In 2001, a small oil and gas company offered me a job. The new position would require relocating from the Dallas area to Austin. The offer was not a great one financially, as it would result in a significant cut in pay, but it would be the kind of legal work I loved to do, while my current position was not. The day after I received the offer, I got in the mail the latest edition of the Texas Bar Journal. The cover looked like this:

I took this as a sign and accepted the offer.

We moved back to the Dallas – Fort Worth area seven years later, but recently I confirmed once again that I belong in Austin – at least for eight days a year at this:

My wife and I just returned from the Austin Film Festival, where we watched 27 movies. Sadly, there were several others we wanted to see but couldn’t due to scheduling conflicts. I admit it; I’m a film junkie.

We had attended parts of the Austin Film Festival while we lived in Austin, but this was the first time we had been back to the Festival after moving back to DFW and the first time we completely immersed ourselves in it. Unlike my usual posts that focus on some character trait or ills of society, this one will focus on what I learned at this year’s Austin Film Festival.   

There is nothing like watching a film with movie people. They cry unashamedly, laugh boisterously, and cheer loudly when someone rights a wrong. They applaud at the end of every movie and stay to watch the credits.

Movie people can be some of the nicest people around. We often think of those in the entertainment industry as snobby and pretentious, and I’m sure some of them are. But the ones at the festival were not. They were friendly, humble and appreciative of others’ works. And we met some of the nicest people standing in line waiting for the next film.

Perhaps the best part of the Festival was listening to insiders from each film shown. At the end of each movie, someone (often several people) connected to the film, such as the writer, director, producer or star, held a question and answer session about the film. In these sessions, you learned what inspired the people to make the film, insights about the characters and plot, and even some of the technical aspects of making the film. I would love it if every movie had such a session. Filmgoers would appreciate the movies so much more. These sessions couldn’t be held live at every showing of every movie, but at the end of the credits, the film could conclude with a short Q and A session as part of the film itself. (And then more people would stay for the credits. I am always impressed at how many people it takes to make a movie.)  

One of my favorite parts of the Austin Film Festival was watching “shorts.” These are a group of 5 to 10 mini-movies. They are made by filmmakers trying to make a name for themselves. Shorts can be some of the most insightful and thought-provoking films around. If I were a movie distributor, I would show one of these shorts at the beginning of every movie (and in turn, cut down the previews from 20 minutes to 10 minutes). You can generally find these shorts online somewhere, often on YouTube. I have listed a few of my favorite shorts in the endnote below.[i]  

The theme of this year’s Festival was “encourage courage.” You can demonstrate courage in many ways. For example, before each film, the screen flashed the following:

• It wasn’t until 1960 that a flushing toilet was shown on screen.
• It wasn’t until 1964 that an interracial couple was shown on screen.
• It wasn’t until 1969 that a naked man was shown on screen.
• It took until 2010 for a female to win the best director Oscar.
• Courage in film takes many forms.
• With courage, impossible becomes I’m possible.

We saw many great films, most of which showed great courage in some way. Here are my three favorites from the “marquee” films (those that will be released soon at a theater near you). See them if you can.

The best movie at the festival was Green Book.[ii] It is based on the true story of a classical pianist, Don Shirley, an African-American, who takes a concert tour through the deep South in the early 1960s. He hires an Italian-American bouncer as his driver. It is funny, insightful and at some points, tragic. It won the Audience Award (the most popular) at the Festival. Here is the trailer from the film:

My next favorite movie was Boy Erased.[iii] It is the true story of a gay young man who goes through conversion therapy to “cure” his gayness. It demonstrates how wrong we got it back in the past (and many still don’t get it) when it comes to LGBTQ and how the love for a family member is more important than a religious belief. Here is the trailer from the movie:

One of the toughest films to watch was Ben is Back.[iv] It is the story of a young man who returns home to his family after rehab for drug addiction. It gave me insight on what drugs addiction does, not just to the abuser, but to his or her parents, siblings, friends, and former associates. And again, as in Boy Erased, it illustrated the importance of love among family members. Here is the trailer from the film:   

(Yes, Lucas Hedges stars in both Boy Erased and Ben is Back.)

