People Change

 Lately I was thrown into a hurtful situation, on top of an already stressful time in my life. My parents are 84 & 88. They are on their way out. They are dying. My days are filled with potty buckets, hospital visits, dementia, frustrations, and tears. But there's also deep love, some much needed laughter, and an honor so intense it cuts into my heart, reshaping it forever into something wiser and kinder. 

In the middle of all this, I faced three deaths. A long-time family friend and two schoolmates left us. Then, like salt in a wound someone took offense at me for having the nerve to attend one of the funerals. They said I came in a "rattletrap car" and tried to cut in front of them in the funeral procession.

My first reaction, upon hearing this, was anger. The "me" from years ago would have openly confronted the whispers and found their source. I often fought before I thought. I'm of heavy Scottish ancestry, and the cells in my body still scream the Scottish motto, "No one harasses me with impunity!" That is my core, my knee jerk reaction, but I've grown; I've learned to hold off on my response. To think first and act later. 

People change.

My second reaction was pain. I cried when I found myself alone. I cried in the shower. I cried in my car. I cried while watching my mother sleep. I guess life already had me raw, but rejection hurts! It hurts even more than nature doing her job and transitioning your parents to the next plane. It hurts even more than the young, untimely death of a classmate whom I admired but didn't speak with often. Probably because both of those are nothing personal. Life is just that way. But the pain of unprovoked and unnecessary insults, the pain of rejection is so personal and cut me to my core. We could all uplift each other and help each other when things are rough. But some of us choose instead to kick our fellows when they are down, to pour salt in wounds, to try to make ourselves taller by standing on the people we have beaten down. And that wholly unnecessary pain cuts deeper to me than the pain we all must face together.

But... I must admit... People change. 

My third response was logic. Everyone I turned to for advice seemed to sing the same sad song, "Just ignore it." "It will die down." And, saddest of all, "People never change." My life and my logic reject this well-meaning advice. I see the fallacy in it. I have found from taking such advice in the past that if you "just ignore it" the pain still lingers. It may "die down" for a while, but it will raise its ugly head, in the same form or another one, later. And, most of all, I know that people DO change because I have changed so much. I used to be a racist. I used to be a homophobic. I used to be a completely different person than the "me" I am today. Maybe not many people change, but some people change and a few change drastically, and everyone has the potential for that change. To me, that's one of the most beautiful things about Humanity- how adaptable we are, how much we can grow and learn. You never know when others are ready to change (and people certainly change at their own pace and in their own time) but in order to help your fellows grow and learn, you have to look at each one of them with hope. You have to see their potential and carry on as though they, like you, are working to be a better person. 

So, it is in the spirit of human potential that I do not, "Just ignore it." Instead, I choose to shed light on this pain. I'll start with an offer of heartfelt apology to anyone I offended by attending Brent's funeral. I never expected that my attendance would in any way add to your pain. I apologize if it seemed that I tried to usurp their place in the procession. Maybe I shifted out of park early and my car moved just a bit, maybe I saw a gap and thought it was the end of the procession when it was not, but I assure you, I did not try to jump in front of  anyone in rank or in line. My intent at every second, was to be the last car in that procession, because I knew I might choose to leave the graveside first. I wanted to park in one of the last spots so that I would be guaranteed to get out early if I decided to. I wasn't going there to socialize, I was going to say goodbye, and that is what I did. I said goodbye to a man who didn't exclude me. I said goodbye to a man who would have been 100% okay with me attending his funeral. 

But I think he'd also be okay with this apology. There are those that will rage at me for apologizing. They will say, "This is not who you are!" To them I say, "It is not who I was, but it is indeed who I am now." Brent understands. I could have gone to the empty lot where the high school is and said goodbye. I could have gone to the playground at our elementary school, which was the first place I ever saw him, and said goodbye. I could've said, "See you later, Brent," from the chair where I watch my aging parents, and I feel he would've got the message. He would've heard me. He is now everywhere. I did not need to go to a funeral, and I truly wish I had not. 

