How to avoid cruel and unusual punishment

It was bad enough getting my teeth cleaned by a less-than-gentle dental hygienist, ouch. What made it worse was the television on the ceiling of the room that was playing the U.S. President's press secretary speaking to the media while my teeth were scraped and scaled. When I told a friend about this morning's experience of being a captive audience in a dentist's chair, she laughed and said, "double cruel and unusual punishment, for sure!"

Like many people, I'm trying my best to find some good in Donald Trump -- or at least trying not to get into rants about him. I grew up hearing Thumper the Rabbit's voice (in Bambi) saying, "If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nuthin' at all," though I now temper that phrase with Edmund Burke's "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing." My best theory about this whole situation is that perhaps the Holy Spirit is allowing the present president to teach the world that we can't wait for presidents to make the world a better place; we also have to engage in improving ourselves and the situations where we can make a difference, and speak up for those without a voice.

So far I've managed to avoid signing the many on-line petitions of complaint against the man (what will they prove, really?) and I'm watching what I say about him because I believe that all the nasty badmouthing of both sides in the last year or so seems to be what got us here in the first place. But with all the negative and fear-based things happening in the first few weeks of this presidency, it's really difficult not to continually assume that the worst will happen, especially when so many lies are flying around (and so many refugees who have already gone through "extreme vetting" and have valid visas are waiting for the U.S. borders to reopen).

When I first saw the video below, I was put off by the negative and mocking tone of the speaker -- but a few days further on, I'm thinking he makes some valid points, especially after seeing this morning's press conference. If the President continues to use the media to market and push some of the lies he's using to support his agenda the way he has been, it's definitely within the media's rights to push back -- to "pause the tape" and do some fact-checking so that the truth may be heard (more than) twice as often as the lies. Some of the world's present problems lie in the fact that so many people accept whatever the loudest or most "official" voice says. We can't even hear the truth any more.

But truth, if it is true, doesn't have to be loud and pushy. It is clearly "official" because it manifests itself in beauty, goodness, generosity, kindness, and understanding. If we don't want to live with at least four more years of this "cruel and unusual punishment," of lies and the backlash they create, we need to move into a more positive place. So how do we convince each other of the truth? Not with the angry voices of the President or Keith Olberman in the video, but maybe with some honest facts coupled with a lot of compassion -- and plenty of action to reveal lies for what they are.

What do you think?

Speaking honestly

Henri Nouwen has me thinking again. This time, it's because of the quote below:

Can we only speak when we are fully living what we are saying?  If all our words had to cover all our actions, we would be doomed to permanent silence!  Sometimes we are called to proclaim God's love even when we are not yet fully able to live it.  Does that mean we are hypocrites?  Only when our own words no longer call us to conversion.  Nobody completely lives up to his or her own ideals and visions.  But by proclaiming our ideals and visions with great conviction and great humility, we may gradually grow into the truth we speak.  As long as we know that our lives always will speak louder than our words, we can trust that our words will remain humble.

June 21, Bread for the Journey, Henri Nouwen

I've been thinking about this for a long time, actually... ever since I started to write my Simple Suggestions. Because honestly, I'm the first to admit that I can't fully live those suggestions out all the time, as much as I would like to. I dream of getting all my food locally, of baking my own bread weekly, of cooking more vegetarian meals, of joining a community garden... but I'm not there yet, and being as dizzy as I have been for the past eight months, I'm beginning to wonder if that particular limitation will ever go away. And as far as proclaiming God's love goes, I'm afraid I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to institutional religion, so these days, I'm not even much for talking about God.

But Henri Nouwen gives me hope. I'm not yet a hypocrite, because my own words keep calling me to conversion. I believe in all of my Simple Suggestions, and I believe in God. And I'm not dead yet, so chances are, I'll grow into being better at doing all these things... but in the meantime, I'll humbly admit that I'm not perfect... and that I don't succeed in implementing my Simple Suggestions all the time.

You either?

But we're trying... and that's what counts.

Mr. NoName

Last week at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul clothing room, two homeless guys came in and asked for gloves because they had gotten jobs shoveling snow. It was their lucky day, as there were two brand new pairs of sheepskin-lined deerhide mitts in our bin. The guys were congratulating each other when they headed out the door and another man arrived. Unlike most clients, he didn't "register" as he came in, but began looking around, fingering things, and putting me off when I asked for his name so I could pull his card from our client file. He asked for a pair of those nice gloves his "buddies" just left with (if they were his buddies, why didn't he greet them at the door?) because he was working with them, he said, but I told him they got the only two pairs. He seemed a little shifty, so I followed him around a bit, listening to him talk about himself, asking for his name so I could register him. He kept evading the issue, not making eye contact.

We were having a fairly friendly chat about various paperback novels on the bookshelf when three new clients showed up. My attention was diverted from the fellow for a time as I registered the women, writing their names, addresses and phone numbers on file cards (mostly so we can be sure people aren't "shopping" too frequently). Then I walked to the men's aisle where my evasive friend had gone and said, "I really need to register you now, because that's how we keep track of the people we serve."

"I have to get going," he said. "It's too crowded to shop right now anyway." He pushed past me and went out the front door, ignoring my protests. The women who had just registered said, "What a rude guy!"  "Some people!" "It's not that crowded -- we're the only ones here." I muttered, "Next time you come back, buddy, no name, no shopping!" and the three laughed.

Guess who was back today? I didn't actually see Mr. NoName come in, but I heard his voice. He was talking to my mom about getting some food, so I walked over and stood there, listening, letting him know that I was aware of his arrival. When my mom said, "I don't think you registered when you came in, so we need to do that before you go any further," she got the same response as I did last week. "I have to get going," he said, and took off. Mom wasn't surprised when I told her about his visit the previous week. She thought he probably snuck past me and made a beeline to talk with her because they had no previous history.

I can't help but wonder why the fellow won't give us his name. He's got me curious, and my writer's mind has been mulling all afternoon, inventing different scenarios. Could he be an escaped con, afraid that we might somehow turn him in? Is he a shoplifter who gets his thrills from taking things without permission (even if they're free)? Or is he simply someone who enjoys playing outside the rules, snubbing the system? Does he tell a different story to a different volunteer at a different agency every day of the week? Does he enjoy thumbing his nose at authority of any sort? Could he have some form of mental illness that makes him paranoid? Or has he just had the kind of life that prevents him from trusting anyone?

I doubt we'll ever know, but it's guys like him who make life interesting. For a few minutes, they mess with my sense of everyone being basically honest and loveable, of life being mostly good, of the world being a generally gentle place. It's only too easy to worry or get disheartened when I think about the many people in our world who, for whatever reason, are unable to trust anyone. But even if our nameless friend registers the next time he comes in, we have no way of knowing whether he's telling us the truth, so does his telling us his name really matter in the long run?

I wouldn't want to pass any sort of judgment, I just would love to know the truth about him, being a curious person. But truth can be elusive, as is Mr. NoName.

Trading places...

In my work at the clothing room of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, I meet all sorts of people who have many different struggles. The fellow going into rehab, the woman living at a halfway house, the newcomer from Africa trying to cope with his first Canadian winter, the homeless woman under the influence of an addiction -- all make me wonder how it would feel if we traded places. Sometimes it's too easy to imagine it.

Fundamentally, there is no difference between us, though we often think in terms of US and THEM rather than in terms of solidarity with our brothers and sisters who find themselves in dire straits. But if we are honest, their anguish is our anguish. It's only ever been US.