Category: Courage

I Must Do More Than Pray

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Bible_Cover

I am a religious person but not nearly as spiritual as some that I know. I try to do better and I talk to God all the time but I know that I have much room to grow in my faith. I don’t pretend to be a theologian and I’m hardly a master of the Bible. My little niece, Lorelai, is better versed in the books and chapter and verses than I will ever be. I spent twelve years taking religion classes in Catholic schools and I picked up the essence the teachings of Jesus over time. Somehow I have always thought that His message was profound but simple. To me it has always been summarized in His commandment that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This should not be that difficult to do and yet all of us stray from that dictum over and over again.

Jesus also told us to judge not lest we be judged and yet it as always seemed to me that those of us who are Christians are often the very first to to shake our heads in judgement whenever we witness behaviors that we disapprove. It is so difficult to set aside the haughtiness of self righteousness, a sin of which I am particularly guilty even as I write these words. I suppose that Jesus understood quite well the frailties that we humans possess and so he attempted to teach us about the things that we were most likely to do wrong.

I have been asking Jesus to help us all these days. My heart is heavy with grief and anger over the plight of Black Americans in an era when we should be well beyond the injustices of the past. I’ve been overly judgmental of family members, friends, and strangers who can’t seem to understand what is happening in the Black Lives Matter movement. I am livid about our president and his tone deaf response to what is happening. I do not understand why he thinks the way he does, nor why he cannot see how divisive his comments are. I tell myself that it is not up to me to judge him or anyone else. That should be God’s work and only God will ever really know what to make of his heart. Still I think that as a Catholic Christian I have a right to speak out when I disagree with him.

A church building is sacred to me. It has always been a place of refuge and peace. I do not take lightly the power of community and love that it represents and so it is with the Bible, a book that I know I should read more often. We swear to tell the truth on the Bible. We seek direction for our lives in the Bible. We hear about the life of Jesus in the Bible and hopefully we model on lives on His example as described in the Bible. For that reason I do not think that either a church building or the Bible should be treated without great reverence and respect.

I did not agree with President Trump’s bravado in speaking with the nation’s governors earlier this week. I felt that his use of words and invoking of military terminology as a means of controlling the violence and looting associated with the protests was like throwing gasoline on a fire. There are ways of preventing and controlling illegal actions without resoring to extreme measures. I would rather have heard him taking the time to show more compassion for those who are angry. I would like to see him attempting to listen and understand rather than talk and command. There is no weakness in averting chaos with understanding and love. It is possible to be a guide toward good, a model leader of character and concern and that is what I hoped he would be. We need to hear him providing concrete ideas for eliminating discrimination. 

I have prayed because I do not have all the answers. I have prayed because maybe I am wrong but my heart tells me that berating governors and bragging about dire consequences for those who do not tow the line is abusive. People might fall in line for someone who threatens them with punishment but such harshness will only intensify their feelings. We do not need a nation that silently bears grievances only because it fears to suffer the ire of the very person who should be helping to make us feel safe and honored as people. 

I did not like that a peaceful crowd in front of the White House was cleared with tear gas just so the President could strut across the street to a church that he has never once attended and hold up a Bible for a photo opportunity after he had just humiliated our governors and threatened the protestors with grave repercussions. If it was not a travesty it was at least a moment of embarrassingly bad taste. It certainly dashed any hopes that I might have had for the show of healing and human kindness that I believe our nation desperately needs.

I keep praying to Jesus. I feel his love and comfort and I thank Him for the blessings that  have filled my life. Still I implore Him to help us. I ask Him to show me what I must do for surely my thoughts and prayers are not enough. I will continue to blog. I will cast votes in November. I will work for what I feel to be right. I will ask Jesus to bring peace and justice to our country.   

