Evil?

Eileen and I were chatting the other night, then today the topic came up again - What is evil? Is there evil?
See, I don't believe in the devil - and I do not believe evil exists as an entity in and of itself. I can't quote the bible, some people can and do - I perceive the Bible as a book of history which is written from many perspectives long after many of the events took place - I believe much of the Bible's message is how God created man and then gave man free will. This is the thing, free will - the ability to choose. Everyday we make choices - based on where we are and what is happening we have to make choices; is there a "devil" sitting on one shoulder and an "angel" on the other, each whispering in our ear pushing us in one direction or another. That, well that just makes me kind of cringe - Throughout the course of my career I have worked with children, young children who were deeply disturbed - Most of these children had psychiatric disorders, and many of them committed horrendous acts of violence, evil. I have worked with families who actually had exorcisms performed on these children to drive out the devil. There was not one instance, where a child, having undergone an exorcism, became less disturbed. There were instances, many of them, where the outcome of the exorcism (have I spelled that word right yet?) damaged the child even more. There are multiple environmental factors which affect a child's emotional development. There are times, when the brain is wired incorrectly - I have known children as young as 7 or 8, who I refer to as children with "empty eyes." These children, sadly, are safest in locked facilities with medication and therapy - They will not be cured, but they will be safe and society will be safe. Does a 7 year old child kill his 2 month old sister because the devil made him. It is hard to reconcile the profession of an all powerful, forgiving, miracle producing God who would not intervene on the behalf of a 7 year old child or a 2 month old baby. Questions and more questions - faith brings about many questions and faith offers few concrete answers - I know faith does not pay the rent. Evil then, what is it? How do we explain it - this is my equation...evil is the result of selfishness. A person chooses an evil behavior because that evil behavior makes them feels good - the evil behavior fills a selfish need - not having the power to read minds we cannot fully comprehend what selfish behavior is satisfying for another human being. Let us go simple - At Target one day a toddler was sitting at the end of an isle with a bag of snickers bars opened, he was scarfing up those candy bars as fast as he could. No adult was in sight - Is this Snicker stealing child evil? Or does the selfish desire to eat a sweet treat enough to drive him to break the law? That is simplistic, I know - sometimes "great" philosophical questions are merely really simple questions - but for whatever reason we want that complexity - Why? Does it make us feel smarter? Not me, complexity is complex and I prefer simple - KISS! Good rule to follow. A friend of Aldona Mae's lost her 4 year old son to a long battle with cancer. That has to be the absoluter worst! This woman is of deep faith - She feels the devil killed her child because her God would not take a child. I cannot even begin to fathom the depth of this woman's pain - it is incomprehensible - She speaks of God as all knowing, capable of performing miracles, capable of raising the dead - so she knows it was the devil who took her son - And I'll tell you, if this provides her with comfort then I pray she finds that. Yet, why would her all powerful God allow the devil to take her child, and why did he not raise her son from the dead? Why were her prayers and the prayers of so many unanswered? The devil took her son - I understand this as a concept; it does not jive with an all powerful God who can perform miracles. Her son had a rare, fatal type of cancer - science had no cure, time may never heal her wound - Cancer took her child. Devil? A rapist is acting out rage, filling a selfish need or a selfish void - his behavior is evil and I say lock him/her up and throw away the key - the behavior is evil and the behavior fills a selfish need. Evil is selfish behavior. When we choose to forgive, we break the cycle of evil - evil stopped when I forgave the man who raped me - Is he still evil - this I don't know. I don't know if he ever raped anyone else. His act of rape was selfish behavior which filled a selfish void - he was in need of something and rape filled that need - there were two of us in that room - no red devil on his shoulder - Behavior is evil - I teach kids, and kids can come up with a dozen rationalizations for the behaviors they choose.  A lot of them make me laugh and laugh and laugh - many times I just shake my head in wonderment at the creative way they avoid responsibility - Are they "bad" kids? No, they made bad choices. Is that Snicker eater doomed to a life of crime? Come on that makes no sense. Right now I am having a need for something sweet. So I am going to eat raspberry Zingers, should not eat them. Don't need them, health and weight wise - not good for me - I just want them. My behavior is not evil, it harms me. We hear that term; "victimless crime." Is that an oxymoron? I don't think so - smoking pot, for some people is fun. Good for them. Though I can safely say most prostitutes grew up victims of abuse in some way or another - not all though - for some women, sex is sex they like it, and they can make a lot of money doing something they love. What's the expression? If you love what you do for a living, you will never have to work a day in your life. Cool, I do love teaching, but dang it is hard work! Shucks I don't know. I don't understand why children die, I don't understand why many times the driver of a car survives when all the passengers are killed - I don't understand 9/11 - Most of the time I don't understand people, myself included - behavior though, behavior is a science - it is observable, measurable, and can be changed - we fee how we feel but we choose how we behave. I don't know where any of this is taking me, more questoins - and that is good -get people talking and thinking and examining, these are good things - I keep going back to evil is the result of selfish behavior and I will end with this note - if you have ever taken behavior 101, or psychology 101, or sociologogy 101, one human condition is true - once identifying an anti-social or "evil" behavior, once you know what it is, and you can see it - if the behavior for the actor is more rewarding than any alternative behavior, you cannot change the original behavior - so if knocking people upside the head makes a person feel good, and no other behavior (eating a pint of Rocky Road) can give you the same satisfaction - changing the knocking head behavior is not going to change - therefore our response has to change - we must accept this - we must accept the truth - a person willing to die for their selfish belief will not stop because we think they should - they must be stopped. MUST BE! I don't know, let me know what you think.

