Respecting the Dignity

“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

“I will with God’s help.”

The Great Vigil of Easter, Book of Common Prayer

As a cradle Episcopalian, I’ve heard those words at least once a year and given the answer just as many times. They also sound in my head whenever I hear stories of racism, discrimination, the cruel treatment of immigrants, domestic abuse, child assault … basically daily. Somebody somewhere is always responding to that question with, “Oh, hell no.”

I’m going to venture an educated guess that the reason people treat other people like animals – or treat their pets better than they do their fellow human beings – is that they don’t know their own dignity, much less respect it.

And human dignity is the one thing that is authentic to everyone.

As we continue to travel together this month, acquainting ourselves with this person – the Yes-Me – who makes this journey, the week’s focus will be on that dignity.

And yes, my beloved community, we all possess it. Seriously. We do.

Okay, so define “dignity” …

What are the first things that come into your head when you hear the word?

Ladies and gentlemen who sit properly in their chairs at table and know which forks to use for which courses?

Women who would never burp out loud (i.e. belch) in public?

Guys who maintain their composure when everyone in the bar is throwing chairs and punches?

Processions of  … well, dignitaries (hence the name) in their official dress, faces sober and noses aloft?

That describes dignified behavior, but it’s a limited list. Dignity is also exhibited when:

• A teenager looks at a bully and says, “Really? I thought you were better than that,” and walks away.
• An elderly woman falls and simply accepts the help of that “nice young man” with a thank you.
• An athlete whose team has just lost crosses the field to his opponents and congratulates them.
• Anybody responds to an attempt to humiliate them on social media by quietly blocking the source moving on.

I think dignity itself is the quality within us that allows us to respond authentically, rather than in kind. It’s that quality that tells you not to react to your mother-in-law’s sting with something equally as snarky. It’s that strength in you that refuses to laugh at that joke made at someone else’s expense.

It’s what puts the smile on the face of the Wal-Mart greeter even when most customers are too self-involved to acknowledge them. It’s what lets a single mother hold her head high at the P.T.O. meeting when the other mothers are giving her judgmental looks. It’s what arises in each person at an A.A. meeting who says, “Hi, I’m Jane, and I’m a grateful, recovering alcoholic.”

Where does it come from, this dignity of which you speak?

It’s a God-given gift that comes with every baby who is born into this world. Don’t infants have such a serious look on their faces when they look at you for the first time? They know things. They know that they are worth you taking care of them. That’s dignity.

Nobody was created to be somebody else’s whipping boy. Doormat. Slave of any stripe. That’s because it is innate in us to act from our essential worth.

We don’t have to earn it. We just have to believe it.

We do believe it – when we arrive at the gathering completely underdressed and carry on as if we’re in black tie or calf-length gown. When we look at that hurried doctor who has just brushed us off and say, “I know how rushed you are, but this is my body we’re talking about. It hurts. Let’s fix it.” And when we ask someone to forgive us when we’ve been thoughtless, knowing that genuine remorse and shame are two different things.

How do we lose sight of that?

The worth is within us. It’s ours and no one can take it away. Not really.

But it can sure feel like our dignity is in the hands of other people. Am I right?

There isn’t one of us here who hasn’t been ignored, brushed off, dismissed, left out or straight up told we don’t belong.

Each of us can probably tell a story (or ten) about being embarrassed, humiliated, scorned and called names that crush our sense of ourselves.

It doesn’t take long – as in, before you hit those teenage years (when it gets harder to disregard) – before we believe what other people say about us rather than what, deep within, we know about us.

That Not-You we’ve been talking about? It comes from those thousands of messages over time. Let’s not beat ourselves up: it is downright hard to keep ourselves centered in the dignity that dwells within, when what dwells without is loud and insistent and in-our-face.

How can we maintain the dignity that is part of Yes-You?

That’s what this week is about. We won’t spend time digging up the sources. We’ve done that already. We’ll focus on positive ways to see that we are, indeed, human beings whose dignity is to be respected.

Starting with the respect we give ourselves.

This week’s question: Can you give one example of a situation in which you felt your dignity and responded with it? That may mean that you simply bit back a reply, and realized you are better than what you were about to say!

Me? Since my agent began to send out my recently written novel, we’ve received over 20 rejections, one of which came from an editor I know well, and which was fairly nasty. It was all I could do not to email her and say, “What the Sam Hill?!” Something in me said, “An eye for an eye, Nancy? Really?”

And just so you know, I respect the dignity of each of you. So you can start there!