Author: Sharron Burnett

Is it possible that we humans have become too sensitive about very personal and individual beliefs? Are we overreacting to comments or perceived slights that are more in our own minds than in the actual intentions of others? Are we seeing boogie men when they are not there? Do we just need to chill a bit and assume the best first and only get angry when it is totally clear that someone actually intended to insult or disrespect us?

I constantly read about outrage over individuals’ personal beliefs, particularly when it comes to religion. It reminds me of an uncomfortable encounter that I experienced when I first moved into my present home. My then next door neighbor graciously invited me to take a tour of her house as a welcoming gesture. She showed me around her rooms chatting about the neighborhood and inquiring about my life story. Her gesture was friendly enough but began to feel a bit invasive when she asked me about my religion and wanted to know where I intended to go to church. 

Because I am generally quiet about such personal beliefs I answered each question with brief replies that only allowed her to know that I am a cradle Catholic who is happy with my faith. I thought that would be enough to quell her insistence on probing my relationship with God but I was wrong. She announced that she too had been a Catholic but had grown weary of what she called all of the “genuflecting and unthinking reciting” of the Catholic mass. 

I simply smiled and demurred to her critique knowing in my heart that my relationship with God runs far deeper than such superficial descriptions. Still she kept pushing me to consider a better way of living by joining her church. Soon she had filled my hands with multiple brochures and invitations to accompany her to the next event just to try out some new ideas. She was forceful in her continued denunciation of what she assumed were my beliefs and insinuated that I was headed to a fiery end unless I was willing to change my ways.

To say was uncomfortable was an understatement because I found it difficult to imagine how she had jumped to so many conclusions about me and my spiritual life with only superficial information. Nonetheless I was respectful of her earnest efforts to proselytize me. I felt her zeal and did not want to extinguish it, but I also was not interested in changing my own carefully considered views. At the same time I was uncomfortable talking about my own religious views or even defending them with someone that I had only met a few minutes before. Sadly, my reserve led her to believe that I was somehow not particularly close to God and she surprisingly began to berate me for my apparent lack of love for Christianity urging me to see the light and mend my ways before it was too late. 

I knew she meant well but I also felt quite uncomfortable with her religious tirade and excused myself as soon as it was possible. She never spoke to me again, did not even wave at me. When she suddenly planted a “for sale” sign in her front yard I wondered if my reticence to discuss my faith had somehow insulted her. I knew by her comments when we parted that she was questioning my relationship with God and wondering if a misguided heathen had just moved into her world. 

This was not the first time that my stance on the privacy of my religious convictions has led to a kind of rebuke for me or for my children and grandchildren. Many of us have found ourselves being judged badly because of our unwillingness to reveal our deepest thoughts on God and religion. On the few occasions that we have done so with people that we did not know well, it has ended badly. I personally have been told more than once that God was no doubt concerned about me but it was not too late to beg for forgiveness and change my ways. 

I feel tremendously uncomfortable with people who insist that I am somehow spiritually defective because I do not wear Jesus on my sleeve and because I am more than willing to accept the deep devotion of those who have very different thoughts about God. I have somehow insulted some deeply well meaning and excited religious apostles who insisted on pushing me to find the true way. Such encounters have almost always led to grave misunderstandings about me along with pronouncement and predictions that I was headed straight to an eternal hell. All too often the sincerity of the person offering religious views that do not meld with mine caused them to pick up on my words and facial expressions to ultimately judge me as someone in need of salvation. They dissected my polite refusal to fall in line with their beliefs and interpreted my reticence as a kind of evil intent to insult them, and by extension, their God.   

The truth is that I always begin by assuming that they truly want to help me. I am not offended by their critiques of my spirituality but I don’t want to discuss my personal thoughts with them. In fact I find attempts to foist a single kind of religion on everyone to be invasive even as I understand that most of the people pressing for a more religious society truly have the best intentions. I simply believe that it is not proper for any of us to force our ideas on others. I am of the mind that I will model my faith as best I can in my daily actions but I am unwilling to insist that others choose my way of thinking. I honor each person’s choice and believe that the best way to deal with all of the diverse beliefs is to leave them out of the public domain. 

