Thoughts and Prayers

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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Losing someone suddenly and unexpectedly shocks the entire system. One moment the world seems to be filled with promise and the next everything feels as though it has changed. That late night call announcing the accident that took the life of a friend or family member in many ways feels like death itself. The visit from the police to announce that a dear one has been killed by a stranger is a gut punch. Many of us have experienced such life changing events, so we know only too well how the specter of that horrific moment changes us, hovers over us, burrows into our souls.

For most of my life I have relived the moment when I first learned of my young father’s death. I went to sleep dreaming of the family gathering at the beach that lay ahead and awoke to learn that the gathering would take place behind a curtain of sadness and tears inside our living room. I was only eight, but even a child understands the horror of such things. My emotions ruled me for a very long time. I was afraid, angry, hopelessly confused and unhappy. The shock of my father’s death left a gaping wound inside me and the members of my family. I felt as though I was suddenly an entirely different person than the one I had been only hours before I received the horrific news.

I have always understood the deep seated emotions that bury the survivors of such tragedies. The process of healing is a long and difficult road, made even worse in instances when the cause of death is violent. Each time I hear of a mass shooting my heart becomes heavy for the survivors who must pick up the wounded pieces of their lives. I know how long their journeys will be and how different they will feel. I want to tell them that it will take much time for their emotions to feel normal again. I want to hug them, help them, do something for them, but what am I to do from so far away? My only recourse is to keep them in my thoughts, pray that they will find the comfort that came to me in my own time of need.

I have been reading about the tortured souls who lost friends or family members in school shootings. They once seemed happy, content, set for good things in life, but the horror of their situation ultimately overcame them. They were unable to cope with the feelings of depression, guilt, frustration that strangled the very life out of them. They may have covered the depth of their despair with smiles or perhaps they simply surrendered to the hopelessness that they felt. Each of us who hear of them wonder what we might have done to help them, even knowing that there was little that strangers such as ourselves have the power to accomplish. We fall back on the only positive thing that we have. We think of them and pray for them and for their families. We feel their pain and maybe donate to an organization dedicated to helping those stricken with grief. We may even write a letter to a Congress person suggesting changes that will make tragedies less likely. In the end, however, our thoughts and prayers seem to be the best that we have to offer, even as we sense that they may not suffice.

It was the thoughtfulness of the people in my community that ultimately saved me from the brooding and the desperation that I was feeling after my father’s death. My recovery was slow and the compassion of those around me was relentless. I was fully aware of the love that came my way and it ultimately healed me. Knowing that people cared enough to mention me and my family in their prayers meant everything to me, and over the years I have been calmed by the heavenly petitions of devoted individuals who sincerely asked that God watch over me. I have found great serenity in the kindness of prayers.

There are those who would spurn the very idea of thoughts and prayers, insisting that they are little more than worthless utterances that accomplish nothing. I would insist nonetheless that I know their power from personal experience. I truly believe that I might have been lost were it not for the loving support that came from thoughts and prayers directed at me. They told me that I was not alone, that people truly cared about my well-being. Thoughts and prayers are not to be mocked.

I am greatly saddened by the deaths of those left to survive the ashes of mass shootings. I pray for those who have endured the unimaginable horror of such events. I pray that we will find ways to make such occasions more and more unlikely in our country and throughout the world. I pray that we will have the wisdom to find solutions. I pray that we will all understand the complexities of the human spirit and that we will be open and honest in our communications with each other, especially our children. I think and I pray because it is important to do so.

I have a dear friend who keeps a prayer journal. She places the names of those whom she is remembering on Post It notes. Beside the name she writes a brief description of the needs of that person. When she prays she refers to those little slips of paper and personally thinks of them during her very busy days. She is a beautifully selfless and faith filled woman whose sincerity has helped many survive unspeakable ordeals. I believe that the real power of what she does is found in the love that she provides those who are wounded. There is something quite comforting in knowing that another person is taking the time to pray for us. It provides us with hope.

Do not underestimate the power of thoughts and prayers. They have moved mountains and seemingly prompted miracles. We need them.

