There comes a time when enough is enough, when being silent for the sake of political decorum is no longer acceptable. Today, I am reminded of the stirring words of Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” I am not going to be silent anymore.
Let’s look at the most recent international development. Here are the facts—what sentient human beings call “reality.”
The CIA has concluded that the Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman ordered the assassination of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi.
Trump has chosen to stand by the Crown Prince to boost arms sales to Saudi Arabia and prevent oil price spikes. “They have been a great ally,” Trump said of the Saudis, and “the United States intends to remain a steadfast partner. I’m not going to destroy our economy by being foolish with Saudi Arabia.”
On October 16, 2018, Trump tweeted, "For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!"
At a 2015 campaign rally in Mobile, Alabama, Trump said of the Saudis, “I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much!”
I’ll let you connect the dots.
I have had enough. As an American but, more importantly, as an admittedly imperfect human being striving to be principle-centered, I am not willing to sell my soul to a president (or anyone else) who will toady to a cruel and ruthless totalitarian dictator assassin for the sake of dollars.
I know that I cannot dissuade the Trump true believers who are seduced more by emotional fear mongering than reality; they have to live with their own choices. As for me, I will no longer be silent. I will stand for reason and moral integrity, and I will support reasonable and moral spokespeople, regardless of their political party, for no single party has a monopoly on virtue. In short, I will stand for and support goodness and grace.
Recently, I cringed when reading a friend’s Facebook entry that struck me as crude and ineffectual. I won’t quote the post verbatim. Let’s just say it was a vulgar quip about an indiscreet body part of President Trump.
I did not respond to the Facebook post, but I did email my friend, who I will call Blanche.
I first admitted that I was not a Trump supporter. In fact, I characterize the president as self-serving and morally vacuous. With that as background, I stressed that my challenge was to fight for right in a way that was rational and noncombative—no easy task for me.
“There was one thing that I knew for sure,” I explained to Blanche. “Though tempting, flinging insults is not the answer. It will not budge true believers; in fact, it will only toughen their resolve. When attacked, true believers will predictably double down. Understand, people in pain will cling to anything to survive. For some, it’s alcohol, for some religion. For still others, it’s a political savior. Assaulting their refuge, their safe haven is doomed for failure.
“True believers are guided more by emotion than reason, by the gnawing angst in their guts. That is why reason must always be constructed to ease the pain. When reason ignores the pain, the State risks dissolving into a heap of lies and propaganda, which is the foundation for fascism.
“We are not there yet. Although we are being tested, our nation is still a country of justice and reason. Proud new voices— women, minorities, immigrants, and young people—are rising up and pledging their allegiance to diversity and a healthy planet.
“I still have faith in America. I believe that every venerable champion of reason, every youthful voice for equality will—voice by voice, truth by truth—beat down the bastions of greed, racism, and, most importantly, internal pain.”
That was my message to Blanche, who replied within minutes.
“Allen, I really appreciate your comments, and, of course, you are right. Sometimes, when I become angry and frustrated, I loosen the ties of my discerning, discriminating mind, and my impulse control slips. My heroes have always been people of peace and goodwill, those who fight against injustice and social inequity. It is clear that I don’t always follow their examples. However, life is a process of learning and growth.
“Please continue your wise and wonderful ways. I am sincere when I say it is a privilege to know you, and I thank you for your comments.”
There you have it. Although I blush by her characterization of my “wise and wonderful ways,” I do think it demonstrates that reasonable people can have a positive influence on each other—at least upon those who are still searching for truth.
Let’s make discerning reason a matter of routine—no, a sacred tradition.
On Christmas Eve, 2018, my wife, Nita, and I celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary. That milestone has me thinking about the nature of love.
In the beginning, our love was consumed by passion: a physical arousal that was so irresistible that I can still feel her slender body pressed against mine on the stairwell that led to her apartment. Although purely innocent (I think), she beguiled me like a puppy conditioned by treats for good behavior. At the time, I called it love although I hardly knew the meaning of the word.
Eventually, passion was joined by intimacy: a feeling of closeness, understanding, and support for each other’s dreams.
