Category: Commentary

It’s hotter than the world has seen in decades, maybe even since we began measuring such things. Nonetheless if it’s July I’m already beginning to think about Christmas. I have so much to do between now and December 25, that I like to start my planning early. I suppose this came about because of my work as a teacher. Once the school year started in August I was knee deep in projects that kept me busy from six in the morning until ten or eleven at night. Even weekends were often jammed with paper grading and lesson planning. If I did not start preparing for Christmas early I would be caught short when the holiday vacation finally came in late December. So I always used my month off in July to get ahead of the game. 

During 2020 when Covid was at its peak I made all of my purchases online. This year I’m looking forward to actually visiting stores in person. It will be a treat that I have missed in the couple of seasons and one of my first stops will be at a Hallmark store to check out their annual ornament array. I have quite a collection that has amused me and my grandchildren for years. The first ones always appear in July with more coming over the next few months. The one that started my accumulation was Steamboat Willie, a Mickey Mouse character that whistled a little song while steering a boat. Sadly he no longer makes music because he has to be attached to a light bulb socket that nobody makes anymore. He’s still very cute and brings back lots of fond memories for me. I purchased him in Chicago shortly after my twin grandchildren Ian and Abby were born so he always reminds me of how happy I was when they came into my life. 

I still send out old fashioned Christmas cards. Fewer and fewer people do that these days but I am a diehard. I start looking for good ones in the summer and even begin filling them out a few here and a few there. I don’t attach stamps until the last minute because sadly someone has died before December came along almost ever year of late. 

I suppose that I am like Mitt Romney with his notebooks I might seem a bit behind the times with the paper calendars that I purchase each year, but I am a visual person and I need something that allows me to quickly glance at the date. I have two traditions now with calendars, one always displays photos of London and the other is a cutesy calendar with birds or flowers or schoolhouses. I pick up my calendars when I find them and store them away until the new year. They often begin to show up in stores and online in July.

I also begin purchasing gifts for family and friends. I’m on the lookout wherever I go. My closets become crammed with things that I have stored away, so around November I begin wrapping items to clear a pathway. July is always the launch of my gift burying season starting with the birthday of my eldest daughter which coincides with the launch of my Christmas planning.

My youngest daughter was born on December 20, as was my youngest grandson. When my she was a young girl she hated her birth date because she felt that she got lost in the rush of the season. Everyone was too busy to even remember her special day. Getting birthday and Christmas gifts all within five days made the rest of the year seem long and without much cheer. She envied her sister who got to have a party in July, so one year she asked if we would experiment a bit and have a celebration for her in June instead. 

We thought that was a grand idea and we went all out for her with a party and gifts and even a special trip since school was out. Sadly it just did not feel right to any of us and she reluctantly agreed that it was best to go back to her December date. Now she is content with quietly enjoying a night at the movies and a special dinner with her son. 

It may seem strange to think about Christmas in July but around the middle of the month I begin plotting and planning every single year. It cheers me up to think of the fun times that lay ahead and I laugh at feeling a bit like one of Santa’s elves. I’m a creature of habit and I get through the long hot July days by thinking of the cool weather and the lights and good cheer of Christmas. 

I suppose that I am my mother’s daughter in so many ways. When she died we found a closet full of gifts both at my house and in the  home where she had not lived for almost three years. All were labeled with the names of recipients, thoughtfully purchased wherever she went. Somehow those items became so special to each of us who received them posthumously. They demonstrated so poignantly that she was always thinking of us even as she grew more ill. 

Christmas will be here before we know it. It’s fun to have hopes and dreams even when the world seems to be on fire. Somehow together we always seem to find our way to celebrations of life with family and friends. I like getting ready for that in small ways so that when December comes I am able to sit back and totally enjoy the season with love and joy. 

I am incredibly professional when I am teaching or working with others. I measure my words and do my best not to say anything that might be disturbing to the people around me. I learned long ago that there are different levels of speaking. The formal level is the only one that is totally appropriate for a work environment. It is a way of talking that ensures that nobody will be offended by whatever is said. I was very good at leaving opinions, curse words, and insults out of my teaching vocabulary. My words would have passed muster in church and in front of my mother. 

Each of us also has both an informal and an intimate manner of speaking. Informal conversations are more relaxed with less concern about using certain words or phrases that may be a bit brash. If we are wise we generally reserve such language for gatherings with acquaintances We feel freer to punctuate our comments with vernacular and jokes that might be misunderstood in a more formal setting. We use our most intimate language with those whom we most trust to understand our meanings and love us even when we sometimes say something that should have been left unsaid. In other words, if we are wise we will think about how to speak and what to say before we just blurt things out. 