So What We Know or Don't Know

Most of you who read my blog know my mother died minutes after I was born. In that context, I understood the value of life much earlier than I should have had to. And that is that - However, given my beginning I felt a debt to my biological Mother; I felt I owed her the best life I could live. I held myself to some made up standards which I believed would make her proud and perhaps make up for my living and her dying. Of course rationally, I understand I am not to blame for her death - on the other hand if I had not been born then she might still be alive - my sister, Linda, may have grown up with her biological Mother, and my father would have had the love of his life; I think I like the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" so much because I would like to see what their lives had been like had Eva lived and I died - or if my life has been worthy of the cost. If Clarence could take me back and maybe something I did over the course of my life was worthy, was enough, that is an endless cycle - I know, I have been on this treadmill for a long time. There are peaks and valleys, same as everyone. We all have a story to tell and we all carry a cross. Often I say we are all moving our pile of rocks from the one side of the road to the other. Doing the best we can with the cards we have been dealt. When I was 9 I knew I was different. Not only because my mother died when I was born, a fact classmates often reminded me of, also because I knew I was a lesbian - I didn't have a word for it, I don't even know if I had a concept of what it was - I just knew I was different inside; at first I figured it was because I was a survivor of repeated sexual and emotional abuse - with a sprinkle of neglect thrown in just for fun - So the being different inside, I knew what it was but I didn't know what it was - I remember talking to God about it and asking him why? He answered me, I was 9, I did not understand his response; Like all of us the cycle of my life has been, well that a cycle - round and round and up and down - Christina Taylor Greene was born on September 11, 2001. In her 9 short years of life she formulated an idea, the idea that because she was born on such a tragic day, that she must live her life in service to her country. She was 9 years old and she wanted to visit a Congresswoman Giffords because, at 9 years of age she wanted to begin a life of service to her country, she wanted to make the world better than it was on the day of her birth - In an interview her mother gave to Anderson Cooper. Mrs. Greene said her daughter, Christina, a 9 year old girl, if she was alive she would not want people to be mad, she would want people to come together and find a way to make sure such a tragic thing never happened again. Christina Taylor Greene was 9 years old - and the ripple from the pebble of her life, that ripple must cross this sea of humanity - none of us can ever be as great as Christina Taylor Greene, she is someone we should aspire to be. I write tonight with many a tear coursing down my face - there are many reasons for this, some of which I will get into as time moves on. I write to understand - the written word has been my companion and often my therapy and often the only thing I could count on. One time someone asked me, given the challenges of my childhood, this woman asked me "Where did you learn love?' I did not understand the question mostly because I never thought of it before - Do we learn love? I thought love was innate, we were just born and we loved - then I thought of the many students I have encountered in my 27 years of teaching and realized there were so many students whom I taught, and they did not know love. They had not given love nor had they received love - Indeed, they had not learned love - I pondered and pondered, and I pondered - ruminated and masticated the thought over and over - Where did I learn love? Well, I was always loved. In fact every moment of my life has been filled with love - Though I lost my mother I did not lose love - I was loved by Mommie and Daddy Pat, Mr. and Mrs. Murphy were going to take me home, Little Gram and Aunt Norma were going to take me - People were lined up to bring me into their homes - Where did I learn love, my goodness how could I not? It surrounded me - and in my own poetic, romantic, imaginary mind I think it was because Eva loved me, she gave her life so I could live my life. It is with that I have tried to live, tried to be the best person I could be, tried to pay back, pay it forward - at times I strove for perfection and at times I was paralyzed with fear. I know I never reached my full potential, but I am not done yet - What I think, what I believe - there is no time to waste. There is no time to lament what we don't have or consider how we were shorted. We have  been to the top of the mountain and the bottom of the valley - like I said, we all have a story to tell. I reckon we have to decide what that story is - Where did we learn love or where did we feel loss? If we could turn negative energy into positive energy shoot who knows