I Majored in Figuring it Out

Wyatt Spalding is a Special Olympics tennis champion and one of the toughest people I know. He was born at 32 weeks and placed in a Newborn Intensive Care Unit.

By the time he was 7 months old, he’d been through 13 surgeries. As he grew into a teenager, he had major spinal surgery, multiple hospitalizations, and a seemingly endless stream of disappointments at school and then at work.

But last week, he was at the Special Olympics USA games in Minnesota working for ESPN as a reporter.

The medical challenges and multiple hospitalizations didn’t end but Wyatt Spalding kept playing tennis and basketball despite frequent pain, and severe fatigue. He still dreamed of being a champion, hitting a last-minute shot and being carried off the court to cheers and championships.

Despite disappointment after disappointment, Wyatt realized his gift was that he could see what others couldn’t. Special Olympics gave him what nothing else had: “It gave me a stage to compete,” he wrote, “to be an athlete instead of just a walking medical record.” He started a podcast, Be Unexpected, to “ask people who’d had their lives flipped upside down how they found their way back.” He came to last week’s games as a reporter because he knew that he could understand the athletes’ journey better than most. “This is what I learned from [my struggles]. I minored in failure and majored in figuring it out.”

Everywhere I went last week, I felt that same energy—the energy of people who had shifted not what they see but how they see. There was the unified basketball team from the Mississippi Delta that included kids from schools, from the boys and girls clubs, and from small towns.

At the games, they weren’t labels: they were a great team, working hard in every game on their way to a medal. There were the little children from Minneapolis who came out to the Young Athletes demonstration to prove that they were children full of potential, not children with labels. 

And there was my friend Stacey Johnston Gleason, who was bounced around between foster and family homes for 20 years. She’d been told that her disability was too difficult, but at the games, she was swimming the 200-yard freestyle and backstroke and breaststroke too.

I know a lot of us are discouraged about our country these days, but I continue to believe that we get discouraged in large part because of the stories we hear about each other—stories of animosity and divisiveness. I saw a different story in Minneapolis: a story of people treating each other with dignity everywhere.

It’s such a relief, and such a joy too, to realize what’s possible when we see the possibilities in each other. That’s what produces the thousands of heroic American volunteer coaches giving generously and without judgment to support their athletes; that’s what produces thousands of generous law enforcement officers who raise over $50 million every year for local Special Olympics programs and who protect the Special Olympics “Flame of Hope.” That’s what makes it possible for athletes like Wyatt to major in “figuring it out” instead of being overwhelmed and defeated. 

My longtime colleague and professor of psychology at Rutgers University, Dr. Maurice Elias, tuned into this insight after reading Tami’s beautiful account last week of her visit to Berlin to promote the dignity movement. “The real point,” Maurice wrote to me, “is not to rate others on the Dignity Index but to take responsibility for our own transmission of dignity 24/7. In other words, to look at our interactions through a dignity lens/filter.” 

Exactly. Sometimes, I worry that people think of the dignity movement as just the “Index.” I get it. We do promote the Dignity Index. But the Index isn’t the goal—a dignity lens is!

Just this week, members of our team were in central Florida connecting with leaders of the Central Florida Pledge, a network of dozens of businesses, faith-based institutions, educators, civic, and community leaders—all of whom want to create a culture of dignity every day across the entire region. We’re honored to be joining in this effort to help each person there see through a dignity lens. If we can do that, we can safely expect that people will be treated with dignity, and we can expect that others will treat them that way too.    

At the opening ceremony of the USA games, Demi Lovato and Jon Batiste performed. They were both amazing—Lovato sang her hit, Skyscraper, and I couldn’t help looking at the 3000 athletes on the field and seeing each of them as a “skyscraper” too, rising against all odds, revealing what it means to rise.

Batiste sang of freedom and transcendence as he danced around the field leading scores of dancers in what he’s called a "love riot.” When we talked after the show, he couldn’t stop marveling at the audience of athletes: “did you see them?  The dances they led? The energy that was coming from them? These people—they’re…” and then there were no more words. Just his smile.

Two days later, I received an email from my friends at the Center for Action and Contemplation with a reflection about the meaning of hope from—you guessed it—Jon Batiste. Here’s what he said:  

“There are so many things that we can say about the times we’re in, and so many ways to look at it…So you have to start by finding a rooting that is true and meaningful for you. That’s ultimately where we begin to find authentic joy, because joy comes from pain. It’s a transmutation and an alchemizing of pain. It shifts it into a space that is true and authentic for you, even if the circumstances around you don’t change. Deep hope can’t be suppressed by bad circumstances. Hope transcends the conditions of your circumstances…

The deepest hope is this inner knowing that the brightest light can come from the darkest moments…I’ve started to learn that hope transcends the physical. Hope is the language of the invisible. It transcends circumstances because it transcends physicality. It’s spiritual. It’s the language of the invisible realm, which is just as real, if not more real than the things we can see and touch…You work on it. You get better at it. My house could be flooded, and the roof could be on fire, and still, there’s a sense of hope I can have. I’m going to stay in that boat.”

 Dignity isn’t a value or a score; it’s a way of being, like Wyatt and Stacey. Dignity is a lens—a way of seeing that awakens us to the reality that all life has value, that each of us is precious, that no pain or power can change the truth that we are each beautifully made. That’s a “rooting that is true and meaningful” as Batiste said.

And that’s a rooting that our dignity movement can build for ourselves and for each other too.

Tim Shriver

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Dignity in Action

Our team was thrilled to be in Orlando this week as the first in a series of engagements over the next two years as part of our new partnership with the Central Florida Pledge—a three-county initiative "dedicated to standing against hate and building a more inclusive future."

We spent two days training facilitators who will teach the Dignity Index and share the strategies, stories, and skills of dignity throughout their community. The vision, energy, and dedication of this network of civic and community leaders was inspiring, and we couldn't be more excited (and grateful) to be a part of what's next!

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New Documentary Features Our Work

A special preview of the new documentary It's All the Rage was held in Philadelphia last week, in conjunction with the Braver Angels convention. The film focuses on the causes and remedies of our country's polarization, and one of the featured voices is our own Tami Pyfer! Portions of the film were screened and a Q&A held with Tami and other individuals in the film. The film is set to be released in September. Stay tuned for updates!

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Alexa and Tami were in Philadelphia last week presenting and networking with other bridge-builders at the Braver Angels convention. As part of our new partnership with Braver Angels we will be training BA members to bring the Dignity Index to their local Alliances. We're grateful for their work leading and building the dignity movement!

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