Hope

If you are looking for a ray of hope in all the craziness that is going on in the world right now, may I suggest the following piece of once thought impossible news:

Black Lives Matter held a peaceful protest and march in Vidor, Texas, with virtually no altercations.

Vidor, of all places.

For those unfamiliar, Vidor has a rather infamous reputation in Southeast Texas.  It was dubbed the most hate filled city in Texas by Texas Monthly Magazine.  It was a notorious "sundown town" in which blacks were not allowed in the town after dark.  This status was proclaimed by a prominent sign warning them not to be found in the town after dark.  According to oral history, it stated it's premise in the most direct and offensive terms possible.

The reputation of the town alone made the sign overkill.  The Klan had a visible presence in town.   Up to the mid-1990s.  In 1992, when housing authorities announced a plan to move black families into Vidor, the Klan held a mass demonstration on the county courthouse in Orange, with several marches in surrounding cities including Vidor.  The white supremacist Nationalist Movement held its Victory in Vidor rally after all the last black family had moved out.   Even as recent as 2003, the Klan held a lecture and viewing of Klan memorabilia in the Vidor Community Center, to commemorate the anniversary of their fight against integration.

So, when posters for the Peace March in Vidor in memory of George Floyd started circulating, people were naturally suspicious.

People feared it was a setup.  "Texas people know if you're Black you don't even stop for gas in Vidor."  People doubted whether the organizer was even real.

She is and she accomplished something amazing.  

At an event in which she thought 30 people might show up, 150-200 people braved the Texas heat and humidity to show solidarity.  While predominantly white, there were a good number of African American participants.   They came from Vidor, they came from the nearby communities, they came from Houston.

They held signs, listened to speakers, marched around the circular sidewalk and chanted.  They closed by kneeling for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, the amount of time that Officer Chauvin's knee was on George Floyd's neck.  Black volunteers read the transcript of Floyd's pleas while they knelt in silence.

Sure, there were counter-protestors.  One small group stationed themselves at the entrance to the park's parking lot and displayed a prominent sign proclaiming "Vidor Only Kneels to God!"  Several of these protestors carried rifles and shotguns.  Another group circled the parking lot displaying the Confederate flag.  Only one counter-protestor ever approached the group or engaged them.

Police had a light presence, if nothing else monitoring the situation between the protestors and the agitators.

In all, a very successful peace march was held in the most surprising place.  A minor miracle.  

Maybe the organizer, Maddy Malone is right. "My generation is reaching to break the cycle."  If they can, we all have reason to hope.  Maybe it's time for a lot of people to start re-evaluating their thoughts on the youngest generations.  When it matters, when there is injustice to be fought, when there are powers that need to be held accountable, they are showing up.  They are risking excessive force, pepper spray, rubber bullets, bean bag rounds, and flash grenades to keep protesting to keep pushing for change.

Look what has been accomplished in 10 days of sustained protests:

• Minneapolis has banned the use of choke holds, with momentum for a nationwide ban on this technique as well
• Officer Chauvin was arrested, had his charges upgraded, and his accomplices were arrested and charged
• Dallas adopted a "duty to intervene" rule requiring officers to stop other cops who are engaging in in appropriate uses of force
• New Jersey's attorney general has stated that the state will update its use-of-force guidelines for the first time in two decades
• Maryland has seen a bipartisan work group of state lawmakers announcing a police reform work group
• Los Angeles' City Council introduced a motion to reduce the LAPD's $1.8 million operating budget
• MBTA Boston agreed to stop using public buses to transport police officers to protests
• Police brutality captured on cameras has lead to near immediate suspensions and firings of officers in several cities.
• Monuments celebrating confederates in several cities are being taken down finally

We're having real conversations about race, about police power and accountability, about difficult issues.

There's reason for hope for lasting change through all this and that would be wonderful.  Change is not always pretty, it can be ugly and it can be scarring.  But it is necessary.  In many ways, this change is more like finally addressing a scab that has never fully healed.  We as a nation cannot move forward unless we truly address our past for what it was.  Not smoothing over it with lies like the "Lost Cause" of the South.  Not pretending like we've already moved past it.  But actively owning up for it.

And if a BLM rally can be successful in Vidor, Texas, we might just be really starting that process.

Maybe They Deserve to Die?

The title is harsh, but do we ever really stop to consider it.  Or are we just overcome with nostalgia that we can't see past it.

I mean, how many articles have we seen over the past several years that millennials are killing everything.  Mayonnaise, fabric softener, American cheese, the golf industry, paper napkins, Buffalo Wild Wings, McDonalds, Home Depot, Applebees.  The list goes on.

