Category: Heroes

Propagate the Good

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

domestic-violence-I recently spent a glorious weekend with relatives in Dallas. We had three days together and in between dinners, walks, movies, and a big party we talked about today’s problems. My niece commented that while the world sometimes appears to have gone crazy, most people are in fact very good. She suggested that the best way to make society better is for everyone who is decent to propagate the good. In other words, it is not enough just to quietly follow the golden rule, but it is necessary for each of us to spread goodness much like a bumble bee pollinates flowers. She insisted that we must be purposeful in our efforts to demonstrate all that is right and just.

There are many reasons why some people are angry and prone to negative behaviors. Some of them stem from evil, but others are simply the result of giving up on life. Recently a young man attempted to hang himself at the high school which serves the students from my neighborhood. It hit all of us hard to know that someone so very young had felt so hopeless that he was ready to end it all. I still don’t have any idea what exactly may have lead to his dramatic cry for help, but whatever it was must have been horrible in his mind. I can’t help but wonder if this incident might have been prevented if only the people around him had shown enough kindness to propagate the good. Perhaps he might never have reached such a point of desperation.

One of my high school friends posted a message that her granddaughter had written in response to this terrible tragedy. The young girl attends the school where this student had tried to kill himself. She hinted that he may have been a victim of bullying. She urged everyone to be kind, to watch their words, and to notice whenever someone is suffering. She suggested that each of us has a responsibility to speak up when we see cruelty and to assist anyone who appears to be suffering.

We tend to get very busy, so that we often purposely look the other way if we see someone being abused. It’s easier to just shrug and ignore such situations, but we never really know how a victim will react to the pain of being emotionally or physically tortured. Such individuals often need a hero, a person strong enough to stand up for them or at the very least comfort them. When we walk away from such situations the message that we send is that the world is an uncaring place.  Little wonder that so many people feel alone in their trouble and decide that it would be easier to stop the pain with death. How many times might such thoughts be changed by a bit of kindness?

Even as adults it is very difficult to stand up to bullies and the type of toxic individuals who berate and insult others. Those kinds of people are more often than not intimidating, and since so many people are unwilling to confront them doing so requires tremendous courage. When the obnoxious person is an elder or in a position of power it is even more troublesome to even think of standing up to them. They harm their victims with relative impunity and begin to believe that they are untouchable. Meanwhile the person who is the brunt of their bullying begins to feel that there is no means of relief.

Of late we’ve witnessed far too many instances of people unfairly exerting their power over others. In some cases the ugly behaviors are insults and in others they are actually physical attacks. We’ve learned that often such activities were generally known and tolerated by large groups of witnesses out of fear.  In spite of the fact that most of us believe that propagating the good means stepping up to the plate even when it is frightening to do so, we continue to be reluctant to take the initiative.

I heard of a young man who went to see a play that featured acting by some of his friends. His intent had been to demonstrate support for the cast but things took a bad turn. He and a group of classmates sat together at the performance and one of the group began to kibitz and joke about the play’s message. Soon enough they were all laughing inappropriately and angering members of the audience as well as the actors. The young man felt horrible about what was happening but rather than moving, asking his buddies to cease their rude behavior or at least sitting in silence he chose to go along with the antics. His apologies only came after the director expressed his anger. He had allowed himself to become involved in a situation that he felt was wrong, but he simply did not have the courage to do what was right. His was a case of allowing peer pressure to dictate his poor judgement.

Each of us has no doubt been guilty of such cowardly inaction. We really don’t want to get involved in something that might get messy. It’s easier to just ignore acts of ugliness. Few among us are able to honestly say that we have never left an individual to fend for him/herself in a bad situation, even understanding that our intersession might have ended the abuse.

I wonder how many times a suicide might have been stopped had someone been willing to defend a tortured soul, or at least to seek help for him/her. We know how harmful words and actions can be, and yet we are all too often seized with fear when faced with such realities. If such unwillingness to become involved were confined to the very young it might be understandable, but all too often even adults prefer to protect themselves, their relationships or their jobs rather than speaking the truth that might make a world of difference for someone who is being unfairly targeted with hatefulness.