Film festivals provide a sneak-peak at several movies that will soon be released (like the ones mentioned above), but their major purpose is to help independent filmmakers market their movies to movie distributors. The Austin Film Festival is known as the writers’ festival because it focuses on screenplays. The Festival puts on workshops to help screenwriters improve their craft, a chance to pitch their screenplays to industry insiders, and gives awards to the best-submitted screenplays.

Independent filmmakers submit their films to the Festival for consideration. The Festival then selects a handful from the dozens submitted for showing and awards the best ones. Here are my favorites from the competition films:

• Favorite Narrative Film: Above the Clouds[v] – The story of a young woman who, on her 18th birthday, sets out on a road trip with a homeless man to find her birth father.
• Favorite Documentary: The Interpreters[vi] – A documentary about how the U.S. military hired local Iraqis to be interpreters during the second Gulf War, who were largely abandoned by the U.S. after the war but were marked as traitors by their own country. This film won the Jury Award for the Best Documentary as well as the Courage Award. 
• The Most Thought-Provoking Film: Clara[vii] – The story of an astronomer consumed with searching for intelligent life outside planet earth, and his new research assistant, Clara, an artist, who is fascinated with space. The film gets you thinking about God, the limitations of science, and just what life might be like after we die. This movie won the Jury Award for the Best Narrative Film. Amazingly, a twenty-year-old wrote and directed the movie.

Since none of these last three movies have distributors yet, sadly, they may never make it to theaters. But keep your eyes open for them if they do. Hopefully, they will at least make it to Netflix, Amazon Prime, or some other online source, as it will be worth your time to watch them.

Like the films at the Festival, let’s be courageous. We don’t have to topple governments or evil corporations or take on a drug cartel. But each of us can have enough courage to do something to make this world a little better. Let’s right a wrong, protect the victim of bullying, welcome into our inner circle someone who is different or who society has marginalized, forgive someone who has hurt us, or seek forgiveness from someone we have wronged. All of those take courage, and through that courage, we really can turn the impossible into “I’m possible.”

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[i] Here are some of my favorite shorts from the Austin Film Festival:

• The Last Letter – A war weary soldier must deliver to his dead friend’s fiancée a farewell letter that was never written.
•  Woman in Stall – A woman finds herself trapped in a bathroom stall by a man whose intentions are not entirely clear (winner of the best student narrative short at the Festival).
• Christmas Green – A disgruntled woman pays an unwanted visit to her lonely neighbor, but both end up finding unexpected joy in each other’s company.
• Noise – When a young, deaf woman forms a bond with an unlikely stranger, the two are forced to communicate in the absence of language.
• Everything Mattress – In search of a new mattress, David and Sara receive some unexpected wisdom from a mattress salesperson (winner of the Audience Award for a short).

[ii] Green Book

• Production Companies: Participant Media, DreamWorks, and Amblin Partners
• Director: Pater Farrelly
• Screenwriter: Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie
• Starring: Linda Cardellini, Viggo Mortensen, and Mahershala Ali 
• Release date: November 21, 2018

[iii] Boy Erased

• Production Companies: Anonymous Content, Blue-Tongued Films, and Focus Features
• Director: Joel Edgerton
• Screenwriter: Joel Edgerton (based on the memoir by Garrard Conley)
• Starring: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, and Russell Crowe
• Release date: November 4, 2018 (limited release)

[iv] Ben is Back

• Production Companies: Black Bear Pictures, 30West, and Color Force
• Director: Peter Hedges
• Screenwriter: Peter Hedges
• Starring: Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, and Courtney B. Vance
• Release date: December 7, 2018

[v] Above the Clouds

• Production Company: Third Light Films
• Director: Leon Chambers
• Screenwriter: Simon Lloyd (based on the story by Leon Chambers)
• Starring: Naomi Murton, Andrew Murton, and Phillip Jackson
• Release date: Unknown

[vi] The Interpreters

• Production Company: Capital K Pictures
• Directors: Andres Caballero and Sophian Khan
• Release date: Unknown

[vii] Clara

• Production Company: Serendipity Point Films
• Director: Akash Sherman
• Screenwriter: Akash Sherman
• Starring: Patrick J. Adams, Troian Bellisario, and Will Bowes
• Release date: Unknown

A few weeks ago, while discussing some of our experiences, one of my sons commented that he didn’t think I had ever done anything seriously wrong. Rather than accept the compliment, I denied it and gave him a couple of examples of mistakes I had made in the past. My son merely laughed those off as insignificant. But, of course, I couldn’t (or at least wouldn’t) relate to him some of my much darker secrets. Why? Because I am too ashamed to admit those publicly.

