Author: Sharron Burnett

I have always been fascinated by the European Renaissance, a time when there were seemingly great leaps of discovery and knowledge in science, medicine, philosophy and the arts. Life indeed became better for many of the people, but those who toiled in the fields and did the hard labor may not have enjoyed the explosion of progress that developed between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries as much as those in the upper class and those who had begun to carve out a kind of middle class. There was still much ignorance and lack of equality. The ground gained in that period of time mostly belonged to men, while women still remained creatures of the kitchen and maternal duties. Still, the wondrous developments of the era catapulted humankind forward in such a dramatic way that it is often seen as the European flowering of scientific endeavors, medical progress, literature, painting and sculpture. 

The so called Dark Ages probably were not as void of light as we sometimes think, but they were marked by pandemics, war and conflict. Gutenberg had not yet invented the printing press, so only priests who created manuscripts and the most wealthy had access to books and educations.   Life was mostly about lots of hard work and very short lives. 

I always enjoy the Renaissance Festivals that travel across the country. They are exceptionally entertaining with their turkey legs, and jousting and music, but what I would most like to see from the Renaissance are the products of the great minds who changed the world in that time. It would be fun to have someone create a play in which Galileo tells his story to an audience and then takes questions from the crowd. Having an old time Shakespearean play would be delightful, especially if it was totally authentic. I’d like to see people dressed as characters from the Canterbury Tales and be able to go to a studio filled with works from Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. I’d like to sit with someone playing Descartes and find out how he came up with his mathematical processes and what led him to his philosophies. A real Renaissance Festival would be enlightening and educational. 

It is no accident that many of the founders of our country were well versed in the work of the great thinkers and artists of the Renaissance. They valued books and science. Ben Franklin was considered one of the great scientists and engineers of his time as well as being a writer and printer. He was a learned man who had no doubt studied Copernicus and understood that the earth was not the center of the universe. Thomas Jefferson devoured books and ideas, many of which had been developed during the Renaissance, and he was in the Americas because of the explorations of adventurers from across Europe. 

As I noted, not everyone benefited immediately from the progress of the Renaissance. I can tell by studying my family tree that my ancestors mostly remained poor and ignorant, especially the women. Neither of my grandmothers were educated beyond elementary school as late in as at the end of the nineteenth century. My grandfathers were farmers and laborers who knew how to read but mostly self-educated themselves. They never rose into the middle class in spite of all of their hard work. It would be left to my mother and father to become the first in each of their families to earn a college degree, although a somewhat distant branch of my father’s family tree indeed boasts a doctor. Nonetheless I know that some of my ancestors benefited from the Renaissance because some of them found their way to the new world in the earliest days of colonization. They brought what they knew across the ocean and then learned from the native people who were already here. Sadly, mistakes were made by them and others who had the bad assumptions that they were doing the original tenants of this land a favor by changing their ways. This was an arrogant attitude that was widely accepted as gospel when Europeans conquered people in the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Their seemingly well meaning ways did not always work out so well for the people who were already living where they went or those that they used as slaves to work the land.

I suppose that calling me a progressive is accurate because I firmly believe that discovering new and better ways of living and thinking are what make humans great. I even think that God gave us our minds as a gift for improving the world for its people and for preserving this great planet. I have always felt that it is our duty to use our minds for the betterment of humanity, not just for enriching ourselves. The great minds of the Renaissance often understood this by performing great deeds and demonstrating great courage in search of truths. I am certain that each of us possess a certain level of greatness of our own and when we use share our talents to help make all people better we are developing our intellects the way we were meant to do. 

We are at a watershed moment right now. Our world is threatened with pandemics, wars, climate change, violence and ignorance just as it was in the Dark Ages. We can look away and move backward into another dark age of our own or we can do as the geniuses of the Renaissance did and bring light, beauty and innovation into the world. Our future is depending on science and great thoughts. We must be certain to cherish and support the new Renaissance men and women among us whose breakthroughs will catapult our world into a future that is bright. We should not be afraid for we now know that the world is not flat and that all humans are linked together in our hopes and dreams. Opportunity beckons us, but only if we listen to its call.

My entire life I have done my best to keep calm and carry on. I have fought bouts of sadness by studying, working, reaching out to other people with random acts of kindness. I have totally believed in the innate goodness of people and I have been optimistic about our human inclinations and willingness to work together, compromise, sacrifice for the greater good of all humanity. I have wondered how evil enters our world and takes hold of individuals and sometimes entire nations to spread its poison. I have considered such perversions as anomalies that always seem to ultimately be beaten back by the preponderance of good people in the world. Optimism has been my guide through every challenge of my lifetime and believing in the best of humankind has been a potent motivator for me along with the comfort that my faith in God brings me. I’m not boasting because by my own admission I have failed and become cynical many times over, but somehow I manage to pull myself out of the doldrums and return to the better half of myself time and again.