In 1991, I bought a new hunter-green Corvette with saddle leather interior. I called it “Blaze.” Physical arousal was not induced when I was cradled behind the wheel, but it came close. Meanwhile, Nita yearned to leave her lucrative administrative position and return to classroom teaching. Even with my salary, our budget would be strained. The solution was easy: I would sell the Corvette. Although Blaze could catapult me from 0-60 in 5.5 seconds, it was not fast enough to overtake my wife’s dreams.
Stage three of our love affair was commitment: a covenant to nurture and protect our love for all time. When I was standing in the stairwell with my sweetheart in my arms, I could not imagine a greater love. I was wrong. True love expands.
Today, our friends know that Nita has Parkinson’s disease. However, they may not know the consequences of the disease. Every day, Nita comes to me for help, always unassuming, unembarrassed, as if she were asking for the time of day. Would I help her button her dress? Open a stubborn jar? Slice a fresh tomato? Naturally, I’m happy to help her with those tasks, even with the knowledge that her skills will diminish in time. But here’s the miracle. I do not love her any less; I love her all the more.
How can that be?
I think it has to do with the flow and fusion of passion, intimacy, and commitment. I am still aroused by her beauty, both physical and spiritual, still moved by the intimacy of her vulnerability, still thrilled by her commitment to our marriage, even with all my befuddling flaws.
But there is something else. Nita has always been a powerful, independent woman: gentle enough to revive a wilting houseplant yet strong enough to discern and heal a tormented relationship. And now, this dynamic woman is asking for my help . . . my help.
Frankly, I think she is still beguiling me, the vixen. I suspect she knows that with every call for help, I am enriched, even exalted. She has sustained me for fifty years. Now she is inviting me to sustain her and, consequently, fill my heart with the joy of serving my true love. Thank you, my sweet, sweet Nita.
“Don’t be so arrogant; you’re not as almighty as you think.”
That is what my better self tells me, and my better self is always right. I am not solely responsible for my successes or my failures. Like all of us, I am a complicated amalgam of my heritage and efforts.
Let me explain. Luck was with me when I was born. I am an American white male in good health and respectable intelligence, graced with parents who worked hard and remained married. In other words, my heritage was adequately, some would say notably, rich. As such, I am privileged. Yes, there are those who are more privileged than I but only in number, not in kind.
Millions of others are not so lucky and are handicapped by their gender (or gender identity), race, social/economic standing, and physical/mental capacities. They are the underprivileged.
The other half of the formula is effort. Nurtured by my privileged status, I have worked hard. I have reaped a university education, earned a decent living, and pursued my passion for the arts.
Conversely, when heritage is meager, the story is likely to become more strident. Many struggle to find their way. They lack initiative and are easily distracted or derailed. Sometimes, the promise of success is completely extinguished.
Here is my point. Our success is not solely a product of our effort, our self-governance. It is the product of heritage and effort.
Do not be so quick to condemn the misnamed slackers. You do not know the steepness of their climb. For when the slope is arduous, effort tends to dwindle and, with time, stall and arrest. For example, it is easy to study when the desk lamp is bright, the room is warm, and the belly is full. It is not nearly so effortless when deprived of these essentials.
There are those who overcome their impoverished heritage, who, despite the odds, generate the will to break through the barriers and elevate themselves to positions of influence (although, too often, lagging respect). Those people are the true heroes. (In contrast, I am no hero. My life has been entirely too easy.) Such luminaries include Stephen Hawking, Thomas Edison, Jesse Owens, Helen Keller, Fredrick Douglas, Victor Frankl, and, most recently, the Pakistani schoolgirl advocate for human rights Malala Yousafzai. Although these people are inspiring, they are uncommon exceptions. Our 2.2 million American prisoners—56% Black or Hispanic—are more representative of the systemic interplay between heritage and effort.
Can we do this? Can we begin to honor the people who are battling to beat the odds? And can we stop fawning over the excessively privileged, especially those who merrily coast on the silken advantages of their heritage? They are no heroes; they are only the fabulously fortunate.
