intramuralist ™

One’s mother. (Dictionary.com)

A female parent. (Merriam-Webster)

A woman whose egg unites with a sperm, producing an embryo. (American Heritage Medicine)

A woman who has borne a child. (Webster’s New World)

Also significant from Webster’s New World:

A stepmother.

An adoptive mother.

It is true that we each have a mother; we can’t be born without one. It is also true that we aren’t all capable of being a mother. So let us not fail to celebrate and give gratitude. Let us also not fail to be sensitive to those for whom this is hard. The reality is that our celebration does not exclude nor preclude our sensitivity. (A note for a future blog post: that’s one thing current culture really struggles with… we get dazed and confused in what we conclude as mutually exclusive… but alas, we digress..)

As we honor our mothers today, allow me a bit of a personal reflection — just sharing from my experience. Remember, of course, that each of our experiences are different. And that’s ok. It’s actually beautiful, too. We learn from one another…

My story is such that I have the very humbling joy and privilege to be the mother to three budding young men. Their gifts and personalities are distinct; we each have great, trusting relationships. No girls in my family. I figure God knew what he was doing as I still can’t tie a bow.

But when my oldest was born, I remember the moment like it was yesterday. I felt this immediate, almost unconditional love for him. It’s like it came out of nowhere! It soon dawned on me that my mom must have felt that, too. That instant, agape kind of love.

When he was not even one and sent off in the ambulance due to emergency, unexplainable seizures, I remember never feeling fear like that before. This was different. This was deeper. I was so scared. I needed to trust in more than me, as this situation was so out of my control. I have no doubt I must have scared the living daylights out of my mom, too, some days. Not all my decisions were wise ones.

That fear only intensified when my youngest would fight for his life only five years later. Talk about a situation being out of our control. I learned then the intensity of a mother’s fear… even when the kid has no idea. Even when the mom says nothing. My older sons couldn’t see my fear. Sometimes as a mom it became oh-so-clear that it was not about me. It wasn’t. My mom knew that, too.

I remember, also, all those major pride moments… striking out the side, dancing the best routine of their life, going to prom, picking out a new car, or maybe the first time my youngest with special needs was successful at cooking eggs (including a wee bit of egg shell, of course). “You celebrate each kid exactly where they are.” No competition involved. I know now how proud my mom must have been.

Then there’s those big moments, the really big ones… when they graduate, choose a college, get that first job with a real paycheck with more than a singular zero. It’s fun to watch them — fun to watch them gain confidence in themselves, become increasingly more self-aware… again, even if they don’t notice we are watching. I know my mom was watching me. Sharing in that pride, no doubt.

And then there’s that leaving home. Ah, yes. That’s a harder one. But we’ve trained them for this — encouraged them to be independent. It’s time. And so we affirm and hug and say our goodbyes — but as soon as that car pulls out of the drive, the silent tears begin to more generously flow. I know my mom cried them, too. Those are good tears.

Yes, there’s something special about a mom.

Let me say again for some moms, I know this is a hard day.  There is still something deeply special about you.

Respectfully…

AR

Congratulations! Well done! Regardless of your individual path, you have completed something significant. You have persevered. No worries about figuring all of life immediately now out; your goal is simply to take the next step. It’s a big one. It’s beautiful, too. There are also a few things to remember.

Remember, grad… 

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven…

A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.

A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up.

A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance… 

As you enter adulthood — even in these current crazy, uncertain times — allow us to address some brief truths as you focus on these few, albeit noteworthy, next steps…

First, there really is a time for everything — every activity under heaven, every season under the sun. To be clear, you will not desire each of these times. Every activity will not be awesome nor every season incredibly joyous nor fun. Don’t let me discourage you; that’s not my intent. My intent is for you to be prepared to wisely wrestle with reality.

Remember that to enjoy and to embrace are not the same thing. As you face life’s next chapters, the truth is that there will be seasons and chapters that stretch you beyond your wildest imagination — beyond where you ever thought you’d go or perhaps ever even wanted. You have a choice in how to respond. Remember that. When the time comes to tear down or turn away, embrace the time; when the time comes to speak, speak — laugh, laugh — and certainly grieve, grieve. Enjoying the season is less important than learning from the experience. The wise one learns and grows from every experience… from the seasons that are hard. Even yes, from now.

Second — and don’t let me shock you — but contrary to any long-held belief or fictional, rhetorical chant, you cannot be whatever you want to be. Sorry. Remember we are wrestling with reality. (Note: I apologize now on behalf of parents everywhere for not always promoting reality either; see Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and/or that jolly old St. Nick).

