My grandfather was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in Denver. He told me that a business associate gave him a “gift” of a Klan membership, and he didn’t really think about it until he witnessed from afar a Klan cross-burning atop South Table Mountain. He “just knew” it was wrong. I since learned that many memberships were “gifted” to unsuspecting people to swell the Klan membership numbers.
My grandfather quickly ended his gifted membership and never forgot how easy it had been to unknowingly participate in a popular evil.
Our inclination to discrimination may never end, but it needs to be rooted out as soon as it becomes evident. Our duty is to keep looking, examining ourselves and our lives because there’s always some group getting dumped on, someone being excluded.
Oh, how heartfelt is Barbara Sternberg’s story (see Beneficiary page) about her family and her own awakening to the hurt caused to gays and lesbians, even by loving parents. Parents and Friends of Gays and Lesbians is the Mountain Connection beneficiary this month. PFLAG celebrates its 15th anniversary May 15, and “straight” friends and relatives are particularly invited to attend and add their love to end this modern-day discrimination. Read Barbara’s article for details.
How appropriate that Mountain Connection’s themes for May are peaceful living and senior appreciation, both of which provide great stories about the exercise of love.
Tañya Keith (see Features page) takes us on a hilarious romp through manufactured peace, setting the stage for Stephen Fisher’s return to peace thanks to an innocent child’s uncomfortable question (also on the Feature's page).
Horses as teachers and healers? Absolutely, says Brad Myers in his story about The Wisdom of the Horse (Features). He reminds us to pay attention to those around us, yes, even horses. If we are attentive to their reactions to us, we can learn about ourselves. We learn that we are causing most of what is going on around us. Hmmmm…
My father is in a nursing home in Denver. Mom at age 91 is living in a nearby senior complex, still driving the back roads daily to read the newspaper with her husband.
All the characters in the nursing home are now part of my extended family. There’s an old woman who constantly yells in a desperate tone, “Help me! Help me!” I used to run over to help her, but she didn’t need anything. “Help me” happens to be all that she is capable of saying. It means, “Hello,” It means, “Good-bye.” It could mean, “Notice me.” If I pat her on the shoulder, she’s usually good to go.
There’s a young man who used to share the room with my father. He played the Whoopi Goldberg video of “Ghost” over and over again. He insisted on the volume being full blast. For weeks it drove me to distraction, until I noticed that Whoopi’s ability to communicate with the dead gave this young man, who cannot speak, great joy. It was almost as if her ability to “get the message” gave him hope of being understood somehow, someday.
I stopped fretting over the volume and repetition of “Ghost” and, instead, would clap and cheer along with him when Whoopi once again “got it.”
At the nursing home, the residents may not speak like us, but they all communicate—each in his/her own way—understandable if we take the time to learn their language.
And so it is the world. There are people everywhere we don’t understand—not yet.
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