Seeing It Both Ways

On Sunday, a daughter in a white dress with beautiful peacock trim harassed me for two hours over it feeling uncomfortable. She looked lovely in it. I even felt inspired to take a picture of her.

But, she's slim, and she needed a slip to help prevent a gap between the dress and her torso. And the slip straps tended to fall down occasionally. And sometimes, the dress (or the slip) was itchy.

"Welcome to the world of being female," I wanted to say.

Actually, I was torn. I could see it both ways.

Because there was nothing really wrong with her outfit and she'd even worn it before, I wanted her to stick it out. I want her to develop some emotional stamina and not need to give in as soon as something becomes difficult to deal with.

On the other hand, I don't believe women should put up with a ridiculous amount of discomfort just to look pretty.

We all draw our own lines between comfort and appearance. I want my daughter to learn to do this for herself. I tried to talk to her about it. From outside the dress, it was hard for me to tell just how bad her discomfort was. It seemed minor. This daughter reminds me of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, and pulls this rather often.

I talked to her about the dress and determined that she does like it. I talked to her about the idea of clothing rotation, and that if she wants to keep this dress, she should wear it sometimes. I asked her questions, but she didn't say much. She made faces and squirmed. I encouraged her to put it out of her mind. Part of that was for her benefit, but, honestly, it was also to accommodate my duties at church. Helping her change, at that point, would curtail my timeliness.

She kept it up after the services started. I put my arm around her and encouraged her. I said, "It's only three hours," but I think she heard, "It's only three days."

She squirmed. She frowned. She made faces. She scratched. She flounced. She pulled at her clothes. She huffed, and she puffed, and she blew my patience in.

"You're not the worst-off person in the world," I whispered to her as the sacrament song began.

I have sometimes wondered about the worst-off person in the world. Who would it be? And what would s/he have to be suffering to earn that distinction? It makes me shudder, but, still, it has crossed my mind more than once.

This comes from my own moderation of self-pity as I go to work each day and see people whose lives are--no matter what my current challenges may be--quite likely to be worse than mine. I see people who have made stupid mistakes--like tatooing the F word onto their body, as though getting a job weren't hard enough. I see people flattened by an unbelievable series of misfortunes. I see people who've never known anyone who didn't live in poverty--who have no family members who have ever finished high school or held a job. I see people who have piled so many barriers onto their own heads, it seems it would take a Resurrection or an archeological dig to unearth them. I see people who "did everything right" but woke up to find their health gone forever.

I've developed a mantra that has helped me keep perspective: You can always find someone better off and worse off than you are.

Whenever my mind has veered to wonder about THE WORST-OFF PERSON in the world, I imagine it must be someone in incredible pain, in a horrible victim situation, or being tortured. I can't think about it for long. My one comfort is the hope and likelihood that no one person occupies that place for very long. Hopefully, she or he mercifully dies, recovers, or is replaced shortly by someone in an even worse situation.

I'm sure it's something only God can track.

But, as I said those words to my daughter while the introduction to the sacrament song played in my ears and my hands opened the hymn book to the right page and offered it to share with her and my eyes caught some of the words of the song, I had an amazing insight.

I knew who the worst-off person in the whole world had been.

It had not occurred to me before, but, surely, the person who had ever suffered the most pain, the most agony, the heaviest burden, EVER, had to have been Jesus.

This surprised me, because I tend to think of Jesus as the best-off person. I mean, He was perfect. He's the Chosen One, the Beloved Son, an exalted God. He can do anything.

And then I thought again about the paradoxes in the gospel that always mystify me. The last shall be first. The greatest must be the least. The poor in spirit and meek inherit the earth. He who loseth himself shall find himself. If you seek riches in order to do good and not for yourself, then you will find them. To gain all, you must sacrifice everything. I think about the balance this gives.

And this brought an even better insight.

Long ago, I noticed that, while men generally build things in straight lines, God builds in circles. All fruits are round in some way. The earth, the sun, the planets and stars, orbits, atoms, body parts--round. Circular patterns in almost everything--the cycle of life, the water cycle, the cycles of systems in our bodies--reproductive cycle, circulatory system.

Advanced building.

And then I pictured two opposites--the dichotomies inherent in the gospel--filling out to make a round shape. The worst and the best on opposite sides of each other in a circle.

As God breathes life into these opposites--or fills them with spirit--they become a round whole.

As we achieve balance, as we are directed to do, we achieve a kind of wholeness that is our perfect form. We must be humble to be great. We must give to receive. We must forget ourselves to be remembered on the rolls of heaven.

Just one more way God builds--US--in circles.

So I struck some balance with my daughter. After she had suffered for half of the time of church in her dress, I took her home to change. But I felt unsettled, so I eventually asked a friend who has good sense what she would have done with a child whose clothes were uncomfortable at church.

"Have them stick it out," she said. Then, she reflected on her words and added, "But, sometimes, I think how I would feel in that position, and if I were really too uncomfortable, I might take myself home to change."

So, there I had it again--balance.

I guess I didn't do too badly, after all.

Except for the part where I lost patience. So I'll keep practicing on my balance beam until, through God's grace and with His help, I can round out to be whole.