We have failed our boys.

Posted on June 14, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

We have failed our boys. Every day I see more and more boys who say they don’t want to read. Knowing how to read but choosing not to is the same as being illiterate. The result is the same whether they know how to read but don’t or they never knew how. Every day I see boys who – if they read at all, read far below their age level, only able to read books that have many pictures in them. They are either unwilling or unable to read a book that has only words in it. They choose graphic novels and comic books if they choose books at all. There’s a whole series of books geared towards boys now that are written very simply and have many illustrations in them. It is as if they need training wheels in order to read. It is a disturbing trend.

Then if they read, the subject matter is concerning. Their parents steer them toward “boy” books. “Girl” books are about relationships – sharing, making friends, learning how to compromise. “Boy” books are about relationships as well – dominating others, being a soldier, being in charge. They learn this script too well. They learn that they must control every relationship they are in. They learn nothing about sharing or cooperating. Anything other than domination is seen as a failure. It is easy to see that it is impossible for everyone to be a winner with such a scenario. This sets them up for a lifetime of disappointment.

We have failed our boys. By telling them that “boys don’t cry” we are telling them that they are not allowed to express their emotions. Those feelings have to go somewhere. When you don’t allow someone to cry the feeling turns around upon itself and transforms, metastasizes, goes dark.

We have failed our boys. When we say “boys will be boys” to excuse bad behavior we’re saying that they don’t have to try better. We’re saying that there’s no reason for them to act in a respectful manner. Any behavior that you would want to see in your boy when he grows up into a man should be encouraged when he’s young. When we let boys get off the hook from punching others or pulling on girl’s pigtails (or worse forms of abuse), we are saying that they are not accountable for their actions.

Is all of this why so many acts of violence have happened recently? Is this why so many boys and young men have decided to express themselves, to be heard, to be noticed, by taking a gun into a public place and shooting random strangers? Have we done this to ourselves?

More importantly how can we make it stop?

Thoughts on the latest terror attack

Posted on June 14, 2016 by betsybeadhead | 1 Comment

In this time of unrest, let us listen to these wise words from people from all over the world and all across time. Let us remember that we have a choice.

“Heracles was journeying on a narrow road when he saw what looked like an apple on the ground. When he stepped on it, the object instantly became twice as big. Seeing the extraordinary growth, Heracles stepped on it with both feet and smashed it mightily with his club. As result, the thing expanded so rapidly it blocked the road. Heracles threw down his club and stared at it dumbfounded.

The goddess Athena appeared to him then and said, “Dear brother, leave that thing alone! It is the spirit of argument and disharmony. If you keep from touching it, it can do no harm. But, as you have seen, if you try to fight, it only grows greater.” – Fable of Aesop.

“Rabbi Akiva traveled with a donkey to lighten his load, a rooster to awaken him at dawn, and an oil lamp to study by at night. He trusted in God and believed that all God does is for the good. One day, God made it that Rabbi Akiva arrived at a town after the gates have been closed, so he had to sleep outside in the dangerous woods. When he, at last, sat down to study by the light of his lamp, a great wind arose and blew it out. So, saying to himself “All is for the good,” he lay down to sleep, confident that the rooster would wake him early the next morning.

But then a fox came and carried the rooster away. Rabbi Akiva said, “This too will be for the good,” and with that fell asleep. In the middle of the night, a lion pounced on the donkey and devoured the animal before it made a sound. Rabbi Akiva mourned over the life of his donkey, but saying “Everything is surely for the good,” he found joy and comfort and returned to a deep sleep.

When Rabbi Akiva awoke in the morning, he saw that the town had been attacked and burned to the ground. “See,” he said, “all is truly for the good. If I had gained entry into the town, or if my lamp had remained bright, or if my rooster had crowed, or my donkey had brayed, these attackers who destroyed the town would have certainly come after me, too!” – Traditional Jewish story.

“Ambrosia can be extracted even from poison;
elegant speech even from a child;
good conduct even from an enemy;
gold even from impurity.”
-from the Laws of Manu (sacred text of Hinduism)

“How far that little candle throws his beams.
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”
– William Shakespeare

“You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, don’t resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, let him have your coat as well. Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 5:38-40, HCSB translation)

“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”
– Gandhi biographer Louis Fischer, summing up Gandhi’s view on the Hindu concept of “ahimsa”

We have a choice now. We are at a crossroads. We can choose life or death. We can choose to be present and aware. We can choose to love our neighbors. We can choose to not be afraid. We can choose to rise above, rise together. We can choose. We are not powerless.

This isn’t about race or religion or creed, not anymore. This has happened too often, in too many different ways. There have been more mass killings in this world than we can easily count. It has become our normal, this terror, this fear. Some male takes a gun and kills many people, all strangers, in a moment.

