Hard truths

I’m writing this because the time has come to make some hard choices. I know the readers of this blog expect me to level with them, and the time has come to stop ducking the choices and instead spell out what we need to do. It is not enough, after all, to just keep talking about it. We’ve been doing that for a long time—and I’ve done as much talking as anybody. The time for talk is gone. It’s time to make it clear what we need to do.

So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to stop talking and start making some tough choices. I’m going to be very clear about this, because making tough choices isn’t easy, and spelling them out is even harder. It’s much easier to just avoid them, and that’s what we must not do at all costs. We can’t avoid the hard choices. We have to make them, and make them clearly.

I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. You live with the results of choices every day. Those choices have been made for you or by you or despite you, but they have unquestionably been made. That is hard. It is much easier to duck making choices and to talk about them instead, until people begin to believe you’ve actually done something, or have a plan to do something, or know what you’re talking about. So I’m here to tell you that I’m not going to duck any of those choices. I know you expect me to level with you about this, so here’s the truth: Hard choices need to be made. Hard truths need to be heard. That’s the truth. It’s hard. But it’s also true. That’s the thing about truth. How hard is that?

You all know people who don’t level with you. I know you do. When things are going well, that might be OK, but things are not going well, so you need people to level with you. You need them to stop talking and tell you the truth. That’s the truth. Then you need them to make choices. Hard choices. You need them not to duck those choices, but to make them, even though they’re hard.

That’s what you can count on me for. I’ll never duck those choices, and you’ll always know I’m not ducking them because I’ll tell you about them. Just like I’m doing now.

Trust me.

Barbara's Gift, Part 2

It poured cats and dogs yesterday, and today was that rare August day in Texas when the sun shone bright and the temperature never rose above the high 80s. Classes start tomorrow, and since one child is away at college and the other is at work, I took a 5-mile hike by myself this afternoon in Waco's Cameron Park, in the shade along the Brazos and Bosque rivers. I felt truly good and in possession of my life—more so than I can remember at any time since Barbara's stroke tore my world apart exactly eight months ago today.

Our trip to Hawaii last month was definitely a watershed. We packed as much of life and  renewal as we could into the seven and a half days we were there, and that was surely an important thing to do. There was something else going on, though, and I will try to write about it impartially, even though it is the most personal subject of all.

Barbara and I went to Maui for our honeymoon in January of 1989. Her lawsuit over the death of her first husband had just been settled out of court and she received a payment of nearly a quarter of a million dollars a few weeks before we were married. We had money to burn, and we also packed as much as we could into that week, including a day-long private plane tour that took us to all four major Hawaiian islands. I watched in astonishment as we flew directly over the active volcanoes on the south end of the Big Island, then savored lunch on Kauai, at a restaurant with covered outdoor seating around a central courtyard. We enjoyed mahi-mahi burgers at Kimo's in Lahaina, then ate dinner at Chez Paul, the five-star French restaurant down the road. We snorkeled and swam and savored a relaxed dinner cruise on calm seas.

I decided to go to Kauai this time because I had been there for only two hours and had few memories to distract me. Nevertheless, I puzzled the whole time we were there over the location of the outdoor dining site I remembered.  On the final day, I was craving one more dinner at a fine restaurant with the kind of food you just can't get in Waco, and Jennifer located one using a mobile app that sounded perfect. We phoned in reservations and showed up at 5:30, our rental car vacuumed and ready to return as we tried to prepare for the red-eye flight to Los Angeles and the two connections that would land us back in Texas the next afternoon.

It was **the place,** and it seemed for all the world as though Barbara had led us there as a final blessing on our week of catharsis. I returned with a deep inner peace that has never entirely left in the three weeks I've been back.

I don't want to claim too much here. Barbara told me that a few weeks after her first husband died, she distinctly heard his voice saying "It's OK; I'm happy." Knowing how much that meant to her, it is easy for me to suggest that she led us back to this place so I could have a similar moment of preternatural closeness with my departed spouse. Skeptics will scoff, of course, and I don't blame them. After all, we crave such revelations, and are all too eager to read purpose and meaning into chance events.

