Fully Present Post 50

I wonder if I am the only one to notice the expansion and frequency of acts of cruelty in the U.S. since Donald Trump was in office. And sadly, I’ve seen that much of the nastiness is among professed Christians, represented by a political party that claims to be all about “family values”. But when did family values ever condone separating children from their parents to deter immigration? What part of the family values mindset refuses lunches to school-age children living in poverty or debt relief to struggling citizens while allowing business debts to be forgiven uncontested? What thinking in family values disregards the emotional and physical health of women with ill-conceived or malfunctioning pregnancies? What family values mentality denies children the right to learn about history, science, and the actual diversity of the human race? And when did family values ever include denying access to clean drinking water for entire communities of color?

The Republican Party and their white Christian nationalist have made it clear that certain lives and families do not matter. However, since Trump, they are taking their disregard and distain for others to a whole new level: unabashed cruelty. There is a Bible proverb that reads, “The merciful man does good for his own soul. But he who is cruel troubles his own flesh” (Proverbs 11:17). Mercy is an act of compassion shown towards people to whom you own nothing. It is undeserved favor. It is kindness extended to someone who needs it. Cruelty on the other hand is pouring salt into someone’s wound. It is the ruthless and inconsiderate infliction of pain and suffering onto others.

This past week, Governor Ron DeSantis flew fifty migrants, not illegal aliens, but legal asylum-seeking people, across the country to the island vacation town of Martha’s Vineyard without notice to anyone on the island of their arrival. What’s worse is that he lured these vulnerable people onto the plane with false promises of housing and jobs while also providing them with inaccurate information about how to maintain their tenuous immigration status. The information given would have disqualified them from pursuing legal residence in United States. In addition, some of those sent on the plane had hearings scheduled in other states as early as Monday morning. It bothers me that the news only depicts his actions as a political stunt to gain attention, when in fact his actions show a blatant and cruel disregard for the lives of the people he dumped in Martha’s Vineyard under false pretenses. Thankfully, his ploy to frighten, stun, or anger the residents of Martha’s Vineyard failed as they united to choose mercy. They clothed, provided food and shelter, and secured free legal advice to the newcomers. I’m sure that their souls are feeling good about now. I trust in the Lord to avenge the cruelty of Ron DeSantis. And I hope the voters are taking note. But there are others who are delving into that same bowl of cruelty.

As Disney and other media companies finally make attempts to be inclusive of a wide range of skin colors in their story characters, racist white people are losing their minds. I noticed the dark-skinned people in the new “Lord of the Rings” prequel and jokingly remarked to my husband that they must have undergone a mass extinction because they were absent in the earlier movies. But their reaction was pure vitriol. Of course, these changes on screen are an attempt on the part of the producers to right a past wrong. I found it interesting that the amount of anger from the racists about “Lord of the Rings” was over-shadowed by the protests over Halle Bailey, a highly talented, black-skinned actress cast as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid”. In both cases, we are talking about fictional characters who do not exist in reality nor in actual history and the racists are up in arms over the inclusion of darker skinned humans. The joy we witnessed among young black girls who see themselves in Ariel must warm the hearts of those producers who had the power to show this little bit of mercy. The haters can keep losing sleep as their blood boils and they spew hatred from their mouths and their keyboards.

I’ve already written about the backlash I’ve received on my Facebook posts about being a better human. And many of these from professed Christian people. There is a scripture I recite to myself, and I hope others take it to heart as well. It says, “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). That verse is a nice compliment to the Proverb I’ve highlighted for today.

As much of the world mourns the death of Queen Elizabeth, many are reminded of the past cruelty of the British Empire throughout the world. Many feel only bitterness and regret that Queen Elizabeth passed on the opportunity to issue formal apologies during her reign for the financial harm and for the many lives loss or ruined at the hand of her Empire. While she herself was not a cruel person and much of the harm preceded her reign, she failed in her lifetime to extend the mercy needed to acknowledge and help heal the festering wounds caused by those acts of human cruelty. I’m left wondering why she didn’t.

It’s a fact that humans have always had a cruel side. Acts of human cruelty are an everyday reality, and they seem to be expanding and becoming more frequent. However, humans are also capable of empathy and compassion which begats mercy. I’m going to be like those people on Martha’s Vineyard and those producers that are trying to be more inclusive. Each day, faced with the choice, I will choose mercy. I will not ignore cruelty because that is in fact a brand of cruelty itself. Each time I choose mercy, my soul becomes glad, and the world becomes a little bit better for someone else.

We don’t get to choose our family members, but we do get to choose our friends. And I have very few actual friends outside of family members, some of whom are both family and friends. It may be unusual, but my mother was my very best friend before her passing and I haven’t experienced that depth of friendship since her passing in 1994. It’s likely because of my personality. I’ve said many times that I am an introvert. At times I think I also have reclusive tendencies. If my mother worried about the many hours I spent as a child tucked away behind the big orange chair in her bedroom just thinking or the days I spent playing alone in my bedroom or in my grandparent’s attic, she never mentioned it to me. As I got older, I often shopped alone, visited museums alone, and even went to the movies alone because I wanted to. After her death, I’ve become my own best friend by choice.

