Beacon of Hope

            Recently I heard an inspirational speech, given by a high school senior, entitled, “The U.S. Constitution – A Beacon of Hope”. In summary, the U.S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights (First 10 Amendments) was crafted by our founding fathers to insure that every citizen was accorded the freedom and opportunity to obtain personal fulfillment – to be all he could be – pursuit of happiness.

            As the years went by, and society changed, so the Constitution had to be changed (amended). When we decided slavery was wrong (on so many levels), we changed our Constitution by abolishing slavery (13^th Amendment). As a follow-up, the 14^th Amendment granted citizenship to the former slaves, a Beacon of Hope for almost 4 million people. The 19^th Amendment gave millions of women the right to vote. Another Beacon of Hope for half the population,

            Since 1776, the US flag had been considered a Beacon of Hope, and it was illegal to treat it with any manner of disrespect. But in 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that desecration of the flag by burning, trampling, ripping, spitting, or any other act of disrespect, is “Freedom of Speech”, guaranteed in the very first Amendment.  Again, a Beacon of Hope for those people who wish to express their personal viewpoints.

            In the early 1700s, John and Charles Wesley were responsible for the formation of Methodism. The FIRST disagreement they had with the Church of England, and the reason they originally separated was the church’s belief that “God has determined from eternity whom He will save and whom He will damn” (predestination). Wesley regarded this to be erroneous doctrine, and insisted that the love of God was universal. UNIVERSAL. That seems simple – all inclusive, but alas, the history of the church and its doctrine have been rife with arguments AGAINST God’s Universal Law.

            As with the U.S. Constitution, the Christian doctrine should have changed to be a Beacon of Hope to people worldwide. We should have welcomed Native Americans, African Americans, Africans in Africa, Eskimos, Chinese, Russians into the Church because God’s love is universal.

            We should have agreed that God’s universal love includes women, children, all races, all economic situations, pedophiles, murderers, spouse abusers, child abusers, LGBTQ etc. people – ALL people. It took decades and almost 2 centuries for us to decide women are people too, deserving of voting.

We should have remembered that Jesus said the most important Commandments are Love God and Love Your Neighbor. There is NOTHING Jesus said that excludes ANYONE from being your neighbor. You are to love UNIVERSALLY.

            Jesus did NOT say you have to LIKE or AGREE with or CONDONE your neighbor’s behavior. There are practices and customs by people around the world  that the discipline does not address, such as polygamy and cannibalism. We seldom see those practices in the U.S., and Jesus did not say you have to participate in any of these.  

  It is interesting that the religious texts of the world’s four major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Hindu, Islam)  ALL require one loves his neighbor.

            Are some people/peoples hard to love? Absolutely YES.  Is it easier to leave them to God to love, while we sit in our cozy living rooms and hate them? Absolutely YES.  Does loving them even mean we have to welcome them into our homes? Absolutely NO.  Does loving them mean we condone their actions or beliefs? Absolutely NO.  Does loving them mean we have to agree with them? Absolutely NO. Does loving them mean we even have to LIKE them? Absolutely NO.

So what does loving them mean? I think it means many versions of “Love the sinner. Hate the sin,” or as Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” Let that sink in a minute. I mean REALLY SINK IN.

I hear hate speech every day from just about everywhere except in the shower. Friends, relatives, TV, radio, podcasts, billboards, pamphlets, books, social media… and almost every single word is hate of another person: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Robert E. Lee, Rush Limbaugh, and the list goes on ad nauseum. NEVER do I hear something like, “Nancy Pelosi has very different ideas from mine. I will pray for God to give her wisdom and guidance.” Or “Rush Limbaugh is very outspoken, but his ideas and philosophy are directly opposite mine. I will pray for God to give him wisdom and tolerance.”

Yes. The Constitution shines its Beacon of Light upon you and your freedom of speech.

But I challenge you to love your neighbor, and if you MUST spout hatred against another, can you either do it quietly, or spew with vengeance against the ideas or doctrines, rather than the person. Can you be a “Beacon of Hope” to your neighbors?

Words

Words are powerful. Our words can incite hate and rebellion, or invite peace and love, and everything in between.

I hear a lot of discussion about the First Amendment “Right to free Speech” from all sides of the political spectrum. But it seems like almost everyone wants to utter words that incite hate, rather than words that invite love. I hear a lot from people who hate people they don’t know, but not much about people they love.

Social media has inflated this problem. I read with sadness the venom spewed by political zealots, and it seems like almost everyone has become a political zealot. What I have NOT seen is anyone at ALL who says, “Oh, You are right! You have changed my (political) mind.” 

Words of antagonism and hostility can only increase the great divide that already separates us. These words are great bullets, that invite retaliation of greater bullets from the “enemy”.

