Fully Present Post 50

I often joke that we are living in the age of “The Jetson’s”, a favorite futuristic cartoon from my childhood. Absent the flying cars (which is possible) phone calls and business meetings are easily held on screen. That’s been the norm for the past few years and the pandemic necessitated a shift in how we conduct orientations, workshops, classes, business meetings, and even my 2020 family reunion was a Zoom and YouTube event. The rapidly changing technology, new software, and creative apps have made lifelong learning not only more feasible but also more important than ever for job security, efficiency, creativity, productivity, and conducting everyday business.

The world has gotten smaller while the universe expands. There was a time when we opened an encyclopedia to find obscure information. We worked out math problems on paper. And only the wealthy could see the world. And then things changed. But now just about anything you want to know or see is accessible in seconds by a simple internet search. What we learn and how we learn it is also changing. It is both exciting and intimidating.

The old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” has been disproven by neuroscience. However, some of my friends express an unwillingness to try to keep up. Sometimes I’ll tell my husband about a new innovation and his response is, “I’m good”, meaning he is unwilling to learn about or even try using the next new thing. However, when his doctor’s office moved to telehealth because of the pandemic, he had no choice but to learn about teleconferencing. I find myself often stepping in these days to show him how to do things on his phone or on the Smart television. And thankfully, my children also assist me.

In the last few years, I discovered YouTube as a valuable knowledge resource. I learned how to use my new iPhone 12 by watching YouTube videos. I also learned more authentic ways to make fried rice, chicken swarma, and sushi on YouTube. Learning Spanish, gardening techniques, medical information, recipes, and a dictionary are accessible on my phone through apps like “Duolingo” ,”Plantin”, “Web MD”, “All Recipes” and “Dictionary”. I’m currently taking an online class to learn calligraphy through an instructor on “Teachable.com”. And just this week, my son, a Facebook friend, and Oprah Winfrey convinced me that I needed Oculus 2, a virtual reality system that allows me to travel the world without leaving my home. It also has games and other useful content for virtual business meetings.

I purchased the system for $399 and watched videos on YouTube to learn the best ways to use it. Already, I traveled to Botswana to hang out with the rangers who protect elephants. I traveled to the deepest parts of the ocean with explorers to learn about the life that surprisingly thrives in that environment and how our plastic waste has even made it there. I’m excited about the places I will go and the things I will see and how much I will learn without ever leaving my home. I’ve always loved learning; it’s one of my personality traits, but lifelong learning is important for everyone who wants to maintain a healthy brain and thrive in the modern world, especially financially.

I’m a finance buff who made it a habit early in life to read books and to attend financial literacy seminars as a means to learn how to become financially secure. Putting those many lessons into practice really paid off and I am comfortably retired. Since the pandemic, I have subscribed to various financial planning channels on YouTube to keep me up to date on wise investment strategies, retirement distributions, tax strategies for retirees and Medicare. I will say that as a frequent YouTube watcher, I find it well worth the $15.99 per month premium subscription. I’m convinced that the lack of knowledge in areas of consequence cause real life pain. For example, on C-Spann this morning, I was disappointed to hear a 70-year old retired woman with a PhD in Cultural Anthropology decry her inability to survive on Social Security alone. I lamented that she never learned about savings and investments, despite her academic acuity. She is looking for a new job, but no one is willing to hire her. My guess is that her age and outdated skill set are the problem.

Knowledge is the foundation of good decision making. I believe we must know better to do better and as technology advances, exploration expands, science learns new things, and creativity blossoms, the need to continually learn has never been more imperative. It seems that so many problems in our society stem from the lack of knowledge. But today, an unwillingness to learn new things is simply asking to be left behind. Better humans are lifelong learners.

In closing, I am reminded of the day my husband got a cut and asked for the iodine. I laughed because we haven’t swabbed iodine on cuts in years. In this world, knowledge becomes obsolete. In fact, realizing how things change, I watched hospital infant care videos for new parents on YouTube before visiting my new grandson to take care of him this past summer. And sure enough, things have changed since 1985 when my youngest child was born. I’ll say it again, better humans are lifelong learners.

Being truthful is not always easy, especially when there are so many tempting reasons to be untruthful. Before I turned eleven, I told a lot of lies. I told them because I liked a good story and enjoyed seeing my friends react to my tall tales. Later, I occasionally lied to protect myself or others from certain punishment for a broken rule. I lied to enhance my image in front of peers I wanted to impress. I lied to protect someone else’s feelings. But the biggest lie I ever told cured me from lying as a “go to” strategy to get what I wanted.

When I was in the seventh grade, 12 years old, a group of my friends were plagued by a girl in our group who wouldn’t keep our secrets and who constantly talked negatively behind our backs. Her malicious gossiping was out of control and I decided to teach her a lesson by creating a very convincing lie that an unknown girl was going to beat her up after school for talking about that person behind her back. In absolute terror, my gossiping friend went to the office and reported the threat. Because I was the messenger of doom, the Vice Principle summoned me to the office. In the presence of my anxious friend, I confessed to the Vice Principle that I had fabricated the threat as an intervention to try to end my friend’s malicious gossiping. I got off with a stern warning and a phone call to my mother, but I also lost my friend in the process. That situation made a truth teller out of me. I learned that while lying may be the easy route, it is often a cowardly and unethical route to a desired end. And worse, lies can have devastating unintended consequences for oneself and others.

