Author: Barb Woolard

Categories
In the News

Bathrooms and Wedding Cakes

You’ve heard about Job, the only gentile guy who has his own book in the Old Testament. He’s the one people talk about when they say “She has the patience of Job.” Job got the reputation of having a lot of patience because he went through a lot of suffering and loss without ever renouncing his faith in God. The story begins with a kind of wager between God and Satan: God tells Satan to check out his “blameless and upright” servant Job, Satan says he bets he can get Job to renounce his faith, and God grants him limited ability to try. After losing his children, all of his live stock, and everything else except his wife, Job is left sitting in the ash heap trying to make sense of all that has happened. Oh, yeah, he also has boils all over his body, head to toe, and has been scratching them like crazy; so you can imagine how he looks. We could argue about whether he demonstrates much patience, but he clearly retains his faith and does not denounce God throughout the ordeal.

While Job is sitting in the ash heap, three of his friends show up to console and comfort him; their names are Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Upon seeing their wealthy, powerful friend reduced to this broken, boil-covered, grieving mess, they barely recognize him. For the first seven days, the friends don’t speak at all; they just sit there with Job, keeping him company. So far, so good. After Job finally breaks the silence, one of them starts to speak, and the situation goes south from there. Because it’s assumed by all present that Job’s condition has been inflicted by God, the three of them, in turn, attempt to defend God’s actions, explain why these things have happened to Job, and persuade Job to repent so that all of his troubles will go away.

Eliphaz speaks first, reminding Job the things which have happened to him don’t happen to people who are as good as he is reputed to be; therefore, it’s obvious he’s been hiding something, and the best thing he can do is ‘fess up and the sooner the better because that’s the only way out of his situation. Next, Bildad takes his turn, pretty much echoing what Eliphaz has said. Finally, Zophar adds his agreement that Job’s distress is God’s judgment for unknown wrong doings and adds that Job is lucky he didn’t get even worse (which would have been . . . ??). The conversation is much longer, of course, covering about 39 chapters; but this is the essence. What these three are doing is expounding traditional wisdom, which is that those who do right prosper and those who do wrong suffer the consequences of their wrong doing. There are no exceptions. Period. And they affirm that principle to be true because they speak on behalf of God.

Well, the best part of the story happens when God shows up again in the last chapter. If these guys had been speaking the truth, what should happen at the end is God should thank them and demand repentance from Job. What really happens, however, is the exact opposite. God says to Eliphaz, I’m mad at you and your two friends because “you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has.” Take that, you three!!! He then orders them to make a burnt sacrifice and plead with Job to pray for them because Job’s prayer is the only thing that will get them off the hook, and God reiterates that everything they’ve been saying is pure bologna. Well, that’s an interesting turn: the guys who thought they were speaking the mind of God are wrong and the guy who didn’t know what the heck was going on but trusted God through it all anyway is right.

You’re probably wondering about now what the point of this little story is. I know I would be. Have you ever noticed when a social issue comes up for public discussion, the people who speak first and the people who speak loudest are a certain group of Christians? I have. They enter the conversation for the sole purpose of telling us what God thinks about it–a lot like Job’s buddies. They speak with authority and confidence because that’s how they’ve been trained to think and to speak. They’re not open to considering any variation on their preconceived conclusions; therefore, they don’t really want to have a conversation, only to inform the rest of us who are not as privy as they are to what God thinks. I say again, I am a Christian, so my critique of the state of Christianity comes from one who has no intention of leaving but would like very much to see a change of attitude.

Here is a partial list of issues about which the Bible says nothing: the right to bear arms, abortion, public restrooms, same-sex marriage, wedding cakes, who should be president, and gender identity. I’m not saying we can’t have opinions on these issues, only that we should leave the Bible out of it because they’re not in there. You can cherry pick a verse or two to try to make God support what you believe, but you’re just going to end up looking silly.

One current subject the Bible does mention is homosexuality. This subject comes up a mere six times, and the passages most often referenced are Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13. Although both verses straight-up call homosexuality an abomination, the same passages also order that those who commit this “abomination” should be put to death. Surrounding verses say people should not have sex with animals (I’ve always wondered who has to be told this, but I don’t think I want to know), people shouldn’t have sex with close relatives (also not necessary to mention), a man shouldn’t have sex with a woman during her period, we should not go to fortune tellers, people who dishonor their parents should be put to death, people who commit adultery should be put to death, a man who sleeps with both his wife and his mother-in-law should be burned to death, people should follow all the rules regarding eating meat from burnt sacrifices, farmers should not harvest their entire crop but should leave some around the edges for poor people to pick, one should not hate any of one’s relatives, no one should hold grudges, everyone should love their neighbors as themselves, animals owners should prevent cross breeding, planters should not sow two kinds of seed in the same field, no one should wear garments made of two different materials, people should not have sex with slaves, no one should not eat the fruit of the trees they plant until the trees are at least five years old, people should not get tattoos, and a lot more stuff. These days, we don’t execute anyone for adultery, disobedience to parents, or homosexuality; we plant as many kinds of seed in our fields as we want and don’t leave any of the harvest for poor people; we wear garments made of mixed fibers; we do hold grudges; we do get tattoos; we don’t love our neighbors as ourselves. But dammit, those gay people are an abomination because God said so in Leviticus! Every other rule in the whole passage is deemed culturally specific, but that ONE is for all time.

Again, I respect other people’s opinions. I just don’t respect people who–like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar–think they have a monopoly on knowing the mind of God or who act on their opinions by showing hatred and intolerance toward other human beings. No one has a monopoly on knowing what God thinks! I have a great deal more respect for people like Job who admit they don’t understand everything and realize we’re all just muddling our way through trying to figure things out while we hold steadfastly to whatever anchors us in a confusing world.

