Category: Commentary

Texas is a beautiful place. It has everything that anyone might want to experience, lush forests and arid desserts, flat plains and rolling mountains, big cities and empty spaces, dry gulches and coastal beaches. While the state sometimes makes the news for horrific tragedies and political shenanigans, the people in Texas are mostly really good folks who are friendly and helpful. We Texans may quibble over how things should be done but when the chips are down we come together. One sure thing that we all seem to agree on is that Willie Nelson is our treasure. Somehow he manages to typify the essence of being a Texan with his sonorous voice and songs that seem to be pure poetry.

Willie was born in Abbott, Texas not far from Waco which is famous for Baylor University, Chip and Joanna Gaines or the standoff with the Branch Davidian cult depending on what one’s interests might be. Abbott is near the heart of Texas which is a wonderful metaphor for how Willie has somehow captured the deep down spirit of the state. With his sister formerly on piano and his guitar named Trigger Willie has literally defined the soul of what it means to be the kind of Texan who loves his family, the land, and the people who live here. 

Willie wasn’t always the star that he is today. He had a tough time breaking into the world of country music. Folks thought that his voice was not right enough to sell records so they purchased his songs instead. Somehow I wonder if they ever really listened to him turn a melody into a spiritual moment with his ever recognizable and soothing voice. I know that I instantly get chills whenever I hear him sing. He makes me laugh when I am supposed to, smile as I relate to what he has to say, cry both tears of sorrow and joy. 

I like to ride around the Texas Hill country on the backroads listening to Willie’s songs. I get quite emotional on those journeys. The sheer beauty of it all speaks to my heart. Willie captures the story of Texas, of people, in the ways of one of the greatest artists of our time. I shed all of my worries in those remote spaces with Willie serenading me and teaching me about life. The best therapist in the world can’t create the calm that I feel when I listen to Willie’s songs.

Willie is already a legend and his musical reputation will grow even stronger when he dies, a time that I don’t even want to imagine. I suspect that I will break down and cry when his time to leave us comes, but he will leave behind a legacy of music that will never be out of date. It all has a universal quality that will speak to us just as great literature has always done. While I have my favorites, I can’t think of a single song that he has not made more magical than it might otherwise have been without his ability to make them come alive and feel real.

Willie just won a couple of Grammys for his album A Beautiful Time and a single for Live Forever which was his tribute to Billy Joe Shaver, a singer, songwriter and actor who touched the hearts of the country music world. Willie becomes a down home philosopher softly speaking his mind in both the album and the single. As always he manages to bring sorrows and joys together in one magnificent package that brings tears to my eyes even as I smile at what he has to say. 

Willie breaks down my facade of trying to be the strong person in the room, the one who won’t crack under pressure. I tend to hide the emotions I am feeling in a particular moment. I only seem to know how to express them in words. Willie somehow pushes down the walls that I build around myself and brings the real me to the surface. His music has the most remarkable effect on me and no doubt most people who hear it. 

I’d love to have an evening with Willie Nelson and a few of my friends and family members just sitting around telling our stories . I would not force him to play or sing, but I would definitely hope that he might volunteer to do so on his own. I’d just like to talk with him about life and music and Texas. I know he loves this state as much as I do, even though we both know the problems that it has. Somehow he has found a way to deal with the ups and downs in the most wonderful way.

Willie’s newest album for which he won a Grammy gives us a strong hit of where his mind is focused these days. He’s buried family members and friends but now has no desire to got to funerals. He simply wants to remember them as they once were. He tells us that he has had a beautiful life with few regrets. He reminds us to treat every day as if it were our last because one day we will be right in thinking that we may have hit the end of our journey. He urges us to make those phone calls and tell people how much we love them. He gently reminds us what is most important.

Willie is a survivor like most of us are. I suspect that he finds solace in making music just as I find solace in hearing him sing like an angel. Surely he will live forever through his songs, but for now I hope he is able to continue making beautiful music that erases all of my cares and woes for many years to come. I’ll be on the road again soon and I hope to take him along.  

