Living Above the Line

a simple, powerful tool

One year at an independent school in Atlanta where I was fortunate to be in connection with students, faculty, staff, parents and the leadership team, someone presented this concept – Living Above the Line.

Living Above the Line became what I now call a tool for how we can measure our ways of being, acting and speaking. “The line” has stayed and moved with me geographically in the 11 years since I retired from that school and from full time presence in schools.

It is a line I visualize also as a thread that runs through our lives, especially when we find ourselves in extreme and difficult circumstances and relationships.

It’s as if “the line” speaks, quite loudly at times, calling me/us to account.

Before that particular description came into being, I go back to the 80’s in my classrooms of the youngest children.

One of the very first conversations (a better word than exercises) with a new group as we began the year together was to make a list of how we wanted to treat one another and our classroom so as to be the best we could be, to have “a great time together.” Children get that.

At three years old, children sitting in a circle with me knew. They could not yet spell, and most could not yet read, but they were beautifully verbal in their articulation of what it meant to create a space for all that was safe, kind, sharing, caring of one another and materials, give and take if there were disagreements and more.

We posted our list as a reminder to go back to when, not if, needed.

My co-teacher and I intentionally chose books to read out loud, after which we talked about the characters and situations we not only loved living through vicariously but could learn from. Literature is a catalyst for helping us grow into ways of becoming stronger, one day, sometimes one book, at a time.

I believe children’s books are as much for adults as children and I was never immune from needing to be reminded of my own need to live up to my values.

Without, at that time and in those years, having the phrase Living Above the Line, that is what we were planting and growing.

Three-year-olds understand.

Somehow, they and we become 30-year-olds and 50-year-olds and 70-year-olds, and we forget what was so easily and purely articulated and believed at 3.

Divisiveness takes seed and difference and labels and tuning out and calling out.

We leave behind listening, critical thinking, dialogue, and values we agreed are important to our existence together.

We forget the qualities of empathy and sharing that children are so brilliant at showing to one another and to adults.

We attach ourselves to so many imprints that were said as “truth” rather than approached as questions, open to exploration and new perspectives that can change us in beautiful ways.

The year that Living Above the Line came into being, a big banner was put up on the wall of the gym. There was more attentiveness and willingness to call one another out when we went below the line. Of course, there was learning to call one another out in ways that were above the line rather than below the line.

It was contagious. Children started calling things out in their families that were not above the line, quite humorously at times, but vocal – “THAT’S not living above the line.”

There is not one of us who ever does it flawlessly, perfectly. It looks more like the stock market – above, below, below, above, above, etc. But it is a tool to catch us.

This morning, I visualized the line in my mind and wrote these few thoughts down, for it is now time to look more intentionally into me, of the fabric of who I am, who I want to be and to see how the line, the thread of it running through my life, is holding. Kind of like the roots I wrote about.

I am asking myself what is being called of me to do to stay above the line and not sink below it, for it is absolutely challenging in the moments of seeing cruelty and loss that are fresh and seemingly relentless, more and more every day.

We can stay above the line and still be dissidents and activists because living above the line does not always look pretty. It does not mean staying quiet. No child ever said, “Stay quiet” when we talked about what to do if seeing someone being hurt or acting in a way that hurt the whole class.

No, instead it was standing up for, stepping in, protecting and speaking up when we see a person being mistreated.

The older I and we get, the more depth there is in “above the line.”

By the way, the line is a demarcation of ways of conscious being, as I think of it now. It is not about a label – it is not red and it is not blue and it is not purple and it is not a skin color and it is not a gender and it is not a religion and it is not a degree and it is not whether one is born in this country or whether one came to this country from another one.

It is about being.

I imagine seeing The Line in the chambers of ALL politicians, of those who are meant to represent us, all of us, the grand diversity of this country.

I imagine the Line in all places – homes, stores, coffee shops, places of faith, corporate settings, schools, painted on the side of a building, as a bumper sticker – everywhere.

The Line is a calling and a measurement tool of who I am/ who we are being.

Where would you place the following?

Old black and white paradigms that diminish human beings that do not fit them?

Expansion of mind and heart that grows presence that sustains and thrives?

Control over others?

Empowerment and inclusion?

Deaf to anyone and anything other than one’s own beliefs and practices and self-focus?

Cruelty to human beings who are already suffering?

Creating ways to alleviate as much suffering as possible?

Heart centered listening and choices?

Denigrating people?

Uplifting people?

Slashing services to those who need them most?

Preserving and growing services to those who need them most?

Retaliation and revenge?

Grace?

Compassionless?

Compassion and serving?

Calling out?

Calling in?

Lawlessness?

Abiding by agreements that support the whole in the best way possible?

Blindly taking away?

Giving?

Starvation and death?

Feeding the hungry and providing medicine?

Going about the days refusing to see destruction taking place or excusing it?

Activating voice and behaviors that bring us together and serve one another, even those we are still learning about and from so that we are willing to throw out our old, false stories?

I am sure the lists I began with three-year-olds, many of whom who are now in their 40s, would grow into pages and pages.

I wish I could sit in a circle with all of them and see how we need to come together and dialogue about what we can discard that does not serve us?

I wonder how they are and if they are still standing up for all we listed together back when we really knew and tried to live out our list, reminding one another.

I wish I could sit with my First Grade classmates who practiced air raid drills together, never dreaming we might need to practice them in different ways in our mid to late 70s in order to preserve democracy.

Post a line.

Talk about the line – the above and the below ways of being.

I believe it will ask of us our best, on behalf of who we are individually and who we want to be and are in community in this world.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.