There are indeed more good people than bad, but when the good people are silent we end up with innocents being loaded into boxcars that carry them to concentration camps. When we refuse to speak we may later find someone battered or even murdered. If the good people shout with a collective voice they will be heard just as surely as the world eventually listened to the words of Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, or Martin Luther King. Goodness must be shared if it is to have the desired impact on the world. 

A Whole New World

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

hqdefaultGrowing up with a single mom in an era when such situations were quite rare gave me a different point of view than many of my contemporaries. I was raised to believe that I was capable of accomplishing anything that I chose to do. My mom was liberated out of necessity and she was a feminist out of choice. She was also as American as apple pie, someone who cherished freedoms and served no masters other than her God. She never wanted me to clean houses or wait on tables. While she saw such jobs as honorable work, she often noted that her own mother had done such things in order to lift up her children, and it should not be our fate to be at the beck and call of either the wealthy or the powerful. She believed that we were as worthy as any other humans and that we must never bow down in submission to anyone, not even a queen or a king or a president. I suspect that she would have enjoyed seeing the Obama family approaching Queen Elizabeth on equal footing. She truly saw the United States as a place where each man or woman had the potential to rise into the higher echelons of power. She viewed education and the use of intellect as the most direct pathway to individual success, but she never pushed me or my brothers one way or another. Part of our liberty lay in the ability to make our own choices.

Mama adored the Queen of England, not so much because of her royalty but mostly because she carried herself with such dignity. She had the same kind of affection for Eleanor Rosevelt and Jackie Kennedy because she saw them as distinctly American royalty, women who were equal in every way, and sometimes even a bit superior, to their powerful husbands. She truly saw these two as being more regal by way of their accomplishments and in the manner in which they carried themselves than most of the blue blooded royals throughout the world. She was inspired by both of them, particularly after they proved themselves to be such strong individuals after the deaths of their spouses. Because of my mother’s philosophies I suppose that I  grew up without the traditional female filters that had so defined women for eons. I quite arrogantly understood my own capabilities and simply forged ahead, announcing my plans to my husband rather than conferring with him to get his approval. Luckily I married a man whose own mother was strong-willed and he saw nothing unusual about my way of doing things.

My brothers are in turn married to incredibly independent women who have always marched to their own drumbeats. Their partnerships, like mine, are based on mutual respect. Neither of them feel that they or their spouses should play a dominant role in their marriages. They have loving and faithful wives, but always coequal partners who share both the burdens and the blessings of married life. There is no competition in their roles, but rather a strong sense of mutual respect and support. They are as thoroughly modern as my mom was.

Women everywhere are breaking stereotypes and punching holes in glass ceilings. In some corners of the world they are sometimes held back by cultures and traditions that do not deem them to be as worthy as men. Even here in the United States we still struggle to understand and encourage the female half of the world. Recent news developments have proven that we have a long way to go before we see the universal acceptance of women as fonts of power in their own rights. Still the evidence of their abilities and potential has always been right before our eyes. Everyone has a story of a remarkable woman that carried her own weight even when it was thought that doing so was crude and maybe even rude. Our minds regarding women are indeed changing even if the pace is slower than we wish it to be.

It’s not really so difficult to help young girls to become as strong as we hope they will become. All we have to do is allow them to make their own choices and to understand that we support them regardless of which direction they want to go. In our typical folly we sometimes think that we have to throw the baby out with the bath water to foment change. In other words we go from swathing baby girls in pink and showering them with thoughts of being princesses to insisting that they eschew fashion and all study to become engineers. It’s important to understand as my mother did that the key to raising mighty women lies in encouraging them to follow the destinies that lie within their own hearts, not ours.

Even the staunch and staid monarchies are slowly but surely changing. This week Prince Harry announced his engagement to a woman who might have been scandalous in a bygone era. She is a divorced biracial American actress, but none of that appears to matter as much as the fact that she is an amazing woman or that she and Harry are very much in love. She has established herself as a success in her own right, and she has been honored for her compassion and the causes that she supports. In the new frontier she does not have to be of royal decent to forge an alliance with a prince. While she is indeed quite beautiful, I suspect that it is her generosity and openness that captured Harry’s heart. I think that my mother would be quite pleased to hear of this remarkable development.