I am all for moments of silence in which people can pray or not, but I feel a bit uncomfortable when a group prayer implies that there is only one way to salvation. I don’t mind someone quietly praying with me or for me, but I also don’t mind if someone wants to walk away from such moments. When religious ideals become invasive, I flinch and often raise the ire of those who think that I am wishy washy or even a sinner for my unwillingness to judge others and then help them to find a canned version of God. 

How we view God or even reject Him should not be a contest and it definitely should not be governed by politicians. The history of the world has shown that using religion as a cudgel never works out well in any circumstance. I will quietly discuss my beliefs with a trusted friend as long as I do not offend that person if my views conflict with theirs. I will not argue with them or insinuate that because I think they are wrong they may be doomed for all time. I prefer a dialogue of mutual respect in which both of us learn about each other and leave loving each other even with our differences. I prefer assuming the best.

By the time I was eight years old I had lived in nine different homes in five different cities in two different states. My father was an adventurous soul who had spent his own youth moving from place to place while my grandfather followed the thread of construction work to wherever it led. Traveling was second nature to my father but my mother had grown up in the same house on the same street. While she mostly seemed excited about changing locations and seeing different people and places I think that she had become a bit weary of living without putting down roots. When my father died she quickly found a home that was affordable where me and my brothers spent the next many years growing up with a sense of deep connections in a neighborhood where everyone seemed to know everybody and safety was assumed. 

I enjoyed the security of living in the same spot and repeating the same journeys to school and church and stores. The relaxed routine of life was comforting after my father’s sudden death. My mother was wise to invest in a small but well built house near good people who would ultimately define who my brothers and I became. My childhood from the age of eight was predicable and overflowing with a sense that every adult I encountered was watching over me. 

I married a man who grew up on the same street from the time he was born. He lived across the from his grandmother and other relatives resided in houses only steps away. His mother had been born on that street and would stay until she was well into her forties when she inherited a larger home from one of her uncles in a different but nearby neighborhood. It was somewhat natural for both of us to seek a place to call home and then stay there for many years. 

We purchased our first house near Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas on Anacortes Street named after a city in Washington state. We were the “babies” on our block surrounded by neighbors with older children who had been settled there for awhile. Our wood framed home boasted three bedrooms and a single bathroom. The kitchen was large and airy, looking out on a backyard so huge that it seemed to go on and on forever. The once garage had been transformed into a den and a new spacious detached area for parking our cars and storing our hardware was just outside our backdoor. We had found a slice of heaven and imagined that we might live there forever.

Our little girls grew up on Anacortes Street ranging free with the many children who lived nearby. it was like a happy little village where neighbors looked out for each other and became like family. When the rooms of the house began to feel cramped we added a beautiful new den and a second bathroom while still having a yard so large that it was the envy of all who saw. We remodeled the kitchen and enlarged the bedrooms and felt undeniably content in our lovely home. 

Soon our daughters married and left for adventures of their own. The patter of grandchildren laughing and running through the long hallway kept the house bright and joyful but people who had lived there for decades like we had began to move one by one. We found ourselves surrounded by strangers who showed little interest in being neighborly. We reluctantly decided that it was time to move on when the two couples who had seemed like our surrogate parents made noises about retiring to other places. 

We looked to one of the suburbs of Houston for a new place to live and found a lovely house in Pearland. The building itself was magnificent and a thousand square feet larger than the one we left behind. Oddly the openness of the design made it more difficult to store our belongings and display our photos and art work but we eventually found places for everything we had brought with us. We spent the next twenty years making the structure a home. 

At first we felt somewhat lonely on our new street. We were working all day and so were our neighbors. We did not get the warm reception that had greeted us on Anacortes all those years before until one day a neighbor named Sonja stopped her car in the middle of the street to apologize for not taking time to greet us earlier. She was an outgoing woman who appeared to know everyone and she spent a great deal of time introducing us to the young people who lived nearby. We soon realized that we were the elders in our new locale rather than the new kids on the block.

Over time there has been a great deal of moving and change around us but in the present we have incredible people living near us and we often gather on holidays to celebrate our good fortune in living with each other in close proximation. We enjoy the sounds of children running and playing and laughing and watch the people walking up and down the sidewalks. It’s a cheerful place but few stay as long as we have. 

