Understanding “Shyness”

I have finally come to an understanding of what being “shy” is all about.

It is about low self-esteem and fear.

I am shy. I am animated when I present, when I preach, when I teach, but when my public performance is over, I am terrified of interacting with people. I am not good at it.

I am afraid to call meetings, even board meetings, because I am afraid of rejection.

I call it shy. It is worse than that.

I am fond of saying that there can be no reconciliation until there is truth- telling. Today, I am telling the truth.

I have never reached out to people. In therapy, I learned that because of my childhood, I learned to be isolated. It was safe. Where there is no interaction, there can be no rejection. My mother was gone …somewhere…and I lived with foster parents. My mother said my biological dad didn’t want me.

Cool. I stayed by myself. My only real connection was with my mother, who was gone somewhere and only came to Detroit, to the home of my foster family, intermittently.

I learned to be a loner.

My entire professional life, I have been a loner. Didn’t seek people out, people who did what I did, who could have helped me and with whom I could have had really good friendships.

I formed a board for Crazy Faith and have never called a meeting because I am afraid.

I have an urge to call for a vigil to address all the craziness that is going on in this country, but have not, because I am afraid. “Shy,” I call it, but it is really fear.

I had learned to be a loner.

As I raised my two children, I realized I had a problem and did see, thank goodness, that life is about relationships. I encouraged, pushed my children to make relationships, which they have done.

Score for me on that one.

But I, who call myself “shy,” who has a ministry called “crazy faith,” and who teaches that fear and faith cannot exist in the same sphere, the same space, live in fear. Fear of rejection, mostly.

Sharing this is scary, but necessary. I am determined to grow.

“Shy” is a misnomer. It is low self-esteem, based on fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough.

A candid observation…

The Cowardice of Bullies

We have all heard it said or have heard it ourselves: “He (she) can give it out but can’t take it.”

We are seeing the truth of that statement being lived out in the current White House.

The man who became president was a bully from the start, throwing his weight around, calling people names, insulting anyone and everyone, especially women. He was defiant and thin-skinned, and unwilling and/or unable to apologize for anything he said. He was “The Donald.” He was tough and strong. He boasted of his business prowess, his sexual prowess and of his ability to keep his base, no matter what.

But this man is one of the weakest people in public office I have ever seen. As soon as he even thinks someone has criticized him, he goes on the attack. He spouts off lies like he is wiping dripping sweat off his brow. He aims to be as insulting as possible …and then complains, whines, if you will, about how “unfair” everyone is to him.

He has shown not strength, but extreme weakness. Anyone who cannot take the heat of being in public office ought not be there; one has to be able to take the blows and keep on going, but this man, so terribly weak, takes valuable time out from governing the nation so that he can retaliate and throw cheap shots at people who have dared cross him.

Not only is he weak in that regard, but he is an absolute sycophant and “friend” to anyone who throws him a compliment. Russian President Vladimir Putin has complimented him and will compliment him again, I am sure, during his face to face with the American president this week. Putin has seen this president’s weakness and will play to it, exploit it and use it to his own advantage.

Our days under this administration have been an ongoing soap opera. We wait every day not for news or for policy announcements, but instead for the next vicious, juvenile “tweet” from a man who should know better. We have a president who never grew up.

What is scary is that he is the leader of the free world – or has been, at least. He has ignored the power he has and has squandered his reputation and the reputation of the country just so that he can have schoolyard-type brawls with those who he feels have disrespected him.

His sycophant surrogates, staff and the Congress have let him have his way. They are afraid of him and what he will do. I am almost sure he threatens people who dare cross him. That is the inherent and unmistakable insecurity that characterize bullies. They use “fake strength” to ward off truth and challenges; they are afraid of failing and falling, and do not have the strength to own up to their weaknesses.

And so, to hide their own deficiencies, they threaten and attack others. They must always remind people of what will happen to them if they don’t march to his drumbeat, and meanwhile, they continue to insult anyone they please.

They are weak, plain and simple.

So many Americans have smiled and said that this president is strong. They like his fiery rhetoric about making America first; they like it that he says he will “knock the hell” out of terrorists. They like it that he has blamed all of America’s problems on “weak” leaders, leaders, he has called stupid and incompetent. They say he is strong because he says what is on his mind.

That isn’t weakness. That’s stupidity, and it’s going to cause America a lot of serious problems. This man is a bully, a man who can “give it out” but surely “cannot take it.”

A candid observation …

White Men Behaving Badly

It feels like we are all watching a reality show about wealthy white boys in college getting into mischief and pushing the envelope on all levels, without really worrying about the consequences.