However, I do like people. But the truth is that I can only enjoy people in small doses. Because of this, the quality of my rare interactions makes a huge difference to me. I hate drama, bickering, jealously, competition, and gossip. There was a short time in my life when I’d decided that boys made better friends than girls because there was less of this nonsense, and they didn’t appear to be so needy or clingy. Boys didn’t need constant affirmation about their looks and feelings. They weren’t constantly worried about who said or did whatever. But boys had other issues like their attraction to violence and that rubbed me the wrong way. They weren’t inclined toward meaningful conversations either, so that preference was short-lived.

Eventually, the few female friends I made in high school were athletes and academically inclined students like me and they didn’t gossip nor traffic in drama. They didn’t insist that I go shopping with them nor talk to them on the phone. Our interactions were not riddled in competition and insecurities. That positive experience lured me into believing that I could make and maintain positive female friendships so long as we had common goals. So, in college, I joined my two closest dorm friends and pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. I soon learned that I loved the community service projects, but I dreaded the parties and the return to female drama.

I was never a shy person and I never lacked friendly human interactions. From the outside looking in, it probably seemed like I had lots of friends because I was well known and well liked. I am approachable because I smile and acknowledged everyone from a genuine place of welcome. To my surprise, I was actually voted “most outgoing” by my senior class. How that happened is a mystery to me because I never once attended a party in high school. I had a lot of “associates” and was I kind and friendly to everyone, but I only hung out with that small circle of friends, whom I saw at school and at youth group.

During my career, I was often told that I give off a warm and welcoming aura that attracts people to me. I genuinely do like most people, and I am welcoming because I feel deeply that most people are deserving of kindness, dignity and respect. However, I’ve always been really picky about people I become actual friends with. I am friendly with a lot of people, but friends with only a few. I realize that some people mistake my willingness to have genuine interactions with them as friendship when it is not.

I can name the few people whom I have called “friends” over the years. These people proved themselves to be incredible human beings whom I admired for their wisdom, empathy, loyalty, and generosity. They are my “go to” people and the people I will be there for in every situation. They are the only people in the world who can keep me on the telephone for more than five minutes.

There were times in my life when I mistakenly thought someone was friendship material. I’m a sucker for intelligence, confidence, and humor. But each time I’ve embarked on a friendship based on these attributes alone, I’ve been burned. I had to learn the hard way that not every smile is truly friendly and not every person who shows an interest in me has my best interest in mind. And then there was the time I joined my sorority after being taken in by the organizational goals and the intelligence, talents, and energy of the sorority members. After being initiated, I soon discovered that the community service at the college level was less important than parties and female drama. It proved way too much for me and I had to extricate myself. It took years for me to return to active membership and that was only because I finally learned how to preserve my sanity in the midst of a dynamic female environment.

There is a Bible Proverb that reads, “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.” It’s taken me years to finally understand that wisdom is the application of knowledge. It’s emotional intelligence. I want to be an emotionally intelligent person, so I must choose emotionally intelligent people as my companions.

Today, I have many associates but very few friends. But the friends I do have can discern between the truth and lies, are loyal and keep confidences, do not gossip about others, are genuinely supportive me and my family, are empathetic, kindhearted, and are not overly demanding of my presence because they too require time alone. They may not be the funniest people on the planet, but they definitely contribute to my own wise walk and not my ultimate destruction.

I feel blessed and satisfied to observe the respectful and productive lives of my adult children. I raised them with intention, sensitivity, patience, and sacrificial investment while having full faith in Proverbs 22:6 that reads, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

There is a special joy that comes from hearing and watching my adult children put into practice the life lessons and values I instilled in them regarding hard work, integrity, diligence, determination, and respect for others. It wasn’t always easy. In fact, at times when they were growing up, it was really hard, especially during those adolescent years. I had to remind myself that being a teenager isn’t the “old” that verse was talking about. Those teenage years were really tough and sometimes very scary as they took risks and did things that were contrary to the values and common sense that I was trying to instill in them. I found that the key to those teenage years was persistence, insistence, and vigilance.

Proverbs 19:18 reads, “Chasten your son while there is hope, and do not set your heart on his destruction.” I believe that is talking about those teenage years when they are hell bent on testing the waters, your patience, and the boundaries. Contrary to some, I believe those are the years when our hearts, ears, and eyes need to be the most open. During those years they need constant reassurance, the greatest display of unconditional love, the assurance that failure is an opportunity to learn, the sting of consequences for their actions, and an understanding that supervision is different from surveillance. Navigating those teenage years was difficult but understanding that their brains were not fully developed and that they were still being shaped and influenced by my example, approval, disapproval, and guidance, helped me be the parent they each needed.

And each of them needed something different from me. I took to heart that part in the verse that said, “in the way he should go” to mean that each child had a specific path that was right for him or her. They each had different personalities, different interests, and different needs and challenges. I believed it was my job to observe my children to discover and help them realize and accept their individual talents, their passions, and the personal challenges that emerged. I never adopted a “one size fits all” or everyone gets the same thing as a principle of fairness. To the contrary, I saw fairness as providing each child with what he or she needed to succeed. One child required greater financial investments while another required more disciplinary creativity and another a greater investment of time.

