Author: Sharron Burnett

Mind the GAP…Great American Pushback—-Jim Acosta

Jim Acosta was a renowned CNN journalist for decades. He was a reporter in the style of Edward R. Morrow and Walter Cronkite. He presented truth and facts as he saw them, not as any politician wanted them to be. With the return of Donald Trump to the presidency and pressure from the upper echelons of CNN wanting a more both sides treatment of the news rather than a recitation of truth, Jim Acosta felt that it was time for him to resign. He was unwilling to provide viewers with a watered down company line rather than the facts on the ground. 

Since his departure from CNN Jim Acosta has joined Substack and continued his reporting with interviews of some to the best political minds of the world. He recently brought attention to the Great American Pushback, a concerted effort by Americans of multiple political beliefs to make their voices heard. In particular this movement is designed to keep Americans aware of the destruction that Trump and Musk are doing to our national institutions. Already there are lawsuits and protests cropping up all across the nation in the hopes of calling a halt to the often illegal damage being inflicted on our national security and important programs that work for the citizenry.

Acosta has suggested that each of us needs to stay fully aware of what is happening and then “Mind the GAP.” He takes this call from the message in the London tube to be careful about accidentally falling into the space between the landing and the safety of the cars. So too should we be aware that GAP is suggesting that if we are wary of the damage being inflicted on our democracy then we must be aware of those damaging spaces into which our freedoms may falll unless we are willing to let our voices be heard. 

it is well known that Donald Trump likes to be loved. He revels in attention and adulation. On the other hand he is ultra sensitive to any form of criticism. Right now he appears to be waffling back and forth with his ideas in response to the stock market and comments from the citizens who are angry about both DOGE and our country’s treatment of Canada, Mexico and Ukraine. He is demonstrating his reluctance to follow through with his initial plans because he is feeling the pushback.

We know that Hitler was able to destroy the democratic government of Germany in only 51 days. it has been about that much time since Trump was inaugurated and began his move fast and break things approach to redefining the way our government works. People have not been silent and so his success has not been as easy as he had believed it would be. There is feuding between his cabinet and DOGE. Lawsuits are mounting. it seems that there is a protest or demonstration every other day. Congressional town halls are filled with unhappy citizens. The White House and Congressional phones are ringing off the wall. The unemployment rate is rising and even Trump is now admitting that the price of eggs will probably not go down and we may have to endure a recession. As the pressure bears down more and more strongly on Trump he may well abandon the worst of his plans. He does after all want the love of his people and it is not being granted as effusively as it once was. 

A couple of weeks ago I was feeling incredibly worried about where all of this will lead. It seemed that the country that I have always loved was becoming almost unrecognizable. It felt stifling and downright authoritarian. It also made us look selfish and silly. I was saddened to a point of just wanting to turn the whole thing off. I believed that I would have to wait for four years to end before there would be any hope of having something left of our nation to rebuild. Happily I now see people from sea to shining sea keeping the fires of freedom alive. 

We Americans take great pride in being the land of the free. We feel best when we are on the pathway of morality, not just for ourselves, but for all people everywhere. We know full well that we have had to overcome imperfections in our history and we don’t mind talking openly about them. We have seen the power of our diversity. We have worked hard to insure equality even to people very unlike ourselves. We strived to include more and more people across the globe in the what is best about democracy. I should have known that we would never allow what we cherish to be destroyed without a word. 

The people of the United States will push back on evil, prejudice, and ignorance every single time. We work hard to be who our founders hoped we would be. We have repaired the cracks in our great experience time and again. We will rise to the challenge of being free once again. We will find courage in the wisdom of people like Jim Acosta, Steve Schmidt, Heather Cox Richardson, Jennifer Rubin, Aaron Parnas and a host of incredible patriots who are leading us on the paths that we must follow. We will indeed mind the GAP. We will save our liberties and restore confidence in our nation again.

My husband and I have continued watching the Master Class series of lectures on the Tudors and the Stuarts. We are coming to the end of the forty eight episodes and there are certain ideas that stand out from one king or queen to the next.

The ruling class of England during that time consisted of royalty and Parliament with the two institutions struggling to determine who should be in charge. The kings believed in their divine right to be the head of state but that political philosophy constantly came into question as time went by. The budget and ways of funding dominated much of the concerns of the times. There were continuous attempts to forge alliances with the power brokers of Europe. Finally religion and which brand would be endorsed and supported by the government became a front and center issue. 

