Category: Emotions

Sameness

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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It is raining as I write this blog. The dark sky and the sound of thunder are a welcome change from the sameness of the overbearing July heat. There has been a sameness about everything for some time now. I wear the same pairs of jeans with the same shirts each day as I change out of the same pajamas after I take the same showers. I dry my hair with the same lack of concern for my appearance that is an outgrowth of the lack of variety in the current state of my life.

I know that I am blessed as I listen to rain falling on my roof. It is comfortable inside. I am surrounded by things to occupy my time. I have food in my pantry and a supply of all of my necessities. There is no reason for me to feel sorry for myself so I tamp down the longings that I have to roam freely again. I thank God for my health and for the many people who have made my life more interesting than I ever imagined it might be. Then I pray for our world. I pray that our goodness will overcome our temptations to be selfish and unconcerned with the sufferings of others. I pray that we will be willing to endure difficulties if that is what it will take to end the toll that Covid-19 has taken on our land. I pray and pray and pray.

I write my blogs even as I worry that my words are beginning to sound like an irritating noise. I clean my house that really needs little more than a bit of dusting and sweeping and mopping. It makes me feel good to be able to accomplish something, to bring a task to its conclusion. I correspond with family and friends through texts, social media, phone calls and Zoom conferences. Those links with other humans are like a lifeline that keeps me moving from one day to the next.

I will soon begin teaching again. I am almost giddy with the prospect of seeing and hearing my students. Ours will be a remote interaction but it feels almost like being together once again. I’m planning my calendar of instruction and deciding how to present the lessons. I’ve purchased fresh dry erase markers and new materials. There is an excitement to that, a purpose other than just making it from one day to the next. I have a feeling of power over the virus as I ready myself for something that feels normal and important. Even from a distance I can make a difference. What I do can be essential to the betterment of society. It feels very good.

My life has rarely followed a straight path from what I dreamed of accomplishing to the realization of my goals. In almost every case some obstacle or sudden change seemed to block my way forward. It has always been in those moments that the most wonderful things happened, reminding me that I do not always need to be in charge. I felt sorry for myself when my mother made me attend a birthday party for a cousin and then I met the man who would be by my side for the rest of my life. I was angry when there were no teaching jobs after I had worked so hard to complete my degree and then I got a call about what would be the most perfect position that I might have had. I wanted to run from the responsibilities of caring for my mom’s mental illness and then I became a stronger and more compassionate person from needing to understand what was happening to her. I know from experience that our time with Covid-19 will teach us unwanted but possibly invaluable lessons.

I look around each day at things that remind me again and again of the truly remarkable journey I have enjoyed. I realize that when all is said and done it is in our experiences with people that our greatest joy is found. It calms me and makes me certain that there is enough good in our world that we will overcome our troubles with or without leaders to guide us. It will be the things that we choose to do for love that will be the difference that we need. For love we will wear a mask. For love we will remember to help those who do not have the security that we have. For love we will allow differences, even those that we may not understand. For love we will not cling to money or things. For love we will not judge. It is in love that we will find our way to brighter days.

In the sameness of my days I arise each morning with great hope, almost ridiculous optimism. By the end of the day I am tired in body and mind. The darkness brings my worries to the fore. I begin to wonder if the world will ever be the same again and then I realize that it does not have to be. I think of the times when everything I thought I knew was upended and it turned out to be the best thing that might have happened to me. I suppose that this pandemic will indeed change us and that is not necessarily a bad thing for we were meant to evolve. This may be the very moment when we break with many of the problems of the past that have been holding us back.

The sameness of today allows me to dream of a better tomorrow. The sameness of today teaches me the importance of people and experiences over things. The sameness of today gives me time to quietly listen to the voice of God in my heart. The sameness of today is the very pause in the hectic rush that I needed to reset my priorities and my beliefs. I can finally see that there is a way forward that is far different and more meaningful than I have ever dreamed. I embrace the sameness for now.