In reality, telling the truth when the stakes seem high can be difficult. For me personally, self-preservation and empathy remained my biggest obstacles to telling the truth for most of my adult life. I didn’t want others to think ill of me and I still don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. As I’ve grown older, I care less about what others think about me and so truth-telling about myself has become much easier. But when it comes to the feelings of others, I admit that I’ve developed some work arounds. For example, when a singer asks me how he did, and I felt the performance was sub-par, I’ll say something like, “I really liked your energy or that was a great song.” Admittedly, I do feel a bit of guilt about that kind of obfuscation. I still have a ways to go when it comes to providing truthful, but hurtful feedback. Another challenge was convincing my children to be truthful. One child was naturally very honest and another was the polar opposite.

My youngest daughter was a lot like me. She enjoyed making up stories, however, her lies were bigger and more prolific than mine ever were. When she was five, she made up this story about me accidentally running over my father with the car. Her teacher was so unsettled by the tale that she called to see if my father was okay. She said she even looked for the story in the local newspaper for details before calling me. I explained that my daughter liked to make things up. To try to dissuade her from lying, I repeatedly shared the story of the boy who cried wolf, but it didn’t work. The lying became a constant issue in our relationship and trust was damaged as a result. Too many lies, half-truths, omissions, and exaggerations erode the trust in personal relationships and corrupts communication and interactions. Her imagination was so taken in that to this day she sometimes has to ask me if a childhood memory is actually true. Which brings me to another, more important point about being truthful. We have to know the truth in order to be truthful.

With each passing day it becomes more difficult to know the truth. We now live in a society where the knowing the truth in order to speak the truth is itself a challenge. Greedy doctors pushing quick fix weight loss diets and quack medicine are all over the internet. On two separate occasions, I was photo-shopped into group pictures because I couldn’t make the actual shoots. This should be worrying because it means that others can be photo-shopped to appear to be somewhere they are not and with dire consequences. We now look at magazine photos where the model has been made to appear to have slimmer hips, thicker lips, or airbrushed perfected skin. We know that these images create feelings of inferiority among young women. Even more worrisome, the technology now exists to replicate a person’s voice, image, and mannerisms so well as to make that person appear to say or do anything. We also have the ability at our fingertips to remove people and objects from our photos, creating an alternate if not impossible reality.

Couple new technology with how our society has become accustomed to being lied to by greedy corporations, ambitious politicians, and unprincipled media outlets, and I’m afraid the public trust will only be further eroded. Conspiracy theories are already thriving because the public trust has been destroyed by too many lies, omissions, silence, and cover ups. People are willing to believe whatever suits them because they don’t know who to believe or how to find the truth. As a result, COVID-19 has killed more than 750,000 people. Some people believe even that is a lie. And worse, people are still refusing to get vaccinated based on a plethora of lies that feed into their worse fears. I’ve heard of conspiracies that link the vaccine to mass murder for population control to sterilization to mind control to tracking implants. A few greedy anti-vaccine doctors are even pushing their own quack remedies for the disease.

It is a sad reality that people with varying motives are happy to make stuff up for fame, money, or power. They willingly take advantage of the least educated, the most gullible, and the fearful among us. It was actually bizarre to hear about the hundreds of QAnon members who flocked to Dallas, Texas this past week believing the lie that dead Kennedys were going to appear and reinstate Trump as president. How disappointed they must be that it didn’t happen. Others believe Trump is still the president and is running the government while flying around on Air Force One.

But perhaps the most dangerous lie to our country’s future is the one that is having an adverse effect on election laws in Republican states. Based on Trump lies about voter fraud and a stolen election and fears of a violent Republican base who support him, cowardly Republicans are working to suppress the vote of minorities, urban dwellers, and younger voters while at the same time giving themselves the authority to overturn election results. Every American should be vehemently countering this lie and demanding voter protection laws from Congress right now.

The reality is that what comes out of our mouths has consequences. The people buying into the big 2020 election lie now actually believe they are telling the truth and they have shown that they are willing to use threats and violence to push a false agenda based on it. They have literally traded a factual truth for a debunked, but more desirable lie. The problem is that too many people in authority are speaking lies with impunity. However, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani were sued for billions for defamation by Dominion over election fraud claims involving Dominion’s voting machines. Powell’s defense was that her lies were too outrageous for any reasonable person to take seriously. But they did.

The time has come for laws to be enacted that make it a crime for public officials to knowingly lie about issues of public welfare. It is good that Rudy Giuliani’s license to practice law was suspended for his lies about the election. Doctors should also lose their license to practice medicine for spreading false claims; surprisingly they aren’t right now. It should become law that media and photos that are doctored have a disclaimer that they have been doctored and do not fully represent reality.

