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Chapter 2

Acceptance

“I can’t wait until I am a grandparent,” a friend once said to me.

“Don’t wish your life away,” I told him. He was a young man with five children under the age of ten. I was a grandmother enjoying my first grandchild. Why would he want to fast forward his life to the stage where I was?

He was an outstanding dad. He cherished his time with his young children. Yet, he explained why he also envied my position. He told me I had more of the fun and good times and less of the difficult and tough moments. He was right.

A comic bumper sticker says, “Grandchildren are your reward for not killing your children.” While being a parent is a wonderfully joyful and rewarding experience, being a grandparent is somehow just a little better. Being a parent is like climbing beautiful mountains. But it also comes with the risk of being plunged down into deep and dark valleys. Being a grandparent is like being on a plateau of joy. Parents have a profound love and pride for their children, but they also know worry, frustration, and impatience. We grandparents often have a more level relationship with our grandchildren.

In a homily on the feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, the patron saints of grandparents, our parish priest said, “I have never met a grandparent who did not think his or her grandchildren were the most perfect, amazing grandchildren ever.” It is true that as grandparents we get to see more of the good in our grandchildren and less of the naughty. We have more fun times with them and less of the work and discipline. We are able to enjoy their strengths and their goodness, while parents have to deal with their weaknesses and faults.

The Acceptance of Youth

So, what can we learn from all this goodness we see in our grandchildren. One virtue I admire in my young grandchildren is acceptance. It seems to me they are very accepting of people and situations that we adults may have learned to judge in negative ways.

When my granddaughter was only three years old, her family moved to a new home thirty minutes from her preschool. Even though it meant driving over an hour a day just to take her to or from her old preschool, her parents made the decision to let her finish out the semester there. They did not want her to experience too much turmoil in her life all at once. She loved everything about that preschool. She loved her teachers. She loved the playground. She loved all her friends. I worried how she would adapt to being put into a new school after the Christmas break.

As grandparents often do, I worried unnecessarily. The first time I saw her after she had started in the new school she was bubbling over with enthusiasm for her new school, her new teachers, and her new friends. I admired the acceptance with which she embraced the change in her life. She especially talked about her new friend. He was so funny. He made her laugh. He was so nice. He showed her where everything was in her new classroom. He helped her when she was confused because they did things differently in this new school. He smiled at her when she was nervous or afraid. What she did not tell me — because she never even noticed — was that her new friend was of a racial background different from hers and he wore special glasses for a vision problem. None of this registered with her. She accepted him and liked him completely for the person he was inside. I thought how wonderful our world would be if we all were as accepting as this three-year-old.

Unfortunately, we rarely make use of the opportunity to learn from children. Instead, we tend to teach them our bad habits. This point was made in the musical South Pacific. Ahead of its times, the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein production that premiered in 1949 and was made into a film in 1958 explored the tension and sadness prejudice can cause in our lives. One of the songs in the show is “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” It suggests that very small children do not pay attention to the differences in people. Yet, sometime around grade-school age, kids start mimicking the prejudices they see in the adults around them. Racism is something we learn as children, something we are, as the song says, “carefully taught.” We are not born with prejudices.

Prejudices are nothing new. The world into which Jesus was born was full of prejudices. The Jews did not like the Samaritans. The Romans hated the Jews. Even the apostle Bartholomew, originally known as Nathanael, had prejudices. When his friend Phillip told him about Jesus, Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (Jn 1:46).

Yet, Jesus ignored and broke through all prejudices. The story of his birth shows the infant welcoming two groups not accepted in Judea — shepherds and foreigners. Throughout his life, he embraced those who were generally not accepted — lepers, Samaritans, tax collectors, and women. We are called to do the same. For the sake of our grandchildren, let us try to let go of the prejudices we may hold. The world will be a better place if we do.

Seeing Jesus in Others

To overcome our prejudices, however, we need to become aware of them. Only then can we avoid passing these biases to our grandchildren. Young children are often blind to the differences they see in others. Maybe that is one of the reasons why Our Lord told us, “Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it” (Lk 18:17). In this area, let us strive to be more like our grandchildren, rather than teaching them to be like us!

Let’s admit it: Many of us love to judge. We all do it sometimes. We judge whether an outfit looks good on someone. We judge whether a home is neat and attractive. We judge whether children are well-behaved. We judge the quality of the produce we buy for dinner, the data in a report we are reviewing, the value of an item compared to the cost we must pay. We might say judging is important because it helps us make good decisions.