We Are Not the Enemy

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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When the news of Covid-19 first sent warning signals I decided that I would write about its effect on my little slice of the world each day. I have often wondered what life was like for my grandparents who were young adults during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, and it occurred to me that if any one of them had recorded observations and thoughts about the deadly virus our family would have a priceless treasure. I love reading first person accounts of historic events. They provide an emotional context to factual renderings. Hard times come alive with stories of everyday life and survival. Thus I pledged to devote my blogs to our current situation until things simmered down and we began a process of returning to a more normal state of affairs. It never dawned on me that I would still be recording commentaries about the pandemic in the later weeks of July with no real end in sight.

I suppose that I believed that we might somehow slow the spread of the virus by shutting down for a short time. I hoped that the heat of summer would somehow burn the virus out giving us a reprieve until the winter months when hopefully we would have a vaccine. My daughters were not nearly as optimistic as I was but I tended to believe that they were viewing the world as though the sky was falling. They insisted that because we were not working together as a nation things would surely go awry. They witnessed guidelines being ignored, people believing in all manner of crazy theories, and a president who preferred to paint a happy picture of our progress in fighting the virus rather than facing the facts.

I hoped the purveyors of gloom were wrong but even the doctors that I consulted cautioned me that the trends of contagion were still moving in an upward direction. They advised me to hold steady to my isolation and safety procedures until the end of June and then I saw an exponential explosion of positive cases and hospitalizations in my own backyard. I had to face the reality that the new Covid-19 world order would be with us for many more weeks and possibly even months unless we find a way to bury our divisions and work as a united country. Unfortunately I see no way forward with that idea and so I am gravely disheartened.

I hear people turning to prayer and I certainly do my share of talking and listening to God, but I do not think that there will be a sudden miracle to make all of this end. Neither God nor the virus play favorites which is why bad things sometimes happen to good people. God has instead given us our minds to think things through and determine a good course of action. He has taught us to be unselfish, never ignoring the most vulnerable among us. He exhorts us to be loving in our care of one another. These are the things I believe him to be telling us.

My mother and my grandmothers taught me that God is present in every human soul. My mama said that when we ignore or mistreat even the most seemingly deplorable person we are slapping the face of God. I have grown up believing that idea and attempting to be a peacemaker in times of trouble. I believe that we desperately need someone who has the power to bring us together, not drive us apart. When our scientists and medical experts are accused of lies and greed with respect to Covid-19 we are indeed far away from my desire of walking together in our time of great sorrow. When people defy the dictates to dance in a bar while people are dying in nearby hospitals my heart cries out. I wonder where the common sense and compassion have gone.

It should be apparent to everyone that we are in trouble on multiple fronts. There are refrigerated trucks in several states waiting for the bodies of the dead. The military is setting up field hospitals. Our medical workers are being pushed to the limit. Our hospitals are running out of protective equipment. Our teachers are fearful of the chaos that may ensue when schools reopen. Crime is on the rise in our cities. Our minorities are bearing the brunt of essential work and illness. Our criminal justice system is sick. Millions have lost their jobs and will soon see their unemployment checks end, not because they are too lazy to look for work but because they cannot find employment. People are on the brink of being evicted with no place to go. Businesses are failing. Our once strong nation is badly wounded mostly because we have been unwilling to patiently take measures to stop the spread of the virus as a group. It is so widespread now that we cannot even keep track of where it is attempting to go. We fight and bicker and unfriend one another rather than joining in a nationwide effort to stem the tide of Covid-19 no matter what sacrifices it may take to do so.

Now I am truly worried. Politics rather than rationality have overtaken our response to the virus. Our progress has been set back by weeks, maybe even months.Our situation is the worst it has been. Winter is coming and we have yet to speak of what that might mean. I wonder if our lack of a unified effort will result in a destruction of our healthcare system, our economy and our educational infrastructure that will take decades to repair. My happy instincts are being pushed aside by reality. I want to climb to my rooftop and warn everyone of what I see happening but I suspect that I will not be heard. I don’t know what it will take to bring our country to its senses but I believe things will become even more grim before we get there. Perhaps this is a time of reckoning that will either crush us or demonstrate the moral character that we have mustered in tough times of the past. I surely hope and pray that we will sooner rather than later understand that Covid-19 is our enemy, not one another. 

