Category: Life

Thoughts on life

Worthy of Note

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The last twelve weeks have been strange. My mother discovered that her aortic valve was failing and that, without open heart surgery to replace it, she likely wouldn’t last the year. Obviously, she chose the procedure, and since that decision was made, we’ve been dealing with the fear, worry, and frustration that comes with healing and recovery.

I’ve been with my parents in Florida twice, leaving my own family back home in Atlanta for three and a half weeks and six weeks respectively. Some days have felt like weeks thanks to the elastic nature of hospital time while other moments have passed in a blink.

Being in the ICU, step down care, and eventually rehab has compelled me to grapple with my both mother’s mortality (since she nearly died after the surgery) and my own. I’m just a few weeks shy of my forty-fifth birthday—at what most people consider to be the halfway point of my existence—and contemplating that fact has led me down some darker hallways of thought. I’ve seen what’s happened to Mom and other patients, and with a grimace, I’ve wondered, Is that what’s coming for me?

Watching my mother learn to walk again after a stroke has made me appreciate my own feet, knees, legs, and hips more than ever. What marvels they are! When I want to get up and go, I can do just that. And while I might not be as fast or as flexible as I was twenty years ago, there is no place forbidden to me.

Her struggles have made me look at things differently, especially those things I overlooked before. My kidneys and bladder work beautifully, on a schedule that I have control over. My lungs expand and contract, a pair of beautiful pink bellows, drawing in the oxygen I need and eliminating the carbon dioxide I don’t. I breathe deeply throughout the day, relishing how good it feels to be able to do so.

My heart—my strong, beautiful, capable heart—beats seventy or eighty times a minute without word one from me. Sometimes, I lie in bed alone at night and rest my right hand on my chest right above it. I feel the slight flutter and thump each time a part of it opens and closes and sincerely thank it for what it has and continues to do for me.

But it hasn’t always been this way.

I’ve spent so much time absolutely hating my body, wishing I could unzip it like a dress, drop it to the floor, and put on something—anything—else. I’m too tall, my feet too large. I’ve stared at every bulge and sagging area with dismay, wishing I could be just a little smaller and firmer. I don’t see my dark brown eyes as beautiful (though my husband certainly does). All I can see is how one, slightly altered by the hemangioma I had until I was a few months old, is noticeably smaller than the other when I smile. I don’t love my hair, which is thinning in the front due to some particularly terrible genetics on my mother’s side, so I hide it with headbands and scarves. People always comment on how cute or sporty they look, but to me, they’re a source of shame.

I’ve never even enjoyed the romantic thrill of being picked up and carried by a man. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, that there are a dozen ways to be wooed. But if we’re being honest, I feel like I’ve missed out. And sometimes, I get pretty damned angry about it.

The end result? I try not to smile too broadly in photographs. I use my height as an excuse to be in the back of every group shot, hoping and praying no one will see too much of me and judge me for every little failing I can’t help but notice. And I also tend to wear darker colors with minimal patterns, nothing short or sleeveless, so I don’t draw attention.

I never do anything physically risky for fear I’ll embarrass myself—that I’ll be the fat chick who falls on the dance floor or who gets stuck somewhere. Back in the 1980s, there was a video of a woman in a bigger body trying to parasail, but rather than be lifted gracefully into the sky, she stumbles and falls. The poor thing is dragged through sand and surf before finally being hoisted up into the air, her arms pitifully flung out like the instructor showed her.

People laughed of course; they always do. That’s the point of a show like America’s Funniest Home Videos after all, but I was horrified. All I could think about was how she must have felt, and I decided right then in my little pre-teen heart that I would never put myself in a similar situation.

Do I still want to be smaller, smoother, and more graceful? Absolutely. That desire will never stop because, perhaps wrongly, I still believe I would be happier if I looked like the magazine spreads and make-up ads tell me I should. But I’m trying to appreciate what I have and who I am, to live in harmony with the body I’ve been given. It has needs, many of which I’ve failed to provide because I thought I didn’t deserve them.

No, my body isn’t perfect. But I’m trying to be more generous with myself. And I’m also choosing to celebrate those lucky souls who are comfortable in their own skin rather than envy them. For instance, at the gym a few days ago while huffing and sweating on the elliptical, I watched two black men work out together. Both were young and strong, but one was obviously the more gifted athlete. Lithe and graceful as a dancer, he did knee lifts and sprints, changing direction both in the air and on the ground in a way that seemed entirely effortless. It was glorious, like watching water move.

They ran football routes, laughing and celebrating whenever one bested the other. And I couldn’t help but smile too (and not just because of the beautiful display of black joy in front of me, though I’m always up for that). After being around sickness, injury, and deprivation for so long, it was a relief to witness two people who had honed their bodies to physical perfection delighting in them.

Image courtesy of Treehugger.com — https://www.treehugger.com/the-incredible-science-behind-starling-murmurations-4863751

In his poem “The Great Scarf of Birds,” John Updike describes watching a flock of starlings creating a murmuration above him. In the concluding stanzas, he writes:

the flock ascended as a lady’s scarf,
transparent, of gray, might be twitched

by one corner, drawn upward and then,

decided against, negligently tossed toward a chair:
the southward cloud withdrew into the air.

Long had it been since my heart
had been lifted as it was by the lifting of that great
scarf.

The starlings are otherworldly and nearly inexplicable, but that doesn’t stop the speaker from marveling at them. The transcendent moment they created lift him out of normal space and time into something more altogether golden. I taught this poem for years, thinking I understood it. But it was only the language I grasped, not the emotion. But I understand now.

My starlings left before I had the chance thank them. But I hope and pray I’ll always remember the moment and that maybe—just maybe—I’ll be able to delight in my body in such a way that others notice me too.

The Great Work of Remembering

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Friends who visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum warned me about the shoes. “It was the smell,” they said.

They are housed in a simple room lined on each side with piles of shoes taken from the Majdanek concentration camp when it was liberated by Russian soldiers in 1944. And on the wall above, a poem written by Moshe Szulsztein reads, “We are the shoes, we are the last witnesses. / We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers / From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam, / And because we are only made of fabric and leather / And not of blood and flesh, / Each one of us avoided the hellfire.”

They were right. The smell was haunting, as was the sight of so many shoes without owners—all of them faded to dull brown or lifeless gray, pressed flat beneath the weight of time and memory. But it was the train car that undid me.

I stood in the middle of it, and even though the doors were thrown open so visitors could pass through and the entire space was well lit, I couldn’t help but imagine it as it once was. I have read many survivors’ stories about journeys in such cars, how hundreds of people were crammed in each, the living forced to relieve themselves where they stood and trample on the dead to make space to breathe.