Social media has provided people with a forum for voicing their views with a certain level of anonymity. Sometimes in the heat of a moment we type our reactive thoughts and press return before we have even given ourselves time to think about what we have said. Opinionated battles ensue and sometimes friendships end on the battlefield of Facebook or Twitter. In retrospect we may regret that we were so hasty to voice our views, to argue with someone even knowing that we were never going to change their minds. We castigate ourselves for being so hasty but our words are already out there and we can’t take them back. 

During the height of the Covid pandemic most of us were somewhat isolated. Families were homebound with parents and children using the Internet to work and attend classes. We learned to order things online and pickup groceries from our cars. It was a rather lonely time when nobody was having parties or meeting for lunch or dinner. We “met” each other on FaceTime or Zoom. We kept track of everyone’s status by phone, text, Facebook or Instagram. To say that society was a bit beside itself would be an understatement. We were literally fighting among ourselves over how best to react the the virus. 

Sometimes the conversations became heated with emotions. I tried to calm myself whenever anyone became especially anxious and cantankerous. I knew that we were all suffering from the incredible stress that Covid had imposed on the entire world. With a presidential election added to the mix, tempers flared. Discussions sometimes devolved into name calling. Friends were unfriending friends. Too much that should not have been said or should have been said in a kinder way was being voiced or typed without thinking. 

Along the way I lost a few people who were only casual friends but sadly I also lost someone whom I love deeply and have known since I was six years old. She was like the sister that I never had. We grew up together, raised our children together, celebrated and grieved together, took trips together. Through it all our bond only seems to grow but in one fell swoop I damaged the relationship with words that I used without a thought about how they might sound. I had misjudged how safe it was to be my anxious self, but I realized immediately that my words had done irreparable damage. There was no acceptable explanation or penance capable of healing the fracture. 

I have gone back to that moment thousands of times. I have berated myself for being so hasty because I am a student of words and ways of expressing myself. I should have known better. I have grieved over the loss of someone who had been so special to me for most of my life. I have had to move on and simply accept the loss knowing that it did not have to happen if I had simply taken a deep breath and measured my words more carefully.

I wonder how many marriages have ended because of words. What we say is powerful and it sticks with people even if we do not mean what we have said. I had learned in my education classes that we all know the triggers that hurt people with whom we are very close. It is our responsibility not to use those comments to hurt them. I had been an almost religious follower of that concept but I spoke before considering my words on that day that I lost my friend. I have seen firsthand how hurtful that can be for the person on the receiving end of an ill measured comment. 

I suppose that if we all took a deep breath before saying or writing something we might eliminate a great deal of sorrow in this world. The old saw that sticks and stone can break bones but words can never hurt is patently untrue. Sometimes what we say wounds more deeply than a slap in the face. We teach ourselves to never physically assault someone. We have to be as careful with our words as we are with our hands.    

Life is a never ending project. We might create routines for ourselves that feel comfortable, but all too often we get so caught up in things we must do that we lose sight of what is really important, what really brings happiness and contentment to ourselves and those around us. Sometimes our world is blown apart by death or illness or loss of a home or income. Suddenly everything feels different, out of control. Our anxieties flare and we feel as though we are trying to single-handedly hold back a tidal wave. In those moments of darkness we long for the way things were. We want the familiar even as we realize that we can’t really have it, at least for the time being. 

This is a difficult summer for so many people. Once we all thought that maybe the worst of the pandemic was over we all began to scurry for a semblance of normalcy, but the ebbs of flows of life don’t always give us the breaks that we desire. Some people are taking glorious vacations and filling social media with smiles and lovely scenes. Others are dealing with the anniversaries of losing loved ones to violence or death. Some are laying beloved family members to rest. People are still becoming infected with new strains of Covid and being hospitalized for weeks. Countries are experiencing wars, food shortages, fires, extreme heat. The costs of virtually everything we purchase are soaring all over the world. 

It would be easy to forget the suffering if we are having fun or to feel alone and isolated if we have not yet been fortunate enough to have a sense that life is getting better. All of the conflicting stories and emotions bring out our human flaws. People are angry, jealous, lonely, in pain. When that happens we begin to misunderstand and argue with one another. We want to blame somebody for our sorrow. 

Last week I wrote about my dear friend Sharon Saunders. She understood that when people are hurting they often act out in ways that confuse the people around them. Instead of punishing them for bad behavior she listened intently to what they were saying. She wanted to know what was making them feel so lost, so angry. She practiced what the Buddhist monk, Tich Naht Hanh, called compassionate listening. She had no judgement, no agenda. She simply heard and accepted every word that they uttered. She let them know that she had heard them and that their feelings were normal. She helped them to put the pieces of their shattered lives back together.

Tich Naht Hanh tells us that there are four mantras that we should learn a practice in our interactions with each other. The first one is: Darling, I am here for you. The second is:Darling, I know you are here. The third is: Darling, I see that you are suffering. The fourth is: Darling, I am suffering, please help me. The word darling is important because it tells the other person that you have true affection for them. My sweet friend, Zerin Sahai, uses that word often. She calls me “My darling, Mrs. Burnett.” I know that she loves me when she does that.

