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Chapter 4
Stay Put

Americans are said to thrive on change and novelty. But do we? Are transient families more emotionally secure and financially stable than those who put down roots? Is a commercial district more successful when businesses turn over every few years? Is our spiritual nature well served by adopting a new practice every six months? Humans are curious creatures, and it’s natural for us to want to explore new terrain. Nevertheless, a compelling case can be made for resisting this impulse. Thriving also has something to do with settling in.

The Happy Tale of a Small City Diner

The intersection adjacent to towering Camp Randall Stadium, home of the University of Wisconsin Badgers football team, is one of Madison’s busiest. Several streets converge at that point, and a jumble of small businesses serves the area’s burgeoning student population. One of the oldest and most easily recognized is an establishment called Mickey’s Dairy Bar, a hole-in-the-wall diner a few doors up Monroe Street that has featured the same crimson-and-white Badger décor for a half-century.

Mickey’s is open only on weekdays and caters to the breakfast and lunch crowds who routinely commend it as the best eating bargain in town. Staples include platter-size pancakes an inch thick, 106 old-fashioned milkshakes, and sandwiches overflowing with fresh ingredients. Mickey’s was for years our son’s favorite place to chow down, and I cannot recall a single occasion when we didn’t carry food away in a Styrofoam clamshell. “Nobody ever leaves Mickey’s hungry,” the present proprietor proudly boasts.

Mickey’s did change hands a number of years ago. Payow Thongnuam, a Thai immigrant who studied culinary arts at the local community college and married a Wisconsin native, bought Mickey’s in 1991. “Janet and I clicked with the owner,” Payow remembers, “because we promised to keep it just the way it was.” Indeed, the only real improvements the couple made were to replace the worn-out linoleum floor with one that was nearly identical and to update the menu with a few new items like liver and onions and chocolate chip pancakes. For the most part, Mickey’s has remained the same and continues to pull in a stream of patrons from the campus and beyond.

Nevertheless, whether Mickey’s will anchor the north end of Monroe Street and maintain its unique position in the Madison dining scene for much longer is an open question. Developers have been hungrily eyeing the block on which the restaurant is situated and have elicited promises to sell from neighboring property owners. Payow and Janet are stubbornly holding out, partly because Mickey’s provides a secure livelihood for their large family, but also because they understand what this humble-yet-venerable business contributes to the local scene. Despite his Southeast Asian origins, Payow sums up the issue better than most Madison natives could when he observes that Mickey’s longevity has made it “the grandfather of Monroe Street.” He meets customers who once went to school in Madison and have made a point to visit the beloved diner on their return. In their minds, Mickey’s will always be part of the Madison scene. “It makes me feel proud,” Payow exclaims. “I won’t sell, absolutely not. No way. I’m blessed to have a business like this.”¹

The Tale of Our Great Cities

In her landmark study of cities and neighborhoods that really function well for their residents, urban theorist Jane Jacobs challenged 107 the mid-century advocates of urban renewal. Before engaging in massive redevelopment, reconsider the benefits conferred by existing “traditional” communities, Jacobs begged in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Older residential areas that may appear to be in a state of decline from a bricks-and-mortar point of view create intangible assets that a complex of sleek high-rise apartments cannot match. For most of the 1960s and 1970s, hers was a voice crying in the wilderness, as “progressive” cities across the country repudiated the past in favor of partial or complete makeovers. Even a small city like Madison succumbed to the prevailing trend as the Greenbush—a quaint mixed-use, multiethnic enclave adjacent to the business district—was eliminated in favor of clusters of featureless housing units and a network of barren boulevards.

From her own research and personal observations, Jane Jacobs became convinced that safe, healthy, and interesting neighborhoods are largely a function of carefully cultivated social capital rather than physical “improvement.” Such niches in our cityscapes, she wrote, “weave webs of public surveillance and thus protect strangers as well as residents; grow networks of small-scale everyday public life and thus generate trust and control.” Whenever this capital is forfeited, the income from it disappears.²

Jacobs pointed to districts like Boston’s North End and Manhattan’s Greenwich Village as places that afforded a much higher quality of life for their residents than others that were newer and more in keeping with the modern Bauhaus aesthetic. The latter too often produced a monoculture, with families packed into near-identical living spaces, often surrounded by freeways and at one remove from the shops, schools, churches, restaurants, and taverns that have traditionally served as nodes of connection for urban dwellers. Ironically, by creating blocks of dense residential housing, urban renewal increased residents’ sense of isolation and reduced their safety. All the mediating structures that help to create and maintain the spirit of community were missing.

And Jacobs pointed to another advantage of those traditional neighborhoods: their powers of retention. People tended to stick around, often for several generations, because this place provided 108 a real home, not just a roof over their heads. Residents came to know their community well—its stories, traditions, unique heritage, and neighbors they could depend upon. In other words, the subculture encouraged and rewarded “stickers,” and there was an unspoken consensus that “staying put” was a major contributor to sustainability.

What I Saw in Binghamton

Earlier in life, Trina and I lived for seven years a few streets away from such an area in Binghamton, New York—an old industrial town that had experienced several major shifts in its local economy. In the early twentieth century it became a center for the manufacture of shoes, and thousands of recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe made their way up the Delaware River Gap to tan, cut, and stitch footwear in the Triple Cities (of which Binghamton is one—in case you are curious, the other two are Endicott and Johnson City). Many of these newcomers settled in Binghamton’s first ward, occupying small, neat houses provided by paternalistic employers. Here they established ethnic funeral parlors, built great gold-dome Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and introduced spiedies, pirogis, and kielbasa to the local food scene.

By the time we moved to the area in the early 1980s, the factories were all shuttered, as the shoemaking industry had long since moved overseas. But the descendants of the descendants of those Slavic and Italian immigrants soldiered on. Those modest first ward homes had grown a little shabby, the narrow sidewalks had heaved and buckled, and most of the working-class residents were now employed in some sector of the service economy. But in terms of social capital, the neighborhood still flourished, and residents seemed little inclined to “improve” their situation.