To say it has been tough for me to deal with the ugliness in the present day condition of the world is an understatement, but I am determined to believe that good people across the globe will ultimately prevail. We have to identify our common problems and then agree on crafting potential solutions, realizing that our first efforts may or may not work. We will need patience to make progress with the global issues that ultimately affect us all. If we simply ignore our common problems, we do so at our own peril.

All of humankind continues to endure the ravages of Covid 19 in every corner of the globe. A million Americans have died. Cases are on the rise again with a new variant and it is time that all of us acknowledge that we may want to ignore the virus, but it will not ignore us. We should be willing to follow the science and continue to be cautious until it burns itself out completely or becomes as mild and common as a cold. We owe it to each other to get tested if we develop symptoms and let people know that we are sick. Common sense means that we don’t ignore signs that we might have Covid even if those indicators are mild. If we truly respect each other we must still be careful not to spread the virus.

Climate change is real. The proof is registered on our thermometers and in the increase and magnitude of natural disasters. Fires are already burning in the west and will likely intensify in the summer months. Drought is devastating waterways and threatening to leave areas of the country without the liquid that our bodies must have. We have to face the reality that it is past time to conserve resources and change the ways that we operate daily. This may mean driving less, changing to electric cars, becoming accustomed to raising our thermostats in the summer and lowering them in the winter. We may even start opening windows in the cooler parts of the summer days and putting on extra layers of clothing whenever it is cold outside. It’s time for all of us to educate ourselves in what we need to do to turn the tide of global warming around. Most surely it will require sacrifice but surely we are willing to change for the good of future generations.

There is a major food shortage around the world, particularly in third world countries. The distribution of food has been yet another victim of both Covid and the subsequent production and supply chain issues that are impacting every single country. The war in Ukraine has removed the source of much of the grain that world’s people rely on. It is our duty as fellow humans to resist the inclination to isolate ourselves and hoard our food resources with an America First attitude. We have always been our best when we have helped to feed other people in the world and striven to make them safe and healthy. If doing so now means that we have to make sacrifices at the grocery store, then that is what we must do. 

Immigrants are not invaders. Most of them are people who simply want better lives for themselves and their children. Almost everyone, save for Native Americans, is descended from someone who left another nation and came to our shores seeking economic, religious, or political freedom. Immigrants have built this nation and continue to do so. Instead of building walls and adhering to ugly theories like a plot to replace white Americans with foreigners, we should be earnestly working together for true immigration reform that will encourage and allow good people from all over the world to join us as long as they are willing to work within our laws. We can no longer afford to create monsters out of people who have the same need and desires as our ancestors once had.

Violence and crime are daily routines. We need to honestly find out why this is happening. The challenge is to avoid a blame game and cooperate with one another to find both the source of this situation and viable solutions for controlling it. We need to be willing to try all kinds of measures including both preventive and punitive ideas. We must determine the roles that education, social programs, ownership of guns, broken families, hate groups and portrayals of violence are playing in creating the caustic environment. Instead of accepting soundbites and accusations from our leaders we need to seek people who are willing to cross the aisle and repair our cities and towns without asking for credit. We don’t need talk. We need solutions that are just and fair for all and they must not focus only on punishment.

We finally have to ask ourselves why we are so angry with those whose ideas are different from our own. In the history of mankind it has been diversity that has produced the very best ideas. We need a balance of viewpoints. We must hear all voices, not just the loudest ones. We need to stop the attempts to force particular beliefs on everyone. In truth each side of the aisle thinks it has the answer to making our country and our world great. Such will not happen if the best we can do is impede any form of progress by making the running of our government a zero sum game in which vast swathes of people are regularly doomed to lose. 

We hear talk that compromise is a sign of weakness. We boast about tough people who are steadfast in their refusal to even consider any kind of thoughts other than their own. Therein lies the biggest problem that we face. Imposing our personal wills on others is only going to impede the process that we need. Fear, isolation and authoritarian philosophies have been the source of human misery for millennia. Surely we know this and surely we must be willing to withdraw our support from those who would dominate us rather than represent us all. The rhetoric is exhausting and it is even killing us. It’s time we take a deep breath and bring optimism and sacrifice and cooperation back into the world to defy the despots and evil doers who seem to think that we are too busy fighting to notice the damage they are doing to our beautiful world. Tunnel vision is our enemy, not each other. Let’s agree to build a world without it.