 As for my "rattletrap car". Sorry, but I won't apologize for her. I am sorry if her presence (or mine) disturbed anyone, but I won't apologize for the car, exactly, because I like my car. Her name is Bridget Wendy Ninja. My grandson and I named her and we've made a lot memories in that car. We sing and tell stories in there. We go cool places. She gets us, or sometimes just me, from point A to point B, rather dependably. She's got a sweet sound system, and the a.c. works great! And, as an added bonus, she lets me know which people look down on me for deciding that the riches I wanted in life were experiences and relationships rather than money and nice cars. She's like a "watch your back" alert. She's pretty awesome that way. Maybe one day the person I offended will also decide that life experiences and relationships are the ideal riches. Maybe someday that person will accept my apology and not pour salt in the next person's wounds. That is my hope and my prayer; that is my reason for writing this. 

 People do change.

They Curse Themselves (a poem)

They wound me. 

Their words sting. 

Like small, dying bees. 

Desperate but weak. 

The intention hurts the most. 

What did I do to inspire contempt? 

Why hurl word-weapons my way? 

Wounding one who would not wound them?

 

They wound me. 

Their words sting, 

But they curse themselves with the unnecessary bitterness. 

A week from now I will barely feel the bite. 

A month from now the story may even make me laugh. 

A year from now I will be carrying the lesson of whom I can trust, 

And will have set down the pain of disappointment. 

I will not own those words. 

Those hard, resilient words will still belong to them, 

They will be following them, 

Everywhere they go, 

Choking their throats, 

Flying about their faces, 

Blinding them to the truths and the beauty of life. 

 

They wound me. 

Their words sting, 

But they curse themselves.

IT'S HIGH TIME

Someone in my inner circle shared an observation pointing out that the deaths of soldiers go unacknowledged while we debate the appropriateness of a Christmas song. The observer seemed surprised, their statement on the verge of needing a question mark instead of a period. I think the unknown author was expressing complete puzzlement over this situation, and I wholeheartedly understand. It does pose a huge question: Why do we ignore our fallen soldiers? We'll put up monuments years later but, how many soldier's deaths do you hear of while the grief is still hot in their mothers' veins? Not many,  though soldiers leave us every day. 

The near-silence on the subject of the fallen military once struck me as odd too. But after a bit of ruminating, it makes perfect sense. The answer is clear but makes me extremely uncomfortable. I hope it will do the same for you. Let's examine what would happen if each death was reported and widely spread across our newspapers and social feeds as our soldiers fell. Since July 2018 (five months ago, as I write) the powers that be admit to over 2,300 US deaths in the Afghanistan War. (More than 20,000 have been reported injured over the course of this war. Many of those injuries are horrific, and all of them matter, but let's stick with the deaths for now. I think the deaths alone will more than prove my point.) Right now, those 2,300 deaths are just a number. They are part of the nameless, faceless masses. You are possibly shocked by that number, probably saddened, but very few humans are capable of grieving for those lost souls by the statistics alone. 

Now, imagine for a moment that we've read the names of every one of those 2,300 plus over the last five months. Imagine that people have been inspired by these names and took that inspiration and used it to find and share photos of these fallen soldiers, and that often we've read their stories. Over these few short months, you've become acquainted with their motivation for joining the military, with who they loved and why they loved them; you've watched videos of their parents crying, their children alone, their spouses struggling along without them. Suddenly, you too are grieving. These numbers became names, the names became stories, the stories became human beings; you are staring at so many painful and ugly losses. You're broken and unsure. Now, you're less inclined to think about joining the military. You're more inclined to become politically involved. Some of you dig, and read, and learn. These bright people become more educated and informed. They realize Iraqi parents cry too. They become a voice and  share the reality that war is a game played by the wealthy and lost by the underprivileged. You read these accounts and see the truth in them. You feel your own brand of discomfort for encouraging this game with your patriotic zeal or your silence. You feel shame because you were as brainwashed as all the other kids pledging to die (and kill) for an abstract idea, for a piece of cloth. Your nationalism and patriotism shift and you move toward becoming a world citizen. Then, the next time Preston Willcott the third and the shiekh of all sand covet each other's power, or money, or oil, or have any stupid disagreement, they may have to recruit their friends' children to fight their wars. You may see senator's sons and diplomat's daughters facing off on the battlefield. Or, even more unthinkable, Preston the third and the sheikh may have to send their own progeny off to fight! That will never do! They are not pawns in the chess of war! They are queens, yes. They are even bishops, and rooks, and knights, but never pawns! They are never disposable... like OUR children! We are pawns; our progeny are pawns. 