what we might accomplish. Look, I'll tell you I have buried more family and friends than I think is really cool, and I ask God a lot about that, and when I get to heaven I am going to get some real answers from him - in the meantime I am going to celebrate every single moment - let go of regrets and anger and things which hold me back, people who hold me back, situations that hold me back - I won't jump out of an airplane unless the pilot is going first, I won't try escasty, I won't bungee jump - I think tomorrow I am going to drive 70 miles on the freeway with my window rolled down! Ha, there I go watch out! The first thing I have to let go of my debt - I have to say it is paid and I pray I am right. I pray I was the kind of person Eva would have been proud to call her daughter and I pray the life I led in some way, I don't know, in some way was close to helping her fulfill her life's dreams. This I have to let go of - it won't happen over night, but today I realize, no matter how perfect I strive to be, well there is no such thing - and I owe Eva my life, yet I have to start living my life for me. I hae to let go of that debt - I have to figure I paid that debt and I have to hope I did OK. I won't know until I get to heaven; I'll just have to go with my gut on this one - Pray for Christina Taylor Greene's family tonight; pray for her 11 year old brother because I reckon he is going to feel some debt he must pay in homage to his sister - pray he finds the strength to do that and pray he lets go of that debt way before he reaches 47. I am 47 right? I always forget how old I am, not because age matters, it is just a number, still I seriously forget how old I am.
Blessed my whole life, loved from the moment I was born, given so many gifts - and now I set down this brick - I know another will come along, but this rock I think I moved it across the road. At least I hope I did, I wouldn't want anyone to get in an accident because I left a rock in the middle of the road - maybe I better keep pushing it - just to be sure.

Arizona -

OK, I know no one is shocked by the events of Saturday January 8, 2011. I mean I know we are all shocked - the tragedy of 8 individuals losing their lives, and another 10 people wounded - and another how many affected - people really hurt, our Country really hurt. I was watching television when the story broke - news channels should be more careful about what they say. If they don't know facts they should just say that. I'm OK waiting for the truth. The other thing though, what really gets me...how quickly politicians and pundits jumped in and started pointing fingers. Too many people were so quick to blame the actions of others - this was the act of a disturbed man who took a gun to a store with the intent of killing Giffords and himself. The worst part is he didn't get killed - cause you know, he has a family too. A family which lives in that area, and they have a son who is obviously disturbed, sick, and they must have known because he was kicked out of community college for behavior which was deemed dangerous to himself and to others - I know that language...Sane people don't do things like this. Sure we get mad, and we talk a lot, and maybe we vent and protest; Now Arizona is a gun state. You can carry a concealed handgun if you get a permit. It isn't that hard to do - How can anyone climb atop a soap box and use this tragic incident to point fingers at the "other side?" Goodness gracious what is the matter with us? How have we digressed into a country so divided people to the point no one even talked about the 9 year old girl who went to Safeway. The little Greene girl, who admired Gabby Giffords. A young baby, interested in politics and wanting to meet her idol. A little girl, who was growing up in a country where little girls can dream of becoming president - That rips my heart out.
Democrats and Republicans, Tea Party - talk show, radio show - anyone who makes a buck on disrespecting the "other side" they were all out - before we even knew anything - when it was breaking news and speculation and I was flipping from channel to channel just trying to get the information - goodness, Sarah Palin put out a map with bulls eyes on key Democratic Congresspeople, this incident is her fault - Limbaugh ramps up the anti-government sentiment, it is her fault - Arizona hunts Mexicans and has liberal gun laws so they should have expected such an incident - my goodness the blame was flying faster than I could change the channels - and I am a pretty good channel surfer. Then I started to cry, I cried with such sadness for my country, my idea of the United States of America and what it isn't anymore. I cried because making money and sensationalizing this incident was more important than a 9 year old girl who wanted to meet her idol. It was a Saturday morning, people were going to get groceries - and never will their lives be the same. Where are you? Where is my country? Where is the country I pledge allegiance to every morning? When I ask God, in my nightly prayers, to guide the judgement of our leaders, Oh do they not hear him.