Growing up is often a painful process both physically and mentally. I was the quintessential late bloomer which was compounded by the fact that my parents enrolled me in first grade a year earlier than what is generally deemed as normal. I was a tiny little girl who had held her own with confidence until I was suddenly sent off to school with little warning just after my youngest brother was born. I was unable to feel as confident as I always had in the loving bubble of my family. As a five year old sitting in a classroom with kids who were mostly a full year older than I was, I felt terrified. By age I should have been in kindergarten, but my parents mistook my pluck at home for enough maturity to fake it with a group of peers who’d had an extra year to prepare for the shock of beginning the educational journey in earnest. 

While I quickly proved my academic mettle, I was not ready to be with my six year old classmates. I still looked more like a preschooler than someone with enough moxie to blend easily with my new set of peers. My personality quickly changed from chatty and outgoing to shy and reserved as I attempted to find my place in my new environment. If not for my incredibly kind teacher and a sweet girl who took me under her wing I might become irrevocably withdrawn. Instead I was feeling much better about the situation by the time I had completed my first school year. Being able to read and spell words and do math was wonderful.

I might have been well on my way to a return to my more natural bubbly self but for my parents deciding to move, which meant starting second grade in a brand new school. To make matters worse, my name was not on any roster when my mother and I arrived on the first day. After a great deal of brokering on my mother’s part an administrator accompanied me to a classroom and confronted the teacher with the news that she would have an additional student. Unfortunately, an argument ensued in front of me that dampened my spirit for the rest of the academic year. The beleaguered teacher insisted that she did not want me to join her already overcrowded group of students. While the two adults argued I began to feel smaller and smaller. I wanted nothing more than to just run away. 

The administrator got her way and I quietly became more withdrawn as I endured one of the most miserable years of my young life. The teacher made little effort to hide her resentment toward me with little insults about me all year long in spite of my efforts to please her. Nonetheless, I made a number of friends who have stuck by me since that time. The joy of knowing them made the unbearable more bearable. 

Things might have continued in an upward trend had my father not decided to move us all again only weeks after I began third grade. We embarked on an adventure that took us all the way to California where my father’s failed dreams kept us moving four more times before the end of my third year of school. By then I was shell shocked from having to continually adjust to new environments, new schools, new teachers, new classmates. I reached the point of not even bothering to get to know anyone and became less and less congenial. When my daddy died at the end of that year I felt so devastated and wary that my true outgoing talkative personality seemed to die with him. 

My fourth grade teacher did little to help me because she was literally as mean as a skunk. Somehow I carried on by throwing myself into studying and then having fun at home in my neighborhood and on weekends with my dozens of cousins. I advanced from one grade to another from the same house in the same neighborhood. The routine was my saving grace. I felt secure in the repetitiveness of putting down roots in a place where the people around me were kind and helpful. I began to heal. 

I might have regained my confidence totally but for the fact that I did not grow. I began high school with a mind that was equal to my classmates, but the body of a child rather than a teen. I would be heading for my junior year before I began the process of changing physically and psychologically. My physical development was two years behind and that fact caused me to feel even more uncomfortable and less certain about who I was. I struggled to relate to my peers who were dating and becoming visibly more mature. I hid my unease with jokes and an even greater attention to growing academically which I had the power to control.

By the time I graduated from high school at the age of seventeen I had finally developed as I should have and I was armed with a great education that gave great promise for my future. I loved my friends and would keep them for the rest of my life. I could hardly wait to launch my college career and then move on to being an adult. My growing pains were gone and I was excited about going to a new environment in which I might demonstrate the more outgoing personality that I had hidden away for so long. 

I did not go far from home for college. Moving out of town and staying in a dorm was economically out of the question, but my city had several excellent universities. I purposely chose the largest of them all because I felt that it was time for me the emerge from the bubble that had nurtured me after my father’s death. I met the challenges of being in a large public institution with eagerness because finally the course of my life was being driven by my own desires rather than fate. I was able to choose my major, select my classes and my professors. It was such a freeing experience and along the way I knew that I was rapidly becoming the person that I had always wanted to be. 

In the second semester of my freshman year I met my husband to be. Our relationship was special from our very first date. Somehow I knew that I had met my soulmate because I had no trouble just being myself whenever I was around him. He boosted my confidence even more than it had already become. When he asked me to marry him when I was only nineteen years old I did not hesitate to accept his proposal. The world was on fire with war, assassinations, and unrest so it seemed imperative to grab happiness when I found it. 

