History – Page 46 – All It Takes Is A Little Love

Tree

Published on October 5, 2016 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

tree1024x1024 There is a tree in Rockport, Texas that has been growing in the same spot for centuries. Some wise soul thought to save the old oak forever by declaring it an historical treasure and building a fence around it. People travel from all parts of the world just to stand under the shade of the sprawling limbs and to marvel at the girth of the ancient trunk. They snap photos of the wondrous image and try to imagine what the old tree has seen in its time on this earth. If only it could talk we might hear of native people pausing under its branches to rest after a day of hunting and fishing or learn of explorers from Spain who traveled along the Gulf Coast searching for cities of gold. Did the tree once see vast flocks of whooping cranes wintering in the area in their annual journey from Canada? How did it manage to withstand the forces of tropical storms and punishing hurricanes? What is its secret to long life?

We humans have love/hate relationships with trees. We plan trips to Vermont in the fall to marvel at the glorious colors of leaves but also cut down beautiful specimens to make way for factories. We plant trees in the yards of our new homes that once sat in forests that we eliminated to build our suburban communities. We enshrine trees in metaphorical poetry even as we topple them in real life. We use them for our own whims often forgetting that they are helping to provide the very oxygen that we breathe. They cool us and shelter us and we all too often take them for granted. When we flee from natural disasters we abandon them to bear the brunt of wind and water and fire.

Along the Big Thompson Canyon on the road leading from Loveland, Colorado to Estes Park is the dead stump of a once mighty tree. It is bent and gnarled into a contortion created by the power of the river that took homes from their foundations and turned nature’s bounty into piles of rubble. Somehow that tree has become a work of art. Its determination to hold fast to the rocks in which it once grew is a testament to its strength and flexibility. It stands as a sentinel as rugged as the huge boulders along the face of the canyon. It has somehow withstood the onslaught of both nature and humans.

We personify trees. They teach us lessons. We track our human history in their branches. We have a special kinship with trees, especially when we are hot and weary. We sit under their branches cooling ourselves and dreaming of futures that we may never see but they are more likely to enjoy. Trees remind us of ourselves as they travel along with us through the seasons and the years. They are our silent partners in a lifetime journey.

My paternal grandmother was a child of nature. Her father and her grandmother are buried in a national forest in Arkansas where their homestead once resided. It seems fitting that her ancestral home is now protected and allowed to return to a wild and unfettered state. She so loved to walk in the woods under a canopy of trees that sheltered the birds and critters that she enjoyed. When she died my grandfather handpicked a spot in the cemetery that sits under a grove of oaks whose limbs reach gracefully over her final resting place. She would have loved the serenity of the area. In life she marveled at nature’s wonders and seemed almost to be a mischievous sprite as she wandered in the forest behind her farm naming every tree, plant and bird that crossed her path.

Hanging on the wall at the entrance to my home is an image of an enormous tree spreading its limbs across a landscape of green. I have placed it there to welcome my guests and to remind myself of the glories of the natural world. The painting calms me and makes me smile. Gazing at it takes me to my roots. I think of the people whom I never met who had to live in order that I might now exist. Like the tree they once began with a tiny seed and then reached to the heavens with their dreams, becoming ever stronger with each new branch. I know their names but not their stories. I can only imagine what their lives had been based on what I know about the places where they lived. I wonder what they would think of me and the world in which I exist. I suspect that they would be happy that things have turned out as well for me and my extended clan as they have. After all, each of us wants the best for our children and grandchildren. We want to know that they will be safe.

One of my favorite books is Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. I have presented it as a gift many times over. I never tire of its story of unconditional love and sacrifice. I have now travelled through almost seven decades from the time when I was born. I have been the child, the teenager, the young adult, the middle aged individual and now the old person described in the tale. I have known both the exuberance and the drudgery of life, sometimes forgetting the people who have brought me to the place where I now linger. Like all humans I sometimes take my blessings for granted and even abuse the kindnesses that have been shown to me. I forget to be thankful and to simply enjoy the shade and the sound of the wind whispering through the leaves of the tree of life.