I am the invisible man, which is strangely horrific. I can flick my ears, lace my fingers, even witness the rise and fall of my chest with every breath, which makes me wonder if I am a ghost and only visible to myself.
My translucence began two years ago when I offered my services free of charge to regional educators. I began by telephoning high school principals who refused to return my calls. My next tactic was to write to principals and teachers. The thundering silence made me question my existence, so I created a five-minute video (see the video below) that highlighted my half-century experience as an educator. I sent that video to principals and the superintendent of schools with the hope that their screens would not snap to black when they pressed “play.” Perhaps I’m invisible on screen as well for there was no response.
Finally, I set up face-to-face meetings with two principals, quickly presented my proposal, and, with one principal, forced him to watch my five-minute video. At last, I might have been visible because both principals said they would recommend me to their staffs. Those meetings were followed, once again, by an infinite black hole of silence.
How could that happen? After all, the only compensation I sought was the reward of helping young people become the best versions of themselves. Whatever the administrators' misgivings, all doubts could be easily allayed by testing the water—by simply allowing me to correct a single essay or critique a single speech. If I offered little value, they could send me home to tend to my garden in silence.
The nature of invisibility
Many people know about invisibility:
·Introverts among extroverts
·Artists among engineers
·Liberals among conservative
·Millennials among baby boomers
·Nonbelievers among believers
·Minorities among majorities
and vice versa.
Perhaps you are invisible. If so, your only alternative is to keep banging on the door of blindness, like all revolutionary ghosts who would not stand for institutionalized oppression—the suffragettes, the civil rights protesters, and all the journalists and historians who refused to violate their covenant with truth.
As for me, I take solace in the lines of Dylan Thomas:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I will not be deterred. Why? Because I can still make a difference. Humility be damned, I’m a master teacher. I’m a doctor of psychology but also an entertainer. As such, I know how to reach teenagers. I am an authority in English, speech, drama, musical theater, and counseling.
Surely someone somewhere can benefit from that expertise. I just need to pound on the bolted doors until someone with eyes to see and ears to hear releases the latch, swings the door open, and says, “Come in, Allen. I’ve been expecting you. Let’s put you to work.”
My brother, Ray, was always more athletic than I, which is not something that I like to admit because brotherly rivalry may be the last puerile impulse to be tamed. On the rare occasions I beat him playing horse on the Emerson Elementary basketball court, it was because I reverted to my patented trick shots, like my blind, backward bucket launch, a shot that my brother would protest with a squawking voice because it was not an orthodox play that anyone would use in a real game.
Ray particularly excelled as a softball pitcher, able to throw a whirlwind fastball that made me jump out of the batter’s box out of raw fear—even when the pitch streaked through the center of the strike zone.
He had an arm with pinpoint accuracy—no question. He proved it in the summer of 1960 on the banks of Newman Lake. Ray was twelve and I thirteen.
It was a cool, still evening. We spoke quietly, feeling wonderfully languid after a full day of swimming, waterskiing, and sunbathing. The sky was cloudless and the water a blue-green plane of glass. We were standing mid-calf in lake water, watching the fingerlings swirl around our ankles like shinning orbiting moons.
It was a chirping robin’s call that interrupted our reverie. Ray looked up and spotted the bird mid-way up a tall sycamore tree.
“Watch this,” Ray said, selecting a smooth, flat stone from under his feet. He drew his arm back and let it fly.
It was a direct hit. The bird tumbled mindless, wingless to the ground. It was dead still.
“What a shot,” I said. “I’m gonna call you the ‘bird killer.’” It was a stupid thing to say, in the way thirteen-year-old boys often say stupid things. The idiocy of my comment fully registered when I looked into my brother's eyes.
The blood had drained from his face. He looked sick as if he would throw up in the next heartbeat. “I didn’t mean it,” he said, his voice full of remorse that rose from the depths of his gut. “I didn’t mean it. I just wanted to scare him; I didn’t wanna kill him.”
“I know, Ray,” I said. I wanted to hug him and tell him that everything was okay. But it didn’t seem right; nothing was okay. It was personal, and my embrace would distract Ray’s need to sort out his own grief and shame.