The “Shoe Room” at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
The train car at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

One such story is recorded in the second volume of Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-winning graphic novel, Maus, which I was fortunate to study as a graduate student. This amazing work—a visual narrative of his parents’ experience in Auschwitz and the decades of trauma that effected their family after its liberation—speaks to the power of memory and the importance of capturing it accurately.

On January 10, 2022, Spiegelman’s book was banned by a unanimous vote by the McMinn County School Board in Tennessee on the grounds that it was inappropriate for eighth grade students. Their reasons? Nudity, curse words, and descriptions of suicide, all of which one board member found “completely unnecessary.”

A portion of the school board’s meeting minutes from January 10, 2022.

Yet these things aren’t arbitrary or superfluous, considering the stories being told.

The scenes where characters are nude take place in Auschwitz when prisoners are stripped of their uniforms and evaluated by a Nazi doctor to see if they are healthy enough to work. The curse words fly from the mouths of Nazi guards as well in the scenes set in the present day as the artist and his father wrestle with the pain and misunderstanding such trauma causes.

And the suicide? Speigelman’s mother, unable to live with the memories of her time in a concentration camp, killed herself in 1968. Her death is part of both his father’s story and his own, and it cannot be simply wiped away because it’s unpleasant for readers.

One of the “offensive” pages from Maus.

But Maus isn’t the only book being pulled from library shelves. In Wentzville, Missouri, the school board voted 4-3 to ban Toni Morrison’s masterwork, The Bluest Eye. One member, Sandy Garber, voted in favor of the ban to “protect children from obscenity.” And Amber Crawford, the parent who filed the challenge, calls Morrison’s exploration of the psychological damage created by racism “a garbage book.”

Both boards fail to grasp the truth that hatred—whether it comes in the form of racism or antisemitism—is the true obscenity. It is the garbage our country continues to wade through.

Sadly, very few white people are willing to wrestle with “The Peculiar Institution” upon which our country was founded or the painful effects racism has inflicted (and continues to inflict) on communities of color. Instead of listening to their stories—honoring their pain and taking steps to make up for the damage—white lawmakers are twisting themselves in knots to ban anything that might begin such a necessary and healing conversation.

For instance, in Texas, a Republican lawmaker named Matt Krause recently drafted a list of 850 books that deal with topics such as sexuality, racism, and U.S. history in an effort to target and remove any materials that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.”

Likewise, a Senate committee in Florida has approved a bill (pushed and backed by Republican governor Ron DeSantis) that would protect white people from “feeling ‘discomfort’ over the history of racism and atrocities committed by their ancestors against Black and other Indigenous people.”

The book banning, the race to stamp out CRT (which isn’t being taught in public schools by the way), and the battles over problematic statues and monuments all have one thing in common: white fragility. I know the term is controversial. Up until a few years ago, I would have balked at it too. However, I’ve done a great deal of research and soul searching over the last few years. I’ve been asking myself the vital question “What if I’m wrong?” over and over again when faced with information that pushes me out of my comfort zone.

As a result, I’ve begun to understand just how much pain and suffering racism has caused communities of color in this nation and how it continues to damage all of us because we refuse to face our collective past. This stubborn refusal keeps us from what is known as real talk—speaking to one another in love and sharing genuine communication, even if the subject matter isn’t always pleasant.

Because I am a supporter of the Equal Justice Initiative, I received a calendar from them that chronicles the racial history in the United States. These are the entries from this week:

  • January 23, 1957 – KKK members force Willie Edwards Jr., a Black man, to jump to his death from a bridge in Montgomery, Alabama.
  • January 24, 1879 – A white mob accuses Ben Daniels, a black man, of theft for trying to spend a $50 bill in Arkansas and lynches him along with his two sons.
  • January 25, 1942 – A white mob in Sikeston, Missouri abducts Cleo Wright, accused of assaulting a white woman, from jail, drags him behind a car, and sets him on fire in from of two Black churches as services let out.
  • January 26, 1970 – In Evans vs. Abney, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds a Georgia court’s decision to close rather than integrate Macon’s Baconsfield Park, created by Senator Augustus Bacon for whites only.
  • January 27, 1967 – Deputy sheriff shoots and kills Robert Lacey, a Black man, in Birmingham, Alabama during an arrest for failing to take his dog to the vet.
  • January 28, 1934 – After Robert Johnson, a Black man, is cleared of rape charges in Tampa, Florida, a mob abducts him from police custody and lynches him.
  • January 29, 1883 – In Pace vs. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds a law criminalizing interracial sex and marriage.

For each injustice listed, there are likely dozens if not hundreds more that happened on any given day. Some of them, like those involving poor decisions made on the part of the Supreme Court, are frustrating. Others, like the deaths of Willie Edwards Jr., Ben Daniels, and Cleo Wright, are heartbreaking. I know it’s tough, but take a moment and think of the physical agony and fear these men (and in Ben Daniel’s case, his sons) experienced before their deaths. Consider the people in the church congregations who left worship only to be faced with the horrific sight of a man burning in the street. Put yourself there. Suffer with those who suffered.

Also, look closely at the years in which each act of violence took place. Yes, some happened more than a century ago, but that doesn’t mean they’re all part of a dark and savage era far removed from our own. Several of these events happened in my grandparents’ lifetimes. Two—the deaths of Willie Edwards Jr. and Robert Lacey—happened after my mother was born.

I know it’s daunting to consider just how evil racism allows us to be, what it has compelled people like us to do in the name of “white superiority.” It’s hard to face the fact that your people, your kin, likely participated in one or more acts of racial violence, discrimination, or prejudice. We want to push such knowledge away with both hands, to shut our ears and eyes to the truth. It’s easier and safer to remain ignorant, to continue in our naïveté at the expense of our fellow human beings. But that’s what led us here, beloved. It broke us then and continues to break us now. It leaves us hollow, a people with half a soul.

Compare this to the Black community’s willingness to engage in real talk about Bill Cosby in a new documentary by W. Kamau Bell. You can see it in their reactions; they aren’t eager to talk about the once untouchable comedian. After all, he was a hero to so many in the 1980s when The Cosby Show was at its zenith. As one interviewee says, “You can’t speak about Black America in the twentieth century and not talk about Bill Cosby.” So yeah, it’s tough to admit he had severe moral failings, that he raped countless women and got away with it. But as another interviewee says, “It feels like I have to have this discussion.”

What a difference that makes. Rather than continue to live with the lie that Bill Cosby sold them, rather than continue to lionize him as a paragon of virtue, people of color are willing to have the hard conversation, to clear the air and speak truthfully about the man and his legacy. This only happened a few decades ago, but by bringing the truth (however hurtful it might be) out into the open and claiming it, a kind of healing will take place.