Still, I will say this: I have kept with me a strong sense of Barbara's inner peace, which allowed her to trust and slough off the burdens of stress and uncertainty through circumstances that would have brought most people to their knees. Her deafness and her profound difficulties with balance, both of which I have written about on this blog, were the ongoing symptoms of the radiation damage that ultimately led to her death. How does one maintain trust and faith when visited with such perverse afflictions? How does one find the strength to continue through the daily round of petty challenges and victories that makes up the better part of most human lives?

I don't know the answer, but I do know that in the wake of Barbara's death I have internalized that strength in a way that I had never been able to do before. In the face of bereavement, I have treated myself to spiritual calm, and have let the stresses and worries fall away from me as that source of unknown strength, latent within my inner being but too rarely tapped, has slipped from her shoulders onto mine.

We Beat the NRA in Texas

They said it couldn't be done. Session after legislative session the NRA-backed bill to create a legal right to carry fully loaded weapons into college classrooms had been stealthily blocked by a handful of sensible Democratic legislators. Now all of those legislators had gone down to defeat in the Tea Party bloodbath of 2010, and the bill was coming up again. It was a foregone conclusion that it would pass.

I really don't know why we did it. There was no chance the bill would be defeated. We might as well just accept that it was inevitable and go on and do our best to adapt. Some of our students were probably bringing guns to campus already. They could be hauled into court if they were caught, but they were never caught. That's what concealed means.

Still, we couldn't let it go. Somewhere in the great ledger book in the sky, it would be recorded that we had tried. It might not be remembered as our finest hour. It probably wouldn't be remembered at all, but we would at least know that we had made the effort.

So we began the writing of letters. We began to contact our colleagues and ask them to join us. The letters flowed, and soon they turned into petitions, and the signatures mounted. We would at least be heard. It would be known that there were people in Texas classrooms who really didn't want guns there among the already volatile mix. It would be remembered that we had gone on record with our belief that the answer to the possibility of violence was not the threat of more violence.

Nobody thought we could win. This bill was a bad idea whose time had come. Nevertheless, we persisted. We watched the legislature's moves carefully. We drove to Austin on multiple occasions to wait in cramped committee rooms and speak our minds to stubborn politicians who were legally obligated to hear us. We told them why what they proposed to do was wrong; why we wouldn't stand by and let common sense - which we made our living teaching and defending - be trampled to death. Increasingly, we were joined by students and administrators. Some had had experience with violence before, and wanted no more of it. Some simply wished to lend their support. Our numbers grew.

We made phone calls, and we made them again. We argued with staffers, and we left messages of gratitude with the occasional legislator who changed his or her mind. We received new lists of new people to call, and somehow we made the time to press the phone once more to our ears and speak our convictions into the broad void of indifference.

We wrote Op-Eds. Mine in the local paper provoked a storm of protest, which I ignored. I briefly wondered whether my home was safe, but I knew where such fears could lead and I dismissed them as distractions - temptations from a source that had spawned countless paranoid acts and raised the death toll ever higher. I could not let myself worry. Now more than ever I needed the strength of my convictions.

So we persevered, and again and again it looked like time had run out and the terrible idea was about to triumph. The NRA was behind it - they were there in the hearing room trotting out the usual arguments - and politicians bowed to their will. This was Texas, and there was no way we could fight the NRA here. Ours would go down in history as a lost cause, and we would lick our wounds in defeat and wonder how we could have been so foolish as to hope.

Ultimately, it was the politicians who squashed the bill. As usual, they didn't take the lead; they waited to follow. Only after they saw that our numbers were growing and that we were in dead earnest about our convictions did they start to show signs of wavering. State Senator Jeff Wentworth, who seemed to regard passage of this bill as his life's work, tried every trick in the book to keep it alive, and time and again we thought he had won. But he lost, and, in a crowning irony, he was defeated in his re-election bid this year by a Tea Party challenger.

Of course, the bill may come up again next year. Someone else may step up to the plate to take Wentworth's turn at bat. Rick Perry, no longer running for president and watching the national polls, may decide to give this bill more attention. But we will be there too, because we did the impossible, and we know it can be done again. Whether in Texas or in any other state, the NRA can be defeated, if only the people who care will make their voices heard. The politicians will not do it for us. They will only follow once they hear us loud and clear and realize that we are not going away.

We beat the NRA in Texas. If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere. We are not going away.