The rest of my story is one of feeling good in my own skin. I learned to really like myself and when that happened I was able to shift my concerns to the people around me. My focus was on making them feel good as well. All in all things worked out thanks to the wisdom of my mother in providing me with security and love. The friends that I met in my youth have sustained me for decades along with new people who widened my horizons and enriched my experiences. I became a teacher who understood the angst of being a student. I taught my kids with love. I understood the value of people and relationships because of my own struggles. With my life partner I created an adventure that has been filled with rich experiences. I am a survivor of my own misgivings and in an odd kind of way I believe that even my most difficult challenges helped to make me a better person that I might otherwise have been. I learned how to adapt and ride the wave life’s storms. I took a bit longer to bloom than most but when I finally did it was beautiful and I think I appreciated it even more.

When I was younger many of my elders influenced my outlooks on life. My mother taught me the art of loving unconditionally. My father demonstrated the joy of constantly learning. My paternal grandfather helped me to hone my optimism. My paternal grandmother showed me that education does not only come in a classroom or a book. My maternal grandmother’s life helped me understand that sometimes risk taking and courage are found in ordinary ways. My mother-in-law introduced me to philosophies that had once been foreign to me. My first grade teacher inspired me to realize that teaching is about reaching both hearts and minds. My high school English teacher introduced me to the world. An aunt showed me what it truly means to be a woman. The principals for whom I worked guided me to mastery of the art of teachings. 

Now when people ask who influences me, I turn to the younger generation. My children, former students and grandchildren are helping me to see the world from a different perspective. I hear their earnest concerns for the future and I realize that they are attuned to the kind of progress that we must have if humanity is to survive the onslaughts that history and science tell us are bound to come. Unlike many people in my age group who are tired and just want to be left alone, they have many adventures ahead of them. They have hopes and dreams that have yet to unfold. Their visionary thinking and their energy inspire me just as the adults who guided me once did. 

They are not the self centered spoiled generation that some believe them to be. What I see are hard working, thinking people who love this country and our earth. They understand the many challenges that our world faces now and in the future and they have ideas for solutions that will benefit us all. Mostly I see a kindness in their thinking that is extended generously to people without judgement. They critique systems and situations not to cause trouble, but to prevent it in the future. They are more well versed in science and mathematics and history than I was at the same ages. They are willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to improve life not just for themselves or their families or our country, but for the world over. Listening to them relate their philosophies and ideas convinces me that the future may have some bumps, but ultimately it will be very bright. 

From the beginning of time the older folk have had a tendency to doubt the younger ones. Literature is replete with admonitions that society is failing because the next generation does not have what it takes to be contributing adults. I have found that premise to be generally false and I think that we would do well to hear and respect what our young people have to say. Sometimes they have a better conception of what we need to do as a society. As we age we often become complacent and long for the old days rather than meeting problems head on with innovative ideas. Save for Ben Franklin and George Washington, most of the founders of our nation were rather young. People like James Madison understood the pitfalls of the nation they had crafted and warned that there might be chinks in the plan. 

The youth of the world are like the boy who was willing to point out that the emperor parading down the street had no clothes. Instead of insulting teens and those younger than forty when they make suggestions that are almost as revolutionary as the ones that Jefferson and others enacted at our nation’s birth, we should take their thoughts into serious consideration. Sometimes they have seen the future better than we have. 

When my grandson outlines the problems and solutions associated with climate change I listen because predictions that he made eight years ago are coming to fruition as though he was a prophet. When my students tell me about gun violence that they have experienced and make suggestions about how to curb it, I am impressed with how well they have thought through their ideas. When my granddaughter outlines her dream to study the law and work to bring our fractured party system back to a willingness to work together, I believe that it is possible because I have seen her leadership abilities in action. 

I am greatly influenced by what I hear young people saying and by what I witness them doing. They are kinder and more inclusive than older generations. They have honest discussion with each other without showmanship or motive other than working through problems. They are unafraid of change and look to the future with optimism. It’s time we showed them more respect than we have of late. 

Many of the greatest achievements in history have come from very young people. There is no metric of age that should determine the worth of an individual’s ideas. We would all do well to begin conversations with those younger than we are without designing rebuttals even before they speak. They have open minds and we should as well. They are my new heroes. I learn something from them every single day and my admiration for them only rises as I realize how thoughtful and committed they are to making a better world. I rest easily at night knowing that even if we don’t allow them to take on positions of influence right now, one day they will be in charge. 