The fact is that it is becoming too difficult to distinguish between truth and lies and without a swift intervention, the truth will be completely elusive and bad decisions with life and death consequences will ultimately destroy our society and the world. We see the slow walking of climate change mitigation because of people who claim it is a hoax. This is why better humans must first be truth seekers and then truth tellers.

Final note: Sources for the truth matter and education combined with critical thinking are a must.

I live in Southern California. It is sunny and warm pretty much all year. I seldom need an umbrella and I rarely wear a coat. I’ve never had to shovel snow, scrape ice off my car windows nor worry about slipping on black ice. For me, those are the upsides to living in California. The downside is the lack of water and clean air. California suffers from extreme draught conditions and a year round fire season due to climate change. The hillsides that surround us are brown tender boxes. They seem to burn with such regularity these days, destroying wild habitants, homes and businesses, and even human lives. But California is not the only location facing increasing problems brought on by climate change.

This is a worldwide problem that is already impacting both animals and humans. Warmer oceans upset the ego system, killing off wildlife and an important food source. Draughts negatively impact the food supply by limiting agriculture. Floods and hurricanes destroy homes, schools, and businesses. Some coastal cities are in danger of disappearing altogether. The disruptions caused by continuous climate change events is already costing billions of dollars and the price tag, including the cost of human lives, will continue to rise if we do too little, too late. As always, the poorest and most vulnerable among us are suffering the most.

If we care that our children and their children inherit a habitable planet, we must become better humans who do better by our planet. It’s time we develop habits that reduce our carbon footprint, that save water, and use energy wisely. Yes, world leading are meeting in right now to discuss governmental commitments to mitigate climate change. Some corporations are starting to do their part too. But we as individuals have a role to play as well.

The most important thing we can do is limit our driving. In places like Southern California where public transportation is rare, having a car is a necessity. It is time to insist that our public officials invest more of our tax payer dollars into building more public transportation using clean energy. While the situation is improving, it still isn’t good enough, particularly where I live. In the meantime, we can carpool, purchase hybrid or electric vehicles, and cluster errands. Driving less is the best thing we can do. And when possible, consider moving loser to where we work, study, and shop as a way to reduce our carbon footprint. I’ve been fortunate to drive less than 5,000 miles each year in my hybrid because I lived so close to my work and I’m able to shop locally. However, there are so many other small changes that I’ve made and have committed to making as a better human. Below is a list of small and big changes that when taken collectively could help us protect our planet.

Other things we can do to help protect the planet:

-Flying less often, making video-conferencing a permanent option

-Improving the insulation of our homes’ windows, doors, walls and ceilings

– Turning off lights and appliances when not in use

-Eating less red meat and dairy

-Consuming leftovers

-Switching from oil and gas heaters to electric

-Repairing clothes, donating clothes, buying second hand or renting clothes instead of purchasing new clothing

-Taking a train instead of flying whenever possible

-Buying energy efficient appliances

-Walking or biking instead of driving whenever possible

-Investing in solar and wind energy

-Reducing use of single use disposables and recycling more

-Conserving water with fewer and shorter showers, using the dishwasher, washing full loads of laundry, going to the carwash, and draught resistant gardening

-Planting trees and draught resistant plants or donating to organizations who do

-Supporting eco-friendly corporations and small businesses

-Voting for political candidates who take climate change seriously and are willing to enact laws and policies that protect the planet

I created The Better Human Project in response to the downward spiral I’ve recently observed in how human beings are interacting with one another.  As a retired educator and grandparent, I care deeply about the survival of the next generation.  I want my kids, my grandkids, and former students to not just survive, but to thrive in this world that we share with other human beings.  I have always believed that we humans collectively have the power to shape the society in which we live. When we lose sight of this reality and allow the greedy for fame, wealth, and power to dictate the rules, humanity and the planet itself ultimately suffer. 

During the process of creating this project, I reflected on what I thought it means to be human.  To help me think deeply about this, I took the word human and assigned a word to each letter. 

The letter “H” came to stand for creatures of habit.  We all know that humans develop habits that enable us to live important parts of our lives without having to exert a lot of mental energy.  Some are good and others are detrimental to our health and that of the planet.  Being a better human means consciously developing habits that are beneficial.

I made the letter “U” stand for the reality that we are each unique, having differences in talents, energy levels, intelligence, and personality.  I find great beauty and appreciation in the uniqueness of each human being and the special contributions their unique attributes allow them to make, especially when used to benefit humanity.

In my mind, the letter “M” came to stand for multicultural.  Each human is raised within a community with an established set of values, traditions, language, and social rules.  These provide an important feeling of belonging and safety.  When a culture uplifts and values every human within the community, it is worthy of preservation.  However, when individuals within a culture suffer alienation, oppression, and discrimination, then it is time to revise elements of that culture.

The letter “A” represents for me how humans are always active.  We have an innate need to do something with our lives and when we are no longer active, we become bored, lethargic and depressed.