And here’s another thing about God’s spokespeople: they like to say things like “Fight the good fight!” and “God is on our side!” and “God hates _____________ [fill in the blank].” If the fight is not founded on clear principle, it’s NOT a good fight! And who said God’s on your side? Can you prove that? I don’t want God on my side because I don’t always know what the heck I’m doing. My understanding of the Christian faith is that I’m supposed to be on God’s side, not vice versa. And how do you know what God hates? What makes you right all the time? And if I really am on God’s side, I will do my best to follow the example set by Jesus: I’ll love my fellow human beings, I’ll try to help those who need help, I’ll humbly attempt to set a positive example for others to follow. I won’t waste my time shouting about bathrooms and wedding cakes. I’ll make my own choices and form my own opinions regarding social issues, but I won’t pretend to have the ear of God or to have a monopoly on speaking God’s mind on those subjects. If I have a point to make, I’ll make my point without dragging God into something on which God has been silent.

Things didn’t end well for the three guys who thought they knew exactly what God thought about everything, so they’re probably not the best example to follow. I wonder what would happen if God showed up in real life as in parables and declared who’s right and who’s wrong. I bet some people would be surprised. To paraphrase Jesus’ words, all you really need to know is this: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Just loving our neighbors–all of them!–would solve most of our problems, so why aren’t we doing that instead of shouting about bathrooms and wedding cakes?

Categories
Politics

The Real Tragedy of Donald Trump

Ever since that fateful day, June 16, 2015, when Donald Trump—heretofore business mogul, beauty pageant owner, reality TV show star, NYC playboy—made his dramatic descent of the escalator in Trump Towers and announced to a surprised and amused world that he was ready to expand his resume by becoming President of the United States and leader of the free world, I—like everyone else paying attention—have been amused, appalled, bewildered, and infuriated. But after running that gamut, and still feeling all of those except the amused part (this is no longer funny!), I also feel deeply sad and disturbed because it’s become increasingly obvious Donald Trump is the effect, not the cause of our dire situation. Our country was ripe for a buffoon seeking the presidency to be taken seriously and voted for because of a half century of declining standards and failure to address systemic problems which are now rising to the surface in a way we haven’t seen in decades. And what the events of the last year have revealed to us about our standards and about the state of the Union is downright heartbreaking!

The person whom one of our two major parties is about to officially nominate as their candidate for the presidency of our country has regularly been labeled liar, racist, misogynist, xenophobe, birther, anti-Semite, hater of all Muslims, and inciter of violence. He has lawsuits pending against him for charges which include fraud, rape, and rape of a minor. He says he’ll bring jobs back to our country when it’s a well-documented fact that he himself has outsourced jobs in his various businesses. He says he’s for the working person but spent big bucks to prevent his housekeepers in Las Vegas from unionizing (he lost!). He boasts of his business success, but his corporations have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy four times. He wants to ban immigrants but has employed immigrants in his businesses (and married two of them). He claims to be worth ten billion dollars, but most economists believe his actual worth is far less; and he admitted his worth fluctuates by the day, dependent among other things on his mood (What the . . . ???). He refuses to release his recent tax returns even though doing so has been common practice among presidential candidates for decades. He proudly proclaims himself the King of Debt but boasts that he’d “do great” handling the national economy. He yammers on endlessly about his greatness, but everyone who knows the slightest smidgen about psychology immediately pegged him as the biggest narcissist ever to disgrace the national stage. He has repeatedly demonstrated his utter ignorance of history, politics, government, international relations, and everything else with which a president must be intimately familiar. Just this week, when someone asked him what he would do to protect the Article I powers of the Constitution, his answer could not have made it any more obvious that he’s never even studied the Constitution: “I want to protect Article I, Article II, Article XII.” Great, Donald! There’s just one problem with that: Article XII doesn’t exist. He also demonstrates with each passing day his complete lack of interest in or effort toward learning any of those things.

His rallies will be the subject of discussion for decades to come, giving historians plenty of material for analysis. Who remembers a previous presidential candidate giving childish names to each of his opponents? Who has heard a presidential candidate swatting away a mosquito make the statement “I don’t like mosquitoes! OK, speaking of mosquitoes, hello Hillary, how are you doing?” I recall saying things like that, circa third grade, maybe fifth. But this is someone who thinks he’s qualified to lead the free world, and this is a campaign “speech” for God’s sake! And let’s talk about his “speeches.” What he calls “speeches” are meandering, incoherent, streams of verbal vomit whose main focus is defending himself and his latest mind-boggling screw-up. He sprinkles in dashes and pinches of love for his audience and for his country and how he’s motivated by his love for us all to do great things, but then he goes right back to his narcissistic boasting and his thin-skinned, insecure self-defense; and he makes it abundantly obvious he has no statute of limitations on grudges as he even rehashes comments and incidents from the primary.

A couple of nights ago, I listened to a whole hour of his rambling, and it was the most mind-numbing hour of my life! This week, Wednesday evening, having just received the best gift a Republican candidate could possibly be handed—the FBI decision on Hillary Clinton’s emails—he was in the catbird seat! He could have spent his entire time behind the podium hammering his opponent, her party, her husband, the FBI, the Justice Department (not saying I agree with popular opinions on these subjects, but from a Republican candidate’s viewpoint he had a veritable arsenal of ammunition). Instead, he randomly sprinkled in lame comments on this new information, relying mostly on his worn-out accusation of “rigged system.” (Quick side note: According to the “speech” I listened to this week, he thinks he invented the word “rigged” and pretty much owns intellectual property rights to it. Really. No joke.) The body of the “speech,” however, twisted and turned from defending his Star of David tweet and wishing it hadn’t been taken down to his contempt for the media and their “racist tendencies” to praise for Newt Gingrich and Saddam Hussein to raking up grudges from the Republican primary to how great the upcoming convention will be to slamming the Never Trump movement as well as all the other Republicans who have refused or have hesitated to support him. And I’m sure I left out a few things I missed during the times my ears became numb.

Not much of a resume, I’d say, for someone who wants to be president. You wouldn’t go up in an airplane piloted by someone who’s never flown a plane before or even seen the inside of a cockpit, you wouldn’t sign a consent for surgery by someone who never set foot in a medical school, you wouldn’t hire someone to design your house who has no knowledge of building and safety codes, you wouldn’t go to McDonald’s to purchase a gourmet meal, you wouldn’t ask your hair stylist to repair your car or your nail tech to fix your lawn mower, and you wouldn’t hire a five-year-old to take your wedding photos. But you’d hand the nuclear codes to an unhinged huckster who can’t put together a coherent sentence and has the temperament of a five-year-old. And about thirteen million people—more than have voted for any other single primary candidate in history—have seen this SAME information and said, “Wow! HE needs to be President!” And those people have gone to his rallies; they’ve listened to his word vomit; they’ve chanted “Trump! Trump! Trump!” until they must be hoarse; they’ve accosted protesters; and they’ve cast their votes.