High-tech industries such as Singer-Link, Savin, and, most notably, IBM were the predominant players in the Triple Cities economy when we arrived. The professional and technical class that composed that workforce held a different perspective on “home” and “community” than their predecessors. Many regarded this as a temporary stop on their road to the top, a place to burnish their credentials before moving on to IBM’s headquarters in White 109Plains or to a more cosmopolitan environment. Despite its abundant natural beauty and general livability, few of the young professionals whom I queried planned to settle in the area (nor, for that matter, did we).

To be fair, sticking wasn’t always a realistic option for people. Veteran IBMers wryly observed that the corporate acronym really stood for “I’ve Been Moved,” since the likelihood of being transferred to another facility was rather high. An IBM engineer could no more expect a stable settlement than a Methodist minister fresh out of seminary. Regrettably, what was then considered somewhat unusual has become commonplace. The American job market has become increasingly unstable and unreliable largely because the global economy rewards companies that are the least loyal to workers or communities. In 1978 a middle-aged American could expect to remain with the same employer for eleven years; the average now is less than eight.³

The uncertainties that attended people’s professional lives impacted the Triple Cities as a whole. Families tended to invest little in their neighborhoods, people were reluctant to forge friendships, and awareness of local issues was lacking. Apart from districts like the first ward, there was a widespread perception that this was essentially a city of strangers.

Trina and I felt these effects personally. After seven years in the same house and despite numerous attempts to connect, we were on familiar (speaking) terms with only one of our neighbors. Binghamtonians minded their own business and were unperturbed by the dearth of civic involvement. Fortunately, the local running club and the church I served provided a palpable and positive source of community, because the block on which we lived certainly did not.

Madison—A Most Livable City

Madison, Wisconsin, is, in this respect, rather different from many other cities—one in which neighborhoods have character and integrity and neighborliness is encouraged. The city has erected handsome signage to delineate its many neighborhoods and create a more distinct sense of identity. Neighborhood centers and 110associations abound; and in the summertime, streets are often closed to accommodate block parties, collective garage sales, and other locally organized events. Every year the student-centered Mifflin Street neighborhood sponsors a (sometimes raucous) block party that attracts hundreds of revelers.

Madison residents make a conscious and conscientious effort to patronize businesses in the immediate vicinity, which has helped limit the number of malls and big-box developments on the peripheries. As a result, a significant number of small, independent groceries, coffee shops, bookstores, taverns, and even pharmacies have remained in operation. Neighborhoods have been known to fight city hall and win. Not long ago, a local elementary school scheduled for closure was spared when residents rallied to its defense. In another section of the city, residents created a member-owned co-op to keep a struggling corner grocery alive.

Scott Russell Sanders is surely correct when he says, “None of us can live by wits alone.” Both the person and the planet will be much better off if we make more effort to “settle in … and make a durable home for ourselves, our fellow creatures and our descendants.”⁴ This “sticky” principle of sustainability is one that our family has tried to follow for the twenty-plus years we’ve lived in the same neighborhood—a place called Shorewood Hills, which is not technically part of Madison but is surrounded by it on three sides, with broad Lake Mendota lapping gently at its north boundary.

Shorewood Hills provides many small but meaningful incentives for staying put: a community swimming pool, sledding hill, and ice-skating rink (named for former residents and Olympic speed skaters Eric and Beth Heiden); a centrally located elementary school and village green; Fourth of July beer and bratwurst feeds and firework displays, Halloween parades, ballroom dances, and scouting programs; low-key winter basketball and summer baseball programs for kids; a garden club and community gardening program, a volunteer fire department, and a folksy and informative monthly newsletter. Together these create a real catalogue of inducements for those who might wish to join the dwindling ranks of the stickers, establish a real home, and pursue an alternative vision of the good life. 111

Viable communities like the Monroe Street neighborhood or Shorewood Hills can be sustained, Jane Jacobs points out, by a handful of people who “pay attention” and are willing to act in a purposeful fashion. Committed catalysts like Payow Thongnuam can raise public awareness and rally neighbors to protect their collective assets. Our own village directory lists the names of seven dozen residents who, as volunteers, work to enhance community life.

However, strictly individual initiatives usually won’t suffice. Communities need convenient venues where people can get to know and collaborate with one another. Our own neighborhood provides plenty of niches for activists to discuss problems, coordinate their efforts, and engage in serious, long-term planning. This leaves us in a much better position to resist undesirable or unwanted development and preserve the unique character of a place we all profess to love.

Staying Put Can Be a Challenge

In general, Americans do seem to recognize the value of being in community, which is why we still sing the praises of neighborhood schools and will frequently choose a faith community that’s “in the neighborhood” rather than one that requires a long commute (for many mainline Protestants, I have found, the doctrinal position of a congregation matters less than its physical location and the friendliness of its culture). In other words, most of us would probably agree that a community is not just a place to live, but a place to live well—a context in which to thrive as well as subsist.

Unfortunately, our actions often misalign with our values. Americans are still all too willing to drive many miles to exercise at Gold’s Gym, shop at Walmart, or feed the kids at a McDonald’s Playland rather than patronize local sources of sustenance and satisfaction. With private automobiles always at our beck and call, the temptation “to raid and to run,” as Wallace Stegner put it, is ever present. Higher fuel prices may make people reexamine their behavior (“The best way to conserve energy is to stay put,” Frank Watson reminds us⁵), but fifty years of nonstop commuting has reduced many American neighborhoods to low-touch bedroom communities where people seldom take the time to practice neighborliness. 112

The speculative market in residential housing has transformed the way many American think about their living situation. “Only a couple of generations ago,” Bill Perkins observes, “families chose a home and neighborhood because they would be nice places to live.”

As more and more Americans were persuaded by the real estate and mortgage industries to treat their houses primarily as an economic rather than a social asset, they undoubtedly became less willing to commit themselves emotionally to the people and place surrounding them. “Trading up became more important than liking our homes or our neighbors,” Perkins writes.⁶ If the market stays depressed, though, homeowners may be more inclined to settle in rather than to speculate, and that in turn might help to produce more cohesive neighborhoods.

