepresentation of his political ideologies to be ambitious, achieving and aspiring, shrewd, strategic and ultimately successful.
I also imagine that, at the time of his death (10 years ago) he probably would not have been interested in having those particular virtues (or attributes) highlighted in his eulogy.
This dichotomy between eulogy virtues and resume virtues is addressed by David Brooks’ in his book “The Road to Character.”
He differentiates resume from eulogy virtues in this way: the resume kind are those found, well, in a resume (or in a campaign pamphlet) that contribute to external success – being productive, forward thinking, accomplished, savvy.
Conversely, eulogy virtues are internal and deeper, residing within the core of one’s being…those that contribute to inner and outer harmony – kindness, bravery, honesty, faithfulness…much more relational.
Brooks observes that most of us would agree that eulogy virtues are most important and esteemed, reflecting more character, being more inspiring than aspiring.
They make up the part of ourselves that is touched by many feel good movie storylines that usually, in real life, are not our highest priorities.
In the world that isn’t movie-make-believe we are encouraged to consider how to construct a thriving career, but not how to cultivate a flourishing inner life.
Brooks notes that, instead of learning about humility, sympathy and honest self-confrontation (all necessary for cultivating character) we’re taught about how to prepare and promote ourselves for external (and usually material) success.
This is alive and well in nearly all cultures – certainly ours – including the primary educational setting in our society – our kids’ schools.
Kids are given messages from a very early age to get good grades, to be successful in academic and athletic endeavors.
Dr. Andrew Sokatch spoke to this when he said that children aren’t allowed the opportunity to fail, and thus are robbed of the occasion to develop character by learning from failure.
In his Ted Talk, Sokatch said that failure can be a portal for growth, but because we are so externally focused on success, failure ends up being a brick wall.
Sanford psychologist Carol Dweck did a fascinating study on this with children. She split the kids into two groups, and gave each group a simple puzzle to do.
When they finished she praised the first group for being so talented and for so successfully completing the puzzle, and praised the second group for their diligence, focusing on how hard they had worked at the puzzle.
Then she gave both groups a significantly more challenging puzzle, and the kids accustomed to hearing praises about their ability and success were frustrated by the new puzzle and not as interested in trying because they were only familiar with their spoils of success and had no tools with which to deal with setbacks.
Conversely, the kids praised for diligence enjoyed the idea of the new challenge and ended up doing the puzzle better than the ‘success’ kids.
All of the children of this study weren’t aware that they were being studied for research outcomes. They simply fell into the natural order of things, which these experiments reflected.
So their response to new challenges didn’t take a lot of conscious, courageous choosing.
What about us, in the here and now of our lives?
The relevance with our theme of courage this month is that it takes courage to put ourselves in perceived ‘harm’s way’ by allowing for the possibility of failing.
Almost nobody puts an order in for failing, but taking life on, living life fully inevitably involves stretching ourselves beyond our comfort zone.
And then staying in grace, be that by learning and growth with failure, or humility and graciousness in success.
Otherwise (as our author Brooks puts it)….
Success leads to the greatest failure, which is pride.
Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning.
In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself.
In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.
I experienced this lesson during my last year of high school, specifically when I tried out for the volleyball team. For years I had excelled at several sports, and thus, like the kids in the ‘success’ puzzle group, had received praise through my school years for athletic ability.
Then during my senior year some of my sporty friends asked me to go out for the volleyball team, a sport I had never played.
I was reluctant to do this, because it seemed to me to be more of an uphill battle than an opportunity.
Volleyball was a wild card to me. What if I didn’t excel at it? I had a rep to keep up, after all (that ‘retention of success’ thing).
Due to the persistence of my friends, and a bit of narcissism that helped me to ask myself how hard this sport really could be, I went ahead and joined the team.
It was expected by the coach and by the players that I’d do well, but I didn’t. I just never got the hang of the sport, and it showed.
After weeks passed and it became obvious that my volleyball skills were mediocre at best, I was benched and became a non-starter.
This was a huge blow to my ego, and terribly embarrassing to me. There was a little bit of character present in my making myself stay on the team and not quit, but I couldn’t wait for that seemingly eternal volleyball season to finally be over.
For the longest time I didn’t look at this ‘failure’ as a ‘portal for growth,’ but definitely as a brick wall. And it solidified a question that I had pondered for years…why do people who aren’t good at sports join teams?