All of that being said, the fact that a crazy person thinks he should be president doesn’t really disturb me. Look at all the crazy people who have claimed to be Jesus! As I said at the beginning, Trump is not the cause; he’s the effect. Donald Trump would not be where he is without the 13,000,000 people who have so far voted for him. And therein lies the REAL tragedy! In the greatest and richest country on earth, 13,000,000 people feel so angry, so betrayed, so powerless, so disenfranchised, so cheated, and so dehumanized that the rantings of a crazy man are words of hope and promise! If I were drowning, I wouldn’t take time to vet the person who threw me a rope. I wouldn’t care how morally corrupt or mentally deranged the person might be; I’d grab that rope! The fact that 13,000,000 people have reached the level of desperation that a rope from Donald Trump looks like salvation is tragic.

It goes without saying at this point that we need to make sure this con man never sets foot anywhere near the Oval Office, but equally important is our need to fix the systemic problems that have allowed him to get this close to that sacred territory. Anti-intellectualism, failing schools, failing churches, hatred, prejudice of all sorts, political polarization—these are our real problems. And they’ve flourished in the fertile soil of standards grossly reduced by George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, spineless media, Republican lawmakers’ rejection of a black president, young black men murdered without consequence, mass murders becoming commonplace occurrences, schools so bound to teaching how to pass a test that they don’t have time to teach how to think and live, and so many more.
But what are we doing to fix these real causes? What can we do to fix them? How can we prevent a repeat of the 2016 campaign debacle? Donald Trump will go away, and as long as he’s never elected, we can recover from the damage done so far. But the systemic issues that allowed his rise will not go away on their own. They’re going to require serious soul-searching and hard work, and we can’t start soon enough!

Categories
In the News

All Lives Matter, Except When They Don’t

“I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to know where my son was because I didn’t want him to die alone.”
Those are the haunting words of Philando Castile’s mother on Wednesday, July 6, 2016, when she rushed to the scene of her son’s shooting. But she didn’t reach her son in time to say goodbye or hold her baby one last time as he died; and 24 hours or more after his death, she hadn’t even been granted the human decency of being allowed to see her son’s body.

Only one day earlier, 1200 miles away, Alton Sterling’s family received the same devastating news: your son/father/love of your life has been shot and killed by police.

Black mothers live in fear of having their sons shot down in cold blood. All parents these days live in fear for their own lives and the lives of their children, but white mothers do not have the same fear for their sons that black mothers do; and anyone who says they do is either lying or grossly uninformed or just doesn’t care.

Sterling was the 558th person to be killed by police in the U.S. this year, according to The Guardian’s database, The Counted. Not all of them were black men, but the majority were. So what do we tell black mothers terrified for their sons’ safety? Should we tell them to give us a little more time to work all these things out? In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther quoted William E. Gladstone: “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.” So if we’re honest, we’ll say, “Sorry, grieving mother, protecting your son’s life just isn’t important enough to be moved to the top of the to-do list.”

King goes on in his own words: “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. . . . Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers . . . when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society . . . when you are humiliated day in and day out . . . when your first name becomes ‘nigger’. . . when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.” King wrote those words in 1963, and a half century later, his brothers and sisters are still waiting. And I can only imagine what the impatience level is by now after 393 years of waiting.

Alton Sterling was pinned to the ground and then shot at a range of only a few inches. Why was it necessary to pull the trigger on someone who was already pinned to the ground? Shooting should be the last resort, not the first. They supposedly thought he had a gun, but they didn’t see a gun, his hand was not touching a gun, and as the gun-rights folks love to remind us, “The gun can’t shoot itself.” So exactly how were these officers’ lives in danger? And why was some less extreme action not tried first? Something like, oh, holding Mr. Sterling’s arms above his head if they were so worried that he might pull a weapon out of his pocket? He was already pinned down. Would it have been so difficult to further restrain him? How about snapping on a set of handcuffs? Was that man’s life so expendable, so devoid of value that it was easier and more convenient just to shoot him, like squashing a bug? I think we know what his family’s answer to that question would be.

Philando Castile was driving a car with his girlfriend in the passenger’s seat and her four-year-old child in the back seat when a policeman pulled them over for a broken tail light. Mr. Castile informed the officer he had a gun and a concealed carry permit, but when he reached for his wallet in compliance with the law for traffic stops, the officer shot him in the arm and then proceeded to fire three more shots. I understand police officers’ fears; they get killed, too; and blue lives matter, too. But why is shooting so often the first thing they do instead of the last resort? While both of Mr. Castile’s hands were still visible and free of weapons, couldn’t the officer have given him more clear instructions about how to retrieve his license and registration?

And why, in both cases, was it necessary to fire multiple shots? Both men were shot at close range. IF any shots had to be fired, wouldn’t it have been enough just to temporarily disable them? Did they have to die? Were their lives not worth a little extra caution?

On May 31, 2016, Cincinnati Zoo officials made the call to kill a rare gorilla to save the life of a three-year-old boy who had fallen into the gorilla’s cage. On July 1, 2015, an American dentist shot and killed Cecil the Lion who lived in Zimbabwe, a trophy kill. After both of these incidents, social media lit up with outrage over the senseless murders of these beautiful animals. And I admit I, too, felt some of that outrage. For days on end, the diatribes continued, including death threats against Dr. Walter Palmer.

When Alton Sterling died, the first thing I saw on social media was a post by a repugnant bigot who expressed relief that tax payers of Baton Rouge will now have one less person to support. The next thing I saw was a meme suggesting that black guys would be a lot safer if they’d just wear belts to hold their pants up around their waists and graduate from high school. And then there was the meme showing some unsavory and irrelevant information about Mr. Sterling’s history.