I wish the white community could do the same about so many things in our past. Such lament would hurt deeply. It would grieve us to the core, but oh, when we were done, what good would come of it! Instead of wasting our time avoiding discomfort, becoming more morally weak and flaccid by the day, we could grow strong and straight and true. We would know ourselves for the first time—the good and the bad—and move forward as whole people.

An accurate accounting of history is an incredible gift. Through it, we understand both ourselves and how our nation has evolved over time. We can learn from our mistakes and avoid making them in the future. But when we remove books that “cause psychological distress,” seek to silence voices we disagree with, and cling to and prop up lies, we are doing ourselves tremendous harm. It is the great work of remembering rightly—however painful it may be—that will save us all.

Coming to Terms With It All

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I thought I was handling this entire COVID-19 shut down thing fairly well. I finished the CSLI year one fellowship program in fine style. I’ve read twenty-two books, so far, and next week I’ll complete reading the Bible from cover to cover in ninety days. My family built and planted a garden, installed a Little Free Library in the front yard, and has plans for both bees and chickens. I’ve been doing Keto and have lost about twenty pounds, all while working and managing kids, both in school and during the rudderless summer days.

Don’t get me wrong; I have my down days, too. And there have been more of them than not lately. Being forced to stay in first gear for a few months has given me ample time to consider the fact that 142,000 people have died, often scared and alone. I’ve had to spend even more time coming to terms with the deep racial issues in this country as well the plight of people groups like the Uyghurs in China. I’ve watched as protestors in Portland have been abducted off the street, wondering what it means for our right to peacefully protest both now and in the future. I’ve listened as people tangle themselves in knots arguing against wearing a mask in public rather than simply choosing to love their neighbors by doing so and even witnessed a woman have a nervous breakdown in real time thanks to the glittering magic of social media.

Yeah, it’s been rough to say the least. However, I’m doing all this from a very privileged position. Both my husband and I are working from home, and our kids have space to continue schooling here as well. We have a solid internet connection, devices for everyone in the house, food on the table, and anything else that we need to be successful in these very strange times. But even with all that, it’s been difficult to keep my head above water some days. I cannot imagine how folks who have lost jobs or are trying to figure out childcare for the coming school year are managing.

But I haven’t cried over the last few months. Not even once. No matter how overwhelmed I’ve been or how sad I’ve felt, not a single tear has fallen from my eye. But then the dadgum Clydesdales came on.

I’ve been watching my team, the St. Louis Cardinals, play intersquad matches to get ready for the 60-game season starting at the end of this month, and since there are no commercials, the broadcast fills the time between half innings with great moments in Cardinals history, live shots of fans from around the park last season, and so forth. At least once a game, they show the horses pulling the Budweiser cart around the warning track, an Opening Day tradition in St. Louis going back to 1933 and the repeal of Prohibition. Every year, they announce this moment with great fanfare; even the players stop what they’re doing to watch the team of eight horses, along with two green-clad drivers and a Dalmatian complete a few laps around the stadium while the organist plays “Here Comes the King” and fans clap along. I look forward to seeing it (often on TV and once in person) every year. That procession meant baseball had come back and signaled the true beginning of summer for me.

But we didn’t get it this year. We haven’t gotten a lot of things. Maybe we’ll never get them again. It’s hard to say when the world seems to flip over every twenty-four hours. For the most part, I’m glad for the changes. I’m happy people have had to slow down and spend more time with their families. I’m beyond thrilled that the environment is healing because of a decrease in transportation and shipping. I think the BLM movement got a huge boost in visibility because things like baseball and bars and brunches weren’t there to distract us, to serve as a kind of Soma that numbed us to the reality of the world. Yet, still I grieve because life as we know it has unquestionably changed forever. I was able to keep a lid on it, to process everything that meant academically and logically, until I saw those massive hooves high stepping and shining ribbons flowing in the popcorn scented air.

One time while I was watching, a haiku by Kobayashi Issa came to mind:

This dewdrop world –
Is a dewdrop world,
And yet, and yet…

The poem expresses a Buddhist concept, one that espouses the world is in some sense an illusion (the word for it is maya). Like water rolling in an unknown direction on a leaf, the world is full of causes and effects, a web of choices and changes we cannot control. The dewdrop world is a dewdrop world. But that final line from Issa changes everything. Yes, the world may be somehow illusory, but that doesn’t mean it’s without longing or sorrow or tragedy. Those emotions as well as ones like joy, love, and peace are all part of the story we’re living.

Watching those horses trot was my “And yet, and yet…” moment. I can’t stop the bad things that are happening around me. I can’t even fully protect the good things I have or the people I love. I know that, but seeing a moment that has been part of my life for forty-plus years, something that brought me joy, and having it suddenly feel like an old newsreel was unsettling. I felt the sadness of the present moment in stark contrast to the simple joys of yesterday, and the difference was breathtaking. It cracked me wide open and mixed up all the thoughts and emotions I’d managed to keep neatly compartmentalized. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or bad—maybe it’s both—but I’m leaving space for it, allowing myself to feel it rather than move along to the next thing on the ol’ to do list because as Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (KJV).

Everything Which Is Yes #3

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I don’t think there’s a single arena of life that COVID-19 hasn’t radically altered. Everywhere I look, trees are blooming and things are coming to life, but my kids’ sports are cancelled. We can’t go to the doctor’s office unless it’s an emergency. School and work are still going on, but they’re happening in the comfy (for now) confines of our suburban Atlanta home. Honestly, we’re beyond blessed. We each have a laptop to work on, solid internet service, and room to spread out. We have a nice neighborhood to walk in as well as a backyard with a porch. We’re also beginning to build raised garden beds to grow produce, bringing two beehives back to the yard, and applying for a permit so we can have chickens. These projects will both help us pass the time in a healthy way and, in the long run, help us be more independent.

Because I have multiple sclerosis (and am therefore immunocompromised), getting out and volunteering isn’t an option for me, but I want to help my neighbors. One thing our family loves to do is read, but our libraries are closed for the duration. And that got me to thinking about people who might enjoy a new book or two during this crazy season (especially if they can’t afford to buy them online). Thankfully, there are Little Free Libraries dotted all around us, so we decided to clean off some shelf space and donate a few well-loved tomes to folks who might welcome the pleasant distraction only a book can offer. To find Little Free Libraries near you, visit this site.

Two baskets full of books (for both grown-ups and littles) later, we set off in my trusty yellow car. The first two libraries we found had solid offerings, and we took a book from each (making sure to leave a few in return). But the third one! Oh, the third one! It was in a family’s front yard, and it was—in a word—perfect. The library was painted to match the owner’s house. It was spacious, so the books could stand up straight in two rows. The glass was clean, so you could see everything inside before you opened the door. There was a little bench nearby to sit down and scan a book before leaving, and the owners had even put a jar of precious Clorox wipes in there so people could sanitize what they took and put in! How freakin’ thoughtful is that!? I ended up taking three from that one because it had a great selection and left several of my favorites behind (including an autographed copy of A Gentleman In Moscow).