I feel fortunate to live in a community which has a rich supply of social capital and where most residents have remained because they recognize and appreciate precisely this aspect of home ownership. After Trina was diagnosed with malignant melanoma ten years ago, our family was lovingly supported by goods-bearing, errand-running, well-wishing neighbors. On numerous occasions before and since, we have reached out to others in the same way. “In a changed world comfort will come less from ownership than from membership,” Bill McKibben writes. To belong to a community is to feel more confident about our well-being, because the community can be relied upon to “meet at least some of our needs … for companionship, for entertainment, for succor.”⁷

Reciprocity is one of human civilization’s oldest, most useful, and most widely practiced ethical principles, but in an anonymous, disconnected society it is often given short shrift. In more cohesive communities the principle naturally and spontaneously expresses itself as people look after each other’s children, arrange car pools, water plants and feed cats during family vacations, and perform other casual acts of give-and-take. This is the kind of cultural norm that induces residents to grow up and grow old in a community even when it might be more profitable or professionally advantageous to pick up and pull out. 113

What the Amish Know

One group of people—the Amish—is well known for the ability to maintain stable, sustainable communities. Although many Americans regard the Amish as severe, colorless, and technologically backward, the Amish know better than most how to take care of the land and each other. Once, at a conference, an Amish farmer named David Kline was asked for his definition of community. Eschewing generalities and abstractions, Kline offered a concrete example:

Apropos of that comment, Wendell Berry says that for a traditional Amish farmer like David Kline, the economy consists of more than a means of production and a charge of accounts. It is, he writes, a “loving economy based on the love of neighbors, of creatures, and of places.” The Great Economy is how Berry describes this web of mutual aid and affection, and he contrasts it with the Industrial Economy “that is not comprehensive enough and thus tends to destroy that which it does not comprehend.”⁹

Wendell Berry has long been an articulate and passionate advocate of sustainability, but his writing strikes some as elegiac and out of step with more recent economic and social trends. Still, few writers help us see so clearly what we’ve inadvertently sacrificed in the heedless pursuit of material gain, and much of what he finds troubling about the industrialization of rural culture is relevant to our urban neighborhoods, as well.

This is not to say that living in a closely knit community is invariably a bed of roses. Its members don’t always know where familiarity stops and nosiness begins. The line between harmless information sharing and destructive gossip can be a fine one, and at times people will feel as if they were living in a glass house where the right of others to pry supersedes one’s own right to privacy.114

Staying Put Doesn’t Mean Getting Stuck

The provincialism that has always figured prominently in borough and village life represents a social liability, not an asset. For all its advantages, gemeinschaft (as sociologists describe it) can be rife with prejudice, rigid mores, invasive practices, suspicion of outsiders, and knee-jerk resistance even to edifying change. A wholesale retreat to more parochial times when people hardly ever ventured far beyond the community in which they were born and raised is hardly desirable. Thanks to modern communications technology, in today’s world we can have both: thriving local cultures and the kind of worldliness that opens minds and softens attitudes. That is the kind of sustainable community we should strive to create and in which the good life can be realized.

These arguments in favor of “settling in” and strengthening the bonds of community should not be construed as a criticism of those who love to broaden their horizons through travel or even temporary residence abroad. Trina and I take every available opportunity to venture out into the world and have spent appreciable time in 47 of the lower 48 states as well as in Canada and Europe.

Nevertheless, we have never been footloose and have always felt the tug of hearth and home. The “instinct for absolute freedom and mobility … that drove America to the Pacific,” described by essayist Joan Didion, has always been more subdued in us.¹⁰ And generally speaking, it is probably not a healthy instinct. Even a peripatetic globe-trotter like travel writer Pico Iyer—a man who once proudly declared himself a citizen of the world equally at home in a Bangkok airport and a Los Angeles McDonald’s—finally had to concede that such a lifestyle is not sustainable. “The unhappiest people I know these days,” he writes in The Global Soul, “are often the ones in motion, encouraged to search for a utopia outside themselves.” ¹¹

“Entanglement”

In an earlier era, the process of “entanglement”—of establishing a bona fide home—was assisted by storytelling and the informal sharing of local history and lore on the front porch, at church socials, over a beer at the local tavern, or with coffee and Danish at a family-run diner. For the most part, the traditions of oral transmission 115 that made it possible for newcomers and each new generation to assimilate have disappeared, and that represents an intangible but significant loss. Without historical consciousness—which helps people develop a sense of belonging—it is more difficult to care about and to show proper consideration for a place.

Fortunately, we can to a remarkable degree compensate for the disappearance of the oral culture that oriented our grandparents. I get up and inspect the contents of my own bookshelves and note that among their several thousand volumes are many that helped me, a transplant, develop a deeper knowledge of and appreciation for Wisconsin. I espy a series of books about Frank Lloyd Wright, perhaps our most famous native son and the man who designed the National Landmark Unitarian Meeting House where I’ve served for over two decades. My personal collection also includes a well-thumbed copy of John Muir’s youthful autobiography, as well as one by Blackhawk, the gallant Sauk Indian chief who, before being captured by U.S. troops after the battle of Wisconsin Heights, retreated through the boggy lake country where the city of Madison now stands. Personal narratives like these provide stimulating access to the local culture, helping the reader understand its character and the forces that contributed to its development.

Highly rewarding local and regional literature isn’t hard to find. State and local historical societies are a good place to start, and popular periodicals like Arizona Highways and The Wisconsin Magazine of History provide excellent guidance for those who are curious about their surroundings. Resources like these have helped turn Trina and me into connoisseurs of our own state’s quainter burgs and back roads. Over the years, we’ve visited most of Wisconsin’s natural areas, tasted its local produce, and strolled many of its lovingly preserved main streets. We’ve learned patiently to pay attention and have been amply rewarded with an ever-deepening sense of familiarity and rootedness.

People quite rightfully want to live in a “nice” place—safe, sanitary, commodious, and reasonably attractive—but sustainable communities offer more and expect more. They are home to residents 116 who maintain a lively interest in and have made a real effort to understand what makes it tick—people who want to get in touch with the genius of their place. From that interest comes the impetus to care and the intention to stay.

Naturalist Gary Ferguson tells the story of a group of eastern scholars who went on an anthropological expedition in the 1920s to meet with Northern California’s Pit River (Achumawi) Indian tribe. During an exchange with a member of that band, one of the researchers asked what was the word in the Achumawi language for a recent arrival such as himself—a newcomer.