When it came to discipline and correction, I was far more inclined to use positive reinforcement, recognizing the innate human need for attention and approval. In my mind, the rod of correction talked was not only a belt or paddle, but rather the time I spent explaining why certain behaviors deserved praise when others did not. I was not a parent who relied on the “because I said so” explanation because I saw that as tyranny over the will of a rational human being. A person can’t self-parent later having only heard, “because I said so” as a reason for avoiding certain behaviors. However, I did have a paddle. It was there for those very rare occasions when the incentive to do wrong outweighed rationality. I believe I used it twice when they were growing up and only after a lengthy explanation regarding the continued and intentional wrongdoing that would lead them towards a living hell.

As an educator, I never left the education of my children to the schools. Reading was a requirement in our home because it expands knowledge, experience, possibility, and creativity. We took trips to the library, I read to them, and they got to follow their own reading interests. We did homework at the table together when they were younger, and I provided educational toys, educational field trips to museums, zoos, factories, farms, and amusement parks. We played in parks, went camping, fishing, and hiking. I gave them cooking lessons and together we operated a candy store from our garage. Our family vacations included historical sites as well as family visits and reunions. We did crafts and they had chores. Each got to choose a musical instrument to learn and one or two athletic endeavors. All played team sports for as long as they were interested. I’m thankful for church activities, youth groups and scouting that further supported their growth and development.

As they matured, they were always busy going in different directions and at times I was exhausted. I’m thankful that I had an incredible mother who provided loving and competent childcare whenever I needed a break and she also provided financial support when opportunities seemed beyond our budget. It is because of her example and how much our family benefited from her generosity that I’ve been determined to return that favor to my children as a grandparent.

I haven’t provided a lot of specifics about each child because I want to protect their privacy. But I will say that all that time and attention I invested in training my children in the way they should go definitely paid off because now that they are old (in their late thirties and forties) they have not departed from it, and I am so proud of each one of them for the successful, respectable and productive adults they have become. They continue to seek advice and I am quick to provide it with a gentle reminder that they no longer need my approval. They always reply that they know that and for that I am even more grateful.

Some of my favorite Bible passages that guide my everyday life are found in the book of Proverbs. I began discovering and unconsciously memorizing verses in Proverbs as a young teenager. They have become the underlying principles behind much of my decision making and lifestyle choices. In the next few posts, I’ll share some of my favorite Proverbs and how they have impacted my life and relationships.

The first is a well-known and often quoted passage. Proverbs 3:5-6 reads, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.” For an analytical personality like mine, this became an essential reminder for me that I don’t know everything, that information can be incomplete or distorted, and that things are not always what they seem. It is a comfort to trust that I can rely on the God who knows, sees, and understands the daily road I tread and to trust that He will get me through life successfully as I trust His direction. And I do.

I make a habit of listening to my heart even more so than listening to my head. Some people call that voice intuition. Some say it means to follow your gut. Others call it the voice of the Holy Spirit or that still small voice. Whatever it is, it is the voice that I trust and follow even when reason or the evidence I see and hear seem to indicate that I should go a different way. I’ve learned through failure and many experiences that the voice of my heart is always right.

To people who know me, it may sometimes seem like I’m clairvoyant, highly intuitive, or foresighted when in fact I have simply learned to tune into the voice in my heart. I say things like, “I just know” or “I just feel” or “I see this happening”. I have dreams. I see snippets. I hear an inaudible voice. I receive inspiration and “good ideas”. These have been the norm for me for many years and I accept them as normal. I’ll make decisions on whether to take on a new venture or not based on what I’ve come to call “grace” for the venture. It simply means that I feel in my heart that God is providing the open doors, the skills, the courage and the energy to see the project through. I’ve relied on this “grace” so much that I have only ever applied to one specific job or one specific University throughout my entire education and job career and have always been accepted without a moment’s worry. It’s not that I’m so great, but that I had a confidence born from hearing this voice to apply to a particular place.

A good example of a time when I had to fight my head in favor of the voice was when I decided to finally pursue the doctoral degree that I’ve known that I wanted since high school. I didn’t know when or in what subject, but I knew that degree was in my future. As my children neared adulthood and I had earned my master’s in counseling and guidance and was enjoying my career in higher education, I started feeling that the time was approaching. So, I applied to the PhD program in Educational Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and was accepted. However, I felt this strange uneasiness in my heart when the acceptance letter arrived. All indications were that it was the perfect program and that the timing was perfect. But I couldn’t shake the uneasiness. That letter sat on my desk for three full weeks before I finally obeyed the voice in my heart and notified the University that I would pass on the offer. I knew that the “grace” to start that program was absent.

I waited another two years. One day in passing, I heard about an EdD program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and I immediately felt a strong urge in my heart to apply. I even had to learn the difference between a PhD and an EdD. I was so glad that I waited because in the two years since foregoing the PhD program, I discovered that I enjoyed being a hands-on practitioner who enjoyed transforming research into practice. I enjoyed policymaking and practical engagement as opposed to teaching and research. That was the difference between the two degrees. And an EdD, which I didn’t even know existed, was a much better fit.