How beautifully simple and powerful are these ideas! They help us to fully focus our here and now on the individuals who pass through our lives just as my friend Sharon Saunders always so beautifully did. They help us to understand that it is only in hearing the actual reasons for the way people are feeling or acting that we might come to a compassionate solution for our differences. It is a willingness to admit when we ourselves are struggling. 

We humans have a tendency to compartmentalize ourselves into groups. We look upon those who are different as suspect. We compare and rank people as though they are little more than objects to be treasured or tossed away. We often listen with our minds already made up. Our conversations are really debates. This is how friendships shatter. Marriages fall apart. Politics become toxic. Wars begin. Too often we are unwilling to admit that we might be wrong or even that there is more than one answer or solution. 

Being able to really see and hear and understand the people around me and even those who are far away has been a lifelong project for me. I have role models like Sharon Saunders and Zerin Sahai whom I attempt to emulate. I practice living up to their example and I falter. I have to learn to forgive myself for speaking without thinking, thinking without love. I know that I am not alone in being this way. Each of us stumbles. Each of us knows suffering. 

The rising of the sun on a new day gives us another opportunity to get things right. It shows us that we will not be immune to sorrows or that everything will go our way even when we work very hard. Storms come to beat down our efforts and even wash them away. We are misunderstood and we misunderstand. 

Perhaps we need to learn how to take a deep breath and remind ourselves to stop and take the time to let the people that we encounter know that we actually care about them. We must be here for them. We must see that they are here for us. We need to acknowledge their suffering without platitudes or advice. We must be willing to admit to our own suffering and ask for the help that we need. If we can do such things as we go about our days we might find more happiness than sorrow, more belonging that loneliness. 

When I was a young girl one of our local television stations ran old movies each afternoon. I often came home from school and settled down on the family couch to watch the black and white films from my mother’s teen years. One of my all time favorites was a movie about Jim Thorpe starring Burt Lancaster. I enjoyed the flick so much that I have viewed it many times over the years and I never grow weary of it even though it may not have been totally accurate.

Jim Thorpe was a Native American born in Oklahoma and sent to the Carlisle School for Native American children in Pennsylvania where he played on both the football and baseball team. He was such a talented athlete that he was touted as a future All-American. During the summer breaks he played baseball for a minor league team that paid him thirty dollars a month. 

Eventually Thorpe participated in the Summer Olympics of 1912 that were held in Sweden. He won gold medals in both the pentathlon and decathlon. Sadly, a newspaper broke a story a year after his victory exposing his work on the baseball team. The Olympic committee charged Thorpe with breaking the rules and rescinded his medals. For the rest of his life Thorpe and his family would fight this decision but nothing came of their efforts. Jim Thorpe died in poverty in his sixties. 

I was fascinated with Jim Thorpe’s story. I cried watching the movie and felt that it had been unfair to take his medals. My beliefs further materialized when I later saw Olympic athletes earning lucrative contracts as spokespersons of various products. Somehow it seemed wrong that this humble man’s reputation had been so battered. Further reading showed that many people knew about his work long before he went to the Olympics and only expressed their “horror” after the story hit the newspapers. Additionally the actual rule about taking away medals indicated that any complaints had to be submitted within three months of the end of the Olympics. The investigation did not begin until well over a year after Thorpe had won. 

I remember my grandfather talking about how mistreated Native Americans had been in Oklahoma. He had worked in the area before it was even a state and had witnessed what amounted to brazen theft of land for the cost of a car battery. It made him angry to see other men taking advantage of the native people who had been humiliated over and over again. I suppose that I thought of these things with regard to Jim Thorpe and wondered if the Olympic Committee would have been as quick to take his medals if he had been a white man. I wondered why the men who coached and trained him failed to mention that he might not be eligible for the Olympic competitions because of his paid work that would have amounted to a grand total of one hundred eighty dollars. 

Happily the Jim Thorpe story was not over. After all these years the Olympic Committee agreed with me and reinstated all of his medals. While it is always great to make a wrong right, I find myself wondering if Jim Thorpe’s life might have turned out differently if he had never lost his medals and his adulation in the first place. He himself was rather resigned to his fate, often commenting that it was just one more insult to a Red man in a long line of historical injustice. 

There is a great deal of concern these days about making children feel guilty about the treatment of different groups in the story of our country. Somehow there are adults who do not seem to understand that children will learn about such things one way or another. They might hear their grandfather telling stories about his work near Native American reservations or they might watch an old movie one afternoon. What they see and hear will pique their interest, encourage them to ask questions and do some reading to find out more information. It may become an obsession them for much of their lives as the Jim Thorpe story did for me. Ironically, this was not a horrible thing, but an awakening that I believe made me a better person. 