Trees keep me optimistic. They remind me that there is a continuity in this world that is bigger than our individual human efforts. We may falter and even become a bit full of ourselves but the ebb and flow of life remains essentially the same. We all benefit from being a bit more like trees. It is important that we “Stay grounded. Connect with our roots. Turn over new leaves. Bend before we break. Enjoy our unique natural beauty and keep growing.” (Joanne Chaptis) If we remember these simple rules we will surely find more of the contentment that we seek, especially in a world as seemingly mad as the one that we now face.

That tree in Rockport has seen more than we might ever imagine and still lives on. There is something rather nice about knowing that it is there and will be even when we are gone. Like the giant sequoias of Yosemite, the groves of Aspen in Rocky Mountain National Park and the countless shady lanes that soften the highways and byways across the land trees are the constant that we all wish to be in the world.

Facade

Published on September 29, 2016 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

1902474be6161ed7fa088914cd72e4b7 We all enjoy the world of make believe. As children we listen intently to stories from the imagination and we never quite lose our thirst for enchanting tales. In the adult world tales of dragons and dead people who reanimate excite us even as we understand that they are not real. We humans enjoy flights of fancy and we have become expert at creating visions so detailed and true to life that we are able to suspend our disbelief and fully immerse ourselves in fictions that distract us from the grind of daily living. We build theme parks where we escape for hours into fantastic worlds with rides that both thrill and frighten us. Somehow we need entertainment that is part unbelievable and part akin to our own lives. It is as though the comedy and tragedy of existence is not enough to stimulate our thinking. We humans are extraordinary in our thirst for creative genius.

Mankind began artistry rather simply. People decorated their bodies with colors from the earth and festooned themselves with feathers, shells, horns and animal skins. Some extended their inventive urges to paintings on the walls of caves and the oral traditions of tales that recorded history or taught important ideas. We thought to develop alphabets and refined ways of scrawling notations onto surfaces that we might carry from one place to another. We improved our tools and even while we eked out survival we paused for moments of entertainment. There is no other earthly creature that does such things. Our history is one of wars and violence and humane progress. We enshrine heroes both true and make believe. We speak of man’s fatal flaws in stories so universal that they ring true even centuries after they were written. We face down our tragedies at the same time that we cloak them in facades.

The truth is often so horrific and difficult to face that we deal with it much better if it is presented in metaphors. We are able to think and react to a movie when we might turn away from what is real. A sympathetic hero or heroine allows us to suspend our prejudices and judgements for a moment so that our minds are free to consider new possibilities. We forget that the view that we see in a play or a film is usually made of cardboard and the technology of computers. We sometimes believe a well crafted story with a cast of brilliant actors more than we do the evidence that exists right before our eyes. Sometimes we have to escape from what is real to find the truths that we need to hear.

Shakespeare said that we are all actors on a stage. We prepare our faces and our lines before we emerge from our homes each day to interact with the audiences who expect certain behaviors from us. We think before we speak. We dress in accordance with fashion and the dictates of our jobs. We strut and compete to win the best roles. We aim to please so that we might earn the accolades and goodies that allow us to survive. Few of us have the courage to fully be our true selves wherever we go. We wait to reveal who we really are to those in whom we trust. We have learned that it is risky to be any other way but we secretly admire those among us who shoot the finger to conventions. It is difficult to keep up a facade.

Social media sites provide us with a forum for truth. They appear to provide us with freedom, power and anonymity. It is easy to type in the words that are struggling to leave our minds and then walk away. There is nobody standing in front of us when we hit the send or post buttons. We do not feel the fears of confrontation and yet our spontaneous actions are not without repercussions. Others feel just as daring and verbal jousts often ensue. As we tear down our facades of politeness the world becomes littered with commentaries and insults that hover forever as evidence of our frustrations. We want to be able to own our thoughts but experience has taught us that to do so is fraught with dangers. After we are burned we replace the masks that we wear for protection. We feign ignorance of our mistakes and sometimes even turn away from the discussions that gave us a false courage. We learn that nobody really wants to know our ideas nor do they value our opinions. We only make others angry when we speak the truth and most of us dislike the battles that follow

We instinctively know that much of what we see and hear is as unreal as the fiction that entertains us. We desire good news and so there are those who manipulate us into believing that they are the bearers of good tidings when all they really want is power over our thoughts and feelings. Only the very confident and strong are willing to stand their ground and take the abuse that comes from nobly shouting the truths that we find uncomfortable to hear. They are the stuff of legend. They often suffer for their honor. We see their like both in fictional heroes and reality. They are King Lear and Martin Luther King, Jr., Kaleesi and Rosa Parks.