Happy Birthday

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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Fifty years ago on July 18, 1970, I was headed to St. Luke’s Hospital to have my first child. I had no idea whether my baby would be a boy or a girl because there were no ultrasounds back then. My husband and I had picked out male and female names just in case. We wanted to honor our incredible mothers if our child was female and combining their names into one gave us “Maryellen.” We never had to use our other choice because after eighteen hours of labor our beautiful daughter was born and my brother Pat changed his pledge to take a boy on his first fishing trip to accompanying our girl to her first dance.

Maryellen was a big baby at nine pounds seven ounces and the doctor had to pinch her shoulders together as she was emerging into this world. She began life with a broken clavicle which was the first of many challenges she would overcome. She was the delight of our lives and that of her grandparents and our world began to center around her.

Maryellen accompanied me to my first time voting for president of the United States when she was barely four months old. It was a cold November day and she was dressed in a sweet pink sweater with a little hood that an aunt had made for her. It was a doubly proud day for me as I cast my vote and smiled at all of the compliments that she received. She would always be my very good girl.

Maryellen was sick a great deal. She endured one ear infection after another and I spent so much time taking her to see her pediatrician. On many nights a sat awake with her as she raged with fever. She seemed to have allergic reactions to any foods I gave her. I worried incessantly about her health even as she grew but while she had once smiled and loved to sing she grew ever more silent. When she was one year old she still had not walked and some of my friends suggested that there must be something wrong. My anxieties only grew.

Maryellen did eventually walk. In fact her first steps were a run to reach a ball that rolled past her. Because she was always dancing around the house I took her to get lessons and she had an unexpected grace and talent for creative movement. She still got more ear infections than I was able to count and we became more and more frequent visitors to her pediatrician’s office but she always sprang back from her illnesses.

Soon it was time for kindergarten which turned out to be a painful time for both of us. I contracted hepatitis and was sick for over three months. My husband later developed a rare disease that required months of chemotherapy. In the midst of all this her teacher called me to a conference in which she intimated that Maryellen’s intellectual abilities were not as well developed as the other children. The woman used a single worksheet as proof of her theory. The exercise required the student to draw a connecting line between a household implement and either the mommy or the daddy. Maryellen had “failed” the test because she joined the lawnmower, the rake and the hammer to me. I remember laughing my head off because I was indeed the person who maintained the lawn and often repaired things around the house. Sadly the poor teacher would not agree with my arguments about stereotyping the sexes. Instead she insisted that there really was a right and wrong set of answers. Furthermore she informed me that Maryellen was also socially inept.

I grieved for my little girl but then came first grade and a most wonderful teacher who changed Maryellen’s life. This educator had been given suggestions for grouping students according to their abilities. Maryellen began in the section for those with learning disabilities but before long she was doing so well that the teacher moved her to the next group and then the next until she was keeping up with the supposedly brightest children in the class. The teacher also noticed that Maryellen’s eyes followed her like a hawk. She observed that Maryellen appeared to be reading lips and so she scheduled an emergency hearing test with the school nurse. The results were astonishing. Maryellen had an almost fifty percent hearing loss!

I made an appointment with a well respected specialist and Maryellen was soon having surgery to fix the problem. I’ll never forget her reaction as we were taking her home from the hospital and she heard clearly for the very first time. Her eyes widened and she looked around with a smile on her face as she asked, “What is all of that?”

The rest of the story is so wonderful. Maryellen became a top student in high school where she also excelled as a dancer and a leader. She went to the University of Texas at Austin and was accepted into their school of business. She earned a degree in four years along with making wonderful grades and experiencing many friendships and adventures. She met her future husband, Scott, there and once he graduated they were married and began to build a life and a family.

Maryellen now has four magnificent boys of her own. She works as an accountant but is first and foremost an incredible mom. Each of her sons is unique and she has helped them to develop their own talents. Mostly she has taught them how to be fine men with respect for all people. She has done this through one challenge after another always being the steadying force in her family.