Heads I win, tails you ...

It was a wonderful week. After a few days in California visiting my late wife's family, my two adult children and I took off - as many of my Facebook friends know - for Kauai, Hawaii, where we spent the better part of eight days treating ourselves to a relaxing, healing vacation after one of the worst years in our lives.

The mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, happened the day before we flew out, and I tried my best not to think too much about it and about the inevitable political mudslinging that followed. While I was in Hawaii, the flap over Chick-Fil-A began to develop, and it later exploded into the festival of name-calling we've all been witnessing this week.

I have so far avoided commenting on either event, and I've largely avoided obsessing over them either. As the dust begins to settle, though, two things stick in my mind and won't go away:

• The statement from a Second Amendment supporter that any attempt to limit people's ability to buy enormously large magazines of ammunition restricts our freedoms.

• The claim by various people that calls to boycott Chick-Fil-A threaten our First Amendment freedom of speech.

What is so appalling about both of these claims is the complete failure to recognize the corresponding freedoms of those on the other side: the right of those who abhor violence to live without fear of armed vigilantes on the one hand, and the right of those who don't like Chick-Fil-A's president's views on gays to exercise their free market prerogative not to eat there on the other. The clear message in both cases is "I demand that you respect my freedoms, but forget about yours."

And this is a problem, because when freedom only applies to me and not to you, neither one of us is free. I'm not free because I don't have to listen to your views or your concerns, so I am never challenged to emerge from the prison of my preconceived ideas and interact with you or with others. You're not free because I have no respect for your personhood, even though I'm willing to disguise that lack of respect as promoting "freedom." So we are all in prison together.

As we prepare for the endgame of yet another presidential campaign, I greatly fear that we will see a lot of lack of freedom on display. What we seem to have lost is our sense of community - of all being in this (whatever "this" is) together. So I would like to suggest that everybody back off a bit and acknowledge that if any of us is not free, none of us is free. If any of us demands rights that deprive others of theirs, those rights are the antithesis of freedom. If we really want to affirm ourselves as Americans (and all the cheering for our Olympians this week suggests that, at some level, at least, we do), then we must affirm that America is a community: a frighteningly diverse community, perhaps, but a community all the same. In a community, nobody wins, and if hyper-partisanship prevails, we all lose. It's about as simple as that.

My favorite Mozart for piano

I didn't want to leave for vacation on a downer, so I'm posting a link to video I just made of Mozart's Rondo in A minor, K. 511, which has long been my favorite Mozart keyboard piece. I recorded it using the new camera I bought to take to Hawaii with me.

I wrote on Facebook earlier this week that there is more depth of emotion in Mozart's music than in that of almost any other composer. Many have tried to make up the difference by being louder and more obvious, but few have ever gone this deep. This piece exemplifies that. Please enjoy, and if you're wondering, I did look at the camera a few times just to make sure it was filming me - if "filming" is the right term any more. I'll be relaxing next week far away from here. I am thoroughly ready.

The only other choice

Sometime in March: My son receives an offer of financial aid from Baylor. He has already been admitted to the Choral Music Education Program in the School of Music, and he signs the offer and returns it, indicating his intention to enroll.

You think you're doing well until something happens to trigger those emotions that you will never leave behind.

In April, having filed my federal tax return, I go back to Jeremy's FAFSA and update my Adjusted Gross Income. Shortly afterward, a letter arrives from Baylor stating that, on the basis of new information, Jeremy's financial aid offer has been revised downward. He is once again asked to sign and return the letter.

I call the Financial Aid office and tell them that the extra income I reported, which came from Barbara's disability payments, is no longer available, since she passed away at the end of last year. That's OK, they say; they can do a "verification" of the FAFSA that will certify the reduction in my income, and Jeremy's original offer can be reinstated. All we will have to do is fill out some paperwork.

You think you're doing well until ...

I would rather not do that, I tell them. Filling out those forms to begin with was difficult enough in the wake of Barbara's passing. Having to revisit them will, I am sure, come at considerable emotional cost. I am reassured that the required paperwork is quick and easy. Although Jennifer's financial aid status has not changed, I might as well do it for her as well. She might be able to qualify for more subsidized loan money, and at current interest rates ...

