The Power of Yet

Rev. Marisol Caballero
January 11, 2015

It is so easy to wish for more for ourselves and our lives, and to become victim to frustration or despair. “Yet” holds more power than we can ever imagine. How will we wield our “yets” in 2015?

Reading: “Feeding the Pit”
by Barbara Merritt

Part of the advantage of having an elevator being installed two feet from my office door is that I can easily listen in on the construction crew’s conversation. It echoes up from two floors below. It rings down the hallway. And in between the drilling, the chain-rattling, the pounding, and the sawing, comes some helpful theological reflection.

This particular conversation occurred between a man who was balanced on a forty-five degree ladder over a three-story, open elevator pit, and the man assisting him. The man on the ladder, who gave me a greater appreciation for having been called to the ministry, asked for four bolts. His colleague said, and I quote, “I’ll give you five; you need to have one to feed the pit.”

Now I can only surmise that this wisdom had been hard won. People who work over great cavities of open air probably learned through experience about gravity. Objects fall. They will fall a great distance when there is nothing to stop them. Ergo: if you are going to suspend yourself over a deep pit, don’t assume that everything will go perfectly. Don’t assume that a nut or bolt won’t roll away. Assume that additional resources will come in handy. Acknowledge the challenging nature of the assignment. Take a relationship with the pit where you willingly and gracefully accept that it will occasionally need to be fed.

The alternative is simply too costly. To assume that things will go smoothly- that hammers won’t drop, that nails won’t bend, that parts won’t wander- is to place yourself in special danger. Especially when your workplace is at the top of a ladder suspended over a fifty-foot drop.

Pits are real. Some places in human existence pose genuine danger. Illness, conflict, and accidents can quickly take everything we hold as precious.

Some people advise, “Don’t look down. Pretend that nothing bad could ever happen to you or anyone you love.” This is the “Ignore the Pit” school.

Another popular opinion is to “Decry the Pit.” “Isn’t it terrible that there are pits in this world?” “Ain’t it awful that I have fallen in?”

Many allegedly smart people have spent their entire lives arguing about why pits exist and justifying how offended and angry they are that dangerous places continue to exist.

Some become profoundly cynical when they discover how painful a pit fall can be. “What’s the use?” they sigh. “With so much destruction and unhappiness in the past, and so much possible misery in the future, why build at all?” They become paralyzed with fear.

At the moment, I am drawn to the simple teachings of the elevator man. “Feed the Pit.” Right from the beginning, I should expect to encounter danger, demons, difficulties, and delays on the journey. We need to build a generous contingency fund into every life plan; and carry a few extra rations of energy, kindness, and hope in our pockets to offer to an unpredictable and hungry world.

Sermon: “The Power of Yet”

It’s officially the second week of January, folks. Those of us that make New Year’s resolutions are either congratulating ourselves for the hard work of sticking to them, forgiving ourselves every few minutes for breaking them, or hating ourselves for ever trying this nonsense, believing we should know better by now. Why try when we know we are helpless in the face of temptation to fall back into bad habits?

I would be lying if I said that it isn’t often that Jim Hensen’s fuzzy muppets didn’t point me toward deeper understandings of life. Listen to enough of my sermons and you’ll hear their influence, both directly and indirectly more often than an adult without children should admit to. But, when a seminary friend, who has young nieces, posted the video of Janelle Monae singing “The Power of Yet,” my series of rapid-fire responses led me to understanding that there was something in this concept for me, and I would guess others, as well, to still learn. At first, I thought it was a cute little ditty that can teach kids perseverance. Then, I wondered if the message could have meaning for me, as an adult. I agreed that it could, but then became immediately suspicious of it. After all, I’m pretty sure that, even with practice, Big Bird will surely learn to slam dunk before I will. And, though I can add 2 + 2, Elmo’s voice will have dropped before I ever master calculus. Sports and math have never been my forte.

This is ok, I always told myself. For, even though I was labeled “gifted and talented” by first grade and quickly developed an identity of a smart kid who didn’t have to try as hard to get a good grade, I was satisfied to barely pass math and to sneak to the back of the line each time it was my turn at the bat in P.E. None of this was important to me, I said. I was more of a creative arts kind of girl, anyhow. The truth was, I was humiliated when I was made to go out in the hall with the student teacher and do multiplication drills when everyone else seemed to know them already and I began to dread P.E.

When we moved to Odessa from Alpine, Texas, just in time for me to start 4th grade, I remember being in music class and everyone in this district had been learning simple sight reading for the past several years, something I had never really encountered. When the teacher, not knowing that I was a transfer student, reprimanded me for not knowing the notes on the scale or how to identify a half note, I started bawling. Why didn’t I simply practice math more at home, ask a friend to help me with my kickball technique, or let my music teacher know this was new material to me? Yes, genuine lack of interest played a big part in the sports and math, not everyone has to like everything or expect to excel at everything, but what about music, I was supposed to be good at the arts! That’s where my gifts and my talents were supposed to be found! Such things were supposed to be easy for me.

So intensely was my self-identity wrapped up in appearing smart and talented and a “natural” at certain skills, that it seemed that the more praise and accolades I received, the less I was interested in even trying. The bar had been set high. If I didn’t reach it, I would be a failure. Does this ring a bell for anyone else? In fact, I remember in a moment of sullen teen angst, having a moment of vulnerability with a friend and saying that my greatest fear, above even dying, was mediocrity. What drama!