You Never Know What You May Find

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

bumpy road

June 1, 2020

To my incredible children, grandchildren, students, nieces, nephews and young people who are like family,

I wrote a letter to you when we first began our stay at home orders here in the United States. At that time most of the Covid-19 cases were occurring in Washington State, California and New Jersey. Here in my hometown of Houston, Texas there were no more than a couple dozen folks who had tested positive for the disease so it was a bit difficult to believe that our area would get hit very hard with the virus. While we were locked away in our homes we watched as the illness penetrated almost every corner of the world in one way or another. The images of empty streets in London, Paris, Rome, and New York City were a haunting backdrop to the rising numbers of sick and dying. Now as I convey my thoughts to you the United States there have been 100,000 deaths even as we begin the process of reopening our cities and towns. At the same time the tragic murder of a Black man, George Floyd, by a police officer in Minnesota has led to an outpouring of grief and rage not just in our own country but across the world. 

So much has changed in such a short amount of time. The world as we expected it to be feels very different. People who able to do so are still working at home and students are finishing the school year from their bedrooms. The proms and graduations and track meets and school competitions were mostly eliminated from the end of the year calendar. Some of you took your Advanced Placement tests online without the usual review sessions from your teachers. Being part of this historical event has been tough and the coming times feel almost as uncertain as the last several weeks have been. Who knows what all of us will face as we begin to rebuild the world again? Now with the added difficulties of the protesting and the unfortunate destruction that has sometimes come with it, we are all asking ourselves what we might have done to prevent the suffering.

I have watched all of you working hard to comply with the directives designed to flatten the curve of contagion and protect the vulnerable in our midst. I have heard your impassioned pleas for justice and equality and the recognition of Black Lives. I’ve witnessed you continuing your studies and preparing for a future whose form is evolving even as I type these words. We simply don’t know what the next weeks and months will be like for anyone and yet all of you are maintaining your optimism and your resolve. Regardless of what the world is going to be like as we move forward I sense that each of you will be ready.

I’ve had conversations with some of you regarding your concerns about the environment, the cost of attending college, the inequities of this world. I know that you are thinking well beyond your own needs and you have proved your mettle in this difficult time. With little or no guidance you have worked as hard as you would have if there had been directives and deadlines. Nothing has stopped you and that is the mark of greatness. I have also been exceedingly proud of your compassion and willingness to speak out for those whose lives are being turned upside down.

I recently heard a woman speaking about the effect of Covid 19 on the psychological health of the nation’s youth.  With a smile on her face she insisted that those of you who are young possess an inordinate amount of grit, the quality of maintaining determination even when life is challenging. She assured her audience that true grit will propel people like you forward regardless of what kind of changes are wrought by this pandemic. She pointed out that some of the greatest discoveries and positive developments were born in tough times. Isaac Newton invented Calculus when he was sent home from the university during an outbreak of plague in the 1600s. That same terrible time resulted in sanitation improvements and new medicines. She believes that it will be the young men and women of the world who will define the problems that the pandemic has exposed and then invent new ways of enhancing the world. You are the explorers, entrepreneurs, creators and leaders of the future.

I know that you have faced so many disappointments and the possibility of even more as the virus and the unrest dictate how we will return to a new kind of normal. I really hope that the older generation will listen to and consider your ideas. You are dreamers and your thoughts have the potential to fuel a worldwide renaissance. You have seen the possibilities and now it is time to begin to bring them to fruition.

You still have dues to pay and hoops through which you must jump but you are quickly earning your wings and respect for your hard work and patience. The sacrifices you are making now and  the challenges you will most certainly face in the coming times will make you strong as long as you refuse to allow them to defeat you. You are creative and flexible. Use those natural tendencies to keep your optimism flourishing. Think beyond the confines of the way things have always been. Continue to be curious and unafraid to notice problems and address them.

I smile when I think of you and my chest puffs up with pride. Learn from this experience but do not allow it to pull you down. Be ready to teach some tricks to old dogs like me. Be open to unexpected opportunities and be willing to take a side trip down a bumpy road. You never know what you may find.  