You think you're doing well until something happens.

The paperwork comes; we fill it out and return it.  I receive an email from the Financial Aid office saying that they still need two copies of each of our federal tax returns. No problem, I say; I have those on my computer. Can I just email them?

The email goes through, but Financial Aid is unable to open the files. I should have anticipated that. They were done using H&R Block's proprietary program. Undaunted, I print all three returns and, one morning before class (it's now June), I run them by the Financial Aid Office.

These are the federal tax returns, I am told. Isn't that what you asked for? What we need is the transcript from the IRS. What difference does it make, I ask. The returns have all the information you need. Sorry, they say; it's just the law. We can't proceed without the official transcript from the IRS. Call this number and request it.

You think you're doing well until something happens to trigger those emotions.

To my deep shame, I almost break down. I don't want to have to call that number, I say. It was painful enough for me to go this far. Revisiting my tax returns and FAFSAs repeatedly in order to prove that my wife is dead is an agonizing experience. I am astonished by the amount of pain that surfaces each time I am forced to return to the issue.

They are very sorry, of course, but that's the law. Can I just stop the whole process, I ask. I'll happily accept the revised financial aid offer if only you don't force me to go through any more verification. I have their deepest sympathy, I am assured, but no I can't. That's just the law. They have no control over it.

I call the IRS number and respond to a long series of automated prompts. I enter my social security number, confirm my address and request the official transcript of the tax return. After what seems like forever, I am finished and get to hang up. The copy will be sent in 5 to 10 days. It will cost me nothing (except my heart).  Then I have to make the same call two more times, one for each child. I wasn't sure I could get through it. Resuming my teaching less than three weeks after Barbara's death was a walk in the park compared to this.

You think you're doing well until something happens to trigger those emotions that you will never leave.

A week and a half later the forms arrive in three separate envelopes from the IRS. It is now July. In barely over a week I will leave for a long-anticipated, desperately needed vacation. I take the forms to the Financial Aid office hoping there will still be time to complete the "verification" process before the bills for the fall semester are due at the end of the month.

Oh no, I am told. The IRS did send the tax return transcripts for both children, but in my envelope they sent the account transcript. It might have been their mistake. On all three calls I responded exactly the same way to exactly the same series of prompts. But unfortunately they cannot accept this form. They need the return transcript; without it, they can't process either child's financial aid application.

This time I come even closer to breaking down. I raise my voice. I rest my head in my hands, struggling to hold back tears of agonized frustration. Do they have any idea how painful it is every time I have to revisit this process—how having to call the IRS again, and probably suffering an interminable wait to speak to a human being who can correct the problem, will cost me emotionally? They are truly sorry, they say, but they can't use this form. That's just the law.

On the drive home, Jennifer, who was along for the ride, berates me for my emotional immaturity and the embarrassment it caused her. When we arrive, I proceed to demonstrate, at considerable length, just how deep were the emotions that I hadn't yet expressed—the emotions that I had so far managed to hold back despite being pushed to the brink of human endurance. When it's clear I'm not going to be able to manage to cook, my sweet but uncomprehending daughter offers to treat me to dinner. We talk.

You think you're doing well until something happens to trigger those emotions that you will never leave behind.

Tomorrow I will get up and call the IRS again. It is going to cost me, but what choice do I have? We mourn in bits and pieces, and just when we think we're making progress the ground drops out and the depth of what is beneath becomes apparent. We swim, because the only other choice is to drown.

And he spoke to them in parables, saying...

I have a new hero: John Roberts. That's right; our chief justice has shown that, despite some shaky performances elsewhere (see Citizens United), he actually understands what is meant by judicial restraint. I never, ever expected him to stand up for the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act while Kennedy voted against it. Nevertheless, this is a great day for America. A truly great day. I know how to be grateful. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice.

I feel too good about what happened today to be really bothered by minor distractions, but I still wonder why so many of my fellow citizens seem to be living in an alternate moral universe. It's the universe of "I got mine, so you get yours." I think I can illustrate it with a story. Call it a parable. It goes something like this:

"A man was born under a lucky star. He was poor, but he worked hard. His family supported him, and he found a job working for a sympathetic boss who rewarded his efforts. He prospered. Soon he was wealthy, and bought himself a large house. He married a beautiful and healthy woman who gave him lots of bright, talented children. Every one of them excelled in school, and none of them ever got sick.

