At Large

The moment has likely been forgotten, or at least ground up in the fine mulch of memory, spread evenly and settling in. The sports season had ended, and the high school seniors and their anxious parents settled into the uneven terrain of the long wait. It’s early spring. Applications have been sent into colleges, deposits paid, first choices and “safety schools” selected. Check the inbox every few hours to see if, fingers crossed, the words “we’re pleased to inform you…” might appear.

Drifting further into the distance at the end of fall, sports has been the rather unfortunate message sent to a coach, who finally succumbed to the waves of innuendo and nastiness leveled by a small group of parents to announce the intention of not returning to the sidelines next year. The message? “You ruined my daughter’s senior year.” It was finally enough.
The blame game

Human nature had overcome other team parents when they learned of the final missive, and they immediately tried to guess who would have had the nerve to not only write but send that message. Ruined her senior year? A bit dramatic to be sure.

Was it possible that the young lady referenced had neither the skills nor the motivation that would justify her spending significant time on the soccer pitch? For most of the parents and players touched by the incident, the discussion had long since evaporated. The coach was gone of her own volition. The wait for college admissions continued. Chapter closed.

And yet, for a few who had lived through the wins, the ties, and the bitter defeats of a season closed, the message continued to haunt. Who would write something like that? Who would be so hurtfully angry as to blame the coach of a middling soccer team for the destruction of an entire academic year?

Get a “Grip”

There have been many cartoons over the years depicting an individual pondering a decision with an imaginary devil on one shoulder and an imaginary angel on the other. Back and forth. Push and pull. Take the high road … or sink into the mire and thrash about until we succumb.

In 1841, Charles Dickens coined a phrase in his book Barnaby Rudge that seemed to bring things into focus.

“So do the shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.”

Sitting on the shoulder of Dickens’s title character were not angels and devils, but a talking raven, Grip. Throughout the book, it is Grip who delivers the punch lines, the insights, and the wisdom that somehow escape young Barnaby who is clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

A bit of simple research reveals that a talking raven was less of an imaginary character, and one that actually inhabited Dickens’s life. Not only did he have a pet raven named Grip, he ended up having this ornery companion who croaked such memorable phrases as “Polly put the kettle on; we’ll all have tea” preserved by a taxidermist when lead poisoning stopped its antics. For those inclined, a visit to Philadelphia’s Parkway Central Library will be rewarded with a view of Grip, still frozen in time, sitting in a glass case.

The impact of a talking, mischievous raven didn’t stop with Dickens. Edgar Allen Poe was so intrigued with the adventures of Grip that he penned his most famous poem, The Raven, giving his character only one spoken word. “Nevermore.”

And, your point is?

Presuming the reader has not been thrown off balance by this intriguing hopscotch through history, there is a point to all of this. One can choose to be lulled into letting the sarcastic raven determine our approach to even the most simple life decision, or one can relegate that spirit to a glass case and choose to listen to one’s “better angels.”

The timeworn axiom “measure twice, cut once” has implications well beyond the accurate sawing of a piece of wood. “Look before you leap” might be another way of approaching the same decision point.

Are we responsible as much for what we say as for what we do? Did the parent sending that cutting email to a small town soccer coach feel better about their outburst? Was outrage turned into gleeful celebration with a nasty barb fired toward its target? Did the complete elimination of “better angels” satisfy?

One would hope not.

Perhaps a bit of Platonic insight would bring this all into summary focus. 2,400 years of wisdom offered up with true appreciation:

Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools speak because they have to say something.

May we be carried forward on the wings of our better angels. •