I have great hopes for society even though we women still have miles to go. More and more often we are being accepted in the halls of commerce, academia, manufacturing, and politics. Right here in my own little corner of the world a tiny young lady kicked the winning field goal in this year’s gridiron rivalry. Women are winning seats in local, state and national government at a faster rate than ever before. More than half of today’s college graduates are female. We go places and do things that were once taboo. We still have a long way to travel, but there are positive signs that women are finally enjoying more and more of the kind of freedoms that my mother so appreciated and desired. We have some kinks to iron out and bad thinking to overcome, but the future looks brighter for young girls all of the time. 

I have only one granddaughter. She sometimes has to fight her way to be part of the group of six young men who are my grandsons. She is all too often unfavorably compared to her twin brother by well meaning teachers and relatives who have not discerned how truly remarkable she is in her own right. She has very special talents that will no doubt take her far. She is unafraid to take risks and she works twice as hard as the guys to reach her goals. She is determined to make her own individual mark on the world, and I believe that she will find the success that she seeks. Like the female trailblazers who have come before her, including her great grandmother, she is on a mission to change the way we do things. If she maintains the courage to focus on being herself, she will be able to ignore the naysayers and the slights and find her way. If my mother were still here she would remind my granddaughter that she is just as important as a queen, maybe more so. She would urge her to hold her head high and follow her dreams. After all, even a girl from an ordinary family who has proven to be quite competent on her own may soon be a princess. It’s a whole new world and it is good.

Changing Lives

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Poverty-In-America

Again and again I am reminded by experts that my brothers and I are not supposed to be doing as well as we are. On a recent offering on NPR I learned that the odds of making it out of the cycle of poverty while growing up in a single family household are daunting, and yet my siblings and I not only managed to break a cycle that had haunted our ancestors for generations, but we also managed to be emotionally healthy as well. At the end of a glorious Thanksgiving Day that we shared together the three of us sat back and attempted to analyze the factors that had been important in bringing us to our current state of happiness and success.

We all agreed that it would have been impossible for any of us to make it as adults had it not been for our mother. She was at the center of our upbringing, a task that she took perhaps even more seriously than most. She understood that from day to day she played the role of both mom and dad. Every major obligation was placed squarely on her shoulders, and her start after my father’s death could not have been more difficult. We had no car, no home of our own, no money in the bank, no life insurance pay out, and she had no job. Things were so financially grim that I caught on to the direness of our situation even though I was only eight years old. I had enough sense to rightly interpret the whispered concerns that I heard my aunts and uncles voicing as they worried about what would become of us. Somehow my dear mother would manage time and again through thrift and intellect to weave gold out of straw, and keep us afloat as a family without ever burdening us with her troubles, but she never would have been able to manage all alone.

I suspect that had our mother been virtually on her own the enormity of her task might have broken her far sooner than it ultimately did, but she was surrounded by people who continually supported her and me and my brothers. I found great comfort in the knowledge that we had guardian angels who always showed up when we most needed help. Their efforts on our behalf began on the day of my father’s death when our house filled to the bursting with members of our extended family, long time friends, and people from our temporary neighborhood and church. That trend would continue for all of our days as children and it would provide reassurances to us that someone would be there to catch us if we suddenly began to fall.

I still remember my Uncle Jack taking us to purchase a car after Daddy’s wreck with the funds that Mama had received from the car insurance policy. Even though the automobile that he was driving at the time of the crash had been virtually brand new and fully loaded with all the bells and whistles of the day, the check barely paid the balance of what was owed on the car that had been destroyed, and left only a pittance for a down payment on a new vehicle. Uncle Jack, who was a worldly wise and frugal man, counseled my mother to purchase a replacement that was within her means. He found a stripped down Ford with a standard transmission, rubber floor mats and a color that nobody would have chosen on purpose, that was advertised for an amazingly low price. He brokered a deal with the salesman by appealing to his sense of decency. Still my mother gazed at the ugly car and insisted that it was hardly the kind of model that my father would have chosen. It was Uncle Jack who insisted that she was going to have to learn how to make do with what she had. We drove away and used that “Charlie Brown” car for the rest of my childhood. It took us wherever we wanted or needed to go, but mostly it represented possibilities and the strength of individuals like my uncle who would take care of all of us for years to come.