Again, I was accepted and this time I strongly felt that the grace to pursue the program was there. I was one of a few in my program who sailed through the program in three years, completing and defending my dissertation without having to make any adjustments to it, which I’m told is unheard of. It was a lot of hard work and really long hours. It was grace that got me through hour (or more) long drives to UCLA several times a week and an unbelievable amount of reading and research, projects and assignments, and finally my dissertation. I would sleep for about three hours and then start studying at 2am every morning before going to my full-time job. I told my friends that I wouldn’t see them for a few years and then completed the degree with enjoyment and ease. At one point, one of my dissertation advisors asked me to slow down because she couldn’t keep up with my passion and pace. That was grace.

My understanding is decent and perhaps better than a lot of other folks, however it is no match for trusting God to direct my path. This Proverb I adopted to guide my life in my early teens was the best decision I ever made because He has never steered me wrong.

In classrooms across America, three kinds of children monopolize the attention of teachers. The most dreaded are those extremely obnoxious, outrageous, and disruptive children. The most revered are the academically eager, highly responsive, and responsible children. And the most liked are the charismatic, talented, and attractive children. All the others go largely unnoticed as they make their way through school. Even to this day, I remember the kids who fit into one of these categories. And as adults, not much has changed.

One of my earliest lessons on how to succeed in society came from the saying that the squeaky wheel gets oiled. To me that meant that I had to get myself noticed to have my needs met. From my earliest days, what I desired most was a peaceful, safe, and equitable environment. Some of that was personality but perhaps that desire also stemmed from being raised in an unstable home with a violent alcoholic father and a hard-working mother who struggled to hold things together.

School was a safe haven where I could relax and enjoy the company of my best friends, Laura and Myrna. In my early school years, I was solidly in the category of the unnoticed and being an introvert, I was comfortable with that because I had what I needed. However, my satisfaction vanished when my two best friends were promoted up to the next grade level when the state eliminated the A and B grade classifications. I remained in the second semester of the third grade while they both moved up to the fourth grade.

At the time, I was emotionally devasted because I thought I was being left behind due to my invisibility. I believed I was overlooked because I didn’t stand out enough academically. That was when I decided to become a squeaky wheel by reinventing myself into the model student academically and socially. Thankfully, I learned well after my academic and social stardom that, like my brothers, my friends’ promotion up was because of their spring birthdates. I was born in the summer and was therefore solidly at the desired grade level for the new system.

But I didn’t know that. The impact of staying where I was while my best friends were promoted up a half grade, pushed me toward academic and social excellence. I became the squeaky wheel that got oiled from fourth grade all the way through college. My teachers noticed me, encouraged me, and they opened multiple doors of opportunity to me. I was blessed with the mental capacity to become the squeaky wheel by positive means. I’m thankful that eventually learning the truth set me free of a chronic fear of being left behind and allowed me to regain a focus on building a peaceful, safe, and equitable environment for myself and others.

When I think of some of the politicians we have elected to office in recent years, I wonder why they get so much attention. Obama captured our attention through a combination of his intelligence, charm, decency, and good looks. But then the nation couldn’t quite gather enough support for a female candidate with intelligence but lacking in charm. By a fluke of the electoral college, this country elected Donald Trump, a disrupter who used charm or charisma (like Hitler) to disguise his corruption and cruelty.

For whatever reason, we as humans give our limited attention to the squeaky wheel. I just hope that we are wise enough in the coming election to check to see what is causing each candidate’s wheel to squeak before we cast our next votes.

I like my doctor because he once told me that his goal was for me to enjoy a healthy retirement. However, it turns out that we have very different methods for accomplishing that goal. His method is medication plus intermittent fasting and mine is the food plus intermittent fasting. It turns out that the kinds of food I consume, the amount I consume, and when I consume it is the key in addition to exercise and good sleep. I wonder if my centering on food and rejection of new medications challenges his thinking.

I recall an observation I made many years ago when I became aware that there were people starving in other parts of the world. I was bothered by the images of emaciated bodies and thought it strange that our country had such an abundance of food that we turned perfectly nutritious food into junk food loaded with fats, salt, and sugar. On the one hand, I was compelled to donate to hunger relief organizations who provided the stables to make bread and porridge, but on the other, I was compelled to consume greater amounts of the junk food being pushed by savvy corporations. As a seventeen-year-old, I once had French fries and a milkshake for lunch. At one point, I had to use a napkin and scrape the congealed grease from the roof of my mouth. It was gross, but it didn’t stop me from consuming either. I realize now that whether it is the abundance of junk food in wealthy countries or the scarcity of basic food in poor countries, we humans are slowly dying because of food.

My over-consumption of food and my addiction to processed and junk food eventually took its toll. It took me a long time to realize than my consistency with exercise, my basic alcohol abstinence, and my avoidance of cigarette smoke were not enough to compensate for my overeating and poor food choices.

My doctor’s answer to my high blood pressure is medication. His answer to my high LDL cholesterol is medication. His answer to my low HLD is medication. His answer to my progressive weight gain was intermittent fasting since I already exercise an hour in the mornings. I do aerobics, stretching, and weight training. But despite all this, I continued to put on the pounds and my metabolic numbers grew worse, not better. Six months ago, I was pre-diabetic and very close to being labeled a type two diabetic. Despite this, my doctor never addressed my food choices.

