Deferred Gratification

Friends,

For the past couple of weeks I have enjoyed springtime gardening: planting radishes, carrots, beans, and mature “cheater” tomato plants that already have blossoms and an occasional early tomato, a concession I make because of the limitations of sunlight from the tall trees around our home. And I am excited about the dozen or so dahlia tubers that promise lots of bright colors if they, too, can manage enough bright sun. As I plant I consider the whole exercise of planting as discipline in "deferred gratification.” I keep checking out the seed.packet photos of the mature plants I hope to grow in pleasing anticipation, but for now I can only keep checking the yet-bare ground until my little garden brings all those packet pictures into real life. And for now I will have to "water and wait” and postpone my ability to enjoy the success (or not!) of my labor and the earth’s good graces.

And then I began thinking about my state of mind in general relative to deferred gratification. As I sit to begin my SEP this evening I realize I am more and more inclined to write - mostly subconsciously - with the prompt to “hold on” until this unpredictable governmental leadership will cease. Today, for example, I have tried to understand what it means when I hear the often frightening, dangerous, announcements out of the White House. Will we go to war with Iran on any given Tuesday at the unhinged president’s discretion? Will anyone holding a green card have to return to their country of origin and reapply? So it goes. How do we maintain the stature to live hopefully with our expectation that our now years of deferments will persist at least until a weakened but lawful constitutional democracy will eventually be restored. We will have to defer that realization until we will persist for years with nonviolent opposition. It is easiest, of course, not to think about, or even pay much attention at all to this uncertainty, but I am still experiencing a constant underlying threat personally -- and as part of a national concern -- until we can return to at least a more structured, if still dysfunctional, normality. I think it is better to at least name this subconsciously perceived discomfort and settle on hoping to realize a "deferred gratification" in some foreseeable future. 

Like waiting for a planted garden to sprout and grow, deferred gratification implies a positive anticipation of an arrival of something that is still postponed for some period of time. The more eagerly we anticipate something, the more difficult it is to defer its arrival, but fortunately, at least awaiting the vulnerable, little leaves to appear happens relatively quickly compared to governmental or social change, and we can build up some excitement the nearer the time for arrival. In terms of the discipline of deferred gratification we can assume a certain amount of waiting also makes the final arrival even more pleasing when our “deferred gratification” is over and those fresh green beans and garden ripe tomatoes are finally on our plates. May it be so with regime change in the U.S.

During my lifetime, especially in my legislative advocacy work, it often included years of deferred gratification. It took ten years, for example, to pass criminal justice ombuds legislation that I helped support. I am also aware that during my lifetime our nation has enjoyed a good deal of scientific and social progress toward the common good even with a good deal of delays. The benefits of all this progress, we know, has been unevenly shared when so many minority and marginalized have been excluded or frustrated in their attempts at equality. We have asked the often disenfranchised and neglected for all too long for an unfulfilled deferred gratification. My sincere hope is that the historical democratic socialist progress that benefited the common people during Roosevelt and Francis Perkin’s creation of the progressive New Deal legislation, and President Johnson’s initiative for a “Great Society” that led to social and civil rights reforms, will again be carried forth and expanded in new waves of reform when our society again turns toward a clearer moral mandate of care for the vulnerable and marginalized. I have great hopes that in the restructuring of our government and societal policy we will regain the power and commitment to a cooperative framework because I still believe in the essential goodness of the American people, and I see so much kindness and love always among us on a daily basis. I can rely on that more “gratifying” reality that needs no deferment. All we have to do is allow our consciousness and our heart  to see and feel it. This we can all do with no deferments. 

Peace,
Tom