The reality is you (we) cannot be whatever/whoever you want to be (ie. see the many who’ve thought they should be President). You can, though, be all that God created you to be. How?

Embrace your gifts. Utilize the unique wiring within you — the wiring that makes you distinctly, uniquely you. Don’t compare yourself to another, falling prey to society’s hollow teaching that another person’s wiring or set up is somehow better or worse than yours. Simply embrace your own strengths and grow from your weaknesses. Seek God first; seek his intention for your life; find your greatest identity in being his kid. Then be who he created you to be, and do what he created you to do. Don’t compare your calling to any other. It will never be lesser. Whatever you do, do it well. 

And third — perhaps because I’m more verbose than I wish to admit — allow me to humbly offer our traditional, brief, rapid fire of final encouragement — those final things we parents wish to say once more as we pass the blessed baton into adulthood…

Love deeply. Extend grace generously. Never view grace and truth as opposites, as each should be applied in full measure. Wash your sheets. More than twice a year. Don’t be selfish. Resist any quickness to anger. Be fast to forgive. Be humble. Forgive again. Pursue wisdom. Don’t judge any by the color of their skin. Don’t judge period. Know the difference between judgment and discerning right from wrong. Learn from others. Learn from the different. Don’t be torn down by lesser things. Don’t think that the different means wrong. Nor offensive. Expand your mind. Stay in the conversation. Be slow to find offense. Stay put. Stay put when it’s hard. Consider coffee. Limit sugars. Find the wisdom and joy in both fasting and feasting. Be intentional in enjoying a good donut. Be intentional with more. Take an interest in others. Be sincere. Separate the reds from the whites. Including the wine. Be charitable. Save some. Spend some. Give some away. Don’t be afraid of sorrow. Put down the device. Watch your screen time. Be cautious with social media. Talk to people. Don’t quicken to offense. Chew with your mouth closed. Don’t think of equality with God as something to be grasped. Listen to the elderly; touch them. Invest in the young. Bow. Curtsy. Open doors for other people. Be unselfish. Do it again. Don’t keep count. Don’t make it about you. Show respect — in what you say and how you think. Remember that respect does not mean accepting as equally good and true. Remember that all things are not equally good and true. Know when to say that; know when to not. Look another in the eye. Use your napkin. Be discerning. Be aware that just because something feels good, it might not be wise. Be prayerful. Figure the faith thing out. And embrace each and every season shared above. Embrace the time to laugh. Again and again. Cry. Grieve. And yes, dance. Always dance.

There is a time for everything. Still and especially now. Don’t let any current circumstance make you doubt the hope and the future God has planned for you. He has a plan. And it is good.

Congrats, grads! It’s your time to dance. Enjoy as we so celebrate you.

To the Class of 2023…

AR

As I tuned in briefly to watch the really royal affair, fascinated by the bona fide pomp and circumstance, all sorts of questions swirled through this western wonderer’s fairly inquisitive mind. (ie. Where’s Harry? Isn’t Kate awesome? Isn’t Prince Louis the cutest? What would Diana think? Where’s the diversity? Does Prince Andrew still qualify to don the regal garb? And of course… where do they get those hats? Do they not know they’re crooked on their heads?)

But alas, I digress.

Intrigued by much, many caught my eye. But one made me think a little more.

As I watched Camilla Rosemary Shand then Parker Bowles then Duchess of Cornwall then Queen Consort to now (hopefully in the Palace’s eyes, just) Queen, the magnificence of the moment made me think of what she is known for. 

The bigger question, no less, is are we known for singular moments? Sole seasons in life? 

Or do we look at more?

Queen Camilla prompts an excellent question. As yesterday’s private promenade made its way to Buckingham’s public balcony, the masses ardently cheered for the newly crowned king and his bride. Is she known for being Queen? Or… in a respectful albeit inconvenient question… is she known for being one of so-called “three” in the King’s first marriage, the married woman who would have an ongoing affair with then Prince Charles while he was married to Princess Diana? Longtime royal watchers will attest that for many years, after the affair was a most poorly held secret, Camilla was known as one of the most hated women in Britain. Princess Diana’s tragic, untimely death, vilified Camilla even more.

So which is she most known for?

The villain or the victor? The devoted or the deceitful? The conniver or the Queen?

So that bigger question — and the one that’s relevant here, as it pertains to far more than the British royals — is: is it fair — wait — is it accurate to be known for only one thing? In other words, can we be known for more?

