Category: Overcoming fears

The Sun Will Rise

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

sunriseI woke up this morning. While that may seem to be a minor accomplishment I know it to be something quite special, a blessing. I have one more opportunity to approach life with generosity and love, to do something outside of myself, to realize what is truly important, maybe even to impact someone who needs a little support to make it through another day. Last week was very hard for me. It began with very personal sadness and ended with worry and concern.

I should know better than most people just how uncertain life can be. I have awakened on a beautiful summer day only to learn that my thirty three year old father died in a car crash. I have watched my mother deteriorate so quickly from cancer that we never even had the opportunity to receive a definitive diagnosis. I have attended more funerals for loved ones and friends than I care to recall. Illness and death is a recurring theme in our world. We know that our days are numbered and yet we allow ourselves again and again to become distracted from focusing on the people in our lives.

Last week I received a frightening text that my son-in-law and my grandson had been in a terrible wreck. The car in which they were riding was totally destroyed in the blink of an eye. If the impact had differed by an inch here a foot there it might have been fatal for them as well. My grandson had difficulty even exiting his seat because the dashboard had pushed so close to him. Luckily all of the safety features of the auto did exactly what they were designed to do and both of my loved ones were okay, at least physically if not emotionally. Kind strangers went out of their way to help and in the end all went well but our family was still shaken by thoughts of what might have been.

Within less than an hour on the same day I received yet another message informing me that one of my cousins was receiving hospice care. He is someone who has been part of my life for as long as I have memories. He was born ten months after I was. We grew up together, sharing our childhoods, our teenage years and our lives as adults. He has been a constant source of laughter for me. He loves to tickle my funny bone with his sense of humor and corny jokes. Even a week after receiving this devastating news I can’t fathom losing him.

Last night there was a remarkable event in honor of another cousin who is battling lymphoma. She is far younger than I am, a mother of two small children who is really just beginning her adult life. She is a woman of incalculable faith but her strength is being tested to its very limits. Those who love her have rallied to her cause. She has earned their attention with the generosity of her heart. She presents a brave face to all of us but I can’t help but believe that there are many times when she is so afraid of what the future will be. I sense that she will be a courageous warrior for her children and I believe that she will win. Still I worry for her and find myself praying throughout the day that she will soon be healed.

The results of the election last week were shocking to me. I never would have dreamed that our next President would be Donald Trump. I stayed awake to hear the final announcement and even laughed a bit at the thought of this strange man leading our country. My inclination was to take his victory in stride. I learned long ago to be resilient. If I did not know how to roll with life’s punches I would have been destroyed by now. It was with great concern that I realized just how many people were suffering deeply because of what had transpired. Their pain was true and visceral.

I am above all empathetic almost to the point of overkill. I actually feel the hurt of those around me. It ties me into emotional knots that bind my mind. For most of the past week I experienced anxiety attacks, insomnia and spasms in my lower back. All of these things are related to the worry that I have for the individuals who feel so lost and confused over what has just happened. While I believe that many of their fears for our future are not going to be quite as bad as they think I understand why they are so worried.

I have written on multiple occasions about the undocumented students that I have taught. They were brought into our country when they were tiny children. The United States of America is really all that they have ever known. Whether or not this should have happened to them is of little relevance. What’s done is done and they had nothing to do with it. To suddenly punish them by sending them back to countries that are foreign to them seems particularly cruel. Most of them have been outstanding citizens. They have earned college degrees and worked hard, asking for little or nothing from the rest of us. Now they are fearful that all that they have ever known will suddenly be turned upside down by a man who has pledged to send them away. Even those who were born here worry that their families will be torn asunder. Their fears are so tragically real and I feel their pain deep down in my soul.

I have taught many Black children. They too wonder how they will be treated in the new political reality. It would be easy for all of us to dismiss their concerns as being unrealistic but I believe them when they tell me that they often suffer indignities. They are so beautiful to me that I sometimes forget that prejudices still exist. They know that even with their educations and their best efforts there will be those who consider them to be less than.

I am acquainted with people who are incredulous that so many of our citizens were able to overlook the offensiveness of Donald Trump and elevate him to the highest office in the land. At the same time I am familiar with others who believed with all of their hearts that Hillary Clinton was easily as bad. Many voters saw their choice as being the selection of the lesser of two evils. They did not pick Trump because they were vicious people but for reasons that made perfect sense to them.   