Yours,

Mama, Gammy, Aunt Sharron, Mama B. 

Seeing, Hearing, Understanding

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

seeing-hearing-machine

I have been close to most of my students but as always happens there have been some with whom my connection was far stronger than with others. One young man in particular appeared to be quite lost and headed for trouble. Seeing his downward trajectory broke my heart because he was incredibly bright and I saw something quite special in him. Over time we spoke often and I encouraged him to create positive goals and to work hard to achieve them.

Life was not easy for the young man. He lived in a rough neighborhood where temptations were a constant. His family struggled just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Gangs often approached him in hopes of recruiting him because he was big and muscular and smart. He had already had some brushes with the law before I met him. In many ways he had given up on himself until I interceded. After our talks he began to view himself in more positive ways and as his grades improved he discussed dreams of becoming an engineer. I felt confident that I had played a small role in saving him from the downward pull of the environment in which he had been living but I had underestimated the power of forces that gnawed at him every single day.

Shortly after the Christmas holidays one year a theft occurred at the school. One of the students had lost some electronic gear and he and his parents were quite insistent that it had happened at in one of his classes. The administration did a search and made inquiries all to no avail. I made a plea to all of my students that they do the right thing and help to return the items to the rightful owner. That lead to a tip that broke my heart. The student with whom I had invested so much time and emotion had been seen with the stolen gear.

I did not want to believe that my protege had fallen from grace but I had to interview him to hear his side of the story. At first he concocted several lies but eventually broke down and admitted that he had taken the item and even a few other things that nobody had reported. He was planning to sell them in his neighborhood’s black market. The change he made from such deals provided him and his family with a little bit better life than they might otherwise have had.

To this day my stomach clinches and I want to sob when I think of what happened. I realized in that moment that my student lived in a world that I would never quite understand. I could not justify what he had done and of course I had to report him to the administrators but I was sickened that the progress he had made in redirecting his life had been so suddenly altered. As he sobbed in front of me and proclaimed, “I know you hate me now” I was stunned. Without hesitation I assured him, “I will never hate you. I love you, but I hate what you have done.”

I suppose this is the state of my conflicted emotions during this difficult moment in our nation’s history. I will always love my country and unlike many I will never have thoughts of leaving it because in spite of its flaws it is a great but still imperfect nation. I am willing to see those flaws and know that they are wrong. I dislike them intensely, but not the idea and ideals of America. Being a firm believer in reconciliation I am always willing to forgive but I also know that we must first squarely face problems, admit they are present, and then do our utmost to begin the process of repairing them. To do anything less for our country at this moment in time would be akin to my covering up my beloved student’s infraction, pretending it was not there. It would be the least patriotic thing that I might do.

I was ultimately able to defend my student as someone whom I believed to be innately good and worthy of help, but I made it clear that his actions were wrong. He ultimately returned the stolen items, made restitution and underwent a program of extensive counseling and support. I have not heard from him in many years so I don’t know how things ultimately turned out but I’d like to believe that we somehow saved him from a life that seemed so inevitable back then.  So it is with the United States of America. I believe that we are the good guys but many of us have been lying to ourselves that all is well. We have overlooked problems because they have not affected us personally.

It is quite human to want to avoid conflict particularly when it does not appear to be worth the effort. Some people even endure abusive situations rather than shake up the status quo. The great unknown of change can be frightening and so we fall back on comforting routines. Unfortunately if there are problems they inevitably grow until they can no longer be ignored.

I have been hearing concerns from my Black friends, colleagues and students for decades. At first they were rather quiet and somewhat nervous whispers and like so many I did not take them very seriously because in truth they did not affect my personal life. As time went by they became more and more insistent and so I tried to quell the fears of those who were confiding in me. Before long I began to notice the kind of things that they were telling me. I saw that they were indeed being treated differently than I was only because my skin was white and theirs was black. It made me feel uncomfortable to face that truth but I still felt that there was little more that I might do than to assure them of my love for them. Because nothing was ever really done to address the very real problems that they had described the impact of them became more and more noticeable over time until we finally reached this moment when our country seems to be on fire with rage.