For example…

Ray Lewis is a very respected NFL Hall of Famer, after a successful career, marked by his contagious leadership. Inducted in 2018, he would begin by saying, “Oh, listen to me carefully. When God tells you something, believe Him. Listen to me. No matter the journey, oh, there’s too many ups and downs, but, boy, when you believe Him.” 18 years prior, Lewis was arrested and indicted on murder charges. He would later accept a plea deal helping him to avoid prison. He embraced what it means to be graciously given a second chance.

Robert Downey Jr. now enthusiastically enthralls millions as American superhero Iron Man. He is engaging, charismatic, and just downright fun to watch as Marvel’s movie star man. Little would one know of what his career previously entailed. Becoming a drug addict at age 8, his substance abuse would swell, spending much of his 20’s floundering and his 30’s arrested on drug-related charges, time in prison, and losing roles. He, too, is therefore, a story of redemption… one indeed for whom, should be known for more than one thing.

I think of this often in this whole cancel culture movement — this idea that it’s ok to shut down something or someone for a perceived wrong committed at one time in their life. In contemporary times, it’s a shutting down of present activity. In past times, it’s an erasing of history. It’s assuming they know all that we know now. It’s assuming only they (never we) make significant mistakes. And it’s assuming that singular moment, that sole season in life, is all they should ever be known for.

In October of 2011, Robert Downey Jr. was being honored at the 25th American Cinematheque Awards. Downey chose actor Mel Gibson, another who has had more than one shining and not so shining moment over the course of his career to introduce him. Gibson would publicly say of Downey, after his very public moral failing, that Downey was one of the first not to shun, but to reach out, to recognize that we are always about more. Downey would call and say to Gibson, “Hey, welcome to the club. Let’s go see what we can do to work on ourselves.”

What sweet wisdom it is to know that we are known for more… to know, too, that redemption can be the most beautiful thing. 

Respectfully…

AR

Ok, friends, let’s do it. Let’s go totally political today because we can. And because we know we’re going to be inundated with a coming monstrosity of ads, insults and manipulated impression management the closer we get to 2024 — and will thus need to turn the TV off and stay away from all newsy sources and sites in order to maintain some sense of individual sanity. Today, though, just today, before things get tougher, tenser and rhetorically turbulent, let’s talk one aspect of the 2024 presidential race.

Ugh. Egad. We said it out loud. Well, out loud for a blog post, that is.

The exasperated sigh within the above “ugh” and “egad” is because we know this is going to get ugly. I will say it and think it some three zillion times between now and ‘24’s November. I just don’t understand how seemingly intelligent people can justify speaking so consistently horribly about other people. On both sides of the aisle. One of my most prominent takeaways from recent election cycles is how obvious it is that intelligence and wisdom are not the same thing. The wise one never justifies ongoing insult and disrespect.

So before more magniloquent fuel stokes the partisan fire, allow me to share a working supposition I’m playing with at the onset of the upcoming election season. Note that a supposition is only a theory — and a working one at that. But increasingly more, I’m believing it to be true…

Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump need each other, and as a country, we need neither.

Hear no inflammatory rhetoric. No ferocity either. With all due respect, from this admittedly limited, distant vantage point, I think Joe needs Donald, Donald needs Joe, and we as a country would be better off if neither of them was our primary leader.

Let me be as plain-stated as possible. When I listen to Pres. Trump, I rarely walk away impressed by any deep sense of humility. I don’t find him consistently compassionate. I thus often feel his real campaign slogan is “Elect Me Because I’m Donald Trump.”

When I listen to Pres. Biden, there are multiple moments where cognitive decline is clearly in question. I don’t find him consistently competent. But he beat Trump once. I thus often feel his real campaign slogan is “Elect Me Because I’m NOT Donald Trump.”

Both of them seem to be running on a referendum on the 45th President of the United States. Such was evident in each of their reelection campaign announcements. Neither touted a litany of accomplishment; each alluded more to personality than policy.

Friends, as a country, we’ve got some tough challenges in need of discerning next best steps and efficient solutions… the economy, health care, immigration, inflation, spending, national security, individual safety, civil liberties, welfare, election integrity, environment, poverty, climate, crime, gun deaths, free speech, religious freedom, national unity, not to mention China, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, and so much more. But if two people from two different angles are more focused on who they are or are not, that tells me it’s less about us than it is about them. And if it’s about them, then they are not serving our country well.

There is no one person our country is in dire need of. In fact, every HR director worth his or her salt, so-to-speak, will tell you that the best leaders are those who know they are replaceable — who know that we can survive and actually thrive with or without them… Do your job. Do it well. But have a level of self-awareness that recognizes you are just one person. You are not Jesus. You are not the Savior we are desperately in need of… I admit. I respectfully question the self-awareness of both the current and most recent President.

