The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

DO YOU HAVE YOUR TICKET?

The Reverend Richard R. Davis

February 28, 2010

          One of my earliest childhood memories:  My Uncle Herman (a substitute father figure - my own dad largely abandoned us) is looking at me with his lower lip puckered out, making an exaggerated expression of sadness in response to what he sees me doing.  My transgression?  Wielding a tool in my left hand.  Having been born left handed, this was perfectly natural, but my Uncle - who was also left handed and worked in construction - knew how hard it was for left handed people in a world where all tools are made for the right handed.  He had my best interests at heart and I, in turn, did not want to disappoint him or all the other adults who expressed disapproval of my left handedness.  To please them all and to avoid feelings of guilt and shame that came to arise when I used that hand, I denied by left handedness and became right handed.  

          Fast forward a couple of years:  My family has relocated to another state, and the school where I will attend first grade is far away from my home – I will need to ride a school bus.   Every morning I am given two tickets – one for getting on the bus to go to school and one for coming home.  Why it was necessary for a six year old to have tickets to board a school bus was never explained to me, but the message I received was abundantly clear – no ticket, no ride.  

In first grade I dressed in elastic band blue jeans that had no pockets – and neither did the T shirts I wore.   So where did I safely store my bus ticket home every day?  Clutched in my left hand – all day long.  A few times a day I would carefully open my left hand just to make sure I still had my ticket home, but other than that it remained tightly clutched, all day, every day, throughout the entire school year.   Thus handicapped by my insecurity, I had to function as a one handed kid until I gave the ticket to the driver in the afternoon when I’d present him with a sweat soaked clump of cardboard in return for a safe ride home.  I never lost my ticket because I honestly felt that my life depended upon it.  If I lost the ticket I assumed I wouldn’t be allowed on the school bus, I’d be completely lost and probably never see my family again.  I wasn’t about to let that happen – every day I clutched onto that ticket in my left hand for dear life.  

Adults are usually pre-occupied with their own worries and concerns – I know that now - so, it doesn’t surprise me that no grown up ever took note of this young boy’s quandary.  My mother had gone to work before I even got out of bed, and she was still there when I got home – so she never realized what I was going through.  My teacher had a bunch of unruly kids to keep in line, so I can understand how she could overlook the fact that one of her students’ left hand was always balled into a fist.  Then, too, I was a pretty quiet and sensitive type, easy to overlook.  It never dawned on me to ask for help.  I figured that that was just the way of the world – you sink or swim in a vast ocean, and there are no lifeguards on duty.

Sad and poignant story, even if I say so myself.  It’s even more so when you consider who it’s actually about – not just one little boy over half a century ago; it’s a story about many little girls and boys and men and women; it’s a story about our private struggles in the context of the social reality in which we find ourselves.

Consider your own experience.  At various legs in your life’s journey weren’t you told to hold onto a ticket for dear life or to grasp after one or else all would be lost - you’d be a disgrace, a failure, a nobody?   

It starts early.  Children are greatly concerned with getting and holding onto their tickets - they worry about being accepted among their peers so they won’t be unpopular and friendless; some worry about revealing their true sexual identity because then they will be ostracized;  they worry about passing that test or making that team or getting into a certain school lest they be considered “failures”;  they worry about their families staying together and it’s economic well being;  when they grow up they worry about getting that job, keeping that job (if they can find one), finding that mate, keeping that mate, they worry about having enough economic tickets (aka money) to meet their needs for food and shelter and medical care and retirement.  Then, too, many worry about having and holding onto the right spiritual ticket that will get them on the bus to heaven.

Everyone of us experiences the challenge of getting and then hanging onto some kind of ticket that will get you to where you believe you need to go.  This is why the Buddha – who has so often been misunderstood in the West as a pessimist instead of realist – says that life is suffering.  This is because there is, at the very least, some constant, low level anxiety about getting and holding onto your ticket (however you conceive of that.)  Of course that’s not exactly the way the Buddha put it, but it’s the same principle – he said that our suffering is caused by our clinging and grasping and the perpetual concern and anxiety that goes along with this.   Really, the English concept of suffering names just a small area of the condition that the Buddha intended when he made this astute observation.  The word he used - “Dukkha” (Sanskrit/ Pali) - not only includes outright suffering as we think of it, but also encompasses all the fears, anxieties, anguish, unease and uncertainties that arise from our many attachments to conditioned things which, by their very nature, cannot last.   The concept of Dukkha is such an astute and apt depiction of the human condition that we should abandon the attempt to translate it and simply incorporate this unique word into our adaptable language.  After all, the condition to which this Sanskrit term points does not have an English approximation.   

Yet it points to a universal experience.  Jesus recognized the same dis-ease amongst the anxious peasants of Galilee , and he reassured them: “do not worry about your life…can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?  - so do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”  (Matthew 6: 25,27,34)  Both of these ancient sages looked clearly at the human condition and both advised – don’t be so obsessed with clinging onto tickets. 