My mother, like her siblings, was a devoted Catholic. My father believed in God, but not a particular religion. In fact I suspect that he must have had some kind of bad experience with a group during his youth because of comments that he made about overly evangelical groups. Nonetheless, he encouraged my mother to practice her faith by raising my brothers and me in the Catholic church. He seemed to appreciate her insistence on following the the dictums of her beliefs even to point of signing a pledge upon his marriage to allow her to teach us about Catholicism from the time of our births. 

My father never went to church with us on Sundays nor did he have much to say about God or faith or any particular religion but he was a good man who loved as fiercely as any of the most religious people that I have ever known, maybe even a bit more unconditionally. He was not prone to judge, but rather to accept people just as they happened to be. I never heard him cuss or demean another person with his words. He quietly did good deeds without boasting. He was a humble man who was devoted to his family. 

My mother was a living saint. She only missed Sunday mass if she was sick. She read her Bible daily and lived the kind of life that Jesus instructed us to follow. She sacrificed for my brothers and me and for other people for all of her adult life. She found so much solace in God that she sometimes cried tears of joy when describing how she felt about her faith. Nonetheless she did not believe that it was her place or her duty to tell others how and what they must believe. She was best friends with a Jewish woman and often noted how beautiful that religion is. 

My mother took my brothers and me to church, sent us to Catholic school and spoke of her own beliefs. She was such a pillar of faith and service to our Catholic community that she received a papal blessing from Pope John XXII. It was one of her most treasured moments in life. In spite of her own devotion she was quite liberal in believing that ultimately my brothers and I would have to choose our own paths in determining what our respective thoughts on religion would be. She often praised the many different ways that we humans have attempted to determine the existence of a deity. 

I ended up following my Catholic faith for a lifetime. One of my brothers became a Baptist. The third brother is agnostic, believing that there may be some kind of God but not feeling drawn toward a particular kind of religion. Mama was fine with all of our choices. She believed that what mattered most was how we treated our fellow humans and in many ways it was in fact my agnostic brother who followed the most Christlike way of living. 

I often think of the irony of having a mother who was at once a diligent follower of Catholic teaching and at the same time so very liberal about accepting each person’s right to form his/her own beliefs. She reminded us all of the time that Jesus befriended people who were spurned by the rest of society in his time. She felt that his message could be distilled into the idea that what matters most is loving our fellow humans. 

I’ve gone back and forth in my own religious journey. I was not much of a fan of the somewhat conservative teachings of Pope Benedict, but whenever he spoke of migrant people I found the essence of the Catholic faith that had always stood out for me. He was adamant in his belief that we are one human family. He once asserted that, “The parents of Jesus had to flee their own land and take refuge in Egypt, in order to save the life of their child: the Messiah, the son of God, was a refugee,” He believed that it was our duty to welcome and minister to those who flee from horrific conditions to save their families. It is what Jesus would expect us to do.  

Somehow of all of the things that Pope Benedict said during his lifetime that one sentence seemed to encapsulate the heart of teachings that I learned from my church, from my mother and even from my father. It has fashioned my relationships with people, my politics, and my desire to lead a purpose driven life. It has made me a nonjudgemental person and it has helped me to see the beauty of humanity.

Our present Pope Francis has echoed the mandate to keep our hearts and our borders open to people fleeing from war and injustice. On a recent visit to Africa he enjoined us to remember our duty to speak out whenever we see others being abused, saying ” we cannot remain neutral before the pain caused by acts of injustice and violence. To violate the fundamental rights of any woman or man is an offense against Christ.”

I sometimes think that many organized religions and those who belong to them have lost their way. As has too often been the case throughout history people have politicized religion as a cudgel to force their beliefs on others. It has caused much suffering which may have been my father’s rationale for abandoning it. The rules have often hurt as much as helped. Perhaps it’s time that we all step back and consider the simple idea proposed by Pope Benedict that we are indeed one human family. Then it will make perfect sense to each of us that our goal should not be to judge or inflict pain but rather to unite against injustice and violence wherever it may be. It does not take participation in a formal religion to be a very good person. My mother and father both seemed to understand that quite well. 

