Lou waited. “Okay, what is it?” he asked. “What is this final step you’re talking about?”
“Gwyn,” Yusuf said, “do you remember your dad’s favorite word?”
“Too well, I’m afraid,” she smirked.
“What does her father have to do with it?” Lou asked, impatiently.
“Actually, Lou, he has everything to do with it.”
“How so?”
“Gwyn is Ben Arrig’s daughter.”
Lou wouldn’t have been more surprised had the Easter Bunny come through the door. Jaw muscles went slack around the room.
“Don’t be too impressed,” Gwyn said in the silence of the gawking gazes, “Sometimes our parents are the last people we can hear, you know?” she said, mostly to herself.
Heads nodded everywhere.
“My ears have been closed to my dad’s ideas for years. ‘Don’t try to feed your philosophy to me,’ I used to tell him when he tried to suggest that I think of things a different way. He thought I should give up the hate I have for my former husband, forgive a sister who has wronged me, and rethink my opinions on race. But he was my dad. What did he know?”
She paused, and in the self-honesty of the moment, no one dared speak.
“I’m only here,” she whispered, “because it was his dying wish that I come.”
Lou broke the hush. “How long ago did he die?”
“Six months,” she said. “Hit by a drunk driver as he crossed the street. He died the next morning.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” Carol said, “I can’t imagine.”
Elizabeth put her arm around Gwyn.
“So sorry, Gwyn,” Miguel said.
“Yes,” Ria agreed, shaking her head. “What a terrible tragedy.”
“The irony has been almost too much to bear,” Gwyn said. “Dad spent his life trying to help people let go of the grudges they carry about mistreatments they’ve received. And then he’s killed by a drunk! His ideas couldn’t save him from that.”
“You’re right, Gwyn,” Yusuf agreed. “They couldn’t. There is no way to avoid mistreatment altogether. That was never your father’s point. There is, however, a way not to let your mistreatments destroy you and your peace. Even a mistreatment as hard to bear as this one must be.” Yusuf looked at her. “Do you want a break?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.” She then looked up at Yusuf and Avi. “Thanks for helping me to hear him,” she said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.
“Oh,” she added after a moment, looking around at the rest of the group. “My father’s favorite word was action.”
“ ‘Action’?” Lou repeated.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said. “But I bet Yusuf is.”
“I think I know why, yes,” he responded. “I think it was your father’s way of reminding himself that although he could get out of the box by finding an out-of-the-box place and pondering the situation anew, in order to stay out and away from the box, he had to execute a strategy. That is, he had to do something.”
“Do what?” Lou asked.
“Something only he would know,” Yusuf answered.
Lou didn’t like that answer at all. “But that can’t help me then, can it? I’m sorry, Yusuf, but that’s not good enough. I need more than that.”
“You certainly do, Lou, but Ben was wise enough to know that what you need most is not something he or anyone else can give you. What you might think is not help enough is actually the only advice that can help at all. Anything else would be a lie.”
“Then you need to tell me what you mean. I’m not following.”
“Sure. Let me tie it back to some of the stories we have talked about together. Remember how Avi felt the desire to write a letter to Hamish?”
“Yes.”
“He then acted on that desire, didn’t he?”
Lou nodded.
“And do you remember how I felt the desire to find Mordechai?”
Lou nodded again.
“I then acted on that desire, just as Avi had acted on his, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” Lou said, still unsure where this was going.
“And Mei Li and Mike not only thought about taking off their shoes, they actually took them off.
“And remember Carol yesterday,” he continued. “She voiced an apology to Miguel in front of the whole group, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Lou said, in what turned out to be a whisper.
“She didn’t only think about it, she actually did it.”
Lou nodded.
Yusuf looked squarely at Lou. “I’m going to venture a guess about you, Lou. Do you mind?”
“Go ahead,” Lou said, without any of the machismo that would have accompanied those words just twenty-four hours earlier.
“I’m going to guess that while we have been together, you too have had a number of desires awaken within—things you have felt the desire to do or begin doing for Cory or for Carol or perhaps for someone at work. Am I right?”
The desire to write Cory a letter came immediately to Lou’s mind, and to apologize to Kate and do what he had to do to get her to come back to Zagrum. And of course his desire to be different toward Carol and the realization that he needed to figure out what to do to keep his boxes from poisoning their relationship.