So when a lion or a gorilla is shot to death, the weeping and outrage are heard all over the Internet; but when a 32-year-old or 37-year-old black man is shot and killed, the first responses blame the victim for not listening to the police, for dressing in a way distasteful to some, for dropping out of high school, for unrelated alleged crimes. Stereotypes drive public opinion and feed the fires of hatred and prejudice. Can someone please explain to me the difference between these two incidents and the scene in the current movie The Free State of Jones in which Newt Knight (Matthew McConaughey) finds the beaten and castrated body of “freed” slave Moses Washington (Mahershala Ali) hanging from a tree? The only crime any of these three was guilty of was being a black man.

To the mothers of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, I’m so sorry for your loss. My heart aches for you and for everyone who loved and cherished your sons. You and your families are in my thoughts and prayers. I’m the mom of a 42-year-old and a 40-year-old son, and although I have my worries and concerns, lying awake at night fearing a phone call informing me my son has been shot to death by police officers is not one of them. I’m ashamed that it is one of yours. You carried and gave birth to your sons just as I did mine; you held them in your arms as I held mine; you loved them and gave them your best just as I loved mine and did the best I could to raise them to be responsible men who can achieve their dreams. You should not have had to live in fear for their lives, you should not have been “plunged into the abyss of despair” by their early deaths, and you should not experience the indignity of victim blaming and the anticipation that justice will once again be denied. And I’m truly sorry, Valerie Castile, that your son had to die without you. I understand your impatience for justice, and I will use my voice as long as I can to speak for real liberty and justice for ALL.

Update: Since I wrote this article, we’ve seen an outpouring of anger and grief all over the country, by people of all ages and races. I woke this morning to read the news that five police officers were shot and killed and six more injured in Dallas. Blue lives matter, too! Violence does not solve violence! Killing people who had nothing to do with killing Alton Sterling and Philando Castile compounds the crime. But let us not forget, the vengeful action of one angry person does not absolve the officers who shot Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. It only leaves five more families to grieve and more people angry. We have to STOP killing each other!

Categories
Religion

Time to Come Out of the Bubble

Since my undergrad days in college, this has been one of my favorite quotations from John Milton:

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”

“Fugitive” means on the lam, living in seclusion, hiding. “Cloistered” means isolated, closed off from the outside world and ignoring its existence and its influence; monasteries and convents are cloisters. “Virtue,” of course, is the best human qualities—those deserving of our respect and praise. But Milton says he cannot praise or respect a fugitive, cloistered virtue: that which is exemplified by people who live in isolation, who listen only to those who agree with them, whose every moment of life is spent in a controlled environment. And why does he not praise that kind of goodness? Because it’s never met its adversary, never “sallies out” or leaves the bubble long enough to see firsthand who its opponents are. It’s “unexercised”; it’s never flexed its muscles against a real opponent—just shouted from its safe little hiding place, reinforced by those likeminded people who share the cloister.

Milton says such people “[slink] out of the race,” the arena where the prize has to be won. And he says “that immortal garland” is available, but it comes at a price. You can’t win it from the safety of the sidelines; it can be won only by enduring the “dust and heat.” You’re going to have to get dirty.

Remind you of anyone you know? In the last few decades, this quotation has come to mind often as I have witnessed a group of people who in my opinion exemplify this description perfectly and who as a result have lost much of their effectiveness: evangelical Christians. Let me hasten to say I am a Christian, so I look at this subject not as an outsider but as one who loves the Christian faith and feels the wounds it is inflicting upon itself. In the eyes of those outside our faith, we’re all the same, even though of course in reality there are wide and deep differences among self-identified followers of Jesus.

I recall a good Christian friend telling me her husband—an ordained minister—was hesitant to attend certain Bible studies because “there are too many Christians there.” Obviously, he was also a Christian, but he recognized the pitfall of spending all his time exchanging affirmations with likeminded people. One does not learn to argue a case by speaking only to people who are already on one’s side. When you’re ready to exercise your faith, flex your muscles a bit, you have to talk to those who don’t share your view, AND you have to listen to them. Really listen.

Yet I know many people today who never “sally forth” from their cloister and enter the arena where the real race is taking place and where the prize is available to those brave enough to enter the fray. Their only news sources are Fox News and a few others approved by the grand poohbahs of evangelicalism. They have their own books. They have their Rush Limbaughs and their Glenn Becks who whip them into a frenzy and make them believe they’re staying informed. They have their own schools and colleges from kindergarten through baccalaureate—and beyond when possible—to protect them from hearing anything which contradicts their world view. And for the last few decades, they’ve had their own political party. Democrats are a tiny minority in most churches, and they’re usually viewed with great suspicion.

These Christians think they’re “fighting the good fight,” but in reality, they possess few effective weapons because all they ever listen to is what they already believe to be true, and the only people with whom they regularly interact are people who already think and believe exactly as they do. The evidence cited for their arguments is almost exclusively passages from the Bible, which are utterly wasted on their opponents. I taught my writing students the principle that evidence has to be accepted by the audience or it’s worthless. Think about it. If someone does not accept the Bible as an authority, you could quote the whole thing, Genesis to Revelation, and your audience would still be unconvinced because in their minds it’s not a valid source. So you can assume a huffy superiority and condemn the audience as ungodly people unworthy of your time, you can retreat into your cloister to pray they will eventually see the light and accept the Bible as proof (Good luck on that!), OR you can educate yourself (“sally forth”) on material whose validity is accepted by your audience. You don’t have to change your position, just know how to make someone see your point and maybe change their mind. I know that takes a lot more work, but it also has a better chance of winning you that “immortal garland” of success.

Time to come out of the bubble and into the arena. Live in the real world. Accept that the world has changed and that no one has all the answers to every situation. Accept that no one has a monopoly on knowing the mind of God. Read. Think. Talk to some people you don’t agree with and maybe don’t even like. Learn from them. And then just maybe you’ll win a prize or two.

Categories
Musings

Teach Me!

“Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” Bill Nye

I used to encourage my students to participate in class discussions by reminding them of what each of their individual experiences would bring to the conversation. Yes, we all are going to read the same piece, but each of you is going to see it differently because of the life experiences through which you filter this new information. And, I’d tell them, if we all talk to each other and listen to each other, we’ll all broaden our perspectives and walk out with a new and fuller understanding. As you can imagine, I had varying degrees of success with that line; but when it worked, it was a beautiful thing! I especially loved it when I learned from the students because their experiences added to my own perceptions.