And finally, the letter “N’ stands for neighbors because we share a planet together and we affect each other’s lives whether we care to acknowledge this reality or not.  We are not islands onto ourselves, nor communities unaffected by how other communities live.  We breath common air, share oceans, and have limited resources.

With these beliefs about humans as the foundation for The Better Human Project, I narrowed down nine things each of us can do to become a better human.  They are:

1. Protect the planet
2. Be truthful and value the truth
3. Learn new things as a lifelong learner
4. Love your neighbor
5. Challenge bigotry
6. Demand social justice
7. Help others in need
8. Practice inclusion
9. Vote for better humans in elections

 And that is The Better Human Project.  I hope you’ll join me in becoming a better human to make our world a better place to live.

Over the years, I’ve collected and stored wise and inspiring maxims that literally guide me through life. Many have come from early Sunday School lessons, like the Golden Rule: “Do onto others as you would have them do unto you” or “Judge not less you be judged” and “You’ll know a tree by the fruit it bears”. Others came from my mother, although she probably wasn’t the author. Many of her wise words continue to influence my behavior like, “Haste makes waste” and “You eat an elephant one bite at a time”, “Consider the source” and “A hard head makes for a soft behind”. And then there are aphorisms I gathered from speeches, songs, books, educators and activist making a point. For as long as I can remember, certainly as far back as the eighth grade, I was moved to action by the dictum, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”

It turns out that these powerful words originated with Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998), an early leader of the Black Panther Movement, former Muslim, ex-con, and civil rights author. I don’t recall where I was nor who first shared his words with me, but they became a part of my cache of wise and inspiring maxims to live by. In the eight grade, his dictum motivated me to start a school club to deal with the numerous problems I observed on campus. I called it the “Get it Together Club”. The mission of the club was to bring the student body together to improve our school from the bottom up. The effort was ambitious and notable enough to gain the attention of then Major of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, who attended my 9th grade graduation in order to present me with his “Community Service Award”. Honestly, I wasn’t impressed by the beautiful plague and I can’t even recall the praise he heaped upon me in front of the audience, but I retain the satisfaction of working for the common good. When a reporter asked me what inspired me, I unknowingly quoted Eldridge Cleaver, “If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.”

Throughout my personal and professional career, I have continued to be motivated by Cleaver’s words. And now, in retirement, as I find myself daily lamenting the sorry state of human interactions in our country, his dictum rings in my ears. And true to my lifelong belief system, I feel a responsibility to do something about it. I had thought that I would write children’s books to address the moral character of the next generation. And I still might. But then one morning, it occurred to me that I really wanted to get the message out to people actively involved in our society today that we should be better, could be better, and must do better if we are to survive as a human race on this planet.

I began to work on a public service message to encourage people to be better humans. For several days I thought about what it really means to be human and then what it means to be a better human. Out of this deep thinking, I created “The Better Human Project” and I asked my daughter who runs a non-profit, The Inclusion Media Group, if my project would fit within the mission of the non-profit and if they would take it on. She welcomed the project and I have been working on the details as the project manager ever since.

In the coming weeks, I’ll share the details of the The Better Human Project and will point to ways my readers can help spread the message. In researching for this week’s post, I found another quote from Eldridge Cleaver that surprisingly sums up The Better Human Project. Of course, I’ve already added it to my wise and inspiring cache of maxims.

“You don’t have to teach people how to be human. You have to teach them how to stop being inhuman.” (Eldridge Cleaver)

Many teachers will tell you that a great percentage of their time and effort goes to managing the squeaky wheels in their classrooms. A squeaky wheel is the attention grabbing kid who through either exceptionally constructive behavior or exceptionally disruptive behavior motivates a teacher’s actions in the classroom. As a result, the majority of kids in any given classroom are largely forgettable and they receive from the teacher what is dictated by the behavior of the squeaky wheels. I grasp that the same is true in our society. Political, business and religious leaders cater to the prerogatives of the exceptionally outstanding or the exceptionally obnoxious among us.

This week, I decided to become a squeaky wheel to our nation’s political leaders, as an exceptionally constructive person. Among the exceptionally constructive in our country are the highly educated and well informed, successful business owners, the famous for their talent, the patriotic heroes, and the articulate. Among the exceptionally obnoxious are those self-centered and unethical individuals who are greedy for fame, power, and money at the expense of everyone else. Caught in the middle are unsuspecting Americans who are simply living their lives to the best of their ability. For many years, I was one of them. At that time, the Republic was relatively safe. Lawmakers compromised. Americans shared the same basic facts on matters of importance. No political party owned an entire news network. Indecent, bullying, and blatantly immoral candidates were disqualified. However, these things are no longer true.