So, the powers that be work on never sending their own children to war. They convince the pawns that their beloved country is the best and their way of life is under attack. They keep an eye on the media. They publish questionable statistics on the DL. They allow a little opinion piece about an injured or dead soldier to go unchallenged, especially if it inspires patriotism, but too much on the wages of war and someone will call the editor, or the publisher, or the owner of the station. Suggestions will be made or orders given. If these fall on deaf ears a new editor or publisher may be sitting there in a matter of days. Perhaps the new editor will not play the game correctly and pawns will rebel.

And here's the hard part: we help them. We like to feel correct, superior, connected. We like to imagine that our mothers cry saltier tears than Afghan, or Russian, or German mothers, that our fathers sit longer by the graveside, that our way of life is the best. We don't like to feel duped or in danger. We don't like the discomfort of coming up from drowning in red, white, and blue. It's easier and less embarrassing to just sit here underwater with all these other flag wavers. Drowning isn't that bad! Right? For the Good American Christian, it's hard to face that God isn't a patriot. Even harder to admit that God's not an American. The idea that Jesus died for North Koreans seems a bitter fact to rest on the American tongue. But I urge to accept that it is still a fact. 

A very wise man once told me, "God is in unity. Satan is in division." (Wade O. Kennedy) In fact, that was the very statement that made me realize just how wise he was. Patriotism and nationalism are divisive. They separate and cause strife. Being a citizen of the world is uniting. 

I've come to believe that drowning in red, white, and blue just might be a sin. So, bring on the names of the fallen, and the photos, and the stories. Make these people real for us all. Bring on world unity. It is high time!

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DOMESTIC GODDESS, ROSEANNE BARR

Dear R.B. 

I first want to thank you for a show, and a character, and a person that entertained and educated so many of us so well. I know that, while you did not do it alone, you were pivotal to an amazing slice of honesty and openness that changed America and the world for the better. Both through your show and your stand up persona, we learned to be more thoughtful, more tolerant, more kind. Granted that doesn't give you a pass to now say or do anything you want without repercussions, but it should be remembered; it should mean something to America and it should be taken into consideration when deciding whether or not to vilify you. I took it into consideration. I will not hate this woman that I've so often observed fighting for justice, and equality, and kindness. Your ideas and your show helped me personally to overcome homophobia, racism, and abusive relationships. Thank you. You are, at your core, a kind-overcomer and I’ve learned much about tolerance, survival, and thriving from you. And now, as someone you have helped, as a fellow overcomer, I want to urge you to get help with any issues that may be overwhelming you right now. It is easy to see that things are difficult for you. I just watched a recent YouTube video that ended with you screaming about how you “thought she was white”. You are stressed and overwhelmed. You have admitted that prescription drug use played into the very harsh words you sent out. I want to urge you to begin stepping back from those drugs, as far back as possible! I don't want to lose your light and all your potential to the shadow of drugs! Remember all the light and lives that we as a race (the human race is the only race I believe in) have lost to drugs and alcohol. Remember them and please step back before it is too late! 

You and I have both struggled with depression, anxiety, and DID. Such things can rear their heads again, years after we thought we had tucked them into the safe corners of our life. Believe me, I know. Please, get back into therapy! We all lose our way sometimes. It's just most of us don't do it on Twitter with the whole world paying close attention. You talk and tweet about things that other people largely call “conspiracy theories”. Most of us consider these unproven. It smacks of paranoia when someone becomes convinced that one of these theories is a serious worry. It reeks of paranoia if they become convinced of two or three. You, Roseanne speak of more than three. Maybe there is some truth to some of them. I certainly don't know everything. Perhaps you are privy to information I've never seen. I just don't know. But I'll tell you what I DO know: I know that ranting about them without proof makes you seem paranoid, and even more importantly, I know that there are issues we can both agree are very real that could still use your help. Women need you. Children need you. Men need you. Minorities need you. Homosexuals need you. Animals need you. Flint Michigan needs you. Etc! There are so many for sure real problems out there! And for many years you were on top of them! In truth, before your association with the current POTUS, anyone could see that you were fighting the good fight and standing up for women, homosexuals, and minorities all over the world. Only a fool would have denied it! But supporting a man that clearly has no respect for women, children, minorities, homosexuals, and the disabled makes people question your true motives. I can see why you might think his words are just words. After all, he's an entertainer and you're an entertainer and sometimes entertainers say some crazy shit, huh? But I want to make just two points to you. 