Presidents Biden and Trump keep acting like we need them. The reality is they need each other; it plays into their desired mantra since neither is popular with a majority of the country. So they propagandishly paint the other as some sort of death to democracy, and then each act as if they alone can and need to save us. Sorry. That’s misleading and used to promote their own partisan cause. There are far more people on this planet who are both compassionate and competent and know they are not called nor capable of being our Savior. There are far more people on this planet who know how to respect more than one political party.

We’re not the only ones noting this national dysfunction. NBC’s “Meet the Press” — not known for their absence of bias — kicked off this week’s “First Read” briefing by calling it “the codependent presidential campaign of 2024.” It’s codependent because the majority of us don’t want either to be President, but Biden and Trump are each relying on the other, nemesis and all, to help them get there. 

To be clear, “codependence” is unquestionably unhealthy. We deserve better and more.

Respectfully…

AR

Fresh out of college — knowing lots — but also true, not knowing what I didn’t know — I had the distinct privilege of establishing my HR career in the hospitality industry in southeast Florida. It was an excellent, stretching, life-changing experience, learning to do life with truly diverse people groups. I learned to manage, to motivate, to live with and learn from. That’s with people of varied ethnicity, education, income, intelligence, sexuality, nationality, you-name-it. No doubt the hotel is a diverse place. It was here that I only began to learn what hospitality really was. 

Years later now I continue to gain insight. And I’m thinking that hospitality might be the one thing that would make all things better. Let’s face it… take even a tiny glance at those right track/wrong track polls; it doesn’t take anywhere near a rocket scientist to discern that the clear majority of us wish for society/culture/etc. to be far better. 

What if hospitality held the key… if it made all better… and if we really knew what it was…

When defining hospitality, we speak of something a little bit other than the quickest meaning we conjure up, that being the business of providing food, drink, and accommodations for one’s paying clientele. The included idea of provision resonates, though. And true, we did that quite well in our numerous, luxury-oriented hotel properties.

We also speak of something a little bit other than the idea of “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.” Granted, the word “friendly” seems relevant. “Generous,” too. And while we’re at it, let’s not miss the noteworthy inclusion of strangers. Strangers are people we don’t really know… even if we think we do.

So let’s put all of the above together…

Hospitality is the consistent kindness toward friends and strangers alike. 

Let me rephrase: hospitality means treating all people — known or unknown — with generous kindness and warmth.

But there’s a problem. We each oft justify omitting singular words and then fool ourselves into thinking we’re still somehow hospitable.

Maybe we omit “generous.” Maybe it’s the “kindness” or “warmth.” Maybe “unknown” — after all, if we don’t really know them. Or maybe, too, “consistent”… maybe even “all.”

… consistent treatment… to all people…

I get it. Some people are harder for us to be kind to than others. And sometimes we really just don’t understand how another thinks. But that makes sense; the more we get close to people, the more we’ll see things — behaviors and beliefs — that just don’t makes sense to us. Our story is different. Our experience is different.

But not making sense is not license for forgoing hospitality.

To be consistent, to be consistently kind, to all, what if we changed the way we responded when we don’t understand the story and experience that’s different?

Instead of responding to what we don’t understand with all those unhealthy, voluntary reactions — ie. anger, judgment, and offense — what if we first learned to pause? To be still? To buy us a bit of time to be who and what’s wisest?

“Time for what?” one logically asks.

Time to be curious.

Follow me here for a brief moment.

I heard a wise man speak on hospitality — the idea being bigger than that food and drink and frolicking business sector. He talked about how hospitality diffuses hostility. And one of the ways that happens so simply yet profoundly, powerfully and effectively, occurs when we’re confronted with a behavior or belief that we don’t understand.

Instead of reacting, be curious. Be curious — not furious. 

Ask about what we don’t understand. Ask some more.

Yes, let’s be better. Let’s be a truly hospitable people.

Respectfully…

AR

One of the places my pondering lands me is that I think we keep encouraging collective cases of mistaken identity. We take all these good things in life — our appearance, gifting, gender, ethnicity, you-name-it — and instead of seeing them as beautiful ways we’ve been wired, we see that as our actual identity. While beautifully diverse, it’s not the same as who we are. Our identity comes from something more.

There’s a ton on this topic — more than a singular, standard day’s post. But I witnessed an insightful expression this week by Mary Harrington, an articulate author and researcher who’s spent avid years not fitting into some culturally-crafted, binary box. She shares this book excerpt in The Free Press, how feminism became her identity… and how she mistook freedom for feminism. This is fascinating, friends…

* * * * *

I was born the year Margaret Thatcher came to power. My first political memory is the fall of the Berlin Wall. The reverberations, followed by glasnost and perestroika, marked the decade of my teens. For an average middle-class girl in 1990s Home Counties Britain, the big battles seemed to have been won, and the great disagreements of history settled. Progress was the backdrop to all we did; relative material comfort and safety could be taken for granted. And I firmly believed in feminism’s capacity to bring about continued progress: after all, over the period between my grandmother’s birth in 1914, and my own in 1979, women’s lives had changed immeasurably for the better. 