The problem, Saint Paul tells us, is when we judge other people. He admits, “Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another” (1 Cor 7:7). As Christians we are called to accept the differences between us and the unique qualities that belong to each of us. We are asked to see others (and ourselves) as God sees them. We are told that it is possible to see Jesus in every person because he lives in each one of us.

I don’t know about you, but I am not very good at seeing Jesus in others. I have never turned around and seen Jesus pushing his cart too close to me in a checkout line. I have never seen Jesus driving the car that just cut me off. I have never seen Jesus instead of the woman who is blowing cigarette smoke my way as we pass on the sidewalk. All I see are human faces that belong to people who at the moment are annoying me and making it difficult for me to accept rather than judge. Although I am not good at seeing Jesus in others, I have had some success imagining Jesus with other people.

We can begin by imagining Jesus with our grandchildren. We can imagine Jesus running with them to the playground, sitting with them building blocks, or laying with them on a pile of pillows watching television. Once we have gotten used to seeing Jesus with our grandchildren we can try imaging Jesus with someone we might be judging.

My first attempt at this strategy brought me to laughter. An older man, whom I had judged to be arrogant and foolish, roared past me on the road in a convertible sports car that screamed midlife crisis. I tried to imagine Jesus with this man, sitting in the passenger seat with him. Jesus was not berating him for his bad investment. Instead, Our Lord had his arm over the back of the seat, laughing with his long hair blowing out behind him in the breeze. That helped me realize how totally wrong I was to judge this man and his situation.

Pope Francis tells us, “It is a profound spiritual experience to contemplate our loved ones with the eyes of God and to see Christ in them” (The Joy of Love, 323). Seeing Christ with them may not be quite as profound, but it can be an easier place to start.

What we do not Know

Another way to work at being more accepting of people for the benefit of our grandchildren is to consider what we do not know. We really cannot judge anyone, because we never know what their situation might be. We do not know what obstacles they have overcome just to get where they are, even if we feel they are not at a place we would consider desirable or even respectable. We never know what pain or tragedy another person is carrying.

I remember thinking this very strongly on the hot August day when we were heading to my grandfather’s funeral. I had been very blessed. I had reached my mid-twenties before I ever encountered significant loss, had to be part of a funeral procession, or had to walk across parched ground to a place where an open grave waited. But on the day of my grandfather’s funeral I was experiencing all of this. It was miserably hot, and I was overwhelmed with the realization that my childhood was truly over as one of the first persons who had known me since the day I was born was laid to rest.

But no one else on the streets seemed to care about my heavy heart. For them it was just another hot and muggy day. They rushed past me without a moment’s notice, not noticing my pain at all. I never forgot that feeling of no one knowing or caring. From time to time I still wonder how often I’ve caused someone else to feel that way? How often do I judge someone who is grieving, who has just received bad news, who is unemployed, or who is fighting cancer? We don’t know any of those things about the people we encounter as we go about our busy lives. All we concentrate on is whether they annoy us, get in our way, or do not meet our standards of behavior or appearance. Imagine what a wonderful future it could be if each of us taught our grandchildren to be more sensitive to the burdens and concerns other people might be carrying.

Pope Francis tells us, in the document that announced the Year of Mercy to be held in 2016, why our insensitivity to the unknown burdens and struggles of others must stop: “To refrain from judgment and condemnation means, in a positive sense, to know how to accept the good in every person and to spare him any suffering that might be caused by our partial judgment, our presumption to know everything about him” (The Face of Mercy, 14).

Our Tough Standards

Consciously or unconsciously many of us judge ourselves by the same high standards that we impose on others. Even worse, some of us may expect others to live by standards we ourselves do not even meet. Either way, judging can be as harmful to ourselves as to others. That is why Jesus says, “Stop judging and you will not be judged” (Lk 6:37). If we are constantly judging others for their out-of-date clothes, old car, bad haircut, boring vacation, or unattractive houses, we must work very hard to make sure our own wardrobe, transportation, image, travel, and home all measure up to the standards we use to judge others.

Some of us also tend to judge others by their religious traditions or practices — and think that only our beliefs and practices are acceptable to God. What a great disservice we do to God when we judge him to have a heart no more merciful or accepting than ours! It reminds me of an experience I had with my eighteen-month-old granddaughter. She had come to be very fond of me. When I came into the room, she would run to me as fast as she could. She loved to have me carry her or hold her. One day she was playing contentedly on the floor when her older brother fell and hurt himself. He came running to me crying and I wrapped my arms around him and began to comfort him. My little granddaughter jumped up from where she was playing, ran to him, put both of her little hands on his chest and pushed him away from me as hard as she could, nestling herself into the place where he had been in my arms. It was as if she were saying, “My grandma and my grandma only.” This jealous and childish behavior is much like what we do when our judgments push others away from God’s love and care. We are saying, “My God and my God only.”