Hubris

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Elizabeth Holmes has been featured in an episode of 20/20 and in an HBO documentary. A movie starring Jennifer Lawrence is in the works as well. Her story is rather amazing. She founded a company at the age of 19 that at one time had an estimated worth of billions of dollars. She was a young woman with a vivid imagination who graced the covers of magazines. Her ideas began to unfold when she was still a child drawing detailed diagrams of a time machine, and other flights of fancy. As a freshman at Stanford University she came up with an idea for a patch that would be able to detect an infection and then administer a dose of antibiotics. She applied for a patent for her idea but sadly such a mechanism was entirely infeasible and came to naught. She moved on the the big invention that would make her one of the youngest CEOs and billionaires in the country.

Elizabeth wanted to create a simple way of testing blood for disease. She hated the way blood is drawn with needles and multiple tubes. She wanted to create a machine that would be able to perform all of the necessary tests from only a pen prick of blood. She imagined a way of getting the blood and then testing it in a machine so small that it might be carried into a battlefield. She was so proud of her idea that she called it” the Edison” in honor of the famous inventor who had inspired her from the time she was a child. She called her company “Theranos”, an amalgam of the words therapy and diagnosis. She saw her invention as a revolutionary way of delivering diagnoses that would change medicine all over the world. Her backers were so excited by the possibilities that they gave her hundreds of millions of dollars without securing any evidence that she was indeed capable of creating the needed technology.

Elizabeth hired a team of experts and filled her board of directors with some of the biggest names in the world. She built a magnificent headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley and staffed it with brilliant and  innovative young minds. She fashioned herself as a new Steve Jobs dressing all in black and creating advertisements for her company that were sleek and exciting. Unfortunately even after years her idea did not work. In spite of all of the assertions that she was on the cusp of a whole new world, she was chasing after a dream that was probably never going to happen. After an journalistic expose revealed that “the Edison” did not work her company began to collapse. In the end it was worth less than zero.

When I heard about Elizabeth Holmes I wondered how she was able to muster the confidence to scam people with little more than an idea and nothing to prove that the technology would be effective and reliable. A bit of research into her background gave me some insights into the workings of her mind, or at least provided me with some theories about what made her tick.

Elizabeth was the granddaughter of a physician who founded a hospital and enjoyed a notable and productive career, so there is little doubt in my mind that she is a highly intelligent woman who came from intelligent stock. Her genetic background as well as her education seem to prove that Elizabeth had great potential. She lived for a time in my city, Houston, while her father was a vice president at Enron, a company that was built on smoke and mirrors that ultimately collapsed. She attended St. John’s School, an elite institution with a long waiting list that only the best, brightest and wealthiest children are able to attend. The school exists in  a rarified atmosphere of influence and power. It would be easy to see Elizabeth developing an exalted opinion of herself from being one of the chosen few able to go to such a prestigious place. Being accepted to the Engineering program at Stanford University would have reinforced her feelings about her self worth.

Elizabeth must have seen herself as someone who was going to change the world, and she was in a big hurry to do so. Her professors realized that she was brilliant and even one of the top students that they had ever met, but for some of them she was annoying in her insistence that she knew more than they did. She sought them out as mentors and then ignored them whenever they honestly critiqued her ideas. She often spoke of how Thomas Edison had to make ten thousand mistakes before some of his inventions worked. She truly believed that she was able to see the world more clearly than even her more experienced teachers.

She parlayed her connections and her confidence into a business that fooled even brilliant people like Bill Clinton who was one of her admirers. It’s possible that she believed her own press for a time, but at some point she had to realize that her company was little more than a scam much like Enron where her father had once worked. If she did continue to believe that she was on to something big, then she was quite deluded because it was clear to many of the employees that nothing was working as it should even as she advertised untruths. Evidence seems to indicate that she knew exactly what was happening and did her best to cover for the lack of progress by instituting an atmosphere of secrecy.

Most children have fantastical ideas. Some even make those ideas become reality. My brother dreamed of sending humans to the moon. The work of thousands of talented scientists and engineers made it happen. We need people who think out of the box and take us into uncharted territory, but they have to be honest about what they are actually achieving. Elizabeth Holmes was not. She lied again and again perhaps to keep the funds rolling in because she really did think that one day a eureka moment would occur, or maybe she was just hiding her failures. Sadly her actions hurt every person who attempts to find support for a reasonable idea.