Now we have them to blame for the death of the brick and mortar store apparently.   And it seems no store is immune.  No business that can be treated as safe.  Even Pizza Hut is closing as many as 500 dine in restaurants to focus on delivery and take out.

And in all of the uproar, all I can think is that isn't this what we expect to happen, especially in free market capitalism?  Isn't that the point?  Tastes change and businesses change with them.

Why are we lamenting the deaths of big box, national chain retailers?  Of mediocre chain restaurants?  Is it just nostalgia?

I'm going to miss eating inside a Pizza Hut, no doubt.  That was the go to post show dining.  Once a production had wrapped the cast went to Pizza Hut, to play music on the jukebox, sing annoyingly loud, and eat tons of pizza.

But there will still be lots of places to get pizza.  And there is no question that the best pizzas do not come from any of the chains.  The best stuff is from places like 3Ds in Canton.  Austins' Pizza in Austin.  Johns in New York City.  Lou Malnatis Chicago.  Even the little whole in the wall by the slice place in New York that was the only place open in Snowpocalypse.

To me it seems we mourn the wrong things.  Why do we mourn an Applebees closing its doors more than a mom and pop diner that has local business owners closing?  Why is it sadder that JCPenney's might close than it is that your local grocery has been replaced by a chain?

Why are we more attached to impersonal brands and faceless corporations than we are to the independent business owners who make up our communities?

Especially when many of these chains have brought their slow deaths on themselves.

For the greatest example, it boggles the mind that Sears, the first great disruptor in retail could not have envisioned the way to stay relevant in the age of Amazon.  You're telling me the pioneer of the catalog, the first great purveyor of interstate sales and shipping, could not have seen how their catalog could become a web store now connecting the globe?  Why should we want to prop up a company when others have committed to how they should have changed?  Sears viewed their stores as an asset, which they could have been.  With their network of stores, they could have easily led the way in next day delivery, same day pickup (or drive up and have employee put in your car pickup), and potentially even same day delivery, years before Amazon could have gotten there.  Their stores are now an unfortunate liability that has them overextended.

Look, I do not want to diminish the impact of the lost jobs on the community or the loss of revenue for those employed in such chains.  But I do wonder why we feel these national chains are supposed to be immortal.

What's so special about an Applebees that we need an article for its obituary due to millennial tastes?

Maybe it's just me, but count me out of the list of mourners.  For me, I'll mourn the local bookstores, the local hardware stores.  The family restaurant.  The family business.

Those are getting harder and harder to run, to compete, and to stay afloat.

That impact is personal.

Shop Small.

When Change is Forced Upon You

The fear of change seems to be a universal part of the human experience.  I think it's largely because of the lack of control that it represents.  Even in situations where we arguably choose the change that is coming, we still often face it with some level of fear.  Fear of making the wrong choice, fear of failure, fear of the future.  Fear of the unknown.

All these fears are exacerbated when the change is forced upon you.  When the agent of change is out of your control.  By the actions of other people.  By the government.  By nature.  By God.   These are often the biggest changes.  Illness, death, crisis.

Please note, in all the above, I've made no distinction between whether the change is negative or positive.  It often makes no difference.  A positive change can often be as scary as a negative one, simply because we cannot see the outcome at the outset.  Likewise, often the most necessary changes, the most beneficial changes to our lives can be often those feared the most, because they have the most on the line.  They require us to take a step of faith.  To take a step into the unknown, to roll the dice, and take a chance.  And that often requires leaving a place of comfort and stability, to move on to something greater.

I was fired Wednesday evening from a job that I have held for over ten years now.  In truth, it's probably a company and a position I should have left some time ago, but I kept at it because of comfort, stability, grit, and a sense of loyalty.  I believed in what the company could and should be, and I still do.  And there are people there that I would still fight to the end for and beside.

I don't really want to take up any space here with writing about the firing or the events/reasons given surrounding it.  There's nothing good that would come of it.  There's no change that would be affected.  I would rather focus on the point that I've come to.

After dealing with the initial shock, I've come to realize that this is a change that has been forced on me because I didn't leave earlier and probably when I should have.  It's a clearing of the deck and a preparation for a new adventure.  A new opportunity.  And hopefully, potentially, something big.

Jamie and I had already been preparing to move.  We were looking to move closer to the office in Richardson to cut down on the 110 miles that I put on the car every day and the 2-3 hour commute roundtrip that I made.  Jamie was looking for a transition after 11 years at Wills Point High School and we wanted to be closer together with the kids at such a great developmental time.