I learned through a conversation with one of my daughters just how unaware hardworking Americans continue to be. Too many know too little about the current thwarting of the rule of law, the threats to our basic rights, and the dangers to our Republic. My daughter admits to being too busy running her business to pay much attention to the news. It didn’t help matters when she explained how last week, on her return flight from New York, she watched a few minutes of Fox and then a few minutes of CNN. She concluded that neither of them was reporting the news, but both were stoking political divisions. In that few minutes, she concluded that watching the news produced unwanted anxiety and was therefore a waste of her time. She concluded that there was no truth to be had, only heated opinions. After some unpacking about the two news outlets, she conceded the misinformation and vitriol was worse on Fox. In her defense, she does vote in every election. But our founders made it clear that a healthy democracy depends on an informed electorate. I warned her that she may one day find herself living in a country she no longer recognizes if she remains uninformed.

And so, I recommitted myself to being a squeaky wheel on behalf of people like my daughter who have no time nor inclination to make a fuss. I spent a good part of the week emailing the president, my representatives, the speaker of the house, and the senate majority leader. Of particular concern at the moment is the threat to our Republic and the rule of law by Trump and his accomplices. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits an elected official who has participated in, aided or given comfort to insurrectionist from ever holding elected office again and yet Trump is talking about running again in 2024. There was a question as to whether or not those Trump accomplices will be prosecuted civilly or criminally for ignoring Congressional subpoenas. Why is this even a question? The Constitution already prohibits any threat to the full faith and credit of the U.S. and yet here we are debating it in Congress. I posted the issues and my opinions on Facebook. I followed political leaders from both parties on Twitter and responded to their posts. I even got into a lengthy, several days long back and forth with a Ted Cruise supporter. That interaction enlightened me a bit about the other squeaky wheels we are dealing with. It’s not just the vicious protesters at school board meeting or the January 6th insurrectionists, but individuals on social media feeding them a false and dangerous narrative.

First, I learned that this person is somewhat inarticulate and uneducated. I learned that he is ultra-religious but doesn’t really know the Bible very well. I learned that he thinks scientists are working on behalf of the “dark side” and just want power and money. He calls scientists in universities, pseudo-scientists. He accuses Dr. Fauci of working for the dark side. He knows little about the Constitution. He calls abortion murder and believes that life begins as conception and must be protected no matter the circumstances.

I realized that people like him are among the exceptionally obnoxious like Trump, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Ted Cruise, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Chuck Grassley and Kevin McCarthy. They rely on each other. I looked at their tweets and responded to the blatant deflections, misinformation, exaggerations, scapegoating, false accusations, and nastiness they were putting out. I also responded to tweets by Democratic legislators urging them to get tough, to follow the Constitution, protect women, protect voting rights, to hold political criminals accountable, and to get rid of the filibuster.

My hope is that more patriots will take to whatever platform they have and contribute to the discourse by injecting truth and reason and demanding justice and accountability. More of us must become the squeaky wheel on the exceptionally constructive side if we want to motivate leaders to move in a productive, not destructive, direction.

Death threats have become the “go to” tactic of the emotionally frustrated. A few years ago I had an Indian graduate student who believed he was being purposely excluded from group project meetings led by a Chinese student. It was true. He learned from a friend the time and location of yet another group meeting and showed up. He then grabbed the group leader by the collar and uttered the fierce words, “I will kill you!” before letting go. Fearing for his life, the Chinese student went to campus security and filed a complaint. The Indian student was arrested. In his defense, he claimed that saying “I will kill you” was an empty threat as people in his country say that all the time when they are angry. He was charged with assault for grabbing his peer by the collar, but the “I will kill you” threat got him no more than a reprimand from university officials, including me. And that’s the problem.

In a country where anyone can obtain a firearm, death threats carry far more intimidation. This isn’t as true in most countries where gun ownership is rare. I watch a lot of South Korean dramas and the term, “Do you want to die?” is routinely used to tell someone to stop their annoying behavior. I routinely laughed when Dr. Cliff Huxtable (Cosby Show) would remind his misbehaving television children that he brought them into this world and that he could take them out. However, in the current climate, particularly in the U.S., death threats have taken on an undeniable level of intimidation used by emotionally unstable, frustrated, hateful and potentially armed individuals. Death threats in the U.S. against my favorite K-Pop band BTS back in 2015 lead them to cancel their concert in New York. Too many Americans have been forced to hire security, move, change jobs, or go silent because of such threats.

It has to stop. In the public sphere, I believe it is time for the Supreme Court to rethink the meaning of “true threat” as it has become impossible to know who has the willingness and the means to carry out a death threat these days and whose “political hyperbole” will result in actual violence. We saw the results of such threatening speeches on January 6th. The First Amendment guarantees free speech, but it has exceptions and death threats were an exception for three reasons: 1) protecting individuals from the fear of violence, 2) protecting individuals from the disruption that fear engenders, and 3) protecting individuals from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.

In our private lives, I am absolutely thrilled that on Friday, October 1, the parents of Sandy Hook victims won their defamation case against Alex Jones who repeatedly called the 2012 massacre a hoax, leading to death threats against the grieving parents. He will have to pay damages to the parents for his lies that further tortured them. I hope those financial damages are huge! We need to see a lot more accountability for the people making the threats and those who trigger their violent behavior through lies.