The title of this post is Shedding Our Shame, not True Confessions, so if you are hoping to learn of my deepest secrets, get over it. It’s not going to happen. But that discussion with my son, as well as reading Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated,[i] got me thinking about how guilt and shame can either help us or harm us.

Tara Westover had an interesting childhood, to say the least. She was psychologically and sometimes physically abused by her parents and siblings. She ultimately walked away from them, but felt guilty about that, even though she believed she was justified in doing so because of the abuse. After many years of struggling with the guilt from abandoning her parents, she concluded:

“But vindication has no power over guilt. No amount of anger or rage directed at others can subdue it, because guilt is never about them. Guilt is the fear of one’s own wretchedness. It has nothing to do with other people. I shed my guilt when I accepted my decision on its own terms, without endlessly prosecuting old grievances, without weighing his [her father’s] sins against mine. Without thinking of my father at all. I learned to accept my decision for my own sake, because of me, not because of him. Because I needed it, not because he deserved it.”

Like forgiveness, then, shedding ourselves of guilt is much more important for our own wellbeing than the wellbeing of the person we harmed.

What causes guilt or shame in us? Religion teaches us that we should feel guilt (remorse) when we sin because we have disappointed God. Perhaps this is how Red felt in The Shawshank Redemption,[ii] as he relates his feelings about the crime he committed 40 years ago:

But I think Red felt his guilt for reasons other than just displeasing God. I feel the most-guilty when my actions or inactions have hurt someone else. God, for me, is not always a huge part of it.

Sometimes our actions can hurt others even though we had no intention of doing so. Many years ago, I had a friend who, on a business trip, intentionally ran a stop sign because he was late for a meeting with a client.

He did not see the car coming the other way.

The impact of the crash caused a new-born to be thrown from the car, killing her instantly. Her parents were bringing their brand-new baby home from the hospital for the first time. Meeting with my friend after that accident was gut-wrenching. I witnessed first-hand pain, torment, suffering, grief, and guilt all rolled into one. The family of the infant was remarkably understanding, holding no grudges. But I didn’t know how my friend could ever get over that. I’m not sure I ever could. Perhaps Ron Kovic, in the film about his life, Born on the Fourth of July[iii] felt similarly:

“War is hell,” as General Patton once said, and bad things, even unintentional ones, regularly happen in war. But how would we feel if we chose one course of action because of political or financial implications and that course led to the death of a child? That is what Chief Martin Brody had to live with in Jaws:[iv]

 We sometimes use guilt and shame interchangeably, but I like the difference research professor, Dr. Brené Brown, makes:

“I believe that there is a profound difference between shame and guilt. I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful – it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological discomfort.

“I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.

“I don’t believe shame is helpful or productive. In fact, I think shame is much more likely to be the source of destructive, hurtful behavior than the solution or cure. I think the fear of disconnection can make us dangerous.”

Or as Christian theologian, Lewis B. Smedes, succinctly summarizes it, “We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for who we are.”

The ending of Saving Private Ryan[v] shows us how guilt can direct our lives. In this scene, Ryan, now an old man, visits the grave of one of the men who gave his life so Ryan could live:

 Using the motivation of survivor’s guilt, Ryan lived the best life he could. That guilt helped him be a better man. But we shouldn’t have to experience guilt every day for the rest of our lives. We need to learn from our mistakes, make a course correction, if necessary, and move on.

Contrast the scene from Saving Private Ryan with this scene from The Breakfast Club,[vi] where Andrew Clark feels the shame heaped upon him by his dad about the importance of winning, and turns those feelings of inadequacy into destructive actions to himself and others:

Admittedly, I am not a trained therapist, but from my experience, we need to be careful how we treat others, so we don’t push the remorse someone feels from making a mistake into shame for being a flawed person. As parents, do we correct the errors our children make? Or do we tell them they are bad? When we bully another person, aren’t we telling them that they are no good? As teachers (formal or otherwise), do we label our students in such a way that we tell them they are just plain dumb? As Christians, are we so obsessed with being a sinner, the need for strict obedience to every commandment, and our hopeless plight if we fail to accept the Savior, that we shame our fellow congregants?