I now see them. I now hear them. I now understand that something must be done but I am filled with fear because somehow the message is being lost in the furor of the moment. I know without a doubt that the looting and the graffiti and the destruction is wrong but those are actions, not the essence of what the vast majority of African Americans are attempting to tell us. I believe with every fiber of my being that in spite of the horrific scenes playing out we must remain calm. We must let our Black brothers and sisters know that we love them. We must begin a dialogue that has been too long in coming. We must join them in the work to bring the change that we need to see in our country.

We can show the true strength of this nation only by using what is best about it. The first amendment is perhaps the most important tool that we have. It assures us that freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and the right to petition will be protected. Our goal at this moment should be to use these freedoms to loudly and strongly defend and protect our Black citizens in their cry to be heard.

I long for a leader regardless of party affiliation or economic status to bring calm and comfort to the situation. I long for a leader with a real interest in discussing what needs to be done. We must find such people for surely they are in our midst. We must use the most wonderful tool that we have to bring them to the fore. We must bring them to our aid with our votes. I pray that with that power we will be able to find individuals who are willing to set aside their own agendas to do the work necessary to bring our country to the place where it always should have been. Our votes should be our voices.

 

We Must Lead Ourselves Into the Promised Land

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

chicago-anti-war-protests-1968

I began my personal journey through the pandemic back in March. When I decided to write my thoughts on what was happening in my tiny corner of the world I did it to leave a record for my grandchildren and great grandchildren yet to come. I would have liked to have had a written day by day account of how the Spanish Flu of 1918 affected my grandparents, but of course they were too busy simply surviving to have the luxury of journaling about their experiences and thoughts. Neither of my grandmothers were literate and both of my grandfathers were laborers who only got paid when they showed up for work. I feel certain that they simply pushed through that pandemic hoping that they would stay well so that they might provide for themselves and their families.

My writing has not so much been an unbiased historical account of Covid-19 as a depository for my feelings. In describing what I see happening I almost naturally draw on a lifetime of experiences and perceptions. At first I viewed the virus as a kind of adventurous challenge. I would surely show my mettle in being able to stay well and navigate through the restrictive days of isolation. I saw it after all as mostly a matter of staying busy and creating purpose for myself, but over time my emotions overtook my resolve. I looked outward and saw suffering on a grand scale. It became more difficult to simply enjoy the quiet time in my home when the numbers of sick and dying steadily increased. These were people and I could not even begin to imagine how their lives had been turned upside down. My goal became less and less about protecting and entertaining myself and more and more about doing whatever I needed to do to flatten the exponential curve of disease.

I was bemused and saddened as I saw great rifts developing within our population over how seriously to take Covid-19. I am a mathematics teacher and from a family of engineers and scientists and doctors. I suppose that I am inclined to make decisions based on research and data from experts and so it seemed ridiculous to listen to anyone other than those respected for their work with medicine. As the anger in the nation grew and armed citizens stormed state capitols I found myself harking back to the year in which I married.

It was 1968, and at nineteen I was far too young to be making a lifetime commitment and yet events from that year had convinced me that reaching for love was the best decision I would ever make. In that fateful year Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Not long after presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy, was gunned down following his primary victory in California. The year was filled with student protests and when the Democratic Convention was held that summer in Chicago things turned violent as protestors clashed with the police. I would always remember 1968 as both the year that I married and perhaps the worst year in the country’s history during my lifetime.

At my wedding the priest who gave the homily spoke of how much courage and optimism it took for two people to look to the future given the violence and divisions that seemed to permeate every corner of the nation. He applauded Mike and I for demonstrating the certainty of our love in uncertain times. I felt and understood every word that he spoke and prayed on that evening that peace and justice would one day become the rule for America.

