Monthly Archives: February 2014

The killing of Jordan Davis

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Unless you are a newborn, a toddler, or delusional, you know damn well if a black man fired 10 shots into an SUV filled with four white teenagers, killing one,  he’d’ve been convicted for murder by now and on death row, if the state had the death penalty.

But that’s not what happened in Jacksonville, Florida on November 23, 2012.  A 46-year-old white man, Michael Dunn,  man fired 10 shots into an SUV carrying four teenage black men, killing 18-year-old Jordan Davis, and brutally traumatizing the lives of the other three and the families of all four. Dunn says they wouldn’t turn their music down. His claim that he saw the barrel of a shotgun is suspect at best. He never mentioned this to his fiancé, Rhonda Rouer, according to her testimony, as he drove the two of them back to their hotel after the shooting. Law enforcement said no weapons were found on the teens.

Dunn was convicted of attempted second degree murder. The jury was deadlocked on the count of first-degree murder. Thankfully, Dunn will be tried again on that charge. Dunn’s attorney, Cory Strolla,  said his client was “in disbelief” over the verdict. One wonders why. Could it be because Dunn is so delusional he actually thinks he was justified? Or, did he think he would get a pass because he lived in Florida? Has it not occurred anyone that if any of the teens actually had a shotgun they might’ve have fired back?

I have no sympathy for Dunn. I say this not just because he tried to kill four boys (succeeding in killing one) but because of the choices he made immediately following the shooting.  He didn’t call the police. Not only did he and his fiancé simply drive back to their hotel after the shooting, they drove the 175 miles back home the next morning, still not calling the police. His true colors showed up again in his letters from jail. In one he wrote, ““The jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs. This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these fucking idiots, when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.”” 

And this tragedy is not about the music. Thinkprogress.org’s Judd Legum is right when he wrote, “many prominent media outlets referred to it as the “loud music trial.”” It’s got nothing to do with music. It has to do with America’s addiction to guns, the seething racism that courses through the veins of more than will admit it, and stand your ground laws that empower both.

Kindness & compassion

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The Dalai Lama is right when he tells us,“Be kind whenever possible” and “if you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” 

There is no doubt in my mind that  kindness and compassion  are the healthiest (and strongest) choices on the table. But being kind and compassionate is not always easy; nor is it always pain free. I would be surrendering my allegiance to honesty if I were to say I am kind and compassionate whenever possible, but that allegiance is under no threat when I say I try to be. And when I am not, and, on occasion, strike back in kind at someone who’s wounded me, I try as soon as possible to own it, apologize, and mean it.

There a few things I appreciate and value more in someone than their capacity for kindness and compassion. It takes no particular skill and little, if any, courage, to be cruel and nasty. It would also be unjust to universally define someone who’s been cruel and nasty as bad.

The online Webster Dictionary defines kindness as “the quality or state of being kind” and compassion as a “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”    Kindness does not mean you don’t hold others (including yourself) accountable for their choices. The goal is to do so with kindness and compassion. Not easy. Very hard, when responding to someone who’s just wounded you in a moment of anger (it is helpful to remember that anger often has sadness as its underpinning) and blisteringly hard when that someone is a person you love and care about.

There is a perfectly understandable question that deserves an answer. What makes responding with kindness and compassion the healthier  choice when I’m the one who’s just been hurt? There is, I believe, a good answer. I don’t believe someone is having a healthy respectful relationship with self when they are lashing out someone in a hurtful way. In fact, I believe it is just the opposite. I think their internal experience of self  is in fairly rough shape.  In most cases their damaged self-image was not their doing. I know many (including me) who’ve lived through various forms of abuse, who’ve had acts of physical and emotional violence perpetrated against them. The struggle to rediscover and, in some cases, discover for the first time, that their truth is as valuable and good and beautiful as anyone on the planet is a steep climb to be sure.

Now, if you respond in kind, and wound them back, you are reaffirming their damaged self-image and strengthening its role in their life.  If that’s what you really want to do, then perhaps you’ve got some work to do on yourself; there’s no shame in that. If it isn’t, please consider this. During the time you are responding with kindness and compassion you are sending the following message to the person. You see their value and worth and you are not  defining them by their behavior.

