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Earlier this week I stepped out of my door onto the walking path. The sky was clear and brilliant blue in every direction save for a faint smudge that was the sleeping moon, God’s thumbprint on a new day. As I walked, somewhere in Utah the police stepped into a crime scene searching for evidence, a fingerprint perhaps. A young man, a boy really, had turned assassin. Where could he be? Why did he do it? Somewhere else, a grief stricken family stepped out onto the tarmac to receive the body of their son, husband, and father. He had left his handprint on their hearts. They will be devastated for a long time to come. Little was known about the shooter that morning. The victim was well known. Many people disagreed strongly with the victim’s rhetoric. Right or wrong in his point of view, killing him was wrong, and it did not make him a saint, but it did make him a martyr, silencing the opposition, elevating his words and beliefs, giving them even more attention and power. People who had never heard of him will now remember him forever. No one will remember the shooter’s name. He will be just another lost boy with a gun. I walked on thinking of all of them, all of us. We are all part of the same family. Every mother and father can imagine the grief of both sets of parents, both families. A mother myself, I ponder the question, “what is happening to our sons?” Why are they especially vulnerable to the hate proliferating in our society through our politics, social media, and video games? Why, increasingly, do polls show young men believe in violence as a solution to life’s problems? As an aging adult, I am exhausted by the hate and cruelty of some of our politicians and by the unchecked social media that generates continuous, unrelenting outrage to sell advertising. Perhaps a young person still gaining control of his impulses and the powers of his mind is unable to manage it, to shove it down, to find another outlet. In the growing isolation in which we live, the anger, outrage, and hatred grow unchecked inside him. Maybe the pain of being invisible just makes him want to be seen, to be remembered… I walked along that morning contemplating what has happened to our humanity. Fifty years ago a self-esteem movement began to gain momentum. Perhaps thinking of oneself has gone too far. We now live in an age of narcissism. Long past loving our neighbors as ourselves, we elected a man for president who once boasted that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue in New York and get away with it, a man convicted of sexual assault and fraud, a man who has upended the entire world with his cruelty. Is this the new role model for young men? Alone on the path, I thought of the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story in which robbers strip, beat, and leave a Jewish man for dead alongside a road. A Jewish priest and a Levite cross the street to avoid the victim, to pass him by, but another traveler, a Samaritan is “moved with compassion” and stops to help even though Jews and Samaritans were known to be antagonistic toward one another. Perhaps the Jewish priest and the Levite who passed by the suffering victim thought only about themselves, their fears, their reputations: “What’s in it for me? What are the risks to me if I stop? What will people in my social circle think of me?” But the Samaritan was capable of thinking first about the victim: “What will happen to him if I don’t stop?” Perhaps, implicit in that thought was the Samaritan’s belief that his own soul would be irreparably damaged if he failed to attend to his neighbor’s needs. The Samaritan boldly left his fingerprints at the scene of the crime because he did not need to hide. I returned home exhausted by the awareness that the hateful rhetoric would likely escalate in the days ahead, that any attempt at conversation would be deemed evidence of being “far right” or “radical left.” As I stepped inside my home, I glanced back at the thumbprint on the sky and silently promised the One who had left it there that I will stop for a stranger in need regardless of his politics. Compassion is the high road and the only road out of this mess.
