"Get Used to Different"

My journal reflect a couple of days experiences worth noting.

My work as a therapist is increasingly with trauma survivors: either by war; sexual assault; or domestic abuse. It occurred to me as I was on my way to my afternoon appointment yesterday a great time presented itself to incorporate a new “motto” for my clients mired in trauma. In “The Chosen” Jesus wrestles with his emerging disciples about the heart of God and the love of God and how it breaks the normal rules of convention whether the law as interpreted by the lawyers, the priests, the Pharisees, or conventional wisdom. In a scene where Jesus stops by the tax collector's booth, Jesus stops and looks at Matthew and then says to him, “Matthew, son of Alphaeus, follow me.” Simon runs to Jesus and says, “Master, - - -(correcting Jesus on his choice of Matthew)” with Jesus responding, “Get used to different.”

One of the challenges therapists face is helping clients “get used to different.” For so long client's lives have been shackled with baggage, haunted by guilt and shame, regrets, bitterness, loss; their issues have literally become assimilated into their persona. So, the therapist not only has to help the client experience healing in whatever way it needs to come but also “get used to different.” Recent advancements in brain science helps us understand the body keeps the score of trauma. In fact, there is a highly rated book on that very subject by Bessel van der Kolk, entitled, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” Van der Kolk explains that although time passes, the impact of trauma does not go away. I have seen that with veterans who are still dealing with the trauma of their military service 20+ years previous. I also observed that trauma can be remembered in the culture such as the Albanians as I worked with the teams focused on helping them. So trauma is not just personally remembered, it is culturally remembered. Trauma unresolved shapes one's life and future.

Previously, I had received a couple of face masks from “The Chosen” with those words on it and I realized it was a phrase worth sharing with my clients. It sets out the hope of therapy, a new different!

Saturday, which now is a day I can sleep in since I no longer talk with my mom on Saturday mornings at 8:30. However, I had scheduled a blood donation at a location in Georgetown called Wolf Ranch Town Center at 10:00. Anna had fixed me a hardy breakfast which one needs when parting with a pint or so of blood, and off I went. Problems emerged when I realized I had never really seen how big Wolf Ranch Town Center was. So, as I pulled in with plenty of time to find the blood mobile, I started looking as I drove slowly. I found the van and the trailer of the Blood Service, but no blood mobile. I only signed up for Saturday because they said they were pressed for blood, and I of course was used to getting blood out of a rock—so why not. However, 15 minutes of driving around without success, I left and went home in a funk. Perhaps it was the failure to do good, or the feeling I should have gotten better instructions, or perhaps read the text more carefully, but a morning shot—and no one helped with my blood.

I continue to grieve over the state of affairs in this nation as we move to a national election. I struggle to understand how anyone could support a lawless criminal. This afternoon, I also found myself wondering why Trump was allowed to get this far escaping the attention of authorities because of his racketeering, his criminal activities, his wire fraud, and mail fraud over the years. There has not been a honest deal Trump has made in his adult life. How is it he has flown under the radar until now?” Is this an indication of our lack of competence in the area of white collar crime? It is troubling.

I also wonder if somehow some Americans feel so disenfranchised from their government that authoritarianism is appealing to them. They are willing to support a candidate who will disregard the rule of law, do as he pleases, thumbing his nose in the face of authorities, be comfortable with hate groups and supposed support for Christians while not choosing to be one himself.

Are Christians so easily misled, so easily stirred up, so easily duped, that a man like Trump who has no loyalty to his country, his God, his own family that he will not sacrifice all for a profit and to enlarge his brand? I guess I believed we were better than that.

So I end this day, having talked with my granddaughter Abby and her mother Karen as they were getting ready to go to church in Taiwan. The girls are having great experiences in school, very busy schedules, opportunities for learning in multiple areas, but most of all safe. With only 7 deaths from COVID in Taiwan, the girls wear masks at school, all wear masks everywhere without any problem.

I must say, I am deeply saddened that the United States is unable to provide that safe experience for children attending school. However, we have allowed our politics to spill over into our action on COVID-19 allowing this president and Republicans to politicize a pandemic which has killed over 209,000+ of our citizens: someone's child, husband, wife, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother. All of these deaths are totally unnecessary and we are past using the excuse COVID is just another flu. All of these deaths need to be laid at the feet of this President(who lied not wanting to cause “panic” while embracing fear and panic as a media tool) and his Republican party from the Congress on down. Added to these official numbers are those in nursing homes who have died because they have been isolated, without contact from family and friends in order to keep them safe. Their numbers are legion and perhaps will only be know in retrospect as we sort out the numbers.

The United States is at a tipping point. To few realize what the “point” is.

Wash your hands, wear your masks for others, mind the gap and be kind