I’ll never forget the time when a student’s input made me understand a part of a short story that had me totally confused. The story was “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara. In the opening paragraphs, the protagonist, Sylvia, describes the living environment, big-city slums, of herself and her friends. Among other things, she says this group of children find themselves spending much of their time during the day with a woman she calls Miss Moore, “while [their] mothers were in a la-de-da apartment up the block having a good ole time.” La-de-da apartment? Hmmmmm. I’m from Troy, Ohio. The only thing “la-de-da” ever meant to me was something fancy, upscale; but in this context, that definition made no sense at all. I was picturing these fine ladies sitting around eating watercress sandwiches and playing bridge, but that image didn’t jive at all with her other descriptions of winos along the streets and children’s play areas reeking of urine so strongly it would make them gag. So my first couple of times teaching the story I tried to skip over that part. Finally, I had a delightful young man in a class who turned the lens for me and brought that sentence into perfect focus. He was from New York City and knew immediately that a la-de-da house or apartment is the local drug users’ hangout. OH! Now THAT makes sense! Thank you for teaching me!

Real conversation is increasingly rare, especially as more and more of our interactions take place by means of electronic gadgets. Far from seeking to learn what others can add to our own perceptions and how they can broaden and deepen our understanding, we cling tenaciously to our own polarized views and have no desire to hear anything that contradicts or challenges those views. What passes for “conversation” today more closely resembles groups hunkered down behind their own bunkers, lobbing talking points like bullets back and forth—never listening to what’s being lobbed at them, just waiting for a long enough pause to lob their own talking point back. What a tragic state this is! How much smarter could I be if I assumed “Everyone [I] will ever meet knows something [I] don’t” and then eagerly sought to find out what I can learn from each person with whom I’m fortunate enough to cross paths?

Another favorite quote of mine is from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.” SO true! Many of us join sects (religious organizations) and parties (political organizations) to have someone else do our thinking for us and all we have to do is parrot the words of our esteemed leaders. It is possible to esteem and learn from our leaders and still think for ourselves. This is one of the things I love about being Presbyterian: we’re actually encouraged to think for ourselves and not simply repeat the company line, but I digress. More on that perhaps in another post. Back to Emerson, if all anyone does in a conversation is repeat the same old tired lines, without ever absorbing and processing any new information, it’s no wonder we don’t really talk to each other any more.

Add to that our need to be “right” and our utter disdain for anyone who sees the world differently and there’s a disaster waiting! We could name plenty of reasons to explain how we’ve arrived at this point: polarized religious and political views, blind following of certain leaders and opinion makers, unwillingness to read and think, laziness, failing education system, prejudice, intolerance—the list is endless.

We can’t even be polite in our disagreement any more. As our communication increasingly takes place from remote locations via the Internet, we don’t have to look our opponent in the eye; so we feel the liberty to say things I can’t even imagine saying to anyone’s face. I was in a Facebook conversation one day when a friend of a friend called me an idiot and suggested I pull my head out of my ass. Even though our standards of courtesy and respect are not what they used to be, I still can’t see someone looking at a total stranger face to face and being that rude and crass. And this attitude is yet another block to our finding out what that other person can teach us. I could have taught that young man some manners, just for starters, along with a few other things. And I could see he had ideas from which I could have learned a different perspective also, if he had been willing to speak calmly and to listen. Instead, I quickly deleted my comments and exited the discussion, since I learned long ago you can’t reason with unreasonable people.

But what a loss for everyone when our default view of human encounters is that anyone who doesn’t belong to my sect, my party, my tribe is fundamentally wrong and I (and my sect, my party, my tribe) are right. And it’s therefore my purpose in life to defend the views of my people against the onslaught of those other people’s lies. But really, what do I have to lose—what do you have to lose—by simply listening? At worst, you’ve spent a few minutes connecting with another human and granting that person the human dignity of being acknowledged and heard. At best, you’ve learned something. Learning is good.

Categories
Politics

Gun Cliches

I for one have grown weary of the clichés used against common-sense gun laws. You’ve heard them: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” “Guns don’t shoot themselves.” “The only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” “Bad guys will always find a way to get guns.” “Blaming the guns.” These are not arguments; they’re ways in which those who have no logical argument to defend their position attempt to make the opponent look foolish. People who utter these phrases ad nauseum are those who have accepted the NRA brainwashing that the Second Amendment to our Constitution gives them unlimited rights to own any type of gun as well as any type and quantity of ammunition they choose. They’ve also accepted the NRA/Fox News paranoia that they must staunchly protect that “right” because our government is their enemy who (a) wants to disarm all citizens and (b) once that goal is accomplished, will then place them into slavery, kill them all, or whatever the imagined threat may be. Could we all take a few deep breaths and have a conversation?

To begin, these clichés are not only inane, they’re insulting. But of course, when you have no logical argument, insulting the opponent is all you’ve got to work with. I don’t know anyone stupid enough to imagine that guns fire themselves; yet this one is typically spoken in a smug, gotcha tone as if the speaker imagines he/she has just uttered the wisdom of the universe and left the hearer permanently speechless. Not quite. Everyone knows it takes a human being to aim a gun at another human and to pull the trigger. What many of us want, however, is some common-sense restrictions on who is pulling that trigger and what is being aimed at. Shooting for sport is something very few reasonable people oppose. Protecting oneself and one’s family against genuine threats is also a pretty commonly accepted reason for owning a weapon. No one “blames the gun”; people devastated by the mass killings in our country blame the people using the guns, but some of us would like better ways of controlling who is allowed to use guns.

Here’s another clichéd response: We’ll never stop people bent on doing evil from obtaining guns, so there is no solution. In that case, I should remove all the locks on the doors of my house, because a bad guy who really wants to get in is going to do it anyway. Lots of people are quite good at picking locks and gaining entry. And if all else fails, the easiest thing in the world is to break a window, so why bother with locks and security systems? And why do I lock my car doors? Same as my house: locks can be opened with instruments other than keys, and windows are easy to break.

