Category: Courage

Working On The Inside

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Tricia's Podcast

I have a dear friend, Tricia Miller, who is a brilliant and talented woman. I met her when she and I taught together at KIPP Houston High School. I eventually became the Dean of Faculty there and she became one of the College Counselors. We shared a special kinship from the very first and became close friends. Even after we had both the left the school we worked hard to maintain a close relationship with one another that has only grown stronger over the years. At first we mostly got together for celebratory occasions with other women who had also once worked at KIPP. Eventually Tricia and I called upon one another for advice, knowing that together we usually found the wisdom that we needed to tackle the problems that invariably crop up in everyone’s lives.

Tricia became a licensed therapist and did private counseling along with continuing to work with students while I began living the life of retirement. I know from personal experience how good she is at seeing both the pain and joy that lingers in people’s hearts either propelling them forward or holding them back. On more than one occasion she has helped me to find answers that I was seeking and encouraged me to have the courage that I needed to be my personal best. She is what I call an active listener who knows how to pose important questions and then sit back and truly hear the true meaning of what is being said. She is quite good at understanding the essence of people, sometimes even more than they do themselves.

This past summer Tricia decided to develop a podcast that would feature short stories of people who had overcome daunting challenges. I was honored to be one of the guests that she chose to interview, and so I one day found myself sitting in her sunny kitchen talking as friends while she posed guiding questions and recorded my answers. I had been a bit nervous about speaking into a microphone and I worried that I might stumble and stutter as I spoke, but Tricia created such a relaxed atmosphere that I soon forgot that my words were being saved for posterity. I was able to speak from my heart and not worry about how I might sound.

Tricia worked with intense dedication for months to interview individuals, edit their responses, and create a series of quality podcasts with topics intended to inspire listeners. Her efforts resulted in thirty minute episodes in a podcast called Working From the Inside that is currently listed on Google Play, Spotify and Apple iTunes. Her guests are diverse and earnest in sharing their stories of overcoming challenges and finding empathy and support in sometimes unexpected places.

Tricia decided to launch the episode that featured my interview as a gift to me just before my seventieth birthday. The theme of the spot focuses on the mentoring and compassion that I encountered in the sometimes winding journey of my life, particularly with regard to my career. Happily she edited my chatter to include the expressions gratitude that I have always felt for certain individuals who helped to guide me in my work and in navigating through the difficulties that invariably arose along the way. I was able to honor important people like my English teacher, Father Shane, the members of my neighborhood, school and church community, professors who inspired me, principals who helped shape me into a real educator, and elders who demonstrated sacrifice and love when I most needed it.

I hope that the listeners will be able to look past my soft, slow drawl that comes from my Texas background as they hear me speak. It is a trait that sometimes marked me as someone who was insignificant and perhaps also weak. I wanted people to know that even a seemingly shy and sheltered female is able to find grit when given enough encouragement from caring people, and I certainly had my share of kind souls who helped me to become the person that I am today. My story is one of countless moments in which I found good people who understood me and helped me to overcome my weaknesses and fears. Of course, Tricia Miller is one of those very special souls who took the time to really “get me.”

I’d like to invite everyone to look for Working On the Inside with Tricia Miller, M.Ed.,LPC on Google Play, Apple iTunes, or Spotify. Subscribe today and then sit back and enjoy Tricia’s creative talent and the stories of her incredible friends. I have little doubt that you will be inspired and will become a fan.
Tricia has created a kind of oral history of the life and times of our era. Her guests are diverse and from many walks in life. The common thread that binds them together is a determination to overcome even the most horrific difficulties that life throws at each of us. Tricia has such genius and empathy that she is able to bring uncommon honesty to each episode. I’m certain that listeners will find nuggets of wisdom and hope from meeting Tricia and her guests.

Complacency Is Our Enemy

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I’ve always been drawn to books and television programs that feature true crime cases. I regularly record Dateline, Forty Eight Hours, and 20/20. I don’t watch them until I am performing some tedious task around the house like ironing. Then I fill the boredom with mysteries of murder and intrigue. Most of the episodes are somewhat similar in nature, and I have learned how to use my detective skills to put together the clues and determine whodunit. Once in a great while one of the features is different in nature, and it pulls on my emotions to the point of tears. Such was a recent Forty Eight Hours that told of a young man named Blaze Bernstein who was viciously stabbed to death.