I’m getting older, and gone are the days of my youth, when I could sit with someone from another political party and have a discussion. I miss that. A LOT.

Hate speech can only harm. It cannot heal. It incites your political side to shouts of agreement, but never, NEVER changes the minds of your political opponents.

So I love prayers. Ministers and chaplains always put away their political biases and pray for “our leaders”, whether they agree with their political views or not.  

And I love my veteran brothers and sisters. We speak powerful words too, but mostly uplifting words of encouragement, love, empathy and peace. We have so much that unites us that we don’t have much time at all for whatever divides us. 

We are family.

Lest We Forget

 Few events in our history have so affected us that we remember them and relive them our entire lives.

None of us were around on April 19, 1775, but I can imagine that a whole generation asked each other, “Where were you when Major Buttrick shouted, “For God’s sake! FIRE!” and that shot was heard around the world, ultimately changing the course of history forever.

My mamma and daddy could tell me exactly where they were on December 7, 1941, a “date that does live in infamy”.

Some of us still ask, “Where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated?”

I was a teenager, it was Fall of my senior year, and I was in art class at Woodlawn High School.

On June 11, 1963, Governor George Wallace had stood on the steps of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama and declared, “Segregation now. Segregation forever.” It would come to be known as the “Stand in the Schoolhouse door”  That footage became so well-known made it into the movie Forest Gump.

In Birmingham, we had survived the “Long Hot Summer of ‘63”, with firehoses and police dogs versus peaceful demonstrators on the streets of downtown. A time that would be replayed over and over on national TV for 50 years.

On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people marched on Washington D.C., and they were calmed by Reverend Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech – a presentation that will be repeated so often it is more recognizable than the Gettysburg address.

We had already been horrified on September 15, when the 16^th Street Baptist Church was bombed, killing 4 little girls attending Sunday School. I remember where I was and who I was with when that news was received moments after it happened.

So we wondered what the hell else could happen? could It possible get any worse? 1963 said, “Here. Hold my beer.”

On November 22, 1963, one deadly shot in Dallas, TX horrified our nation, and the world. For a time, we were no longer Republicans or Democrats, but Americans - UNIFIED in grief. John F. Kennedy was President of the United States. That’s ALL of us. Nobody said, “The Democrats lost their President.”

The next 40 or so years, though, were painful on many issues. Black vs white, North vs South… we were still fighting the War Between the States, Marines vs the rest of the military, Vietnam, Gulf War, Somolia, Panama, and on and on, until

September 11, 2001.

Where were you on Sept 11, 2001 at 7:46am Central time? When American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center?  If you were born before about 1991 (the year of Desert Storm), you probably can remember exactly where you were.

By 9:07am, an hour and 15 minutes later, when United flight 93 crashed In Pennsylvania, I know where you were, and what you were doing. You were glued to a television somewhere. You were shocked, angry, and feeling confused and helpless.

You watched in anguish as the Twin towers fell again and again, and the Pentagon exploded. You watched first responders rush through noxious smog into barely visible black holes into crumbling buildings, and people leapt to their deaths from dozens of stories up to escape death by fire. Maybe you wept. Maybe you prayed.

Unless you lived and worked in NYC. Unless you were a first responder in the area. There was no time for weeping or anger. For them, there was only FOCUS.

Of the almost 3000 citizens who perished that day, over 400 were first responders, most of those were firefighters, and ALL of them were true heroes.

My pastor says the church isn’t the building. The church is the people. Its symbol is a cross. Likewise, the United States isn’t the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. The United States is the people. Our symbol is our flag. None of the heroes of 9/11 rushed into the Twin Towers to save a building. Their purpose was to rescue PEOPLE.

In my heart, I KNOW most of them realized that rushing into the mouth of hell that day could most likely be their last action on this earth. I believe most of them knowingly sacrificed all their tomorrows so that somebody’s mother or father, or somebody’s son or daughter could have a TODAY.

The Bible tells us  “Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay  down his life for his friends.”

Except maybe that he lay down his life for a complete stranger?

In the years after 9/11/2001, thousands of first responders suffered the effects of the heat and breathing the toxic dust that day, and many would die from it in a couple of years. By 2013, over 1400 first responders who had worked the scene that day had died from the diagnosis “exposure to toxins at Ground Zero”.  By 2016, another 2100 firefighters had retired on disability with World Trade Center-related illnesses, mostly lung diseases and cancers. This brought the total count of “first Responder casualties” to almost 4,000.

But for a time after the attack on us on 9/11/2001, we ceased being Democrats or Republicans, black or white, Christian or Jewish, rich or poor. Nobody cared if you ate at Chic-fil-a or Ruth’s Chris.