In California, death threats are illegal. Penal code 422 states: “Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family’s safety, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment in the state prison.” Law section (ca.gov)

It is imperative that we know the laws of our state regarding death threats and that we as decent human beings use alternative means to persuade those around us. Death threats are never acceptable. But this fear of violence is costing us. Reasonable parents who care about masking and vaccinations to keep children safe in schools and those who want actual American history taught in schools have abandoned school board meetings, leaving board members to be overrun and threatened by misinformed and outrageous parents. I know many people who are afraid of expressing their opinions on social media out of fear. I’m no longer one of them. I refuse to cower in fear. Perhaps it is because I’m convinced that the price of allowing vaccine and election misinformation, hateful rhetoric, and rampant xenophobia to go unchecked is too high.

History has shown us what happens when the truth is silenced by apathy or fear. The lies become the basis for human decision making and harmful actions. Our voting rights are in jeopardy because of lies. 200,000 people have died, post-COVID-19 vaccine and people still aren’t getting the COVID-19 vaccine because of lies. I’m disgusted by NBA players who are promoting the flawed narrative that getting vaccinated against a “contagious” virus is a “private personal” choice. Someone needs to inform them that they do not live in a bubble and that their decision affects others.

Silence over these important issues is a form of consent. So, I refuse to be silent. And I hope many more Americans will be brave enough to speak up, too. There is power in numbers. There are many more for reasonableness than against it and the crazies will back down in the face of massive vocal opposition. And lets remind those who make death threats hoping to silence us that they will face legal consequences.

I was scrolling through Tik Tok the other day and ran across a tearful young black father of three whose wife was in the hospital battling COVID-19. He was asking for prayers and a miracle to save her life. I stopped scrolling and offered up a prayer. But soon thereafter, I became frustrated with and disappointed in the human condition that leaves us vulnerable to preventable hardships like what was unfolding for this young family. We occupy this world together and the decisions we make and how we live our lives affects others. Our forefathers recognized this when they wrote the insightful preamble to our Constitution. The responsibility we have as citizens to maintain a balance between the common good and individual liberty makes me happy but also frustrates me.

The preamble reads: “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.” The preamble is simultaneously aspirational, directional, specific, and inspirational. It recognizes the that we are not perfectly united, but that is the direction we must head.

But let’s be real. Clearly, the goal of our nation to establish justice has not been fully realized as we continue to allow the poor and people of color to be over-policed, to receive harsher judicial sentences, to be under educated, and to allow crimes against them to be under-investigated. The injustice is evident when our media makes the disappearance of a white female the subject of national news when black females account for 1/3 of women who go missing and we rarely hear about them. The fact that we continue to allow known criminals like Donald Trump to go unprosecuted while black and brown men rot in jail or die at the hands of police for petty crimes, speaks volumes about our failure to establish justice. We the people must do better by electing better lawmakers who in turn make laws and appoint judges.

Another goal is to ensure domestic tranquility. Tranquility comes when we are all moving in the same direction because we have the same facts from which to make rational decisions. We need to rely on fundamental scientific facts. We need to rely on imperial data. We need to agree that the sky is blue, the earth is round, that we humans are one species, and that germs and viruses exist. A free press was supposed to deliver us reliable information. However, when fundamental truths become infected by speculation, misinformation, and lies for political power, financial gain, or religious persuasion, then our domestic tranquility moves toward divisiveness and away from tranquility. We’ve been here before when domestic tranquility has been disrupted. It was when the actual humanity of black slaves came into question. At that time it took a civil war to resolve that issue, but we are still grappling with the truth of black humanity as seen this past week by the treatment of Haitians at our southern border. We are also grappling with lies about this last election that will make it harder for we the people to vote.

When it comes to providing for the common defense, we have gone a bit overboard by creating the most well-funded and powerful military in the world. However, I don’t believe the founders intended for us to arm private militias that can overthrow our government under the guise of the 2nd Amendment. I believe the 2nd Amendment was meant for the common defense as it says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Of course, this viewpoint has been pre-empted by the capitalistic gun lobby, hate groups, and right wing Republicans. And as a consequence, we live with the daily carnage of mass shootings in schools, grocery stores, churches, work places, and movie theaters. This free access to guns does the opposite of leading to domestic tranquility and promoting the general welfare.

But returning to our legitimate military, I think they have been tasked to do more than provide for our common defense; they are sent to police the world using our tax payer dollars. I’m for supporting other countries with soft diplomacy, not military force unless we are threatened. For example, I’m glad our military is out of Afghanistan, but I’d like us to provide the aid Afghanistan desperately needs to survive only if the Taliban provides safety and equal rights for women and safety to those who aided Americans in the past. Without these guaranteed safeguards there should be no foreign aid.