Jamie was also looking for a break.  Something different than teaching for a little bit for a refreshing. A sabbatical.  She initially thought of taking it a year or two after we moved, but about March, we had come to realize that it would make the most sense for her to take it now.  For us to have a transition year or so, where she took the sabbatical, we moved closer and then had a lot of time to find the right place in the DFW area for us to put down roots and then for her to look for her next theater position.   Accordingly, she had put in her resignation back in early April and has been prepping for her sabbatical year with the kids.

With my change now, we're both free and untethered.  We don't own property.  We've been renting a great loft apartment in town.  We're nearly completely out of debt.  We're open to new adventure.

In fact, if we could make it work financially, we'd love nothing more than just to start off now and start traveling.  Teaching the kids history and geography as we make our way across the country/world.  Writing and videoing our travels.  Investing in our family and exploring this great creation.

And we're still planning for that to happen, perhaps a little later when Jude's a little older, but we're going to figure out how to make it work for a season.

Right now, I'm applying and looking for new opportunities.  And in the process, while I started with DFW and Austin, I've come to realize that there's no reason not to cast a broader net.  With where we've been brought to, I have to believe we may be being prepared for a bigger change.  And I'm okay with that.

I think of David and his path to the throne.  He's told he will be king of Israel when he is a child, but there is someone else seated on that throne.  David would spend fifteen years between his anointing and finally being crowned king of Judah, and another seven to become king of all Israel.  He would spend that time being persecuted and hunted by Saul, often living in caves and on the run.

And yet, through that experience, he could still pen:

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you annoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Not to tempt fate, but for a dose of perspective, if last week is the worst thing that happens to me, I'm truly blessed.  And should something worse occur, the Lord is still my Shepherd.

He is leading me into pastures that I know not.  New pastures, new paths, new opportunities.  There may even be new valleys.  But he is with me.  And he restores my soul.

I still have that pinch of fear about me.  Will anyone respond to the resume?  I haven't had to interview in over eleven years, will I present a good application?  Is there an opportunity out there for me that is full-time and stable?  Or am I going back to temporary contract/project based work?

Those kind of fears are always there if we give into them.  The questions just change.

Instead, I'm choosing to focus on the wide open possibility.

I'm ready for the new adventure.

When change is forced upon you, trust the Shepherd.

A Change is Gonna Come

Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "Things do not change; we change."  The statement is a meditation on perspective.  It reminds us that generally that in the broadest sense, the human experience is no different today than it was thousands of years ago.  We face the same inner struggles, we have the same desires, we fight many of the same fights.  "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

In that metaphysical sense, Thoreau is correct.  Our responses, our perceptions, our mindsets and emotions are what change.  I think we recognize this with regard to people.  We know that people change and grow.  That our minds, our perceptions, etc. can grow and change.

Generally though, Thoreau is wrong.  Nearly everything changes.  There is only one type of created thing on this planet that does not change - dead things.

Metathesiophobia - The fear of change

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear the most."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Metathesiophobia is evolutionary in humans. Since the dawn of time, man has liked his routine. Our internal predispositions teach us to resist change mainly to "always feel in control."  Because of this fear, I think we see two primary responses at the extremes: to fight any and all change or to give into it and continually promote it.  Preservationist and anarchist.  Conservative and Progressive.  Elder brother and younger brother.  

The first response is to oppose any change.  To fight to maintain a desired status quo.  I think we see a prime example of this in our political conservatives.  The conservative movement is one of the status quo, fighting to preserve a status quo or to restore us to a previous status quo.  This group uses the phrase "the good old days" a lot.  "Things were better when..."  There is a tendency to look at things through rose colored glasses with this approach, remembering the best of what is desired to be preserved and forgetting the issues and struggles that occurred.  The most dangerous phrase of this group is "it's the way we've always done things" or the variant "that's just the way things are done."

We see this with the reverence given to 1950s America as the time when America was great.  It's the Mayberry version of our past.  The impulse is to paint a picture of small towns with small houses with white picket fences, where everyone in town attended church on Sunday, every child had manners because of corporal punishment, and everyone was generally civil to each other.  This version forgets that Mayberry was a fictional town and was not great for everyone.  It conveniently omits the explicit racism of the day, the overt sexism, and political witch hunts of the era.  It also does not remember that many people attended church not because they believed in anything, but because they were forced to attend because of familial or social pressures.  Many children did not face merely discipline but outright physical abuse and that social ostracization for those who dared to not conform was much more prevalent.  Reality does not quite match the memory in our collective minds.

The opposite response is to give into change and to almost champion it.  "If you can't beat it, join it."  The idea that change will result in a net positive outcome - change makes things better.  There's nothing to fear if you embrace it and believe it will be beneficial.  We see this in the progressive movement.  That goal to push progress, to force change.  This group uses the phrase "things will be better when..."  There is a tendency to devalue the past and look to the future as a solution to all problems.  Often this comes at the price of removing a big stumbling block - "if only this were gone" or "when we change X." 