“Yes, I have been feeling that,” Lou answered.
“Then I want you to look again at the board,” Yusuf said. “Once I recover a desire and sense toward people, where am I on this diagram?”
“At the top,” Lou answered.
“So, out of the box, right?” Yusuf followed up.
“Yes, I guess that’s right.”
“The moment you’ve recovered a desire to help, you are out of the box toward the person. The question at that point is not how to get out of the box, it is rather how to stay out.
“Looking at the diagram from the top,” he continued, “what do you need to do now to stay out of the box?”
“Honor the sense,” Lou said, his mind turning.
“And who is the only person who will know the sense he must honor?” Yusuf asked.
Lou thought about that. “I guess only the person who is feeling it.”
“Exactly,” Yusuf replied. “And that is why I cannot tell you the precise thing you need to do. Only you, whose life it is— who knows the offenses, the missed opportunities, the petty unkindnesses, and so on—will know. I couldn’t have told Avi that he needed to write a letter to Hamish, for example. Only he could have known that. Likewise, he may not have known enough about my life to suggest that I should seek out Mordechai Lavon. And notice, it is not just the sense of what to do but the desire to do it that’s at issue. That desire has to come from within,” he said. And then he added, “As it already has for you, Lou.”
Yusuf paused. “When we have recovered those sensibilities toward others, we must then act on them. This is why action was Ben’s favorite word. We need to honor the senses we have rather than betray them. If you, Lou, for example, were to betray the senses you are currently feeling toward others, you can be sure you would feel justified. You would then be right back in the box. So the key to staying out of the box once you have found your way out is to do what you’re feeling you should do. It is to act on the out-of-the-box senses you are having.”
At this, Yusuf added a fourth element to the board.
RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE (FOUR PARTS)
Getting out of the box
1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.).
2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.).
3. Ponder the situation anew (i.e., from this out-of-the-box perspective). Ask
• What are this person’s or people’s challenges, trials, burdens, and pains?
• How am I, or some group of which I am a part, adding to these challenges, trials, burdens, and pains?
• In what other ways have I or my group neglected or mistreated this person or group?
• In what ways are my better-than, I-deserve, worse-than, and need-to-be-seen-as boxes obscuring the truth about others and myself and interfering with potential solutions?
• What am I feeling I should do for this person or group? What could I do to help?
Staying out of the box
4. Act upon what I have discovered; do what I am feeling I should do.
“This, then,” Yusuf said, “is how peace can be recovered inwardly, even when we are surrounded by war. We stay on the lookout for signs of the box. We then find an out-of-the-box place from where we can ponder the situation with more clarity. And then we begin to consider others’ burdens instead of just our own. In the course of this, we’ll typically see things that we haven’t seen before and feel moved, therefore, to take certain new actions. In the moment we recover this sense or desire to help, we have found our way out of the box. Whether we stay out and retain a heart at peace will depend on whether we honor that sense or desire.”
“But what about the wars around us?” Lou asked. “They won’t be solved simply by finding peace within, as important as that might be.”
Yusuf smiled. “That depends.”
“On what?” Lou asked.
“On the nature of the conflict,” Yusuf answered. “In conflicts simply between you and another, I think you’d be surprised by how fully a solution to the inner war solves the outer war as well.” His eyes lingered on Lou. “Think about you and Gwyn, for example, Lou. There were times yesterday when you almost got out of your chairs and started duking it out. But look at you now.”
They looked at each other. Lou faked a left hook, and everyone laughed.
“But how about other kinds of conflicts?” Pettis asked. “Conflicts with more history to them, for example, or conflicts between many people. A single heart at peace won’t necessarily solve those.”
“No, you’re right, Pettis. It won’t. But notice what it will do. Being out of the box will allow you for the first time to see the situation clearly, without exaggeration or justification. It will position you to begin to exert influence toward peace instead of provocation toward war. While you are correct that a heart at peace alone won’t solve your complex outer problems, those problems can’t begin to be solved without it.”
“Then what else?” Elizabeth asked. “Yesterday you said we would end up with a strategy for helping others to change. I assume changing myself in the way you’ve shown us is the necessary first step. But what then?”
“Then you work to help things go right,” Yusuf answered.
“How?”