The issue of healthy eating is very complicated in the United States. Over the years, I’ve tried making many dietary lifestyle changes. The first was a switch to a low-fat diet. The first items to be substituted out for healthier options were whole milk, shortening, cheeses, and lard. I switched to low-fat everything and used smoked turkey instead of pork fat in southern cooking. Then there was the low carb diet where white breads, white pastas, white rice and white sugar were the culprits and brown whole grains became the substitute for everything. I curtailed candy and desserts. I eliminated bacon and lunchmeats that contained nitrates. Eggs were bad and then they were good. Coffee was good, then bad, then good again. Everything in moderation became the thing. Then eating five small meals a day was the answer. Then gut health and getting enough probiotics and calcium became the thing, so plain yogurt became a staple. Then we tried the Paleo diet that glorified animal proteins and made beans, diary (including my yogurt), nightshade vegetables and wheat products the culprits. Then we returned to moderation with hormone free meats and only organic fruits and vegetables. Nothing worked. We only became fatter and sicker.

It wasn’t until my husband was fighting a recurrence of lung cancer, that I started to really look at food for its healing properties. I wanted to support his healing process with the foods he was consuming. I did some research, met with the nutritionists a couple of times and did some more research. I eventually landed on a plant-based diet for us.

At my quarterly doctor’s appointment in May, we had only been on the plant-based diet for about a week. My doctor was concerned about my higher blood pressure and protecting my kidneys. In addition, I was heavier, and my blood sugar numbers were at the edge of type two diabetes. He prescribed yet another blood pressure medication which proved to be intolerable to my system and I had to stop. On the phone, when I told him I had to stop that new medication, I explained to him that I had switched to a plant-based diet and was determined to try that before doing anything more. He gave three months to improve my numbers. At the beginning of July, I added an additional four hours to my intermittent fasting. So, I eat a plant-bases organic diet eight hours a day and fast for 16 hours. And I got results. At my doctor’s appointment last week, I had accomplished the loss of seven pounds while also pushing my blood sugar back into the normal range.

However, my blood pressure is still elevated and my HDL still too low. My triglycerides that had been normal, were now high as fat stores enter my blood stream on their way out. I asked my doctor for another three months to address these issues with the diet and lifestyle changes that I had initiated. I added breathing exercises, a daily walk outside in nature as opposed to the treadmill and bike, and a sharp reduction in my salt intake as well as morning green tea while I am still fasting. Sleep has always been a big problem for me, but I’ve noticed a near miraculous improvement in it. I’m now sleeping an average of six and a half to seven hours a night. I can only attribute this change to my new dietary change where I stop eating by 6pm. I’ve tried everything else that was recommended to no avail.

The temptation to eat foods that harm rather than improve health is everywhere. I now view food for what it is: fuel and body repair or poison. But for me, the greatest motivation is my visit to the doctor’s office every three months. I ‘m excited to see how eating well and less often can restore health to my body. I’m hopeful these changes that improve my health will also provide a case study for my doctor to pass along to his other patients.

I’ve had an interesting week on Facebook since I launched my Fully Present Better Human page. Since it is a public page, it is seen by anyone and everyone and apparently there are some older white men who came across my posting and felt compelled to attack the notion of encouraging people to be fully present better humans. They surfaced when I posted that Better Humans tell the truth. My comment accompanying the poster read, “The truth is the foundation for good decision making. Better humans value the truth and refuse to spread conspiracies, misinformation, speculation and lies. How do you find the truth these days?”

I was called a Marxist, a Socialist and a sellout. I was told I was pushing a mob narrative. I was rightly accused of being a Trump hater. And of course, one of them assumed I was in favor of murdering babies. They acted in tandem, agreeing with each other in their synchronized attack on my page. At one point, I wondered if these men actually knew each other and were a gang of bullies trolling Facebook for people to bully. They were clearly hostile. One blamed people like me for the culture wars and division in the country. One of them said he had done research on who I was, having read some of my writings, for which I thanked him. At the end, two of them summed up their remarks by telling me to be keep quiet about my ideas. Of course, I refused.

But one of the conversations ended on a positive note. The man had been a police officer who initially called me brainwashed and pointed to my support for inclusion and social justice as the root of the division in the nation. He’s the one who claimed to have read some of my writing. I explained that if advocating for inclusion rather than discrimination or justice as opposed to injustice was divisive then I hoped for more “divisive” people like me. It was when we disclosed our personal backgrounds, me as an educated black female and he as a police officer with PTSD that we finally came to an understanding. He stopped calling me names. We came to a common understanding that we both spent our lives in service to others both in our professional and private lives. Saturday morning, I noticed that he deleted most of his posts from the page and that what remains are my rebuttals.

It is interesting and a bit unsettling that grown white men feel so threatened by simple ideas to be better human beings in service to our planet and our society would invite such an attack. But it did. And I was more than ready to defend my position. I do admit that I spent a few minutes revisiting the basics of Marxism, Socialism, and Capitalism in the process. So, here’s where I landed.

I’m not a Marxist. A Marxist centers class warfare between capitalist business owners and workers to the eventual overthrow of capitalism in favor of communism or state-controlled production of goods and services and the elimination of private ownership and profits. I am a capitalist in favor of regulation that prevents the extreme exploitation of workers, politics, and the environment for the purpose of expanding profits. I don’t think the market economy can fully protect individuals and the environment from unscrupulous greedy business owners in the short-term, so regulation is necessary. And I do believe that we have allowed too much capitalist money to unduly influence our politics and policy making as well as our news media. I think our news media should be funded independently with public funds and not owned by wealthy businessmen like Rupert Murdock. However, when it comes to healthcare, criminal justice, infrastructure, and education I prefer to keep the profit incentive of capitalism out of the picture. So, in these sectors, I am more of a socialist. Socialism calls for the production and distribution of these services to be regulated by the community as a whole.

