"Great Expectations"

 

Not long ago I checked out a book from the public library entitled I thought My Father Was God and Other True Stories from NPR's National Story Project. Paul Auster, editor of the book and founder of the story project had asked NPR's listeners to submit short, true stories from their lives.   He had solicited "stories that defied our expectations about the world, anecdotes that revealed the mysterious and unknowable forces at work in our lives, in our family histories, in our minds and bodies, in our souls."  Intended for radio broadcast on Weekend All Things Considered, the stories were so compelling the book had resulted. Here is the  very first story, from an NPR listener in Portland Oregon:

 

"As I was walking down Stanton Street early one Sunday morning, I saw a chicken a few yards ahead of me. I was walking faster than the chicken, so I gradually caught up. By the time we approached Eighteenth Avenue, I was close behind. The chicken turned south on Eighteenth. At the fourth house along, it turned in at the walk, hopped up the front steps, and rapped sharply on the metal storm door with its beak. After that, the door opened and the chicken went in."[1]

 

The author had succeeded in both warning me to expect the unexpected, and in surprising me anyway. Touché.  Every page finds a way to remind the reader that life is much too full of possibility and mystery for us to predict its unfolding. 

 

We live each and every day with the benefits and drawbacks of having expectations.

 

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Of course, there is much that we expect. Having the expected unfold is welcome because when we are experiencing the familiar we can relax. Someone named Elizabeth Bibesco said it this way:  "Talk about the joys of the unexpected, [sure, but] can they compare with the joys of the expected, of finding everything delightfully and completely what you knew it was going to be?"

 

Bibesco is referring to the order that comes in a world in which the expected happens. We expect cars to stop at stop signs. If they don't there's chaos. We expect our food to stay cold in the refrigerator and the stars to come out at night. We expect the lights to go on when we flip the switch in the morning and to have food on the table every day.  And here in the United States we expect to be able to worship where we please.  There's more than just pleasure and comfort in finding things as we expect them to be. Civilization depends on it.

 

But the familiar also allows us to take our surroundings for granted, can put us to sleep, can cause us to become inattentive. If our expectations are off they can put us at risk. Going down my own stairs at home over the years, I have once or twice been brought up short by the simple expectation that there is one more step when there turned out not to be. I have fallen down on completely level ground.

 

We have all kinds of expectations - conscious and unconscious ones.  Families have incredible expectations built into them - spouse-to-spouse, parent-to-child, grandparent-to-parent.  We expect each other to meet many obligations.  Parents expect children to get up by a certain time, for example, to go to school,  to be in by a certain time, and not to do certain other things.  And children have the right to certain expectations from  parents - that they will be loved and supported.  When family members let each other down, and this will happen in all families, the result will be painful for those involved. Canadian playwright Alden Nowlan said, "The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself he becomes wise."

 

 

 

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We have to be careful because we can be set up to have certain expectations by forces around us, and they can cause us unnecessary disappointment.  Christmas itself can be an example of this. The hype, decorations, planning, and our own desires, can raise the bar so high that reality can't compete.  If Christmas doesn't turn out to be like the ending of Jimmy Stewart's "It's A Wonderful Life, we're disappointed. The Latin writer Phaedrus once said:  "A mountain was in labor, sending forth dreadful groans, and there was in the region the highest expectation. After all, it brought forth a mouse.. Christmas can feel like that mouse - all that fuss for nothing, if we're not careful.

 

Unrealistic expectations can be harmful in relation whether they are too high or too low. If our expectations for ourselves are too high, perfectionists head this list, then we run the risk of perpetual unhappiness no matter how accomplished we are or how well our lives are going.  Perfectionists, who feel they should always be right and won't  allow themselves to have a bad day, can always find something to be self-critical about - You know what?  Even Tiger Woods loses a tournament now and then.  The next time you get upset with yourself, check to see if maybe you aren't expecting too much in the first place.

 

Expectations can also be harmful when they are too low.  I believe I've mentioned to you the traditional folk story about the eagle who thought he was a hen. Here is a version of it from,  Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart:

 

    "A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in the nest of a backyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

    All his life the eagle did what the backyard chickens did, thinking he was a backyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

    Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

    The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked.

    “That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth—we’re chickens.”

So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was." [2]

 

I suspect that this story is true for most of us. It is common to believe that we don't measure up, that others are better than we are, that we'll hold others up or embarrass ourselves trying something new.  Are you holding yourself back from something right now?  The great inventor Henry Ford once said,  "If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."  It's better to develop a can-do attitude.

Preconceived notions can also blind us to others as well as ourselves. Any student of teaching knows that expectations affect outcome, that, over time, if a teacher expects a student to do poorly they usually will, and if they are expected to be smart, they usually do well. Studies have shown this.  When I was first out of college I was witness to a rather extreme example of this.   My roommate was a teacher in a classroom on the grounds of Paul A Dever State School, an institution for mentally retarded people of all ages. Many of you remember the days when retarded people were expected to live institutionalized for their whole lifespan.  One of the teachers discovered a twelve-year old boy, Gary, who had lived at the institution all his life, was not retarded at all. He was deaf.  When he was finally tested his intelligence proved to be above average, but over all those years no one had noticed - tragically, they had seen what they expected to see..

Of course, expectations can be high, and be positive and life-enhancing. Writer Merry Brown suggests that if one is to err, it should be in holding high expectations. She says, "Expect people to be better than they are; it helps them to become better.  But don't be disappointed when they are not; it helps them keep trying."  High expectations may help us reach beyond what is thought to be possible, but they may be unrealistic, totally unattainable, or even undesirable for that person.

 

Sometimes we unconsciously expect others to be like us -  to share our values, our tastes, and our psychological make-up and we can exert pressure without knowing it. As a parent I was brought up short one day by one of my children who quite articulately told me that we are different from each other and that our dreams are different.  And, as much as I didn't want to admit it, that child was right.  The pressures I had been exerting that I felt were about appropriate goals and behavior were about my goals not that of my child.  I know now to be careful.  When there are arguments about choices, habits or goals there may be a mismatch of assumptions that needs to be examined, and adjustments made

 

Perhaps, if we are to err in our assumptions, it is best to err on the side of high expectations, but I'd like to reframe the question by asking, What can we look for, expect, hope for, wish for as we relate to one another?   How can we have, to use the title of that famous novel, "great expectations," and what would they look like?

 

One of the dangers of having any expectations at all is that we communicate them even when we don't know we are having them!  So great expectations have been examined and found worthy.  So great expectations are conscious ones.

 

Above all, the benchmark and touchstone of a great expectation is that it is grounded in love.   What is significant about that, is that when an expectation isn't met, love continues.

 

Do you remember the chicken story that I started with today?  That chicken that knocks on the door is a great symbol of all that we never expect - the opposite of a great expectation - the scene that one would never imagine.  Someone with great expectations must also make room for that chicken.  To have great expectations requires that we are humble with the knowledge that there are mysterious and unknowable forces at work in our lives, our family histories, in our minds, our bodies and our souls.  Because this is true we must be ready to face the unexpected.  And again, love is the touchstone that will show us the way.