Reluctant to answer, the man to whom the question was put looked toward his elders for guidance. After the researcher repeated his question, an older Indian responded. The word is inalladui, he said softly. It means “tramp.” The label was applied because the native people couldn’t understand why whites traveled through a place without ever stopping long enough to learn something about it, without ever binding the land to their hearts. “We think a part of you must be dead inside,” the old man said sympathetically.¹²

Do we want to have life and have it more abundantly? There is much to be said for sallying forth on an occasional adventure, but there can be no substitute for putting down some roots and pulling up sustenance from the native soil.

Vocation and Staying Put

The putative father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, is said to have identified Leiben (love) and Arbeiten (work) as the most important factors in the human quest for happiness and fulfillment. If he was correct, then few things could be more important than finding work that we love and love that works. The four keys of sustainability can be fruitfully applied in both departments.

When it comes to my own career, I have clearly proved myself a sticker. Having already served faith communities for over thirty years, barring some unexpected development I hope to continue in this role until retirement—not because it would be economically disadvantageous to do something else, but because the work continues 117 to feel valuable and feeds my own spirit. I have chosen, as John Schuster would say, “significance over success.”¹³

There was, however, an earlier time when I seriously doubted my vocational decision. At the age of twenty-five and with twenty years of academic preparation behind me, I left seminary ready and raring to go. It was high time, I thought, to do some real work and earn my own keep. Eagerly and without due deliberation, I accepted a call to a small church at the eastern edge of the Great Plains. It proved not to be a good fit.

I lasted less than three years in my first professional position and retreated to the academy to pursue further graduate studies and to reconsider my options. At the time, it seemed quite apparent that I’d misjudged my calling.

My next ambition was to earn a Ph.D. and settle into a college or university teaching career. Fortunately, in pursuing my doctorate it became financially necessary for me to instruct undergraduate students as a teaching assistant. Two years of attempting to instill a love for the humanities in a room full of nineteen- and twenty-year-old business and management majors soon disabused me of this new career goal. Teaching struck me as hard and thankless work. Although a few of my students were academically ambitious and intellectually curious enough to keep me mildly motivated, I could no longer picture myself competing for a tenure-track position at a comparable institution.

Sam Keene, a popular writer on philosophy and spirituality, faced a similar dilemma as a novice professor. For years Keene had imagined that earning a doctorate and commanding a classroom would provide both the social recognition and internal rewards he craved. But it was not to be. The pleasant flush of pride he felt when students addressed him as “Dr. Keene” quickly dissipated, and any pride he felt in his newfound status didn’t compensate sufficiently for the daily drudgery of academic life. “The Kingdom of God became a drag,” Keene confessed, “… papers to grade, committees, faculty meetings and endless talk, talk, talk. … The future for which I had sacrificed arrived, but the promised satisfaction did not. … I was in exile.”¹⁴ 118

Sam Keene didn’t last much longer in the university than I did in my first parish. Following his instincts, he leaped boldly into the unknown and began to forge a fresh career as a professional writer and journalist—a calling in which he has thrived.

My own story turned out differently. The longer I taught, the more I found myself missing certain aspects of the ministry: interacting with people of all ages, creating and conducting meaningful rites of passage, presenting to audiences who came freely and curiously, not because they needed to fulfill a course requirement. Most of all, I missed the continuity of the parish—the repeated contact with individuals and families that helps create ties that bind. The studied objectivity and relational superficiality that are not the rule but definitely the norm in universities just wasn’t doing it for me.

And so having earned my doctorate, I decided to take another stab at the parish—but without real conviction or a great deal of confidence. It took a number of years before I was able to develop a real feel for the work and the ability to perform reasonably well. I was tempted to walk away on more than one occasion, but unwilling to fail a second time, and with encouragement from a few older colleagues, I kept plugging away. To my surprise, the longer I persevered, the more comfortable my responsibilities became. “Might there yet be potential here for a career?” I asked myself.

Many of my friends in ministry have told me that they heard their “call” well before enrolling in seminary. They usually give me a funny look when I admit that the message wasn’t delivered to me until I’d been practicing for nine years! In my case, it was a matter of staying put until I could grow into a role that initially seemed unsuited to my temperament. The same might be said for people in other careers that did not seem promising at first but in which a good fit developed over time. Like them, I’m glad I didn’t throw in the towel too soon.

Coincidentally, recent studies have shown that raw talent and native ability may be less important factors in vocational success than regularity—commitment to developing one’s repertoire of skills and abilities over a period of time. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell introduces the 10,000 Hour Rule. If aspiring individuals 119put twenty hours a week into their “calling” over the course of ten years, they will more than likely meet their expectations.¹⁵

Success: A Double-Edged Sword

To what extent does a sustainable career require one to be successful? While pleasant and meaningful work is a critically important component of the good life, what is it about our work that makes it “good”? Is it the public approbation, the admiration of one’s peers, institutional growth, or something more subtle and less measurable? Success can come in many forms, not all of which are conducive to emotional and mental well-being.

Management consultant and business guru John R. O’Neil has studied and interviewed many of America’s most outwardly successful men and women and noticed how many of them were arrogant and uptight and exhibited little real happiness. More than a few reached the pinnacle of their career only to crash and burn. Rick Chollet, the smart, handsome founder of Brookstone, committed suicide after struggling privately and unsuccessfully with feelings of inadequacy and depression. Work, Chollet’s wife reported, was the trigger for his mood swings. “He constantly feared letting people down,” she said.

Individuals who are willing to work sacrificially in order to achieve specific, short-term success do so at the cost of overall wholeness. O’Neil emphasizes the importance of adjusting our expectations and finding the right formula to become “long-distance winners.” The people he’s met who fit that description “know that the pleasures that come with success, as well as those that don’t depend on it, are as valuable as the success itself.”¹⁶ This is not an easy lesson to learn, and I doubt that many people who have experienced significant “success” are receptive to it.

What counts is fulfillment—the settled feeling that one’s work is being done well, that it is useful and relevant, interesting and challenging, and that it leaves one with a sense of “proper pride” upon its accomplishment. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig reintroduces the ancient Greek concept of “quality.” He argues that if those who are dedicated to it understand what quality looks like and have discovered in quality a 120reliable source of spiritual sustenance, they will have found their true vocation.