The appearance of Attorney General Jeff Sessions in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee was troubling on many levels, but the biggest issue for me is that Sessions and others in the administration appear to be twisting the truth – if it can be called even that – boldly and arrogantly without any fear, it seems of being called on it.

The outrage that the current administration voiced during the campaign about Hillary Clinton being investigated by the FBI is strangely absent now, save the president’s complaints that he is being treated unfairly. The Congress is silent and pliant and is letting this administration get away with lying and with attacking the basic tenets and rights of American citizens.

They are being silent as the administration moves toward an authoritarian regime, in violation of all that the United States Constitution calls for. Sen. Mitch McConnell is immersed, it seems, in his desire to undo any and everything that was done by the previous administration, which accounts for him continually saying that, as concerns health care, the Republicans are keeping a promise made “to the American people.”

I guess he is not aware that “the American people” have changed their minds for the most part in terms of opposing the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare,” and that “the American people” are rebelling against proposed changes to health care legislation. I guess he cannot hear “the American people” crying out, saying, “leave our health care alone.”

These white men – old, for the most part, ensconced in America’s history of racism, sexism and yes, capitalism and materialism – are tone deaf to the people whom they are supposed to be representing. They seem not to care that their drive to protect the wealthy means that their own constituents will suffer greatly. It feels like the GOP leaders are pushing their weight around, throwing into the faces of many that they are, in fact, privileged, and can do pretty much what they want.

The most troubling aspect of all of this is that none, or few, of the GOP have the courage to stand up against the oligarchs who are systematically seizing control of our democracy and thrashing it around like a puppy playing with a stuffed animal. They are silent and obsequious, more interested in honoring “the Donald” than they are in protecting the United States.

Not even the fact that the United States has been cyber-attacked by Russia is or has been enough to shake them from their desire to “fit in” with the jocks. They seem not to care that the administration is making friends with dictators and fellow oligarchs and insulting our allies. They are selling their souls and, by extension, betraying “the American people.”

It is puzzling and frightening, what is going on, and talking about it is not productive. Cable news programs are as impotent as is the Congress. The administration is leading everyone around by the nose, teasing here and taunting there, daring someone to truly challenge them.

I never thought I’d see the day when I could not depend on the government of America to protect its citizens. Contrary to the administration’s claims, it is not making America safer. No, instead it is releasing all of the venom which has been at the core of America since its inception – the racism, xenophobia, sexism and religious snobbery and prejudice which too many Americans have. This administration seems to be in exact opposition to everything the Founding Fathers stood for, at least on a theoretical basis. They didn’t want blacks to be equal to whites, and they didn’t think women had a place on the equality spectrum, either, but they sure did not want an oligarchy or monarchy, or so they claimed.

Anti-Obama people “wanted their country back. Well, they’re getting it …and then some. The white men at the top are having a party at the expense of “the American people.” They are behaving badly, and nobody has yet figured out how to stop them.

A candid observation.

On Patriotism

Watching what is going on now in our country is at once fascinating and terrifying.

I thought I knew what “patriotism” meant. I thought that an American patriot put America first, truly, including the tenets of its US Constitution. Being a patriot for me never meant that a person was anti-racist or anti-sexist, or was, in fact, interested in steering away from any kind of discrimination. But for me, one who waved the flag meant that they believed in the basic tenets of the Constitution, including the basic freedoms.

In the past, a patriot was virulently against Communism. The Soviet Union was America’s enemy and everyone knew it. To even give a hint of being all right with communism was a death knell.

But surprisingly, more than a few Americans seem not to care about communism or about its threat to democracy. More than a few Americans are unconcerned about the intrusion into the heart and core of our democracy by a former KGB agent named Vladimir Putin. It is breathtaking to watch the silence of the United States Congress, letting the current president cozy up to Russia with little more than a sniff.

Russia has an agenda. Russia wants to be recognized as a world power and not a pariah, and under the leadership of Putin, it is running its agenda in this country with disturbing ease. That the Congress has said nothing and done even less, that it does not demand that the president stop weakening the very fiber of this country, is astounding. The comfort I had in the three legislative branches of government being in place to check unbridled power is all but gone. It feels like we are headed toward an authoritarian government, and the Congress, which could stop it, is not doing its job.

Where are the patriots?