As I watched the lectures I found a bit of amusement in noting that everything changes in the world while at heart staying the same. The program might just as well have been describing modern day issues in the United States today. The names of leaders and countries are different but the problems seem to be similar even hundreds of years later. 

In particular the issue of religion became quite bloody during the tenure of the Tudors and Stuarts. The enmity between Catholics and Protestants and even between differing Protestant sects often led to one group or another being burned at the stake. There was a dark irony in the fact that the religious groups seemed to have little or no concern about killing each other to stay in control of the government. Somehow the ideas that Jesus preached did not always comply with what the religious leaders of the time were preaching. 

I can’t help but think that the founders of the United States understood that religion had been  at the heart of civil wars and persecution in England. Thus came their insistence on enshrining freedom of religion in the Constitution. I do not believe that they would be happy about the new efforts to put prayer and the ten commandments in schools and on public display in the halls of government. I suspect that they would know that praying in Congress and suggesting that our president was sent by God creates a dangerous and slippery slope. They, much more than those of us in the present, knew how ugly religious wars could be. 

I am a deeply spiritual person but I do not want my government dictating either my beliefs or anyone else’s as the model for our nation. Faith and how to experience it should not be forced or denied. Each person’s relationship with or without a higher being needs to be respected without judgement. It is in creating an official religion in any country that incredible problems arise. The history of the world is rife with stories of civil wars and wars between nations predicated on religious grounds. 

Furthermore, our founders made it clear, and George Washington reinforced the idea, that we should not have or even want a king. Nor should we be constantly worried about who is going to become our next leader. The English obsession with succession resulted in the kind of intrigue and death that we don’t want to encourage in our own government. We should be quite wary of anyone who seems to believe that they and they alone have all of the answers that we need. History has proven that handing over authority to one person or group leads to autocracies rather than democracies. 

There was purposefulness in the creation of the three branches of our national government. The idea was to be certain that no single person or group would be able to seize all of the power. The idea of checks and balances was important to our founders because they understood all too well how dangerous it was to concentrate power in one person or one group. George Washington eschewed the offer to stay on as president indefinitely. He disliked the idea of political parties vying for their specific ideas rather than understanding that their duties were to serve all of the people. Washington was well aware of the skirmishes between Whigs and Tories in the British Parliament from which the United States had gained its independence. 

Our nation has already endured one civil war. We should be wary of any leaders who constantly encourage angry divisions among us. It should gravely concern us that our current president takes great delight in openly attempting to limit the rights of individuals and groups that he dislikes. Instead of attempting to bring the many differing beliefs together he seems to find great joy in hurting those with whom his own views do not overlap. He has purposely created a schism among our citizens that often comes dangerously close to inciting the kind of political and actual wars that have plagued the world for so long. Our founders and Abraham Lincoln understood the importance of learning how to work together regardless of our individual philosophies. In practice that means making room for everyone to feel comfortable, not creating executive orders to diminish their worth and their rights. 

The freedoms of the United States are a delicate commodity. The are predicated on the idea that we are all equal regardless of our various ways of choosing how to live. We can come togehter in a community of tolerance or hark back to dark times when people insisted on forcing their ways on everyone. History tells us that such thinking has never worked to the satisfaction of the whole society. We would do well to be wary of those who would consolidate power into one person or group and then dominate those who think differently. We should all be very afraid when we see such things happening and in this moment the evidence that our nation is backsliding to a darker time is quite clear.

I once read an article from a professor at Harvard University who had created a multi-lesson review of literary classics for working and retired adults. He found great enthusiasm for his seminars from people who admittedly had dreaded reading the works of Homer, Shakespeare and other renowned authors when they were younger students. The more seasoned audience of learners brought the insights and maturity of their own life stories with them and more enthusiastically related to to the tales, poems and characters in the works of authors from hundreds and even thousands of years ago. 

I have always enjoyed reading and thanks to my high school English teacher I voraciously devoured books of poetry, epic adventures, romantic fiction, and spellbinding plays. I became familiar with the best writers of all time and learned how to relate their tales to my own life. I understood how to look for metaphors, irony, allusions in their highly crafted words. I learned about ancient heroes and myths that continue to be celebrated to this very day. I considered myself to be adept at critically analyzing any volume that I opened, and yet as I grow older I find that revisiting my favorite books and some that I once detested has allowed me to reach a higher level of understanding and appreciation for the greatest writers of both the past and the present. 