By contrast, success as it is typically understood conforms to some societal and cultural standard outside the self that is only tenuously connected to quality. We know we are “succeeding” when others tell us so or when certain official benchmarks have been met. Many widely admired and ostensibly successful men and women live false and troubled lives because the work they perform is inconsistent with their core values, with their code of professional practice, or with their own internal standard of excellence. “I was in my mid-thirties when I began to wake up to questions about my vocation,” Parker Palmer remembers. “By all appearances, things were going well, but the soul doesn’t put much stock in appearances….I had started to understand that it is indeed possible to live a life other than one’s own.”¹⁷

I, too, experienced a day of reckoning during the headiest stage of my own career. Having served a congregation in upstate New York long enough to complete the process of ministerial formation and, at last, find my true vocation, I accepted an offer from the First Unitarian Society of Madison. This was a congregation with a surplus of latent energy waiting to be tapped, ready to take on new initiatives. And at the relatively young age of thirty-six, I was anxious to burnish my own professional credentials.

Within ten years the Society’s adult membership had doubled, a new religious education wing had been built, major repairs had been made to the fragile Frank Lloyd Wright Meeting House, and a host of new programs had been solidly established. The local newspapers took note of our success, and the Unitarian Universalist Association recognized ours as the fastest-growing church in the movement.

Good things were happening, and the congregation was exceeding all expectations. I felt proud of our accomplishments but wasn’t feeling as much internal satisfaction as one in my position should have expected. The problem was a classic one. As successes mounted, so did the pressure to maintain momentum and push on to yet higher levels of achievement. Eventually even the 121compensatory measures I’d always taken to maintain balance and wholeness—running, healthy diet, meditation—proved insufficient. I had reached the end of my tether.

And so one Sunday morning in the mid 1990s, I stood before my congregation and delivered a sermon entitled “Too Much of a Good Thing Can Be Wearisome” in which I confessed to having invested so much in my work that I now felt more oppressed than enlivened by it. Some listeners construed those remarks as a prelude to a formal letter of resignation, but the truth is, I was just venting—a self-indulgent strategy I do not recommend to similarly afflicted colleagues.

Although I probably shouldn’t have shared it with an innocent audience, that sermon did turn out to be a valuable exercise in discernment. I had had a small epiphany: despite what our culture teaches us, a career that rests upon a foundation of success is probably not sustainable and is in fact inherently unstable. Writer Anne Lamott once found herself in a situation that led to comparable soul-searching:

My own awakening didn’t produce instant results. I’d created over the course of a decade a professional identity that promised limitless energy and instant availability. Disassembling that identity and replacing it with one more in keeping with O’Neil’s “long-distance winner” proved to be a formidable challenge and was not accomplished quickly. Looking back, I find it ironic that my first vocational crisis occurred because I felt ill-suited for and unable to perform the requisite tasks of ministry, but increased competence and excessive commitment to my calling created the second.

The Sustainable Career

Sustainability in a career is largely a function of internal fulfillment, and when we sacrifice or choose to forego those inner rewards, we experience frustration and world-weariness. Pay attention to such feelings, for they are the spirit’s way of telling us we have 122strayed away from the “path with heart.” I can offer no single rule of thumb for the sustainable career because people’s temperaments and their tolerance for work vary widely. One person’s workaholism may well be another person’s life passion. That being the case, adopting a regular discipline of self-discernment is critically important.

In this respect, Larry Morgan, the narrator in Wallace Stegner’s novel Crossing to Safety, provides a useful counterpoint. As a young married professor at the University of Wisconsin, Larry pursued vocational success with grim necessity. He let nothing stand in his way and described himself as “your basic overachiever, a pathological beaver of a boy who chewed continually because his teeth kept growing.” Larry admits that he “overdid” and in the process punished his wife, Sally, and himself. “Eventually I learned my limitations,” he says, but then Larry deftly defends his behavior:

So, yes, overachievers can find real fulfillment provided their ambitions are “considered”—reflected upon and periodically revised. Thus, staying put also implies paying attention to the way our career aligns with our values and to the aliveness we experience in its pursuit. In this respect, Larry Morgan may be more fortunate than most. He clearly loved what he was doing, enjoyed wonderful collegiality, and gained significant professional recognition.

Rick Dale is Morgan’s real-life counterpart. Hardly an academic, Dale grows blueberries and raspberries on a farm near Lake Superior, on the Bayfield Peninsula. A college student who worked for him one summer came away impressed with this man whose “passion for life and love of work was contagious and his fusion of the two admirable.” 123

Although he has put years of hard work into his modest farm, Rick Dale has never made much money raising berries. On the other hand, he confesses that he doesn’t know what he would buy if he had more money. For him and his wife, the work they do and the lifestyle they’ve developed are their own reward. “Often when people talk about the good life,” he says, “somehow it gets equated with being laid back.” Dale thinks otherwise—fulfillment is a function of industry and intention.²⁰

An Important Caveat: The Unhappy Workplace

Regrettably, a significant portion of the American workforce is in a less advantageous position than Dale. For those who work in the low-paying service sector, as well as for those in high-paid technical professions or with civil service positions, Arbeiten isn’t meaningful and doesn’t produce a great deal of happiness. Juliet Schorr, Barbara Ehrenreich, and others have amply documented the onerous conditions under which many people work and the dissatisfaction they profess.²¹ Low wages and declining benefits are only the tip of the iceberg, as the difficulties many face in their employment run much deeper “Even in our postmodern age,” Corey Robin observes, “the workplace remains a regime of old-world constraint in which an almost childlike subservience is routinely expected and disobedience is quelled by fear and coercion.” Many of the rights we take for granted elsewhere—privacy, free speech, due process—are withheld in the typical workplace.²²

Hired “at will” and unprotected by unions, guilds, or professional associations of any sort, some American wage earners endure feudal conditions that workers in other developed nations would find intolerable. Discernment and internal satisfaction aside, many in the workforce would gladly settle for greater security, decent health insurance, and a less repressive atmosphere. “At least sixty percent of America is working class,” and these workers have little if any voice with respect to the conditions and nature of their employment, journalist Joe Bageant writes. “You do not control when you work, how much you get paid, how fast you work, or whether you will be cut loose from your job at the first shiver on Wall Street.”²³

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Apart from the income they provide, some jobs just aren’t worth having and don’t qualify as a calling. Those of us who have careers we really care about and at which we excel are truly fortunate, and it behooves us to take the necessary steps to sustain them.