The small group of very wealthy people who are in power seem blind to history, or if they see and know history, they do not care about it. They are running roughshod even over the “base” that elected the president into office, as they push for policies which will make life most difficult for that very group of Americans. How nobody in Congress is talking about that, showing blatant disregard for the millions, for example, who will lose health care if the president’s health care bill gets through the Senate is beyond comprehension. These people purport to be religious people, specifically Christian, and yet they are pushing policies which leave “the least of these,” whom Jesus the Christ said we should take care of, out of the ring in which the fight for justice is being waged.

The White House is filled with old, angry white men primarily, who resent the browning of America. Their resentment is not new; there was a similar backlash against “globalization” in the 1930s. Anti-immigration sentiment back then led to the passage of anti- immigration laws which would today appall many of us. When the report came out that by 2030, America would no longer be a “white” nation put the fire underneath the bigots, the white nationalists, and many non-politicians for whom the thought of not being in the majority was painful and frightening.

It seems that what is going on, fueled by white working class Americans who are angry that they have been ignored, is a fight which has at its roots the most vile racism and bigotry. The leaders of our nation are virtually silent about white nationalists taking their anger out on people of color – white domestic terrorist activity – even as they decry the terrorism carried out by ISIS.

What also seems to be going on is toxic capitalism. The very rich have abandoned allegiance to America and have decided to become best friends with Russia, our enemy, for the sake of making more money. Patriotism be damned.

Tom Snyder the Yale history professor who wrote On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, said that America has about a year to stop the path toward tyranny on which America is now traveling. The impotent Congress will not stop what is going on; it is not clear that the United States Supreme Court will be much more of a protector of America and her Constitution, all the vitriol about caring about that document notwithstanding, and the Executive Branch is filled with angry, old, racist white men who want America to be as white and male as can be.

Patriotism as we know it is gone. Or maybe the issue is that I never really understood what patriotism really was in the first place.

A candid observation …

Our Slip is Showing

In the “old days,” women would wear slips under their dresses and/or skirts; to not do so was considered a violation of proper modesty. The slip could be whole or what was called a “half slip,” which was, as the name indicates, a garment that hung from the waist down.

Half slips were notorious for not being cooperative. You would get what you thought was your size, and the slip would be fine for a while, but sooner or later the elastic around the waist would wear, and the slip would not stay in place.

In variably, the slip would hang below the hem of the skirt or dress, and some other sympathetic woman would whisper, “Your slip is showing.”

I thought about that as I have been watching what has been going on in our government. Our foundation is one which was built on racism and sexism. Though we were purported to be a democracy, the Founding Fathers seemed to have disdain for the idea of too much power coming from the people. This government was always about elevating and keeping some in power, and about keeping other people down. According to Howard Zinn in A People’s History of the United States, four groups of people were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women and men without property.” (p. 91) Even at the inception of this “great democracy” the value system was firmly in place: the rich were to run the country and to maintain their power and increase their wealth by exploiting the working poor. Writes Zinn: “the Declaration functioned to mobilize certain groups of Americans, ignoring others.” “The American people” was never the masses, but was really the small group of wealthy, white, male landowners…”We the people,” a phrase coined by Governor Gouverneur Morris did not mean Indians or blacks or women or white servants.”

Charles Beard, a 20^th century historian, wrote in his book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution that “the rich must, in their own interest, either control the government directly or control the laws by which government operates.”

If we read and study this history of America, we might not get quite as agitated as some of us are in the present day as we watch what is going on in our government. We are abiding by traditional American political history. That history is not a stellar one; it is fraught with discrimination and bias, with government allowing for and even sanctioning those who do what they think best in order to keep the moneyed class in power, to keep the oligarchy intact.

And while it has not gotten as much attention as the escapades that have been going on in and around the White House, the sexism that was written into our Constitution is rearing its ugle head as well. The House constructed a health care bill that is sure to have devastating effects on many, including women. In their work to craft this bill, a picture appeared having only white men in the White House, deciding whether or not maternity care and mammograms should be considered to be “essential” health issues to be covered under the Republican bill. (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/trump-health-care-summit-white-guys)

As this administration barrels through proposals that will hurt so many people, it seems that her slip is showing – a slip which includes her racism, sexism, and paternalism at the least. With these people in power, poverty will increase, as will mass incarceration; voting rights are in danger of being seriously compromised, and anyone who challenges the policies stands the possibility of being sanctioned. These people in power are not unlike, it seems, the Founding Fathers, who envisioned a country run by a small group of wealthy white men who controlled everyone and everything.

The slip which is America’s undergarment has been soiled by the dust that comes from such injustice, but it is America’s legacy. Those in power do not worry or care about if the slip is showing, but, rather, only that it stay in place in order to maintain – or in this case, regain – the status quo.

It’s called “making America great again.”

A candid observation.