Blaze was a happy and incredibly talented young man who lived in southern California with this loving and devoted parents. He was considered to be brilliant by both his teachers and his friends. His talents ran the gamut but it was writing that truly showcased his creativity. He also enjoyed cooking and being with and helping people. He was one of those young people who seemed to be heading for greatness when his life was so viciously ended.

At the same time that Blaze was impressing everyone that he met with his goodness and his potential, another young man was following a different path. He went to the same high school as Blaze but that is where the similarities end. This boy was filled with anger and hate. He became known for racist remarks that included vandalizing a copy of Raisin In the Sun with scribbles of the “N” word throughout. He drew pictures of guns and war, and made his classmates so uncomfortable that they whispered that he had the markings of a school shooter. Unfortunately nobody felt comfortable voicing any of their discomfort aloud. Eventually the hateful kid transferred to a different school, but everyone remembered the fear that he had engendered in them.

Blaze went on the an ivy league college where he was almost immediately a stand out student. After his first semester he returned home for the winter break, and all seemed well. Blaze of course was Jewish, and he had come out as gay, but none of that mattered to those who loved him, and they were many. During the break he got a message from the disturbed young man who had once been a fellow classmate. Without telling anyone where he was going, Blaze agreed to a meeting in a local park. He never came home.

Were it not for an unusually strong rainfall Blaze’s body might never have been found. He was buried under a tree in the park and a passerby noticed a muddy mound that seemed unnatural. Blaze’s body showed evidence of a raging knife attack. In the meantime, Blaze’s parents had done a bit of sleuthing and found a message on his computer indicating his intent to meet the former classmate in the park. When detectives descended on the suspect’s home they found a bloody knife with Blaze’s blood still on it, as well as blood in the perpetrator’s car.

The murder alone was so horrific that I cried several times during the episode, but even more frightening was that the killer had been a member of a neo-Nazi group called Atom Waffen that has chapters all over the United States. The goal of this organization is to literally destroy the United States of America. They celebrated Blaze’s death as a glorious victory with the double benefit of eliminating both a Jew and a gay man. The members are so violent that they consider the Alt Right to be a group of cowards who are not willing to bring about the level of anarchy needed to cleanse the world of all sorts of people who are undesirable in their minds. Most troubling is that they are gaining traction particularly with young white male teens who feel part of something important for the first time in their lives in joining ranks.

We all need to be fully aware that such groups exist, and we need to do our best to find ways to eliminate them. Nonetheless, Blaze’s parents have embarked on a positive and loving pathway to bringing tolerance into more hearts. They have established a foundation called Blaze It Forward in honor of their son. The goal is to encourage people to perform acts of kindness and to donate to causes that help people. They have been able to provide college scholarships and work with young people who feel disengaged. They have channeled their sorrow into love, and in the process have brought great meaning to Blaze’s short life in spite of his death.

I sobbed when I witnessed the courage and grace of Blaze’s parents, and found myself thinking once again of the importance of each of us working systematically to stoke the fires of compassion, acceptance and goodness in every corner of the world. We need to continually model the behaviors that we wish to see, and be on the watch for the wounded souls among us. I suspect that Blaze was such a good person that he may have agreed to meet his killer in the hopes of somehow changing his murder’s tortured soul. It was just the sort of thing that he was prone to do. His parents have followed his lead and focus their healing on good works. It’s something that we should all consider doing. At the same time we must speak out against hate groups and make everyone aware of their dangerous agendas. Complacency is one of our worst enemies that will only lead to more violence.

Happy Birthday To Me

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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By the end of this weekend I will have turned seventy years old. It’s a bit of a milestone. Most of the classmates with whom I attended school have already crossed that bridge. It’s far older than the average lifespan of people determined by actuarial science in the year that I was born. It’s a rather sobering sounding number by anyone’s standards, and for the first time in my life it actually seems to indicate that I am growing old.