Studying critical and queer theory as an English Literature undergraduate at Oxford both confirmed and radically scrambled my faith in progress. At Oxford I was taught that language itself helps to shape meaning—and, worse, that every “sign” can only be defined in relation to other signs. In other words, we have no way of experiencing truth directly or objectively. How this related to the material world—the pressures of survival or the demands of physical life—was unclear.

This mental shift sent me (to say the least) a bit loopy. Overnight, the hallowed buildings of Oxford University stopped looking like an expression of ancient traditions where I could find my place. Suddenly they were hostile incursions by something phallic, domineering, and authoritarian. I told a friend that I experienced the “dreaming spires” as “barbed penises straining to fuck the sky.”

I wish I could say this paranoid state passed swiftly. After I graduated, I carried a visceral aversion to hierarchies, a fierce defensiveness against anything that felt like someone trying to wield power over me, and a determination to make the world a better place. All this made me a less than ideal employee. I drifted through low-paying jobs, wrote unreadable novels, and tried my hand at anti-capitalism. This extended to my views on women. I’d read Judith Butler’s 1990 book, Gender Trouble, in which she argues that neither sex nor “gender” exist pre-politically, but instead are social constructs that we “perform” in a system that’s imposed on us, and that we reimpose on ourselves and others by participating in it.

Disrupting this system seemed possible, perhaps for the first time, thanks to technology. In the heady early years of social media, it suddenly was easy to find others with similar interests. I experimented with drugs, kink, and nonmonogamous relationships. It felt possible to reimagine our genders and create supportive communities to realize our inner lives. I changed my name to Sebastian for a while. I pondered whether I really was female. It felt liberating, revolutionary, and unambiguously like the “progress” I’d always dreamed of.

With friends, I founded a web start-up that aimed to disrupt education the way eBay had disrupted auctions. We hoped to make the world a better place and make ourselves a whole lot richer. And we somehow made it to first-round funding in East London’s febrile “Silicon Roundabout” community.

Yet every egalitarian commune I drifted through turned out to be full of interpersonal power games. One likely common factor was me. Real egalitarian utopias may have been possible, just without me and my issues. But I don’t think it was just me. Increasingly, too, I found the shifting constellations of romantic entanglements unsatisfying, and longed for a more enduring partnership. But I was skeptical of the political ramifications of doing so with a man. Would that not represent selling out?

In 2008 our start-up imploded (much as in the communes, I was a major contributing factor in the implosion), and so did the global economy, puncturing my fantasy of social challenges being solved through the creativity and dynamism of markets. I lost my social circle, my career, most of my convictions, and the majority of my identity. It took years to reassemble something like a workable worldview from the smoking ruins of my anti-hierarchical idealism. By the time I emerged in my mid-thirties, I was married to a man, no longer lived in London, and had qualified as a psychotherapist.

And: I had a baby. Up to the point where I got pregnant, I’d taken for granted that men and women are substantially the same apart from our biology, and “progress” meant broadly the same thing for both sexes: the equal right to self-realization, shorn of culturally imposed obligations, expectations, stereotypes, or constraints.

The experience of being pregnant, and then a new mother, blew this out of the water. …

* * * * *

I find myself sitting here with more questions than answers. But it’s clear Harrington is a work in progress who sees something different now. Still beautiful, still diverse, but something more…

Respectfully…

AR

I watched a mom bury her son this week. He was 13. The cause of death — or at least motivation for death — remains unclear. But it made me think. It made me think of the adolescent that ends all intentionally… the one who has concluded at such an incredibly young age — an age with so much, much more to know, grow and explore — that life simply isn’t worth living. What makes them think that?

The IndyStar, my original hometown paper, recently chronicled the life of one such 13 year old. Let none of my words stand for theirs…

“On the afternoon of the worst day of Terry Badger II’s life, the text message from his son never came. ‘Hey dad, I’m home. Going to do my homework. I’ll see you here in a little bit.’ Thirteen-year-old Terry Badger III sent those words, or some variation of them, every single afternoon to his dad at work, just like the morning messages Terry sent without fail that said, ‘I’m up. Getting ready for school. Love you.’