We took the tabula rasa of our big backyard and turned it into a landscape worthy of a painting. We built a large patio just outside our kitchen where we listen to the doves that roost on our roof and watch for hummingbirds and butterflies. We enjoy the passing parade of the people around us even as we always remember the folks from Anacortes, most of whom have died as they advanced in age. We are settled here and more likely than not will spend our own final years on this street barring some unexpected tragedy. It’s a good place to be.

I like the idea of putting down roots. After I left my mother’s home I lived in a couple of apartments before moving into my home on Anacortes and finally to the place where I now reside. I laugh when I think of how settled I have chosen to be and how happy it has made me. The benefits of living in the same place for a very long time are great. The two houses where I lived my adult life have been homes where the stories of my life played day after day. My history resides in the walls that will forever hold memories of who I am.  

Why do we remember horrible moments in history or in our lives? Why don’t we just move forward from such times rather than thinking of them over and over again? What is the point of reopening wounds? What do we hope to get out of telling our children about people or events that seemingly have little meaning for them? Why do we relive the painful times of our past?

I know that many people are quite stoic about the horrors of life that come their way. They believe that it does little good to keep talking or worrying about things over which they have no control. For them life happens and they deal with it. Then it is time to move on and never look back. They may have learned from the situation but they see little point in analyzing or even remembering the most difficult times of history. 

I suppose that there is some merit in bravely moving forward while never looking back. I think that people like me do in fact sometimes over analyze and talk about situations to the point of appearing to be obsessed. I have learned that my thinking out loud about the ways we humans have interacted with each other and the world is tedious for some of my fellow travelers. I know that I often over think things and latch on to concerns that I will never be able to fully tackle. I am an observer, thinker and planner by nature. I have the ability to see aspects of the past, present and future as an unbroken thread that connects us all. Much of what is happening today or will happen tomorrow depends on what has happened in the past. 

I become pensive at the beginning of each summer because I never fail to think upon my father’s death in the long ago. It’s been sixty three years since his passing but he feels as much alive today as he did back then. I no longer fret over the might have beens had he lived, but I honor the memory of the man that he was. Somehow his spirit has managed to impact me year after year because my mother kept him alive as she openly and lovingly reminded me and my brothers of the kind of person he was.

I was lucky enough to vividly recall the essence of my father so I know that my mother did not exaggerate his tremendous effect on our family. My aunts and uncles and cousins reiterated their own admiration and even awe for him. Even as he was dead and gone he seemed sometimes alive, most especially at this time of year when I think back to the day of his death which is etched so clearly in my mind. 

I knew on that day of long ago how loved I was. My extended family encircled me and my mother and brothers and never dwindled their devotion to us until the days when they died. Our parish priest demonstrated the kindness of a truly Christian person when he visited us in our grief. So too did so many people of my faith who watched over our little family and continue their vigilance to this very day. My father’s music and books and papers that he had written told me what I needed to know about him. I also learned from him the importance of studying history and analyzing both its goodness and its evil. I remember him passionately discussing such things with my grandfather and with his friends. A cousin told me that he also dialogued with him.  

I was taught by my father and my mother and my teachers to remember and to think. My education into adulthood was influenced by the questions that the adults posed to me. I honored the past efforts of humanity while also understanding that I did not diminish their worth by taking note of the mistakes that they made as well. Just as I was taught to do, I have spent my life analyzing situations, sometimes admittedly obsessively, but always with the intent to do better, to be better. 

One of the last conversations that I had with my father was a difficult one. He had noticed that I was slacking off, not focusing my full attention on learning. He challenged me to focus on the joy of making a concerted effort to improve myself. He urged me to read often and to contemplate the world from differing points of view. His advice to eight year old me was very adult, but I totally understood what he was trying to convey. I knew that I was not fully appreciating the freedom and joy that comes from learning in the ways that he did. I would take his lecture to heart and become curious for the rest of my life. 

I find so much pleasure in evolving through continuous education. I ask many questions and seek answers daily. It is not a tiresome or frightening experience but one that is incredibly gratifying. I look at the past and realize how humans have stared into the universe with wonder from the beginning of time. I know that looking back is fine and even important because we learn from what people have tried before. Nonetheless. ultimately our goal is to remember while moving ever forward.    