There have always been bad things done by bad people and bad things done by good people. Talking about them is healthy and leads to critical thinking about how we should behave. Sometimes it even leads to correcting a terrible mistake. I can’t think of anything wrong with that. 

Jim Thorpe was always my hero. Now the tarnish from his name has been removed. I have a bit more spring in my step and the hint of a smile on my face knowing that I was right all along. His is a difficult story but I think I learned a great deal about people and even myself from following the saga for all these years. It’s nice to watch a good guy finally win in the end. 

I’m sitting in my daughter’s home watching her dogs while she and her family vacation in Hawaii. I am a person who enjoys quiet, so the experience is much like a kind of respite for me. I spend my days doing a whole lot of nothing while the pups hover around the chair where I sit. Now and again they want to snuggle with me or wrestle a bit and I indulge them. We have a very nice arrangement and they seem to know when to vie for my attention and when to leave me alone. For me this is a very pleasant experience.

I’ve done a great deal of surfing on my laptop computer. I’ve managed to read dozens of newspaper and magazine articles along with enjoying some online books. I do Wordle each morning and check out Facebook to see what my friends are doing. I’ve learned that practically everyone that I know seems to be on vacation somewhere having a fabulous time while the world itself seems to be imploding. At least that is the impression that I get from my reading. 

It’s easy to understand how someone who is alone and having a difficult time physically, emotionally or financially might devolve into a kind of hopeless depression if they are keeping up with the online commentaries. I suspect that our global fascination with social media and instant news flashes is both a very good and a very bad thing at one and the same time. While the internet keeps us informed and connected in a way never before possible, it also has the power to make us feel anxious and even a bit dissatisfied with ourselves. It may busy our minds with unhealthy even destructive thoughts. Such is especially true for anyone who is isolated or already living in a chaotic environment. 

I wonder sometimes what kind of impact the internet has on people with disturbed minds. I worry especially about young people who spend hours in their rooms gaming with strangers or chatting with people they barely know. Kids used to generally get out much more than many do today. It has become normal to see teens constantly gazing at their phones rather than being present in the moment of wherever they happen to be. 

I heard a recent commentary that claimed that almost fifty percent of teens are experiencing depression at some level. They speak of feeling abandoned, misunderstood, unloved. While these tend to be the somewhat normal adolescent anxieties, I wonder if they are being magnified by the barrage of online imagery and commentary that constantly invites comparisons. How many of our youngsters and even adults feel less than the others that they see others smiling and having fun when their own lives are marked with loneliness? 

Even adults are having a difficult time getting along these days. They argue with each other over how things should be, dotting their discussions with cruel insults rather than rational thoughts. Our society is a confusing mix of contradictory ideas that the various sides argue about continuously. So many among us view differences as deviant behavior rather than just accepting people as they are. Lots of young people complain of feeling unseen, unheard. They long for someone to just love and understand them rather than critique them. 

I really appreciated a feature of the last school where I worked. Each group of about one hundred twenty five students had an adult charged with watching over them as their team leader. This person regularly checked on each students’ well-being and got to intimately know each individual. In addition every two hundred fifty students had a social worker who was available for counseling or whatever else they might need, including referrals for hearing tests, glasses, or psychiatric care. those social workers listened to their charges and helped them to navigate through the angst of teen years. Finally there were three counselors who helped the students to discover their interests and develop plans for successfully navigating into adult life. 

Teams of teachers who worked side by side with the team leaders, counselors, social workers and school administrators. the goal was never to allow any student to fall through the cracks, to feel invisible. Parents were also consciously brought into the mix and encouraged to contact the school with any concerns that they might have. On the whole the attention served the students well. Mostly they understood that there was always someone who cared about them. 

It took a great deal of teamwork, effort and financial expenditure to pull off this program, but I always felt that it was worth everything that we put into it. We found the kids who were hiding in their rooms from abusive parents, the ones who were cutting themselves, those who were using drugs to numb their pain, the sorrowful teens who felt uncomfortable in their own skin or sexuality. We helped them to understand that they we really cared about them and their welfare. 

While we did not succeed in every single case, our record was mostly spectacular. Our students responded to the love we offered them, even when it was sometimes tough. They knew that they were safe in our hands and that each of them was precious. We did our best to support them through those grueling teen years. They had a foundation upon which to build the rest of their lives. 

I often wish that every single school used the model that we developed. I abhor the thought of even a single soul feeling lost and believing that he or she does not matter to anyone in the world. Everyone needs to be seen and loved without conditions. That is what we tried to do. Everyone deserves that much, but sadly we are so busy with a whole lot of nothing that we do very little for the quiet souls suffering in silence. We suggest that they pray and learn to conform when we should be instead allowing them to tell us how they really feel and what they really want. So many problems are solved just by taking time to show someone love.