This groups runs into two primary problems.  First, this ignores the truth that not all change is positive and not all changes are positive for everyone.  In an organism, disease is a change, but it's only healthy for the virus or bacteria.  Secondly, the drive of this group necessarily bring it into conflict with the previous, change-resistant group.  For progressives will often want to change the things that conservatives want to protect.

It should be obvious that neither group is correct.  A constant attempt to protect the status quo will only result in the death of the status quo.  All things must change to survive: organisms, societies, churches, schools, cities, communities.  We must change to respond to outside forces, to adjust to internal issues, to respond to age, and to better the health and welfare of the particular group, organism, community, etc.  Conversely, constant change for the sake of change results in instability and deterioration as well.  Constant changes in the physical status of a being are as detrimental to the body as disease (see the extreme weight gain and loss of actors in preparation for roles - i.e. Christian Bale from the Machinist to Batman Begins).  Likewise a community that keeps changing its boundaries and laws at every whim would collapse under the lack of structure.

A balance is needed to protect that which is worth protecting, while at the same time ensuring and fostering change that leads to positive growth.

The necessity of change

"Things that do not grow or change are dead things."
Louise Erdich

This blog started as a response to several posts and fears I saw posted in light of the mid-term elections.  In light of a fear of the changing demographics of Texas, the potential changing political makeup of Texas, and potential changes to specific communities that I am close to.  And while it still is a bit of a response, it's grown from there, to a more internal exploration of change.  Of the fear of change.  Of what changes I fear and what revolutions I'm ready to start.

Because again, the truth is that things that do not change die.  I'm as wistful about the death of small town America as anyone.  If I ever get back to the great American novel I have in my head, it's on that topic.  But, at the same time, there are many towns and communities that are dying purely because they have fought change for so long.  The towns have stagnated and have nothing to offer its inhabitants for the future.  And so they continue to dwindle and fade, as children leave home and come back only to visit, new families do not move in, looking elsewhere for better opportunities for their futures, and the older generations pass on.

This is not about any one specific town or community.  It's about several.  It's about watching communities that I love continue to fade away.  To watch as businesses fade away, and buildings give way to the weeds and overgrowth, shuttered to open no more.  It's about watching town attractions sit vacant because of a variety of ill-defined reasons.  About watching the latest attempt at a new local business fail because of several strikes against it.

It's about comparing and contrasting the vibrant small towns that I have come in contact with, the ones that seem to be thriving and experimenting.  The ones that have a noticeable soul.  And contrasting those with the towns that are dying.  Analyzing and seeking to discern the difference in the two.

In seeing that it's the willingness to try something different.  Something new.  In seeing a town declare itself as an artist's haven with galleries, exhibits, and festivals thanks to a patron's investment and desire to see it flourish.  In one town's renaissance with a variety of culinary opportunities from coffee houses, to pub food, to South African.  About discovering something new and wonderful in the town and promoting it.  Sometimes requiring re-invention.  Sometimes just enhancing what is already spectacular about it.

It's seeing these patterns in other examples - in churches, in schools, in businesses.

It's something that brings another truth to the forefront of my mind.  Sometimes the most needed changes are forced upon us by external forces.  In other words, we are not always the best arbiters of what change is necessary for growth and survival.  I shudder to think what America would be like if de-segregation were not required of us at a time when it would not have been supported by the majority.  If the Civil Rights Act was not enacted.  If Lawrence v. Texas was not decided.  There are times when we need an interested third party to force us to change.  It's like when a parent makes a child do something they do not want to do, because it is in their best interest.

Because ultimately, change can bring opportunity.  It's in how we respond to it.

Texas turning more purple could be a great thing for the state.  Of the states, we're 38th in health care, 37th in education, 47th in opportunity, 46th in quality of life.  Sticking to the same old ideas that got us to this point is not going to make us any better.  "The definition of insanity is trying the same thing and expecting different results."  Perhaps it is time to try some new ideas.  There are definitely many areas we need to do better in, to make Texas a greater state for all.

Likewise, beer and wine sales in Buna and Jasper County might be a great boon for the community.  I've previously discussed why dry counties do not work.   There was previously a micro-brewery in the town.  Could Buna be revitalized by the craft beer and microbrewery movement?  Would that be a little too hipstery?  Perhaps, but it might be worth a shot.

Both outcomes discussed above will definitely bring their share of complications and issues to address.  But we know the outcome of doing nothing.   We cannot keep doing that.

"It's been a long, long time a coming,
But a change is gonna come."