Stumbling

"May your life preach more loudly than your lips."

~ William Ellory Channing

A couple of weeks ago I spent a pleasant Sunday at my son's track meet. Wearing a florescent yellow "officials" T-shirt, I helped record the results of the long jump for K-8th grade athletes. All day I watched kids build strength and character as they learned how to run a race, jump into a pit, and win and lose with dignity. One kindergartener was too afraid to jump alone. She stood quietly in line with tears in her eyes. When it was her turn, I took her hand and told her I would run along side her for her first jump. Her confidence grew with each step as we neared the sand pit. By her third jump, she had tackled her fear and was sailing into the pit. It was hard for her, but she did it. And in the end, she was smiling.

My son Miles had kind of a rough track season. He's a good runner, but he's new to racing. He left nearly every meet feeling disappointed by his performance. And yet, he showed up for practice week after week, and tried his hardest at every meet. He pushed himself out of his comfort zone, running races that were both physically and psychologically challenging for him. More than once he came in last place, which was really humiliating for him, but he always got back on the track for the next race and gave it his best. I was proud of him. Sometimes he wanted to give up, but he never did.

Part of my job as an official at the meet was to bring the long jump results for each age group to a tent in the middle of the field where all the meet results were being recorded and tallied. At the end of the day, as I handed over the results for the last group of jumpers, I heard a man angrily shout, "NO!" I looked up to see what warranted this kind of anger, afraid he was yelling at a kid.  Instead I saw him pointing at a small, brown skinned, older woman attempting to collect cans out of the recycling basket on the field. He shouted at her like someone might yell at a dog trying to steal food from the dinner table. All eyes in the tent turned toward her and I could feel her humiliation as the man turned to his companion and said, "I've been trying to keep her out of there all day." He spoke as if she couldn't hear him, as if she were somehow "less than."

I knew instantly that I should say something in her defense. But I froze. If I stood up to the yelling man, called him on his behavior, would he turn his anger on me? And what would everyone else in the tent do? Would they back me up? Would they defend him? Would they stare into their laps uncomfortably? All of this passed through my head as the seconds ticked by and I did nothing. The woman walked slowly off the field, her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. Time slowed down. I considered following her and telling her privately that he had no right to speak to her that way. I considered taking the cans and bottles out of the trash myself and giving them to her. But instead, I stood frozen on the field, my feet rooted to the ground, watching her walk away.

I did nothing. All morning long I had encouraged children to face their fear and give it their best, but when I was confronted with my own fear, I did nothing. Worse than nothing really. I let the yelling man speak FOR me. After all, he was wearing the same florescent yellow T-shirt I was. My silence and my uniform suggested that I supported him. My silence implicated me in his belittling treatment of a fellow human being. I am just as guilty of injustice as he is.

***

A few days after the track meet my daughter, Frances, and I were talking about the famous Milgram experiment, a social psychology research project conducted by Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram, in the early 1960s. Milgram and his associates measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Without going into all the details of the project, subjects were instructed to administer what they believed were increasingly more powerful electric shocks to another person (no real shocks were administered). What WAS shocking was the high percentage of people who, although clearly uncomfortable, were willing to "up the voltage" of the shock because they were instructed to do so by an authority figure.

Frances and I wanted to believe we would never follow an authority figure into cruelty, but we were not cocky about it. I told Frances about my experience at the track meet, and she told me about a time when she could not find the courage to stand up to a classmate who repeatedly made racist remarks about other students. We wanted to believe we would always do the right thing, but we realized that isn't always easy.

I strive to be a person who walks her talk, but that doesn't mean I never fall down. The next time I stumble (and I will again) all I can do is stand up, dust myself off, and say, "I was wrong." I can make amends where I can. Whatever happens I know I have to get back on the track and keep running. There is no dropping out. But like my kindergarten long-jumper, I can find someone to run alongside me if I need to. No one says we have to run alone.