In the end, I’m grateful for the attacks this week. They lead to greater personal clarity on my positions, and I was able to articulate them in my rebuttals. These public arguments provide the opportunity for others to hear different sides to an issue. I avoid name-calling and insults, opting instead to respectfully state my position and my rationale. I’m a kind person by nature and I’m able to genuinely wish them well, although they seem to become even angrier by it. In the future, I will likely continue to engage with people who attack me on Facebook. That is their right. But it is also my right and I feel it is my responsibility to onlookers to defend my ideas and my right to voice my opinion. As a person striving to become a better human for a better world, I will never shrink away from advocating for what I believe is right and good.

This past week it became evident that we needed to purchase a new oven range. In the past, we had maintained a paid subscription to Consumer Reports, and we would rely on their descriptions, ratings, and rankings on products before making a purchase. However, after purchasing three major appliances that had received top ratings but proved to be less than stellar, we cancelled our subscription. Consumer Reports lost their credibility. So, last year we purchased a microwave without Consumer Reports. We did the leg work of considering each model’s brand reputation, reading the specs, consulting salespeople and customer reviews, and closely examining all the features of each model in person. Unlike the Consumer Reports recommended washer and dryer and dishwasher we purchased; we are 100% happy with the microwave we chose without its help. And so, we again followed the microwave method this week and on Friday purchased a lovely oven range that has incredible features that we are confident will meet our needs. But here’s the thing, in a busy and complicated world, it’s helpful to have credible information sources to rely on for good decision making. But like Consumer Reports, many previously reliable sources have loss credibility. The difference is that many have lost their credibility because they are under attack, not because they have failed to deliver.

Certain sectors have lacked credibility for a long time. Few people trust a used car salesman. Perhaps even fewer trust the advertisements of large corporations. And fewer than that trust politicians. Most of us realize that the greedy self-interest of these parties creates their credibility problems. We recognize their bait and switch tactics, their obvious lack integrity, and their long record of failing to deliver. It’s our common knowledge of these shortcomings that has provided us some protection. Their lack of credibility is attached to their consistently poor performance record. However, many Americans today are questioning the credibility of important information sources based on the narrative of a few bad actors rather than actual merit.

In just a few short years, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdock, and their Republican allies managed to destroy the credibility of sources in our lives that we have historically relied on for vital information. Using the cult of personality, the public’s lack of critical thinking skills, and exploiting institutional weaknesses, they infiltrated the television and radio airways and used the internet and social media to strategically sow doubt and confusion about the information coming from previously credible institutions that provided us with news, history, science, and health information.

Without hesitation, they took every opportunity to characterize scientists and health professionals as liars when they rightly needed to revise previous statements with evolving or new information on a topic. They used minor mistakes in journalism to characterize mainstream news media outlets as purveyors of “fake news”, ignoring the many corrections and updates. They manufactured false accusations against their enemies without evidence, calling democrats pedophiles, socialists, or communists and President Biden senile. They exaggerated basic lessons in human sexuality, American history, and science to characterize schools and teachers as evil masterminds who are corrupting children’s minds. They mischaracterized a prayerful knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality to be un-American.

These days, many Americans have ceased to trust the news, the science, the teachers, the researchers, and even worse, our public health officials. The proliferation of lies and omissions, conspiracies, deflections and misinformation directed toward a largely uneducated and gullible general public in this country has not only wreaked havoc on civil discourse but has cost people their lives due to COVID-19 and has stressed our medical system.

When I listen to the Washington Journal public forum on C-Span early each morning, I am both amazed and disheartened by the people who call in to repeat conspiracy theories, disproven lies, and their own feelings of hatred and distrust of the government, science, the news, and public health officials. When asked where they get their information, they often cite the internet, their own research (whatever that means), or they won’t admit to the obvious source, Fox News political pundits. The moderators are careful not to scold the viewers who call in spouting nonsense; they leave that task to other viewers. I admit that it is often frustrating, but it demonstrates a couple of things important observations about what we must do as individuals who desire to preserve our sources of credible information.

There are seven things we must do: 1) We must protect our schools and teachers by showing up to school board meetings and PTS meetings so that we can support the efforts to teach basic American civics, history, science, and critical thinking in K-12. 2) We must financially support investigative journalism with paid newspaper subscriptions and only watch actual news reporting on television, not the hours of commentary about the news. 3) We need to label our own protestations as either opinion, speculation or fact while asking our friends to do the same. 4) We need to remind our children and each other that new information rightfully leads to a modification in recommendations and actions and does not mean we were lied to. 5) We need to gently remind our religious brothers and sisters that when they insist that their religious beliefs become law, they are inviting a theocracy no different from the Taliban. 6) We need to expose the nature of cults and cult leaders. 7) We need to remind ourselves and encourage others to allow our reason to temper our emotions.