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Just before he died on the cross, Jesus cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Forsaken. It is a word so potent that I fear to say it out loud. But on this day when I am filled with grief, I cry out, “Where are you, God?” There is no immediate answer. And so, as I do when I am troubled, I go for a walk. On my third lap around an enormous parking lot a woman steps out of the lone car parked there and asks me, “May I walk with you? My name is Rita.” Rita explains that she is waiting for her roommate to finish work on the building’s security detail. Happy for some company to interrupt my thoughts in the desolate lot, I eagerly say, “Yes!” I slow to Rita’s pace and to her conversation. The woman quickly opens up about her life and family. As we approach a beautiful courtyard, she asks, “Can we sit down?” We enter the courtyard and sit on facing benches. She tells me about her 90-year-old mother who suffers from dementia. Rita’s mother no longer remembers Rita when they are face-to-face, but she remembers a daughter named Rita and describes her daughter to this stranger that adult Rita has become. Rita laughs at the insights these conversations provide about how her mother feels about the daughter she remembers. Rita speaks of her love for her mother and about leaving home as a young bride. She speaks about missing her mother and then begins to tell me something: “After I left, I heard that my mother set the table…” but Rita cannot go on. Her eyes well up with tears, and she turns her face away from mine. Rita covers her quivering lips with her hand, and then she does it…she apologizes for her sadness, for becoming emotional. I lean in and wait. Rita collects herself and turns back to face me. I see that she is embarrassed and fears resuming the conversation. I say, “It is clear that your mother missed you too.” This acknowledgment and acceptance remove the emotional chokehold on Rita’s throat, and the conversation continues. Rita has lived away from her mother’s home for a lifetime. In the intervening years, Rita has become a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother, and yet she is moved to tears by this memory of being loved, being missed, being longed for, and feeling responsible for that longing, and now, she feels the way her mother once did as her mother’s dementia leaves Rita feeling forsaken. We live in a time when people are feeling overwhelmed by events and some are dying of loneliness, and yet the expression of sadness seems to be the only form of speech that is not acceptable. Nothing is more threatening than to hear that someone is sad or scared or empty. We sense that sadness is dangerous, that we might have to act, and so sadness festers in silence. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus’ last words before he died--a stunning demonstration of his bravery and his humanity. I asked, “Where are you, God?” He answered, “May I walk with you?” And now my question is this: With 8.2 billion people in the world, need any of us feel forsaken? Walk with someone today.  Welcome to America’s hottest new game show: What About the Other Guy?--the audience-participation game in which powerful people are confronted about their behavior. The point of the game is to see who is best at evading responsibility for his actions by shifting attention to someone else. The contestant’s role is to maintain his stance as victim while responding with vague and impressionistic speech that deflects all responsibility for his actions. The contestant then asks: “What about the other guy?” and begins naming names. Prior to the start of the show, audience members record their guesses of who the contestant will attempt to humiliate in this word version of grade school dodge ball. The audience’s answers are compared with the accusations of the contestant, and the correct audience members go home with bragging rights and a moral vacuum. Contestants for the show are selected from a large pool of politicians, CEOs, and powerful wannabes who enjoy the spotlight. When the buzzer sounds at the end of the game, the person who has knocked out and humiliated all of the other guys wins a leadership position in the corporation or branch of government of his choosing where he can raise endless amounts of cash and create maximum pandemonium while building a celebrity brand. The winner is sure to become America’s favorite advisor on everything from space travel to socks, and he receives the additional psychological benefit of unleashing every bit of anger and venom he has nursed throughout his life along with the opportunity to seek pardons for crimes previously committed but not yet publicly revealed. The top ten winners return for the Tournament of Champions, an extreme contest in which the participants compete to see who can bring an end to democracy in the shortest amount of time without breaking a sweat. The winner of that contest earns the title of King, his own social media platform, a television series in which he gets to play God, and a trip to outer space inside a giant penis-shaped rocket. Interested in becoming a contestant? Please answer the following screening questions: 1. Is there anyone smarter than you? 2. Have you ever been wrong? 