Submission

I came of age in the late 60's...a time of cultural revolution.  Sometimes I like to think of myself as a member of the Woodstock Generation but the truth is that I grew up in a small farming community in Central Kansas...a long way from Woodstock and all that came with it.  Aside from beer, there were no drugs in my high school.  By today's standards, mine was a very sheltered childhood and adolescence.  Traditional family values were taken for granted.  Everyone knew their place and the community did what it needed to do to keep everyone where they "belonged."

Despite the buffer of wheat fields and miles of empty space, the events of the late 60's and early 70's left their mark on my life.  By the time I graduated from high school, it was clear that I didn't fit well in that small town.  Leaving Kansas for three years in France and Algeria,  introduced me to all the "isms" of the time including feminism and socialism.  I wholeheartedly embraced the notions of equality that came with those perspectives.  By the time I entered the American workforce as a college professor in the late 70's I enthusiastically identified myself as a feminist and less obviously as a socialist.  Although I'm still committed to equality and providing a level playing field to one and all, the way I think about all that now is quite different from the way I thought about it then.  Thirty years of teaching and practice have brought an evolving perspective and a new appreciation for some of the things I threw overboard when I left Kansas.

Converts too often become zealots.  My conversion to the equality promised by the "ism's" of the 70's left me a zealot.  One of the first things I threw overboard was the notion of submission.  For me, there was no place in a world of equality for something so unequal as submission.  The word acquired an ugliness that made it difficult to utter without disdain.

Thirty years later, I see the inequality that naturally comes with life--inequality that can't be overcome.  Some things are, by their nature, bigger than we are.  I spend a lot of time with people who feel overwhelmed by the circumstances of their lives.  Their circumstances are bigger than anything they are or could become.  Listening to them tell their stories often reminds me of being in heavy surf.  Resisting a large wave by trying to stand up to it almost inevitably leads to being thrown into the sand, pummeled and spit out on the beach wondering what just happened.  The alternative, submission, means lying down as the wave approaches, letting it wash over and dissipate.

Submitting to one's life circumstance doesn't mean giving up.  It means giving in.  It means recognizing the "biggness" of the circumstance and allowing it to wash over us so that when the wave passes we can get up and prepare for the next wave.  And, there will be another wave.  Without the ability to submit, we are left with the inevitable prospect of being repeatedly thrown into the sand, pummeled and spit out on the beach completely unprepared for the next wave.  And, there will be another wave.