"In this man's old age, he was able to retire and live off of the money he had made during his long and successful life. Whenever he needed anything, his children showered him with gifts, and his wife loved him dearly. His life was truly blessed.

"One day, a poor beggar came to this man's door. 'I am poor,' he said. 'Get a job,' said the rich man. 'I am crippled,' the man said, 'and I cannot do manual labor.' 'Get a desk job,' said the rich man. 'I am dyslexic and cannot do paperwork,' the man said. 'Tell your boss, and he will find work for you,' the rich man said. 'I did tell my boss, and he fired me and gave my job to somebody else,' the man said. 'Now I am dying of an incurable disease, and I cannot afford treatment.' 'You have made poor decisions,' the rich man said. 'You deserve nothing from me.' So the beggar went forth, with only the rags on his back, and soon he died.

"Later that year, the rich man also died, old and full of years. God, who is loving and compassionate, asked him why he had turned the poor beggar away from his door. 'He was a freeloader,' the rich man said. 'He wanted handouts, and expected to get everything for free. He wouldn't work.'

"'Actually,' God said, 'that man worked 14-hour days for 20 years without complaining, until he finally crushed his legs doing a job nobody else would do. That's why he was crippled.'

"'But he could have gotten a desk job,' said the rich man.

"'Actually,' God said, 'he did work a desk job for the next 20 years, and because he was dyslexic he worked twice as hard as all his co-workers. But it wasn't good enough, so he was fired and a young man with no experience was put in his place.'

"'But his boss could have found other work for him,' said the rich man.

"'Actually,' God said, 'his boss then assigned him to be his personal driver. He had a special car that he could operate with his arms alone, and he worked harder than anybody had ever worked before to make his boss happy. But one day another driver ran a red light and crashed into the car, destroying it. His boss had fallen on bad times as well and wasn't able to replace the car, so he had to let him go.'

"'But he could have gotten another job as a driver,' said the rich man.

"'Actually,' said God, 'he did get another job, but he was soon stricken by a progressive disease that destroyed his muscle coordination and made him nearly blind. He was so sick that he could no longer work. The treatment for his disease would have cost far more money than he had ever had in his lifetime. That was why he came to you for help.'

"'Then he obviously made poor choices,' said the rich man.

"'Actually,' said God, 'you are the one who made poor choices. I gave you parents who loved you, and you took them for granted, and never gave them anything in return. I gave you a sympathetic boss, and you took his money and never appreciated his generosity. I gave you a wonderful family, and you assumed it was your due. I gave you children who were willing to take care of you in your old age, and a wife who did the housework for you every day without complaining. You only worked about a third as hard as the old beggar you turned away from your door, nor do you have any idea what it is like to live with chronic illness and disability. If you had lived this man's life, you would have died in the gutter 30 years ago.'

"'But that's impossible,' said the rich man. 'I worked hard for everything I have, and never asked for handouts.'

"'You never had to,' said God, 'because you were given everything you needed.'

"'I bore illness without complaining,' said the rich man.

"'That's because you never had anything worse then a common cold,' said God.

"'I never asked anybody else for help,' said the rich man.

"'That's because your parents, your wife and your children made sure you never had to,' said God.

"'So what are you saying?,' said the rich man. 'That I should support some kind of European socialist health-care and welfare system so beggars don't have to work and a bunch of whiners who can't take life's hard knocks can come to my door and take the clothes off my back?'

"'No,' said God, 'but when you're ready to join me in heaven, let's talk.'"

There seem to be a lot of angry people out there today who are convinced that everything they have is the result of hard work and stubborn resolve, and that "Obamacare" is just opening the door to a bunch of pathetic freeloaders who want to milk the system. They don't seem to realize that success in life is about more than making the right choices and pulling their own weight. They seem to believe, in all good faith, that what they have is theirs by right, and that anybody who has not done as well as they have has simply made bad choices. Bad luck and poor health don't exist in their world.

Fortunately, I believe God is patient, and will wait a very long time until those people are willing to enter the kingdom of heaven. In the meantime, at least we now have a decent health care law. Deo Gratias!