all of the selves we Have ever been
![]() I awaken to brilliant sunshine in a clear blue sky. Arriving a day early, a cool March wind blows through my open window causing the blinds to sway. Birds land on a nearby tree branch and sing of their return. I step outside where the air smells fresh. Bright green buds peek out from the wet black earth. Throughout the long COVID winter, I longed for these signs of spring, but this morning, I am not interested. My heart is in Ukraine. Restless, I run some errands. Open-toed shoes line up in a store window. They have their marching orders: scream, “summer!” I stop in a book store, my usual remedy for whatever ails me. Fresh new books with smooth pages fill the shelves. A table of intriguing titles is readied for spring break and sandy beaches. I wander the aisles, only to find my mood worsening. History, geography, biography...shouldn’t we know better by now? I feel the need to keep moving, but I can’t stop praying, begging, really. Please God. Please! Protect the people of Ukraine. I think of Abraham Lincoln who said, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” Insufficient? Yes, that is how I feel. There is a breed of monster on the loose, and their numbers are growing. These beasts do not lurk in the dark. They prefer the limelight. You will recognize the fiends by their big heads, strong arms, and fragile egos. They thirst for power, feed on revenge, and vomit lies. They manufacture grievances and spread distrust through a gospel of hate. Adulation may calm them but only for a moment. Unable to be socialized, they frequently turn on the hands that feed them. They would rather burn the house down than learn to live within in it. Will we all perish because of such a beast? In 1624, the clergyman and poet, John Donne, wrote: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” We hear the bell Ukraine, may God hear our prayers for you.
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![]() 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. ![]() As a life-long student of human behavior, I try to understand evil. I am fascinated by the stories of those who have triumphed over wickedness. How does one endure such horror and live to tell about it? Some years ago an aging Holocaust survivor shared his story with me. A young teenage boy in the Nazi concentration camps, he grew desperate and felt a growing desire to end his life and the terrible daily torment. The boy’s one good fortune was to be in the same camp as his father and to share a bunk with him. The father was a decorated World War I soldier in their homeland. He would not encourage such thoughts in his boy. Each night the father instructed his son to leave their bunk. Together they would lie on the dirt floor with ears pressed to the ground. Through the earth the father could hear the reverberations of distant artillery fire. “The Americans are coming,” whispered the father. On each successive night father and son climbed from their bunk and pressed their ears to the ground. They listened for the echoes of gunfire. The father would estimate the progress of the advancing United States Army. Each night the boy fell asleep to the words that had become like a good night prayer, “the Americans are coming.” And they did. Whenever I am discouraged by politics and bad behavior, I remind myself that I live in the home of the brave. I think of that boy in the camps, of who we are, of what we have accomplished, of our place in the world. “The Americans are coming,” I tell myself. And they will. On this Memorial Day, I remember all those who have survived evil. I remember my Uncle John and Aunt Lillie who served in the war that saved those Holocaust survivors. I remember my father who came after, cousin Al who served in Vietnam, my beloved veterans at the Missouri Veterans Home in Warrensburg, and all those Americans who came whenever and wherever they were needed. Never-ending thanks. ![]() It is graduation weekend. And what should have been a special day for so many of our high school and college seniors. COVID-19 has cancelled this rite of passage in 2020. Along with their children and grandchildren, parents, nanas, and papas mourn the loss of the opportunity to celebrate both this academic achievement and the bittersweet end of childhood. I remember another such time. I carried my Philco transistor radio to school so I could listen as Selective Service officials called out the birth dates drawn in the draft lottery of 1973. I had prepared a list of the birthdays of my young male friends graduating from high school that year. The paper was tucked inside the black leather cover of my little radio. I attended to the broadcast with bated breath and crossed fingers. It was another frightening time in world history. Families could attend graduation ceremonies and celebrate in whatever manner they chose, but having your birth date called in the lottery and winning a trip to Vietnam put a damper on graduation for many. Some men volunteered and served willingly. Others were drafted and went reluctantly. Some refused. They left the country, went into hiding, or spent time in jail. Much like now, the streets were full of protesters who did not believe in that war or in being forced to serve. It gives me perspective when asked to wear a face mask into a grocery store. I could have been asked to wear a gas mask into a jungle. Back to my radio. Just a few weeks into the COVID-19 outbreak, I heard a report on my car radio. It was announced that the virus already