As a young person I had not suffered much other than the tragic death of my father. Mostly I was an innocent who was not able to relate to the anger of Achilles or the jealously of Othello. I knew of difficulties in people’s lives but was still mostly removed from intimate knowledge of such things. After almost eight decades of life I read the old masters with a new set of eyes and a greater appreciation of how they have used words to paint vivid pictures of all of our human emotions. I am able to see that characters from ancient Greece are not that much different from humans of the modern world. We are still ravaged by conflicting emotions that influence our behavior and sometimes lead to tragedies. 

Somehow my own personal growth has taught me that the classics of literature are more powerful than I ever imagined. They demonstrate both human evolution of thought as well as the sameness of our conflicted natures. We still have heroes with clay feet doing what they believe to be the best for humankind. Nonetheless we are wise enough to see the foreshadowing of danger when broken individuals assume power. We know that the Hectors among us do not always win the day. Sometimes they are humiliated and defeated but their goodness lingers and inspires for all time. Life can be brutally unrelenting just as those old stories depict but with determination we are able to overcome the challenges that seem to wear us down just as Odysseus did. 

Of late I hear many people insisting that education should be practical. We should emphasize more math and science and engineering. They insist that business skills should be more important than the liberal arts. They would prefer to replace English and History classes with courses that provide students with a trade or a direct route to a high paying job. Somehow the old feeling that a proper education should include the arts is falling into disrepute in many quarters, but I would suggest that many of today’s problems result because of a general ignorance of our past and an inability to use words instead of weapons to solve disagreements. Critical thinking demands abilities beyond simply learning how things work. We must also be aware of how people behave. We learn those things from literature, poetry, the arts, the stories of our past, the social sciences. 

It may sound strange for a long time mathematics teacher to advocate for a branch of learning that seems so removed from what societies seem to require to function well. While we definitely need a variety of skills I would argue that we also must possess a deep understanding of people. So much information comes from studying how we are the same as our ancestors and how we are different. Our knowledge requires the classics as well as the modern.

in many ways we would do well to focus education on showing young people how it all fits together like the weaving of a magnificent carpet. Creativity is the mark of our human natures. It distinguishes us from the other creatures. It has always been the key to progress, but rather than seeing ourselves as somehow better than our ancestors of old we would do well to know both what they did right and what they did wrong. It is the only way to attempt to avoid the mistakes of they made. It is the best way of being able to discern truth from lies. 

I’m enjoying my journey with the classics. I am annotating and parsing the words for deeper understanding. I am learning that when we strip away all of the modern conveniences that we enjoy our human natures are not that far removed from the people who walked this earth thousands of years ago. Acknowledging this helps in realizing that regardless of culture, wealth, language, religion or other differences we may have when all is said and done we are more alike than different. Seeing that truth makes it clear that our first job should be to find ways to live in harmony and peace, knowing that sadly we have to also overcome our warlike tendencies in the process. We can learn much from both the folly and the success of the past. 

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is nothing like a walk in a cool quiet interesting place. For me that would be somewhere that is not warm but not too cold either. The sky may be cloudy or sunny as long as rain is not imminent. I like being somewhat alone on a trail that leads nowhere and to everything that I love to see. If I have a companion I want it to be a person who knows when to saunter beside me in silence and when to quietly speak about important matters or make appreciative comments about what we have seen or consider talking of differing  philosophies about life. 

I don’t want to worry about time or how I look or what I will do next on the perfect walk. There will be no particular goal pushing me to increase my stamina. It will be leisurely enough to allow time to sit on an old tree stump to gaze at the sky or to watch the antics of a squirrel. It will provide opportunities for finding treasures like colorful leaves or interesting rocks to stow away in my pockets. 

On the perfect walk I will learn something that I did not know before embarking on my adventure. Perhaps it will be an interesting thing that I see or a comment from my companion. Maybe it will simply be a new kind of pleasure from being so close to nature or a feeling of peace from perfect silence. Those are the kind of moments when I feel so comfortable with myself and with the world. For a time I have no worries or appointments or thoughts of things I must do. 

I have had some glorious walks along rugged trails in the Rocky Mountains with my husband and my two daughters. I have seen a rainbow stretching across the horizon and encountered a moose grazing just ahead of my approach. I have walked in warm sand along the ocean with a grandson and spoken of spiritual things with a granddaughter under the canopy of some of the largest trees in the world. 

Sometimes I walk alone around my neighborhood listening to my favorite music or tuning in to podcasts. I go into myself and walk mostly for exercise but at times I see something that makes me smile. I enjoy seeing my neighbors working in their yards or children laughing while chasing each other. I like being alone and thinking about how nice life can be without a great deal of fuss. I work out ideas that have been swimming in my head and feel a sense of gratitude for the place where I live and the people who are my neighbors. 