There was something about that entire experience—being able to both give and receive in such a beautiful, intentionally designed, and welcoming space—that left me feeling somehow lighter than I have in the weeks since the coronavirus hit the United States. I didn’t talk to the people in that house, but I felt like I had a conversation of sorts with them. I got to know them just a bit through their library. It was obvious they cared about it (and by extension the people who came to use it), and I was thrilled to be able to contribute something. We were making a connection in that space, however brief, and it was a reminder that people care and life will go on eventually. And when it does, I hope I can do a better job building and maintaining community.

On the way to stop number four, we passed a little house where kids had written “Everything will be okay!!!!!” in sidewalk chalk across the width of their driveway. Topped with a very detailed rainbow, it certainly stood out, and we stopped the car to look at it for just a second or two. The fact that those kiddos decided to take the time to post that message, to encourage and reassure people they’d never meet struck something deep inside me. They, too, were reaching out with all those colors and exclamation marks. They were building community in some small way. Both they and the library owners were speaking shalom into this broken, scared, sin-sick world. Bless them. Bless them all, Lord.

As night drew in on the last day of this very long and stressful week, I stood on the back porch watching the sky fade from gold to pink to a muted purple-gray and enjoying cool evening air full of storm promise. I listened to the soothing murmur of wind moving through the tall pine trees, transforming them into long-limbed dancers that graced the sky with slow waving. Perhaps they, too, were speaking shalom. Or perhaps they were simply swaying to the music of the spheres that’s just beyond our fathoming.

Sunday Matinee

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This place has seen better days, I said to myself as we entered the dollar theater, but then again so have I. The carpet—a jarring geometric affair only found in theaters, hotels, and bowling alleys—was threadbare and puckered in places. The glass front of the concession stand was streaked, like someone meant to give it a good cleaning, realized mid-swipe where he was, and gave up. The lighting was dim, and some part of me thought it was for the best. It’s hard to complain when tickets are two bucks and I can afford to get everyone popcorn and candy without having to take out a second mortgage.

On a Sunday afternoon when three of the features are kid-friendly, the place is usually packed with families like mine looking for a few hours of peaceful distraction. So, like the rest of the herd, we shuffle obediently into theater three—Junior Mints and Buncha Crunch in hand—to enjoy Mary Poppins Returns. Ready to forget all about sticky floors and ripped seat cushions for two hours while we watched Mickey’s glossy, four-fingered magic show.

Unlike the glut of Disney’s recent films—naked cash grabs that are nothing more than shot-for-shot remakes of classic cartoons—this film attempted to build on previous work. Once again, the Banks family is in trouble, but not of the Edwardian era, white-people-nonsense variety. Twenty-five years have passed, and this time Michael is the pater familias. His three children (Annabel, John, and Georgie) are the ones in need of Mary Poppins’ enchanting assistance after their mother’s death the previous year. Jane, his poor spinster sister, is around, as is the bedraggled housekeeper, Ellen. Even crazy Admiral Boom and his first mate, Binnacle, are still alive and shooting canons on the hour. And characters that don’t make a repeat performance—like Mary’s Uncle Albert, forever laughing himself to the ceiling—are replaced by analogs. In this case, Mary’s cousin Topsy who can fix anything except on the second Wednesday of every month when her world literally flips upside down.

Rather than the hyper-pristine London of the past, this film is set during the Depression and is, in the production designer’s words, “gritty” and “dipped in reality.” Unlike Jane and Michael who were only losing their home in the emotional sense (because their parents were too busy counting money or smashing the patriarchy to worry about them), the second generation of Banks will lose 17 Cherry Tree Lane if the bank loan isn’t repaid in full by week’s end. So much for escapism, I muttered to myself. But Mary Poppins shows up, works her magic and—spit spot—problems get solved and people become their best selves.

Just like the original, this film is imaginative to a fault. There are kites and balloons aplenty in the park. Every dark alley and close is safe thanks to an army of kind lamplighters, led by Jack (Bert’s apprentice as a child). There’s even a magical scene much like the one in Bert’s sidewalk chalk drawing, but this time it takes place on the outside of a chipped porcelain bowl. There’s singing and dancing every few minutes, and, of course, the obligatory happy ending is practically perfect in every way.

The film is also abounding with Instagram-worthy Mary Poppisms like “Everything is possible. Even the impossible,” “Head up, and feet beneath you,” “You can’t lose what you’ve never lost,” and “There’s nowhere to go but up.” The last of these is the title to the movie’s closing song, which is sung by people floating above a fair via the help of magical balloons. The song is about celebrating the enchanted possibilities of childhood, of keeping hope alive in your heart, and it closes with the following two stanzas:

If your day’s up the spout,
well there isn’t a doubt.
There’s nowhere to go but up.
And if you don’t believe
just hang on to my sleeve,
for there’s nowhere to go but up.

As you fly over town,
it gets harder to frown.
And we’ll all hit the heights
if we never look down.
Let the past take a bow.
The forever is now.
And there’s nowhere to go but up, up!
There’s nowhere to go but up!

We were leaving the theater, my youngest son still singing the tune, when I saw a woman sitting near the lobby’s left exit door. She was easy to miss, slumped in the corner of a high-backed bench topped with dusty plastic plants. She was dressed in the theater’s standard-issue polyester uniform, name tag unreadable on a too-tight black vest, her Vera Bradley knock-off purse wedged tightly between her swollen feet as she waited, I assumed, for a ride home.

Unlike the green-haired girl behind the ticket counter or the budding jock who’d fetched our candy with a “ma’am” so sweet I hardly minded being so labeled, she looked to be somewhere between fifty and sixty, a woman who should have been enjoying a Sunday off. But she’d been collecting trash from the floor and wiping up pools of what passed for melted butter alongside people more than half her age for minimum wage. Every stoop and heft of it showed.

Other belongings were pinned between her and the wall, and there was nothing of the “peaceful sleeper” business about this woman. She rested watchfully, tightfisted, unwilling let life take one more thing from her. Looking at what part of her face I could see, pinched with worry, I wanted to hug her. To tell her I’d been there and understood. That things might get better.

And there’s nowhere to go but up! my youngest continued to warble, oblivious to the contradiction in front of him.