had taken more lives than did ten years of the war in Vietnam. More perspective. Ironically, COVID-19 is a new war on the same men and women who served in Vietnam, those folks 63 years of age and older with pre-existing conditions. Adding to the irony is that many of those pre-existing conditions are the result of their service in Vietnam—the wounds of war and the ravages of Agent Orange. Many of our Vietnam veterans suffer from illnesses linked to the widespread use of the herbicide during that war, conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease, at least seven different types of cancer, skin disorders, heart disease, and painful neuropathy. They seem to keep getting what they didn’t ask for. It remains a jungle out there for these veterans. As COVID-19 forces each of us to do things we don’t want to do, to make sacrifices we don’t wish to make, it would be lovely this graduation weekend to honor our Vietnam veterans alongside our class of 2020. Congratulations to our senior class of 2020! And thank you to our classy seniors, our Vietnam veterans! ![]() I am trying to establish a daily routine, stick to a plan. My mind does not want to cooperate. It may have gone AWOL. My normally busy, creative brain is at a standstill. Usually full of questions and ideas, my head is now as empty as a jack-o-lantern. I open a window to the outside world and enjoy the incoming breeze. I order my mind to give me some sign of life My thoughts drift to a man I once met, a Holocaust survivor. He was a small boy about the age of five when the Nazis overtook his country. He witnessed so many horrors. His youth was spent surviving, surviving the terror as family members were shot and raped in front of him. He survived the ghettos and a youth spent on the run and in hiding. Fear and starvation were his constant companions. By the time the war was over, the boy was a teenager. As he waited in a new kind of camp to be re-settled, the boy liked to wander the streets of town looking in windows. He enjoyed watching people work and shopkeepers waiting on customers. He relished the sights of families gathering for meals, or groups of heads bowed in prayer, men reading newspapers, and mothers embracing their children. You would think a youngster who had witnessed so much horror would have lost his innocence along with his youth, but this man retained a sweet, childlike craving. He told me that when the war ended, he was left “so hungry for people.” He looked into the windows as a student of life, trying to understand how people were meant to live. What he saw filled him with hope and joy and determination. I think of this man often. He and his stories give me courage, hope and perspective. As I think of him today, I realize that my head is not empty, but that I, too, am hungry for people. While my situation in no way compares to what this man went through in war, the current isolation leaves me with a yearning for others and the shared way in which we once lived. Technology has been a godsend during this pandemic, but smartphones, tablets, and computers are not enough. The current that runs through our devices pales to the surge of electricity that runs through us when we pray aloud together, share a big meal, or do productive work side-by-side. Facetime with the grandchildren is a technological miracle, but it is no substitute for cuddling them in our arms. The feeling of delight and anticipation when preparing Sunday dinner for a gathering family cannot be compared to even the most delicious take-out order. The infusion of learning, the lights that come on inside us when we stand beside a talented colleague and watch them work is far more exhilarating than a YouTube video. Man was not meant to live alone. When the Creator saw that man was lonely, He gave him a partner. Together the man and his partner created the family of man. When we are together, we share the warmth of the divine spark that it is in each of us. That is a heat that cannot be reproduced by technology. Right now I feel like the world is in a universal time-out. Perhaps we all have been sent to our rooms to think about what we have done. We have orders not to come out until we learn how to get along. In many sectors, it seems to be working. I plead to be let out. I promise to behave, to do better, and besides, I’m starving. My head is not empty. It is hungry. Hungry for people. ![]() More than 78,000 servicemen went missing during World War II. Too many families were left to wonder. One mother received the news that her son’s plane went down over the mountains of Europe. Neither the plane nor his body was ever recovered. For the rest of her life, that mother never moved from the house where she first received the news, and she never again locked the doors in case her beloved son should find his way home. Some people might say this mother lived in a state of denial. Maybe a doctor or therapist diagnosed her with complicated bereavement, unresolved grief or depression. Over time, others may have grown frustrated at her unwillingness to accept the “truth” and at her foolishness in leaving the doors unlocked. Many people may have given up on her, getting on with their lives, and leaving that mother alone with her wishful thinking and her grief. But the story speaks to me of love, the deep, abiding kind of love that does not end. It is spiritual in nature. I cannot but join her in hope that love might win and bring her boy back through that open door even though I know his return is unlikely. Though the longing