Decades later, I came across an article that reviewed a self-report survey that measured morality. One question caught my eye:
Would you tear off the wings of a monarch butterfly for a million dollars?
I once put the question to attendees at a seminar I was leading on ethics. The class was divided. Most said “no,” but several said “yes.” A catholic nun argued that a lot of good could be done with a million dollars. A burly man, who looked like he drove a pickup with a gun rack and a bumper sticker that read Duck hunters need love too, said, “Hell, for a million dollars, I’d eat it.”
When rethinking the question, I asked my wife what she would do. Her face scrunched in disgust. “Why would you even ask such a question? Of course not.”
“Not ever?”
“Never.”
I have not put the question to my brother. I don’t need to; he would be equally horrified.
Call it his unique nature or, if you prefer, divine design. Whatever the source, my brother has a tender heart. He helps those in need; he champions people on the fringe; he lowers and drives his shoulder into building community.
Those two incidents—the felling of a robin and a profound survey question—have both haunted and inspired me for years. They both represent a pivotal moment for any conscientious human being, a time to be reflective, to ask, “What are the important things in life.”
For me, I am disgusted by all braggarts who glory in causing harm: the grinning hunters alongside their kills, yes, but also the greedy, the heartless, the rabid nationalists whose perverted definition of empathy is “behavior that makes my life easier, more luxurious, more grandiose, more privileged.”
In contrast, I will always exalt a person who celebrates the dignity of all living things, of those who know the danger of throwing a smooth stone and grieve—as my brother grieved—when the stone hits it mark.
This video is a 13-minute presentation I offered at Northwest Nazarene University, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the class of 1968, the year I graduated from NNU.
I quickly describe how the pivotal and decisive crossroads in our lives require a faithful commitment. But here is the happy news: if we are loyal to our commitment, we are abundantly rewarded with peace, love, and joy—perhaps not constantly or supremely, but, as a whole, steadily throughout our entire lives.
In 1968, I graduated from Northwest Nazarene College (now University) in Nampa Idaho. In the next fifty years, I became a teacher, entertainer, professor, consultant, speaker, and author, (which is more information than any human being should be allowed to know about Allen Johnson).
While at NNC, I observed, experienced, and subconsciously integrated a college principle into my life. That principle was a commitment to community. Consequently, all my work has been guided by a passion to serve—to bring people together, to deepen their awareness, to move them toward mindfulness.
On my return to NNU as a golden graduate, I was thrilled to find that the university’s zeal for community had not diminished. That realization jumped out at me and grabbed me by the throat wherever I turned.
During my three-day stay, I made it a point to seek out and talk to young NNU students. To each one, I posed the same pivotal question: What are your feelings about your experience at NNU? Their sentiments became quickly predictable: “I love the sense of community. The classes are small, and the professors are caring. We are a family.”
When the alumni went to a small chapel on campus to reflect on who we were and who we hoped to be, we sang two venerable hymns. I was swept away by the harmony and power that reverberated in my chest like a bass drum—so stirring that I surrendered my own voice to be filled with the blend of love, gratitude, and, yes, community.
The late-night conversations with former NNC classmates were, in essence, the definition of community: a covenant one with another to be transparent, empathic, and nonjudgmental. The conversation cycled upward like a spiral staircase—disclosure kindling understanding followed by even deeper disclosure. The friends we had not seen for fifty years told their stories freely—their greatest joys and most challenging tribulations—all with uncommon honesty. Then they listened to other stories—not to persuade, but to truly understand the often tortuous pathways to faith and reason that other classmates had discovered.
I felt the same sense of community to the power of ten at the 2018 graduation ceremony in which we, the class of 1968, participated by marching with the young graduates. The entire gymnasium rumbled with euphoria, pegging the gauge of love and community. It was a lovefest.
Even the commencement speaker, Dr. Stephen Shaw, NNU professor of political science, mirrored the covenant of community that the university holds sacred. He called for humility, inclusion, diversity, the tumbling of walls, and the building of bridges. At the heart of it, he was a fervent champion for community.
When I walked on the campus—especially early in the morning or late at night—with only my thoughts for company, I felt a swell of nostalgia. It had been fifty years since I walked the campus—scrambling to class, the student center, the library, play rehearsals, or Saturday night dates. Suddenly, my student days did not feel like a half century of ancient history; they felt like yesterday. How was that possible? How did time reverse itself? The answer struck me like a new paradigm, first ignored, then finally understood for its wisdom and simplicity: Community has no expiration date. I was not shackled by my age for community was as real in 2018 as it was in 1968. In a way, walking the campus was like time travel—only the excursion did not take me to a specific date; it took me to a timeless way of being. It transported me to community, and I was young again.
Today, my theology is no longer strictly Nazarene, but my principles are. NNU and I hold the same sacred values of love, peace, tolerance, understanding, forgiveness, and community. That is our legacy. Moreover, we garner and cherish the same outcome when we faithful to those principles. That outcome is joy. Not happiness; happiness is short-lived. But joy! Joy is an awe-inspiring, uninterrupted flow of transcendence.
That awareness is an ageless truth that this seventy-two-year-old alumnus is willing to shout like a full-throated teenage Nazarene chorister. Yahoo! Let the joy roll like thunder.
I’m old, and it’s all my fault. I ate every day, went to bed at night, and invariably woke up the next morning. The next thing I knew, I was tottering to the bathroom for the third time in the middle of the night to dispense a tablespoon of liquid the color of brake fluid, which makes sense because for decades the damn broth has put the “brakes” on any semblance of a good night’s sleep.
I’m getting carried away before I’ve started. My point is this: I’m old, which may be the reason I’m feeling so cranky. Everything seems to upset me these days: rap music, tongue piercings, and facial tattoos—to name a few. And when did electricians and plumbers start charging $85 an hour for connecting a wire or unclogging a sink? But mostly I’m miffed by today’s vampiristic attacks on language.
Okay, I know that speech does change and that there is always a new form of twisted underground chatter among youngsters to give them a sense of identity. For heaven’s sake, when I was a kid, the secret language was pig Latin, which, by the way, is created by transferring the initial consonant or consonant cluster to the end of the word and adding “ay.” In that way, “really stupid” becomes “eally-ray upid-stay.” I could never get the hang of it; it just sounded really upid-stay to me—and more work than it was worth.
I admit that we said some pretty dumb things in our day, but it seems to me that today’s youth have taken language to a new septic low. And, what’s worse, the new jargon has been taken up by perfectly sane and socially responsible adults—some of them matching my age!
Time for a few examples. Here are four expressions that make me want to go to bed early.
No problem
This is the young person’s response to requests for courtesy or service. The exchange plays out like this:
“Excuse me, where would I find the bathroom?”
“Straight down the hall and to the right,” says the twenty-something-year-old with a tattoo of her ex-boyfriend’s name on her neck.
“Thank you very much.”
“No problem,” she says over her shoulder as she strides away.
That sends me into a tirade of internal dialogue. No problem?Was there a possibility that my question might be problematic? If I had asked for directions on a bad day, would you have punched me in the bread basket? Are you being magnanimous for taking a moment out of your day to help another human being find his way to the John? Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t know the word “magnanimous”? It means agnanimous-may.
Dis, dissed, dissing (transitive verb, if you were wondering)
As far as I can tell, “dis” is shorthand for “disrespect” or, on occasion, “criticize.” “I’m not dissing you when I say you’re ugly; I’m just tellin’ you the truth.” Or “You have the nerve to dis my driving skills?”
Is there anything wrong with the verbs “disrespect” or “criticize”? I’m sorry, but “dis” is not a word, it’s a prefix. The antonym of “respect” is created by attaching “dis” to the beginning of the root. It’s a nifty tool. Try it, you might like it.
So, what if we only spoke in prefixes? Let’s take another prefix—“un”—which also reverses the meaning of a word. But without the root, understanding the message is impossible. If you said, “He was really un the other day,” does that mean that he was un-happy? Un-forgivable? Un-dressed? There is simply no way of knowing.
But wait a minute. Maybe I’m being too crotchety. Maybe we should speak entirely in prefixes. Just think how much time we would save by saying things like, “I de the para on my tri,” Which could mean, “I deciphered the paradox on my tricycle,” or—less likely, but still possible—“I defrosted the parachute on my triceratops.” You figure it out and get back to me when you have the answer.
Totes presh adorbs
Young people are equal-opportunity corruptors of the English language. Their abuse is not limited to verbs. They also take great joy in snipping the sense out of adverbs and adjectives.
It took my friend Melinda, a street-smart Millennial, to teach me that “totes presh adorbs” means “totally precious and adorable.” It’s a descriptor applied to budding romance, cuddly puppies, or cute babies. I’m glad that she explained because my best guess was “Tote bags for preschool doughboys,” which didn’t make any sense to me either.
So, if adjectives can be used to paint a world of sugar and spice, how about adjective splinters to describe the things that are nasty. To that end, I have invented a new expression: “ex vi vish” or—to squeeze it into one word—“exvivish,” meaning “extremely vile and vicious”? Exvivish! Pretty cool, huh? Start using it around the water cooler at work. “Oh, man, the boss was really exvivish this morning.” “Yeah, I’ve never seen him so exvivish.” People will think you’re really like . . . uh . . . with it, dude.
Lol
Since I’m focused on clipped words, allow me to end with the acronym “lol.” It took me three years to realize that lol did not mean “lots of love,” but, to my horror, “laughing out loud.”
Let me tell you, that was a letdown. Whenever I wrote a few words on Facebook that was slightly humorous, I would often receive a friendly comment or two that ended with lol. “Oh, Allen, you tickle my funny bone. Lol.” “You are a CRAZY man. Lol.”
I was feeling the love. I was thinking, I’m just too darn hot. Everybody loves me. And then I learned the truth of the matter. In reality, all the love was really laughter—nor was it clear if the laughter was a friendly titter or a malicious guffaw.
It felt like the night in Las Vegas when I was strolling down the street past the time when every other reasonable town was asleep. A beautiful woman with high heels and great stems was walking my way. No, she was not “walking”; she was sashaying. When I was close enough to make out the details of her figure—firm and curvaceous—she smiled at me. When I was close enough to make out her ravish-me-red lipstick and thick, extra-long, eyelashes, she lowered her chin, lifted her bare shoulder, and puckered her lips.
I tugged at my belt and thought, God, I’m good looking. And then when she had passed, it suddenly hit me like an interstate smashup: She was a lady of the night and I was her unsuspecting mark. I swallowed a warm wad of delusion, while my stomach seized up and gurgled. I was not her prince; I was only a walking, talking dollar sign. I don’t know when I ever felt so devalued, so defiled.
So there it is: a few gripes about contemporary language. And to tell you the truth, it has made me a little depressed. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight, which is sad. I’ll just wake up before dawn—one day older and a little more grumpy—and start my day by mourning the trashing of language in a plugged-in, checked-out, hopped-up world made for people who don’t understand why “rap music” is an oxymoron. Humph.
I’m passionate about the arts—both visual and performance—which is why I decided to create this special video tribute entitled “The Making of an Artist.”
Artists will endure almost anything for their professions. Writers will brave months of dreaming and researching and plotting and rewriting—and rewriting again. Painters will paint all day and late into the night--often on huge, expensive canvases. Dancers will practice for years, torturing their feet, and stretching beyond incomprehensible limits. Musicians will sit at the piano for hours every day, practicing one scale after the other—even when they would rather be hanging out with their friends. Metal sculptors will work through heat and ice to create gargantuan works of art whose heights are only surpassed by their expenses. Actors will audition, rehearse, memorize thousands of lines, and study the craft of acting throughout their entire careers. Photographers will study the art and technology of creating powerful images—and do it all in very expensive studios.
Being an artist is demanding—no question. So what is it that draws people to the arts? What are their missions? What brings them joy? What challenges them? And what are their recommendations to young artists? These are the questions that we posed to seven professional artists.
It was the summer of 1972. My wife, Nita, and I had been married for three years, so we were still learning about each other’s idiosyncrasies. I already knew that Nita was a gentle soul, that she never raised her voice in anger because, well, she was never angry. I knew that she had a fondness for corn tortillas, beans, and rice, a remnant of her youth growing up in Guatemala. What I did not know then—not really—was that our core personalities were wildly different.
We were on a secluded Mediterranean beach in the south of Spain. The water, darkly turquoise, was lapping at the fringe of land in rolling rhythms of rise and recede. The morning sun bathed my bare chest in lavish penetrating fervor like victory or young love or the thrill of art conceived and accomplished. I was enraptured.
“Can you believe this?” I asked. “Here we are in Spain. The land of Queen Isabella, Pablo Picasso, and Miquel de Cervantes.” My voice was starting to rise up in rhythm like a Southern Baptist preacher: “They shall mount up with wings of eagles.”
I couldn’t help myself and why should I? I had dreamed about Spain since I was sixteen—thanks to Ernest Hemingway and his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. And now I was there, smothering in the sweet, venerable sunlight of Iberia.
I was rhapsodizing now to my wife who listened politely, placidly, her head tilted like a French poodle trying to make some sense out of her master’s gibberish. “This is it,” I said. “This is the time of my life—my rebirth, my . . . my . . . my . . . destiny.”
And Nita said, with all the calm banality of reading a grocery list, “Uh-huh.”
“Uh-huh? What do you mean ‘uh-huh’? I questioned, my voice beginning to squeak. “Aren’t you excited? Aren’t you thrilled down to the molecules of your soul?”
“Of course,” she said serenely—or was it morosely. “I’m really excited.”
It was then that I realized that when it came to expressiveness, my wife and I were measured in a way that was vastly different. On a scale of expressiveness, every human being is calibrated one through ten. But the scale is compressed for some—12345678910—expanded for others—1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. You see, Nita was at her ten in expressiveness. BUT HER TEN WAS EQUAL TO MY THREE. It’s a hard concept to reconcile when you are in the throws of passion—standing at the water’s edge of a land that is the goddess of passion. Hard to reconcile, yes, but nevertheless true.
Of course, the compression or expansion of a personality scale is not limited to expressiveness. The phenomenon applies to any emotion: joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation—you name it.
Also understand that scalar compression or expansion is not an indicator of goodness—one calibration is no better or worse than the other. It only indicates a difference in personality. Parenthentically, there is this exception: when emotion is so compressed or so expanded that it places the individual or others in danger, as in suicidal depression or maniacal rage. But those cases are extremes.
When Nita and I were in Spain, my arms were flailing with excitement, whereas Nita may have, in moments of unchecked rapture, blinked her eyes. That did not make either of us better—just distinctive.
Couples who can recognize and live with the differences will survive, just as Nita and I have survived—and thrived—over the last fifty years. And that’s something I can get excited about. YAHOO.
As 2017 ticked to a close, a 2004 Pentagon video was published that captured a UFO spotted by Navy fighter pilots. The video went viral among all the credulous citizens ready to believe the next unsubstantiated story about alien beings out to eat us for lunch.
Probably the most grounded wisdom during the heated commotion came from astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, as interviewed on CNN. His recommendation to viewers was to chill out until there was proof. He went on to explain that scientists are right at home with doubts. In his words, "Scientists live in mystery every day of our lives. There's the circle of knowledge that we have, and then beyond that circle is the unknown. As the area of that knowledge grows, so does the perimeter of our ignorance.... Call me when you have a dinner invite from an alien. That's a different conversation."
Tyson nailed it. Sometimes less informed people think of ignorance as stupidity. That’s wrong. Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. It suggests that one is uneducated on a particular issue. There is no crime in that. Scientists are not embarrassed about their ignorance. That’s why they are scientists: to increase their circle of knowledge, to solve—or at least get closer to solving—the mysteries of the universe.
On the other hand, true believers take a totally different stance. Although often ignorant, they live their lives in full confidence that they are guided by truth. If they ever had doubts, they have dismissed them as unimportant, misconceived, or, worse, evil.