Now more than fifty years later I was spending day after day inside my home with Mike and we both somehow felt as though what was happening was profoundly worse than anything our country had endured in our lifetimes. Little did we know that in the very week when the nation recorded its one hundred thousandth death that ghosts from our past would rise once again.

I wonder how it can be that only about a week ago we watched in horror as police officers took the life of George Floyd in a brutally cavalier fashion. He was only forty six, young enough to have been one of my children. He had grown up in Houston, my hometown. He attended Yates High School and played on their football team. By all accounts from those who knew him he was a sweet man who traveled to Minnesota to get a fresh start in life. On the day he was murdered he had used a counterfeit twenty dollar bill to make a purchase. We don’t know if he was even aware that it was bogus but that is neither here nor there. The manner in which he was ultimately mistreated is all that really matters and as I watched the painful last moments of his life it felt as though all of those years when I chose to set the pain and injustice of 1968 aside had been a selfish unwillingness on my part to face bitter truths. We have problems that have yet to be addressed and no slogans or hats or pretense that they are not still with us will make them go away anymore than pretending that Covid-19 is a hoax will allow us to resume business as usual without fear of more sickness and dying.

I have forced myself to watch the unfolding tragedy of pent up anger night after night. It is a painful thing to see. I do not like it. I want it to stop, but I know deep down inside that it will not go away permanently until we face it squarely and fairly just as we must face the virus. The tragedy of what is happening in our country today is not that we don’t have normal graduations or that our European vacations have been cancelled but that people are suffering and yet we are anxious to get everything back to normal even as we sense that nothing is normal. We are fooling ourselves if we just ignore the cries for our attention, for our help.

Using dogs and force to control human beings was a common method for those who enslaved the ancestors of many of the young people who are shocking us with their behavior in the streets of America’s cities. Vigilante lynching was used to keep the newly freed slaves in line after the Civil War. Even when Martin Luther King led peaceful protests the great grandparents and grandparents of today’s young people met with billy clubs and rubber hoses wrapped with barbed wire. When American athletes quietly kneeled during the National Anthem to demonstrate that Black Lives Matter they were loudly criticized and their efforts were mocked and ignored. I wonder how far any group of people can be pushed before their anger boils over in the kind of lawlessness that we are seeing? I wonder how we and our children and grandchildren would be acting if the tables were turned?

There are forty two million black Americans living in our country today. Only a handful of them have taken to the streets and even among those who are protesting an even smaller number are committing illegal acts. Nonetheless the vast majority of all African Americans are viscerally hurt and filled with grief and anger that even after all this time discrimination based on the color of their skin still exists. They are the group most affected by Covid-19 in this country. They are the most affected by the massive unemployment that has resulted from the pandemic. Nearly every problem our country has affected them more than any of us.

Our African American coworkers and neighbors and friends need us to finally hear their pleas and understand that while slavery was long ago the indignities associated with it have yet to be fully resolved. We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that just because we do not personally discriminate that there is no need to continue the efforts to eradicate the underbelly of racism. We can no longer rely on an Abraham Lincoln or a Martin Luther King to do the heavy lifting for us. We must lead ourselves out of this wilderness and into the promised land by setting things right once and for all. For surely if we only clean up the damage and go back to our normal lives the ugly stain of slavery will continue to haunt us all. 

In Memoriam

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

arlington

Memorial Day is always a pensive time for me on so many levels. This year I felt the spirit of all of the souls who lost their lives in the service of our country more than ever. I also thought of those who made it through wars but whose lives were forever changed by memories of battles that they fought. War is a terrible thing and we have generally tried very hard to use it as a last resort. Nonetheless even now we have soldiers serving in war torn countries knowing that they may lose their lives at any moment. Such courage is difficult to understand but many who served in the military have told me that in the heat of a battle the focus becomes the preservation of the members of the corps. It is all about attempting to insure that everyone survives and leaves the battlefield alive. That profound human instinct to protect takes over to create magnificent acts of heroism.

