On being loved into being

November 21, 2022November 21, 2022Michael 6 Comments

I was working in adapting a post I wrote for my foundation site for here because, well, because I think it’s really good and would make a great lead up to Thanksgiving blog post. I thought after what we as country just went through having to experience the childishness that accompanied s years general election, that a word from someone who worked so successfully with children is just what the doctor ordered. So I ordered it.

And then Colorado Springs happened. You’ve heard of that incident. Five dead. Nineteen wounded. One nut case up with a f-ing assault rifle destroys the dreams of 24 People because he has a “right” to carry an assault weapon into a crowd and start firing. Of course you know that same day in Philadelphia, Mississippi nut case or nut cases unknown shot seven people, killing one, over a dice game.

If you’re keeping score, those are mass shootings #26 and 27 in the US for the month of November. Not the year – for November’s, which still has 10 days to go. One of them is Thanksgiving. Are you still thankful we have the “right” to carry guns at will? Maybe this will help. How are 602 mass shootings for this year.

It’s time to stop this madness.

The post that I was going to rework, you can read it here. And actually if I were you I would. It’s a whole lot happier and more positive than this dreck.

The theme running through that post is based in an idea voiced by Fred Rogers in his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed to him at the 24th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 1997, “All of us have special ones who loved us into being.” What a wonderful way of thinking of how we have become who we are, that there are people who have loved us into being. Gratitude is not, and should not, be an exercise is saying thanks for what we have, for in truth we will not always have. We should be expressing thanks because we are, because even when we do not have, we always will be.

Maybe the nut cases of the world didn’t have anybody to love them into being. We did. Be grateful. Be grateful you have people who have loved you into being. Say thank you to them, because without them, you are not the who you are.

Seriously, do yourself a favor, go read it. It will take you less time to read than you’ve spent reading this junk that I’ve written here. Go find out about this idea of being loved into being. And then go out and love somebody that much.

Used with permission

Spring into Action, Spring into Love

March 18, 2021Michael 9 Comments

Spring is close to being around the corner you can smell it in the air. I cannot remember a Spring I have waited for more than this year, and that’s a lot of Springs. Talk about a winter of discontent. It should have been one of great hope. A vaccine was out and in use! Even though the first doses were administered in December, technically that was still Fall. And then it went downhill.

Right out of the gate, reports of cheating among West Point cadets hit the papers. Of course the Commander in Chief was busy trying to beg, steal, or cajole a few million nonexistent votes (oddly he never tried to buy) so why shouldn’t the youngest of the military try to game their way through the system especially when just the following day the first of over 40 pardons or sentence commutations were issued by Trump in his last month in office. December wrapped up with three people shot in a bowling alley in Illinois. January saw landslides in Norway, blizzards in Spain, and nutcases raining down on Washington DC. In February, if CoViD-19 wasn’t an infectious enough problem to deal with, avian flu broke out in Russia and an Ebola outbreak in Guinea had all of West Africa on alert. The month wrapped up with 5 dead from a shooting in Indianapolis. That lead to February opening with 4 dead in an Oklahoma shooting, and in a weird homage to December, three people were shot in a bowling alley in Central Pennsylvania. Uprisings and protests dominated the news in February and March with unrest in Myanmar, Ethiopia, Catalonia, and Somalia.

With just 3 days remaining in this winter, the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center released a report documenting 3,795 incidents of harassment, physical assault, and civil rights violations against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since March 19, 2020 that include 503 in January of February of this year. (The Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University launched the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center on March 19, 2020.) These are only the reported incidents. It is impossible to say what the actual incident frequency is although the Pew Research Center estimates 3 in 10 Asian Americans have been verbally abused since the start of the pandemic last year.

In front of a house on a road I use often there is a sign proclaiming, “Impeach China Joe.” I doubt the people responsible for posting that sign understand what the words mean. Like most bullies, they simply repeat what the head bully says. One of their favored means of attack is denigration. In the school yard fifty years that would be “Four Eyes,” or “Stinky Pants.” Now it’s China Joe, Crazy Nancy, Braindead Bernie. Now it’s every time that somebody wants to look tough without a pack of Marlboro’s rolled in the white t-shirt sleeve, they repeat a select epithet. Even if it was just name calling to make themselves feel superior it would be so wrong, but the modern societal bullies do not stop there. Actual violence, hospitalizing and killing people make up over 10% of the reports received by Stop AAPI Hate. That was before six Asian women were killed and one other wounded in the Atlanta shootings this week.