The role of the government as laid out by this preamble is to promote the general welfare. Can we acknowledge that human beings left to their own devices will sometimes act selfishly in ways that harm others? I’m thankful to live in a country where we can fight over the issue of individual rights versus the common good, but it can be counterproductive, too. Some countries don’t leave this up for debate, so their response to a public health crisis is swifter and often more effective. When it comes to COVID-19, I think it is past time for our government to put its foot down and as a matter of the general welfare, mandate masks and vaccines. The science is clear on the matter and reasonable people understand that individual liberty ends when there is a strong likelihood that individual reckless behavior will harm others. We put in mandates against drunk driving, against smoking in public spaces, and against falsely screaming fire in a crowded space. There should also be laws against spreading false lies about elections, about health issues, and false remedies. We have libel and defamation laws to protect individuals from false accusations. But it is high time to create laws against knowingly creating and spreading false information that is detrimental to the general welfare and undermines our system of government. These laws should be particularly targeted at public officials and those who hold public trust positions like doctors and the news media.

Was it intentional that the writers of the preamble made personal liberty last? I think so. It makes perfect sense that it is only after we have secured our common good that the writers of the preamble added the security of the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Those blessings can only be enjoyed after the common good has been attended to. Otherwise, if we allow personal liberty to take priority over the common good, we will all end up in tears like the young black man on Tik Tok.

I was struck by former President Bush’s characterization of Trump insurrectionists as being possessed by the same evil spirit as the 9/11 attackers. As a lifelong Christian who spent several years attending an evangelical church in the 1980s and early 1990s, I understood what he was saying. I witnessed with my own eyes how the church steadily became fertile ground for the Republican Party to create its own zealous army. I saw the first breakthrough in my church when one prominent member became political.

I recall listening to his provocative proclamation that America was a Christian nation. He said that the founders were all Christians. He claimed that America was chosen by God as a beacon of light for the nations. He claimed that there was really no such thing as a separation of church and state. Then, he also said that our nation was in danger of God’s judgement if we allowed the sins of abortion and homosexuality to continue.

Gradually pastors began to take up the conservative cause primarily using the old testament scripture, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. ” (2 Chronicles 7:14) This scripture became a call for national salvation as opposed to personal salvation. Jesus did not teach a national salvation or that God was still in the business of judging nations. Scriptures like, ” For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” (Psalms 139:13-16) were used to argue that abortion was murder. And multiple scriptures against homosexuality were invoked, especially how God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of it.

As churches became more active in their support of Republican candidates and its agenda to “save” America from God’s judgment, I was learning more in graduate school about American and world history. I was learning about other worldviews and I was learning to think critically about ideas presented to me in the media, from the lectern, and from the pulpit. I came to reject the core ideas behind the move to “save” America as the history of America itself belied the notion that this was in fact a Christian nation, that it was ever a Godly beacon of righteousness, and that the founders were all Christians. I saw the horrifically bloody history of state mandated religions and the historical folly of violently forcing one group’s religious rules onto non-believers. I also started reading scripture with a more critical eye. It is no wonder that conservatives have raged war on Universities and now on critical race theory. The truth, critical thinking, and even common sense are a threat to the nonsense they are promoting.

I finally recognized that the scriptures evangelicals pointed to against abortion didn’t support their stance of murder of a living soul, but that abortion was the interruption of a body being formed in the womb, an occurrence that more often happens naturally in the form of miscarriage. I recognized that immorality wasn’t limited to sexual behaviors, but included lying, idolatry, and greed. And most importantly, the only judge and punisher of these immoral behaviors was God and that on an individual scale, not a national one. In this all out effort to “save” America from abortion and homosexuality, evangelical Christians pretty much abandoned the gospel of Jesus Christ that calls for personal salvation, love of neighbor, the stranger, and our enemies. Jesus called for generosity, kindness and hospitality to the poor, immigrants, imprisoned, and distressed. The Republican Party platform represents the opposite.

Evangelicals would do well to listen to these words spoken by Jesus, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’. Matthew 7:21-23 What law did they break? The law that Jesus Himself gave us: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Luke 10:27.

It has become apparent to most onlookers that the evangelical Christian community no longer operates from a place of love, but a place of political ambition, idolatry, and tyranny based on a corrupted notion of following Christ. Their idea of freedom has been distorted to include their freedom to carry guns, to be xenophobic, to be homophobic, to go unmasked during a pandemic, to ignore climate change science, to prevent democrats from voting, and to force their interpretation of narrow pieces of the Bible onto others. They have embraced lying, cheating, meanness, and especially the liar who leads the Republican Party. They willingly fight to limit the human and constitutional rights of others, unwittingly misinterpreting both the Bible and the Constitution.

Republican strategists did a good job picking vulnerable segments of society to use as their army to strengthen their political aspirations. They picked people who were primed to believe what they are told without evidence. They picked people who were primed to believe that the person standing in the pulpit is God’s representative. They picked people who were primed to believe that they have the lock on godliness, when in reality they have become possessed by the same evil spirit that has lead to bloodshed and heartache throughout the human history. Combining white supremacy groups with evangelical Christians, the Republicans, lead by Trump, have forged a very dangerous coalition that is no different from Hilter and the Nazis, ISIS, Al Kaida, or the Taliban. As Bush said, they are possessed by the same evil spirit.