I suppose that it would be best to accept my fate since it is the most natural of events. In fact, being able to add another year, another decade to my history is cause for celebration. In a time not that far past being seventy was not that common. It would have landed me among a blessed few. Still, I have to admit that reaching that age is a bit unnerving, not so much for superficial reasons, but because the unknown becomes a bit more murky after the age of seventy. It is indeed a very good idea for me to hold tight to every single day that remains in the rest of my life, for it is uncertain how many they will be, and certain that they are growing fewer with each passing year.

Save for accidents, wars, or natural disasters I have two possible scenarios for living out my days. One side of my family tends to enjoy good health until about the age of eighty when things fall apart. Most of the people in that group either suffered from heart disease, which I do not have, or they became afflicted with cancer like my mother, and both of my grandmothers. The other branch of my family lives very long lives, well into their nineties and beyond, and mostly in relatively good health with the ability to read and think and discuss clearly. My grandfather was literally in almost perfect condition until he celebrated his one hundred eighth birthday. I now have three aunts, siblings of my mother, who are living well past their mid nineties and slowly but surely approaching the one hundred mark. It remains to be seen which group I am most like, but given my present condition it appears that I more closely resemble the latter.

That realization gets me to a point of concern, for I vividly recall my grandfather quietly noting that growing as old as he did has the capacity of bringing sadness into an otherwise optimistic life. By the time of his death all of my grandfather’s children save one had died. His beloved spouse had been gone for thirty years. He had depleted his savings and lived from one month to the next on a ridiculously low government check. While he admitted to being fortunate because he was able to live independently until the final few months of his life, he still felt more and more alone as each passing year brought a new one. He missed the friends and family members who had one by one gone before him. In particular the death of his children was a sobering blow. He was blessed to be able to rent a room from a dear woman who became such a friend that he called her daughter, and rightly so. Still, he admitted that he had grown weary and was ready to get to heaven.

Long life is surely a blessing and I intend to enjoy mine and pray for good health in the coming years, but I’ve actually reached an age at which I am beginning to comprehend my grandfather more and more. He was a joyfully optimistic man, but I understood the worries that he hid so gallantly behind a curtain of courage. His conversations in the later years centered on nostalgia, and a kind of folksy wisdom that he wished to impart to us. As he continued to be with us year after year he became almost immortal and saintly in our minds. It was just as shocking when he died as it might have been at a far earlier age. We mourned the loss of a truly great man, but also understood how selfish it would have been to keep him with us any longer.

I suppose that these are somewhat dreary thoughts on a birthday weekend, and this is truly the first time that a new year of life has brought me such musings. There is something about the number seventy that tells me that I must enjoy each day with far more gusto than ever before. I must embrace my friends and my family and somehow let them know how much they mean to me with every single encounter.

Today the world is brilliantly beautiful to me with its vibrance and possibilities. There has never been a time in my life when technology, medicine, science and creative arts promised so much to even the most common human. Like my grandfather before me I see the past, present and future with new eyes. I understand that even as we quibble with one another and face problems that never seem to end, these truly are “the good old days.”

Mankind is without question a magnificent piece of work. I can see clearly beyond the ugliness and my view from this point in my life is glorious. I suppose that I realize that life itself is my most precious gift, and though my joints ache on most days, I am still filled with an inner energy that takes me to glorious places in my mind. I have learned like my grandfather that the world has a way of righting itself in spite of the quarrels that we create. The young take our places and lead us into a future that will no doubt only get better, without walls or artificial divisions. That sounds very nice, and I intend to go joyfully forward and push my concerns aside for another day. Happy Birthday to me!

A Quiet Revolution

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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Sometimes it’s good to get away from the never ending information stream that surrounds us on a daily basis. Even with a concerted effort it can be almost impossible to drown out the the noise that has become so much a part of life in the world today. We are literally exposed to an overload of news and opinions that swirl so closely together that it becomes difficult to differentiate between the two. Fact becomes opinion and opinion becomes fact. We find ourselves growing cynical in an upside down universe where believing is sometimes fueled by misinformation and propaganda posing as truth. We feel overwhelmed, and attempt to cope by purposely creating a “time out” for ourselves, a brief moment in which the sound and the fury is silenced so that we may sort out our thoughts and renew our spirits.