In the same way that it has become our present normal, it can become our past. This does not have to continue. All things change.

In the meantime, we must remember that we have a choice to remain calm. To listen to the stranger. To be open and welcoming. To forgive. To show love and compassion. We must remember that there are far more kind, compassionate, and loving people than we realize. They don’t get the press attention so we don’t notice them. Start looking for the good, and you will find it all around you.

We must embrace the “other”, the different one, and include rather than exclude. This is a time to unite, not divide. I do not mean for “Us” to unite against “Them” – but to have a “We” instead.

We have a choice. It is time.

Blessing

Posted on June 8, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Jesus says “Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30)

The apostle Paul says “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” (Phil. 4:13)

When we align ourselves with what Jesus wants us to do, anything is possible. But the important thing is that we have to remember that it has to be what Jesus wants. Remember he says “Take up my yoke” not “Yoke me with your plans.” We are to get in line with what Jesus is doing, rather than just inviting Jesus into what we are doing.

So often we try to do things backwards. We all too often tell God what we want to do and then ask God to bless it, rather than asking God to bless us by telling us what to do.

Remember the phrase “God is my co-pilot”? I saw a church sign recently that said it works better if we switch seats. Let God be in charge. You might not get where you want to go, but you’ll get where you need to go.

Live like you love yourself

Posted on June 6, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

If you spent all the money in your bank account, would you be then surprised that you had nothing left? Then why are people surprised when they have spent a lifetime of inactivity and eating badly and then get sick? It is exactly the same thing.

Are we so divorced from cause-and-effect?

Or perhaps we have had our power taken away from us and been told too often that others have to do things for us – by teachers and politicians and ministers.

But perhaps even that isn’t fair to say. Nothing can be taken away from us that we aren’t letting happen.

We have given our power away. We have let others take it away from us. Rather than get angry about that, realize it is time to take it back. It is time to take back your health and your life. It’s time to eat like you love yourself. It’s time to treat yourself as a valued guest in your own life.

It is time to remember that our bodies are temples of the living God. We need to treat them like that and not as garbage dumps.

The starfish story

Posted on June 6, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

While walking along a beach, an elderly gentleman saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up and throwing it into the ocean. As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, picking up starfish one by one and tossing each one gently back into the water. He came closer still and called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.” The old man smiled, and said, “I must ask, then, why are you doing this?” The young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the elderly observer commented, “But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!” The young man listened politely. Then he bent down, picked up another starfish, threw it into the back into the ocean past the breaking waves and said, “It made a difference for that one.” (author unknown)

Death is every day

Posted on June 3, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

There’s an old story about a man who was walking towards a town and he sees Death walking along beside him. They start to talk and Death says that he is going to kill everyone in the town. The man bargains with Death and says “Please don’t kill that many people” and Death says “Okay, I’ll only take 100.” When they get to the town, the man warns everyone there that Death was there and he was going to take 100 people. After a week a thousand people had died. The man finds Death and speaks with him, saying “You promised you would only kill a hundred people!” Death replied “I did. Fright killed the rest.”

There’s yet another story going around that says that the world is ending soon. This most current one says that they miscalculated the Mayan calendars and that it really is going to be June 3-4. This doesn’t give us a lot of time to get ready.

When my mother-in-law found out that she had a terminal diagnosis of cancer, I asked her what she wanted to do. She said she wanted to live. I pointed out that there is a difference between living and being alive. What do you want to do with the time that you have? What do you want to be remembered for? How do you want to contribute to the world? She didn’t have an answer. All she knew was that she didn’t want to die.

Our life is God’s gift to us. How we use it is our gift back to God.

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.” – John Donne

Jesus had many parables about constantly being ready for the kingdom of heaven. This could be interpreted as death or a change in our way of understanding. Perhaps the “Kingdom of Heaven” can be seen as a death of the way things have always been, and a new life of peace and harmony.

But he also said that even he didn’t know when this would happen. So how could these predictors know, when they aren’t anywhere as connected as Jesus, who heard directly from God? They don’t. But it doesn’t matter. The idea of being ready for death is useful.

People many years ago would keep a souvenir of a loved one who had died. It was called a “memento mori” – a reminder of death. It was not only to remember the loved one, but also to remember that death is their fate too.

Our society has sanitized death to the point that we don’t even see it anymore. Our dead are taken away from us by professionals. We don’t experience death as a part of life like our ancestors did just a hundred years ago. They took care of their own dead at home. They washed them, laid them out, built a coffin, and buried them, all on their own. Now because that is done for us, we are divorced from the idea of death. We see it as an aberration, instead of as normal, which it is.

Death waits for nobody. Death is every day. There are no second chances, no do-overs when death comes. Death isn’t a punishment or a failure. Death is the natural result of life. It is best to make friends with it because it isn’t going away.

