The Habit of Help

I frequently speak with people about the Stewart Center, and on occasion, the topic of poverty arises.  Of all the reasons for poverty, my experiences tell me that a large percentage of the people I encounter believe that poor choices/habits are a major factor influencing the life condition of individuals on the bottom of society.  Those that consider themselves “non-poor” routinely site the unhealthy eating, spending, educational, reproductive, and social habits of the poor as reasons for their insufferable circumstances; consequently our churches, social organizations and government agencies step in to help alter the habits of the “disadvantaged,” believing that changing habits will lead to a more desirable existence.  

The above mentioned habits are micro-habits, projected onto groups of people but performed by individuals.  These habits are triggered by cues that lead to routines which produce “rewards” for the individual.  For example, a cue of stress might lead to a routine of drinking alcohol which produces the “reward” of relief.  While this may be an individual habit, it is not a problem until enough people engage in the habit for others to notice.  There has never been a church mission trip, social program or government initiative launched to solve a problem that affects only one person. 

Recently I have been wondering if there exists a macro-habit of poverty.  Could there be large social cues, routines and “rewards” that result in a habit of poverty among communities?  What if there is a social cue of denigration toward certain people, and what if that cue robs people of hope and produces a routine where those “with value” assist those of “lesser value,” and what if that routine/habit produces a “reward” for the helpers while harming those that receive the assistance?

All of a sudden I find myself considering the possibility that there exists a habit surrounding the social practices that our churches and charities employ to “assist” those in need.  Could it be that the micro-habits of the poor are only part of the problem and that the habit of help that influences our good intentions contributes to the poverty we seek to alleviate?  The idea of helpers hurting those they intend to help is not a new one, but I have never heard anyone approach our benevolent tendencies as if they were habits.

For many of us, our social engagement follows the typical habit loop – cue, routine, reward.  We experience a cue – moving testimony by a missionary, stirring documentary, endorsement of a cause by a friend, which leads to a routine – giving of our time, attention, and resources to help fix a problem, which results in a reward for the giver – good feelings about our contributions, peace of mind about our self-worth and assurance that others have been made better. 

Over the past several years, multiple church groups have volunteered to host our spring or fall festivals.  The habit loop for these groups progressed from the cue – a minister identifying the Stewart Center as a mission project, to the routine – offering the resources of time and money on a short term basis, to the reward – the givers leave having a sense of accomplishment and belief that they have shared the Gospel with needy children and families.

In The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business, Charles Duhigg elucidates the elements of the habit loop mentioned above and explores the powerful presence habits wield over our personal, organizational and communal lives.  It is no surprise that brushing teeth, exercising or biting fingernails are products of habit, but Duhigg discusses things as seemingly unrelated as the habits of lab rats, the methods of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Michael Phelps’ routine, and the habits entrenched in the success of Starbucks, to illuminate the importance of habits on human behavior.   

Duhigg suggests that habits can be modified; that although cues and rewards may stay the same, our routines can be changed over time, particularly when addressed in supportive relationships.  The Stewart Center is 96 years old and needs for its leadership to constantly evaluate its mission and measurable outcomes.  As a part of that organizational assessment we must take inventory of the routines we utilize while engaging our community.  Despite perceived pressure from funding sources and internal stress from ambition, the Center must remain committed to enriching lives through enduring relationships with individuals and our community.

For most people the stimuli that prompt them to social action are engrained in the environs of normal life – work, church, social circle, family, neighborhood, and the media.  While these cues remain constant our responses have liberty to change. 

The Stewart Center is looking for civic minded people and organizations willing to critique their traditional responses to social needs.  We must challenge ourselves and our partners to engage in service habits where the “rewards” are realized by the children and families of our community.

Habits are morally neutral; the brain saving energy by running on autopilot.  It is acceptable for habits to dictate our oral hygiene or our commute to work or our purchases at the grocery story, but it is not acceptable for our engagement with the community to go unchecked.  Chip Heath and Dan Heath in their book Decisive: How To Make Better Choices in Life and Work, state that “when we are on autopilot, our behavior goes unexamined.”