No, I wanted to say. Sometimes, there’s nowhere to go but down. Sometimes, there’s nowhere to go at all. There are no Topsys in real life who can fix what’s broken. Rarely, if ever, do things work out the way they should. More often than not, we start out soaring but end up defeated with our faces in the dirt. Time sees to that. But how to say that to a child still holding on to his own green balloon? How to tell a woman who’s crash landed that getting up is possible again if I don’t know that it’s true? The weight of both questions kept my lips closed.

I kept silent rather than stop the song. And I knew better than to linger.

This show wasn’t for me.

 

 

 

Redeeming Words

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I get roughly two hours a day to myself. One hundred and twenty obligation-free minutes that must be spent well. There are times when I do opt to watch a movie or a couple of episodes of a television show, but more often than not, I spend that precious time with a book (usually with a baseball game on in the background).

Everyone knows that reading is certainly better than binge watching or losing endless hours in front of a video game console, but not all reading material is created equal. And, in this day and age, how we read matters just as much as what. I’m not against popular fiction mind you; my bookshelves and my library card will attest to the fact that I’ve consumed my fair share. However, I read it for an altogether different reason than I do a solid piece of non-fiction or a “classic” work.

When I was an English major, I read with an attention to detail that would impress a ship-in-a-bottle enthusiast. Pen, highlighter, and page flags at the ready, I attacked a work of literature or critical theory ruthlessly. I highlighted passages, wrote reference notes in the margins and on the blank pages at the back. Basically, I did what Billy Collins said all students do, I beat it “with a hose / to find out what it really means.”

I have neither the time nor the inclination to read in such a way these days. I want to experience the books I select and enjoy them for what they are, but I also don’t want to lose the ability to read critically and with attention to detail. I want to investigate language and understand how words work together.

Apparently, I’m in the minority.

According to this article by Maryanne Wolf, Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA, “skim reading” rather than “deep reading” is the new normal. In her research, she’s discovered that, “Increasing reports from educators and from researchers in psychology and the humanities bear this out. English literature scholar and teacher Mark Edmundson describes how many college students actively avoid the classic literature of the 19th and 20th centuries because they no longer have the patience to read longer, denser, more difficult texts. We should be less concerned with students’ ‘cognitive impatience,’ however, than by what may underlie it: the potential inability of large numbers of students to read with a level of critical analysis sufficient to comprehend the complexity of thought and argument found in more demanding texts, whether in literature and science in college, or in wills, contracts and the deliberately confusing public referendum questions citizens encounter in the voting booth.”

I’ve noticed this cognitive decay happening with people I love. Those who once read books now spend all their free time staring at and swiping on iPads and phones, and over the years, their ability to concentrate has been whittled away. I don’t know if they’re even aware it’s happening, and, sadder still, I’m not sure they care.

Hundreds of studies have been done about the impact of technology, and most of the research isn’t good. According to doctors and researchers, we’re miserable and lonely. Our kids are pretty much wrecked and suffer from anxiety and depression because they’re always connected. We bemoan the lack of civility in our culture and the fact that thoughtful debate seems to have gone the way of the Dodo, yet we won’t put down the things that make us reactionary rather than thoughtful citizens.

When it comes to books, however, the research is all positive. Reading—especially fiction—allows us to take Atticus Finch’s advice and “climb inside [another person’s] skin and walk around in it.” Through reading, we gain empathy. Immersing ourselves in good books makes us smarter. It keeps our minds sharper and helps us be more relaxed.

For this reason, I read at least fifty books per year (both in hard copy and audiobook form when I’m driving), and ten of them must be classics. In addition to a dozen works of non-fiction, some poetry, and a couple of graphic novels, I’ve read Invisible Man, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, A Raisin in the Sun, Candide, A Moveable Feast, and, most recently, Crime and Punishment.

I have thoroughly enjoyed each of these books, and I’m looking forward to finishing a few more before year’s end. However, good as Dostoyevsky’s novel was, I could feel my mind wandering in parts of Crime and Punishment. I tuned out during a few long descriptive passages, and my eyes glazed over more than once when the story seemed to rewind and repeat itself. Twenty-five-year-old me wouldn’t have done that. That version of Jamie would have read it with laser precision (though with less joy, I think) and analyzed everything about the diction and syntax. She would have marked any instance of symbolism and every allegorical reference (of which there were many). Don’t take that to mean forty-year-old Jamie is a slouch though. Whenever I caught my eyeballs getting loose, I stopped. I re-read and re-focused. I kept a pen in my hand to underline sentences I enjoyed and make observations and predictions.

All the other moms at taekwondo practice (and their kids) may have spent 45 minutes on electronics, but I spent that time in St. Petersburg, Russia wrestling with some thorny moral questions. I’m not judging, believe me. I’ve spent many an hour scrolling social media, but I’ve made the decision to severely curtail my use of those platforms in order to make room for other things. Better things. More filling and rewarding things.

Reading Crime and Punishment expanded my knowledge of Russian history and geography. I even gained a little linguistical wisdom. Take the protagonist’s name for instance. Rodion comes from Rhodes, a Greek island, and Raskolnikov derives from the Russian raskolnik meaning “schismatic.” He is worthy of such a name, for he spends much of the story isolated and of broken because he is of two minds.

Spending time with characters like Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is well worth the time and effort it takes to read their stories. Being inside his head as he wrestled with an ethical dilemma allowed me to experience it up close and personal too. I had to ask myself some hard questions about the value of human life and where I stand on punishment and redemption. I was forced to re-examine my thoughts on morality and the power of God’s grace.

And beyond that, there are the soaring phrases that I will keep with me always:

  • “Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”
  • “To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”
  • “The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
  • “We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”
  • “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
  • “There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there is a hundredth of a fraction of a false note to candor, it immediately produces dissonance, and as a result, exposure. But in flattery, even if everything is false down to the last note, it is still pleasant, and people will listen not without pleasure; with coarse pleasure, perhaps, but pleasure nevertheless.”

Spending an hour on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram seems so paltry, so insufficient when there are words like that out there to feast on. And yet, many of us choose technology instead. We use it to escape reality, to numb our brains to the world around us (especially when it’s unpleasant and we “can’t even”), but what we really need to do is lean in.

In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, John the Savage (so named because he’s grown up outside of the World State’s influence) says of mosquitos and flies, “You got rid of them. Yes, that’s just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. [You] neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It’s too easy….What you need…is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here.”

Like John, I want to know the world in all its beauty and savagery. I want to pay the cost required to live well, to know true pain as well as joy.

Near the end of her article, Maryanne Wolf states, “The possibility that critical analysis, empathy and other deep reading processes could become the unintended ‘collateral damage’ of our digital culture is not a simple binary issue about print vs digital reading. It is about how we all have begun to read on any medium and how that changes not only what we read, but also the purposes for why we read. Nor is it only about the young. The subtle atrophy of critical analysis and empathy affects us all. It affects our ability to navigate a constant bombardment of information. It incentivizes a retreat to the most familiar silos of unchecked information, which require and receive no analysis, leaving us susceptible to false information and demagoguery.”