Thirty years ago I attended a graduation ceremony at Rice University on a sunny day in May. It was an outdoor affair which can sometimes be uncomfortable in Houston, Texas known for its hot humid days that begin as early as March. On that day, however, the weather gave us a break. We sat on folding chairs enjoying a rare breeze as we waited excitedly for the graduates to walk across the stage to receive their diplomas. The fact that former President Jimmy Carter would give the commencement address was an added treat. 

I had voted for Jimmy Carter when he ran for the highest office in the land. I pegged him as a kind man and his engineering degree told me that he was also quite bright. I felt comfortable with his leadership, but as sometimes happen events that probably would have taken place without or without him in office sunk his hopes for a second term. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran and a takeover by religious extremists disrupted the flow of oil resulting in shortages at the pump in the United States. When the U.S. embassy was raided and those working there were imprisoned  the blame was heaped on President Carter. 

Things eventually worked themselves out which is generally the way history goes, but it was too late for President Carter. He was soundly defeated in the next election. After a smooth transition for the next man in line, Carter returned to his home in Georgia and began a new and incredible phase of his life. He dedicated himself to helping those in need and preaching at his local church. He proved in the ensuing years to be a true man of God and a disciple to his fellowman. 

It would be difficult to find an more genuinely kind and loving man than Jimmy Carter. His charitable works have become legendary. He has built more habitats for humanity than most contractors. He is not just the founder of a great charity, but also someone who picks up tools and works alongside people far younger than himself creating places to live for those who have struggled to find permanent homes. Even in his nineties he was still driving nails and laboring for the good of other people.

On that day in May at Rice University in the long ago I was not sure what his speech would be. I only knew that it felt nice to be in the presence of a famous man. With his first utterance I realized that he was speaking from the depths of his heart. He assumed that anyone graduating from the highly ranked university where he stood would make great contributions to society with their intellects and skills. Instead he challenged each of them to acknowledge the good fortune that they had by paying their riches forward. He insisted that they had a duty to care for the earth and all of its people. He urged each student to be as passionate about doing good works as he suspected they would be about their careers. He spoke with such force that even those of us who were spectators felt inspired to go forth and bring light to darkness wherever we may be. 

Jimmy Carter has now lived longer than any former President in history. He returned to his home to die. His time on this earth is drawing to and end and may even over before this post is published. As he spends his last moments on earth I find myself concentrating on his never flinching honor and goodness. He was a man of his word, someone who lived a Christian life better than most who have traveled through life. If he were a Catholic I think he might one day be officially named a saint. As it is, I am certain that he has been a saintly man with or without a title. He is an example for all of us to follow. 

There may be many debates about Jimmy Carter’s presidency, but few will be able to honestly question his integrity and generosity. He most surely was devoid of the many hypocrisies that we see all around us. He never asked any of us to do something that he was not willing to do himself. He reminds me of all of the biographies of saints that I read as a young child, a person who lived outside of his own ego. If we were to rank all former Presidents by character he most surely would be in the top five. 

I have a cousin who has always insisted that Jimmy Carter was the best president in her lifetime and she has facts to prove that she is right. She went to see President Carter not long ago on a pilgrimage to the church where he often preached. Her trip was akin to finding the Holy Grail, the secret to life. She was inspired just as I was thirty years ago on the campus of Rice University. She felt his charisma and humanity in her soul. She cherishes the moment as one of the most impacting days of her life. 

The world will miss President Jimmy Carter. We don’t seem to have enough people doing what is right rather than what they think others want them to do. We have a dearth of honesty, humility and devotion to all people in our world today. Perhaps now we can all pause to consider the message that Jimmy Carter delivered to us all the days of his life and follow him in performing random acts of kindness and understanding wherever we go. It’s an ideal that he has achieved and a challenge for us all.  

“Tonight, I am sitting under my desk at Michigan State University, once again texting everyone ‘I love you’ When will this end?”