For the children of the Stewart Center, the stakes are too high for our efforts and those of our ministry partners to go unexamined.

Peace,

Clayton

Learning Outside the Classroom...and the Office

As a young person I spent numerous weeks in Charleston S.C. and the surrounding beaches.  For many years it was a Davis family ritual to retreat to the coastal city and its beaches for vacation.  Recently I participated in the Stewart Center’s annual end-of-school year youth trip.  This year’s trip (Washington D.C. 2011, New York City 2012) was to Charleston. 

While in Charleston, six of our middle school students and three chaperons toured Fort Sumter, visited Drayton Hall Plantation, enjoyed a carriage tour of the historic district, survived a ghost tour of the Old City Jail, ate a lot of seafood and played on the beach, among other activities.  In other words, we had a great time.  It was the smoothest, most enjoyable, and most enriching Stewart Center youth trip to date. 

A traveling party like ours – two whites, seven blacks, six of which are fifteen or younger – does not easily blend in with the throng of tourists that overrun Charleston in the summer months.  As a result of our group’s composition, we received many inquisitive looks and several friendly questions concerning our origin, identity, and the purpose for our visit. 

Three conversations linger in my mind.  The associate pastor of our host church, the owner of Jack’s Cosmic Dogs, and our waiter at Fleet Landing all asked about, and seemed genuinely interested in our group.   Each conversation gave me the opportunity to gush about the Center and our youth program.  During each exchange I moved the dialogue toward the nature of our program and proudly proclaimed that eligibility for the trip hinged on factors such as conduct, grades, service projects, and attendance.   I talked about how we encourage the students to work toward a goal, and how character is developed when the students are continually engaged in the Center’s programming.

Since arriving at the Stewart Center, I have participated in countless other conversations where I have professed the value of our programming and lauded the achievements of our past, but for some reason the exchanges in Charleston left a bad taste in my mouth.  I could hear my voice in my head as I spoke and I hated the things I was saying, and the way I sounded.  The affirming nods and smiles from my conversation partners gave me added discomfort.  Why were they so agreeable? Why was I so proud? What had I said that struck a chord with them?  What about under-resourced urban youth working to earn a trip was so wonderful?

I was proud, and they were pleased, because of prejudice. 

Obviously, under-resourced youth need to develop a strong work ethic; nobody that is poor knows how to work hard.  Clearly our youths’ attitudes, clothes, hair and music indicate they do not know what it takes to be successful adults in society; poor black kids from Reynoldstown are the only teenagers who have ever listened to inappropriate music, disrespected adults or had bad fashion sense.  The low social and economic status of our students’ families and neighborhoods have left them unable to achieve a meaningful life full of personal and financial satisfaction;  our society resembles a caste system where persons rarely escape the social location of their parents.

I am so in love with the ‘power of exchange’ and so brainwashed by stereotypes that I quit seeing our students as people and began seeing them as a demographic.  People that speak loudly in the public square have convinced me that any assistance breeds dependency and that ‘compensation for services rendered’ was Jesus’ golden rule. Our students do need to develop a strong work ethic, they do need to understand the value of a job well done and they do need to take responsibility for their future’s, but they also need to experience unconditional love.  It is not a gift if you work for it, it is not grace if you deserve it . 

My experiences with the youth in Charleston were about family; my words in Charleston were about programs.  I was enjoying the teens as my Stewart Center family, not as projects, or students, or future leaders or clients.  I was doing something with them rather than for them.  Charleston is a place I associate with family and our recent trip highlighted the sense of family I share with the middle school students.  Never during my childhood did I earn or deserve a vacation, yet my parents enriched my life and enlightened my mind through travel without jeopardizing my work ethic or needing to institute a leadership development curriculum.  Our students are our family.  They need guidance and discipline like all children but they also need to understand genuine love, else we develop adults that only respond to material stimuli. 