 1.) He has given us not only his own confessions and harsh words with which to judge him, but we've seen many horrible actions by this same individual. 

 & 2.) Entertainers rarely make good leaders. They are very important. They shed light on the dark subjects. In many ways, they show the leaders where to lead! But the jester or the bard loses all their power and are completely out of their element if you put them on the throne. (That being said, you would have made a far superior President to the one we have now!) 

You say you're not racist and I believe you. But now I urge you to stop supporting a racist. You say you're for equality and justice. I urge you to stop supporting the billionaire that only cares about money and other billionaires. Do you remember what it's like to the little guy? Well, this POTUS doesn't, he's NEVER been there, and he's shitting all over our little guys. He's everything you're not. He dislikes the poor, and women, and homosexuals, and minorities, and the disabled. He stands for the monied and the macho. He takes power from the weak and gives it to the strong. I have ABSOLUTE faith that you will see through him someday; I pray that day is soon. We could really use you back in the fight for justice, and equality, and kindness! Thanks for reading.  

I'll leave you with some of the wisest words any writer ever shared: “You can always get better. Nobody can stop you from getting better, and nobody can stop you from trying to make something right.” Roseanne Barr

 

THERE'S MY DAD!

My dad is a preacher, a horse lover, a sportsman, a father of adoring daughters, a miner, a taxi driver, and so much more. He is still all these things, though some of them he has not been able to do in a few years, like riding horses and playing baseball. I struggle to remember that the vital youth he was is still inside that older person I see now. That's still the man who rode a bull many miles so he could be home before dark with my mother, his young city bride. (She was afraid to face the dark Virginia mountains alone, and he was determined to be there for her before dark.) He is still the same man that raced with deer and outran pickup trucks on a mare named Trigger. He's the same man that held my toddler arm tenderly in one hand while drawing the other back in a fat fist, threatening the guy that had scooped me up and terrified me. 

As he ages, he occasionally seems like a different man, but he isn’t. It can be tough watching your parents age. You remember when they were stronger, faster, more vibrant in many ways, but I made a realization recently that helped me deal with seeing this change in my parents. Maybe it can help you too. I attended my great nephew Max's basketball game and realized that one of the reasons I so love to see him run fast and play with such passion is because I know that he gets some of that fighting spirit and athletic prowess from his great grandfather, my dad. I was shouting and screaming encouragement when it hit me: There goes part of my daddy, flying down that court. Max has some of my dad's DNA. Those genes are as firmly a part of Max as his hair and teeth. And let’s not forget, the learned behavior that Dad taught his daughters, and the daughters (and Daddy) taught the grandkids and great grandkids. 

By nature and nurture, Max carries my dad, and the rest of us, right down that basketball court. He trips over the genes when he nearly punches a rival player and he leans on the learned behavior when he reins in that family temper and acts like a proper sportsman. Max’s big brother Isaiah rides horseback, fierce and free, and I know it's my pop’s genes that urge him on. There is Max/there is Dad. There is Isaiah/there is Dad. When my sister Sandi is up to her elbows in the flower beds, as a labor of love for our mother: there is our daddy! When my sister Lila bows her head to pray earnestly: hello Pop! When I open my mouth or take pen in hand to share a story or a common sense idea: there's my dad! When my host of nieces and nephews (and great niece and great nephews) push themselves and work like mules, or tell a joke and get that mischievous gleam in their eyes, or use good common sense, or slip into the dark mouth of the mines, or are kind but firm, or raise their children with great love and affection, I see my daddy as surely as I see those nieces and nephews. 

These days, I make an even greater effort to celebrate the activities and accomplishments of each generation, knowing that I have double the reasons to cheer for Max’s mad court skills and Isaiah’s cowboy antics. I am not only supporting my beloved nephews, I’m supporting what I love about their ancestors and mine. I’m holding fast to the part of my dad that is most vibrant and active. He is in all of us to varying degrees, and so is my mother. I think about her influence a bit less often because her life has changed much less. Many of the things my mother enjoyed, and that seemed to define her, she is still able to do. But I rejoice when I see her radiating out of her family. I smile at my mother’s sure presence when Sandi reads, when Lila sings, when I open my mouth to defend an underdog, even when I too may be an underdog. She shines out of all of us as surely as Daddy does. 

