The Facts of Life and "doing the best they could do."

Sing it with me!

"You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life, the facts of life ... "

If you had a television between 1979 and 1988 no doubt at one point in your channel surfing you stumbled across Blair, Jo, Natalie and Tootie as they learned ... well, if not the facts of life, exactly, then tidy little life lessons from Mrs. Garrett and each other.   Aesop was probably more subtle than that damn show when it came to stories with a moral.  By the end of each episode, at least one of the girls had an insight into some important bit of morality or character development.

To be fair, the show was cutting edge in its day, placing women in assertive roles and center stage.  It was no "Maude" but it had a viewpoint and a heart, and within the confines of saccharine family sitcom programming it tried to tackle edgier issues as the girls grew.  When it debuted in 1979 I was 17 years old, and alcoholism had already awoken inside me -- I went from being a nice enough kid to something out of "The Other."  Same face, but no soul.  Sure, any 17 year old is going to be half out of their mind, given a brain stewing in hormones and a personality merrily boiling away in the peer pressure cooker -- but I was already nearly a daily drinker (if those damn parents would just get out of the way I could drink like I wanted to -- which was around the clock, actually.  It was mightily inconvenient waiting for them to fall asleep each night so I could either raid the liquor closet or sneak out of the house -- or both.)  All of which is to say that I was even less interested than most in a series about four girls learning how to be better people while away at prep school.  But it would be on, once in a while, somewhere in the house.  Damn thing was on the air for nearly ten years, and syndication beyond that, after all.

But I have a friend who is somewhat obsessed with sitcoms, and when invited over for coffee one day recently he had his new DVD of some season from, of all things, "The Facts of Life" playing on the television.

Rest assured, I mocked him with gusto.

He poured coffee, and the topic eventually turned to 4th steps and inventories and resentments, and how difficult it can be to see our part in something when we were also legitimately -- and heavily -- wronged.

So often the pat answer to that issue is "well, they (meaning the other party) did the best they could."

(You want to test how much you really believe that?  Look into the eyes of a sponsee who is in the middle of writing their 4th Step and, after they share with you stories from a childhood of horrific violence and deep violation, a childhood in which, by comparison, being raised by wolves would have been safer than being raised by what passed for parents at that time in their lives, and see if you can say "well, they did the best they could" without dropping your gaze or choking on the words.)

Back and forth we went on this issue, and meanwhile, in the background, on the DVD, Blair was busy getting her life lesson from Mrs. Garrett.  In this episode, Blair's cousin Geri came for a visit.  Cousin Geri was played by stand up comedian, actress and cerebral palsy -- sufferer?  I'm not sure if that's a fit with Geri -- Geri Jewell.  Funny and charming, Geri had become the center of attention (for the duration of the episode) and Blair had let fly to Mrs. Garrett how jealous she was.  There was something about Geri setting the table and being praised for it and Blair getting her knickers in a twist that Geri was praised so extravagantly while Blair was knocking herself out -- something like that.  I wasn't really listening.  But my friend seized on it.

"It's like that!" he said, pointing at the TV.

"It's like ... boarding school?" I can make big leaps, but not that big.

"No! No! The thing with the setting the table and cousin Geri.  Geri Jewell.  The cerebral palsy thing."

"I'm not sure you're supposed to call it a 'thing'."  I said.  He ignored me and went on.

"You have six people coming over for dinner and you need the table set for six, but you're running late and you need it done in a hurry and you ask Cousin Geri to do it but she can only get four settings out before people start arriving -- would you be mad at her?"

"Is that what this episode ... wait, is this like a math question?  Six people coming to dinner are on a train heading east at forty miles an hour..."

"God, shut up. No."

"Because I was told there would be no math."

"No. Shut up.  It's like that.  That!"  He pointed to the TV again.  "You wouldn't be mad at Cousin Geri because she literally could not do any better given the conditions.  She did the best she could, yeah, and she's not at fault, but the best she could do was actually not good enough."  He pounded the arm of his chair for emphasis.  "You didn't get your table set in time.  But it's not about fault.  It's about ... a lack of ability."

"Okay."

"So with the people we resent, sometimes -- the ones that caused real harm -- it's like ... it's like they have spiritual cerebral palsy.  Given the conditions, they actually can't do any better -- they did do the best they could -- but when you say that it's not as if you're saying that the best they could do was good enough!"

I have a confession to make.  At this point I bit my tongue so hard I might have actually drawn blood.  Over the course of many, many conversations about his past and his resentments I must have shared my take -- and what the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" says on pgs. 66 and 67 -- about those that harm us being spiritually sick -- a hundred times with my friend.  Two hundred.  And there, over coffee, only half watching an old tv show, he gets his great insight from Blair and Mrs. Garrett?!?

It was just my ego, rattling the bars of its cage, wanting credit it didn't deserve.  Wanting payment for work offered freely -- it's a high bar to clear sometimes, but there it is.  Help without strings, help freely given -- that's the deal and no fair trying to change it after the deal is done.  (Which is pretty much the punchline in the chapter "To Wives" in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" -- AA's Big Book:  "I've been knocking myself out keeping you alive, covering for you, getting the bills paid, doing everything I could to help with your drinking... and you find your big answer with a bunch of strangers?!?"   But that chapter is a post for some other day.)

I finished my coffee, and was able to muzzle the ego and get to a place of happiness for my friend that something which had long troubled him was now, thanks to a very special episode of "The Facts of Life," maybe a little less troubling.

If Blair and Mrs. Garrett carried the message for him, then I'm just glad he got the message.  God's sense of humor is nothing if not ... endlessly surprising.  Wouldn't have worked for me, though.

I was always more of a Tootie man, myself.

  

Comments

[Suzanne]

Thank you so much for reminding me that 1. My ego gets ruffled when a sponsee "gets it" from some other source when I have been shouting "it" from the rooftops; and 2. That the acceptance of others is really where it's at so that we can move on to the part of that step where we take a look at ourselves. I'm working through 4th and 5th steps myself and with a sponsee right now. Great reminders. Thanks!

[One Prayer Girl]

Two things came to mind.

One. I used to say that my parents did the best they could and it was pis- poor! After 23 years, I've dropped the second part of that thought and know that they actually did do the best they could given their history.

Second. Even though someone "gets it" and the light bulb comes on when they are doing something like watching a sitcom rerun - it is still very possible that had I not provided my input over and over before that, the light might not have come on when it did.

PG

[Tortoise]

Below are reasons why “The Big Book” cannot be used in conjunction with “The Book”, the Holy Bible.

First we must remember that psychology is man’s attempt to solve spiritual problems. Any attempt to excuse, justify or label behaviour is an attempt to cover up sin. God’s Word is clear, certain behaviours are sinful, not diseases.

Galatians 5: 19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury,

20 Idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects,

21 Envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. Of which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.

[Stewart]

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