Thus it was a couple of weeks ago when I traveled to a an enchanting campground in Arkansas just outside of Hot Springs. The view from my trailer was gorgeous and tranquil, so much so that I suspect that my blood pressure went down several notches. An added bonus was that I had no cell phone coverage or Internet. I was essentially ignorant of the happenings in the world outside of my little cocoon, save for the brief moments each morning when I visited the ranger station to check on family and friends. At first it was uncomfortable and even a bit frightening to be so cut off from the barrage of information,  but I soon found myself feeling a sense of well being and independence. I did not miss all of the furor and rancor and editorializing that sometimes feels so unavoidable. I relaxed, communed with nature, and even allowed myself to enjoy a few foods that I had cut out of my daily regimen. I slept like a bear hibernating in a cave, and felt an inner peace with myself and the world.

Then came the news of the senseless shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh. It raddled my new found feeling of security, and thoughts of what had happened rolled around in the back of my head even while I tried to maintain the lovely distance from anger and hate that I had been enjoying. I wanted to speak of what had happened, but I remained mute lest the emotions of joy and tranquility that I had would be replaced by sorrow and anxiety. I pushed my feelings down as far as I possibly could and did my best to retain the sense of well being that my little retreat from reality had been providing me. I found myself wanting to wander off in the forest that encircled our campground in the hopes of finding refuge in some Thoreau like cabin in the woods where I might live my life immune from ugliness. Of course, I understood that such a world is in truth an impossible dream. A voice in my head was calling me back to a place where reality lurks, a place where people struggle and suffer and find little ways to keep a hold on happiness and optimism even when cynicism appears to be the best armor.

I came home and threw myself into performing mundane tasks that required me to avoid the television, the radio, the Internet. Still I was unable to escape the dreadful feeling of how much more divided our nation has become, and how our differences are causing so much unnecessary anguish. There are lost souls among us whose diseased brains taunt them to do despicable things. There are purely evil people whose putrid hate compels them to hurt innocent people who have nothing to do with the imagined slights that make them rage. We have an epidemic of incivility and fury that is making those of us who are stable to feel somehow uncertain, and those who are sociopaths to feel entitled to violent retribution. It is unsettling and frightening when even the people who are supposed to be our unbiased reporters and those designated to be our leaders only know how to respond by arguing and accusing one another of outrageous sins. Little wonder that we are witness to a level of murderous aggression unlike anything that I have witnessed in all of my years on this earth.

I want so badly to find a level of wisdom to impart that will literally change the course of our present history. I have hoped and prayed that there will be a tipping point after which we bind our wounds and join hands in a united effort to insure that the precious lives of good people will not be cut short when they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our children should not have to practice lockdowns in their schools. Churches and synagogues and temples should not have to form emergency committees whose job is to take action if a shooter interrupts a worship service. We should not have to carry clear purses to big events lest to insure that no weapons will be used to destroy others. There is really no excuse for our willingness to  accept that occurrences of violence are now simply part of the way things are. We should not feel compelled to arm ourselves in places that should bring us joy.

How can we expect the unhinged among us to remain calm and without rancor when we are fighting with one another at every turn? Why are some of our politicians inciting unrest, suggesting that being tough and angry is the only way to solve our problems? We are pushing and shoving one another with words and actions. We are engaged in a kind of national anger fest that sees no end. For now there are flareups of murder here and there, but if we do not find some way to seek our common good I have come more and more to fear that we will find ourselves engaged in a real civil war, not just one of words. I now find myself praying continuously that there will be a revolution of good people to bind the wounds of our country and bring us together to quell the sickness that festers in dark places.

I grieve for the souls who were killed in Pittsburgh, good people who were only trying to honor their God. I grieve for anyone who has been a victim of the kind of unspeakable tragedies that occur far too often. I challenge all people of loving hearts, and I believe they are many, to convince our leaders that we will no longer just sit back and tolerate the hate. I want to see a swell of support for kindness, in the style of the peaceful and measured protests that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr once led. We need to join hands with all people of the world regardless of religion, political affiliation, sexuality to demonstrate our intent to being civility and kindness to the forefront. We must work together to fix the real problems that we face, and let those who would thwart our efforts know that we are no longer interested in fighting and bickering. We must much honor those whose lives have been lost by becoming better than the evil. We must forego the hysteria, and bring order to our world. Love must prevail.