What would you do if you knew you had only a year to live?
Why aren’t you doing that now?

Thoughts on the Eucharist

Posted on June 2, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

The Eucharist is the Christian ceremony that commemorates the Last Supper, (also known as the First Lord’s Supper) in which bread and wine are consecrated and consumed. The term also refers to the consecrated elements, especially the bread.

According to the online dictionary on Google, the term comes from the late Middle English: from Old French eucariste, based on ecclesiastical Greek eukharistia ‘thanksgiving,’ from Greek eukharistos ‘grateful,’ from eu ‘well’ + kharizesthai ‘offer graciously’ (from kharis ‘grace’).

It is literally a meal of thankfulness. We are eating thanks.

The last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples is described in all four Gospels (Mt. 26:17-30, Mk. 14:12-26, Lk. 22:7-39 and Jn. 13:1-17:26). In each story, he follows the Jewish practice by first giving thanks for the elements of the meal before consuming them. He blesses the food by blessing God, the creator of that food.

There is an echo of the miracles of feeding the large crowds of people.

The first instance, “the Feeding of the 5,000”, is in all four Gospels: Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:10-17 and John 6:5-15. The second instance, The “Feeding of the 4,000”, is reported by Matthew 15:32-16:10 and Mark 8:1-9. Both times, he gives thanks first. He is pointing out to his disciples and us that we must give thanks before we receive anything. Thankfulness must come first for miracles to occur.

Contract

Posted on June 2, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

While writing a story yesterday, I realized that I am / was expecting something of my brother that he did not agree to. I expected the “Hallmark” family and instead I got an abuser as my role model. I now suspect that he did not want to be anybody’s brother. Perhaps he wanted to be an only child. Perhaps he didn’t want to share his time or toys, didn’t want to share our parents attention and energy.

Basically, I’m accusing him of violating the contract he didn’t sign. He didn’t agree to having a sister, so he never said he would act like a brother.

This is the very same thing I’m saying that my sister-in-law is doing to me. She is mad that I wouldn’t help out with our in-laws estate, when I never said I would. In fact, I told my husband (the only person I need to tell) that I wouldn’t, because it was his task to do with his brother. I had done the same task, alone, at 25. Perhaps she has a script that says “daughters-in-law should take care of all family matters”, like I have a script that says “brothers should not abuse their sisters”.

I’m coming to understand that it is best to start with a clean slate, to not be prejudiced for or against situations / people / experiences.

Values

Posted on June 1, 2016 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I know a couple where the husband said to the wife that they have to make a certain amount of money a year. It is a very high amount. They have only one child and live in an apartment.

Meanwhile, the wife is miserable, stuck at a job that she hates, where her manager is abusive to her. She is so stressed out that she has begun pulling out her hair. Doctors have put her on anti-anxiety medicine, but it isn’t helping because it is treating the symptom, not the disease.

I believe that the husband has his priorities wrong. It isn’t about money at all, and it never should be. If his wife is so miserable that it is affecting her health, then something has to change. They need to evaluate everything that they are spending money on and how much money is coming in. Perhaps he needs to get a second job. Perhaps they can trade out a car for a cheaper one. Perhaps they can move back in with a parent.

But there is no reason that a spouse should ever put money before the health of their spouse. No money is worth more than your spouse.

My husband was very stressed out recently about extra responsibilities with his job. This is a new job, but suddenly he is being expected to do things that he did not sign up for and is not trained in. He wants to do well, but these added expectations are not reasonable. It was obviously very overwhelming to him.

I chose to play the biggest card and speak of my fears. I told him a story that I’d just read about a woman whose husband was very stressed out over his job. He was so anxious over all that was going on that he had constant pains in his stomach (the stomach and the head are the most common sites for stress to manifest). Doctors, as usual, gave him medicine to treat his stomach pains but did not advise him to seek help about his job. She woke up one night to discover that he’d killed himself while she slept.

I told my husband that I don’t want to live through that. No job is worth that kind of stress. If his boss got angry that he wasn’t able to do what he expected him to do – a duty that was not on the list of expected tasks when he was hired – then perhaps he needs to find a new job. We can make do. We will work it out. We have before. But his health is worth more than money.

Don’t ever put money before your spouse. Remember “forsaking all others” as part of the vow? It normally refers to intimacy – that we promise to only be intimate with our spouse. But I take it to also mean that their well-being should be seen as important and valuable.

It doesn’t make sense if you have a lot of money but your spouse is miserable. It doesn’t make sense to demand that your spouse work at a place that is harmful to their well-being. Even if that man’s wife doesn’t kill herself from the stress, she’s living a half-life already because of it. It is not right for him to demand that. But this is her battle to fight. If he cannot see that, then she must speak up for herself.