And while we’re at it, why bother trying to enforce our laws against stealing, rape, trespassing, identity theft, driving while intoxicated? People just keep doing those things every day, so why not just stop fighting it? We’re never going to stop them completely. We’ve tried and tried, but there is no solution; so let’s just save ourselves a lot of stress, time, and money and forget about those laws. And why stop there? Let’s just throw away our law books, since every law in the books has been broken thousands of times.

Years ago, someone attempted to break into my house while I was at work. My alarm scared him away, but a sheriff’s deputy came out to investigate. Since the final place the person attempted to gain entry was my kitchen window, which is in the back of the house, the deputy said it would be a good idea to put locks on my gates. His reasoning was that a locked gate won’t stop a determined burglar, since fences are pretty easy to climb (for some people); but he said criminals look for the easiest route, so any obstacle we can place in their way will act as a deterrent. Will locking my gates provide 100% protection against break-ins? Of course not. Nothing will do that. But I continue to place as many deterrents as possible in the way of would-be evil doers. Shouldn’t we do at least that much to save lives? We can’t save them all, but wouldn’t it be worth it to save SOME?

The biggest obstacle to common-sense reform is the all-or-nothing thinking that so dominates some elements of our current culture. Masses of people have fallen prey to some gross logical fallacies, particularly the black-white fallacy which is all-or-nothing thinking. Enter the cliché “Bad guys will always find a way to get guns.” Following that “logic,” if we can’t solve a problem 100%, we should simply do nothing at all. This is where our Senate has been for the past few years, and they failed us again in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in our modern history. I say 56 senators should be looking for new jobs after November!

The Second Amendment to our Constitution, in its entirety, is this: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Those 27 words, combined in a confusing sentence structure not common in modern writing styles, are at the heart of the whole problem.

The NRA and all of its sheep can quote the last 14 words in their sleep, but they ignore the first 13 as if they don’t exist. They’re admittedly confusing, but they’re part of the sentence, so they can’t be ignored. Grammatically, what this sentence says is “Because a militia is necessary for state and national security, people must be permitted to own guns.” In other words, we were originally given the right to own firearms so that we could protect our country from invaders. Since we no longer have militia, and the National Guard does not require troops to supply their own weapons, the Supreme Court in 2008, in District of Columbia vs. Heller, provided an interpretation more fitting to our modern life. That interpretation allows private ownership of firearms for “traditionally lawful purposes,” such as protecting one’s home. I can’t think of anyone in my acquaintance who disagrees with allowing certain types of firearms to be owned by sane people for lawful purposes. However, insuring that only sane people who want to hunt or to protect their homes get their hands on guns and distinguishing between weapons for military use and those for private use requires a reasoned and logical conversation, which many people refuse even to consider.

The bottom line is that the second amendment is not and never has been blanket permission for anyone to own any type of weapon he/she chooses or to stockpile weapons and quantities of ammunition which serve no other purpose than killing large numbers of people. Whatever happened to common sense?!

I know the second amendment gives us certain rights, but those rights are not absolute; it’s not all-or-nothing. Every right we have has limits. I grew up hearing the saying “Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” Kinda corny, but it sums things up nicely, I think. I have the right to own knives, but that right does not allow me to stab people; and since 2001, it has not allowed me to carry my knives on board an airplane. My right to own and use knives has limits. As a State of Florida licensed driver, I have the right to own and operate a motor vehicle; but I do not have the right to drive that vehicle across my neighbors’ lawn or through their living room wall, to crash it into another vehicle, or to run down pedestrians on the street or sidewalk. If I do any of those things, or if I fail to pay my insurance and annual registration fees, my right to operate a vehicle will be temporarily or permanently revoked. Limits.

I also exercise my right to private property ownership. I own a house; however, I have to observe the limits on the freedoms I enjoy as a property owner. My right to own property does not give me the right to refuse paying my taxes, to operate a business out of my home, to use my home for subversive gatherings, or to completely neglect my home’s maintenance. I have the right to worship and live by the faith I choose; but if my chosen religion practiced human sacrifice, the law against murder would supersede the dictates of my religion. The first amendment (the one right before the second) gives me the right of free speech; but I can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater unless I actually see a flame, I can’t publish libel or slander, and I can’t use my words to bully another person.

The second amendment has limits. It’s insane to parrot those last 14 words as if they give blanket permission to do whatever the hell we please. Placing limits on who can own firearms, what kinds of firearms we can legally own, how many of those firearms we can legally stockpile, and where we can legally carry those deadly weapons are common-sense matters which I have no reason to believe our country’s founders intended to preclude. And they’re no different from the limitations placed on our right to use knives, operate motor vehicles, own private property, follow our own religions, or speak what’s on our minds.

If we really grasp the fact that we’re in this together—Democrats and Republicans; liberal and conservative; Christian, Muslim, and atheist (and all the other theological positions); gay and straight; black, white, and brown; male, female, and the whole gender continuum—that we have a common stake in keeping our country safe and strong, we HAVE to start having real conversations. And conversation starts with listening, really listening, hearing what others think and respecting their thoughts and feelings and only after hearing and understanding, speaking a response that addresses those thoughts and feelings and doesn’t simply repeat the clichés and talking points that get us nowhere.

Maybe we could finally agree on common-sense laws that would not infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens but would limit the activities of those who would commit evil acts. As is, we can’t establish consequences for those who purchase weapons with the intent to do evil, because most of those purchases are LEGAL. Would new laws keep arms out of the hands of all people bent on wrongdoing? Of course not, just as laws against stealing, rape, DWI, etc., haven’t prevented people from committing those crimes. And yes, guns would be available on the black market, as are all forms of drugs. Yet we continue to fight against legalizing particularly deadly drugs because we figure we’re at least going to save SOME lives, even though we’ll never save them all. Reasonable gun laws would also save SOME lives, though definitely not all. Don’t you think we should do at least as much as we can do?