It was the same Uncle Jack who guided us to the home where all three of us would grow into adults. It was a far more modest place than the ones that we had been viewing with my father. Most importantly, though, was the fact that the neighborhood where it stood was filled with incredibly good people who would become the steadying force that my brothers and I needed. Over the years we shed all of our fears and came to feel infinitely secure because of our neighbors who always seemed to be teaching us things and helping our mother with household repairs. It was a wholesome and safe environment that was made even better when Mama was wise enough to center our world on the nearby church and the school where we would make lifelong friends and build the happiest of memories. Everyone knew of our tenuous situation, and while they never openly discussed their sympathy for our plight, they quietly made extra efforts for us. There was a generous spirit that followed us and kept us from harm. We mostly took all of the people for granted as children are wont to do, but deep in our hearts we understood how important they were in helping to shape us into confident adults. We learned from everyone that with a bit of hard work and imagination we would ultimately be just fine.

We were admittedly more fortunate than most children who struggle with poverty. We had a huge village of adults who took us into their hearts and never let go. With our mom encouraging us to use our natural gifts and talents wisely, and a great deal of motivation from teachers and mentors we were able to break the chains of economic hardship. Today few would ever imagine that our life stories might have made us just a few more statistics had it not been for the love and wisdom that surrounded us when we most needed those things. We know that it is never impossible to rise above even the most challenging circumstances which is why I suspect that we have in turn spent much of our lives attempting to help others just as we were so magnanimously assisted. Our altruism was born in the knowledge that each of us has an opportunity to help our fellow human beings and to touch hearts in ways that alter the trajectory of lives.

It saddens me to know that we still have so many young children who are feeling broken, alone, afraid and powerless, but I regularly see the same kind of good people as those who helped my family by stepping up to make a difference. In this season that is often defined by plenty and excess each of us has the power of reshaping destiny. Even the very smallest of attempts that we make to share the wealth of our good fortune, talents and love with those who have less may create the very spark that sets a soul on fire. I was the recipient of all that I needed to redefine my life, and my gratitude for the many souls who made my rise possible will be eternally boundless. Go forth and seek out the suffering. Listen to their cries. Embrace them and you will change the world.

She’s A Good Woman

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

betterdays

She’s a good woman with a very difficult life. She doesn’t complain, but it is apparent that she is tired. The stress in her life only seems to grow in spite of her efforts to keep things running smoothly. She makes the best of a bad situation. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She’s adventurous and thought she would be having fun at this moment in her story. Instead life dealt her an unexpected curve to which she has responded with her usual aplomb. She’s a good woman, but one who has been pushed to the limit.

She saw an opportunity to really enjoy life with her man and they decided to grab the possibilities with gusto. They found a way to live out their retirement years in the mountains of Panama. They were healthy and hearty and would be around other expatriates, all for little or no cost compared to what they were paying in the states. They sold their house, their car, all but the most basic of their belongings and they were on their way to an exciting future with the well wishes of friends who understood that they were not ordinary souls.

They found a lovely place to live that came with a caretaker and a housekeeper who visited once a week as part of the rent. Their property was filled with exotic plants and animals and colors of every hue. They enjoyed the fruit that they were able to pick fresh from the trees and vines. They took long walks enjoying the vistas and the rarely changing mild temperatures that kept them feeling comfortable without a need for either air conditioning or heat. They enrolled in Spanish immersion classes even though most of the people around them spoke English. They wanted to totally experience the culture of their new home. It was all as wonderful as they had hoped. They had found paradise.

They met others like themselves, retirees who wanted to experience something a bit different from what they had known all of their lives. They would join their new friends for dinners and parties and game nights. They were an interesting lot with stories to tell of lives spent doing wondrous things. It seemed as though they had all found a tiny slice of heaven on earth and it was so good, at least until the unthinkable happened.

One day only six months into the move he had a stroke. It left him with difficulties that gravely limited his ability to do the things that they had so enjoyed. She immediately set to work helping him to recuperate because it is in her nature to do such things. She’s after all a good woman. Before long he was moving around the property with a walker. His appetite returned and she created healthy foods for him to eat. She worked with him to exercise his limbs and made the best of the unexpected situation. She kept his mind from drifting to dark places. She was devoted to his care and he was growing stronger by the day.