IMG_20200726_232745 We have a new season starting Saturday. Spring is supposed to be a season of rebirth, hope, and beauty. This would be a good time to start acting like reborn, hopeful, beautiful people and stop the unrelenting slide into the ugliness this country and this world have become. It will take action of your part. Positive action, not just a heart and praying hands icon on your Tweets and emails. I have said this here before, you cannot stop the hate if you are doing the hating. You must love. Make no mistake, the opposite of love is not hate. It is however the cure for hate. The opposite of love is apathy. If you are not actively loving then you are not truly loving, and if you are not loving you cannot oppose hate.

RogersClemmons I don’t suppose that it is coincidence that Saturday is not only the first day of Spring but also Fred Rogers birthday. If I had to pick only one hero to model my life on it would be Mr. Rogers. For over thirty years Mr. Rogers was a friend to millions of young Americans, and with a diverse group of performers shared time, stories, music, and make believe. Unfortunately at the same time, thousands of young American bullies were already gearing up to throw water and hatred on the devotees of Fred Rogers gentle manner and universal friendship.

Don’t let the bullies take over. Spring into action. Spring into love!

Do Unto Others…Proudly

June 7, 2018Michael 6 Comments

Oh the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Simplified, love your neighbor as yourself. I love me unconditionally, or as Fred Rogers would be happy to hear, just the way I am. I don’t always like me but I do love me. Mr. Rogers would like it if I liked me just the way I am but if I want to be golden about it, at least I am hitting the loving requirement. And by extension, I love you also.

Clearly a lot of people in the world don’t love each other, but lately there have been a lot of people ignoring Mr. Rogers exhortation to even “like you just the way you are.” Not only that but people are taking exception with anybody who doesn’t even think like they do. Forget “like you just the way you are,” the world is taking the stance “it’s my way or the highway” and telling others to hit the road.

We are getting deep into Gay Pride Month and I have a story you can use to improve your Gay, Race, Ability, Origin, or Any Other Variable score. Fans of Mr. Rogers know he had a variety of residents of and visitors to his Neighborhood. Some of these even non-viewers recognize like Mr. McFeely, King Friday XIII, and Daniel Tiger. Others are not so universally recognized like Handyman Negri, Chef Brocket, and Officer Clemmons.

Francois Clemmons was a gay, black man in 1969. Neither was a popular modifier in 1960s America. But only one was evident. Regardless of his sexual orientation, Officer Clemmons was obviously African American. In an early episode in 1969, Mr. Rogers and Officer Clemmons meet outside in the summer heat and sit together, cooling their feet in a child’s plastic wading pool. A black man and white man in the same pool were almost unheard of in 1969. Yet together they sat. In his final appearance on the show 24 years later, Mr. Rogers and Officer Clemmons cooled their feet in the pool again. It wasn’t as unusual by 1993. The physical difference had become the non-issue for many besides Fred Rogers.

That Francois Clemmons was gay never made the airwaves. Neither did his religion, political party affiliation, or college alma mater. These were differences that didn’t matter. Mr. Rogers liked Officer Clemmons, and Fred liked Francois, just the way he was. He also never mentioned that Officer Clemmons was of a different race. Had it not been visibly noticeable, nobody would have thought it was odd that they shared a moment with their feet in the pool together by the way Mr. Rogers treated and spoke with Officer Clemmons. They would have been just two friends who liked each other. Just the way they were.

We have a hard enough time accepting people who look different to us. Do we really have to add to the difficulties by going out of our ways to find differences to dislike that we can’t even see?

This month, and next, and the one after that, when you run across somebody who you might think is a little different than you are, instead of going out of your way to tell him or her to hit the road, go out of your way and say, “Hi Neighbor. I like you just the way you are.”

To hear Francois Clemmons talk about his experience in the Neighborhood, click here.

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