Dignity in a Chair.

     Dignity can be defined as something reflective or indicative of self respect. We often associate it with positions of prominence and people of importance and for some reason it always makes me think of old guys in top hats or women in frilly dresses that went extinct in the mid 20th century. It's an ideal we aspire to reach and a standard by which we hold others. Even if we have trouble putting our finger on what it looks like, we think we know it when we see it.

     But what happens when our ideas are more confining than they are liberating? It would be easy to write an article that criticizes people for wrongly casting judgement on others based on appearance. It's easy to climb on a soapbox and lambaste others for being judgmental, which we are entitled to do because we are (obviously) right in our dispersions even though we are attacking others by doing the exact same thing we are upset at them for doing. This is not an article about that.

     As a human, the only thing more devastating than allowing others to rob us of our dignity is when we forbid ourselves the opportunity to see ourselves in a dignified light. This happens when we construct a faulty ideal of what composes dignity based on the untruth of what dignity isn't. In other words, we let other people decide what is and isn't dignified and we contour our own values to accommodate them rather than stay true to what we believe. Dignity is lost before it was ever found because there is no standard of self respect.

    One of the services we provided at this year's Project Homeless Connect was a station dedicated to dental work and teeth cleaning. We also were fortunate to have another group of volunteers set up a beauty salon to dole out hair cuts and stylings by the headful. The intent was to allow the participants the opportunity to have some work done that will help them feel a bit better about themselves. If a person has limited financial resources, wants and needs become acutely divided and the needs trump the wants. Clean teeth and a decent haircut are staples for most of the modern world but these things can be expensive if you are on a tight budget.

     I spoke with many of the participants and volunteers at PHC about these stations and most people had the same conclusion: these were important because they helped instill a sense of confidence in those receiving them. For a few minutes, each recipient was on par with every other person in the Valley no matter where they lived or worked. The playing filed was level.

     Now, I know a teeth cleaning and a haircut is not the road map to universal dignity. If dignity is a condition fostered from within and not dependent upon the perception of others, then these things might at least lay some groundwork. If a person thinks of them self as less than equal, then there is little room for confidence which can lead to a loss of dignity. It doesn't matter what others think because the individual refuses to allow them self to feel anything. Our hope was to hold up a mirror for some people to look into and be amazed by the beauty that stared back at them. So many people had forgotten what it felt like to not be embarrassed and that they had an outer beauty that matched the greatness on the inside.

     Dignity is easier to attain when a person can at least look them self in the eyes.