I know some young men who worked very hard to find backers for what might have been an amazing tech company. I have rooted for a man who wants to make wind power a reality for anyone who wants to install his equipment in the backyard. Most people provide evidence that their inventions will actually work before they ask for funding. To make untrue claims in the hopes that they will one day come true is a fraud.

Elizabeth Holmes is a fascinating young woman, but also someone who seems to have little concern for all of the people that she scammed. That is the definition of a sociopath. While her idea was grounded in good intentions she was unwilling to do all of the hard work that is usually required of anyone who wants to change the world for the better. Perhaps her grandiose opinion of herself along with a great deal of immaturity lead her to her ultimate failure. Somewhere along the way she might have done the right thing by admitting that she was stumped. Instead she lied and even sent faulty test results to patients who were grievously harmed. She has yet to admit her responsibility for a fiasco. Her hubris is a tragedy not just for her but for everyone who believed in her. She has cast a shadow of doubt on anyone who is attempting to launch the next truly great idea. Who will now believe?

The Pause

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I’ve had to develop patience over the years. My instinct is to react to situations without thinking, allowing my emotions  to guide what I say and do. I had to learn to curb such tendencies when I became a wife, a mother, an educator. Letting my emotions range free without any filters was dangerous to the well being of those with whom I lived. Brutal honesty can hurt as much as a blow to gut. I had to practice using the art of the the pause which is why I recently kept a quote that found it’s way to my Facebook wall. It went something like this, “Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you’ll avoiding saying things and doing things you’ll later regret.”

The advice is not particularly unique but it is certainly profound. If only we took the time to think before reacting we would avoid a world of pain and hurt and guilt. Who among us hasn’t made that comment that stung someone we loved or respected to the point of creating a wedge between us? How often have mental or physical harm been inflicted in the heat of a moment? Undoing such damage is almost always more difficult that taking that little breath, counting to ten, waiting until our anger subsides to deal more rationally with a  situation.

The biggest regrets that I have are all centered on hurtful utterances that I made in the heat of a moment, or accusations that I hurled without evidence. I have judged and assumed like everyone and even though I was sometimes perfectly justified, in most cases I would have been saved great misunderstandings if only I had stopped to get information before jumping to conclusions.

The worlds of social media tempt us to strike out against people and ideas that offend us without pausing to consider whether voicing our opinions is of any positive use. There is more than enough ugliness and bullying without contributing more. What does it really matter if someone has an opinion different from our own? Why do we feel compelled to insert our own feelings? Do we really believe that we are going to change minds?

I have to admit that I often lose control and type in responses that I know are meaningless to the people who will read them. They will stick to their ideas and mine will have no impact other than to anger them. I do damage to our relationship which in most cases is far more important than the differences that we have. I have had to remind myself again and again to stop before pressing the keys to my computer in a fit of anger. I’ve learned to use more discretion with my instinctual tendencies.

As a teacher I learned the importance of presuming innocence until guilt was proven. It was easy to think that a difficult child was the perpetrator of a classroom crime based simply on past infractions, but all too often quick judgement lead to conviction of an innocent. I was always happy when I gathered all of the facts before coming to a final judgement. It saved both me and my students many times over. I was sometimes accused of being too soft, too lenient, but in the end I was always fair.

My mother once described her bipolar disorder as a disease which caused her to say ugly things that she did not mean, but felt compelled to utter. I find it interesting that she saw her mental illness as the lack of an ability to pause before reacting. Perhaps her definition says something about our human tendency to let lose with our feelings without stopping to reign them in. Maybe when we forget to pause we are exhibiting a kind of irrationality that we should be able to curb unless we are afflicted with a disease of the brain.

Children naturally have outbursts until they eventually learn how to control themselves. We need to be as aware of our own thoughtless behaviors as my mother was. We have learned the niceties of human interaction and we need to practice using them more. If we were all to follow the simple advice of the quote that so resonated with me we might have far fewer misunderstandings. Curbing our anger is a worthy cause.

There are surely times when truth must be told and no feelings spared. There are causes worthy of our indignation, but we must learn to differentiate between occasions when our input may bring about positive change and when we are simply wasting our breaths on trivial matters. Learning when to react quickly and strongly and when to slow things down is a powerful lesson that we might all want to review. 

