When we had our house renovated twenty years ago, I had bookshelves built in my office, which are now stacked with books in haphazard piles. They were once arranged by topic, but now they’re arranged by convenience, the books I never read toward the back, and the ones I refer to frequently at the front. Every couple of years I sort through them, separating the wheat from the chaff, then hauling the chaff to the Danville library for their annual book sale. I was rifling through my books this past week and came across three books I had tucked away, given to me by my grandmother Gulley when I was a teenager. Two of them were daily devotionals in which she had written small notes of encouragement. The third book was the Quaker classic, A Testament of Devotion, written by Thomas Kelly. My grandmother was a staunch Baptist, so I was surprised to learn she was acquainted with Quaker literature. Inside the flyleaf she had written, “I hope you enjoy this little book. I’ve found it to be very helpful and hope you do too. Love you. Grandma.”
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was being steered by my grandmother, who knew me well enough to know I would resist outright and blatant directives, so was instead nudging me toward a vocation as one might use a knee to guide a headstrong calf. She was leaning into me, gently pushing me in a certain direction, and I wasn’t even aware of it until now, almost 50 years after the fact.
Lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to be an elder, now that I’m becoming one. The Native Americans say you know you’re an elder if your spirit animal is extinct. I’m heading into that territory. One of the ways I know this is because I’m starting to nudge my granddaughter in a certain direction, without her knowing it, since she is a fiercely independent young woman. For years, she’s said she wants live and work in Danville as a dolphin trainer, but dolphin training jobs are hard to come by in Danville, so every now and then I mention other vocations, just dropping them lightly into the conversation as one would a feather and let them be carried on the breeze.
We’ve been talking about money and its role and power in our lives. Nowhere is that more evident than in our pursuit of our vocations, when we are steered toward lucrative careers, with little thought given to their usefulness or the happiness they bring us and others. It’s the job of the elder to help guide those in our circle toward more noble choices, but to do it so deftly and gently they will think it is their idea, sneakiness being the better part of wisdom.
This past week, I was chatting with a grandmother who is distressed that her grandson, who recently graduated from high school, doesn’t know what he wants to do. I asked her to tell me about him. She said, “He’s very bright and kind-hearted. He’s interested in fitness and health. I think he’d be a great doctor.” I asked her if she had told him that. She said she hadn’t, that she didn’t want to poke her nose into his business.
Au contraire, it is the duty of grandparents to poke our noses into our grandchildren’s business. We just have to be sneaky about it; we have to softly nudge and not dogmatically insist. We do not want our children and grandchildren to think the best vocations for them are the ones that pay the best or have the most social prestige. Our culture bombards them with that message. They hear it every day. In this age of oligarchs, the most morally deficient and self-absorbed people are elevated as examples to the rest of us. Be like this! This is what success looks like! It is up to us older folks to teach them otherwise, to invite them to consider vocations whose importance is not determined by money, but by their value, worth, and usefulness to society.
I know this man who pounded it into his kids to be rich, so now his kids are in high-paying jobs, work long hours, and live in big houses that cost a fortune to maintain. They’re consumed with acquisition. They eat, sleep, and drink money. But other than those big houses, they have nothing to show for their lives. No pleasure from their work. No friends. No children. No community. No dedication to anything beyond their bottom line. Now the man wants grandchildren, and he’s starting to realize he’ll never have them, because he taught his kids that nothing was more important than money. What those kids needed was someone whispering in their ears, nudging them toward more meaningful lives. It is ironic that we can be rich and poor at the very same time. When we have only one way of measuring wealth, we risk ending up with lots of money but are flat broke in the things that matter.
Gallup released a new survey this week, studying data from 142 nations around the world, measuring thriving. You’ll be pleased to know that the number of people who say they are thriving has been rising steadily for over a decade. This is a worldwide trend, except for, brace yourselves, in the world’s wealthiest nations—the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Those nations with the highest standards of living are seeing the greatest decrease in well-being. Why is this? Gallup has been studying this, too, and has discovered a correlation between well-being and what they call density of relationships. The more individualistic we are, the sadder we are. The more intertwined and connected we are, the happier we are. The more focused on personal wealth we are, the sadder we are. The more committed we are to societal well-being, the more we thrive and the happier we are. Fewer relationships with an emphasis on personal wealth over societal good equals misery. Prioritizing connection, compassion, and societal well-being over personal wealth creates happiness. We thrive when we connect and care.
The decline in America’s sense of well-being is a direct result of our national fixation on personal wealth. What we have been taught would make us happy, financial prosperity, is making us miserable. It causes us to forsake the values that lead to thriving and well-being—generosity, relationships, friendships, spirituality, awe, play, and beauty.
We end up with what we value most. And we’re valuing all the wrong things. It is our job, the elder’s job, to nudge our nation in the right direction, to teach those who follow us the true values in life. That’s what my grandmother was doing for me. And she did it so gracefully, I wasn’t even aware it was happening until this week. All along I thought it was God who called me to ministry, and it turned out to be my grandmother. Who’d have thought. Not with grand declarations, but with little notes. I’ve found this helpful. Perhaps you will too. I love you.