I know separation of church and state, I believe in it and I don't. It conflicts me - I reckon I would rather my President have some spiritual guidance, I would rather he/she believe in higher power and that he/she ultimately has to answer to that higher power - when it is all said and done - Will we stop? Will the people who have the power to make it stop actually do it? Will we, the citizens, raise our voices - exercise our rights, take personal responsibility - On Saturday January 8, 2011 a disturbed young man changed the face of our country - I reckon we get to decide what the new face looks like - what are you willing to do? What am I willing to do? Can I just tell the pundits to shut up? Is that wrong? I don't like to say that, don't allow it in my classroom saying "shut-up" - goodness please be quiet - God please be with the families of those who lost their lives, with those who were injured, those who were witness, and those who affected - and God please bring us toward a place of unity - The United States of America - the greatest country in the world - Please, please - I don't know if you have faith, or spirituality, if you believe in a higher power - I don't know, it is sometimes such a hard thing to believe when something tragic happens...a disturbed young man committed horrific acts of violence - it was one young man - God be with him, for he is disturbed and needs help.Can anyone make sense of this? No, I know you can't. It doesn't make sense - never will. We can stop tossing our coins at people, companies, agencies - who capitalize on tragedy - and we can speak up for our rights as the government uses this tragedy as a reason to take away even more of our constitutional rights - it wasn't the gun, it was the boy with the gun. It wasn't people speaking their mind, it was a sick boy hearing something in his head - something no one said; perhaps the clues were missed, perhaps there were no clues - This boy changed our lives, each and every one of us, question is do we make this change something which ends up as positive or do we go down that lane of blame? Do we relinquish more rights? Do we point more fingers? Does this separate us, divide us, conquer us? It is divide and conquer, right? Do we let that happen? I can only do what I can do, and I will - what will you do? How much responsibility are you willing to take? How much is yours, mine, theirs? I don't know, don't have the answers - I know the answers are there, or actually, they are within each of us - are we willing to search? Are we willing to change? Are we willing to stand together? Are you?

Cold Case...

Cold Case is a television show. I don't know if you have ever watched it, it is a good show. The detectives are assigned to solving cold cases (hence the name). Anyway, I was just watching an old episode - had me in tears. The story was about Philly during the 1970's when a black family moved into a white neighborhood. The family was not wanted there and the neighborhood made sure they knew it. Two little girls, one African American the other Caucasian, became best friends. Children have a way of doing that - not getting caught up in adult stupidity. Of course the opposite is also true, children learn what they observe. These two little girls became best friends. Then the little white girl goes missing. Everyone figured the black teenage kid did the crime - the little African American girl blamed herself for the disappearance of her best friend. It was 30 years later and the detectives start working the case. One of the bigots was a man who used his son as a punching bag. The son ended up being the one who shot the little white girl and dumping her body in the woods - but she wasn't dead. She was found. She had no memory of who she was or where she came from so she was placed in foster care. The police find her and reunite her with her family and with her best friend. I was crying so hard watching this woman reunited with her family and her best friend. This was the 70's. My growing up years. Living in Malone we didn't have any African Americans. What we knew of race came from television. We watched Mod Squad and All in The Family. The Cosby Show was the biggest introduction to African Americans we really had. My life being what it was, I always felt like an outsider looking in. I was the little girl the Murtaghs took in. And at a young age I knew I was different in another way, though at the time, I didn't know the words to describe this difference. When I went to college, the summer before my freshman year, I had three roommates. All three girls were black. I was in the EOP program which was 99% African American. I don't recall giving it a second thought, the fact that I was rooming with 3 African American girls - or that I was the minority among my group. It was a real gift, growing up in Malone - we didn't grow up being taught hatred - there was no need for it. So when I went to college I had no prejudices or preconceived notions about my new friends. Now, many of us growing up in Malone saw it as a one light town in the boondocks - which it was, however despite the "redneck" possibilities we could have been taught we weren't. People worked hard, they drank hard, and they went to church on Sunday. For me, well, like I said I always felt an outsider - trying to explain my family tree required several days. That in itself was a gift. Knowing what it felt like to be on the outside looking in provided me with humility. I was in no position to judge anyone because I was an odd ball myself. Hard to believe in the 70's there was still so much bigotry. Hard to believe so much hatred exists today. Often it we hear people say, "Kids can be mean." This is true, however, kids are also the most open and honest of us all. What makes us hate? Why would we, in this day and age