The last sentence makes it obvious why deep reading essential (and why our culture is the way it is today). I’ve studied far too many dystopian works to claim ignorance. They’ve shown me what a world without thought looks like, and it is a terrifying prospect. I don’t know if the predictions of Orwell, Huxley, Lewis, Atwood, Dick, Burgess, or Bradley will ever come true. I cannot tell if our world will one day resemble the ones they created as a warning. What I do know is that our minds cannot be spent frivolously. They are precious gifts we must defend at all costs against a world eager to consume them.

 

 

What’s the Value in That?

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Monday, I watched this 60-second documentary about dogs and went spiraling into an existential crisis of sorts.

It wasn’t the senior dogs that nearly had me in tears, though their sweet graying faces were touching. It was the moment the dogs were taken to an assisted living facility. “Most of these people are lonely,” says Kim Skarritt, the founder of Silver Muzzle, via voiceover as senior citizens pet dogs and smile broadly at the camera.

I’ve been struggling to find balance in my life as of late. Being a mother has a way of sucking up all the spare time in a day, making it difficult for a woman to pursue her personal goals and dreams. I’ve wanted to spend more time writing essays and stories of my own, but with a full-time job and a family to take care of, that can be a little dicey. Every hour I spend has to come from somewhere else, so I typically end up waiting until the end of the day (when I’m already drained). That means I’m either losing sleep or precious hours with my sweet husband, whose company I very much enjoy, but I keep on doing it because—dadgummit—writing is my great purpose in this life!

And then I watch that video and think about homeless animals and lonely senior citizens, both populations shoved to the margins, things we’d rather not think about. Then there is the current immigration crisis to consider, the one that is forcibly separating families at the border and sending children to detention centers. I can’t forget that there’s racial injustice everywhere or the fact that white people are falling down rabbit holes of hatred. On any given day, there are 428,000 children in foster care. The suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain have drawn my attention to the fact that suicide is on the rise in the United States. In fact, it has risen nearly thirty percent since 1999. Oh, and opioid abuse has reached epidemic status.

I haven’t done a singlething to combat any of this suffering. But, hey, at least I wrote that short story I’ve been noodling on, right? Yay for me!

In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus tells his disciples that when the final judgment comes, “the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’” (Matt. 25:34-40).

There ain’t word one in there about the arts, folks. I was bored to tears, and you entertained me with your dazzling prose. Not even in The Message version.

That is what it means to be about the Father’s business, I think. That’s what I should be doing. People young and old give up and die every day because they think no one cares about them. I could reach out and tell them otherwise. People everywhere are in need of food and clean water, access to better education and childcare. I could help them get it. People are strangers, even to their neighbors, and social isolation is crippling us emotionally. I could shut this laptop and walk down my street. What is an essay—even one that’s well-crafted—in the face of all that? If I throw the last 5,000 words I’ve written into the abyss, what would it change? Probably nothing. I tell you what—sometimes writing feels as pointless to me as chopping decorative pillows.

However, writers are fond of defending their craft as absolutely necessary to the human condition. Ernest Hemmingway said it requires one to “sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” From someone who cut language pretty close to the bone, that’s a bit melodramatic. Neil Gaiman said, “Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing day nothing else matters.” Really, Neil? Nothing else? According to Maya Angelou, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” I can think of a few.

Books are friends, portals into the soul, journeys taken on magic carpets, a way of saying what cannot be said any other way. Yeah, we like to pile on and puff it up for looks. Phillip Pullman believes that, “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” And I’ll stop with that, because I can get behind this sentiment—even if it was said by a self-proclaimed “religious atheist.”

Hell, even the fact I can sit here and kvetch about all this on my Mac from the comfort of my middle-class home (with Solomon Burke on my record player for goodness sake) requires me to admit the staggering amount of white privilege I enjoy—yet another issue in need of a solution.

So, yes, it’s safe to say that I’m questioning a great deal about my “passion” as of late. Writing to inform, to persuade, and to educate—I’m feeling pretty okay about that—but beyond those goals (none of which I would dare label as “noble”) I’m of two minds. Can I continue to spend time writing in a world where my cat has it better than a lot of people? Can I, in good conscience, spend hours working on an essay when I could be helping ESL students better express themselves?

Nathalie Sarraute said “the act of writing is a kind of catharsis, a liberation.” Those are two words a lot of people don’t know the meaning of, much less could ever hope to experience. And what are catharsis and liberation worth when there are millions of people struggling to keep it together or feed a family on a few bucks a day? I don’t think there’s much catharsis to be had in a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese, but I could be wrong.

Finally, dear reader (and if you’ve managed to hang on this long, I salute you), all this navel-gazing is not meant to heap hot coals on your head. My judgment extends no further than the rather roomy confines of my own flesh and bone. This uncertainty is mine and no one else’s, and this post is only a marker for those who, like me, are finding their way.

This Good Earth

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I possess a priceless fact, though I didn’t realize how rare and beautiful it was until recently. Both my grandfathers are deceased—my paternal grandfather (Grandpa) succumbed to cancer on September 25, 2008, and my maternal grandfather (Papaw) died to due complications from Alzheimer’s disease on August 5, 2015. I was close to both and can say that I was well and truly loved by them. And while that is indeed incomparable, it’s not the fact I’m here to talk about.

Both men were farmers, and each drove a pair of mules when working the land. But that’s not all. I know those animals’ names. Grandpa called his Doc and Rodney. Papaw’s were Jim and Adar. Neither set matched because, according to my father, a similarly-colored pair was usually purchased together from a breeder. Very few farmers had enough cash on hand to do so. That’s the kind of detail I keep in my pocket, something to worry with my thumb whenever I’ve lost my bearings.

There’s a certain sturdiness that comes with knowing things like this. Not only were my grandfathers real people I smelled and touched and loved. Men who carried me on their shoulders and did their best to help ensure I never went without. They also had a past; they were connected to a place in a way I, with my limited time working a farm, can never be. But when they told stories, thankfully, I listened. I gobbled their tall tales and humble yarns up like so many plates of beans, and they’ve carried me through the last decade—the one I’ve had to live without my patriarchs, my humble men of great valor.

I’ve never driven mules, never worked land from seed to harvest. However, I like to think the ability to do so is in my genetic code somewhere—like the musical talent I got from Papaw and the knack for words that came from Grandpa. If those traits manifested in me, why not an ability to cultivate life from the earth? I sometimes imagine myself buckling a pair of mules together, picking up the reins, giving a gee or haw, and having the entire thing figured out in just a few passes. And while I know it’s fantasy, the wish of a woman longing for something she’ll never have, I can’t quite bring myself to give up on the idea.