Now be advised.  They didn’t say “Cast your tickets to the wind.” Truth is, tickets have a legitimate role - there would be utter chaos and confusion in society without them.  We want and need tickets like educational degrees, professional and vocational credentials, enough money on which to live, and the tickets of a good reputation and good health.  Tickets that enable us to get to places we want to go are not inherently bad.  Problems arise because we forget that tickets are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. 

Consider money - the biggest ticket around.  It so often does become an end in itself.  Regarding this, listen to the subtle counsel of the Christian scripture, which is often misquoted as “money is the root of all evil.”  In fact, the passage in 1 Timothy 6:10, which could have come from the Buddha, says:  “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”

Regarding this misplaced love, imagine how future historians might someday characterize our age (at least until the recent economic meltdown).  When the question is posed:  What did society most esteem and how did they encourage the brightest and most gifted young people to spend their precious lives?   Were they encouraged go into the arts and sciences, on humanitarian missions or spiritual quests, into public service, religious leadership or the field of education so they could bless the world with their intellectual and creative gifts?  No, truth be told, in this age of greed society encouraged the most gifted ones from the nation’s elite universities to head off to become investment bankers on Wall St. - there they could devote themselves to making money and more money.  Well, they haven’t “made” money; rather, they have manipulated the flow of it so that they and their firms could rake off hundreds of billions of dollars for themselves, producing little in return except painful consequences for millions of people who were affected by their financial wizardry with foreclosures, unemployment, bankruptcy.  These talented ones – who could have offered so much to promote the common good – instead dedicated their very best energies to grabbing and holding onto as many tickets for themselves as they could – far, far more than they would ever need, calling to mind Thoreau’s early indictment of Western consumerism:  “we are determined to be starved before we are hungry.”

Now, if a person hoards far too many things in their home – far more than they need -  they are judged to be mentally ill.  Yet if people hoard vast wealth – far more than they could ever spend in multiple lifetimes – they are judged to be successful, even though such inordinate hoarding arguably leads to widespread suffering.  Go figure. 

Yet there’s hope.  After the recent economic meltdown, our society has done some soul searching.  Honest introspection – collective and personal - are essential from time to time. So what about your relationship with the ticket you’re reaching for or holding onto, whatever that might be – money, power, sex, drugs, food, video games, physical appearance, social standing, a job, a political, philosophical or religious ideology?   Even a habitual negative attitude – say, self righteousness or a sense of victimhood - can convincingly play the role of a ticket, that is, something that convinces you it will deliver you where you think you want to go.  Really, the possible permutations of tickets are boundless.    

It’s important to slow down, look at how you’re living and recognize what your ticket is because then you can ask this basic question:  Do I have the ticket or does the ticket have me?   If there is there a lot of fear, anxiety, anger, frustration in your mind it may mean that the ticket is holding you, in which case you don’t possess your ticket – your ticket possesses you.  Having been possessed by a variety of tickets in my life, I speak from experience.  When you are possessed by a ticket you are not free – you are pre-occupied – being obsessed about your ticket will distort and narrow your vision.  An old saying nails it: “When a pickpocket sees a saint, all he sees are pockets.”  Which is to say that if you are pre-occupied with your ticket you don’t open our heart and mind to behold the glory of the world; you are less aware, compassionate and joyful than you would be if you had a life beyond your ticket. 

Yet, beginning right now, you can change:  learn to have compassion for yourself as you recognize all the external and internal pressures in life, beginning in childhood, that compelled you to grab for a ticket with desperation or hold onto it for dear life.  With awareness you can choose to let go and use that energy for something more worthy. 

Here’s the latest chapter in my story.  For years I used to notice that I instinctively clasped my left hand shut when I was anxious or afraid.  It finally dawned on me –  I was still trying to hold my ticket home in my naturally dominant hand.  There’s a good reason no one forces young children to abandon their left handedness – it’s traumatic and damaging.  I became painfully aware of this in my early twenties when I began doing zazen (sitting meditation).  Much of the musculature on left side of my body simply did not work which meant that I could not master the posture in meditation.  In fact, I could not even walk as I should.  It has been incredibly frustrating.  Yet being aware of this imbalance helped me correct it.

Then, about three years ago I broke my right collar bone in a bicycle accident. While healing I needed to start using my left hand.  This inspired me to do something I’d wanted to do for decades - become left handed. So about three years ago – at the age of 56 - I began writing, using tools, doing everything I could with my left hand.  At first it was hard.  Now it’s easier, although I do have to slow down and be more mindful – not a bad thing anyway.  I do fairly well as a late left hander (really, I am sort of ambidextrous) - to be sure, not as well as if I had always been left handed – but it really feels right to do this.  I do, indeed, feel more balanced when I sit to meditate and center myself (what a  wonderful practice that helps you loosen your iron grip on whatever ticket you’re holding) and when I walk. It feels good to use this hand creatively and productively.

The question for all of us is whether we will psychically handicap ourselves by clinging to a false sense of security – truly, the only kind there is - or will we resolve to open our hands, hearts and minds and live the compassionate, creative lives we were meant to live.