In spite of her efforts to save the remnants of the new and glorious lifestyle that they had created together it became apparent that he needed to be closer to his doctors. The long journeys into to town were tiring and took far too much time. She worried that another emergency might arise. They both agreed that it would be best to return to the states, and so they began to plan again. This time they wanted to try a small town instead of a big city like the one that they had initially left. Their research lead them to a college town in Georgia, the original capitol of the state. It appeared to have everything they might need. There would be doctors and a hospital nearby, an interesting history, a slow pace, and a reasonable cost of living. Perhaps he would even regain most of his health and they would be able to travel again, make new friends. It would be fun.

They packed their things taking mostly memories this time along with their clothing and the boxes of Christmas decorations that always followed them even when they left other items behind. They were excited about the prospects for the future as they boarded the plane but once again their hopes and dreams turned out differently than they had imagined. He had another stroke that left him more incapacitated than ever. For a time she spent most of her days with him in a hospital, preparing their new home in the evenings. He was bedridden, an invalid unable to even feed himself at times, but she’s a good woman and became more determined than ever to provide him with comfort and love. She took him home and has cared for him day after challenging day.

The weeks went by and then the months and the years. Her life is centered on his needs. She prepares the foods that he likes, changes his diapers, gives him his medications. She sleeps in another room but never soundly. She listens for his voice or signs of trouble. The home healthcare workers who come several times each week provide her with brief interludes during which she shops for groceries and sometimes even does something for herself. Now and again one of them becomes a friend.

She’s a good woman, but her life has become ever more difficult. She is far away from family and old friends. She finds new acquaintances at the grocery store or the resale shop where she finds gently used household items for her home. Now and again she meets someone at the apartment project where she lives, but they almost always eventually move away, and she has to start over again and again. She recently fell and broke her hip. It was one of the few times that her optimism began to falter. He had to go to a nursing home until she had recovered enough to care for him, but she was back on her feet in record time. She felt that she had to ignore her own needs because she saw him deteriorating at a rapid pace without her. She needed to get him home where she might shower him with her comfort and love. She worked hard at rehabilitating herself and sooner than anyone expected he was back with her again.

He’s very sick these days. He is plagued by infections. She is too weak to lift him as she once did. She feeds him and changes him and talks with him even though he is no longer able to communicate with her as in times of old when they talked long into the night. She makes the best of a very tough situation.

A few people from nearby churches try to help her. She celebrated Thanksgiving with one of the caretakers who comes each week to work with her husband. She calls old friends to have a lifeline outside of her tiny world of routines. She tries to stay positive but there is a hint of resignation in her voice. She is weary and worried, and every new challenge makes her a bit less steady in her resolve. Those of us who know her silently wonder how much more she will be able to handle. We know that she has always been a tower of strength, a survivor, and a very good woman. Still we want more than anything for her to finally get a break. God knows that she deserves it so.

She’s a good woman who has taught those of us who are her friends how to be so. She has shown us what sacrifice and dedication look like in action. We admire her, but also want to see her enjoying life without so many challenges. She’s a good woman who has certainly earned her angel wings, but we pray that she may also enjoy better times here on earth as well. If ever there was someone who deserves a run of good fortune it is this woman. My prayer is that better times are coming her way.

A Habit That Bears Repeating

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

c2ebannerWe are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. —- Aristotle

The best among us are real. They are people who do not just seem to be good, but are. Most of them quietly live the entirety of their time on earth with little fanfare. They repeatedly strive to work hard and be nice. We know that we may implicitly trust them. While they may have small weaknesses as all humans do, their flaws are incidental and insignificant with regard to the totality their character. They are generally humble and unlikely to seek glory. They are the kind of people who inspire and make a difference, expecting no thanks for what they consider to be just the way we should all behave. They are men and women of principle who do not judge but instead set high standards for themselves that they strive to follow at all times.