3. Does a sworn oath mean anything to you? 4. Have you ever been accused of decency? If you answered “yes” to any of the questions, you are not eligible to participate at this time, but keep trying. We love a contestant who never gives up. In the meantime, follow us on our social media platform: What About where we will never share your data. But if it does get out, don't call us; it was probably that other guy.  This is a week of reckoning, not only in Georgia, or the U.S. House of Representatives, or the Senate, or even the White House. This is a time of reckoning for the American people, a day to ask, “What is happening to us?” All of us. When I was a child, there was a saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” but, of course, some words did hurt. That saying was a child’s feeble response to bullying. We also tried the “I’m rubber, you’re glue; everything bounces off me and sticks to you” defense. It was something a victim might say in the moment, but, again, the words didn’t bounce; they stung. Nothing stuck to the bully, however; his damaged heart was coated in Teflon. Later, when I was a teenager opening my eyes to a wider world and to history, I studied the Holocaust in high school. I watched films and read books. How, I wondered, how could such a thing happen? The horrors were so grave, human behavior so atrocious. I could not grasp how an average citizen could become so monstrous in the treatment of neighbors, friends, and relatives. How could a leader convince an average person, a previously law-abiding person, to abandon his conscience and turn on his countrymen? As an adult social worker and therapist, I had the privilege of meeting European and Russian survivors of the Holocaust. The survivors I met were remarkable people. All of them shared how they once found the rumors of atrocities in their homelands to be unfathomable. All of them had believed that if they kept their heads down and obeyed the rules, did not draw attention to themselves, did what was asked, then right and decency would triumph. Except that it didn’t. Evil prevailed. After years of torment, the survivors were grateful to the Americans who saved them. When World War II ended, Americans settled on a belief that Hitler’s brand of evil was an anomaly, a thing of the past, “it can’t happen here” people said. In the weeks since the United States 2020 presidential election, I have felt paralyzed by the realization that it is happening here, here in the United States of America, the country that once saved the world for democracy. Prior to yesterday’s riots in the Capitol, I fretted over the bloodshed I feared was coming. My friends were more optimistic believing the worst was over. My fears this week have been informed by years of observation and study. There is a growing percentage of the population with a troubling personality type characterized by rigid thinking, an inability to consider opposing points of view, limited capacity for insight, impulsive behavior and poor self-regulation, people with only two settings--adulation or retaliation. As the need for adulation grows, the degree of retaliation escalates. These are people who become intoxicated by demeaning others. They become incapable of empathy. When psychiatrists and mental health professionals studied the imprisoned Nazi guards and elites awaiting trial at Nuremberg, the professionals determined that the guards and Nazi officials were incapable of empathy. That missing ingredient made all manner of horror possible--no shame, no regrets. No amount of facts, no album of photos, no film footage, no eyewitness report could get these prisoners to re-evaluate their actions. Their minds were rigid, their hearts impenetrable. They were made of Teflon and rubber—everything bounced off and stuck to someone else. Today, Twitter has replaced the millions of propaganda-filled leaflets that the Nazi’s once dropped from the sky like snow—the alternative news of that day. Social media has become a place where people can demean and destroy others, turn on their neighbors, and delight in mob rule. People are seduced by gossip and alternative facts on this contagious and intoxicating medium. Without direct eye contact, people lose the capacity to experience the emotional consequences of their words and actions. A light keystroke doesn’t have the same hard impact of throwing a punch to someone’s head, but it can have the same or worse effect. We are all complicit when we view, and share, and like, and tweet, and post these troubling words. It is not just the social media companies that need to police their platforms. Each of us needs to police ourselves. What goes on privately in the windmills of a person’s mind needs to stay there until properly evaluated. We need to consider the people we elevate to stardom and leadership. Social media has made it possible for people to become wealthy and powerful simply by being outrageous, liked, and viewed. At a time when educated, experienced experts are being denigrated, radio shock-jocks, and porn stars are sought for their opinions because they are “influencers” and have followers. We glue ourselves to television shows and celebrities that model