This message from a college student to her family says something incredibly wrong about our society not just because she had to send this kind of text once, but because she had relayed a similar message while she was in high school only months before. Our nation is under attack from mass shooters taking out their anger on innocents in stores, churches, schools, nightclubs, parades, workplaces with a regularity so shocking that our sensitivity to such things is seemingly being dulled. By Valentines Day of this year of 2023, there had already been sixty seven mass shootings and no doubt the count will have risen before this post becomes public. 

An entire generation of young people has grown up in the United States with the specter of gun violence. Training for an active shooter is as much a part of preparedness at schools as tornado and fire drills. Students and teachers are on as high alert as we were when I was a young person hiding under a desk in preparation for a possible enemy attack during the Cold War. Each of us has come to realize that there may come a time when we have to react quickly if a shooter enters our space. As citizens we know something has gone terribly wrong, but we argue about what we must do to quell the bloodshed that takes innocents so horrifically from our midst. 

Talk is cheap. Thoughts and prayers are nice, but they somehow feel hollow when we have allowed years to pass since Columbine and the many other locations of violence without doing anything of real substance. Seemingly the growth of such incidents feels exponential as we do little to quell the hurt and loss of wonderful people wrought by predators with guns. Politics and power seem more likely to win the day than serious discussion of the issues and development of laws and precautions that might stem the tide of such incidents. Our nation and its people are sick and weary. Our young ask us why we care so little about them that we cling to the status quo and become ever more insistent on using bandaids to patch the wounds of gun violence. 

We desperately need peacemakers and brilliant legislators in our midst who know how to bring about meaningful protections for our nation. We can’t just build moats around our public places and post cannons and guards to keep danger at bay. We have to honestly look at ourselves and ask very difficult questions about what we have been doing wrong. How have we betrayed our children by becoming a country with more guns than people? Why have we ignored mental illness as though it is a dirty little secret that must be locked away in the attic? Why do those that we elect to lead us only pander to those willing to finance their campaigns rather than seeking to do the right thing? How has our religion become so twisted that we conflate guns with God? How can we just keep moving on to the next event without ever addressing the losses of innocents and innocence?

My tears have done nothing. I write about finding solutions and fewer people read my words. We don’t want to talk about this monster in our midst. We tell ourselves that freedom to accumulate arsenals is more important than the “occasional” incident. We can’t seem to face the truth of our situation which grows more and more out of hand with the passage of time. All of the studies in the world regarding what we should do are of no use if we remain at an impasse. Those Christmas cards of entire families proudly holding their guns create horror shows yet to come. 

I for one have lost my patience. I want those who represent me to quit pandering to the NRA and gun salesmen everywhere. I want them to stop running for office and blindly groveling to a base that seems to think that the second amendment to our Constitution entitles us to creating little armies in every home. I will no longer only cry and fret over the latest tragedy. I don’t want time spent worrying about a drag show that few will ever see. I am not so concerned about what we might read in books in our public places. I do believe that not one of us other than those in the military or law enforcement require an assault weapon. I think it should be more difficult to buy a gun than apply for admission to a university. I think that we have to really invest in improved mental health resources. We can even make our public places safer if we think that will help. Whether or not we responded to Covid properly or adequately is far less important than facing the issue of mass shootings head on and with reasoned cooperation. Let’s not argue about defaulting on our debt. Let’s pay our bills and then convene a national effort to quell these violent attacks. Let’s show our young that we really do care more about them than arguing over how a Super Bowl should be run. 

I will always be a teacher. I will always remember discussions with my students regarding what we would do if a shooter came to our campus. I recall drills and even a time when we went into a lockdown because a shooter was on the loose in our area. I felt the responsibility for the lives of my students in the most visceral way. It’s time to end the insanity of our adoration of a gun culture. It’s past time in fact. We can no longer delay. 

When I was a child segregation still had a stranglehold on the south. I recall being confused by the reality of the times. It made little sense to me that there were two sets of water fountains and bathrooms for whites and blacks. I often rode the city bus to downtown and never understood why there was a line of demarcation that kept me apart from the Black children. I actually thought it would be way more fun to ride in the back of the bus. I did not realize that the Black people sitting there had no other choice. It never really occurred to me that I never saw a Black student at my school. It was not until a summer visit to my grandparents’ farm in Arkansas that I became aware of a brewing struggle in the civil rights movement that would eventually become a passionate cause for me. 