Our students are people full of God’s potential, infinitely more valuable than the societal labels they bear.  They are not statistics or projects.  They are not numbers on a page or a fundraising tool.  They are not a moving story or an adorable face on a video.  They are not corporate or social, private or public, denominational or institutional.  They are not a tax write off.  They are God’s greatest creation.  They are fellow humans, and they are Randy, Roderick, Maranda, Mayria, Kennan and Kenya…and that is enough.  They are worthy of gifts of love.  Jesus thought we were worthy, no strings attached. 

Stewart Center middle school students, I love you. Period.

Peace,
Clayton

 

A Parent's Grief

There are a thousand things that I need to be doing instead of writing a blog post, but I must write while the wound is fresh.  I fear that time will scab over the cut with “perspective” and leave only a small scar that becomes a vague reminder of a past injury and eventually fades into obscurity.

I spent three hours this morning, as I do most Thursdays, with twenty two beautiful children in my son’s kindergarten class.  The children, with only five days until summer break, were abuzz with the anticipation of special treats, end-of-year parties and the impending vacation.  First grade is around the corner, and so, the class launched into exercises intended to strengthen their understanding and utilization of long and short vowels.  The day started like most school days with announcements, attendance and an overview of the day’s events.  Unfortunately, it followed the all-to-common descent into classroom chaos that typifies my son’s experience in the Atlanta Public School system.

I have been serving in the classroom on a regular basis since the beginning of the school year.  My initial involvement was motivated by a desire to strengthen the Stewart Center’s relationship with the school while keeping an eye on Ty’s educational experience.  During the course of events I have grown to love Ty’s classmates.  As we near the end of the year my heart breaks over the wasted time and endangered futures that are a product of a failing teacher and an incompetent parateacher.  Kindergarten is a sacred time in the educational lives of children.  Sadly, numerous children in Ty’s class have been sacrificed on the altar of bureaucracy, incompetency and apathy. 

August was a season of hope and potential, but too many hours spent in a chaotic classroom have resulted in some students being ill-prepared for first grade and stigmatized by behavior problems and learning challenges.  Let me be clear. Every child in Ty’s class is capable of academic success regardless of race, gender, family income, socio-economic background or mental capacity.  There are differences in children to be sure; however there are no social, familial or educational realities that can be blamed on five year olds.  No excuses – parents must parent, communities must support and schools must educate. 

A teacher unable to assist struggling students without losing control of the rest of the class and a para-teacher disengaged with the students, except to bark reprimands once chaos has erupted, leaves well-mannered children in dazed confusion while others intensify their disobedience in order to attract the attention they crave.  I sat with a boy this morning whose IQ is most definitely higher than Ty’s but who receives constant reprimand because of his behavior struggles and the underserved label he earned during the fall semester.   Unless something unexpected happens, his life’s trajectory will be much different than Ty’s…and it all started in kindergarten.

Not every kindergarten class in Ty’s school is in such desperate shape, but not every kindergarten class in the local private or charter schools are in great shape.  Failing schools are a result of failing teachers, administrators and ultimately failing communities.  All is not lost.  Ty can read very well for a kindergartener and has matured and grown throughout the year; evidence that there are other factors at play besides classroom atmosphere…but what about the others - those that do not have the same family and community support?

Do we need more charter schools, more private schools, more lottery (gambling) funded pre-k programs, better colleges of education, vouchers, stricter hiring practices, more teacher unions, less teacher unions…who the hell knows?  One thing is for sure -the “sell-outs” in congress, the bureaucrats at the Department of Education, the ideologues on radio nor the commentators on cable news have a clue how to fix the problem. 

I would love to use this experience to advocate for the Stewart Center and other organizations that support children, but today I can only write as a parent hurt by the reality that my son and twenty one of his friends endured what must be one of the worst years of instruction in the history of education.  Yes I volunteered, yes I spoke with the administration, yes I spoke with other parents and yes some changes were made, but real solutions do not come easy and I am left crestfallen about the prospects for our education system, our community, and the future of our children.