Comedy of Tragedy

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I’m a creature of habit. I still tune in to Saturday Night Live whenever I happen to be home on a Saturday night. I have to admit that the writers seem to have run out of original ideas. In the golden days there were so many great comedians and hilarious skits that I would laugh my head off. Now I’m lucky to find one segment that makes me chuckle. Still I watch in the hopes that new talent will bring more genius  and hilarity to the program, but on most nights I leave disappointed, wanting more than the show appears capable of providing.

I’ve always enjoyed political satire. I laughed at the antics of comedians who impersonated the Kennedy family. I had no trouble finding the humor in jokes like The Vatican Rag with it’s chorus of “genuflect, genuflect.” I’m a great fan of satire, and don’t generally feel indignant when my own sacred cows become the butt of jokes. I truly believe that laughing at ourselves and our idiosyncrasies is a healthy exercise. Still, it seems as though Saturday Night Live has taken a one note approach to laughter. I weary of the continuous digs about President Trump, republicans, and religion. Surely there are other topics that are more interesting and worthy of exploring. What happened to great schticks like candy gram, Bill and Ted, Samurai chef? Why are the present day offerings so predictable and actually a bit unfunny?

On a recent episode of Saturday Night Live one of the comedians indicated that listening to the music of Michael Jackson given his supposed predilection to pedophilia is akin to continuing to go to a Catholic church after learning of the grievous offenses of some of the priests. The goof ball who made the comment is the same fool who poked fun at a Texas congressional candidate who wore an eye patch without learning that the man was a war hero who lost an eye while fighting in the Middle East. The so called jokes come across as more akin to insults than clever ways of poking fun at institutions. The constant beating of such drums feels like propaganda rather than entertainment.

I serve as a Eucharistic Minister at my Catholic church which is a humbling task because it has shown me exactly why my fellow parishioners continue to hold fast to their faith in spite of grave anger about the handling of wayward priests. As I present the chalice to each person the notion behind the word “communion” comes clearly into focus. What I see is a community of good but imperfect souls who come together in a spirit of faith and love to be better versions of themselves. The fact that some among us have sinned is not the point of our devotion, rather we are searching for a source of serenity in our lives that we find in the gospels and promises of Jesus. We know from them that we will always be loved. Why indeed would we want to abandon something that powerful?

I’ve learned that there are bad people everywhere. I’ve seen teachers harm students, bankers steal, doctors take advantage of patients, coaches cheat, engineers build unsafe structures. The fact that any profession or organization is found to have evil in its midst is not an indictment of an entire group. It is simply an indication of our human weaknesses.

When I worked in a school where a man was accused of sexually abusing his daughter the rest of us were shocked, saddened, and even angry. We had no thoughts of indicting the entire faculty based on one man’s transgressions. Our students did not leave the school in droves for fear of being in a nest of evil. So it is with the Catholic church. As the faithful we are filled with so many emotions. We grieve and seethe with anger while also understanding that our own faith and the ideals of our church are bigger than the harm that has been done.

We are a family, and just as with any family we are shocked and hurt when one of our own proves to be a traitor to our group. A breach of trust is difficult to handle, but we do not break apart the entire structure because of the sins of the few. So it is with those of us who remain members of the Catholic church. My own parish is a loving and inviting place that brings me comfort, and so I eagerly go to mass each Sunday. I do not ignore or forget the sins of some of the men who were supposed to be our shepherds. They have smeared our reputation as Catholics in a horrendous way, and we want assurances that things will change. I also understand that we will never reach a state of perfection as long as humans are part of our group.

If the comedian who posed such a silly question were to come to my church with a sincere desire to become a member of our community I am certain that he would be welcomed with the spirit of love that Jesus taught us to convey to all of our fellow humans. Knowing that we are one in the spirit of our religion is what keeps us coming each week, not some blind allegiance to strange beliefs. In reality our continued support of the Catholic church is more of a pledge to the teachings of Jesus than a testimony of ignorance. It is indeed a beautiful thing.

Decency

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I was a young twenty something when Richard Nixon was president. I never liked the man, and used my vote to register my contempt. My emotions toward him were admittedly base and immature. I’d flinch at the very sight of him, and I managed to extend my dislike to his wife and children. I realize now that my disdain was often irrational because in retrospect I have taken the time to learn more about him and his time as the president. In that study I see that he actually did some very good things for the country, but back in the day he could do nothing right in my eyes. I even cringed when one of my favorite entertainers, Sammy Davis, Jr., supported him.

