Monthly Archives: November 2023

Thanksgiving

Posted on November 23, 2023 by | Leave a comment

For this Thanksgiving weekend, if I had the right super powers, I would grant you community
and fellowship, fun and games, food for feasting, smiles and hugs, calm, and rest.

Since I’m not a magician, these are my wishes for you.

the word "thanksgiving" in white on dark blue background, with a surrounding border comprised of leaves, acorns, and berries

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Posted in reflection

Sharing as Connecting

Posted on November 16, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Is it my imagination or are there more memoirs today than there were 20 years ago?

The last couple of books I listened to on Audible were memoirs—one about a current celebrity and one about a very rich woman from two generations ago. While we used to call books like these autobiographies, it seems that people who want to tell their story today write memoirs instead. The definitions of autobiography and memoir highlight a distinction between the two, but not enough to quibble over.

In a conversation with a friend about the two recent memoirs I listened to, I mentioned that I had planned to write an autobiography or memoir when I retired. My friend asked me why I had changed my mind. Without hesitation, I responded: “I didn’t want to hurt people who would not want the negative parts of their lives shared. I thought it would be selfish of me to sacrifice the feelings of others to tell my story.”

Why did I want to tell my story? Why do those who write about their lives feel compelled to tell their stories?

When I think about why I wanted to create a book about my life, I want to think that it’s because by sharing my story—that of being an ordinary person who exceeds expectations— others may gain some insights and be encouraged. Stories about transcending obstacles and limitations and triumphs over despair have always appealed to me because they signaled that if someone else could do the extraordinary, then I might also aspire for something more.

Truthfully, I really don’t know why I have felt the need to write about my life. Being an observer and notetaker is just who I am. I like to reflect on what happened, how I felt, and possible meanings of the events. When I read notes or remember the significant and often insignificant events in my life, I think they make a story. Sometimes they make me smile and sometimes they make me sad. These memories are the ingredients that make up my life. I hold them as precious and want to share them generously.

Holding the events of our life as precious is probably a human thing. Wanting to share them with others is perhaps more idiosyncratic. Ultimately, for me, sharing is connecting.

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Posted in Identity, reflection

Dousing the Fires of Inhumanity

Posted on November 9, 2023 by | 3 comments

I woke up and looked at the clock. It really was 3:00 in the morning. “Oh no,” I thought. “I hope I can get back to sleep.” Because I usually sleep well, I tried to recall my activities from the day and evening to try to figure out what could be causing me to wake up and not get back to sleep.

After about an hour of tossing and turning, searching for the best position to invoke sleep and playing mind games equivalent to counting sheep, my mind was pulled toward the ubiquitous, never-ending negative news stories of the day.

Wars and their devastating physical and psychological human toll and our inhumanity to one another as exhibited through political maneuverings, the cutting cruelty of social media, and random killings, some out of a belief that some people are worthy to live and others are not. As I ruminated about these things, I was overwhelmed by a deep sadness and tears slowly leaked out of the corners of my eyes.

My sadness caused me to think about the title of my website: The F.I.R.E. This Time. Inspired by Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, the title I chose in some ways reflects my pessimism about us humans.

Though there are ebbs and flows, there is always Fire. Sometimes there are Fires all over the world and little fires everywhere all the time. What are these Fires?

What I call Fires is what David Brooks describes as “the rising culture of dehumanization . . . tribalism, racism, ideological dogmatism, and social media.”  (“A Humanist Manifesto: The world feels like an awful place right now. Here’s how to make it better.” The Atlantic, October 24, 2023.)

Brooks describes dehumanization as “any way of seeing and acting that covers the human face, that refuses to recognize and respect the full dignity of each person.”

Described as such, dehumanization is the root cause of all the Fires. What ignites these Fires is humans thinking that there is only one right way, one right answer, one point of view and other ways of thinking or viewing are wrong or bad and must be vanquished, destroyed, and annihilated.