My prayer for my evangelical brothers and sisters is that they will allow the truth to free their minds and their bodies from the evil spirts who are leading them astray as sheep to the slaughter. Who of their family and friends is brave enough to expose them to history, a critical read of the Bible, and a run through of the Constitution? If no will speak the truth to them, then another civil war is in our future.

Anyone who lives on planet earth for a period of time cannot escape the grief that accompanies the death of a loved one. For many of us this pandemic has challenged our capacity to process grief as funeral gatherings can become super spreader events. I’m deep in the feels and mental state of grief right now. On Friday I received an email about the death of a beloved sorority sister who had not publicly disclosed the depth of her illness. The month before, a former student who had worked in my office from her freshman year through graduation fell to her death while free-climbing in Peru. And then, all week our media conjured up the images of 9/11 in preparation of the 20 year anniversary. Death is inevitable but how we handle grief varies from person to person.

I realized early on that if I choose to love people, I was also choosing eventual periods of grief. I determined for myself that loving others was the very essence of my existence and so I would love anyway and that I would give myself fully to those I love, knowing that the deeper that love, the harsher the grief. Admittedly, it is a risk that fills me with fear. And the only thing I truly fear in this life is the death of my loved ones. Given the inescapable tragedy of love and loss, I developed my own philosophy around death and a method for myself to deal with grief.

I’ll start with my philosophy. Admittedly, the better word would be mythology because philosophy is based on rational investigation and mythology is based on unproven beliefs. As an academic I prefer the word philosophy even though the things I tell myself and act on regarding the deceased are based on a collection of religious teachings, world views, and personal experiences. At the foundation of my belief is that we are souls residing in temporary, highly vulnerable bodies. I believe some people are new souls and others are older souls. I believe the soul is the lifeforce that never dies once it is breathed into existence by God. I tell myself that the soul of my loved ones continue on as either a part of that cloud of witnesses, in darkness awaiting judgement, or as a newborn human being. At times, I’m convinced that my soul was here before. I truly hope that when I leave this body this time that I get to become part of that cloud of witnesses. So, if this is what I believe, why is grief such a big deal?

Grief is about the living having to deal with the pain of losing an emotional and physical connection with a person we’ve grown attached to. I’ve decided to celebrate the passing of loved ones who have enjoyed a long life. After age 80 I only smile and feel a sense of gratitude for the presence of that person in my life and an appreciation for all they have experienced of life. I refuse to grieve the passing of people whose presence on earth has only caused pain and suffering to others. Admittedly, my “mental” pain is lessoned a bit when death means that a suffering loved one is no longer suffering. However, I can never escape the emotional grief caused by the premature death of decent people I love, even when their suffering has ended. Although it does not make grieving any easier, I’ve come to understand the roots of my grief and how to deal with it.

It starts with my belief that once a soul enters a physical body at birth it takes time to learn about oneself and the world, to develop capabilities within the limits of that body, to form social attachments, and to eventually contribute to society. Along the way, there is so much to experience and enjoy in the world. Early death short changes the potential for joyful life experiences, thwarts purpose, and robs loved ones of an important human connection. There is much satisfaction in finding and fulfilling purpose and experiencing life that when that process is cut short, it just feels so wrong. Part of my grief is empathizing with disappointment on behalf of the person who passed away and the other part is missing the connection with that person. Even if a soul returns, they will never again return to the same body. The genetics, the cultural society, the family situation will all be different and hence a different person will emerge.

So, today I am mourning the passing of my two friends who died too early as well as the innocent lives loss on 9/11. I’ve learned to allow myself time and space to process the thoughts and emotions that emerge. Sometimes the emotion is frustration. Sometimes it is anger. Other times it is just an aching sadness that causes a lump in my throat and uncontrollable tears. Sometimes the dead person appears in my dreams for a conversation. Often, it is a heartwarming memory of that person and a sense of gratitude for what they added to my life, what they contributed to society, what they did experience, and what they accomplished in their short lifetime. Sometimes, upon reflection of who they were, I adopt some of the positive aspects of their lives, making me a better person. And other times, I’ve taken on a mission to eradicate the tragic cause of their death so that fewer people will suffer from similar circumstances. And at times, I’ve had to forgive the person that caused the death by making a fatal decision. And yes, sometimes it is the dead person who has to be forgiven.

I’ve learned from the example of others not to attempt to short change grief by burying it, running away from it, or seeking revenge. The price paid for loving others is grief and it is a dreadful emotion that demands our time and attention and saps our energy. We must give it its due if we are to navigate it without getting stuck in the living hell that is resentment, depression, revenge seeking, or substance abuse.

For me, I’ve developed myths around death and life and I allow myself to feel what I’m feeling and to think what I’m thinking and to do what I believe needs doing. I allow myself these three things as part of the grieving process without time limits and without judgment. Love costs and the price we pay for loving someone may be grief.