In the early days of my career as a teacher paddling students was still legal and I hated the process. I was never spanked by my mother or father and I spared the rod with my two daughters. I believe that children can learn how to be good people without violent punishment. Still, there were a few times when I was tasked with disciplining one of my students by spanking with a wooden paddle. It was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever done and in retrospect I should have refused to do so. Instead I half-heartedly tapped on the backsides of the couple of boys whose infractions had merited strong punishment. Needless to say, my flimsy attempts at corporal punishment were met more with laughter than contrition. 

I found myself creating ways to work with my students with reason and example rather than answering their violence with my own. I rarely referred a child to the office lest I be commanded to carry out the ruling of swatting them. I wasn’t a pushover in creating consequences for wayward deeds, but I eschewed corporal punishment whenever possible. It was a great relief to me when the outmoded process was deemed illegal and I no longer had to lift my hand against a child. 

I am mostly a gentle soul although my words sometimes sting, a trait that I always regret. It worries me that our present day society seems so numb to violence that it views threats and hateful jabs as just a normal aspect of our human natures. I am particularly uncomfortable with the use of dangerous and ugly words against each other that have seemingly become so common place. So many of the filters that we once used to spare the feelings of the people around us have been removed making verbal bullying a way of life. Little wonder that so many of our children are depressed and feeling so unsure of themselves. 

I am quite fortunate in being able to say that I have only rarely been on the bad end of verbal violence and have never had to endure physical assaults from anyone. My parents were loving people with each other and with me and my brothers. I remember only one time when my father became so angry about something that my mother said that he made a hole in the wall with his fist. He calmed down immediately and apologized for his infraction but such things were so rare in my experience that I remember that incident to this day. 

My mother was a gentle soul whose heart was focused on kindness. When she became ill with bipolar disorder she would sometimes say horrible things which were so unlike her. I had to learn to ignore the voice of her illness and use her words instead to know that she was in need of help. While the sting of their ugliness hurt for a second, I always new that they did not represent who she was when she was well. 

Only one time did a classmate bully me when I was in high school. I was running for school secretary and as part of my campaign had worked on flyers that I hoped might tempt my fellow students to vote for me. As I handed one of my campaign photos to a boy in my class he became vicious. He asked me why I would think that anyone in their right mind would vote for me because I was ugly and nobody liked me. I was stunned and shook a bit in fright as he tore the flyer into pieces and then stomped on them with disgust. The anger on his face made me fear that he might be about to hit me, but instead he simply walked away shaking his head leaving me to wonder what I might possibly have done to him to instill such fierce dislike. 

I got over the incident quickly. I barely knew this young man and so I realized that he had no real basis for his attacks. Nonetheless like most teens I did wonder just a bit if I was somehow off-putting to the people around. I tried to smile a bit more and think a bit less about myself as my mother had often counseled me to do. She was a firm believer that most insults arose from misunderstandings rather than actual dislike. She assured me that something else had been bothering that boy on that day and that I had just taken the knocks of his inner anger. 

As an educator I witnessed cruelty between immature students but never at the level that it seems to be in the present time. Ugliness appears to have become a kind of disease in which even adults in leadership roles express their thoughts quite egregiously. The use of threats is more and more common. It is difficult to simply ignore the angry language as someone just having a bad day, especially when for some people every single day is a bad day. 

When do we finally rise up together to condemn the physical and emotional violence that grows around us like disease in a petrie dish? How can we just accept brutal imagery as normal? Why are we pretending that vile comments are just part of our freedom to speak whatever comes to mind? Do we not understand that repetition of angry and ugly ideas more often than not leads to roiling anger that ultimately hurts far more than just feelings? What kind of message are we sending to our children when we accept violence as just an aspect of life over which we have no control? Why are we not turning our backs on so called leaders who rant with venomous words? Why aren’t we calling such people to task?

I do not advocate for either physical or emotional violence. We have enough abuse, crimes and wars to endure without also allowing the outright ugliness of bullying to seep into every corner of our existence. We have made taunts and threats normal by not repudiating those who would use them. History has shown us that following the bullies of the world never works out as well as we may have thought. It’s long past time that we let it be known that we will not tolerate such abuse from anyone, most especially those vying to lead us. Violence only begets more violence. it’s time we once again value a world in which those who threaten and divide us are voted out. Together we can do this and we don’t need a paddle or vile words to make it happen. 