Maryellen has always made me puff out with pride and she has lived up to the legacy of the grandmothers for whom she was named. They were strong women with gentle hearts and like them she is a warrior whose cause is to compassionately love and care for all people. She is her own person and with a quiet steeliness that champions the causes of equality and justice. She is exactly as I hoped she would be.

Happy Fiftieth Birthday, Maryellen. The world has always been more wonderful from the day you were born. Here’s to many more years of making a difference in people’s lives. 

School Bells Will Soon Be Ringing

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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Going back to school was always an exciting time for me. School was a shelter that kept me going even when times were tough. After my father died school gave me a sense of normalcy when my world felt so upside down. When my mother had mental breakdowns school provided me with a sense of purpose and control in a life that felt as though it was skidding off the rails.

Every July I would plan and anticipate the coming of the new adventure in the classroom. I bought clothes, shoes, supplies. When I was still a student I wondered who my teacher would be. When I became a teacher I wondered who my students would be. I thought of being together with my friends again. Everything about the time felt shiny and new. It was like starting with a blank slate, an opportunity to learn and change for the better.

Even after I retired from more than forty years in education I still went out in July to buy new pens and pencils and to freshen my supply of paper. I enjoyed back to school sales and somehow felt the same joy of anticipation that I had known since I was five years old. I eagerly read the posts from teachers with whom I had worked and I lived vicariously through their preparations. Eventually I had to admit that I missed working with students too much to just enjoy my new found freedom. I found tutoring jobs and taught mathematics to young people who were being homeschooled. I was still part of the educational world if only in a small way.

This year is so different. The usual teacher and student anticipation has become trepidation. The joy factor is absent as teachers consider the need for a new kind of supply closet, one filled with disinfectants, soap, hand sanitizers and extra masks. Their planning centers on how to keep students sufficiently distant from one another in a room so small that such a feat seems impossible. Teachers understand that the usual sights and sounds and smells will be very different from anything that they and their students have ever experienced. Understanding this fills them with a sense of gloom which late at night sometimes becomes a feeling of doom.

The world of school as we have come to know it will not include knots of friends playing together at recess. There will be no relaxing over lunch or trading of chips for a bag of cookies. Gatherings in the hallway will be prohibited. Teachers who have always been all things for all of the people they serve will have added responsibilities that will be exhausting both for the labor involved and the sense of responsibility incurred. They will be the ones continuously cleaning the desks and supplies. They will be the ones enforcing the safety rules. They will be the ones watching for signs of physical or mental trouble in their all too tiny classrooms where the virus has the potential to lurk in every corner.

Teachers understand better than anyone how different things will feel and be. Children will only see their friends from afar. The smiles and facial expressions that enliven relationships will be covered with masks. Only the eyes will tell a story and many of them will have difficulty focusing on learning when everything feels so wrong. No matter whether classes resume in person or remotely a deep sadness and sense of fear will hover over everything. School will not be a haven of routine but a haven of uncertainty. Being there or not being there will be equally difficult.

Teachers and their students are now part of a grand experiment and nobody can say with any assurance what exactly will happen. I can only predict that teachers will put every ounce of their dedication into to trying to make the most of an horrific situation. It is what they do. It would be nice if we would support and appreciate them as they grid themselves like soldiers going off to battle. They are quite naturally frightened because they know of the dangers they may face as they care for the most important treasures that our nation has.

Schools are getting threats of loss of funding if they don’t do things a certain way even as educators understand that one size fits all theories never work. People who have never ventured into a classroom to actually care for children all day long are creating policies that hinder the kind of flexibility that is a necessary part of teaching. There is much talk about what parents need and what students need but very little about what teachers need. There is even renewed criticism of the entire educational system because in truth it is impossible to structure learning in a way to please everyone. The outcry is leaving teachers wondering if anyone even cares about the incredible duties and dangers they are being asked to embrace without question.