There was a boy in my class named Eddie Carter, who was one of those kids. Eddie was not blessed with a large amount of coordination. Nonetheless he would regularly and cheerfully go out for several sports, although he rarely got to play in games.
Wasn’t he perpetually humiliated, like I was in volleyball? How in the world could he derive more enjoyment than embarrassment and frustration from it?
Despite being mostly perplexed about Eddie and others like him, there was always also a minute sense of knowing that allowed me to envy the Eddies in the world for the freedom that they surely enjoyed.
Tucked deeply away but nonetheless accessible, there was a sense that, despite my public accolades as an athlete, they ultimately were ahead in the game-the game of life-because they weren’t held captive by the need to ‘succeed’ in the world’s eyes.
This adulation of success, of resume virtues, which results in discomfort with and avoidance of perceived failure, is widespread in our schools, and then accompanies us right into adulthood.
Adults receive the same messages and experience those same pressures, but the stakes are higher.
Stop for a moment to consider the messaging we receive through advertising about what we should be aspiring to – ads in commercials, magazines, news publications, billboards, store fronts, online.
Instead of ads designed to inspire and promote character, we are encouraged to aspire to wealth and sexiness, such as:
From Porsche – “Honestly now, did you spend your youth dreaming about someday owning a Nissan or a Mitsubishi?
From Silva Thin Cigarettes: “Cigarettes are like women. The best ones are thin and rich.”
We also often receive messages to highlight famous people and their external success…
From Hofner musical instruments: “Paul McCartney plays a Hofner Original. Why don’t you?”
Because of these ongoing cultural exposures, many of us devote ourselves largely to these ‘success’ goals.
And according to Brooks, this is what happens when you do this:
You turn into a shrewd animal, a crafty self-preserving creature who is adept at playing the game and who turns everything into a game. When this is all you have you spend a lot of time cultivating professional skills, but you don’t have a clear idea of the sources of meaning in life. Years pass and the deepest parts of yourself go unexplored and unstructured. You are busy, but you have a vague anxiety that your life has not achieved its ultimate meaning and significance. You live with an unconscious boredom, not really loving, not really attached to the moral purpose that gives life its worth. You lack the internal criteria to make unshakable commitments. You never develop inner constancy.
You foolishly judge other people by their abilities, not by their worth. You don’t have a strategy to build character, and without that, not only your inner life but also your external life will eventually fall to pieces.
The last thing we were created for was a life that’s fallen to pieces. The entirety of Jesus’ message invites us away from this type of life, although we don’t necessarily talk about ‘character’ so much when we talk about Jesus.
Perhaps it’s because character is thought to be more of an ethical thing (with more secular undertones) than religious and holy.
But being on the ‘road to character’ (as named by Brooks) puts us on the road to holiness, to fulfillment, to our truest selves.
Choosing this road enables us to continue in our time what Jesus began in his – working for the healing of our world (beginning with ourselves).
Speaking of the person of Jesus brings to mind an observation that Richelle Goodrich made when she said:
One of the most critical decisions made in life [to assist us in not allowing our inner and outer lives to fall to pieces] is choosing with whom to spend your time. For it is those relationships that gradually mold our character until we become a reflection of the company we keep.
I’m not suggesting here that you spend copious amounts of time in Bible study and reading literature on the life of Jesus (although it is a good spiritual practice).
But I ask you…with whom do you choose to spend your time?
What kind of a person do you gravitate toward?
This of course applies to our personal relationships, but also applies to which magazines you buy, which television shows you choose to watch, what you do for entertainment, what literature and activities you expose yourself to.
Taken from another angle we may ask ourselves…
Who in your life do you want to reflect?
Who do you want to reflect, and who do you indeed reflect?
You may have a bucket list in life.
If so, what virtues are on your character bucket list?
What are you cultivating to be able to check them off that lifelong to-do list?
Or shall we say that lifelong to-be list?
I am convinced that you consciously chose to step on the road to character to some extent, because you’ve chosen to be a part of this gathering.
Through such gatherings, through such reading as Brooks’ Road to Character book, learning more about the man that Jesus was, we mindfully engage in our cultivation, and intentionally step on that road.
May we continue on this road so that, as we imagine the time when our bucket list is being laid aside because we are being laid to rest, we can rest assured that our life was the stuff of a eulogy that would have inspired us and others.
So shall it be.
Amen.
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