Jesus does not judge us by our standards. Neither do our grandchildren. In their innocent love for us, our grandchildren teach us a nonjudgmental kind of acceptance and love. They do not care if we are old, have aches and pains, or wear glasses. We came into their lives after many years of journeying through this world. They accept us exactly as we are now. We do not have to pretend to be anyone different for them. That is one of the many things that makes our time with them so special.

We can help our grandchildren become more — rather than less — accepting by modeling that ourselves. When we are more willing to accept the way we are, we will become more willing to accept the way other people are. When we learn to appreciate the good in ourselves, we will learn to see the good in others. Conversely, when we learn to appreciate the good in others, we will be more likely to see the good in ourselves. This accepting attitude will make us more grateful, generous, and joyful.

When we are quick to judge others and hold them to high standards, usually we are likewise hard on ourselves. We often put more time and energy into trying to live up to society’s standards than we do in trying to live up to Gospel standards. Is this the life we really want for our grandchildren? Or can we learn and teach them a different way? Can we encourage them to accept themselves and all other people as God made them to be? When we do this, we can stop expecting perfection from ourselves and others. We can relax and enjoy life so much more.

It is, of course, important to recognize that accepting others — despite the flaws and weaknesses we all have — is not the same as condoning inappropriate or immoral behavior. A dear friend is grandmother to four children whose mother abandoned them because of drug abuse. This grandmother encourages her grandchildren to still love and pray for their mother even while teaching them to avoid the mistakes their mother has made in life. Saint Timothy offers us good advice for handling such difficult situations: “First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tm 2:1,3–4). If God wants to save everyone, surely he does not want us to condemn others. Rather, let us teach our grandchildren to accept and pray for those who do wrong.

Speak of the Good

Sadly, our society today seems to have a hunger to hear the negative. Has the media trained us to like bad news? Or do they bombard us with it all day because they know that is what will keep us glued to our screens? We may not be able to control the headlines, but we can control our own conversations — especially around our grandchildren. Let us start paying attention to how many conversations are filled with criticism and judgment rather than praise and kind words. We may find that we don’t often talk about the beautiful flowers tenderly cultivated in one person’s yard but will surely discuss the junk and clutter in another’s.

Saints, I believe, knew how to speak of the good. We often call a person a saint who never complains or never criticizes another person. Saint Ignatius Loyola tells us that thinking and speaking the good is a virtue we should strive to live: “Every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it” (Spiritual Exercises, 22).

We may think we have the freedom to say whatever we want about another person, as long as it is true. However, revealing negative information about someone — even if it is the truth — is also a form of gossip. No one needs to know another’s secrets or weaknesses. Such hurtful conversations are “a sinful violation of the privacy of others” (United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, 434).

Even worse is to slander another person by making statements which are wrong or an exaggeration of the truth. As grandparents, we need to be alert to this kind of talk from our grandchildren. They may love to tell us stories about their friends, teachers, or siblings. If the stories seem to have a particularly negative tone, we may want to gently ask them if this is really the truth or the way it happened. We may have an opportunity to nip a bad habit in the bud.

It is much easier for us to accept one another if we look for the good rather than what is not. Our world very much needs people to see and accept the good in others. In their innocence, our grandchildren can teach us that when we forget this. In our wisdom, we can teach them when they forget. The message of the Gospel is one of acceptance. The teachings of the Church call us to love and accept one another. Aware that our grandchildren are watching us in all we say and do, let us learn to speak of the good in all people.

For Reflection

1. Do I affirm my grandchildren when they are open and accepting of others, or do I encourage them to embrace my own prejudices?

2. If my grandchildren speak negatively of another, do I help them think about why that person might appear in a negative way at that particular time? Do I encourage my grandchildren to remember that Jesus loves everyone unconditionally?

3. Do I impose materialistic and secular standards of excellence on myself or others? Is there a Gospel standard I can choose to uphold instead?

4. Do I find my conversations are often filled with judgment and negative comments? How can I learn to speak more of the good in life and less about the things I judge to be lacking?

A Grandparent’s Prayer

Ever-present Spirit, please be with me always. Enter my heart when I fail to accept another one of God’s children and remind me that our Father loves us all. Enable me to give up my bad habits of judging others. Help me show my grandchildren how to be loving, sensitive, and accepting of all people. I ask this through Christ our Lord, who has called me to love and accept all people. Amen.