What You Stand For & What You Won't

Macy’s Department Store Christmas …

Just in time for Christmas, a national debate over the treatment of the cheaters at West Point “has forced the elite institution’s alumni, instructors and families to wrestle with questions of integrity, responsibility and honor—principles at the very heart of West Point’s identity.” 

Apparently, over the past few decades, West Point, as has much of academia, has shifted how they handle the fundamental of school wrong-doing: cheating. The military academy has a rehabilitation program which “is a departure from the previous practice of dismissing students who violate the honor code, and has prompted a debate over whether a more lenient approach compromises West Point’s values.” 

“[F]or many alumni and others, who have flooded online forums and social media and pelted the academy with criticism, anything short of expulsion represents an unacceptable lapse in standards.” 

Personally, I don’t think the squawking is really about the cheating at West Point at all. I think it’s about our entire culture. 

Retired Army lieutenant colonel Daniel Gade, who taught ethics and leadership at West Point, said, “The academies are trying to live up to the ideals of honor and integrity, but that is hard to do when they are drawing from a society where those things are not always valued.”

Hmmm … standards, honor, integrity, values … it sounds like an admonishment I might have heard from my grandfather. And one that we haven’t heard much lately, but that we need desperately to hear and hear again till we’re grateful for it. 

Maybe the message will be a little more palatable from illustrator Mary Engelbreit? She created a drawing with this axiom: “It’s important that people know what you stand for and what you won’t.” Whilst I fully concur with the Mary I dubbed Our Lady of Whimsy, I’d paraphrase slightly—It’s important that you know what you stand for and what you won’t.” 

Amazingly, to me, most of us don’t, and therein lies the real problem with what’s happened in the culture warring in the United States. The usual question at this point would be both reconstructionist and deconstructionist: where did we make a wrong turn? 

Sadly, I would submit to you that we didn’t—not really. No, we didn’t make a wrong turn at all. What we did do, however, was consistently choose the easier wrong over the harder right, and what’s happened is the logical consequence of those easier wrongs. It’s as simple as that, and as complicated. 

Taking the role cast upon us by Madison Avenue and media and economy as consumers, we’ve been making the short-term trump the long-term for a long, long time, and now the consequential chickens have come home to roost. No mistake that metaphor is chickens, Beloved, nor that chicken is an epithet we pin on those who are afraid. Consuming is a fear-based model. 

On a happier note, I can think of plenty of folks who are learning what they stand for and what they won’t every day. Read on … 

Esau McCaulley, in this morning’s New York Times writes in “Why You Can’t Meet God Over Zoom,” “Humans disappoint, especially those we expect to share our beliefs and values. We see other believers fail to display the deep love for one another and the stranger that is commended in our sacred texts. We witness others compromise our deepest values, sacrificed for access to power. Integrity seems in short supply. We attend services where the people are unfriendly, the sermons aren’t great, and the music is a struggle. Instead of encountering the transcendent, we bump against the limits of human talent.”  

At least he’s naming the problem. Once we can name the issue, any issue, we can face it.

Jeremy O. Harris is the author of the much-lauded Slave Play. He earned just under $1 million this year—a rare and delightful fact in the life of any playwright. He’s giving grants to playwrights out of his bounty. “In a telephone interview, Harris explained why in dire times he believes everyone should be committed to ‘protecting, uplifting and sharing,’ adding: ‘Some might call it philanthropy, but I call it upkeep or maintenance.’  

The interviewer asks, “Do you think of yourself as heroic?” “No. I would never say that about myself. For me it’s not heroic—it feels like the obvious thing that a young artist without much to lose should be doing for their community.” 

Here is a playwright who puts his money where his mouth is. You can only do that, Beloved, when you know what you stand for and what you won’t. 

A group of four theatre artists started the organization and the hashtag #ArtsHero. They go far beyond what arts institutions say about themselves, namely, “Art is what binds us. It illuminates the human condition. It’s good for the soul.” #ArtsHero says, “Ironically, the arts has a story problem in this country.” 

They go on, “We are an industry, not a cause.” Of the arts sector, one of the volunteer founders said, “According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, we generated $877 billion. It’s more than agriculture and mining combined.” 

These artists stand for a grounded, practical, economic view of the arts. They don’t stand only for the moral, emotional, lofty view we ordinarily take of the arts. 

Figuring out what you stand for, Beloved, and what you won’t is the celestial assignment given to every single soul that incarnates. This means that we don’t, we won’t—because we can’t and we mustn’t—take what anyone says to us about us as gospel truth. We must do our own reflecting upon the things we deem of value. It’s the only way, really, to live in integrity. 

Macy’s Department Store upholds one of its most cherished values admirably. This is why we might easily write: Macy’s = Christmas. Susan Tercero is Macy’s longtime vice president of branded events. A Times reporter went to find out how she pulls off Santa’s visit each year. She confirmed “that the preparations for the holiday season take 18 months. In other words, they are always ongoing.” 

At long last, the interviewer gets down to brass tacks, “Finally, I ask her how she auditions an actor for the starring role. 

“‘Who plays Santa?’ 

“‘Santa is Santa,’ she says. 

“‘Right, but how do you choose him?’ 

“‘Santa is Santa,’ she repeats. 

“‘Sure, but who plays Santa?’ 

“‘Santa is Santa,’ she says patiently, as if to a 4-year-old. 

“‘He is a magical being,’ she adds.” 

This very thing, Beloved, this magic is what agreeing to be consumers has stolen from us. Standing for what you value literally will make you whole, will make you find and live from your own integrity, will reinstate honor, will give you unimpeachable standards to live by. 

“Above the Broadway entrance [of Macy’s] is the iconic clock, adorned this year with a banner emblazoned with the words ‘thank you.’ The legendary holiday windows, too, are decorated with expressions of gratitude in many languages, in honor of first responders and front-line workers.”  

The usual Times article about how to make things new in the dawning new year is called “Let’s Start Over.” You can, you know. Any time you want. Any time. Really. The journalists promise, “Things will not be the same, because we will not be the same.” We never are. 

Wouldn’t gratitude explode from your very core if we all made the choice to leave consuming behind and go forward into a season of personal exploration and healing to divine what we each stand for—and what we won’t? Let’s start now. 

Merry Christmas. 

Dr. Susan Corso is a spiritual teacher, the founder of iAmpersand, and the author of The Mex Mysteries, the Boots & Boas Books, and spiritual nonfiction. Her essays address the intersection of spirituality and culture. Her website is susancorso.com.