I once walked for miles with my mother and brother after our car broke down. We were in the middle of nowhere in a time before cell phones. Our only hope for rescue was to find a public place that was open and had a phone. Our path lay on a little traveled highway so we had no clues as to how long it might be before we reached civilization. Somehow with her usual optimism my mother made our unexpected journey fun. We were downright proud of ourselves when we finally reached a service station and hitched a ride with a mechanic who worked there. Of course this all happened in the days when every gas station had a mechanics’ bay and someone was on duty to pump gas, check the oil and clean the windshield. 

When we got back to our car we learned that the battery was dead but the kind man who had rescued us charged it up and sent us on our way without asking for a dime. I have always remembered his kindness and how my mother insisting on giving him a tip. That unplanned walk taught me about how we should all behave when someone is in trouble. That man will forever be a hero to me. 

I hope I never reach a point of being unable to walk. I totally agree with Mr. Emerson’s ideas of how it should be done. I look forward to those special times in the coming year and hope to share such moments with people that I love.  

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting us. —-E M Forster

Who among us has not dreamed of a particular life that never happened the way that we thought it would? Disappointments are part of everyone’s life. We think we have everything figured out and something comes along that dashes all of our efforts into the dust. We find ourselves unmoored, wondering how to salvage the bits and pieces of the life that is no more to create something new. It is always a challenge.

Some things that happen to us are traumatic and just wishing away our sadness is not the answer. Nor is trying to cheer ourselves with platitudes about how the setbacks will only make us stronger. We know instinctively that such ideas are rarely true. Perhaps we can’t even understand how things went terribly wrong. We feel a deep hurt and maybe even anger. Those feelings are very real and ignoring them only drives them deeper into our souls. 

If we are lucky we have understanding friends or a partner who does not attempt to hurry us through our grieving for the life we have lost. Maybe this person just sits with us and allows us to vent, to cry, to feel a bit sorry for ourselves. This is not a time for advice, only support and compassion. It will take time to adjust to the new reality. We have to realize the closure of a chapter of life that once had so much promise and is now gone. Moving forward will come later but not in the heat of the moment. 

I suspect that each of us has a story of loss to tell. Maybe someone for whom we cared deeply died too soon. Perhaps we failed at a job that we thought we would be able to do. We might have thought that we had a person’s love for a lifetime only to find that it was fleeting. We have to set aside all the hopes that went along with the life that we thought we had. It is so disorienting that we almost feel as though we are no longer of this world. Our interactions with people feel strange. We have to put one foot in front of the other in a kind of pretense that we actually know what we are doing and where we are going

We often talk of “wallowing in self-pity” as if it is a terrible way to be. The truth is that sometimes we have to allow ourselves to wallow a bit before we have the strength to chart another course. As long as we don’t get mired in the muck we are just experiencing the natural emotions that follow tragedies and grave disappointments. As onlookers we should remember to be compassionate, not judgmental. Never never should we suggest that somehow the person reeling from a horrible situation should just get over it or, even worse, count it as a blessing.

They say that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Maybe that is true sometimes but we all experience difficulties that seem downright unfair. We feel weak and vulnerable and it’s not the time to hear people hinting that we are somehow been lucky. We might reach that conclusion on our own farther down the line, but it is something that we must discover on our own, Never should it come as a suggestion from a well meaning person who seems to be clueless or even uncaring about how devastated we are feeling. 

It’s difficult to be hurting when others seem to be moving right along. We see their happy photos and read about their magical lives and wonder why we got showered with manure. It’s also difficult to be around someone who is attempting to work through a moment of pain. We rarely feel comfortable when someone is falling apart. Our urge is to fix them immediately and that would be exactly wrong. We have to accept them as they are in the moment while assuring them that we are there for whatever they need. Sometimes what they require is silence and maybe a hug or someone who will cry with them. 

We humans do indeed scab over our hurts and even if they heal there always seems to be a scar. It is in our natures to get up and try again. If we are patient and have a bit of luck along with our own efforts we may find a new kind of unexpected happiness and reward. Sometimes we even get exactly what we needed all along. 

There is no looking back and dwelling on what ifs but they will surely come from time to time. It’s okay to mourn and to imagine how things might have been as long as we do it with a smile and then rejoin and celebrate our new lives. Each of us will find ourselves changing course many many times and learning more about ourselves than we could have possibly imagined. The lives we live will twist and turn and challenge us hurt us and even make us wiser but there will always be a new road to explore. Hopefully it will be kind.