While we are not responsible for the abuse and violence perpetrated against us in life, we are responsible for healing from it, and we are responsible for the choices we make as a result of it.

As for the few who think it is an act of weakness to respond with kindness and compassion, let me pose the following question. If it is an act of weakness to respond with kindness and compassion, then why is it so hard to do?

My father at 100

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If you are lucky in life, blessed might be the better word, you’ll have the experience of someone loving you completely simply because you are you. Someone with whom you can be yourself safely all the time. My father was that someone for me. He was and is the greatest gift my life has ever given me. If ever a human deserved a long life, it was my father. He died Saturday, August 16, 1969, at age 55; I was 15. When he died my ability to feel safe in the world died with him. It did not return until a few years of sobriety were tucked under my belt. I’d give up the rest of my life in the blink of an eye to hug him one more time.

My father, Sanford Cleveland Kahrmann, was born Friday, February 20, 1914, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Next Thursday would have been his 100th birthday.  I had hoped to drive the 400-mile round-trip next Thursday to visit his grave in Graceland Memorial Park in Kenilworth, New Jersey, but my financial realities will not let me do so. He would be the first to tell me not to worry about it. He is, however, always with me. Some years after his death it occurred to me that death does not take the all of someone away from us. My father is with me all the time. His presence in my life is alive and well.

And there’s more. There is a large tree next to his grave. Some years after he’d died I was standing by his grave. It occurred to me that his body had begun to feed the soil and the soil feeds the tree and so the scattered of small twigs and branches the tree shed took on special meaning for me. I gather some up twigs and gather more every time I go. By having the twigs near me or on my person my soul says part of my father is with me. On very rare occasions over the years I’ve given one of these twigs to someone I love who has, because they are who they are, arrived at a sacred place in my heart.

My father taught English at Columbia University and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He was a veteran of World War II, serving in the Army’s 20th Armored Division, one of three U.S. Army divisions to take part in the liberation of the Dachau Concentration Camp located about 10 miles from Munich. I did not learn about this until after he died. He never talked about it.

He was also my best friend. We built a tree house together, stayed in a cabin on Stokes Forest, New Jersey together, read books together. Once, at my pleading, he agreed to accept the non-dancing part of Herr Drosselmeyer in the Orange County Ballet Theatre’s production of the Nutcracker in which I danced the role of the Nutcracker Prince. He did beautifully and received wonderful reviews. One said his Drosselmeyer was the suave master of legerdemain. My mother gave him a box of matchbooks with those words embossed on the cover. He was little-boy happy handing them out to his colleagues.

My father also gave me the gift of reading. When I was about nine or 10 I went into his room. He was sitting behind his desk working on something. Behind him was a wall full of books. I said, “I’m not a reader like you and Mommy.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I can’t finish any of the books I start.”

“What makes you think you have to finish them”?” I was surprised by his response and it showed. “You’re thinking of school assignments. We’re talking about reading. Let me ask you, don’t you think the author has something to do with keeping you interested?”

I nodded.

“Okay then. Tell you what. Grab 10 books that perk your interest, forget page numbers, and read them until they don’t interest you anymore.”

Suddenly and gloriously the world of reading was mine. The first adult book I ever read was The Folded Leaf, by William Maxwell. I still have the copy from my father’s library on my shelf. To this day reading is one of my greatest loves and, when times get tough, refuges in life.

I loved and love my father my whole wide world. He loved and I suspect loves me the same.

Happy Birthday, Daddy. I miss you.

True to self one day at a time

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There is no place for perpetual cruelty, dishonesty or disrespect as constants in my life, no matter the perpetrator, even when the perpetrator is someone I love very much.  Having been all three at times in my life there is nearly always an open door to my life for someone willing to take responsibility and makes amends. Absent that, no healthy relationship with the person is possible. I am a realist. I know the best of us get angry and may say things or do things in a moment of anger (or fear) that are mean and nasty. One is responsible for recognizing these moments, owning them, and meaning it when they apologize. Dishonesty is another ball of wax altogether. And one worthy of real attention.