degrading behavior in the kitchen, in the boardroom, or in the marriage proposal game. How did this become entertainment? What’s next? Humans being torn apart by hungry lions while we sit in the stands laughing and drinking beer? We are habituating ourselves to images, words, and behaviors that are re-shaping the human psyche and destroying our ability to feel empathy for others. People who complain about demeaning behavior on the team, in the workplace, or in social circles are often told to “let it go,” or “toughen up,” or “there’s nothing you can do.” Our parents once advised us to keep our hands and our words to ourselves. The defense, “she started it” was not acceptable. We were expected to find an exit ramp to the high road or seek appropriate help. Words do hurt. Words can be weapons. That is one of the reasons the pen is mightier than the sword. Words can cut and tear leading to a loss of limbs, a loss of life, bloodshed. Some people can shrug off the hateful words of another. Others seethe with anger and hurt and eventually use all of that negative emotion as rocket fuel on a galactic mission of destruction. We instruct preschoolers to use their words, but there is more to it than that. Choose your words before you use them. Speak truth to power and truth to evil. Avoid the temptation to join in the chatter, to like, to post, to tweet…if doing so demeans your own character or that of someone else. Hold leaders accountable for the character revealed by their words. Even a policy genius is not a worthy candidate if he or she has no conscience. If you would not want their worst behavior directed at you, don’t elect, pick, or hire them to be responsible for others. I hear from people that the situation is hopeless…”Oh, well,” they say. “There’s nothing you can do,” they say. “It’s hopeless,” they say. Hopeless cannot be the last word. The hopeless cannot have the last word. There are other words. Better words. If you are lost for words, start with these: Love your neighbor.  I am in love with a doctor. For years he has entertained me and taught me about kindness and generosity. When I doubted myself, he reassured me, "Oh, the places you'll go!" What I love most about him is that he taught me to read--"One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.” But a few months ago, I had occasion to look deeper into my relationship with the good Dr. Seuss. I was having dinner with a colleague and her two beautiful little girls--B One and B Two. As we waited for our food to arrive, mom attended to the infant, B Two. I offered to read to B One, a curious and busy preschooler. I pulled a copy of The Cat in the Hat from my bag. B One advised me that she had several copies of this book at home. While B One drew on her paper place mat, I started into the story. When the Cat in the Hat arrived on the scene, B One said, “He’s mean.” “Mean? Or is he playful?” I asked. “Oh, he’s mean!” B One said with certainty. I was taken aback and needed to quickly revise my own point of view. I have learned not to doubt the profound wisdom and insight of preschoolers. As an adult, I still love the rhymes that fill me with joy, the bright primary colors, all of the action in the story, the suspense. When I am overwhelmed, I still recite to myself “…this mess is so big and so deep and so tall, we cannot pick it up. There is no way at all!” And then I remember that the Cat in the Hat had no fear at all. The mess did get cleaned up—and in the nick of time. B One’s words prompted me to consider the experience of a preschooler who is busy trying to grow a conscience. The Cat in the Hat was not merely playful; he was mean. I stand corrected. Imposing yourself and temptation on the vulnerable is mean. Rules matter… because they do…and for our safety. I began to think about the book as a moral tale--a couple of bored kids at home alone on a rainy day-- definite potential for trouble. Then, of course, trouble arrives with a BUMP, and the Cat in the Hat steps in on the mat. He reminds the children that they can have fun even when it is not sunny. Now that seems like some good cognitive restructuring—at least on the surface. The children don’t know what to do, and there is a stranger in the house! The fish in the dish serves in loco parentis—the voice of the parent IS the voice of conscience at that age. The fish reminds the children they should not get involved with the Cat in the Hat. Then the Cat in the Hat brings some friends to this impromptu party. Things get out of hand and the house is trashed. The boy worries what his mother will say and what she will do to them if she finds them this way. So the boy gathers courage and takes control. He tells the Cat in the Hat “Now do as I say.” The Cat in the Hat gets rid of his friends and returns to help clean up the mess. The story ends with another moral dilemma—“Do we tell our mother the truth about what went on there that day?” Wow! That’s some heavy reading! It is hard work growing a conscience. Some people never do. So lessons learned:
Thanks, B One, for making me wiser! And thanks, Dr. Seuss, for making me a reader!  |
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February 2026
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