His dad got the morning message from Terry on March 6. But not the afternoon one. That was odd. Terry was home from school. His mom, Robyn, had dropped him off just after 3 p.m. then left for a quick run to the gas station. She had no reason to think she shouldn’t leave Terry alone. There were no signs. On the car ride home, Terry had acted like he always acted, smiling, happy, nothing out of the ordinary, Robyn said. He talked like he always talked, about his plans to get his homework done so he could go to the baseball field at 4:30 p.m. to practice batting with his dad and some friends. But Terry wasn’t really thinking about batting practice or homework on that car ride home, his parents later found out. He wasn’t thinking about texting his dad after school. His parents found that out when they watched the video Terry recorded just after 3 p.m. on March 6. Their son was in a very dark place. Terry believed, in those moments, his life wasn’t worth living.”

That leads us to a simple search of Wikipedia which yields the following insight: “Youth suicide attempts are more common among girls, but adolescent males are the ones who usually carry out suicide. Suicide rates in youths have nearly tripled between the 1960s and 1980s… In the U.S., according to the National Institute of Mental Health, the suicide rate is the 2nd leading cause of death for adolescents between the ages of 10 and 14, and the third leading cause of death for those between 15-19.”

In other words, this is a problem.

Let’s go a few places quickly, attempting to get at least some grip as to the why — why the intentional end?… what was the adolescent’s family life like? Was it healthy? Were there solid both male and female role models? Was there any abuse? Was the core hope provided in their family something that lasts beyond the now?

We then look at social media… oh my; let me try to be kind — this instant, insulated environment that serves as the younger generation’s number one source of comparison. Comparison isn’t good, friends. Comparison lures us into making concrete  conclusions about what’s good and right and true based on the hollow and incomplete. And what about the insulated world of bullying that ensues? Note Terry Badger’s words from that heartbreaking video: “I get picked on every (single) day and I hate my life. You can thank (Terry listed his bullies’ names) for this.” … I can only imagine.

Which leads us to one more place…

For the adolescent who intentionally ends his life… are we modeling for them an adulthood they’d actually want to be part of? Are we showing them what responsible and respectful behavior looks like?

Or… do we justify the bullying? Do we create better, nicer, adult-sounding words for how we torment or tyrannize? Words like the need to silence, shout another down, or God-forbid, invoke cancel culture?

Let me then ask the zillion dollar question, that any teenage death has the profound potential to prompt… are we being kind to one another?

Or… are we justifying being unkind to any? Are we acting as if adulthood is a place that justifies unkindness… or perhaps, therefore, an adult world that’s not really all that fun to be a part of.

So one more Q, as this is where my head went today… what’s it going to take? What’s it going to take to ask for forgiveness? … to grant forgiveness? To repair relationships? At the end of this earthly life, that’s really all we have: relationships. So what’s it going to take? We don’t have to minimize any wrongdoing, but we also don’t have to let the awkward get in the way. Have that conversation.

Let’s be an adulthood that the younger generation respects and actually wants to grow into.

Let’s not allow any unkindness to linger.

Bottom line: let’s do what’s better. Let’s model more to the younger generations. Let there be no kindness left on our table.

Respectfully…

AR

I’ve been thinking about this one for a while now. Sometimes my brain needs to sit and stew a bit. In fact, I’m thinking that’s a behavior that’s wise for all to periodically examine… am I sitting and stewing, pausing and reflecting, considering what I say before I just blurt it out? Or do I let my emotion run wild, come hell or high water, and just say what I think when I think it… Still processing, friends.

My stewing sense is we have a deep shortage. There is something lacking among us. Something we desperately crave…

According to various food, farmer and supplier associations, for example, the following (unlucky 13) food shortages are expected in 2023:

1. Beef
2. Lettuce
3. Beer (… which interestingly, may now be creatively averted by the current Bud Light controversy…)
4. Champagne
5. Oranges
6. Cooking oil
7. Butter
8. Corn
9. Eggs
10. Tomatoes
11. Bread
12. Olive oil
13. Infant formula

In addition to food, multiple other products are in short supply… lithium/other EV components, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors among them…

But I’m thinking there’s something bigger… something, yes, true, intangible, but also, far more valuable. We crave authenticity.

authenticity – the quality of being authentic; genuineness.

So what does it mean to be authentic?

authentic – 

• not false or copied; genuine; real.
• having an origin supported by unquestionable evidence; authenticated; verified.
• representing one’s true nature or beliefs; true to oneself or to the person identified.
• entitled to acceptance or belief because of agreement with known facts or experience; reliable; trustworthy.