Staying Put in Personal Life

Most people appear to understand that they have to assume some degree of personal responsibility for their own future happiness, which is why books on diet, exercise, spiritual practice, intimacy, career building, and similar self-help topics frequently end up on the bestseller list. Experts willing and able to pull us up short and point us in the right direction—toward better health and spiritual and emotional wholeness—are in ample supply. Much of what they suggest is based on sound reasoning, and yet it frequently fails to upgrade the lives of those who try to apply it. What’s missing here? Perhaps it’s the willingness and ability to persevere.

I often hear people complain that contemporary culture offers too many choices and that there is too much emphasis on novelty. Taste the latest flavor; try on a new fashion; take up rock climbing, Pilates, or whatever the exercise du jour might be. Possibilities for greater pleasure and personal growth pour forth in a never-ending stream, and this makes it difficult for us to feel confident that the path we are on is the right one.

“Today we seem to have lost our belief in constancy, the unwavering good sense to follow a single path in life,” Christopher Kimball, the editor of Cook’s Illustrated, writes. Recalling how much pleasure he derives from the seasonal ritual of rabbit hunting with Tom, a local friend, Kimball expresses his admiration for a man who found reliable pleasure in scouting for rabbits with his dogs. Even when his children asked him what he wanted to do on Father’s Day, this was his choice. “It is the consistency of the pursuit … that gives you the constancy, that gives you the encouragement, that gives you the way to understand … why it is important for you to do what you can do,” Kimball concludes.²⁴

An endless array of “new and improved” practices and products pass before and try to seduce us. However, life’s real dividends 125are earned when commitment, consistency, and steady focus are maintained.

Hobbies and Avocations

As we grow older and wiser, we may, like Christopher Kimball, begin to recognize the importance of maintaining traditions that provide emotional comfort, personal disciplines that keep us mentally sharp and physically capable, and associations that are reliable sources of succor and support. Take, for example, the ability to read a score and play an instrument. Many of us were required to study music as children; and if you were like me, you hated the imposed discipline, were disinclined to practice, and abandoned the enterprise at the earliest opportunity—a decision I, for one, would later rue.

For you see, few activities provide as much sustained pleasure as playing a musical instrument. Whatever dissatisfaction one might feel toward a job or relationship, music always offers a reliable and satisfying diversion. It is a great redeemer, as the slaves who composed America’s spirituals knew very well. Throughout life, music can serve as a social lubricant as we find or create opportunities to play with others at parties or at family gatherings. The older adult who can perform even passably well on the piano, guitar, flute, or fiddle is often in demand in retirement communities or at reunions. The good news is, practically anyone can learn to play an instrument, but relatively few are prescient or persistent enough to develop real competence.

“If I had known I’d live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself” is a regretful comment most of us have heard or even made ourselves. But “taking care of ourselves” implies more than maintaining physical and mental fitness. When the ability to speak a foreign language is allowed to erode, or a close friendship isn’t nurtured, or ties to our spiritual community are severed, we are just as guilty of self-neglect as someone who refuses to exercise. Persistence is one of the keys to sustaining the good life and experiencing happiness in our later years.

It was in practicing tai chi under the supervision of a highly regarded teacher that I became convinced that the general population 126suffers from a perseverance deficit. Four semesters of study are typically required to memorize the Taiwanese version of the classic Yang-style form I use, and it takes three more semesters to develop a fair degree of proficiency. But because it is a mindfulness practice and not merely an exercise, tai chi is never perfected. There is always room for further growth, for refinement and deeper understanding of the form’s meaning and purpose.

After four years of faithfully attending classes and review sessions, tai chi became a lifestyle activity that I continue to pursue. But I know of hardly anyone else who enrolled with me in that first class who still practices. In fact, by the end of the first year of study, three-quarters had dropped out. Was the form too complicated and physically demanding? Were the classes too expensive or the requirements too rigorous? Was the “excitement factor” missing in tai chi’s slow, deliberate motions? Whatever the reasons, according to my teacher, only ten percent of those who begin the study of tai chi successfully learn the whole form. It’s a good guess that even fewer continue to execute it on their own. The statistics are probably the same for other meditative and martial disciplines—lots of initiates and relatively few long-distance winners.

Don’t Throw in the Towel Too Soon

It’s never been easy for human beings to stick with a spiritual practice and other personal regimens. Over 2,500 years ago, the Buddha himself identified “restlessness” as one of the five most powerful hindrances to the pursuit of enlightenment. Thousands of people dabble with meditation, yoga, tai chi, or centering prayer but are unable to sustain that effort for more than a few weeks or months. Expecting to see rapid results, or at least clear evidence of progress, they become frustrated with a simple, repetitive routine and prematurely conclude that “it isn’t working.” The benefits of practices such as these are often quite subtle, but they are also cumulative and, given sufficient time, will noticeably improve the tone and tenor of one’s entire life.