In the aftermath of the election I have been brokenhearted, mostly because of the animosity that I have seen from both sides of the voting public. I have witnessed people reacting in self righteous and smug ways toward their fellow citizens. I have read of instances in which people declared that members of their family were dead to them based solely on the ways they voted. I heard from a former student who is sincerely worried that a civil war will break out in the streets of our cities and towns. He is a young father who only wants his little girl to live in the safety and security that he senses might slip away if we do not find ways to become more united. My heart has felt as if it will break into a million little pieces. It all seems so very wrong.

We have been fighting with each other for far too long. We simply cannot continue to be a split screen nation. I pray for the soul of my country. While I am not a fan of President Elect Trump I want him to prove me wrong. I would like nothing better than for him to pull us together as a nation and bind the gaping wounds that are making us so sick. We need to be able to hear the many voices of our people whether they be liberal or conservative, straight or gay, white or of color, young or old, from the north or the south, the east or the west, urban or rural. I suspect that if we remain unwilling to find ways to reach out to even those whose ideas confound us then we will be in for years of chaos and hurt. I believe that we are better than that. It is time for us to show our better selves for the sake of our children. The sun will rise no matter what we choose to do but our days will surely be sunnier if we learn how to work together once again.

Daunting

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

main-content-management-imageBecause I grew up in a single parent family led by a strong and confident woman I am strong willed and independent. Had my husband, Mike, not been nurtured by a mother who was an equal to mine in her commanding presence he might have struggled with my personality after we married forty eight years ago today. I suppose that the real me may have been a bit of a surprise to him. I was a month shy from being twenty years old on that Friday when I walked down the aisle to exchange vows. We were still in that tingly romantic stage of our relationship. Both of us were on our best behavior. As so often happens our true selves ultimately revealed themselves in the day to day routines that evolved and Mike noticed that I was not exactly the person that he thought I was.

I’m a daunting competitor who likes to win. Since nobody ever mentioned to me that women are expected to fulfill certain roles and that we are supposed to struggle in a man’s world, as a young bride I simply threw myself full force into handling the household and preparing for a career. I was not held back by beliefs that there were glass ceilings above me or that I wouldn’t get as fair a shake as the men with whom I interacted. I carried on the way my mother did after my father died, unafraid to try almost anything. Of course Mike had unwittingly provided me with the last bit of courage that I needed to emulate the confidence that I had always seen in my mom. I had been socially shy and uncomfortable around men before I met him mostly because I had not been around males very much. Mike taught me that I could hold my own with a man and he admitted at every turn that he was my biggest fan. With him in my corner I felt able to tackle any problem that came my way, which was fortunate because I would have to muster great courage to become a lifelong advocate for my mom when she began to show signs of her bipolar disorder.

As I evolved in my marriage and my role as a woman I had perhaps the two best role models possible in my mother and my mother-in-law. I witnessed both of them walking without fear into the fray of what was at that time a truly male dominated world. They encouraged me to follow my dreams no matter where they might lead. My mother-in-law in particular gave me the priceless gift of her time, often rescuing me when one of my children was sick by coming to babysit while I went to work. When I had a job that kept me at work until late in the evening she faithfully came to my home each afternoon so that my youngsters would not have to be latchkey kids. She prepared dinner to give me a break when I arrived home exhausted. While these may sound like very traditional womanly duties they came accompanied with profound advice that kept me feeling that I was doing the right thing in pouring myself so totally into my work.

Then there was Mike who never complained when I became absorbed in the many time consuming aspects of being a successful educator. My days and nights and weekends were filled with planning, grading, attending seminars, and working toward an advanced degree. I often spent more time with my students and our daughters than I did with him but he understood my need to perfect my craft and to give my all to the work that I thought to be so important. He took pride in my accomplishments and supported me without question even as he sometimes sacrificed his own needs. To this very day when I become involved in new pursuits his only bit of caution is that I do what makes me happy, not what I think that other people may want.

I suppose that the key to the success that Mike and I have achieved in our marriage is that we are truly best friends in every sense of the word. Neither of us has ever felt that one is superior to the other. We equally value the contributions that each of us has made to the partnership. While I compete with the world at large, neither of us feel compelled to outrank the other. We are truly coequals, each with different skill sets that are important to the family. There are no jealousies or fears. We can be ourselves and feel completely safe. Nothing in forty eight years has given either of us reason to believe that we cannot trust the other without reservation. Ours is a union of mutual respect and admiration.

