My family values (your word here)
Talking with my Grandpa Ray and his friends over the last few weeks has given me more hope for the future than I have had in years. Maybe more than ever.
I find it very easy to be introverted, but growing up in a small town and recently spending more time in the small town where my mom grew up has shown me the power of shared energy within a tight community. The community doesn't need to be physically isolated like the island I grew up on or the small islands of homes surrounded by waves of grain that my mom grew up in. But physical isolation provides strong motivation for introverts like me to be active in a community.
Between my Grandma Barbara's declining health, and the election of Donald Trump, I've been thinking deeply about the values I hold and where I got them. This perspective on what I have been given in life has made me feel more privileged than ever. I feel positively irradiated with privilege. Many people view privilege as something that must be made up for, but that's not what I am referring to. Not the guilty privilege of being an upper middle-class white boy, but something much more important and more difficult to pass on from generation to generation. Values, but not the political "family values" that tell people who they are allowed to love or what they are allowed to do with their bodies. Our family values compassion. Passion in the company of others, and passion for others.
n.mid-14c., from Old French compassion "sympathy, pity" (12c.), from Late Latin compassionem (nominative compassio) "sympathy," noun of state from past participle stem of compati "to feel pity," from com- "together"(see com- ) + pati "to suffer" (see passion ).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Unlike skin color or financial security, compassion cannot be passed down by a single act. Instilling the next generation with compassion is a lot more difficult than sex or starting a trust fund. To pass it on, compassion must be practiced often. Especially when it is not the reflexive thing to do, or when it is miles out of the way, or when it is financially irresponsible.
M stopped by a few days ago to see my grandparents. She drove her skiff a couple miles and drove her van another thirty to do that. She brought some home harvested honey and a lamb shoulder roast. Bobby Junior was the lamb's name, and M had him and all her other frozen goods in a chest freezer at a closed gas station whose owner was a friend of hers. Bobby Junior and Bob Senior were a tad competitive. They would charge each other at full speed then at the last second skid to a halt and nuzzle each other.
That made it hard for M's husband S to shoot Bobby Junior, but he did it and he did it in front of the flock. Out of compassion. M told us that sheep have a social memory of about three hundred individuals. This is known because if one is slaughtered out of sight of the flock, then they will keep searching and calling for the lost one for weeks or months. So they shot Bobby Junior in front of Bobby Senior and the rest to avoid there being any uncertainty about his fate. The shepherds knew that for the long term safety of the flock, they should be presented with the facts.
In hindsight M and S realized that simply allowing the flock to see that Bobby Junior was dead could have been enough to allow the flock to move on. They risked making the flock fearful of them, the shepherds, by allowing the flock to know that they were the ones who killed Bobby Junior. But the sheep still didn't run away, even without fences. They seemed to understand that being close to home still offered more compassion than danger. When the dog barks, the sheep come running towards the house. To the sheep a lifetime of compassion was worth a moment of violence.
Years ago S had a toothache. He needed a root canal so my grandpa Ray gave him a thousand dollars. After the successful surgery, S told his father what had happened and his father berated him saying, "You shouldn't let Ray give you any money, because he doesn't have any." Later the father paid Grandpa back the thousand dollars. Compassion makes for a wealthy community.
I'm going back tomorrow for my Grandma Barbara's memorial service. More lessons to come.