George Leonard, a noted philosopher of education and a master of the Japanese martial art of aikido, has analyzed the process by which expertise in any skill—whether it be music, meditation, or 127tennis—develops. The typical student will advance rather quickly at first and feel encouraged. But then the learning curve begins to flatten, and the practitioner will feel stuck, unable to make further progress. This is the “plateau” where motivation wanes and practice becomes a matter of keeping faith, exercising will power and paying closer attention. Plateaus must be accepted as a natural and inevitable part of the mastery process and not become a reason for discouragement. To the impatient and untrained eye, the plateau presents a seemingly barren landscape, and the persistent student must learn to love its subtleties.²⁵

Our consumer-oriented culture attempts at every turn to discourage the pursuit of a single discipline long enough for the individual to understand the value of the process and to approach mastery. Watch the TV commercials and action shows, or faux sporting events like American Gladiator, and what do you see? “An endless series of climactic moments,” Leonard writes. “Climax is piled upon climax. There’s no plateau.”²⁶

Why is that? Part of it has to do with an all-too-common conflation of excitement with fulfillment, which causes us to forfeit deep satisfaction for the sake of simply “having fun.” But that’s not the whole story. Without this constant vacillating, the acquired habit of careening from one health and wellness practice to another, most of America’s opulent gyms, its promoters of fad diets, and its personal trainers and suppliers of athletic gear would be filing for bankruptcy. The market counts on people’s fickleness and their willingness to spend their way to wellness without ever making a firm commitment to constancy. How many people do you know who haven’t darkened their health club’s door in ages but continue to pay the monthly fees? The inventory of tennis rackets, cross-country skis, fancy bicycles, roller blades, mitts and balls, ice skates, and healthy-eating cookbooks collecting dust tells a similar story: lots of good intentions and cash investment, but not enough persistence.

The Rewards of Constancy

If we could mount some resistance to the smorgasbord of options the health and fitness industry tempts us with, we might be in a better position to recognize that staying put has some real advantages. 128Aspiring athletes are most prone to injury when they are attempting to get in shape and push unconditioned muscles, joints, and cardiovascular systems beyond their limits. This is one of the principal reasons people stop exercising: they sustain an injury, are forced to lay off, and lose their resolve. The best way to avoid injury and achieve constancy is to pay attention to the body’s signals until conditioning is achieved and the regimen begins to feel comfortable. This is the formula I’ve followed for over forty years, and it generally does work.

Constancy delivers mental and emotional benefits as well. Whether it’s the proverbial “runner’s high,” the experience of “flow” that University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihayli describes in his book by the same name, or the relaxation response elicited by tai chi and sitting meditation, long-distance winners often enjoy an enhanced inner life.

No doubt, a person can live productively, successfully, and lovingly without ever getting in touch with such gratifying feelings. They could be thought of as a bonus, but perhaps they should be regarded as our natural birthright, part and parcel of the good life. All that’s required are a familiarity with the pattern by which mastery develops and a willingness to persevere. “Staying with the sorrow or the pain [of meditation] is not … an immediately gratifying process,” the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron writes. “But over time … something begins to shift, [and] … we begin to feel lighter and more courageous.”²⁷

The key to maintaining optimal body weight and wellness is much the same. In that UCLA study of thirty-one diets mentioned in an earlier chapter, participants in almost every case experienced initial weight loss. In other words, every approach could be shown to work. However, a majority of the subjects then faltered and regained most if not all of that lost weight. The small minority for whom the results proved permanent shared two characteristics: they conscientiously ate less and exercised religiously. “People who follow this [simple] regimen,” science and health journalist Paul Raeburn writes, “report that their quality of life is higher, life is better than it was before. They get to the point with physical activity where they don’t say that they love it, but they say that ‘it’s a part of my life.’”²⁸ 129

The well-known nutritionist Marion Nestle agrees that eating for health and fitness isn’t complicated: eat less, move more, avoid junk food. “Ironically,” she says, “this advice hasn’t changed in years.”²⁹

Staying Put in Our Relationships

“Loyalty and commitment are archetypes in our human structure,” Jungian psychologist Robert Johnson reminds us. “They are as necessary to us as food and air.” Unfortunately, loyalty and commitment aren’t salable, and their market value is negligible. So what have we been conditioned to strive for instead? “Passion,” Johnson writes. That’s what generates consumer interest and earns the entertainment industry and marketing firms money. Steamy affairs and families disrupted by stormy generational differences have become standard media fare—so much so that one could easily construe them as the cultural norm. “Passion has become unconsciously defined as our highest good,” Johnson says, “… and all other values are commonly sacrificed for it.”³⁰

Remaining in place and honoring one’s commitments to family and friends are real challenges in a culture as transient, constantly churning, and addicted to excitement as our own. The traditional virtues of loyalty and fidelity are commended from political rostrums and the nation’s pulpits but are routinely disregarded as people seek to increase their personal autonomy and reduce their relational encumbrances. “Fidelity holds steadily to the people and institutions it loves and thereby provides more fickle souls with a sense of stability and security,” former Anglican bishop and seminary professor Richard Holloway writes, but statistics would suggest that many people prefer being footloose and fancy-free.³¹ Friendship is down, and acquaintanceship is up; for companies, loyalty is contraindicated if it reduces the bottom line; young adults are less than half as likely to belong to clubs and voluntary associations as their grandparents; and as noted in a previous chapter, the percentage of married couples who successfully reach their twenty-fifth wedding anniversaries is declining.³² 130

Activities that settled domestic and community life require and that often prove to be deeply satisfying at the personal level are thought to lack pizzazz “Housework, fundraising, and teaching children to read … are not of sufficient interest [for the media] to document,” family counselor Mary Pipher complains, and yet these are precisely the sort of activities in which we must engage if a culture is to thrive and love is to last.³³

Passion aside, committed partnerships may be more difficult to maintain than in the past simply because the average life span is now so much longer. Both my own parents and my in-laws recently celebrated their sixtieth anniversaries—a milestone that was practically unheard of even a half century ago. Until fairly recently “‘til death do us part” typically meant twenty or thirty nuptial years together. Periods of wedlock longer than that demand adjustments that our forebears weren’t usually required to make. If people understood what a modern marriage really committed them to, at least some would undoubtedly be a bit hesitant to make the leap. Novelist Jane Smiley’s observations are enough to give anyone pause:

Trina and I were both twenty-two when we exchanged vows, jumped in her car, and, with a U-Haul in tow, traveled from southwest Florida to the San Francisco Bay Area to set up housekeeping, enroll in seminary, and settle into our marriage. We had already rented a basement apartment sight unseen that several previous seminary couples had occupied. We were soon informed that all these couples had parted company before their degrees had been conferred or the lease had expired. At the time, it seems, a “culture of divorce” prevailed at the school, which made two newlyweds more than a little uneasy. 131

Trina and I broke the jinx, and now, thirty-five years later, we have learned that the benefits of staying put are significant. We revel in the review of shared memories, welcome the ease and comfort we feel with each other, and appreciate the absence of any need for posturing or pretense. Being the same age, we have similar tastes and preferences and trust that whatever adjustments might need to be made in one or the other of our lives, our core values are likely to remain in alignment.