As a community of friends and family, we have a duty to help each other return credibility to sectors of our society who have had their credibility stripped away by nefarious actors hell-bent on causing confusion and distress so that they can rule with impunity and unfettered power. Credibility is earned and sustained, not by perfection, but by integrity and the delivery of reliable information over time. It should never be given nor removed on the basis of mere accusations by a charismatic personality whether that personality occupies the White House, is on television, or is heard on the radio.

I hate watching the news these days because it leaves me angry, frustrated, sad, fearful, and feeling overwhelmed by incidents of evil perpetrated by evil doers. Too often, it feels like our world has been completely overtaken by evil. But then I go to the grocery store and experience the everyday common courtesies of human beings just trying to live happy and peaceful lives. I enjoy spontaneous conversations with “masked” individuals in grocery store aisles or at the checkout line and the unexpected insertion of humorous life situations that often present themselves while I’m out and about. These little gems remind me that most people are decent, peace-loving, fair, and kind-hearted. I realize that most people value truth and reliable information. But I also realize that most people make up a silent majority who need to do much more to make our demands for goodness heard.

There’s this song from a children’s album titled, “Music Machine” that I often played for my kids when they were growing up. The lyrics were taken directly from Bible verse Romans 12:21 that reads, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” To this day, the melody and the words continuously ring in my head and have become an anthem for my life. Evil exists, but I have enough faith to believe that it can be overcome by good. So, what exactly is evil in my thinking and how do I define good?

I’ve come to define evil as the intentional and unprovoked perpetration of harm upon others. Evil doers are people driven by unfettered internal bloodthirst, sadism, masochism, greed, and self-interest. Evil doers inflict pain and suffering upon others with or without remorse. They have little to no self-control over their emotional need to see others suffer or to amass wealth, exert power, obtain fame or gain prestige at all costs. They are the devil incarnate who come only to kill, steal, and to destroy. Their tools are confusion, deceit, fearmongering, coercion, and violence. I believe the truly evil are rare individuals among us, but they are so outrageous in their behavior and so loud in their proclamations that they capture the headlines of our news media every day. In our collective desire to be entertained, we give them the biggest platform to efficiently spread their poison on television, at rallies, and through social media. Unfortunately, enough of us ushered these evil doers to prominent places of power in our government. And with their prominence they have sowed and then watered the seeds of evil in vulnerable hearts that had held evil in check for most of their lives. Evil begats evil and evil doers have entered the realm of our politics in recent years, threatening to tear our country apart.

I would classify Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carson, Matt Gatz, Margarie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Rupert Murdock and numerous others as evil doers whose unregulated thirst for wealth, power, prestige, and fame has driven them to water the seeds of racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia throughout the Republican Party under the guise of preserving a white morality that never embraced equality, liberty and justice for all. Jesus told us that we would recognize a tree by the fruit it bears. It is not difficult to recognize the fruit of these individuals. And sadly, their reach has extended to the white evangelical Christian church. Through persistent lies, conspiracies, and deception they have convinced many white evangelicals to push for a theocratic government that harms many and ignores the suffering of human beings while believing that they are acting on God’s behalf. History has shown us that this never ends well. They are following Trump rather than Jesus with their disdain for immigrants, the poor, and the powerless. When did Jesus ever embrace weapons (guns) instead of love?

I watched the Congressional hearing on abortion this past week, and it was disheartening to hear lawmakers talk past each other and repeat the same arguments over and over. The Republicans repeatedly mischaracterized Democrats as being pro-abortion people who want to kill babies just before they are born because of the gender or disability of the baby. If that were true, then that is evil. However, the reality is that Democrats are trying to protect the health of women and the bill seeks to acknowledge the rare medical need for a late term abortion. In another hearing a few weeks ago, they entertained testimony from a practicing OBGYN who testified that something has gone terribly wrong if there is an abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy and that doctors do not provide late term abortions on demand, nor do they kill babies just before they are born. The doctor had to continually correct the Republican talking points meant to mislead the public. It is evil to knowingly and intentionally harm women for political gain, but that is what the Republicans are doing. It is good to protect women and viable life.

And that’s what good is. Good is promoting the well-being of others. Do-gooders act in ways that promote the health, welfare and happiness of others. Again, we can tell a tree by the fruit it bears. The problem is that too many people do not bear any fruit at all. They act on the basis of convenience as they go about their daily lives. They aren’t evil doers, nor are they do-gooders. They simply mind their own business as though they were an island unto themselves. If they witness someone in need, they simply walk by, ignoring the silent plea or sometimes even the loud plea for assistance. They wear invisible headsets and blinders so they will not be bothered. They are apathetic, distracted by their own needs, or simply disinterested in the plight of others.

These are the people whom I hope to reach because they can help reverse the tide of evil we are facing. This is their fight as well. The people on the fence can be activated into action to overcome evil with good if they are recruited by do-gooders.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve launched the Fully Present Better Human Project for the sole purpose of further empowering and enabling do-gooders to inspire fence-sitters to become fully present better humans who take small actions in their everyday lives to help overcome the evil that is now all around us. Small collective actions of good can improve our lives. Together, as fully present better humans we can overcome evil and create the kind of society that we want to live in.