I am a pacifist by nature but I understand that there are indeed times that require humans to defend themselves, their families, their country. If I had my way diplomacy would be rational and powerful enough to end war forever but I know that somehow people have a very difficult time setting aside their differences in a spirit of compromise. Throughout history we have found ourselves engaged in combat again and again and our young men have been called upon to fight. On Memorial Day we remember those whose lives were cut short and while we honor them, we also silently wonder why they had to much such a profound sacrifice for the rest of us.

I spent time this past weekend watching some movies about the brave men who have fought for our cause. First I viewed Glory, one of my all time favorite films. I cannot watch it without ultimately sobbing. It encapsulates the mixed emotions that surround the history of our country including perhaps the worst political mistake we ever made in allowing slavery to coexist with the ideals of democracy. While the nation was growing and prospering the politics of slavery that divided the people became more and more inflamed ultimately pitting state against state, region against region, brother against brother.

My great grandfather who was living in Kentucky chose to fight for the union forces. He spent four years first as a foot soldier and then a calvary man. The war placed a toll on his health. Somehow he was never as robust as he had once been and surely the horrors that he witnessed must have haunted him. His unit was tasked with collecting the bodies of the dead and wounded soldiers after the battle of Shiloh. It had to have been a gruesome sight that haunted him even as he settled into a somewhat normal existence had began a family. I think of them often and feel both pride for his service and regret that he had to endure such a thing. 

I also watched We Were Soldiers another film that brings out emotions from my youth. It takes place during the Vietnam War in the year when I was a senior in high school. Seeing the brutality of the battle it depicts only reinforces the sorrow that I felt whenever I learned of the death of someone who had been a classmate or a friend. While many of them had enlisted, others were drafted into service. The country was conflicted about the necessity of our involvement in what was essentially a civil war in a place so far away from home. While it was touted as a stand against communism it became clear over time that somehow we were outsiders attempting to protect Vietnam from a war that the Viet Cong was determined to win no matter how long it took.

The wall in Washington D.C. lists the names of all of the almost sixty thousand souls that we lost in that effort. I am haunted by the humanity of it each time I visit and run my fingers over the names of those that I knew. They were brave individuals who believed that theirs was a just cause but to this very day I wonder if losing them might have been prevented if we had known beforehand how the conflict would ultimately end. How different would their lives and the lives of those who loved them be if they had never gone to Vietnam? 

History, and particularly military history, is riddled with questions. It is easier to see the might have beens in retrospect. An armchair general can consider what went wrong with great clarity but the reality is that we will never really know what would have happened if we had chosen different routes. Wars are caused when humans cannot agree on how the world should be. Our young people go out to fight the battles for the philosophies of politicians and sometimes tragically lose their lives. I consider how wonderful it would be if we never had to engage our youth in such horrors ever again while realistically understanding that such an ideal will never come to pass.

This Memorial Day was haunted by the growing divide amongst us regarding Covid-19, a virus that has taken close to one hundred thousand souls in a span of  only three months. While the disease stalks the world in search of bodies to invade we argue with one another and point fingers at those who are attempting to lead us. We choose sides and sometimes even viciously attack those whose beliefs differ from our own while our courageous essential workers have been drafted into the role of keeping us safe. It is a new kind of battle with so much uncertainty that none of us can truly know exactly how to react.

I cannot understand why we humans choose to argue with one another so often and why we so seldom choose to find a road that eschews hostility. Perhaps it is in our natures, something that we have never been able to totally control. We have gone to war with one another in an endless loop of death and destruction that rears its head more often than we wish and yet we still work at odds with one another and follow those who actually encourage us to do so. We repeat the mistakes and the sins of our ancestors because in the end we are not so different from them. Memorial Day should always remind us of the cost of disagreements that become so entrenched that we no longer communicate. The spirits of all of the lost humanity should spur us to find ways of loving instead of fighting.