I have locks on my house doors. I lock my car doors when the car is anywhere except my own garage. I lock my gates. Could anyone with enough determination break into my house or steal my car? Of course. But as a sheriff’s deputy once told me, most criminals take the path of least resistance, so whatever road blocks we can set up will prevent SOME crimes. Not every would-be criminal would even know how to access the black market. Some would not have the money to purchase arms sold at the prices that market might demand. Some would be deterred by the difficulty of it all. Not all, but SOME. I believe every individual person is worthy of our protection, worthy of our saving as many as we can, even though it will never be all.

 

Categories
Film

Have We Learned Nothing?

Friday, June 24, was the date I’d been eagerly and impatiently awaiting for almost a year. The movie Free State of Jones was released, and I could hardly wait to get to the theater and be among the first to see this exciting story about events in Jones County, Mississippi, during the Civil War. I had a special interest in this film because I’d read the book by the same title, written by academic historian Victoria Bynum, and I knew my great great grandfather, Jasper Collins, played a key role in the events. Jasper was portrayed in the movie by Christopher Berry, whose admiration for his character results in Jasper’s appearing as the intelligent, stable, principled, and godly man he was. The leader of the group, Newton (Newt) Knight, was played by Matthew McConaughay.

Having anticipated the release for so many months, I expected great things, and the movie even exceeded my expectations. It is visually beautiful, masterfully acted, and a powerful contradiction of the Lost Cause myth which dominated the historical record of the Civil War for decades. No noble, genteel planters; no gracious magnolia-scented Southern belles; no smiling, happy slaves. In short, none of the romanticized “Gone with the Wind” version of Southern life and what caused the war. Just the raw truth of greedy rich people who bought, sold, and abused other human beings. And the Civil War was fought to protect their right to do all those things, NOT for states’ rights–unless of course you mean the right of states to continue slavery. And it dispels the idea that the South was one solid block. What took place in Jones County is representative of what happened in communities throughout the South.

The movie also takes viewers beyond the Civil War to emancipation and Reconstruction and the brutality and injustice to which people of color continued to be subjected in our country. At the end of my second viewing, I looked at my friend who had watched it with me, we shook our heads sadly, and I asked “What has changed?” We as a country like to believe we’ve conquered our racial prejudice, but I think you’d have to live with a bag over your head to really believe these problems are in the past. There’s simply too much evidence surrounding us every day to allow us the luxury of denying our racist attitudes.

Exhibit One: At least two of the films previewed before our movie began are about the same subject. And then just two days after Free State’s opening, Jesse Williams made his now-viral speech, in which he passionately declared:

Yesterday would have been young Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday so I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on 12-year-old playing alone in the park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich. Tell Rekia Boyd how it’s so much better than it is to live in 2012 than it is to live in 1612 or 1712. Tell that to Eric Garner. Tell that to Sandra Bland. Tell that to Dorian Hunt. . . . There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of. There has been no job we haven’t done. There is no tax they haven’t leveed against us – and we’ve paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here. ‘You’re free,’ they keep telling us. But she would have been alive if she hadn’t acted so… free.

Now, freedom is always coming in the hereafter, but you know what, though, the hereafter is a hustle. We want it now.

That last line is strongly reminiscent of Martin Luther King’s words in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”:

We have waited for more than 340 years [this was written in 1963] for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; . . . when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white’ and ‘colored’; when your first name becomes ‘nigger,’ your middle name becomes ‘boy’ (however old you are) and your last name becomes ‘John,’ and your wife and mother are never given the respected title ‘Mrs.’; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

Dr. King wrote these words in 1963, 100 years after the slaves were “emancipated” and 98 years after the 13th Amendment was added to our Constitution. One would think a whole century would be enough to change the attitudes of the privileged class, but now another half century has passed, and we still haven’t gotten it right. Why, 150 years after “emancipation,” is Jesse Williams still compelled to speak the damning words he delivered at the 2016 BET awards? Why, 150 years after “emancipation,” are my inter-racial couple friends still hesitant to hold hands in public? Why, 150 years after “emancipation,” does my dear long-time black friend tell me he knows where not to stop when he drives through certain Southern states?

Why, 150 years after “emancipation,” do black mothers live in fear of their sons being shot and killed? White mothers don’t live with that same fear; so why, 150 years after “emancipation,” is there still such a difference—such a gulf between the experiences of white families and black families? And how on earth, 150 years after “emancipation,” can it be that an openly racist man—whose ignorant and hateful words have given permission to his supporters to unleash their own repressed racism—won the nomination of one of our major political parties to serve as leader of the free world?

We’re long past due for some honest soul searching! It’s past time for us to drop the blinders and the denial and admit we haven’t learned a damned thing, and then it’s time for us to do something about our stubbornness, indifference, and hatred. We need to be better. We need to leave a better world for all of our children and our grandchildren. As Newt Knight says in Free State of Jones, we need to act “for our children, and their children, and their children’s children.” And we need to do it now.

 

Categories
Musings

Welcome to A Granny’s View of the World!

Hi! I’m Barb, and I’m a proud grandma who has been privileged to enjoy many decades of life and to witness much of the evolution in culture that has led to where we are today. It’s been a wild ride, and I think we grannies have a lot to share about what we’ve learned on the roller coaster of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

I recently had a conversation with my 30-something daughter about the fact that the world in which we live today and in which she is living her adult life and raising her children is so different from the world into which I was born, in which I grew up and received my education, and in which I made many of the choices that have shaped my life that I may as well have been transported to another planet. Think about it. If you, too, have been lucky enough to have made it to the Upper Decades (my name for the era of life age 60 and beyond), you know things have changed, and they’re still a-changin’! And even if you haven’t yet reached middle age (that’s the highest category to which I’ll admit), you also have seen a lot of change and felt its effects.

I was born into a world of early Baby Boomers. The moon was still made of cheese, and there was a kindly man up there—whose identity was the subject of many legends—who smiled benevolently upon us each night. Obviously these things were a charming mythology, but I was an adult when people actually visited and began to map the moon and returned with rocks, not hunks of cheese. I lived in a world of screen doors and no air conditioning, of families struggling to put themselves back together after being torn apart by World War II. I participated in the Cold War drills that required us to crouch under our desks in case of attack. I was raised by a single mom before single moms were common; I can’t recall knowing another divorced woman besides my mother. Our first washing machine had a wringer. My first job in high school was at the local “five-and-dime” store where we rang up sales on cash registers which you might see in museums today. They were not even electric! I learned to type and went all the way through college and graduate school using a manual typewriter. Personal computers were mythical machines which began making their appearance just as I graduated from my Master’s program. In my early teaching years, I typed tests on carbon and mimeograph masters and duplicated them painstakingly on machines that were messy and difficult. I had three children before I owned my first microwave—much less many of the other time- and labor-saving devices that fill my kitchen today.