We humans are a funny lot. We are truth seekers who live behind our protective facades. We are brave and cautious. We risk speaking honestly and we lie. We walk into danger and we run away. Our very natures and physiology prompt us to take chances and to protect ourselves. There is a constant tug of war between good and bad, bravery and cowardice. Like Batman we are one person in the light of day and another in the dark of night. We hate our facades but understand the need to couch our words and actions in acceptable forms of behavior. All of us are prisoners in some ways and free in others. The facades that we build protect us from misunderstandings and judgements. They give us an illusion of strength and security but we always know that they are not real. It is only when we are with the people who allow us to remove our masks and the fake fronts that we feel the liberation that each of us seek. It is called unconditional love and we crave it.

It would be glorious if we were to one day find that tolerance had become universal. How invigorating it would feel to know that each person might fully embrace his/her uniqueness without fear of being misunderstood or ostracized. We are working on reaching that point but still have a long way to go. Sadly our facades will have stay in place for now.

The Sound and the Fury

Published on September 27, 2016 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

160926213408-clinton-trump-debate-hofstra-your-own-reality-sot-one-00012411-large-169 I sometimes enjoy fooling people regarding my age. If I’m well rested, wearing the right colors, and my makeup is fresh I am able to masquerade as someone who is a bit younger than I actually am. I am generally able to get by with pretending to be in my fifties rather than my sixties but I give away my deception whenever I begin to speak about the events that I have witnessed in my life. The reality is that I am only a couple of years younger than the two individuals who are running for President of the United States. They are my peers and sadly both of their campaigns remind me far too much of high schoolers hoping to secure my vote by offering goodies and changes that will probably never happen.

One of them is the class blowhard and bully, the same kind of guy who stomped on my photo with his shoe and proclaimed that nobody liked me. The other is the girl with the fake smile on her face who would say anything to get my vote and that of my classmates but in reality only ran to achieve a taste of power. Even as a gangly teenager I understood that politics was often a game and that those speeches that we heard inside the gym were crafted to attract our interest just enough to secure our votes, hot air that most of us would forget once the winner was ensconced in office.

I remember watching the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon back in the nineteen sixties. I wasn’t old enough to vote but I was curious to learn more about the handsome Catholic who seemed to be a very different kind of politician than the stodgy old men who had traditionally run for office. The discussions between Kennedy and Nixon were intellectual and meaningful and I was so fascinated that I became a political observer forevermore. The camera loved Kennedy and showcased his natural charisma and optimistic sense of humor. Unfortunately for Nixon it revealed all of his physical and emotional flaws, making his arguments secondary to the overall impression that he made. Still, that first debate was not a circus but a serious analysis of the issues and it set the standard for all future televised encounters between candidates.

Over time politicians and their handlers learned how to game the debates. They became more of a spectacle and less of an effort to outline the real differences between candidates. In most cases the members of the electorate rarely changed their votes based on what they heard in those encounters between candidates. We the people realized that one moment in time was not nearly enough to define an individual and so we watched more for the whimsey than to learn anything new.

For the most part the great debates became rather boring production numbers. Only now and again did a candidate do something so egregious that it turned the tide in a tight race. When President George H. W. Bush glanced at his watch during his debate with Bill Clinton it sent a message that he was bored and thought himself above his opponent. It became the last straw in the unraveling of his presidency and a moment that many remembered when they went to the polls. Mostly though the debates have only influenced a small proportion of the voters of late. They serve little purpose other than to reinforce the support of those who have already decided which way to lean. They rarely change minds.