still hold on to any generalized bigotry? It makes no sense. My friend Donald, he is African American, and he still faces prejudices because he is a black male. And I a white woman, I face the preconceived notions of many of the parents of my students - "A white lady coming into our neighborhood thinking she is better than us." I don't get that. Growing up in Malone we were not taught any such things. It baffles me, massive generalizations aimed at one group or another - that we even have a category of crime which begins with "hate" is so darned disgraceful. I am not naive, I know racism is alive and well. Sure, as a society we have made progress, but some people will never change. Just as the wars in the Middle East are based on ideas from three thousand years ago, some people refuse to change. If I say the "N" word, Y'all know what I mean. On the playground of my school the N word flies around - but it is not a negative word - it is a word kids call one another - like homie, I could not say the N word because I am not African American - I can't say I understand why African Americans use the N word . What if I said that on the playground of my school the biggest insult is to be called the "F" word? What comes to mind? Or that being called the "G" word is a cause for fighting? Do you know what those letters stand for - F is faggot G is gay - Faggot and Gay, I can type those words, but not the N word. What about the B word - beaner, an insult to Mexican Americans - These words are labels, insults, slights, which will often end in a fight. Yet, I don't hear the outrage of my peers - not all of them - we don't teach the pain these words can cause - Some believe we could eliminate the stigmas attached to any "label" if we just used the words more. This doesn't make any sense, by calling someone the "F" word I will lessen the impact of the word. No, that doesn't make any sense. Being gay, or being a faggot - this is really bad - Just as being black was once really bad. Though, in television, and pop culture - trying your lesbian side is chic. This is just silly. How do you try your lesbian side - I know the physical part but the rest, that makes no sense. Now I remember the rumors from childhood about some woman who people thought were lesbians - but I don't remember anyone really caring. "Oh so and so, she is a lesbian." That was it. Maybe I was naive.  I don't know. Maybe Mommie and Daddy Pat, or spending time in a Catholic School, maybe those things insulated me from what was really going on. I don't know. I just don't remember hearing that I should not like someone because of the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, their religious affiliation. I remember terms about families living on the other side of the tracks. That was economic. Many a times I have said, we don't live in a black and white world with live in a green world - green being money - your position in life comes from the money in your bank account. There are greater obstacles for people coming from low socio-economic situations; Malone had plenty of poor. That might be the reason there wasn't a lot of prejudice aimed at other groups - when you are poor you have less time worrying about what others are doing. Yes, some poor makes you mad and this leads to bad choices and this leads to bad circumstances - that was true 30 years ago and it is true today. Being poor can make you lie down and quit, it can give you an excuse for failing, or it can be a reason to work hard and get above being poor. You can get out of being poor. You can't stop being gay, or stop being black, or stop from believing in God - but you can stop from being poor. There were times, growing up, when we lived well, and there were times when we were down on our luck. For me though, I was the little girl the Murtaghs took in - I was always poor - So what makes one person rise above their circumstances and another repeat the cycle of desperation? If I knew that I would be a rich woman, not just because I would have a lot of money, but because I would have an insight into the human condition which allowed me to understand that which doesn't make any sense. I don't get hatred. I don't get disliking a whole group of anything because of the actions of a few. I don't get any of that. It is not because I live in a bubble or see the world through rose colored glasses - I see hatred everyday - in my life I have been judged because of the color of my skin and because of my sexual orientation. It was what it was, mostly I feel sorry for people encumbered with all that hatred. I know hatred can kill you - no, it will kill you. Slowly, hatred will eat away at your insides until you are an empty vessel unable to find any joy in life. Life is so beautiful, it is such a gift - people - people are wondrous, magnificent, fun - giving up all the joy of life to hang onto hate - people like that need our sympathy, and yes, a good kick in the pants. Individuals who kill in the name of God, they are missing the point aren't they? Would God ask me to kill for him? Thou shall not kill. That is short and sweet - so if the commandment says killing is something I should not do then I'll go with that. We need an eleventh amendment - thou shall not hate. The power within each of us to bring forth beauty and love - this power cannot be stopped - we can make this world better. Each of us has the ability to set an example - be the change you want to see - This is just so true. We have come a long way, yet we have so much farther to go. And we cannot sit silently when we hear others express bigotry or hatred - being a silent witness is giving consent for the hatred. Speaking up, we have to speak up - and sometimes that is really hard, but as the country song says; "You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything."