Can We All Just Calm Down?

As you've no doubt heard, five high school students in California were asked to turn their shirts inside out or go home because they bore the American flag on Cinco de Mayo. Obviously, the decision made by the Administration was wrong, and in violation of the students' constitutional rights to free speech.  I don't think I've heard any disagreement on that point. The decision was reversed and the Principal of the school issued a public apology.  That should be the end of he story.  Sadly, it isn't.

Despite the apology, the mother of one of the boys contacted Fox News (of course) and a media maelstrom was born.  The teachers at the school started getting hate emails, the local Tea Party group has called for a rally in the town, and there is even a facebook poll asking if the Principal should be fired.  (95% have answered yes).  Fired.  For one bad decision.  I hope all the people who are calling for the firing are judged as harshly at their jobs.  Imagine knowing that a single error in judgment could send you to the unemployment line?  

The reaction is so wholly disproportionate to the offense, it's disturbing.  Why are people so easily angered?  Why do they use the slightest infraction to justify that anger?  

Yes, the Administration of the school made a bad decision, but let's not operate under the delusion that those five boys were somehow innocent victims.  These are kids on the verge of adulthood.  They are aware of the world around them, they know what's going on and they were perfectly aware of the political climate and heightened anxiety in this country over the issue of immigration.  They made the decision to wear those shirts on that particular day not out of some deep sense of patriotism, but to be provocative.  (Set aside for now the fact that patriotism has nothing at all to do with what you wear, put on your bumper, or post as your facebook status.) They did it to cause a stir and garner attention.  They got exactly what they wanted and now people are unjustifiably angry.  If they thought their actions would somehow help the public discourse in this country, they miscalculated.

 What is so rally worthy?  Were all the teachers asked to take down the American flag in their classrooms?  Was the Pledge of Allegiance suddenly banned?  No.  In a misguided attempt at being sensitive, and proactively avoiding conflict, a bad decision was made.  That's it. One bad decision, with good intentions.  A decision which was consequently reversed and for which an apology was issued. That isn't good enough for the "I'm more patriotic than you" crowd, and now their self-righteous anger has led to hate mail being sent to good, honest, hard working teachers, who in all likelihood have a better grasp of what it means to be patriotic than the people propagating anger and hate in the name of patriotism.

I find hope in the students. In the wake of this nonsense, they gathered together to hold an impromptu peace rally on their campus.   They had a moment of silence for the teachers receiving hate mail,  and they raised the American and the Mexican flag together in a show of solidarity and mutual respect. The next day, many of the students wore plain white shirts to school to promote peace and calm tensions.

I wonder if the rest of the country will take a moment to learn a lesson from these kids and all just calm down.

Out of the Darkness

I've wanted to post about this for several days, but was so emotionally drained from it all, I couldn't even get started.  Now that I am finally sitting down to get it all out, I only hope I can do with the respect and eloquence it deserves.

Last weekend was a strange juxtaposition of emotions and events.  It began Friday afternoon, when I donned my pink "Bosom Buddies" T-shirt and headed out to spend the night with my fellow "Bosom Buddies" at the Relay for Life.  For those unfamiliar with it, the Relay for Life is a fundraising event put on by the American Cancer Society.  Each team commits to having someone walking for 24 hours.  We work in shifts, usually two at a time, but often more, walking for an hour.  We have tents set up behind our booth where we do fundraising in a variety of ways.  I learned about this team through a teacher I substitute for, who happens to be a breast cancer survivor, hence the team name.

We began our event with opening ceremonies, including survivors who shared their stories, which had us all thinking "Damn, I forgot to bring my kleenex" as we wiped away our tears.  Then the walk began at 6pm, with the first lap being walked  by the survivors while we handed them flowers and blew bubbles.   It is both encouraging and humbling to see so many people who have fought, and won, this battle and very unnerving to see how many of those survivors were young people.  It was a wonderful start to a truly amazing night.  We stayed up talking, laughing, playing games and taking turns walking.  Eventually, we even managed to sneak in some sleep.

I had planned to stay for the full 24 hours, but life had other plans, so Saturday morning I got up and left my team to go to a Memorial service for a wonderful man. This man had been a part of my life since I was a child.  He was my youth pastor growing up and head pastor of the church we attended when the kids were small.  He officiated our marriage, baptized all my children, spent time at my house when he came over and brought his trains to have a playdate with my son.  He was also my dad's best friend, and he and my dad would take my son to multiple airshows every year.  He was in every way a part of our family.  The service was beautiful and emotional.  More people showed up than the church could hold (over 700 people!) and everyone had a story to share about how this man touched them.

If I told you that my pastor died after a very long battle with illness, what would you think?  You might assume cancer because it is so ubiquitous a disease.  I'd bet you might also think he must have been a brave and strong man to have fought his disease for so long.  But cancer is not what took our pastor away from us.  Instead, he lost a battle with depression.  It's very hard to reconcile the man we all know with the act that took his life. Knowing that he took his own life, do you still think him brave and strong? Until that day, I was like everyone else who thought "People who commit suicide are selfish - too selfish to care how they are going to hurt others."  Isn't that what most of us think?  Maybe that's true for some people.  But not my pastor.  There was not a selfish cell in his body.  He spent his life caring for others, nurturing others, healing others.  Even just days before he left us, he was tending to others, calling my dad and checking to see how he was handling an early retirement that was forced upon him by a plant closure.  He was ALWAYS taking care of people, and guiding them to God.

So, I naturally spent the first several days after his death feeling just . . . lost.  I was raised to believe that God is bigger than all our troubles; a belief, a FAITH, that was guided and nurtured by my pastor, and throughout my life that has always been true.    Then WHY wasn't God bigger than my pastor's troubles?  How could the man who helped guide my faith not be saved from the pain of depression by his own faith? 

I spent the entire week after his death barely able to sleep because I could not turn off my mind.  Then I went to the Relay for Life, and I listened to all of these wonderful, inspiring stories.  Every survivor had a unique tale to tell, but they all had one very important common denominator.  They had support.  They had people - friends and family - who stood by them and took care of them and their children.  Their support team read with them and stayed with them during treatment and made them laugh, and cried with them when they cried.  As I listened to all of these wonderful beautiful stories of love, I looked around a saw a thousand people all gathered together, giving up a day to walk in support of those they love, and in support of people they will never know.  It made me very very sad, because it answered all the questions I had been struggling with the week prior.

How many of you have participated in an event to raise awareness and support for some disease?  I have walked for cancer, for MS, for Down Syndrome. There are events for AIDS and autism, leukemia, breast cancer, premature babies . . . but there is nothing for depression.  No walks to raise awareness, no rallies to show support, no fundraisers to fund research . . . nothing.  That needs to change.  We need to stop looking at depression as a mere emotion and acknowledge it for what it is:  a disease.  We need to stop judging people who suffer from depression as weak, and support them for who they are: brave, scared people fighting a disease.

I will never again assume that anyone who has taken their own life has done so out of selfishness or weakness.  My pastor was neither of those things.  My pastor was strong and he was brave.  He was brave enough to care for others while he suffered in silence.  I hope anyone who comes across this will do the same.  We need to bring depression out of the shadows and into the light.  We need to acknowledge it, and dignify those who suffer from it by giving it the same deference and attention as other illnesses.  Depression is real, depression hurts and depression kills.  Let's shine the light on it, and maybe, if we do it together, we can save lives.