I suppose that my circumstances have been fortunate in that my brand of feminism is a bit different from most. I did not grow up around domineering men, instead I watched a widow woman earn a college degree, work as a teacher and researcher, purchase and pay for a home, raise three well adjusted children and lead a profoundly happy existence all without assistance from a man, while also battling the horrifically debilitating symptoms of mental illness. I married a man who gave me total freedom in determining how I wanted to use my own talents and then became my most devoted cheerleader. As if that wasn’t enough to encourage me to be formidable in my interaction with the world, my mother-in-law became a source of limitless wisdom as I drew upon her experiences as the manager of a family electrical business, the chief financial officer of a mega church, and a well read student of history and politics. Based on the complaints that I hear from women today I suppose that I was too blessed and too ignorant to realize that I was not supposed to feel as equal to men as I always have.

I grew up in what is defined as a classically dysfunctional family. We were poor and had no father. Because of my mom’s optimism and strength, somehow the situation never felt that terrible. I married a man when I was too young to have enough sense to make things work but our love and respect for one another carried us through both triumph and tragedy year after wonderful year. My incredible mother-in-law served as a sounding board and a sterling example of what a determined woman might accomplish even when all of the world is telling her that she may not have the right stuff. These are the people that I knew and the privileges that I had that made me the woman that I am. As daunting as the world may sometimes be I have always been able to tackle it. The real key to my success as a woman has not been in having some kind of special sources of influence, because I have never had any, but in being valued and loved.

Terror

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

ground-zeroIt only took a split second on that September day for everything to change. The sky was blue. It was one of those seemingly perfect mornings when we all went about our business with a little more spring in our steps. Who could be unhappy with the sun shining so magnificently and the weather showing the promise of cooler days ahead? When we saw that plane heading toward a building in the middle of New York City it didn’t make sense. We wondered if the pilot was lost, sick, having a heart attack. Once the plane hit without any attempt to adjust course a sickening feeling of horror began to slowly overtake us. By the time a second plane flew straight through the other tower, a third slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania our national innocence had been shattered. While we have been attempting to deal with the aftermath of what happened fifteen years ago an entire generation of children has grown up under the specter of terror. September 11, 2001, was a purposeful attack on our psyches and the years have not yet healed us.

I used to live near Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas. I grew to love the sound of the airplanes moving over my home as they traveled to and fro. I liked to imagine where the people were going and what fun lay ahead for them. My girls and I often walked over to watch the planes taking off and landing. There were no barriers to our movements. We were free to stroll unencumbered into the departure areas and press our noses against the glass walls to watch the activities playing out on the tarmac. We often met our out of town guests as they exited the aircraft or sat talking with them until they departed. We didn’t pass through metal detectors or take off our shoes. We didn’t have tickets and we still moved in and out of the airport as though we owned it. After September 11, we would never again enjoy the luxury of using the airport as an adventurous destination on our leisurely walks. I would never be able to show my grandchildren the fun that their mothers and I had so often enjoyed.

I remember the silence that ensued for days after the attack. The sounds of the plane engines that had become so much a part of my routine were gone. It was eerie not to hear them and when they finally returned they were suddenly frightening. Air travel became a source of anxiety for me rather than a joyful experience. I became wary and watchful and admittedly nervous. Just getting through the long lines, the guards, the scanners became a distasteful chore. Understanding why such measures had to be taken added a hint of danger to what had before been so delightful. Post 9/11 children would take the inconveniences for granted, not knowing how free and easy travel had once been.

Our country would react to that horrific morning by engaging in a war that now seems never ending. We believed back then that we would slap a couple of terrorist hands and then resume our happy lives. Instead we are still fighting an elusive and shadowy enemy. We take down one group of terrorists and another is spawned. We are unsure of how to defeat those who would harm us so that we might return our world to a sense of normalcy. In fact we secretly wonder what normal is. For the young it is the reality of living under a constant threat and still managing to carry on as though nothing has happened. For those of us who witnessed those terrible events that will never fade in our memories it is a longing for a sense of peace and security that may never have actually been as concrete as we believed that it was.