Isn’t that strange? Imagine demonizing that which you don’t understand. In fact, that kind of thinking is medieval and replete with superstition. For example, in the 14th Century, the Black Death was thought to be the work of the devil. Today, we know it was an infectious disease, most likely caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria carried by rodents and the fleas that feed on them. The devil had nothing to do with it.
Lest you think such an example is archaic, keep in mind that today’s televangelists and thousands of their followers claim that the AIDS epidemic is evidence of “divine justice.” That too is medieval thinking.
In contrast, those who are knowledgeable are able to take comfort in what they know and puzzle over what they do not know. More importantly—and this is the main point of my discourse—they refuse to become an advocate, a true believer of that which is still a mystery or, at best, folklore.
On October 20, 1967, two ranchers, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin, rode into Del Norte County, California in search of Sasquatch. (That should raise suspicions right away; anyone actually looking for Bigfoot should probably be held in contempt of reason, just as I would be skeptical of anyone looking to find and photograph an aging Elvis Presley—thank you very much.)
Lo and behold, the ranchers spotted a hairy seven-foot entity and filmed the creature as it gambled into the woods. That half-century old, 60-second piece of blurry, low-resolution film from a 16mm Cine Kodak camera is still the best evidence of the existence of the elusive Bigfoot. No one has ever gotten any closer, and no one knows if the hairy beast was authentic or just an NBA basketball center in a gorilla suit. And, yet, if you like, you can purchase your own Sasquatch T-shirt at the next International Bigfoot Conference at a town near you—as many true believers do.
Now, just to be clear, I would be happy to sport a Bigfoot T-shirt, but not until I can personally interview the fuzzy creature face-to-face. Otherwise, I’ll let the disciples believe what they will, while I live my incredulous life in the real world.
That takes me to a delicate subject: Religion. When I was a boy, I always admired the committed parishioners in our church—the people I knew and loved my entire young life. I was especially moved when they would stand at the Wednesday night prayer meetings and testify, “I know without a doubt that Jesus Christ is my Savior.”
How I wanted to be like them: to be sure. In fact, I wanted it so fiercely that, at first, I pretended to be a believer. But the pretense gnawed at me like a dog chomping at the morrow in a shank of bone. To this day, those doubts were more psychologically painful to me than anything I have ever experienced. My disbelief was excruciating, but to be a pretender was even more agonizing.
The more I studied, the more my dwindling faith became shrouded in doubt. During those days of incredulity, my believing friends and family would say, “Allen, don’t make it so complicated. Just take it on faith. Besides, the Bible says it’s so, and the Bible is the infallible word of God.”
Really?
So, I poured over the scriptures, only to be assaulted with more doubts. The words and deeds of Jesus Christ were not so much reassuring as they were troubling, even frightening. The qualities I saw in the Gospels did not draw me into the fold; they scared the hell out of me. For example:
·Christ’s jealousy: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:25)
·Christ’s vindictiveness: “And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.” (Luke 10:15)
·Christ’s sadism: “The Son of man will send his angles, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” (Matthew 13:41-42)
·Christ’s curious curse: The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. (Mark 11:12-14)
Increasingly, the loving God my family of believers exalted did not seem at all loving. Scripture might be a political manifesto, I decided, but certainly not the infallible word of a God who loved me beyond all comprehension.
Because I wanted to get it right—or as right as I could—my doubts led me to a scholarly study of the gospels and the historical Jesus Christ. Books that were particularly helpful included Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman, When Jesus Became God, by Richard E. Rubenstein, Zealot by Reza Aslan, and The Five Gospels by Robert W. Funk. Regarding Mormonism, the book that was most insightful—although, not surprisingly, reviled by the church—was entitled No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith by the historian, Fawn M. Brodie. All of these books taught me that there were too many discrepancies, too many questionable motives, and too many political schemes to warrant unequivocal devotion.
In the end, whether the subject is a mysterious UFO, an elusive Bigfoot, or a vindictive God, I will hold out for hard evidence before I commit my life to that which is otherwise pure speculation or wishful thinking. I will always be a doubter—in fact, I’m proud of that propensity—for it is through the careful examination of my doubts that I arrive closer to the truth.