In The Gene: An Intimate History, Siddhartha Mukherjee tells the story of the Hunger Winter (Hongerwinter), which the Dutch endured from 1944-1945. He writes, “Tens of thousands of men, women, and children died of malnourishment; millions survived. The change in nutrition was so acute and abrupt that it created a horrific natural experiment: as the citizens emerged from the winter, researchers could study the effect of a sudden famine on a defined cohort of people. Some features, such as malnourishment and growth retardation, were expected. Children who survived the Hongerwinter also potentially suffered chronic health issues associated with malnourishment: depression, anxiety, heart disease, gum disease, osteoporosis, and diabetes. (Audrey Hepburn, the wafer-thin actress, was one such survivor, and she would be afflicted by a multitude of chronic illnesses throughout her life.)

“In the 1980s, however, a more intriguing pattern emerged: when the children born to women who were pregnant during the famine grew up, they too had higher rates of obesity and heart disease. This finding too might have been anticipated. Exposure to malnourishment in utero is known to cause changes in fetal physiology. Nutrient-starved, a fetus alters its metabolism to sequester high amounts of fat to defend itself against caloric loss, resulting, paradoxically, in late-onset obesity and metabolic disarray. But the oddest result of the Hongerwinter study would take yet another generation to emerge. In the 1990s, when the grandchildren of men and women exposed to the famine were studied, they too had higher rates of obesity and heart disease (some of these health issues are still being evaluated). The acute period of starvation had somehow altered genes not just in those directly exposed to the event; the message had been transmitted to their grandchildren. Some heritable factor, or factors, must have been imprinted into the genomes of the starving men and women and crossed at least two generations. The Hongerwinter had etched itself into national memory, but it had penetrated genetic memory as well.”

Granted, neither branch of my family endured something as stark and horrific as the Hongerwinter, but if it is true that such an event could affect a family for not one but two generations, could a person be shaped by more mundane tasks and habits as well—especially those that have been practiced since time immemorial? Could the hours my grandfathers (and their grandfathers before them) spent behind a plow gently encouraging their animals have, in some small way, cultivated something in me too? It heartens me to think so, especially now that the way I view the world—and my very self—has changed forever.

“Race,” writes the historian Nell Irvin Painter, “is an idea, not a fact.” I have come to a fuller understanding of this truth in recent years as well as the fact that the “white identity” I’ve assumed for most of my life is as flimsy and worthless as a Confederate dollar. According to Dr. Painter in this piece from 2015, “It has become a common observation that blackness, and race more generally, is a social construct. But examining whiteness as a social construct offers more answers. The essential problem is the inadequacy of white identity. We don’t know the history of whiteness, and therefore are ignorant of the many ways it has changed over the years.”

As I have written before, white identity—such as it is—was created via erasure. It is described by virtue of what it isn’t. Hence, I am “white” primarily because I am not black or Asian or Hispanic. “The useful part of white identity’s vagueness,” Dr. Painter says, “is that whites don’t have to shoulder the burden of race in America, which, at the least, is utterly exhausting. A neutral racial identity is blandly uninteresting.”

Blandly uninteresting. Yes. That is what I have always felt about myself, what I have known in way beyond words. Even as a child, I was well aware that some part of me was missing. I’ve never had to grapple with who I am in the larger sense of the word because American culture has always said, “You are white. You are superior. You are normal. No need to think too hard about it. It’s everyone else who is lacking.”

Now, people are starting to speak up about white privilege, and because of the dearth of self created by that erasure, there’s nothing for white people to stand on. The only two options for self-definition open to us are “devoid” and “dreadful.” I’m either nothing or I’m a member of a “race” that has maintained supremacy through rape, murder, theft, chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and systematic mass incarceration.

“We lack more meaningful senses of white identity,” Dr. Painter asserts in her conclusion, but the solution is not to create distinctions or lines. “White identity” can be reinvented by abolishing white privilege and building on other, more positive and inclusive factors. That is why knowing those mules’ names fills me with a sense of joy and contentment. They are a fact from my past that has not been fabricated or co-opted. Jim and Adar and Doc and Rodney are rock solid proof of who I am and where I come from, and they connect me with others as well.

Men and women from all “races” worked the land. Other grandfathers with different skin colors than Papaw and Grandpa also barked a solid gee and haw. They knew the sleepless nights when a cold snap came and threatened their crops. They, too, put in a hard day’s work and got up the next morning to do it all over again. And all of them rejoiced when the harvest came in and there were cans of peas and corn and tomatoes put up for the hard winter to come. This is a piece of my identity that doesn’t cause shame. It is simple and wholly good.

I can work with that.

Short Fuses and The Long View

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As I watched the March for Our Lives protests taking place around the country on March 24, 2018, I was filled with several conflicting emotions. I was proud that students—a long ignored and discounted group—were organizing and harnessing their frustrations into something tangible. I was sad many were unwilling to listen to what they had to say, writing them off as nothing more than malcontents and “angry, opportunistic…media hyped know-nothings.” But most of all, I was unnerved, and that feeling had no specific source. I just know that when hashtags begin trending and momentum grows on either side of the gun debate, I begin to worry.

Image from Patch.com/Getty Images

 

Guns are a touchy subject, and the spectrum of advocates on both sides is wide—from those who believe in zero restrictions to those who want all weapons banned. It’s not productive to rehash all the talking points here, and I wouldn’t presume to be able to solve such a thorny debate on this, my humble corner of the internet.

Josh Britton published an excellent piece over at Mere Orthodoxy this week about the march and why he didn’t participate. In it, he states, “I lament with the Parkland victims, and long for the day when God will put an end to all violence. But I also worry about putting too much hope in legislative action to solve the complex problems that confront our world, and can’t help thinking of how often such attempts have gone awry in the past.”

Something going awry. That’s the thing that gives me pause. There are always unintended consequences to social change and legislation. Consider Prohibition and the many ways it changed the United States for the worse. The War on Drugs is another stunning example of government overreach, and it is still having an impact on our nation—particularly on people of color.

If Only We’d Known…
The Ice Bucket Challenge, one of the biggest social media trends of 2014, certainly raised a great deal of money and awareness for ALS. (Funding also gave scientists a way to discover a new gene linked to the disease, so huzzah for that!) However, have you heard much on the subject since? ALS is still a long way from being cured. Many people participated out of peer pressure or to feel good about their social media “activism,” but how many of those same people would do such a thing again? The results aren’t reproducible, and overall, according to Jaqueline Herrera, the Ice Bucket Challenge was actually harmful to philanthropy.