My website is now available and the products to help promote the project are available for purchase to support the efforts. Visit the website at www.fullypresentbetterhuman.com and leave your email for access to the monthly newsletter. I also started a Facebook and Instagram under Fully Present Better Human. Taking a moment to like the page will help me reach more people, especially those fence-sitters. We don’t need to be perfect humans, just better humans who are fully present. Together, we can overcome evil with good.

The pandemic changed a lot of things for a lot of people. I know I retired a few years sooner than I had planned for several reasons. I retired earlier than expected in part due to the requirement to return to the office sooner than I felt safe, in part because of unfavorable changes in the work environment itself, in part because I could afford to comfortably retire, and in part due to the demands of my husband’s cancer treatment. While it may seem like there are many older people like me who greatly contributed to the “Great Resignation” statistics, the actual data shows otherwise. According to a great article I read titled, “18 Great Resignation Statistics” by Jack Flynn from Zippia, young people seeking better pay and more favorable working conditions make up the greatest percentage of people quitting one job to find another. What is evident though is that the shortage of workers and the abundance of new workers makes everyday life a little bit more difficult for everyone.

Over the past several months, I’ve found many of the local businesses I relied on for goods or services have gone out of business. Others are experiencing a remarkable decline in customer service because of either a shortage of employees or employee inexperience. For example, it’s become normal to wait four to six months for a non-emergency doctor’s appointment. Then in dealing with a hospitality company, I fought over a $1200 simple mistake made by an inexperienced employee that took me several months to rectify by a combination of emails, letters, and multiple phone calls. I had to find a store manager to convince a checker that in California food items in their small food market are not taxed. I’ve noticed that it takes longer to receive some items that I ordered, sometimes by a wait-time of months. On Friday, I called my bank’s customer service phoneline and was greeted by a recording that informed me that my estimated hold time was 60 minutes. I’ve waited on hold for as much as 90 minutes to talk to a representative. Most times when I ask a store employee for assistance, I hear the words, “I’m new here, so….” But it’s only getting worse.

Anyone traveling by airplane knows that its pure luck these days to have a flight that isn’t either delayed or cancelled because of pilot or crew shortages since the airlines provided incentives for workers to retire or leave during the pandemic. The stress of the pandemic has also led to a shortage of healthcare providers as many of them exited the field with emotional scars. My son places healthcare technicians and says they have more job openings than trained technicians to fill them. Even though the pay and signing bonuses rise, the stress of dealing with an ungrateful and irresponsible public is just not worth it.

Dealing with an increasingly angry, irrational, inconsiderate and demanding public in addition to unreasonable laws banning history and books, banning abortions, and loosening gun carry restrictions is likely to push even more workers out of public service professions like teaching, healthcare, social work, law enforcement, and poll workers. There will be women in red states who will have a more difficult time finding an OBGYN. There will be overworked social workers dealing with an even greater demand for foster care and family services among poor women forced into giving birth. There will be confused law enforcement officers who can’t tell the difference between a good guy with a gun and a bad guy with a gun. Some will be too cowardly to act in the face of an AR15 like we saw at the Uvalde school in Texas. There will be public schools without enough qualified teachers to teach children actual history or science because they can no longer deal with irrational laws and parents ready to criminalize them in addition to the daily threat of gun violence. There will be a lack of experienced election officials at the voting polls because of crazy people with guns “monitoring elections”. And there will be overwhelmed mental health professionals dealing with heartbreak and hopelessness among LGBTQ youth and adults who are ostracized.

Every day, my email inbox is filled with companies looking to hire. I see help wanted signs in the windows or entries of nearly every place of business I enter. With unemployment at a 50-year low and inflation at a 40-year high and wages rising by about 5% over last year, I fear that even though our pain with higher prices will eventually settle down, our pain with worker shortages and inexperienced workers is just beginning. I predict more deaths caused by inexperience in the air, domestic violence and child abuse, suicide, guns on the streets, and errors in hospitals.

I once read an article that explained how it takes two full years for a new employee to become fully competent and comfortable in a new job. However, when the people who would otherwise serve as mentors or trainers are absent, the training time increases, and more mistakes will be made. It’s scary to think about the effects of pilot error, hospital errors, social worker errors, and police officer errors due to inexperience.

Where there is challenge, there is also opportunity. The opportunity now exists for employers to work harder to retain their existing and new workers by better valuing them, paying them living wages with benefits, and providing them with good working conditions and flexibility to care for family. We know that it costs much more to recruit and train than to retain good workers. There is also the opportunity for workers to demand more of their current employer or to find an industry that is personally rewarding while also meeting their financial and family needs. For many people, it may be time to move to a state where they can practice their profession without fear of arrest or being overburdened. Until public policy and elected lawmakers in red states recognize the detrimental effects of loose gun laws, abortion bans, LGBTQ bans, and bans on teaching history and science, it’s probably wise to steer clear of certain professions in red states. You couldn’t pay me enough to work in these states.

The time to retrain, rethink, and revise our relationship to work is here. Those help wanted signs put workers in the driver’s seat and I hope workers are wise enough and persistent enough to demand better conditions and demand more pay. As a society, I hope we realize sooner rather than later that we must treat public servants with the respect they deserve and also pass laws that help them do their jobs well. If we continue to fail at this, we won’t have the teachers, the doctors and nurses, the social workers, the poll workers, nor the police officers we need to protect and serve any of us.