As for social issues, during my youth no one talked about abortion or homosexuality. We barely even mentioned divorce, adoption, or babies born to unwed mothers. Oh, those things were always there, of course. We just didn’t talk about them. When one girl in my class got pregnant, her parents sent her to live with a relative until after the baby was born. Another girl stayed in town but had to complete high school “after hours” when all other students had left the building, and she was not allowed to march with us at graduation. And these penalties were not reserved only for pregnant girls; I remember a boy who got a Mohawk haircut and was kept in isolation at school until his hair had grown out to “normal.”

There were two women in my small Ohio town who were constantly seen together, and neither was ever seen with a man; so we whispered that maybe they were a couple, but we kept our speculation among ourselves. As for children who at that time were labeled “illegitimate” (What a cruel term!), the common story was that their parents were married but their fathers had died in the war. I remember the day my mom called my sister and me into our bedroom to tell us that the two boys across the street were not really war orphans but actually had living fathers (one apiece!) neither of whom had ever been married to their mother, who was raising them with the help of her parents. What?! And I remember my complete shock the first time I met a couple who I knew was “shacking up.” I was a young adult at the time. In the house where we lived during my last year of high school, the single woman who had the upstairs apartment had a frequent male visitor, but cohabitation was not yet a common practice.

I knew people who had guns, but they didn’t brag about them or tote them down Main Street or crow about their Second Amendment right. Our doors remained unlocked during the day, as did our car doors; and we slept with the windows open on summer nights. I recall a couple of locker inspections during my last year or two of high school to ferret out possible drug possession, but pre-1960, many of us were not quite sure what exactly all of that was about. The cool kids were still the ones sneaking cigarettes, alcohol, and sex. Long before mass murders became a weekly event, the 1959 gruesome farmhouse murder of four family members (later the subject of Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel “In Cold Blood”) was as shocking as it got.

I also witnessed the Civil Rights revolution of the 60s. I’ve seen the cruel “Whites Only” signs, the signs demanding passengers of color to take the seats at the back of the bus. I’ve seen the separate water fountains, the separate entrances, the places where people of color were refused admission by any entrance. A student once told me he’d seen some of these signs in a museum (ouch!). I saw them when they were hanging and being enforced. I know what Martin Luther King is talking about in those paragraphs of his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Oh, not in the same way he knew them, to be sure; but I saw the results when the signs were defied. When I was 17 years old, I was visiting my Alabama relatives, and a black woman who did some light housework for one of my aunts needed to be driven home; being a newly licensed driver, I jumped at any chance to exercise my new privilege, so I quickly volunteered. I was shocked when she refused to sit in the front passenger’s seat because she was riding with a white girl. No amount of persuasion on my part (and believe me, I tried!) would convince her to move to the front seat. My heart still aches for that woman every time I recall the incident. To think that a capable, intelligent woman was subjected to the indignity of believing herself unworthy to sit beside a 17-year-old is heartbreaking!

My grandmothers were wonderful women—strong, loving, and wise—who lived in a world even more remote from today’s than I did. They were adults and mothers several times over before they even had the right to vote. To many, 1920 sounds like ancient history; but to put it into perspective, my mother was born in 1922, a mere two years after women were included in the electorate. Her mother, my grandmother, was 33 in 1920; and since 1920 was a presidential election year, that means my grandmother was 33 years old when she cast her first ballot to elect the President of the United States. My father’s mother was 23 in 1920, so she was among the youngest women ever to cast a vote in a presidential election. My grandmothers, the women who changed my diapers and taught me to use a spoon, were contemporaries of the women whose courage and persistence won women this precious right which we have always simply assumed.

I could go on and on: party-line telephones, rabbit-ear 13-channel TVs, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, bobby socks, Elvis, “I Love Lucy,” “Ed Sullivan Show,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Lone Ranger,” duck tails, cars with large “fins,” country roads, dresses only for girls at school, drive-in restaurants and movies. But you get the picture. My question is how does one survive in an ever-changing world? And that question applies to people of every age. Change is confusing and frustrating sometimes; but change also presents amazing opportunities for learning, expansion, self-examination, and growth. We are constantly challenged to remain relevant and productive in a world where the landscape can be altered by a single event. It’s pretty overwhelming sometimes. How do we find truth, relevance, and influence in an evolving world? And how can we pass on something of value to our children and grandchildren who’ve never known any other world or any other values than the ones they see today?

Grandmas today are in pretty much uncharted territory. We’re being told “60 is the new 40,” “70 is the new 50,” and “80 is the new 60.” And I believe it! But with the hope of 20 bonus years comes the question of what to do with that valuable gift. My grandmothers expended most of their energy simply keeping up with life’s chores. I recall my Mississippi grandma often telling me about making 60 to 100 biscuits every morning to feed her husband and twelve children. And I’m not talking about the whack-‘em and rack-‘em variety from the grocer’s cooler. These were made from scratch without so much as a food processor to speed the work. After their children were grown, they spent most of their time continuing to care for their families and help out with the grandchildren. My sister and I spent a few months living with our Ohio grandma when we were young and our parents were still trying to get on their feet after our dad’s discharge from the army. She raised three of our cousins, and her house was pretty much a summer camp for grandchildren and great grandchildren until she died. And grandmas are still invested in their children’s and grandchildren’s lives; but they also have the time, energy, and hopefully good health to pursue other dreams and to remain active influences in our society.

As grannies, we’ve reached a mountaintop of sorts, and we have a panoramic view of the world that, sadly, has been denied to many. So some of us start blogs to share ideas and start conversations about politics, religion, cooking, crafts and art, relating to grown-up kids, having a positive influence on grandkids, surviving losses. I hope you’ll take this journey with me and join the conversation!

Thanks for stopping by,

Barb Griffith