Whenever we visited my grandparents we always ended up sitting on their screened in front porch during the hottest part of the day. There the adults would discuss topics that did not always make sense to me, but one day in a summer of sixty three years ago they spoke of pending efforts to integrate Arkansas schools. The topic caught my attention and made me feel as though adults were silly to worry so much about kids getting together to learn regardless of the color of their skin. I did not fully understand the concerns that they discussed at that time. It was only when I became a teenager in the nineteen sixties that I learned how long the struggle for civil rights had taken for the Black citizens of our country. It was then that I l read about the horrific treatment of this school aged kids who had been courageous pioneers in the integration of schools. It was only then that my own school saw its first students of color. 

I was a quirky little girl who seemed to become an old soul upon the death of my father. Before he died I had floated through life like an unconcerned and happy butterfly. Everything became dramatically serious for me when he was gone. I suppose that my passion for equality and justice began on the summer day when all of my questions surrounding segregation coalesced into the simple thought that there was no reason for any of us to be forbidden to enjoy the same rights. My simplistic thinking was idealistically pure in reasoning that we are all the same and therefore discussions about living together should have been simple rather than filled with the rancor that accompanied the Civil Rights movement. I viewed the hardships of Black citizens from afar, in a retreat of comfort while they were on the front lines.

In many ways the idealism of my immaturity followed me after the passage of the Civil Rights bill in the nineteen sixties. I naively saw the battle for justice as being won and over. It did not occur to me that the same prejudices that created a furor over six year old Ruby Bridges attending an all white elementary school were still very much alive in the hearts of some of my fellow Americans. I was wrong to assume that racism would magically go away simply because a law declared the rights for all people in our country. I suppose I just was not paying enough attention, but my sleep walking would not last. 

By the final decade of the twentieth century I was teaching in one of the most diverse schools in the city of Houston. I saw the blending of many colors and cultures, but also disturbingly felt the rumblings of prejudice that smacked of the days of my childhood. Some of my Black colleagues assured me that their struggles were far from over and that was brought home to me when a relative of one of them was brutally murdered in a little town not far from Houston. The homicide smacked of the lynchings of old and I felt ashamed that I had not seen such things still happening with regularity. 

The election of President Barack Obama seemed to herald a new day of brotherhood among Americans, but then the bigoted commentary and cartoons about him and his family oozed into the public forum. I did not want to believe that the underbelly of racism was still alive. I fought against such thoughts even as the evidence demonstrated that I was wrong. My optimism faltered as the worst was yet to come. 

As we celebrate Black History month echoes of the horrific racism of my childhood are becoming louder and more widely accepted. Tucker Carlson openly hawks a racist screed about Barack and Michelle Obama without the least fear of losing his lucrative job as a purveyor of propaganda. I hear his words in horror and wonder if we got to this point because too many people like me were lulled into thinking that the civil rights work was done. We lost our passion and went about our lives while Black citizens were still feeling the sting of racism. We thought that warnings from our Black friends were hyperbolic. We chose to insulate ourselves into thinking that problems no longer existed. After all, we saw that Blacks were working alongside us, living in our neighborhoods, sitting next to us on busses, becoming successful, even winning elections to become President of the United States. How could we imagine that anything was wrong with the status quo?

As we take time to celebrate our nation’s strides forward during Black History month we would also do well to accept that there is still work to be done. The signs and realities tell us that our nation and many of its people have not yet admitted that the journey for justice still looms before us. It was only sixty three years ago when little Ruby Bridges so bravely represented the hopes and dreams of equality shared by all oppressed people. Don’t fall asleep. Read about the struggles then and now. Keep the passion for justice burning. Speak out when wrong is done and listen to those who have experienced and may still be experiencing prejudice. Their stories are as important now as they were not so long ago.