Dealing With Loss

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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We all face a time of grief. Nobody is immune from the human destiny of death and loss. We build deep and loving relationships with people even as we know that one day we may have to live without them. Death and the emotions that it engenders are a kind of curse from which we cannot escape. When a beloved dies we are deeply affected and must bear the cycle of sorrow that descends upon us. How well we cope may be quite different from one person to another. It is a very personal and private journey which truly cannot be judged. The hurt is real and tangible.

We often wonder if it is better to lose someone suddenly or after a long illness during which we have had time to prepare. The truth is that both scenarios are traumatic. Loss is loss no matter how it happens, and it is something that we never really get over. Instead we allow ourselves to express our sadness in our individual ways and then we find the means of coping and moving on with our lives. When our depression becomes chronic and paralyzes us we need to seek help, but often don’t even realize that our suffering has overwhelmed our ability to find a way to heal.

I am now an orphan. Both of my parents are dead. One was killed suddenly when I was a young child. It has been sixty two years since his accident, but the memories of that trauma are as vivid today as they were back in 1957. I am not obsessed with the death of my father, but I do indeed miss him. When I was eight years old I felt scarred by the loss, but even then I understood that I had to find a way not to be perennially sad and scared. I found the solace that I sought in my studies at school. I suppose that it was inevitable that I would turn to reading and learning as a means of coping with my hurt because these were things that I fondly associated with my dad. In my childlike way I made it out of the abyss of depression by attempting to become the kind of person that I believed he would have wanted me to be.

I rarely spoke of my struggles until I encountered my mother-in-law who also quite unexpectedly lost her father in a hunting accident. Her dad was only a bit older than my father had been when he died, and she while in her twenties was still quite young when the tragedy occurred. Over tea and cookies she often told me stories of how great her father had been, and how his life had inspired her to be better in her own. Ironically we both had dealt with our sorrows by focusing on improving ourselves in honor of the men that we so loved.

I was an old woman when my mother died, eligible to retire from my life’s work of teaching. My mom had been afflicted with bipolar disorder for decades and in her final years my brothers and I had become her caretakers as her health also began to decline. I saw that she was not as energetic as she had once been and she was coughing constantly. The tissues that she stuffed into the trash were often tinged with blood, and still I refused to accept that she was going to die even with so much evidence. When her time came she insisted that she was ready and made me and my brothers promise that we would not resort to extraordinary means to extend her life. She was prepared for her fate, and so at peace. At the time I suppose that I was very much in denial and I walked through the days after her death in a kind of fog devoid of any visible emotions. Inside I was a basket case and believed that I had to find something to fill the vacancy in my heart left by her departure. That’s when I turned to writing, and I suppose it is what fuels me to this very day.

I still miss both of my parents and often find myself wishing that they were still around, even as I know that all was as it was meant to be. I rely on beautiful memories of them to sustain my desire to be with them once again. I turn my focus to constructive activities that push me outside of myself whenever my reveries lead to dark places. It is what we humans do. We love even knowing that one day that special recipient of our care and concern may be gone. We work to make them proud of the ways in which we carry on their legacies, because they do live in our very souls. As long as we breathe they are never completely gone.

I suppose that I love The Lion King because it so poetically outlines the circles of life that define our days here on earth. We find joys, relationships, purposes in spite of our disappointments, feelings of loneliness and sense of being adrift. The way of the world is both to be joyful and to suffer. Mostly we are continually finding ways to carry on in the face of adversity. For some like me and my mother-in-law that may mean embracing the mantle of responsibilities. For others it may involve learning how to relax and have fun. It doesn’t really matter how we choose to cope as long as we find a way.

I would like to think that I am a strong person, but I know that there have been times when I have felt utterly defeated by the realities of being a human. I have remembered and grieved. I have begged God to have pity on my poor wretched soul. I have arisen from the ashes again and again like a phoenix, and yet I still don’t really know how to comfort someone who is struggling with the death of a loved one other than to express my condolences. I know all too well that each of us has to find our own ways of dealing with the ultimate test of our endurance, being left behind when someone we love dies. It is incredibly hard, but we will heal. A warm hug or an understanding word of encouragement always helps. Be that person who brings kindness and hope.