When I read about the life of Jesus in the Bible I am always struck by the stories that present him as the ultimate rebel against absurd rules, biases against certain people, and the love of money. More than once he crossed the religious leaders of his time when they insisted that it was wrong to perform a life saving miracle on the Sabbath or to fraternize with certain groups of people. One of the few times that he demonstrated unedited anger was when he overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple. He definitely gave us very clear guidance about how we should conduct ourselves, but for some reason we seem to have a difficult time accepting his ideas. Of course we have to take care of ourselves and our families, which means that we need a means of earning money, the capital for obtaining our most basic needs, but if we really think about it how much of the green stuff do we really need?

I don’t sit around longing for the good old days because I like the idea of progress. Nevertheless, I remember a time when people seemed to lead much simpler lives. Homes were smaller even though there were usually more children in them. Families were lucky to have one car, one television, one bathroom. Air conditioning was a luxury and spending time outside with neighbors was a thing. A vacation meant driving to a nearby town for a few days, eating peanut butter sandwiches along the way. Teens worked all summer long and sometimes after school to help the family or to save money for college. Food was basic and consumed around a table in a nightly gathering. Gifts were from the heart, little gestures of love. 

Of course there were problems that we seemed to ignore as long as our own needs were met. We drove past the segregated areas of town without thinking that much about what it must have been like for the people subjected to the demeaning behaviors and neglect from the rest of society. We paid little attention to those who went bankrupt paying for medical care and we rarely gave a second thought to children who went hungry. We just did not talk about such things. We acted as though such things did not exist as long as they did not directly impact us. 

Times have really changed since I was a child. We thought we had come to grips with the underlying racism when the Congress passed legislation meant to guarantee civil and voting rights. We made sure that both the elderly and the very poor had access to doctors with Medicare and Medicaid. We integrated our neighborhoods and our schools while the wheels of industry provided us with seemingly better and better lifestyles. Our homes grew bigger and we filled them with possessions that would have stunned our grandparents. We worked harder and for more hours of the day to stay apace with those competing with us for all of the goodies. We ate together as a family less and less often. We closed our doors and and windows and diminished our contact with our neighbors. We had more cars than space to store them in our garages. Our vacations were elaborate and we took regularly. We counted our money more often than we considered our blessings or the needs of those that we began to understand less and less, sometimes even being brash enough to believe that they must be lazy if they were unable to make it in our wonderful world. 

I’m as guilty of these trends as anyone. I rocked along oblivious to the waste, the destruction of our planet, the neglect of the less fortunate. I was elated to enjoy luxuries that were unimaginable in my youth. Instead of really appreciating the money that I had, I wanted more and more just to be certain that I would be comfortable for all of my life. I took so much for granted even as my grandchildren warned me that so the glut of consumption was slowly killing our planet. I witnessed the poverty and of some my students as they earnestly explained to me how hard their parents were working just to stay afloat. I did not understand how the undercurrent of racism still existed even though some of my colleagues at work assured me that it was alive and well. Because my own life was good I missed all of the cues of the suffering that was growing around me. 

Then came the reckoning for me. Because of the pandemic the pace of my life slowed down to a crawl. I had more time to open my eyes to what was really happening to people far away from my own lifestyle. I saw that my habits had become destructive to the planet. I realized that as a nation we had become more selfish and less concerned with those who struggle to enjoy the same level of justice and wealth that I take for granted. I was stunned by what I finally saw even though people had attempted to open my eyes to these things for decades. Money and things became less and less important to me. People and freedom and integrity seemed more valuable. I felt humbled. 

There is certainly nothing wrong with working hard and becoming successful. Having a nice home is not a sign of selfishness. We can take trips and enjoy life without wearing hair shirts and beating ourselves. but it’s important that we never lose sight of the reality that we owe it to our fellow humans and our planet to make sensible sacrifices to insure that we are not wasting while others are starving for basic needs or simple respect. We have to constantly consider just how much we really need and how much we should share. The pursuit of money and goods cannot not be our ultimate goal. Nor should we be so busy increasing our bounty that we lose sight of problems that we should be addressing. 

I may be a bit late in realizing these basic truths but I have an opportunity to begin anew. I want to live the rest of my life with others in mind. I want to be willing to sacrifice, speak up and vote in ways that honor and save lives as well as the earth around me. I am more than ready to sacrifice to follow those lessons that Jesus taught us. One does not have to be religious to understand how important they are. He gave us the guidebook. Now it’s time to actually follow it and continually ask ourselves, “How much do I really need?”