The same is true for sending food overseas to those “in need.” According to the well-researched documentary Poverty, Inc. (available on Netflix), our good intentions can actually cause great harm. For instance, former President Bill Clinton, encouraged by U.S. rice producers, authorized sending thousands of pounds American-subsidized, tariff-free rice to the island. The catch? The decision drove local growers out of business. After all, it’s hard to compete with free. It has also had a huge impact on the Haitian diet. Rice, which was once consumed once or twice a week along with other healthier staples, now accounts for one quarter of the average Haitian’s caloric intake. We don’t think about this when we send in our donations, but it’s happening all over the globe. It’s not that we need to give less; we need to give more wisely.

What do both of these things have in common? A swelling of popular opinion driven by social media, much like that enjoyed by the March for Our Lives. If this movement (however well-intentioned) leads to sweeping legal changes with regards to gun laws—restricting the average citizen’s access to them—what might the unintended consequences be?

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
I’m no gun enthusiast; however, I’m comfortable with them. I learned to respect them early and was taught how to shoot when I was old enough. But my view on their purpose, and the intentions of the founders in their creation of the Second Amendment, changed in the spring of 2013.

My husband and I purchased a house in Cobb County, Georgia. One Saturday morning, my husband left to run some errands, and not a minute after the garage door hit the ground, he called me. “Sweetie,” he said. “Do you have anywhere to be in the next few hours?”

I told him I did. “Well, you better leave now. I don’t know if you’ll be able to later. Just ask the cop in our driveway to move. He did for me.”

I looked out the window, and sure enough, a patrol car was on our property. I took my husband’s advice, grabbed the things I’d need for the afternoon, and headed out.

There wasn’t one sheriff’s deputy in our neighborhood that day. There were forty—all of them armed to the teeth. I saw countless military-grade rifles, men in SWAT gear bearing flash grenades, extra magazines, heavy flashlights, and truncheons. One officer lay on a shooter’s mat, sighting in a rifle. Another sniper was posted on a play set.

I wish I had had the presence of mind to take photos that day, but honestly, I was so bewildered by the sight of a platoon in my neighborhood, it was all I could do keep my car on the road. It was the quintessential definition of using a bulldozer to find a china cup.

There were no reports in the local papers about this incident, no coverage on the nightly news. But from what I gathered from neighbors, a family in one of the homes has a son who is mentally unstable and was holding his mother hostage with a knife. Thankfully, the situation (despite the seven nation army) ended peacefully, and the young man was taken into custody.

Lock and Load
Cobb County, like places around the United States, has received a great deal of surplus military equipment thanks to the 1033 program. Tactical gear and military-grade weapons are just the start of it. Armored truck and personnel carriers, grenade launchers, and helicopters have also been distributed to local police. Cobb County even added a tank to their arsenal recently. No kidding—an honest to goodness tank.

There’s a reason Ferguson, Missouri looked like a war zone when the riots over Michael Brown’s death were happening. It’s because the cops were armed like soldiers, and this is becoming more and more common these days. According to C.K., author of “The Rhetorical Power of ‘Support Our Troops’” over at The Economist, “There are now 50,000 to 80,000 SWAT raids each year in the country.”

He goes on to say, “There is little evidence that such militarization reduces crime, and a considerable risk that it alienates communities and leads to an increased number of civilian deaths….Using county-level data on overall deaths caused by the police in four states, Casey Delehanty, a social scientist, and colleagues found that larger 1033 transfers are associated with more police killings. The risk of a civilian killing by the police is more than twice as high in counties receiving the maximum 1033 transfer compared to counties that receive no transfers. The authors show that this relationship is not simply caused by a higher risk of criminal violence in districts that receive larger transfers by demonstrating 1033 receipts are also associated with police forces killing more civilian dogs each year as well.” (I know The Economist isn’t always top notch, but it was a solid summation. If you want to read the original paper in its entirety, it’s here.)

Apparently, not even our dogs are safe these days. #Merica

Image from sputniknews.com

Police forces aren’t turning weapons down. They’re taking them from the government as often as they can, and these items are meant to be used. Hence, the stunning show of force in my suburban neighborhood when a few officers and a negotiator were all that was called for.

It is a hard truth, but one we must face. In the United States, people of all races—but predominately those with black or brown skin—are being shot and killed by police officers. #BlackLivesMatter began for a legitimate reason. Yes, some people are shot because they pose a threat to a community. Some do assault police offers and must be met with force. Some attack with every intention of committing “suicide by cop.” I’m not discounting any of that. However, just this month, Stephon Clark was killed in his grandmother’s back yard in Sacramento, California. The reason? He was knocking on the window to ask if she could let him in. (Apparently, the bell was broken.) He also had a cell phone that “looked like a gun.” For all that, he was shot at twenty times. Eight bullets hit him, seven in his back. Were the cops in the area to stop a murderer or rapist? Were they there trying to prevent a violent crime? No. They had been called in because of a vandalism complaint. Someone was breaking into cars and stealing stuff. A minor crime was met with major force—and someone’s child, someone’s father—is dead.

In the Name of Safety
County and city police forces are well armed, and they have shown they are willing to use the weapons they’ve received from the federal government. Now consider the fact that March for Our Lives has three primary demands of Congress:

  1. Pass a law to ban the sale of assault weapons frequently used in mass shootings
  2. Prohibit the sale of high-capacity magazines
  3. Close loopholes in background check systems and require background checks on every gun purchase

Are these weapons and magazines banned across the board—for law enforcement as well as your average, law-abiding American citizen? The petition doesn’t call for such a restriction, and I’m fairly sure that if Congress does act on these demands, no such language will be included in the law either. Law enforcement will continue to receive (and use) the same weapons citizens are denied. How can a people peaceably assemble or petition the government for a redress of grievances if agencies “armed to meet any threat” deem protesters to be just that—a threat—and are more likely to shoot than listen?

Former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens has already called for a repeal of the Second Amendment, deeming it “a relic of the 18th century.” He’s one man, but I wonder how many Americans feel the same way. How many watched the March for Our Lives—filled with emotionally-charged images and highly-tweetable moments—and agreed with the sentiments expressed without considering all the ramifications altering the Constitution? Keeping our kids safe in school. Preventing mass shootings and domestic terrorism. Both are good things that could be achieved in the short term via gun control, but what else might people with less altruistic goals accomplish through that action?

The long view must be kept in mind. If the simple act of donating rice has left a nation economically crippled and dependent on foreign aid, the danger is far greater when it comes to weapons. We must undertake the process of revising America’s gun laws with great care and consideration. No good decision has ever been made in haste or when emotions are high, and we cannot afford to get this one wrong.

Image from k1nsey6.com