As I conclude this blog/rant  AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” is playing on the radio and I can’t help but wonder “who is on the Highway to Hell?” Is it the Atlanta Public School system, our society, the unfortunate kindergarteners with a bad teacher or those of us that sit by and allow this disgrace to continue?

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – MLK Jr.

No Peace,

Clayton

A good Samaritan? Impossible!

Recently, I was invited by Park Avenue Baptist Church to give a reflection on the meaning of reconciliation and/or restoration during morning worship.  At the time of the offer I eagerly agreed.  They gave me the opportunity because of my association with the Stewart Center and my presumed knowledge of the subject matter.  I, like those that invited me, assumed that I could provide a relevant perspective on reconciliation/restoration thanks to my involvement with under-resourced children and families.

As the day approached I searched my memory for experiences and conversations with our children and families that testify to the Center’s engagement in restoration and reconciliation.  Instead of providing examples and validation of the Center’s work my preparation cast doubt on my understanding of, and involvement in, reconciliation and restoration.   

My appeal to the dictionary did not alleviate my dismay.  The first definition for ‘reconcile’ I encountered said “to win over to friendliness; cause to become amicable.”  Surely the Stewart Center’s ministry amounts to more than winning children and families over with friendliness.  According to numerous sources, restoration can be expressed as “a return of something to a former, original, normal, or unimpaired condition.”  This definition makes restoration more troubling than reconciliation because it implies the existence of a time or condition better than the present.  The idea of restoration lacks relevance for many of our children and families because there is nothing in their past to which they would desire to be restored. 

Last month I read a book by John Dominic Crossan – a prominent theologian of our time – entitled The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus.  In the book, Crossan challenges the mainstream understanding of Jesus’ parables.  He also proposes an alternative understanding for parable as genre.  Crossan utilizes the “Good Samaritan” to propose a paradigm through which other parables might be considered. 

Traditionally the “Good Samaritan” has been understood as an example parable.  Followers of Jesus are to emulate the Samaritan’s posture of faith, and course of action.  The title good Samaritan now extends beyond faith language and exists in our vernacular to represent anyone that helps someone in distress.  To our ears, good Samaritan is a redundant cliché but this would not have been the case for Jesus’ first century Jewish audience.  For them a Good Samaritan was an impossibility.  Jesus’ first audience would have understood the priest and Levite as good guys set against the Samaritan as antagonist. 

For the Samaritan to emerge as the hero in Jesus’ story makes it possible for us to understand the Good Samaritan as a challenge parable as opposed to an example parable.  As a challenge, the parable intends to subvert prejudices and social absolutes.  It is the Samaritan that offers restoration and reconciliation not the religious leaders.  In Jesus’ most famous parable the character of restoration is occupied by the despised, the undesirable, the disreputable, someone left out of God’s favor.  Could it be that Jesus’ parable of social upheaval reveals something about the nature of God’s Kingdom?

Could Jesus be saying that restoration and reconciliation do not come from those we assume are in the center of God’s will; that it is not the ‘haves’ that convey restoration but the ‘have-nots.’  It is obvious that we should help those in need.  The parable of the Good Samaritan did not become one of the most transcendent passages in scripture because it tells us to help the needy.  Maybe God’s kingdom is contrary to the assumptions we glean from our society.  Maybe those on the margins do not need our restoration, maybe we need theirs. 

My reflection at Park Avenue focused on the above themes but lacked resolve.  Since that Sunday in December I have been looking for evidence of restoration and reconciliation in every possible outlet.  I have spent time considering how our children, youth, families, volunteers, staff and supporters model the restoration portrayed in the Good Samaritan. It is unnerving for me as an ordained minister and someone who feels called to social ministry to confront the reality that I might be the receiver of God’s restoration rather than the purveyor.   What if God’s restoration is not for those that are left out but by those that are left out?

Peace,

Clayton