For a time, You remember. we were ALL Americans. We stood shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, suffering and grieving the same profound loss. American flag companies sold out. There was hardly a car or a truck or a house that did not display an American flag.  What mattered was NOT what divided us, but what UNITED us.  It was the greatest surge of patriotism in my lifetime.

Lest they forget, it is VITAL that we teach our children and grandchildren the pride and glory that being a patriotic America citizen feels like. That’s the real importance of our annual 9/11 memorial services.

We remember and celebrate the day the fires of patriotism burned the brightest, and the day the American spirit could NOT be quenched. It is why we call September 11 “Patriot Day”.

So remember … Where were you on 9/11/2001?  and please… tell the story

No Other Choice

 “Behind every strong woman is a story that gave her no other choice"                                                                                                                            …Nakeia Homer

This quotation made me think. I mean really. Usually I read quotations and think, “That’s cute.” or “Clever!” or “Very profound.” THIS one, though, got me to thinking about the many strong women I’ve known and their stories.

If you know me, you know I’m not a feminist. Or really much of any other “…ist”. So don’t misunderstand me, but men don’t understand. Actually, most women don’t either. I can tell by the comments:

     “Why didn’t you leave him?”

    “You always have a choice.”

    “I would have…(insert any action)…”

    “You are too smart to put up with that.”

    “You should have called the police.”

    “You could have taken the children and left.”

The answer to any of these questions is not simple. It is a very, very complicated journey from “We were high school sweethearts,” to “He wouldn’t allow me contact with friends or family.”  It is a long and complex journey from “We were young and so in love,” to “He only hits me when he is drunk.” She can’t explain years and years of “no choice” in a few words.

It took a degree in Psychology PLUS really, really LISTENING to a few stories from strong women for me to kinda understand the concept of “no other choice”. Typically, unless you have been in a “no other choice” situation, you do NOT understand the concept.  But here it is:

ONLY STRONG WOMEN SURVIVE THE “NO OTHER CHOICE” SITUATION. The weak ones usually don’t come out very well on the other side, if they come out at all.

Bottom line: If there was a choice, she was not in a “no other choice” situation, which is what people who have never been in a no other choice situation will likely never understand.  

Drivethrough Shootings

 For several weeks I have been involved in drive-through shootings.

Working in the UAB-Highlands parking deck, 8 RNs are giving approximately 2000 COVID vaccine injections a day. As I drive home every day, I talk to my friend Linda, who got me this job. As she says, I “debrief” her about my day.

Since I’m not in charge of anything or anyone except myself, and since I have ONE JOB, it follows that everything else is NOT my job. Almost everything – except stepping to the car, giving the injection, and applying a bandage – is, LITERALLY, above my pay grade.

So what do I tell Linda during a 20 minute drive every day? Well, most of them can’t be printed here, because the tale itself could identify specific people, and that’s not fair, since I have 50 years experience, and some of them have a year or less experience… but it isn't rocket surgery to give an IM injection into a person’s deltoid, so…

But… when a young nurse told me that back when she worked at UPS, they had to use not only military hours, but also military “minutes”, I had to ask wtf she meant by that. She told me that, for example, if it is 4:30pm, the military time would be 1650, if you used minutes too. I had to smh. She said she had all those military minutes memorized back when she worked for UPS, but has forgotten most of it now. I really wondered how she got through nursing school, and I had to tall Linda about that, but I digress…

Aside from working standing up for 5 hours in 35 degree weather, the job itself gets rather routine, rote, and frankly boring, until this happened:

A car drove up, stopped, and the driver indicated that the “patient” is in the back seat on the passenger side.

When she rolled down the window, there was an elderly (our patients right now are 75+) lady with a pretty, hand-made pink lacy mask.  I said, “Please raise your sleeve and hold it.”

I cleaned her deltoid with an alcohol wipe, waited 10 seconds for it to dry, and injected the needle. For some reason, I looked at her face. Her eyes were red, and big tears were rolling down her face onto her mask. This injection is a tiny needle, and only 0.3cc, so we don’t get many criers.

“OH! Did I hurt you?” I exclaimed. “I’m so sorry!”

“Oh no! I didn’t even feel it, Hon. These are tears of JOY. After 10 months, now I will finally be able to hug my grandchild.”

I cried too, and now, retelling it, I am crying yet again.

There are many stories similar to this one. As you go about your day, ZOOMing with your clubs and organizations, fist-bumping your friends, watching the skewed news, or wondering and worrying about the weather, you need to know how very much this vaccine means to so many people.

For many, this is not as much about being able to go back to church or to meetings or taking off your mask at the grocery store … it is about LOVE.