Courtesy: Not a trivial pursuit

November 1, 2018
Sister Jean Evans, RSM
 
Soon after I entered the convent, our group (of twenty-four) began having information sessions with the Postulant Director. Of course, we really knew very little about what convent life would be like when we entered. On the first day we got a big shock when we were brought downstairs to the dining room and saw that there were tables and stools, not chairs. That wasn’t too bad. We were young and with one exception, no one had back trouble yet.
 
Back to the information sessions. After a few months, we were given a spiral book called the “Guide to the Sisters of Mercy” to peruse. I don’t know what I expected, but when I opened to the section on the vows – poverty, chastity and obedience – I found a chapter on “Courtesy” and thought, “What has this got to do with the vows?”
 
Now, a half-century later, I realize that the chapter on “Courtesy” provided a bedrock for a happy, constructive life in common, and not only in community, but in families and in society as well.
 
It took many years before I realized that my off-hand manner with people was hurtful. One day at lunch in the staff room of our high school in Soweto, one of my colleagues, an African teacher said, “Jean, you are rude.” I had no choice but to swallow hard and agree. She was right. I had grown up in a home where sarcasm was the order of the day – it was sometimes funny, but usually carried a sting. I can’t say now that I’m not sarcastic, but I’d like to think I’m in recovery. And I have Glenrose to thank.
 
The use of sarcasm, as we witness in our current political scene, is demeaning. It slams a door in someone’s face. It undermines and victimizes. It is a bully’s weapon of choice.
 
Akin to the use of sarcasm is the use of language to belittle and de-value the experience of another or to play down one’s own experience of oppression. How often have we heard victims of domestic violence say, “Oh, it’s not so bad”? In 2001, theologian Dorothee Sölle expressed concern about an attitude prevalent in the first world that relativizes women’s experience of oppression and diminishment while causing them to de-value and question the validity of their own experiences. She called it “trivialization.”
 
Up until November 2017, women generally kept silent about their victimization at the workplace for fear of losing their jobs. However, once the #MeToo movement gathered momentum, increasing numbers of courageous women broke the silence that protected their oppressors. Certainly, their abusive and de-grading experiences were not in the least trivial in their eyes.
 
Right now, the greatest task set before us as a country is to recover the virtue of respect. This can only happen by recognizing the sinfulness of behavior that mocks, belittles, insults and demeans others. This is why I now see the importance of that chapter on courtesy. It outlines an essential spiritual practice, a first step in recovery. Genuine courtesy is an acknowledgement of someone’s inherent dignity. It says: “You are a human being, a child of God. You are worthy of respect.”
 
Mercy Sister Jean Evans ministers in the Capuchin Development Office in Burlingame.