Our elders stay with us if they share DNA with us or if they taught us anything, and I take no small amount of comfort in knowing both of those facts. I have children I birthed that, Thank God, are stuck with me! And I have many people that I share no DNA with, and yet I will to be with forever. My grandson, Jackson is not a blood relative, but when he tells a story and his imagination takes control and his eyes get wide, I clearly see me. When he turns the pages of a book gently, I see me. When he tells his mother he’s going to grow up and be a witch, I know he means, “Just like my Mamaw” because I have told him repeatedly that his Mamaw is a good witch. Other people see my influence in him as well. My husband once said, “You’ve shaped that boy forever.” I hope it’s true, and I hope it’s for the better. Lord knows, I’ve tried. I hope Jack has as much fun with our wild imagination as I have had and continue to have. I know that as he carries me down that winding tale, he also carries my mother and my father, my sons, my husband, my sisters, and many more. I can only encourage and brain-yell from the sidelines: Carry on Jackson. Carry on! Hopefully he, and those he nurtures, will carry us all boldly into the future.

DEAR CHRISTIANS, JESUS WAS/IS POLITICALLY CORRECT

If you ask my niece what being politically correct means, she will tell you if refers to people refusing to allow others to express their beliefs. If you ask me what it means, I'll grab a dictionary, because just as the word "Christian" doesn't equate with "warmonger", though many on the far left think so, being PC doesn't mean what the far right tries to say it means either. 

Both are wrong. 

Webster says: Definition of politically correct : conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated. 

Following that definition, being politically correct means being thoughtful, not casting the first (or second, etc) VERBAL stone. It's kind. It's Christianly. It's exactly WJWD. So why do so many Christians decry it? Because their leaders do. 

If you give it some thought, you can agree that Jesus was being politically correct when He drew in the sand and defended the woman brought to Him for stoning. He was being PC when He spoke to the woman at the well. He was being politically correct when He told us about the good Samaritan, when He associated with tax collectors, prostitutes, etc. He accepted and was kind to people that did not follow his rules because He knew and knows that you don't win souls by being cruel and judgmental, which is exactly what is left when you go backwards to the days where we all said nigger and had our own water fountains - cruelty and judgement. 

Still, I can't get ultra conservatives to understand that. I also can't seem to get it through to them that if the phrase "politically correct" specifically means something different than what you're talking about, and it does, then you desperately need a new phrase because you're only breeding confusion. I hate it when liberals call the warmongers and KKK nuts Christians, and I hate it when conservatives act like PC is evil. Both scenarios are equally wrong and play into the divide between good people. 

God is about unity. 

Christ was as liberal as He was conservative. Some might have a point if they claimed He was much more liberal than conservative, but I will be one of the first to point out that there are ideas worth conserving and Jesus upheld many of those, so He could easily be seen as both liberal and conservative. 

In light of that, let's strive, if we call ourselves Christians, to be Christ-like. Let's liberate people and conserve decency. 

And most of all, let's throw away all the preconceived ideas and the labels that divide us.

IN DEFENSE OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Political correctness is a hot button lately, thanks to certain remarks from a high profile politician, but it doesn't matter if Obama said it, or Trump implied it, or the queen of England decreed it: political correctness does NOT mean "it's wrong to share your beliefs with others". It simply means it's wrong to be cruel or to discriminate against other people who are free (just like you and I are free) to believe as THEY wish. 

Yes, sometimes PC seems excessive. In my own humble opinion it sometimes gets excessive (I shouldn't say "American" or "mother'?!) but so does religion, parenting, politics, and many other potentially good things that humans tend to be passionate about. It takes vigilant, deliberate thoughtfulness to keep humanity on an ever improving path. It's tricky! Going downhill and backwards is easy! Improving and trudging uphill is not. 

It's important to remember, now more than ever, that PC was created to keep us be kind. "We can't hear one another when we're engaged in a yelling match," and not being PC (name calling and being unkind) is one of the quickest ways to start a yelling match! We've been there and done that. Let's not go backwards!

Use the link below to access a great article on this subject.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-dawn-turner-column-political-correctness-20150812-column,amp.html