The years have taken their toll on the world. Governments have toppled. Societies are warring. Here in our own country the wreckage of 9/11 revealed scars and disagreements that have been festering for decades. We want someone to care for us and maybe even make it all go away but we cannot seem to find solutions that are satisfactory to all of us. We argue over the effectiveness of policies and attempt to place blame. Where once we were rather naive and happy go lucky, now we are cynical and argumentative. The psychology of terror has slowly but surely done the work that it set out to do. We no longer feel as safe and strong and noble as we once did. Instead of concentrating on the root of our problems we now verbally attack one another.

A generation of children has grown up in this atmosphere. They are now in the early years of their adult lives, attending college, studying in high school or middle school. Social networking is as natural to them as making a phone call was to us. They get their news on the Internet. Cell phones are their libraries and means of communicating with their friends at one and the same time. They are subjected to a barrage of information and temptations all day long. The forces of terror and extremism attempt to radicalize them by playing on the confusion that young people so often experience. They can visit websites and watch videos that extol the virtues of jihadists and political fringe groups. They have easy access to dark ideas that continued to grow even after our best efforts to stop the terror that we witnessed on September 11.

Today we mostly go about our business trying not to think too much about what happened fifteen years ago. We remind ourselves that more people are killed in car accidents than by terrorists but each time we have to pass through metal detectors and open our purses for inspection just to watch a baseball game we are reminded of the dangers that might strike at any time. We tell ourselves that we won’t be bowed down by evil but we know that we have changed. We are less trusting and more cynical than we once were. We felt so innocent on that beautiful September morning only seconds before that plane did the unthinkable. Just like that our comfortable cocoons came crashing down and none of us would be quite the same.

I believe that the malaise that so many of us feel in this election season can be traced all the way back to that terrible day. We continue to search both for someone to blame and someone to be our hero. Thus far we can’t seem to agree on who is who. That is the crux of our terror. Osama bin Laden would smile to see us warring with one another. It is what he hoped to accomplish. He often said as much in his hateful videos.

We took away the debris from the September 11 disaster. We honored and buried the dead. We built memorials lest we forget. Now it is time to heal our souls and show our children and the world that the terrorists have always been wrong. They can never take away our freedom and our strength. 

Crickets or Thunderous Applause?

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

successIt’s been a little more than four years since I first began writing my blog. I spent my first year of retirement working sporadically on a book that I had wanted to write for years and somewhere along the way I hit a brick wall. I struggled to convey the emotion that I had hoped would become the heart of the story. I needed some guidance but had no idea where to turn. It was then that I noticed that the Rice University Glasscock School of Continuing Education offered a day long seminar for people like me who wanted to improve their craft and learn how to one day publish their work. I signed up immediately with Mike’s blessing even though the course was far more expensive than most of their offerings.

The class itself turned out to be frustrating on many levels. When I arrived late because I had become disoriented while attempting to follow a poorly designed campus map, all eyes turned on me with looks of undisguised irritation. I apologetically slinked into the first available seat and marveled at how many people appeared to share my dream of becoming an author. The room was packed with bestseller wannabes.

The guest speaker began her monologue much like a professor of freshman English by warning of the unlikelihood that any of us would ever live to see our words in print. She warned that the world of publishing and bookselling was changing everyday in ways that did not bode well for the fledgling author. She insisted that someone famous might create a work unworthy of lining a birdcage and hit the top of the New York Times bestseller list based solely on name recognition rather than talent, while a gifted but unknown author may never be discovered. The emphasis of the remainder of her remarks would focus on what it takes to be noticed in today’s dog eat dog market.

In an effort to relax us after frightening us, the instructor gave each attendee the opportunity to share a few words about the type of book he/she was writing. She patiently listened to person after person, providing encouragement and ideas. She laughed, smiled and applauded, noting that there were definitely going to be some winners from our obviously talented group. When it was my turn I nervously described the general outline and purpose of my memoir, expecting to feel better about my efforts once she gave me the proverbial pat on the back that she had extended to everyone else. Instead her face remained emotionless and without so much as a word she moved to the next person.

I felt like the class dunce as one after another fledgling author received the praise that had been denied me. I wondered if I was deluding myself into thinking that I had anything of worth to say. It was not until the break that I regained my composure. That’s when several of the participants approached me to admit that they would be anxiously awaiting the day when they might read my book. Each of them had personal stories of encounters with mental illness. One woman in particular confided that her twenty something son had become a recluse in her home, writing science fiction works for therapy. She had come to the class to learn how to distribute his stories to the public in the hopes of giving him a life goal. She literally began to cry as she urged me to continue with my quest to show the world how a family manages to triumph over diseases of the mind.