hurts, it says that love has lived in a heart now torn by loss. Longing is a terrible itch and an aching tear; hope is the salve and the suture. There are plenty of gashes in me mended by the thread of hope. I have spent more than a few hours of my life negotiating with God, trying to get Him to see things my way, offering bargains. Some folks call those silent conversations prayer. Others call them denial. Perhaps they are a display of hope, a positive emotion that springs up in the face of fear and uncertainty. In the Greek myth, after Pandora opened the box releasing evil and disease into the world, only hope remained. Sometimes hope is the only tool remaining in our tool boxes, too. Employing it does not mean that we are silly or stupid. G. K. Chesterton wrote that “hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances we know to be desperate.” That kind of hope gives us the will and the courage to fight evil in the world and the determination and ingenuity to conquer disease. So, let us stand with all those whose hearts are filled with longing, and leave our doors open for hope. ![]() War is hell. And so can be the long aftermath. Several years ago I was asked to comfort a dying World War II veteran. I sat at the bedside as the veteran told me of his youth that was marked by the Great Depression and then the war. All the young men in this veteran’s small town enlisted. It was the right thing to do. The veteran was deployed to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese. He and his comrades were warned not to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat given the enemy’s exceptional skill. “Shoot, and shoot to kill,” was the order. While the young solder lay sprawled in the dense jungle foliage, the enemy came at him like waves on the ocean shore. "There were so many. They just kept coming. Wave after wave." The young soldier was terrified. And he shot. And he shot. And he killed. And he killed. And he survived the war. Returning home, he and the others gathered nightly in the local saloon dousing their flaming memories with alcohol. After a time, this returning soldier realized the road to the bar was neither a path from the past nor one to the future. He began keeping company with a local preacher. The Great Depression and the war had taken a toll on his family. While he desperately wanted to go to college, the family needed his income, and so he worked. A wise mentor told him that the education he sought could be obtained for free at the local library, and so he took refuge in books and ideas. Through church, the library, and hard work, the veteran built a good, successful life and a happy family. He could speak of those things with joy and with satisfaction, but now, as his life was drawing to a close, he wept, not for the impending loss of his own life, but for all of the lives he had taken when he was a terrified teenage boy in the jungles of the South Pacific. The question he had kept at bay for so many years now taunted him—“How will I answer to God for what I have done?” As he lay on his bed with tears running down his neck, I could see that he was every bit as terrified as the teenager he had been when facing an ocean of enemy soldiers. Trite accolades about doing his duty and being a war hero would be not only inadequate, but for him, an outright lie. Sharing a common faith tradition with this man, I searched my mind for all I could remember about God and the afterlife. My thoughts lacked the certainty that this veteran urgently needed. “We cannot know,” I began hesitantly, “but, perhaps, this is a time for faith and not fear,” I said. “The same God that was with you in the jungle is with you now. The same God who directed your steps from the bar to the library is with you now. The same God who heard your pleas in the jungle hears you now, and I believe He feels your sorrow and accepts your apology—both the one spoken and the one that was your lived life. I have faith that He forgives that terrified teenage boy in the jungle.” I reflected on what other survivors of World War II had told me, other veterans, Holocaust survivors, civilians. “Don’t talk about it and get on with your life”—that was believed to be the best medicine at the time. And so they did not speak, and they tried to move on. Perhaps the old folks had a point in saying, “Get on with your life.” Maybe we all answer to God long before we reach the pearly gates by the way we have lived our lives. I have a sign on the wall across from my bed now. It says, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” It is from Matthew 17:7. I assume that the “Live and get on with it,” is implied. I have learned from these veterans and from my own life that when we suffer, the only way through is to arise and live. Live in moments. Live in inches. Do the best we can, but keep at it, and if there is someone willing to walk with you and hold your hand, grab on. A beautiful, very wise, young Air Force chaplain once asked a crowd of mourners, “Is it the answers we seek, or the Answerer?” I felt relieved and comforted by his words. It was no longer on me to have all of the answers. It is the human condition to wonder and to ponder, to ask “Why?” and to worry. We do not have all of the answers. Trying to eat the fruit of that knowledge got Adam and Eve in a whole lot of trouble. We must live and find something to believe in so that we can arise, and not be afraid. |
AuthorLilli-ann Buffin Archives
January 2025
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