Some ideas Brooks suggest for conserving humanity that resonate with me are what he calls humanistic wisdom and empathy.*

Brooks shares that it takes humanistic wisdom “to be able to understand one another to some degree, to see one another’s viewpoints, to project respect across difference and disagreements.” If this is all we must do, why do we feel helpless to confront the problems we see and hear about? What can we do as individuals? How can we exhibit humanistic wisdom and empathy?

It’s obvious that we can’t contain world Fires, but we can contribute to dousing the flames of little fires. While even controlling little fires is no easy task, it is something that each of us can do in our everyday interactions, even our casual encounters. Instead of accusing as a first instinct, we can practice the habit of first accepting and hearing.  

An attitude of acceptance and hearing sets the tone for humanistic wisdom and is a meaningful step toward empathy. Brooks’ understanding of empathy is “first mirroring—accurately reflecting the emotions of the person in front of you. Second, mentalizing using your own similar experiences to project a theory about what the other person is going through. Third, caring…. To care, you not only have to understand another person: you also have to perform an action that will make them know that you understand how they feel.”

We should be grateful for the many good people who try to be empathetic by mirroring and mentalizing in their encounters with others. It’s the third part of Brooks’ description of empathy—caring—that is often missing from our relationships with “the other.” If more people could care about “the other” because it’s the humane thing to do, we could chip away at the kindling that keeps these Fires of hate and aggression smoldering and eventually bursting into flames.

Our history demonstrates that there was fire last time, and sleepless nights cause us to ruminate on the fire this time. Sadly, if there are not more demonstrations of humanistic wisdom and empathy, there will undoubtedly be Fire the Next Time.

word cloud in shape of two hands reaching toward each other with primary words in one being "I HEAR YOU" and "CONNECT" and the primary word in the other hand being "EMPATHY"

*In fact, the FIRE in the title of my blog is an acronym that’s long been a touchstone for me, of which ‘empathy’ is a component, so I guess I’m not entirely pessimistic. Following are the components of the acronym:

  • Fate/Faith
  • Integrity/Initiative
  • Reflection/Respect
  • Energy/Empathy

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Posted in empathy, energy, faith, fate, initiative, integrity, reflection, respect

First-Generation High School Graduates

Posted on November 2, 2023 by | 1 comment

Maybe you attended a high school reunion recently or talked with someone who attended one. Most likely these reunions are commemorating graduations that occurred 20-50 years ago. It’s likely that the majority of those classmates attending these reunions were the first in their families to receive a high school diploma. Graduating from high school was quite an accomplishment and source of pride for these graduates’ families.

What is stunning and puzzling to me is the number of young people born in the United States who—in 2023—are the first in their family to graduate from high school.

These thoughts led me to these notes from my mother:

What Gwen’s Graduation from High School Meant to Me

Yes, her graduation meant much to me in terms of my life and the chance to make up for disappointments and lost opportunities. It meant that the naysayers and name-callers were wrong about me and my child. It meant that despite the circumstances of her conception and the mess her father and I made of our lives together after her birth, through faith, I knew that God was watching over her. His eyes were on her as he watched over the sparrows.

What Gwen did not know was on the occasion of her high school graduation, I remembered my Grandpapa Agnew, my daddy’s father, who was a slave. With joy in my heart, I thought about how far we had come to finally have someone in our family graduate from high school.

Grandpapa Agnew in a suit and hat with a building in the background
Grandpapa Agnew

I recalled the times when I was a little girl and Grandpapa Agnew stayed with us. I would sit on his lap and he would tell me stories about when he was growing up. The message I got from his stories was about how much better things were for us Negroes now than when he was born and how it was so important that we worked hard to find opportunities to better ourselves and our race.

When Mama and Daddy moved to Memphis, Grandpapa Agnew stayed in Mississippi with his daughter. He visited us when we lived in Memphis and Gwen was a little girl. He had the most beautiful silver, not gray, hair; walked with a cane, and wore a suit and a dress hat. It was such a blessing that he could see his great grandchild, one who would accomplish what he could not have had the imagination to realize.

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Posted in faith, first-generation college students, Identity, initiative, Race & Ethnicity, reflection, respect, Students