I have to admit that I was rather disappointed in the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It felt more like a marital dispute between and a man and woman who had grown to despise one another. I had already heard every soundbite that each of them proclaimed and found their snark and digs to be annoying and cloying. There really was no substance to any of their plans. Each of them dreams big but can’t really explain how to successfully fund the programs that they espouse. Our country is deeply in debt and neither candidate addressed ways to eliminate the growing economic crisis that will surely hit us if we continue to ignore the fact that we can’t afford all of the things that we do. The reality is that lowering taxes and building a wall will not work anymore than raising taxes on the wealthy will pay for college for everyone. The numbers simply don’t balance in our national checkbook. The sad truth is that we need a combination of both austerity and more income from all of the people but in today’s political climate it is far too unpopular to suggest that we might have to make sacrifices to get our house back in order.

At the moment our choices lean toward two extremes when what we really need is a bit of both platforms. Each candidate possesses some ideas of merit and some that are so far out that they will hopefully never come to pass. Sadly it is out of fashion to be moderate, something that Bill Clinton was masterful at doing. Today the outrageous is in fashion. If I were running my plans would incorporate a wide spectrum of ideas designed to move our country forward together, not as splintered as it has become. Therein lies my gravest concerns for our future. Frankly I don’t believe that either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton care as much about the nation as they do about themselves. Neither is up to the standards of the job but hopefully the winner will learn how to really be responsible.

The good news is that we have had some rather nondescript presidents in the past, men who didn’t quite measure up to Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt or Reagan. We’ve seen real crooks like Nixon and misguided policymakers like Hoover. We have made it through assassinations and impeachments. We have endured the good, the bad, and the ugly time and again. I simply don’t believe that any one person will destroy the democracy that we have. We will make it one way or another and somewhere on the horizon a real leader will eventually emerge.

Ours is a complex government in which no one person may become a dictator. As long as the members of Congress uphold their duties and the Supreme Court rules for the good of the nation rather than their personal political leanings we will continue to be strong. Who knows how the eventual winner of this contest will adapt to the office. The weight of presidential responsibilities has certainly changed many men for the better in the past. I would like to believe that I will be pleasantly surprised regardless of the outcome in November.

In the meantime I doubt that I have the patience to tune in to any more debates. They are simply a mashup of sound and fury signifying nothing. There is little point to spending ninety minutes hearing the same talking points over and over again. It is simply time for me to consider all of the pros and cons, vote according to my own conscience and then hope for the best for the country that I so love.

The Ascent of Humankind

Published on September 26, 2016 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

I have always been a creature of habit. When I was still working I had to keep to a hard and fast routine or I would end up feeling overwhelmed. I told myself that when I finally retired I would become more easy going but found it almost impossible to live without daily parameters. I still generally follow a pattern of living not unlike the one that guided me for most of my adult life. I find myself measuring the quality of my day by the number of tasks that I accomplish. I follow the same steps both when I awake and during the waning hours before I retire for the night. There is comfort in the sameness at the beginning and end of each cycle of the sun. The things that I repeat over and over again provide me with a feeling of stability in a world that of late seems to have gone somewhat mad.

One of my morning quirks is to read the news while I eat my breakfast. I want to know what has happened in the world while I was slumbering. I know all too well what might take place in the dark of night. I have lived the nightmare of arising to learn that a loved one has died while I was blissfully dreaming. Waking to very bad news has happened to me and to my friends many times over. Perhaps it is one of the reasons that I have evolved into a restless sleeper, always on alert. I am thankful for each morning that I see the sun but also leery that I might learn of yet another tragic event.

Today I awoke to find that a shooter was firing at passersby at a strip center in my city. I am quite familiar with the area where the incident unfolded even though it is somewhat far from where I actually live. I have shopped and dined there. For many years I dreamed of living in the neighborhood near there. It is an upscale part of town, somewhere that always seemed safe and devoid of the problems that plague much of Houston.

The updates that kept pinging on my phone indicated that six people were transported to the hospital which luckily is only minutes away in one of the best medical centers in the world. The shooter was “neutralized.” The always very busy road where all of this played out was closed and there was a shelter in place for residents of an apartment complex located near the tragedy. In real time I learned all about an event about which I might have been ignorant in times past and I find myself wondering if all of this news to which we are privy is helping or hurting us. Do we actually have better lives because we are now able to be “eyewitnesses” to war and murder or is the continuous barrage of carnage somehow damaging our collective psyche? Are we becoming immune to the violence or is it frightening and inciting us? Is there a connection between the twenty four hour news cycle and the questionable character of the two people that we have nominated as the potential leaders of our nation? Are we indeed backed onto a dangerous precipice or is the continuous reality show to which the newscasters subject us merely hyperbole designed to keep our attention? How much do we really need to know and how much should we simply ignore?

I am as uncertain about such things as most people are these days. I take comfort in knowing that while we do indeed live in a brave new world that is fraught with uniquely modern day problems, mankind’s journey has wound its way through centuries and somehow we have managed time and again to continue moving slowly but surely forward. Time stretches so far back that it is unimaginable. Our history as people is recorded from thousands of years ago. Whether we take the Old Testament of the Bible for granted or view it as a kind of folktale we understand that murder, war and mistreatment have been a part of our natures for as long as we have walked on this earth but hope and promise of a better world have time and again guided us to the realization of our better natures.

I began watching a series on the history of India last night. It told of ancient Greek navigators who risked monsoons to sail to India in search of enchanting spices like pepper and cardamon. The narrator told of the development of the silk road from China and the earliest kingdoms that dominated what we now call the Middle East, Pakistan and India itself. Many of the places that became centers of invention, trade and religious pilgrimages still exist today much as they did thousands of years ago. Most of the progress and learning that prompted such adventures took place during long stretches of peace. When there was no war humans turned their talents and their interests to creativity and inventiveness. Sadly jealousies and hunger for power all too often overtook mankind’s better natures and brought violence that destroyed entire dynasties. Our collective story demonstrates a human pattern of renaissance and destruction that asserts itself over and over again.

We never seem to completely solve all of our problems even with our best intentions to do so. Sometimes events overwhelm us and we become swept up in realities that most of us would rather avoid. We become part of the cycles of both everyday living and history. Our hope is that somehow we will manage not just to survive the difficult times but also to become stronger and better because of our experiences. Our goal is to learn and improve and move forward, a dream that is at times easier to imagine that to execute. It requires the capacity and willingness to accept one another just as we are.

In a world that can seem cruel and unfeeling a breathtaking thing happened this past weekend at the opening of the new Smithsonian museum for African American history. A photographer captured a touching moment when First Lady Michelle Obama gave a big hug to a smiling former President George W. Bush. The photo shows a millisecond of unplanned, unrehearsed innocence and genuine friendship between two people who have often been scorned by the public at large. In that brief encounter lay the seeds of a better future, a time when we might become more capable of seeing each other not as philosophies or religions or nations but simply as the wonderfully beautiful human beings that we are. It is only when we can look past the slogans and posturing and opinion mongering that continually invade our space that we truly harness the potential for greatness that lies in each and every one of us. It is during the times that we grow weary of fighting and instead live and let live that our humanity most shines forth. That is when our most awe inspiring spirits have the room to soar and ascend.

I don’t know where we are in the unfolding our human history. I have seen both good and bad times in my almost seventy decades. In the grand scheme of things I am but an infant and yet I know enough about our human routines to believe like King Lear that we always circle back to peace and goodness even when we appear to be at our worst. No matter how bad things may look, we need to keep the faith. A new day will come. The sun will shine. A Leonardo da Vinci or an Albert Einstein will be born. The future lies somewhere in our midst, somewhere in each one of us, and it is good.

Happy Fall, Ya’ll

Published on September 22, 2016 by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

first-day-of-autumn-weather-for-all-love-season-3 There is a chill inside my home this morning. The air is filled with the aroma of pumpkins and spices. Colors of red, orange, yellow and gold catch my eye wherever I look. It is the first day of autumn, my favorite time of year. But wait! The high today will be ninety two degrees here in Houston. The brisk temperature that I feel has been artificially produced by my trusty air conditioner. The lovely autumnal smell is only the product of a Yankee candle. I see fall colors thanks to the collection of artificial items that I place around my home at this time each season. Were it not for Hobby Lobby and Michael’s fall in Houston would look exactly the same as the middle of July. I have to conjure a great deal of imagination to realize that a change of seasons is actually taking place.

I just returned from a week long stay in the mountains near Rocky Mountain National Park. There I enjoyed the true splendor of autumn produced by Mother Nature at her finest. The landscape was awash with spectacular colors that seemed almost to have been painted on the leaves that fluttered enticingly in the wind. I wore my sweaters during the day and snuggled under a warm blanket at night, all without the aid of mechanical devices designed to keep my environment comfortable. The clean smell of pine overwhelmed my olfactory senses. The world around me seemed to be balanced and as perfect as it ought to be. The cycle of seasons was operating so perfectly that even the animals understood what time of year we were entering. It felt so right.

I love the fall but have had to manufacture it of late because I live in the south near the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. There are actually people who begin a yearly pilgrimage to my part of the country at about this time. They are fleeing the coming ravages of winter which will most surely visit their northern homes. They live like snowbirds who seek warmer climes in which to survive the harshness of the coming days. I see their trailers in the RV parks and their foreign license plates from places like Minnesota, Nebraska and Michigan. They flee from the very weather that I have never really seen and would so love to experience.

Each year as my fall birthday approaches in the middle of November I am just as likely to be wearing shorts and flip flops as one of my sweaters that never wears out. I only replace my winter gear when it becomes hopelessly out of style. I rarely use it enough to tarnish its sheen of newness. Unless I travel to one of the colder places it often seems like overkill to even take my coats from the closet where I store them all year long.

There used to be a sliver of fall and winter here in Houston. When I was a child I recall enjoying seventy degree days in October and as November rolled around we always lit the pilot light on our heater because we were bound to have some cold nights. I suggest that all climate change deniers spend some time where I live to realize that it appears to get warmer and warmer every single year, a fact that worries me intensely. Even my rabidly conservative but science-oriented brother admits that we are indeed experiencing a worldwide warming trend that is having a dramatic effect on our very existence. We humans are changing the rhythm and flow of nature and ultimately the results will be devastating if we don’t agree to take measures to slow the tide of a warming atmosphere that is artificially creating a climate that brings us more and more severe weather patterns and natural disasters. The data doesn’t lie no matter how much we humans choose to ignore the facts.

I just drove through the heart of what had been the dustbowl during the Great Depression of the twentieth century. The drought that overtook parts of Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas would certainly have caused many problems for the farmers who lived there but the situation became even more dire than it needed to be because they had interrupted nature. The people had plowed over the native grasses designed to anchor the soil to the earth. Without those simple little plants the winds carried the dirt high into the sky like great filthy clouds. There were continual storms of dust rather than rain that often made it impossible to see or even to breathe. The desperate people lost their incomes, their lands and sometimes even their lives. It was only when proper planting methods were eventually introduced that the area began to slowly come back to life. Sadly the ravages of that era are still apparent in some small towns where buildings on main streets are empty and populations continue to decline.

There are scientists among us who have studied such things. They understand the soil, the insects, the plants, and the weather. They are able to explain the symbiotic nature of our world. It is time that we listened to their warnings or the day may come when we humans no longer have the ability to create the comforts that we seek. We may simply have to endure the assaults from nature that will most surely come if we choose to ignore the warning signs that are all around us.

I love the natural flow of the life cycle. I enjoy being as one with the earth, a visitor no more important to the way of things than the tiniest bug. I don’t want my footprint to disturb the earth but I instinctively know that it does. I want to do my tiny little part to make my presence a bit less destructive. I suppose that if each of us were to begin just one form of conservation on a daily basis our collective efforts would begin to make a small dent in the problems that are making our earth sick. Instead of ridiculously asserting that climate change is a myth our politicians need to join together in crafting a global plan that will be as painless as possible to people everywhere. We must use our natural human abilities to find acceptable and forward thinking answers without destroying livelihoods. We have done it before and I have little doubt that we might do it again.

So on this first morning of autumn I intend to enjoy my favorite time of year with a bit of gardening if I can manage to endure the heat. At my age there is always an uncertainty that I will see another September 22 so I have to seize the day with all of the gusto that I am able to muster. With all of those fall wreaths showing up on the doors of my neighbor’s homes pumpkin cheesecake can’t be far behind and what is better than that? Happy Fall to those of us north of the equator and Happy Spring to everyone below. The world is still a wonderful place. Let’s keep it that way.