For the remainder of the session I learned all the reasons why it would be up to me to convince the world that I have a knack when it comes to composing with words. Our instructor suggested that one of the easiest ways to show people that our works are worth their time is to write a blog. At that moment I decided that I would try my hand at becoming an Internet journalist of sorts.

Since that fateful weekend I have arisen each weekday morning to write about this or that. I’ve watched for ideas virtually everywhere that I go. I’ve carried my laptop to campgrounds, airports, doctors’ offices, Starbuck’s, McDonald’s and all four corners of these United States. Mostly though, I’ve sat in my living room listening to sounds of the parade of humanity outside my home and I have opened up the contents of my heart for all to see. I’m not certain that I have expanded my fame as a writer but I have certainly become better at the one thing that I most enjoy doing.

In those early days of four years ago I drew on family experiences and whatever I happened to be doing at the time for my inspiration. I knew that I was hooked on the idea of being a low rent columnist when I sat in a tent one evening typing away in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. It never occurred to me that I might be struck by lightening or even electrocuted as I told the world about my angst in relying on the protection of a leaky tent whose roof was collapsing and corners were taking on water at an ominous rate. I only knew that the mere fact of describing and sharing my experience provided me with inexplicable happiness.

I’ve been at it now for so long now that I fear that I’m beginning to sound like a dotty old aunt who repeats her stories so many times that everyone in the room knows exactly what is coming next. I fear that my readers’ minds glaze over each time they see the second or third verse of what seems to be the same song. My website once hit a peak of five hundred visits each and every day. Over time my blogs were viewed over 800,000 times. Knowing that I had fans was a giddy feeling and made me believe that one day my book will be a huge success. Sadly, without warning, my readership began to slide. I modernized my page and appealed to my readers to continue to follow me but perhaps I have outlived my brief fame at just the time when I am so close to launching my book. The fear that I felt when the writing teacher showed no interest in what I was creating has returned. I wonder if I have been taking my time in completing a task that I began so long ago because I have lost my confidence in its worth. The writer’s dilemma is knowing when and where and how to share the personal thoughts that they have etched onto the virtual paper of a computer screen. It is admittedly a frightening prospect because all the world is a critic.

I am within fifty pages of completing the revisions on my book. It is both an exciting and a humbling task. After one more quick read to check for typos, spelling mistakes and punctuation errors I will be ready to format my work. I need to design a cover and insert photos, something that I have no idea how to do but will somehow learn. Then my memoir will debut. It’s so close that I can feel it and I’m quite nervous. My greatest fear is that once it is available the public response will be just like that of the writing guru who so quickly dismissed the worth of my idea four years ago. That would be devastating. I sometimes wonder if my efforts will be greeted with crickets or thunderous applause. The only way to find out will be to finally complete the task.

There Is Room At Our Inn

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

f41a8570f98033234e38d8be706b27c6Close your eyes and try to imagine life as you have always known it turned upside down. Your country is engaged in a civil war. The leader of your nation is a dictatorial tyrant. The members of the opposing factions are revolutionaries. You just want peace and to be left alone but that is impossible. The differing sides fight one another year after year. The beautiful city where you live has been reduced to rubble. You exist in a kind of ghost town because most of your friends and neighbors have already fled the destruction. Your children have no school to attend, no playmates, no security. They roam through piles of rubble and entertain themselves by exploring abandoned homes and buildings. Food and basic necessities are scarce. Your life has turned into a living hell. Your home is no longer a refuge. You reluctantly realize that the only option for you and your family is to leave the place that you love.

Giving up is not an easy decision to make. You are departing from a lifetime of memories and possessions. You carry only a change of clothes and perhaps a few precious mementos from the life you have known. As you exit you look back at your tiny corner of the world, perhaps for the very last time. You have no way of knowing what lies ahead. You have taken a forced leap of faith. Your heart is broken. You tell yourself that property and things are unimportant and that it is in the people that your true joy lies. As long as you are with your loved ones, you believe that you will ultimately be okay. Somehow you know that reality is never as simple as that, but you do what you must do. You embark on a journey into the great unknown. You begin again and hope for the best.

