B.S Is More Than a College Degree

According to personality indicators I am an introvert.  The results of my Myers-Briggs Temperament Inventory was no surprise.  I would rather have an intimate conversation with a small group than to be a social butterfly flitting from one shallow conversation to the next.  To the surprise of some, the majority of pastors are introverts. Conflicts occur because lay people think their pastor should be super out-going and gregarious and when the cleric appears reticent, lay people label their pastor as aloof.

That being said, let me declare to all humanity:  introvert or extrovert, have a line of baloney! There is nothing more dull than a person who cannot make at least a little small talk. As trite as it may be, even commenting on the weather with a stranger will break down the walls of humanity.

My mother was the queen of banter.  For years Ruth Lorraine did store promotions in the local grocery stores.  On any given weekend she would be hustling wieners on a toothpick, or a dinky scoop of ice cream atop a dinky little cone, or a postage-stamp sized piece of pizza. She was a natural saleswoman. We always said that she could sell prophylactics to the pope.  Her key? Mom had the gift of gab.  She had a line of blarney (cf. “Heinz 57 and Proud Of It”). Ruth could chat people up without being overbearing. She spoke to everyone, little children, colorful pensioners, snooty mill wives resentful of their husbands’ transfer to small town Wisconsin.

I have become more and more aware of that need to have a line of blarney: to be able to compliment a woman’s piece of jewelry; to encourage a person with the progress of their recovery; to pleasantly tease a bashful adolescent.  Certainly, parish ministry has pushed me out of my comfort zone to engage people in conversation.  After writing verbatims with patients during clinical parish education it made me especially aware of that need for small talk which would lead into to a deeper level of communication.  But, banter became an art form during my sentence working at Home Depot.  Standing at the register, an appropriate amount of banter would neutralize a defensive customer who could not find what he was looking for.  Some clever comment on the weather would fill that awkward moment while the customer was unloading her shopping cart. Some sort of chatter with a manager or department head might result in greater cooperation when they were actually needed.

Hear ye, hear ye, to all who work in the service sector of our economy: please develop a line of BS for your work.  Life can become so impersonal.  We can easily throw up walls around ourselves.  Isolation is one of the greatest threats to society.  When someone can make a tiny effort to break down the walls with brief, casual conversation a victory has occurred.  It’s not just a ploy to make a sale or to solicit a generous tip.  It is an acknowledgement of human to human contact.  Humanity will not be defeated by the walls the world tries to build.

If you are an introvert, suck it up, Buttercup. Make the effort to engage in appropriate human contact.  To another group of people I say, “Pull out that stick.  You are no better than anybody else.”  If you are an extrovert, blessings upon you.  Just use that personality to bring a smile to somebody’s face or to make somebody feel better about themselves rather than inflate your own ego.

Trust the Geezer—there’s nothing wrong with having a little line of BS in life. It’s a vital sign of the health of humanity.

Heinz 57 and Proud Of It!

Years ago, when our daughter was a toddler we played a little game at the supper table to help her claim her identity.  We would ask, “What’s Mommy?” and her reply would be, “Mommy’s ‘Norwigian’.”  What’s Emily and with pride she’d respond, “Emily’s Korean.”  Keeping all things equal, “what’s Fritz?”  “Fritz is a cocker spin” (really, a cocker spaniel).  Finally, we would ask, “What’s Daddy?”  With great delight Emily would belt out her reply and scrunch up her face “Daddy’s a mutt!”

And, I am quite pleased with my heritage:  I am a mutt.  I have a Germanic surname.  I have a fluency in German only by way of a university degree.  People just assume that I am a knockwurst or two away from the Vaterland.  Truth be told, Great-grandfather Schaub was the last twig of the family tree who was entirely German.

But the joy of being a mutt is that whenever I hear the oom-pah, oom-pah of a polka band, that 12.5% of German blood rises to the top and I suddenly crave sauerbraten and knödel washed down with a liter of bier.

Then, the month of March comes along and corny local advertising turns to shamrocks and leprechauns.  On those occasions my Irish heritage rises to the top.  The blarney is the biggest supply of corpuscles flowing through my blood stream coming from both my mother and father.  More specifically, it is Scots-Irish, Scotsmen who for political and religious reasons traveled across the bay to Ireland.  Nevertheless, I get excited at the sound of a jig and the sight of things in plaid.  I have visited a couple pubs in Dublin while on an overnight layover.  I am sure my Protestant Irish forbears rolled over in their graves with the thought of my lips tasting a pint, but it was a token connection to the old sod that I was able to make.

While interviewed at my first congregation I was asked off the record if I was Norwegian.  “No, I’m not,” I replied, “but I’m one-eighth Danish.”  “That’s close enough” was the pleasant response.  Yes, I claim Scandinavian heritage as well—not much but at least one-eighth.  My grandmother’s father came from Copenhagen to this country and he gave up all his Danish ways.  But, seeing sights and images of Denmark gives me a yearning from within that wants to do things Danish or learn to read Søren Kirkegaard in the original Danish.

Another face of my multi-personality disorder responds to the raising of the Union Jack and the playing of “God Save the Queen.”  My Grandma Bessie, the source of my English blood tributary, was the one who taught me how to drink tea which initiated those anglophile stirrings.  With the help of Ancestry.com, they told me that Geoffrey Chaucer was my 18^th great-grandfather.  That was enough for me to shout out, “Pip, pip, cheerio, old chum."

 I am proud to be a mutt! I am delighted to be a one-man European Common Market. I feel sorry for those folks who claim only a single heritage.  Their heritage tour to Grandpa’s birth country would be so dull.  But, when we make our pilgrimage, we will certainly climb the mountains to Lillehamer, Norway, and soak in the Nordic culture of my gracious wife.  But, I look forward to bouncing around the continent and visiting the villages where family members once lived and where festivals were celebrated and where those Germans, Irishmen, Danes, and Englishmen and whoever else, worked, raised families, endured hardships, and longed for a better life in the new country for their children.

Now, after a certain point, the ethnic pride begins to fade.  True, I appreciate the history of my French Huguenot ancestors but I have never been motivated to celebrate the fact that I am 1/64 French. Sacre bleu!