In other words, to be authentic means to be real. No question. No PR. No propaganda nor saying what you think we want to hear or what simply sounds best. It’s saying what’s true, trustworthy… while also having an honest opinion about self and sharing that appropriately. We crave what’s genuine and real.

It’s why we grimace when some speak — the leaders who claim a demonstrative moral high ground one day but the day before justified total denigration. It’s why we cringe when former Pres. Trump belts out his latest boastful bravado or current Pres. Biden attempts to act as if he was responsible for no errors in Afghanistan. It’s why we shake our heads when NBA star Draymond Green stomps on an opponent’s rib cage in the middle of a playoff game this week and responds with “I gotta land my foot somewhere.”

My point is this. It takes zero rocket science to discern if what those persons are telling us is reliable, genuine, supported by unquestionable evidence, trustworthy or true.

And sadly, because those in the limelight do it, many of us follow in response. A little lie here. A little lie there. It may be partially true. But partially true, is not true…

Didn’t feel like going to work today? I’ll just say I wasn’t feeling great.

Didn’t want to have that hard conversation? I’ll just tell them I’m busy.

Didn’t want to admit my mistake? Oh, easy. I can point to what they did.

And just like that, the trickle down theory of inauthenticity is accepted and spreads. And spreads some more.

That’s hard. Especially when what we crave — and desperately need — is so much better and more.

Respectfully…

AR

Suffice it to say we’re not good at all conversations. In fact, it continues to amaze me how frequently I hear the refrain from otherwise, fairly intelligent people that they are actually unwilling to engage in dialogue. Their tune goes something like this: “I know how I feel. It’s what I believe. And nothing you can do or say will change how I think!” (Insert %^&#$!! at said refrain’s exclamatory end.) And just like that, hopes for higher ed are grossly halted.

One of the collective harder conversations is the question of gun control, gun violence, or gun homicide. Our tendency is typically to remain quiet until there’s a mass killing, and then pending the demographics of the shooter and/or victims dictating who/what we focus on and who we feel free to condemn, the situation simultaneously prompts the politicians’ blame game and social media’s plethora of memes pleading basically to “do something.” This may be going out on a bit of a fictitious limb here, but it would seem exceedingly challenging to find any effective solution when blame and memes are our primary communication tools.

What I’d like to do today is wrestle a bit with what’s true, what’s not, not with any sense of advocacy or opposition, but more to help us communicate better when we have these conversations. What are the issues? What’s true? What’s not? Where are both parties actually playing games with us? 

Let me forewarn you now; there won’t be any nice neat, metaphorical bow at the end of this post. I am simply making observations the blame and memes tend to omit. Not everything fits with their desired narratives. Hence…

• Mass shootings are defined differently. The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group (which supplies much of today’s statistics), defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter. The FBI, on the other hand, has not set a minimum number of casualties to qualify an event as a mass shooting, and defines a mass shooting — also called an “active shooter incident” — as an event in which one or more individuals are “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. Implicit in this definition is the shooter’s use of a firearm.”

• The estimated number of firearm deaths, excluding suicides, in 2022 was 20,138. When suicides are included, that number more than doubles, as nearly 6 out of every 10 gun deaths are suicides. Suicides are increasing in 2023. The increase in firearm suicide among black teenagers has increased 120% over the last decade.

• Thus far in 2023, at time of this writing, there have been 12,147 gun deaths. Homicide or unintentional use equates to 5,217 of those deaths. The majority of these deaths have occurred in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and Louisiana.

• Mass shootings account for only a small fraction of these deaths, with 209 thus far in this calendar year. Such equates to 1.7%.

• According to Britannica’s mass shooting statistics from 2022, a handgun was the weapon of choice in 57% of the incidents. A semi-automatic rifle was used in 32% of the shootings.

• In regard to where the mass shootings took place, the two most frequent locations where in in the workplace (42%) and then in a school (17%).

• Gun homicides are concentrated in cities—half of all gun homicides took place in just 127 cities.

• Cities with the most homicides in 2023 are: (1) St. Louis, MO, (2) Baltimore, MD, (3) New Orleans, LA, (4) Detroit, MI, (5) Cleveland, OH, (6) Las Vegas, NV, (7) Kansas City, MO, (8) Memphis, TN, (9) Newark, NJ, and (10) Chicago, IL.

• According to Pew Research Center, “Americans in rural areas typically favor more expansive gun access, while Americans in urban places prefer more restrictive policies.”

• There is broad partisan agreement on preventing those with mental illness to purchase guns and also for subjecting private gun sales and gun show sales to background checks. Majorities in both parties also oppose allowing people to carry concealed firearms without a permit. On other gun control efforts, both parties have also blocked reasonable-to-at-least-consider, publicly popular measures that were proposed by the other side, possibly (and this next phrase is clearly opinion) simply because it did not fit their party’s prioritized narrative.