We have all known such individuals. The best within our personal circles have been relatives, friends, teachers, coworkers, neighbors. We recall the kindnesses of people who impacted our lives in ways great and small. I see a parade of beautiful faces belonging to those who taught me by their actions how to enjoy an exceptional and purpose driven life. Excellence was indeed a habit for them, and even when death or circumstance revealed the innermost secrets of their lives there was no shocking news or evidence of hypocrisy in their stories. They were exactly what we thought them to be.

I suppose that there is nothing more disheartening than finding out that a person believed to be admirable is in actuality a fake. It is more than a stab in the back. It is a blow to the heart. We fill with anger and even grief when a personal icon’s shadow life is discovered. It is betrayal of the highest insult and even though we may find it in our graciousness to forgive such persons, our trust in them is never quite as complete as it once may have been. It is a hurt that leaves permanent scars.

Our humanity is so complex. Each of us falters. We have weaknesses, flaws that mar our search for perfection. We understand lapses now and again but we generally cannot bear hurtful actions that are repeated. We feel that they become the defining habit of an individual and make it difficult for us to believe them even when they tell us that they will change. Thus we may wish a Harvey Weinstein success with his publicly vocalized intent to seek help for his egregious behavior, but his history tells us that we need to be wary. We may want to believe that someone like Donald Trump is in reality a good Christian man, but his hateful public comments indicate that he is not as loving as we wish him to be. We may not desire to judge such men, but we certainly should be wary of choosing them to lead and represent us.

I was reading an editorial recently in which the writer spoke of our recent tendency to choose our leaders on superficial characteristics that she called “the personality of bling.” In other words more and more often these days we are drawn to people who are just shiny objects rather than persons of high character. We are more concerned with winning than doing the right thing. We overlook horrific traits in the name of gaining power, rather than calling out wrong even when it may mean that we will lose. We look away even in our private circles allowing bullies to operate with impunity. We are afraid to stand up for what is right lest we become the outcasts. We berate men and women like John McCain and Donna Brazile for speaking the truth because we don’t want to make waves that might result in upheaval and change. Our silence and tacit approval of men and women that we know to be egregious only encourages them to repeat their bad actions again and again. It also sends an horrific message to our children.

As a teen and young adult my generation fomented rebellion against a system that was wrought with hypocrisy and even hate. The head of the FBI, the chief law enforcer, hid personal secrets while invading the privacy of others and spreading false rumors to bring them down. One of our presidents obstructed justice. Much of our society was segregated and unjust and racist. We were taught one thing and then observed another. Our instincts told us that we had to rise up against the evils that we saw. When we did we were characterized as spoiled and lazy, a label that would haunt us for the rest of our days.

For the sake of our future and the education of our children it is imperative that we repeatedly represent ourselves with habits that are honorable and worthy of respect. This means that we cannot make excuses for behaviors that are harmful. If we want excellence to be our defining characteristic as individuals and as a nation then we can no longer advance false and insulting arguments that defend horrific actions. We must condemn anyone who distorts truth and goodness whether it be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump or a member of our own family. We simply can no longer afford to cast stones at those who sacrifice their own reputations to reveal the underside of anyone who is manipulating us. To allow ourselves to be abused by heroes or relatives or bullies is akin to self harm. Our silence and acceptance only allows the bad behaviors to grow. As generally very good people we must begin to heal again and head in a positive direction by removing the fears associated with speaking out.

Long before the terrible shootings at Columbine High School there were teachers and students and parents who reported concerns about the two young men who ultimately became mass murderers. The individuals who stepped forward were questioned and harassed more than the boys who were the objects of their worries. In journal entries one of the killers laughed at how easily he fooled everyone with his charms and bragged about twisting their stories to make it appear that he was being beset upon rather than being the real bully. He might have been stopped if his accusers’ stories had been accorded more respect. Instead the school administrators and even the police suggested that the behaviors were just typical teenage antics.

It’s time for all of us to truly honor character once again. There are many moral people in our midst. In fact I believe that such individuals are the majority. Sadly we are lacking in leadership from the best among us and instead honoring those who fool us with empty promises and bombast. We allow hateful people to proclaim their Christianity even while lying and espousing harmful and selfish ideas. We have permitted ourselves to accept a double standard all in the name of winning. It is time for each of us to insist on excellence of character once again. It is a habit that bears repeating.