To be a Harrison
The person that I was nine years ago brought to my descendant’s family a distinctive trait from my childhood family: a non-negotiable passion for Character. A determination to be a good fit with the larger community, yes, for conventional advantages — sustenance, recognition, opportunity, status, and so forth. But for something not so conventional: aligning with the way things are beneath appearances. The way they can be: ideals. Despite its Republican-Presbyterian dutifulness and dullness, my childhood environment contained a live wire of idealism. Extracted from 19th century agrarian Christianity and creativity, with music at or near the center of family life.
Along with independent judgment. Encouragement for doing something innovative or original, but either way for taking the initiative. For proactive rather than passive. This was not an environment where you could get away with cutting corners or taking the easy way out. You strove. The badge you wore that identified you as a Harrison: making an effort whether in the end you got it right. You were a person of character and integrity, making the most of your talents and gifts. You were here to account for yourself. To make a difference.
‘A’ for effort
All captured in the idea of conation. Making an effort with resolve from 19th century hard rock meaning. Working our way through adversity toward cause well-served instead of toward convenience. Saturated in the 21st with character-corroding commercials, technological gimmicks, and tournaments – political, military, sports, and entertainment — all offering flight instead of grounding. A mob scene at departures, nobody at arrivals. A frenzy of escape from cause and adversity toward the reverse of conation: superficiality. Appearances. Our magic kingdom of special effects and artificial intelligence. Make-believe depriving us of self-Worth and individuality along with our talents and jobs.
All bad? Not all bad. It can just as easily be all good. So long as character puts it to good use. Steers away from idolizing convenience and superficiality and gets back to meaning. To the reality of work to be done. To adversity and to the conation it still takes to get through it with honor, self-respect, and integrity intact.
You were a Harrison? The self-image that Andover held up to me hinted that I was. A mediocrity in all my endeavors but two: the author of a poem that got published in The Mirror and endeavor itself. When my track coach, Steve Sorota, called me to his office for a singular one-on-one. To inform me that he had recommended me to the school for a varsity ‘A’ when I hadn’t scored a point in competition. He’d put it in writing and showed it to me. ‘A’ for Andover because of ‘A’ for effort. He thought me a role model for other athletes who deserved a share of their success.
Bow man
A throwback to more inspiration from the 19th century: “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better.”
“We possess within us a force of incalculable power, which, when we handle it unconsciously is often prejudicial to us. If on the contrary we direct it in a conscious and wise manner, it gives us the mastery of ourselves and allows us not only to escape … from physical and mental ills, but also to live in relative happiness, whatever the conditions in which we may find ourselves.”
— Emile Coue (1922), quoted in Wikipedia 06/07/25
I didn’t know where this mantra came from, associating it with English public school boys instead of a French psychologist. And with my family culture at home, where a parent or grandparent could have passed it on. But I was surely conscious of it and its influence was palpable. I meant to get better and to put effort into it.
A habit of thought that drew another hint from Harvard. Where heavyweight crew consisted of three eight-oared shells and the least formidable among us was the number one oar in the third boat. The bow man. Me. 180 pounds of barely making it determined to be strong. Anonymity among twenty-four bodies to keep track of until one day that changed. After a grueling workout on the Charles River, when our coach and I came within talking distance at the boathouse and no one else was around. Harvey Love from the legendary 1930s Washington crew.
He had pitted the three boats against one another in a series of races so he could play musical chairs, switching oarsmen between boats. He’d left me alone in the third boat bow. But now he spoke to me directly for the first and only time. “You had a good day out there.” And I did, because I remember it. Because the third boat always lost but today not by so much. Only now what made it a good day was something else. As important to me as getting magna cum laude on my senior honors thesis. Getting noticed for trying.
Guidance
You’re still at it, Harrison. Trying to role model trying. For my grandchildren who each bears my family name. With help from Guidance that knows and respects the difference between appearances and Reality. Our navigator.
My passion for Loving Friendship with Jesus is a late arrival. Even though my childhood family life revolved around the church down the street and the Christian calendar; even though bedtime was from the beginning time for Elsie Egermeier’s Bible Story Book (1922?) and Bible-reading, no one talked about Jesus. It wasn’t till a friendship revived after my mother died, in 1984, that I was led from ambivalence about religion into a better fit with what my friend labeled “spiritual.”
Even then my enthusiasm for the Course didn’t flower into a full-throated embrace of Jesus until Christmas rolled around in ’23. The year I’d almost died, and found myself composing my annual Christmas letter overwhelmed by the example he set. Of character, which events had revealed to be both essential to the meaning of life and also under constant attack. By forces and methods on my personal doorstep and taking down my country. Realizing then that all that my life came down to was working with Jesus to advance his cause while he helped with advancing mine. Two minds in service to two causes all coming together as one.
All of Life’s blessings
But the name — ? “Jesus” is toxic with misrepresentation and symbolism. So much so that Helen Schucman was ashamed to be associated with it. The scribe of the Course. Committed to its publication but reluctant to be identified with its lesson or its author when her profession already had its god. Sigmund Freud, self-professed atheist. Another know-it-all presiding over a big picture. As much a force for discrediting “Jesus” as Stephen Hawking, another know-it-all presiding over a big picture. The woods are full of them. The manipulator, Lord Arrogance of Alta Vista. All allergic to “Jesus” when Jesus in reality isn’t a know-it-all presiding over a big picture. He’s derided by detractors for being what they are and for doing what they do. Not for who he is or for what he does.
So unassuming, in fact, that the name he would like to be known as is whatever name is relatable to his loving friend. You have a different name for him? I’ve consciously related to Guidance for over 45 years by three names besides Jesus. Psyche, Dobbin, and Owen. “Jesus” gets worked over because that was the name given to his biblical version when Mind-Energy brought him into our midst in the flesh. But in the Course he doesn’t make a big deal of flesh. Everything is Mind, and if that’s the case a body named Jesus by his parents Mary and Joseph seems more incidental than definitive.
Yet you don’t refrain from “Jesus.” The example he set that resonates with me and to so many others is the one where his character and good intentions in the person of Jesus had to deal with the same vicious pushback that we experience first-hand in our daily affairs and witness all around us. That’s personal to us. Jesus of the Course translates his example into its metaphysics. Takes it from the world of bodies, sensory perception and feelings. From persons, and puts it into the world of ideas. Of Mind where it came from and belongs. Where it connects with Psyche and works toward healing free from bodily distractions. Though never free from feelings. Relatable to us but not body-personal to us. Once understood for who he is, an idea that combines Love with Logic and Energy in Guidance, I’m immensely proud to be his friend. And blessed, because our Loving Friendship, if that’s what it is, accounts for all of life’s blessings that I’ve come to know.