Just wanting to understand what’s happening and what’s not. I also don’t want to be lured by any partisan hyperbole or hypocrisy. The blame and the memes don’t help.

Respectfully…

AR

It was a scary Saturday to say the least. But let’s not start there. While it may be a simple story, as is typical with life’s inherent teachings, the point is so much bigger… that is, if we’re willing to pause, reflect and actually see it.

We are new to this pet owner thing. Well, new as of 7 years ago to being semi-responsible dog owners. I’m not really comfortable with the word “owners” there. The fact is that Yogi, our 53 lb. British Labrador Retriever, is no doubt a full-fledged family member. She eats, sleeps, plays, exercises and so much more right alongside of the rest of us. She also is the family’s most humble, loyal member.

As for temperament, our golden brown gal is kind and gentle, never anxious, and always eager to be playful. She would never be classified as ferocious… but try not to say that too loudly; we enjoy her bark as an extra home security measure… although with a touch or a treat, any would-be thief would quickly discern her feeble safeguarding ability. All that to say, our family loves her so.

We also have never had any significant issues with Yogi. Thank God she’s been healthy and also quite obedient. Our challenges have been few. That is, until Saturday.

As is my weekend practice, I went on one of my longer, multi-mile walks, stopping to see a dear friend along the way, when my youngest calls and says, “Mom, we’ve got a big problem,” words no parent is 100% certain as to what will come next. “Yogi is gone. We can’t find her anywhere!” 

We’re in the midst of a construction project on the back of our house. When Yogi went out back as usual this morn, she uncovered a new, quite creative egress. Note that had any of us been with her, she would most likely have never ventured off; she loves to be with us and stays continuously near. But with none of us in sight, it was a little like the wardrobe suddenly opening up in the iconic “Chronicles of Narnia” series, just daring young Edmund Pevensie to explore. Edmund was curious. So was Yogi. Yes, time to explore an exciting, newfound world.

I raced home to aid in the search. Two of my sons were out separately wandering. I picked up the youngest by car, and off we went, slowly, deliberately, street by street, rotating rhythms of calling her name aloud and silently saying our prayers.

We live in a wonderful, contemporary wellness community. It is growing and vibrant and full of activity. It also has many streets, many back-of-house alleys, and multiple thoroughfares where the average speed is a little faster. Cars are always coming through. Hence, not only was I actively searching for Yogi, I was preparing my head and my heart for what I would say to my youngest son should we find Yogi, but not in an ok state.

I pulled off to the side of the road and texted my neighbors. They called, sharing the concern. One put Yogi’s pic on our neighborhood social media page. We continued to search. Worry increased.

Soon we had a sighting. A young boy, maybe 7 or so — who also has a dog as a full-fledged family member — took a picture and shared it with his dad. His dad would later tell me his son said he did what he would want others to do if his dog had gotten away. 

They would try to grab Yogi, but she’s fast, you know. She ran again; she likes to play. But they put that pic on our Facebook page. Soon, then, there was another sighting. And then another.

Our neighborhood is wonderful but big; we don’t all know each other. “Does anyone know whose dog this is?” Many would ask. And then, a friend here, a co-worker there… they each chimed in. Finally, after a search that lasted a good 90 minutes, someone posted they had Yogi.

Apparently, a dad and his kids were walking down one of our many sidewalks, and noticed a dog swimming in an adjacent lake. We have lots of lakes in our community. We also have lots of gators. Dangerous, lunch-searching gators. The dad, knowing this wasn’t ok, called our pup over, to which Yogi, being as social as she is, pleasantly obliged. That dad walked the rest of the way home, holding Yogi’s collar, putting her in their backyard, as they awaited our visit.

My point today isn’t simply to share an emotional Saturday. It’s also not any advocacy of owning a dog. Rather, as we recovered our furriest family member and my heart was slowly put back into my chest, it dawned on me how the problem was solved… how a real difference was made.

There are lot of people here. We’re diverse. We don’t all think alike. We don’t all act alike. And we don’t all look alike. We have different beliefs, different creeds and different colors. But when there was a significant problem, one that needed to be urgently solved, instead of pointing any fingers, instead of casting any blame, instead of demanding groupthink and denouncing all that’s otherwise, we kept what was most important, most important. We worked together, respecting all, with the priority of solving the problem.

One of the reasons our country struggles so much is because we let other things get in the way. We prioritize things other than working together, respecting all, and solving the problem.

Yogi, for one, is grateful our sweet community isn’t like that.

Respectfully…

AR