The school bells will be ringing in a month or so. Many of them will be virtual. Others will be in person. It will not be the same. The routines will be different. The challenges will be many. We can only hope and pray that we are making the right choices. What we do matters greatly. We should hear what our teachers have to say. It is something we don’t tend to do very well. Perhaps now is the time we start. 

Becoming the Helpers, Healers and Caretakers

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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We are meant to be social. We form communities. We join groups. We have friends. It is the way of being human. Suddenly we have been forced into a state of isolation by a virus that is not even visible to the eye but which may lurk in any corner through which we pass. This fact changes our plans, cancels traditions, upends our lives. We watch as our world appears to be descending into chaos and confusion. We just want to go back to normal but it feels as though our efforts to do so are thwarted again and again. We are disappointed, confused, sad, maybe even angry. We want to blame someone. Surely we should be able to rise above all of this. Who is at fault? When will we feel safe again?

The times are like no other even when we desperately attempt to make them so by ignoring or even doubting the evidence before us. We think that if we just stay positive and talk about something else we may find a semblance of the world as we wish it to be. We wonder why people cannot just focus on prayer and happy thoughts. We want to be calm. We want serenity now. We cannot understand why some among us insist on stirring up trouble. We want lazy summer days and laughter. We are tired and scared even though our bravado attempts to tell a different story.

We have people using this moment to demonstrate the magnificence of humanity. They are helpers, caretakers, healers. They are compassionate, selfless souls. They use this time to do the heavy lifting that keeps our society working as much as possible. They faithfully carry on even as they know that there is danger in doing so. They cure and nurse and teach and cook and clean and deliver and complete the payrolls. They make things, build things, repair things. They wear masks and wash their hands and follow uncomfortable guidelines out of the love that is apparent in their work. They face the problems that they encounter not to glorify themselves but to celebrate the value of every human being.

We also have people who are sadly using this moment in selfish ways. They stir up hate and divisions to cement their own power. They sow seeds of discontent. They appear to be unconcerned by the needs of others. They engage in false dichotomies and blame. Instead of taking positive steps to be part of the solution, they spend their time accusing others of bringing a scourge on our land. They point to the worst aspects of every situation rather than focusing on what is working and what is good. They seem to be tone deaf, insensitive, uncaring.

We know that our present state of fear and unrest is unsustainable. We will eventually have to face down the demons that plague our society whether they be microbes or beliefs. We might learn from the helpers, caretakers and healers. No problem is ever solved by being ignored and some difficulties require much patience, hard work and even pain to overcome. We might begin by agreeing to be guided by goodness rather than self centered motivations. We may need to make uncomfortable changes to set things right. We will need to look ahead to the future while learning from the past. We will do well to rely on the kind of experts and knowledge that have moved humankind forward in the past. We must be willing to open our minds rather than clinging to outmoded and ineffective ways of doing things. A brighter future is possible but only if we set aside ignorance and hate.

I am an optimist but that does not mean that I only allow happy thoughts to enter my mind. Sometimes I have to walk through darkness before I see the pinpoint of light ahead. I am religious but I also believe that our institutions devoted to the praise and glory of God are sometimes too rule driven and not centered enough on the preciousness of people. Just as I do not think that it is right to take the life of even the unborn, so too do I see it as our duty to fight for justice for anyone on earth who is being abused by word or deed. In our own country we have too long found excuses for the deplorable treatment of an entire race of people who were brought here in chains. We may not be guilty of racism of our own but we have certainly been guilty of allowing the continued glorification of those who fought to keep slavery alive. We must be as willing to admit to that wrong as we are willing to confess our personal sins. It is our duty as believers in the words of Jesus to finally embrace our Black brothers and sisters with the unconditional love that they deserve.

The truth is that we are now engaged in a battle for lives being attack by Covid-19 and lives being attacked by continued “isms.” If we are to become a greater nation of the kind imagined by Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. we must stop fighting with one another. We need to proudly don our masks out of love. We need to value the life of every person on this earth out of love.  When we see or hear hurtful behavior we must decry it out of love. We must become the helpers, healers and caretakers out of love.