I watched the Watergate investigation with a certain level of glee and celebrated Nixon’s darkest hour when he was forced to resign his office. I watched him leave the White House will nothing less than exuberant self satisfaction. In my mind he had earned his  too long in coming humiliation. I gladly wiped him out of my mind and was overjoyed that he decided to live out the rest of his life rather quietly out of the public eye. I had no desire to hear from him again.

When Richard Nixon died it was a newsworthy event in spite of his transgressions. The airwaves were filled with images of people honoring him and his family. Being a person who is interested in such things from an historical perspective I watched the proceedings with little emotional attachment. After all, this was a man whom I had never liked even though the passage of time had warmed my heart to him a bit more than when I was still a very young adult. Nonetheless, I recall feeling disgusted when I witnessed one of Nixon’s long time friends and allies breaking down in a fit of emotion and tears at the funeral. I sarcastically poked fun of the man only to be chastised by my husband Mike in a manner that he rarely uses with me. He derided me for lacking sensibility at such an emotional time. “His friend has died!” he reminded me. “Show some compassion for the people who have lost someone that they love.”

I was shocked because Mike had never been a Nixon fan either, but I understood in that moment that I was exhibiting a lack of basic decency. There are lines of decorum that just don’t need to be crossed, and I had gone too far in my criticism of Nixon with my churlish commentary. He was dead and the funeral was a time for those who genuinely loved and respected him to demonstrate their feelings. After all, his daughters insist to this very day that he was always good father. Friends admired him and loved him. Who was I to poke fun at their genuine emotions?

I am still not a fan of President Nixon, but I have studied him and his administration enough to understand that while he had many imperfections he also did some very good things. His insecurities and fears ended up ruining his reputation, but he was more of a tragic figure in the Shakespearean sense than a truly evil man. There were very good things that he did like opening up relations with China and brokering peace in the Middle East. In fact it was he who ended the Vietnam War that I so loathed. As a young person I was far too generally incensed to take the time to parse his good traits and separate them out from his bad. In the end he allowed his own demons to overtake his reason, but that did not make him a totally evil man in the sense that I judged him back then. He was merely a human filled with both good instincts and glaring imperfections.

I’ve thought about the intemperate insults that I hurled at the people who were grieving the loss of President Nixon as I’ve listened to the immature and unnecessary rantings of President Trump regarding John McCain. While I too have been guilty of hyperbolic criticism of people I would like to think that those in high office might be more circumspect in their utterances, particularly once a person is dead. At this point there is little reason for Trump to continue to stew over the differences that he and Senator McCain had. If nothing else a sense of decency should lead him to let go of his anger.

Sadly our nation is engaged in a long winded and petty brawl in which anyone is fair game for insults and jibes. Almost every politician is sorted and categorized into narrow estimations of character that mark him/her as good or bad depending on point of view. There is no room for considerations of the continuum of reality in which we all exist. In truth the idea of either totally vilifying or adoring any individual is absurd, and leads to illogical assessments of important decisions. It might be a natural trait of exuberant youth to be more emotion driven, but we all need to grow up at some point and learn how to think without melodramatic outbursts. Right now those who show moderation are often thought to be without ideals, and yet it is likely that they are the true adults in the room. Perhaps that is why someone like Senator John McCain is a conundrum not just to President Trump but to most democrats as well. He was a man who considered each issue on its own merits, not from the perspective of a set of values frozen in concrete.

It was once said of me that I am capable of finding good in everyone, even an evil person like Charles Manson. That is indeed true of me because I have learned that every person who lives is an amalgam of both good and bad. Some learn how to tame their ill natured tendencies and others are defined by them. Perhaps the route that each of us follows is formed by the ways in which people see us and we then see ourselves. Our humanity is complex and who we ultimately become as individuals is determined by a million different things. Perhaps the good in us wins out because people are willing to see it, just as the bad sometimes seizes the day because our negative traits are the only things that define us in people’s eyes. 

If we have any hope of being a nation of integrity, then we must begin to publicly acknowledge good acts when we see them regardless of who is performing them. We need to stop the practice of turning people into incomplete caricatures of themselves, and instead admit to both their positive traits and their flaws. It would also do us well to return to adherence to a bit of decency befitting of logic and compassion.