This is that all-too-recognizable paralyzing fear that comes from knowing that “dangerous places” exist rather than having a mindset ready to live and learn from mistakes; to “feed the pit.” I just finished reading Dr. Carol Dweck’s best-seller, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. I named this sermon a couple of months ago, after the Sesame Street song that got me thinking, and stumbled across her Ted talk by the same name and her book, Mindset, in doing my research. I highly recommend both. In both, Dweck explains how there are two mindsets, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. In her research, she found that students, athletes, coaches, and teachers who held a fixed mindset felt the need to prove themselves over and over again. Many of them, believing that a failed attempt at something new or difficult did not simply mean that they needed to practice or try harder, but that they were stupid, incompetent, or lacked talent. Many gave up before even trying, rather than risk failure. She became convinced, though, that intelligence and personality are not fixed at all, but are something that can be changed, improved upon, for the sake of a happier and more successful life.

Those with a growth mindset see failure as an opportunity for learning; an exciting new challenge. The growth mindset believes that “your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.”

This is where the “yet” comes in. I’m not good at math… “yet.” I’m not fluent in Chinese… “yet.”

Of course, it’s often the case that people are more complex than that. We may have a growth mindset with everything in our lives, believing that a challenge we’ve yet to master is exhilarating and practice and hard work is the only secret behind lasting greatness, but fall into a fixed mindset in the company of our spouse or families of origin, remembering and fearing the repeat of abandonment and betrayal, believing deep down that we’re unlovable. Dweck says, that the fixed mindset is dangerous to leave unaddressed when it comes to interpersonal relationships. She says, “As with personal achievement, this belief- that success should not need effort- robs people of the very thing they need to make their relationship thrive. It’s probably why so many relationships go stale- because people believe that being in love means never having to do anything taxing.” Remember that old line from the movie “Love Story?” “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” What awful advice!

Dweck tells the story of a woman who thinks that everything is going so well with her boyfriend. She believes he’ll pop the question soon. One night, they sit down to watch a movie, and he tells her, “I need more space.” Her heart sinks. She knew this was too good to be true. Just like every other guy before … What was she doing to turn him off so suddenly? Will she ever find someone who can love her? Then, she thought about her tendency to employ a fixed mindset and risked asking, “What do you mean?” He responded, “I mean I want you to move over a little. I need a little more space.” She thought he was trying to break up, when in fact he was simply trying to get cozy!

Dweck warns us about the messages we tend to give our children regarding success. For example, “You learned that so quickly! You’re so smart!” “Look at that drawing! You’re the next Picasso!” “You’re so brilliant! You got an A without even studying!” can be heard by kids as, “If I don’t learn something quickly, I’m not smart.” “I shouldn’t try drawing anything hard or they’ll know I’m not Picasso.” And “I’d better quit studying or they won’t think I’m brilliant.” To raise children with a growth mindset, she says, is to encourage hard work, opportunities to learn something new, stick-to-it-ive-ness, and progress, rather than perfection. She sums up the difference between the fixed mindset and the growth mindset as, “Judge and Be Judged” vs. “Learn and Help Learn.”

This is an unsettling practice at first. In fact, it kind of sounds too difficult to even work! Do you hear the fixed mindset at work there? It’s where the dismissive phrase, “easier said than done” came from, I’m sure. But, this shift, which will require a lifetime of practice, can.’truly seem overwhelmingly difficult. It requires that we give up a bit of our sense of ego; our self-identities and all of the good and bad narratives that limit our potential. We can’t so easily shut off our mind, and for members of marginalized groups who are often the subject of stereotyping, women, the differently abled, LGBT folk, and people of color, this ability to have our eyes open to reality serves us. As we’ve seen in the news, sometimes understanding this is a matter of life and death.

Yes, but it only serves us to an extent, says Dweck’s research. With the growth mindset, the “teeth” are taken out of the oppression and allows folks to be better able to fight back and “take what they can and need even from a threatening environment,” such as having a racist teacher or a sexist boss. I heard the following poem Friday, read at a protest-performance, Black Poets Speak Out,

Won’t you celebrate with me
by Lucille Clifton

Won’t you celebrate with me
What I have shaped into
A kind of life? I had no model.
Born in Babylon
Both nonwhite and woman
What did I see to be except myself?
I made it up
Here on this bridge
between Starshine and clay,
My one hand holding tight
My other hand; come celebrate
With me that everyday
Something has tried to kill me
And has failed.

I also encourage you to go listen to another inspiring story of resistance along these lines on NPR’s new show, lnvisibilia. This past week was a story of Martin Pistorius, a man who developed a rare illness as a child that left him completely paralyzed and mute. All his caregivers, including his parents, were convinced that he was in a vegetative state, unaware of the world around him, but he wasn’t. For years, he believes awful things about himself, “You’re pathetic.” “No one cares about you.” “No one will ever show you kindness.” The short version of the story is that, somehow, over time, in that very lonely world, Martin discovered his own power of yet. His mindset change allowed him to gain small control over his body, begin to communicate and answer questions with his eyes movements, and eventually was outfitted with a computer that can speak for him. He went to college, learned to drive, wrote a book, and is today happily married to a woman who fell in love with his honesty, sense of humor, and dedicated spirit!

With people like Martin in mind, while everyone else is floundering on their New Year’s resolution, let’s all take a cue from the Tao of Sesame Street and remember the Power of Yet!

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