In today’s complicated and unstable social environment, couples often find it difficult to negotiate career changes and other major life transitions. If we aspire to a marriage for the long haul, then it is advisable to cultivate a flexible spirit and resist the temptation to stubbornly hang onto the person to whom, years earlier, we said “I do.” What is important is that we each know, deep in our hearts, that we will continue to be at each other’s side through all the changes of our days.

Trina and I have put a premium on sustainable relationships— not just our own but with our son, Kyle, and with the communities with which we are involved.

Keeping the Generations Connected

One of the saddest features of contemporary culture, in my opinion, is the dearth of casual contact between youth and adults. Apart from the mandated time that kids spend with adults in school or in structured activities like Scouts and soccer, the generations more and more inhabit separate universes. Connections even in families are tenuous, respect grudging, miscommunication and misunderstandings common. As parents and elders, our first responsibility to our children is simply to keep the connection alive and to pay closer attention when we begin to notice too much slack in the system. This means being available, reaching out, drawing in by showing genuine interest or concern—not in a pushy way, but firmly and persistently.

In our own family, connections were regularly renewed at mealtimes. Before Kyle departed for college, we belonged to the endangered domestic tribe that requires its members to sit down together at both breakfast and dinner. Trina established this cardinal 132family rule soon after Kyle was born, and it faithfully ensured that we saw and interacted with each other at least twice a day. Family came first in this department. Committees, councils, and parish leaders were all made aware that supper for the Schulers was a sacrament, to be sacrificed only in the gravest of circumstances.

With the dissolution of the extended family, the rise of the two-earner household, and the creation of a youth culture that often seems bent on making a clean break with its elders, the customary bridges between the generations have fallen into disrepair. Few grandparents live with or have regular contact with their grandchildren, as mine did. Fewer adults greet their children when they come home from school, inquire about their classroom experiences, or invite them to share in the performance of common household tasks and chores.

All of this exacts a heavy toll on the basic building blocks of family life: traditions are neglected, ancestries forgotten, important stories lost, values not reinforced, rules of reciprocity and basic hospitality left untaught. In former times, Mary Pipher observes, children present at family gatherings often sat with their elders during conversation, listening to the tales, the jokes, and the joys and regrets of parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. “Thus they learned the rich and idiosyncratic use of language that occurs in families, heard their cautionary tales and moral fables. Such talk is familial cement.”³⁵

Today, Pipher laments, when grandparents or close friends come calling, the kids are sent to the recreation room with a video or Nintendo game—a convenience that keeps youthful energy contained but that cedes to the media the responsibility for succoring and socializing the upcoming generation.

Bill Doherty, director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota, identifies excessive amounts of time spent away from home as another contributor to familial entropy. Too many outside commitments consume the energy we need to maintain bonds of intimacy and ensure that our families will remain committed to one another even when the nest 133empties. Doherty stresses the importance of establishing household “rituals” that regularly put everyone in the same room at the same time for a common purpose.³⁶

It doesn’t make much difference what children, youth, adults, and elders do during their time together. The idea is simply to establish points of connection to keep the centrifugal forces at work in the larger culture from pulling us apart. Everyone has to eat, so taking meals together at the family table (with or without a formal blessing) is as good a place as any to start.

In an era where so many demands are placed on families, it is also advisable to settle into a neighborhood or faith community that can supply an extra measure of support. When Trina and I agreed in the late 1980s to leave upstate New York for Madison, our decision had less to do with my own professional aspirations than with our conviction that this new city was ideally suited for family living. We both hoped to find a place where we would be content to stay for the duration of Kyle’s upbringing.

We’ve not been disappointed with our decision. As an only child, Kyle enjoyed the steady company of several “adopted” siblings—youngsters in the immediate area with whom he played and studied for sixteen years and to whom he still feels close. And with no blood relations in the vicinity, long-term friendships have provided us with a caring and conscientious support system.

Ours is a common story. American families often find themselves isolated and forced back upon their own resources. The problem escalates the more often they choose to relocate.

Hopefully, the preceding observations underscore the difference between a “house” and a “home.” The former, a physical structure, satisfies our most immediate need for physical safety and comfort. But for a house to become a bona fide home, the occupants must be embedded in a larger community that provides companionship, occasions for mourning and celebration, and the promise of mutual care. Houses are more or less interchangeable, but homes are not. “Merely change houses and you will be disoriented,” Scott Russell Sanders writes. “Change homes and you will bleed.”³⁷ 134

Investing in a Faith Community

Another important locus of support for individuals and families is the faith community. A church, synagogue, mosque, or sangha is one of our best hedges against experiencing isolation and generational segregation as we grow older. A high-functioning faith community is one of the few places where casual interchanges between young and old can take place, where familiarity breeds appreciation rather than contempt. Moreover, faith communities keep us aware of and in conversation about our core values as we move through life and struggle with what it means each day to live with courage, generosity, and grace. Finally, few voluntary organizations offer succor and support as reliably in difficult times.

Here, however, is another instance where Van Rensselaer Potter’s “fatal flaw” reappears. Once their kids have completed the religious education curriculum, parents often set them free and stop attending services themselves. Younger families “church-shop”; they skitter from place to place looking for a community that “fits their needs” and doesn’t interfere too much with soccer games and shopping trips. Not many religious seekers take the long view, recognizing that the social and spiritual benefits of belonging to a faith community only accrue with prolonged, active affiliation. “We are constantly … tearing up the cultural environment and refashioning it every generation,” Richard Holloway observes, which is why it is so important to develop a “network of social and religious institutions that will be a bulwark against our addiction to change.”³⁸

When we pay attention to and persistently pursue activities that really matter and that reliably produce satisfaction—activities that have little to do with marketplace values—we will feel better about ourselves and more secure amid the truculence and turbulence of the modern world. Sustainable relationships, a sustainable sense of vocation, routines designed to sustain mental, physical, and spiritual fitness, a sustainable and positive perspective on life— these are objectives well worth striving for.