I have a cousin who enjoys writing just as I do. She has actually turned her tales into books that have been embraced by a faithful following of readers who enjoy her stories of romance. She deals in fiction. I deal with life as it is for me and the people that I know. Opening my heart for all the world to see is sometimes dangerous because there will always be people who never quite understand why I think and feel the way I do. 

Each of us reacts to life differently. Thus if I lean a particular way politically or choose a certain way to do things I run the risk of alienating someone with my honesty about my likes and dislikes. If I had created a character to speak my words or spread my message I suspect that I would win more friends and influence more people. Fiction is a powerful vehicle for touching hearts and minds. The make believe world if composed well creates the possibility of opening honest discussions without the element of judgement. 

I sometimes wonder if I should take a page from my cousin’s playbook and let some beloved character speak my words rather than ascribing them to myself. I run the risk of sounding preachy or like a broken record but a well crafted heroine can be both humanly flawed and beloved at the same time. Somehow we tend to be much more forgiving of an invented person who makes mistakes or has quirks than we are of real people who admit to their foibles and failings. Memoirs can so easily be misunderstood. 

I understand that when I use real people and actual events to express or illustrate my feelings I run the risk of alienating those who overlay their own experiences onto my thoughts. Because I am real, not make believe, they are more likely to experience deeper connections that may or may not include the actual intent of what I have written. In fact I have learned in my years as a blogger that many people think that my honest assessments would best be left unspoken. They feel uncomfortable reading personal details of my life or my thoughts. They are of the mind that some things should never be openly discussed. They believe that there is something quite selfish about airing emotions in public. 

I do not deny that they may be right. I sometimes rewrite sentences or paragraphs lest they make someone who reads them feel uncomfortable. Words on a page are so permanent and they do not have a two way connection that allows me to explain when “that is not what I meant at all.” 

I have lost the following of some of the people who at first enthusiastically encouraged me to write. In the earliest days I was fearful of being honest so I forged lighthearted essays designed to make people feel good. I hid pain in comedy and only exposed the good parts of my journey through life. I did not want to reveal my feet of clay or the wounds on my heart. I was afraid of being misjudged and so I held back my deepest fears and cloaked my beliefs in lighthearted scenarios. I suppose that in some ways I was creating fiction without even realizing it. 

I have always been drawn to biographies but even more charmed by autobiographies in which famous people tell their life stories with transparency. As a child I read about the saints, realizing that even in my youth I preferred to emulate the souls who were the most imperfect. I found them to be more real and likable because I knew that I was certainly never going to be thought of as a saint. The thoughts rolling through my head seemed to insure that I was far from reaching perfection. I literally celebrated when I learned that Mother Teresa was often filled with doubt and anger. Her imperfections made her more dear to me. She was one of us, an imperfect human with all that being so implies. 

I suspect that we each carry different ideas about how we open we should be. I do understand those who feel uncomfortable with total honesty. It can indeed sometimes sound whiny or even like a betrayal. Knowing how much to reveal and how to portray the most difficult situations can be tricky in nonfiction whereas a fictional character can generally carry the same messages with far less impunity.

I read Harry Windsor’s autobiography with an open mind. What I discerned from his tell all story was that he had been traumatized by the death of his beloved mother. His suffering defined so many of his missteps and unfortunate behaviors for much of his youth and early adult years. In telling his story I believe that he was attempting to show us how unlike a fairytale his life as a prince had been. He was imperfect and so were the people around him but many of them insisted on continuing to pretend. I think he realized that all of the pomp and circumstance and stifling of truth that defined royalty had destroyed his mother. His brutally honest telling of his story was in many ways a homage to her that some of us embraced while others viewed him as a traitor. That is the dilemma that almost always happens whenever anyone steps forward to reveal their personal truths. 

I love people and generally accept them as they are. I sometimes forget that not everyone is as generous in their judgements. Nonetheless my goal in writing as I do is to touch hearts. If I manage to do that now and again I am satisfied. I have grown too old to worry about what others may think of me. I no longer want to hide the person that I am nor do I wish to engage in arguments about what I believe. I am very much of the mind that we each have so much value along with so many shortcomings. This is the natural way of life. Perhaps if we were all more willing to quietly talk to each other and support each other’s ways of coping with an often hostile world life would be better for everyone. I will continue to share my wins and my losses while knowing that I will probably be judged. It is my way of attempting to help our wounded world. I don’t want to pretend to be anything other than who I am.