This morning as we enjoy the comfort of our own lives there are refugees from Syria and other troubled nations fleeing from war and persecution. They may look different from us and speak in tongues that we can’t understand but if we were able to talk with them we would learn that they are very much like us. They would rather be enjoying the routines that defined their days before political, religious and tribal fighting upended all that they had ever known. Their children are like our children, wanting to play and laugh. They are innocents caught up in forces over which they have no control. All that they desire is to keep themselves and their children safe but the world can at times be so cruel.

Most of these people now live in deplorable conditions in tent cities swarming with rats and infectious diseases. They await permission to travel to distant places where many of the citizens deplore their very presence. They are viewed with disdain by strangers who fear them. They are seen in the abstract, as nameless masses rather than the individuals that they are. Sometimes their situations become so painful that they take desperate risks to find a semblance of sanity. They never chose to be in this position. It was thrust upon them through no fault of their own and yet they are reviled by so many.

Throughout the history of the world there have been people reduced to becoming nomads because of the heartless decisions of those in power. The Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians and later roamed in the wilderness in search of a home. Humans have been sold as slaves by warring tribes. My own grandparents lived in poverty and hopelessness in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Their entire way of life was threatened with extinction by a government that refused to even allow them to speak their own language. They left for the opportunities and promise in the United States, a place that did not always welcome them. They persisted but their early years were filled with challenges and ignorant prejudice.

My sister-in-law and her family had to flee their homeland of China when she was just a small girl. They left wearing layers of clothing and heavy coats with valuables sewn inside the lining. Their journey was treacherous and filled with uncertainty. Like today’s refugees they were forced to leave a world that they loved for one that they knew little about. They left behind people who had been important to them, whom they might never again see. Their move was traumatic but necessary. Had they stayed they may have been imprisoned or punished by being reduced to a state of poverty. They had no recourse but to leave and to hope that they would find a new home where they might be content.

After the fall of South Vietnam many of those who had sympathized with the losing side also had to escape. They found sponsors and homes all across the United States. I taught some of them. They proved to be fine people, outstanding citizens. They adapted and learned and worked just like my grandparents and my sister-in-law did. They enriched the American landscape.

There are many reasons why the flood of refugees from the Middle East may frighten Americans. We have witnessed terrorist attacks and we worry that jihadis may be hiding in the ranks of the ragtag people seeking asylum. Losing even one life because of a cavalier and unchecked sympathy for the masses seems to be too high a price to pay and yet our common sense tells us that the likelihood of ordinary families aspiring to become murderers is slim. We have to ask ourselves if we can possibly be so cold as to turn our backs on people who are suffering so much. Each of us no doubt has a story of an ancestor who sought out our country to escape from some form of persecution. Even the British branch of my genealogy points to individuals bound to lives of servitude in England who preferred the freedoms of the new world. It is in all of our natures to want to find liberty from tyranny.

I understand that the world is overwhelmed by the problems in the Middle East. I realize that there are truly evil people who hate us and wish us dead. I know that our resources are limited and we can’t possibly solve every problem in the world. Still, I look at children living in hopelessness and squalor and I wonder why we can’t be more open to offering them a way out of their misery. In the end we all want the best for our kids no matter who we are. We take a risk every single day that our goodness will be thrown back in our faces. There is no guarantee that we are not already breeding monsters who will one day do us harm. An ugly aspect of the human experience is that there are horrifically deranged people in every culture, every part of the world. It is neither more nor less likely that we will find such sorts within the people that we choose to help. It is simply a reality of life that those intent on destruction will find a way in spite of our best efforts. We needn’t punish an entire group base on an isolated fear. It has generally been an American tradition to open our hearts and risk being hurt from one for the good of the many.

We may be protected by the oceans on the two sides of our country but we are not isolated from the rest of the world. Their problems ultimately become ours and hiding our heads in the sand has never worked out well. Our finest moments as a nation have been when we opened our arms to welcome the newest immigrants and refugees. Most of us would not even be here if earlier generations has turned our ancestors away. We are a land of many colors, multiple ethnicities, different cultures. All of us blended together are what America is all about. I think that we do indeed have room for more.

Those of us who are Christians are all too familiar with the story of Jesus and His family. He was born in a stable because his parents were traveling to fulfill the demands of the census. The roads and the byways were crowded and there was no room for them at the inn. Let us not be guilty of turning away those who need our help. Let us find room at our inn.