Communicating Value

It happened again, and I had to smile. It often happens when I'm with my daughter. She and I had met in Atlanta about a week ago to shop, hit a museum, and just hang out together. It was no small effort, her driving from Alabama and me from South Carolina, in a huge rainstorm to boot. But it was worth every inconvenience. These mother-daughter times are rare and precious.

Still, I had to smile. It happened as we stood at a kiosk at Atlantic Station looking for a place to grab dinner before heading our separate ways. The security guard sidled up to us, asking if we needed any help. When we explained what we were looking for, he offered recommendations in that rather endearing way men have when they're taking advantage of their official capacity to do some mild flirting. If you know my daughter, I don't have to tell you that the guy was directing every bit of this helpful information at her. And why not? She's beautiful, vivacious, and graciously patient at moments like this.

It reminded me of the time she and I flew to Indiana for college auditions about ten years ago. I've never had so many airport personnel opening doors and even offering (I do not lie) to carry bags for us. Ah, the perks of beauty!

And that got me thinking about the subtle ways we communicate value to people, especially (as in this situation) to strangers.

So I have a video clip you gotta watch. The clip demonstrates how we equate beauty with value, or more to the point, the way we devalue people based on the most superficial criteria. It's of actor Dustin Hoffman discussing his title role in the movie Tootsie, a movie in which he plays an actor passing as a woman in order to get work. Speaking of his character, he says,

"I think I'm an interesting woman, when I look at myself on screen, and I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character, because she doesn't fulfill physically the demands that we're brought up to think women have to have. . . ."

Take a look. Let me know what you think. How much does beauty (or wealth, or status) influence not only who we flirt with at the kiosk, but who we actually end up knowing. Can we retrain ourselves to communicate value to every person we encounter? How do we do that?

Arrogance, Envy, and The Prodigal Son(s)

image form ecmreviews.com

So we talked last time about arrogance and envy and how people pretty much swing between these two positions depending on how they see others or, more often, how they assume others see them. A healthier way, though, is to view others as inherently equal in value and as having important qualities in common with us despite external cues that seem to indicate otherwise.

image from lifeprint.com

It’s interesting to think of Christ in this light. He was neither intimidated by the religious rulers of his day nor indifferent to the most menial member of the community. He was completely himself whether talking with Samaritan women, the religious elite, or lepers.

The story of the prodigal son resonates here.  As you’ll recall, in that story a father had two sons. The younger one demanded his inheritance from his father and left to spend it on drugs, sex, and rock and roll. (I paraphrase.) One day he wakes in a back alley with used syringes scattered about and is faced with the fact that both his fortune and his friends are long gone. Having hit the proverbial rock bottom, he accepts his failure and heads home. Maybe the old man will allow him to live in the gardener’s cottage.

image from blackrainbows11.deviantart.com

Then the most shocking thing happens. His father welcomes him,  embracing him and forgiving everything. He has a designer wardrobe made ready and a new Mercedes appears to whisk him away to a grand party already in progress at their club.

image from hypebeast.com

The older brother knows nothing of this.  But at the end of another 12 hour work day, he checks his phone to find dozens of tweets and texts from business associates as well as family members.  His kid brother has not only returned, but everyone they know is already celebrating. This is utterly shocking, outrageous!  What could his father possibly be thinking? Honoring this spoiled punk! And what about him? Hadn’t he remained with his father and helped to run the family business? Hadn’t he taken all the responsibility of work that by rights his brother should have shared?

image from 123rf.com

Ah, the shifting from arrogant to envious and back again is dizzying. The younger brother arrogantly takes his “deserved” inheritance but returns humbled, envious (that is, feeling unworthy). The older brother seems confident of his superior position, arrogant. He is after all the good brother. Yet his father’s ridiculously embarrassing reinstatement of his kid brother knocks him to envy. “You’re throwing a party for him! You never threw one for me!”

Then comes the great equalizer. When the father embraces the younger son and reminds the older son, “All that I have is yours,” he is in effect saying, “Your status never changes with me, ever.” Imagine that. A father for whom our value never wavers, no matter what.

image from foodstoragereviewer.com

Both brothers make the mistake of quantifying the father’s love, grace, and gifts. But this father has infinite supply of all these things. In the kingdom of God there is no reason to be either envious or arrogant. Yet how easy it is to eye others as if there were limited supplies of good humor, wisdom, grace, or attractiveness and we may not have gotten our share.  But if God is our father, we have access to an unlimited supply of these good things. We don’t have to be envious because someone else is remarkably grace-filled. We have access to that infinite supply as well. Joy? My “share” is not diminished because someone else is overflowing with it.

Yet the greatest gift is not even these things. The greatest thing the father has to give is relationship. That is what the younger brother returns to. That is what the older brother has had access to all along. And they both almost missed it.