It is important to note that dishonesty serves a real purpose. First, when someone is being dishonest they are not being truthful about who they are and there may well have been a time when being truthful about who they were was dangerous. Dishonesty became a kind of armor, a survival mechanism that had to be used simply so the person could survive, so the child could protect himself or herself from abuse, for example. What is so terribly difficult to learn is the defense system that was once your greatest protector  is now one of of you greatest vulnerabilities. I have great compassion for those who include dishonesty in their life-management repertoire. This does not mean I’m always able to have them be constants in my life, nor does it mean I don’t hold them accountable.

Having a healthy relationship of any kind with someone who uses dishonesty is like to trying to sculpt solid objects out of smoke; it can’t be done. One of the things I am most appreciative of in my life is people trust me because they can. They really can. Believe me when I tell you this was not always the case. I’ve been sober now a few strides past 11 years and I can tell you there was a time I thought no one would ever trust me because there was a time there was little reason to. I remember being dishonest in ways in which raised my own eyebrows. If I’d read 31 books one year and someone asked me how many books I’d read that year, I’d say 32.

It is easy  to get angry when someone is cruel, disrespectful or dishonest in their behavior towards you. A former girlfriend of mine (now a close friend) once asked a friend of mine we were having dinner with, What do you see make Peter angry? His answer was spot on. Two things mainly. Being treated with disrespect or seeing someone being treated with disrespect, being denied their rights.  It’s true.

A short time ago I wrote a piece for this block called Beware the distance makers. Distance makers are not people, at least not in the context that essay and this one is talking about. Distance makers are habits, patterns of behavior that, by default, prevent others from getting close to us. Individuals laden with distant makers are engaging life with highly edited and twisted versions of themselves.  Stepping into the open as our true selves, flaws and all, can be a steep climb. Tragically, too steep for some, or so it seems. But, once achieved, it is a wonderful place to be. Far less stressful. Your relationship with the world around you and those in it becomes healthier, more loving, and more fulfilling.

The most painful thing of all for me is when someone I love, someone I genuinely care about, is trapped in this kind of destructive lifestyle. I can’t be close to them because it is dangerous for me. But, even more painful is witnessing people whose real truths are breathtakingly beautiful go through life trapped in the exhausting and endless task of juggling untruths, and, in doing so, confirming their inaccurate self-image that they’re not worth very much. Many reach the grave that way. I still love them, deeply so, and the door to my life is open. And while I can’t make another person get well, I can always believe in them and pray for their capacity to do so. And, if they do so, or truly start to do so, I will be there to embrace them, encourage them, and help them reclaim, or, perhaps for the first time, lay claim to the life they truly deserve. A life where they can be true to themselves, one day at a time

We’re not dark yet

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Listening to John Hiatt singing Feels like Rain thinking so of many battered and bruised by life’s travails, sheltered behind barricades that blind, or lead or to miss or lose the love that’s right in front of us. Were trying again, letting love happen, taking that risk, an act of weakness, then why’s it so hard to do?

Listening to what may be the most beautiful version of Hallelujah I’ve ever heard, remembering dreams lost, lives gone, chances lost, thinking God give me strength to accept the possibilities life offers me, and please don’t let my fears lead me astray. Yes, I know it’s hard when some have had other try to end them,  but do we really want to allow those others to pilot our lives from here on out? Not me, not me.

Listen to Springsteen’s Tougher Than the Rest … Toughness (strength),  the capacity to allow life’s experience unabridged by history’s wounds, plans gone wrong, the missteps of ourselves, and others. Finding the strength to love sometimes means going through the fear until the fear can’t hold on; it means going through the rain to reach the sunshine. 

Listening to Marc Cohn’s One Safe Place  I find myself still believing love  can be one safe place. If this makes me a fool, well then, fuck it. So be it.  I say dream on, keep the faith. Don’t give up. We’re not dark yet.