Perhaps more importantly, what do we tell ourselves about ourselves? The more we tell ourselves how wretched we are, the more we believe it. And that belief will almost always become our reality. And a reality of shame can only lead to destructive behavior, sometimes even suicide.

Author Sue Thoele said, “I believe one of our souls’ major purposes is to know, love, and express our authentic selves. To live the life and be the person we were created to be. However, our true selves only emerge when it’s safe to do so. Self-condemnation, shame, and guilt send your true nature into hiding. It’s only in the safety of gentle curiosity, encouragement, and self-love that your soul can bloom as it was created to do.”

Let’s help create for others that safe place where a person can correct mistakes along the way but where their true, beautiful selves are allowed to emerge and develop.

And let’s do the same for ourselves. Regardless of what we have done or failed to do, each of us is a person of worth. Despite our past, each of us can have a bright future if we will only shed our shame.

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[i] Educated, by Tara Westover, Random House, copyright 2018

[ii]The Shawshank Redemption

• Production Company: Castlerock Entertainment
• Director: Frank Darabont
• Screenwriter: Frank Darabont (based on a short story by Stephen King)
• Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and Bob Gunton
• Release date: October 14, 1994

[iii] Born on the Fourth of July

• Production Company: Ixtlan
• Director: Oliver Stone
• Screenwriter: Oliver Stone (based on the book by Ron Kovic)
• Starring: Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, and Caroline Kava
• Release date: January 5, 1990

[iv] Jaws

• Production Companies: Zanuck/Brown Productions and Universal Pictures
• Director: Steven Spielberg
• Screenwriters: Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb
• Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss
• Release date: June 20, 1975

[v] Saving Private Ryan

• Production Companies: DreamWorks, Paramount Pictures, and Amblin Entertainment
• Director: Steven Spielberg
• Screenwriter: Robert Rodat
• Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, and Tom Sizemore
• Release date: July 24, 1998

[vi] The Breakfast Club

• Production Companies: Universal Pictures, A&M Films, Channel Productions
• Director: John Hughes
• Screenwriter: John Hughes
• Starring: Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, and Molly Ringwald
• Release date: February 15, 1985

 

In this blog, I usually stay away from controversial religious and political issues and focus more on simple life lessons. But I can’t help myself in this post. In doing so, at the outset, I apologize if I offend anyone, but before casting stones in my direction, please at least read through it completely and ponder on it for a moment.

As most of you know, my parents raised me in the Mormon church, although we can’t call it the Mormon church anymore because the church’s top leader now tells us that to refer to the church as “Mormon” or its members as “Mormons” offends God. To avoid offending anyone, especially God, I will refer to the church formerly known as Mormon simply as “the Church.”

The Church has conferences twice a year where we listen to our top leaders. Many talks are uplifting and inspire us to be better people. Some, not so much. One, in particular, this last conference left me cold. The speaker, formerly a prominent lawyer and judge, presented his message lawyerly, which, as a lawyer, I should have appreciated. Instead, I kept asking myself, where is the love for these people at whom he was, at least indirectly, casting stones? His message was simple: in the Church, we believe marriage between a man and a woman (as opposed to two men or two women) is ordained of God, and gender is eternal. Thus, the underlying message was, if you are LGBTQ and act on those desires, you commit serious sin – a sin which is next to murder in seriousness in the eyes of the Lord.

A church can teach and believe whatever it wants. We, Latter-day Saints, should know this as well as anyone. In a landmark case before the United States Supreme Court in 1878, the Church argued the government could not, based on the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution, prohibit the Church’s belief in, and practice of, polygamy. Ironically, the argument against polygamy by the government (the importance of the traditional family) is the same argument the Church now uses in its opposition to same-sex marriage. The Court agreed as to belief, but not practice. In other words, you may legally believe that polygamy is an eternal principle ordained of God, but the Constitution does not guarantee the actual practice of that principle. In this case, the practice of polygamy was a crime, and so beyond the protection of the Constitution.

When it comes to LGBTQ individuals, the Church has tried to walk the difficult tightrope of hating the sin, but loving the sinner. But there was no loving the sinner in this conference address. How could that be? It seemed to me like a major step backward by the Church toward LGBTQs. Recently, the Church has made overtures to LGBTQs about how loved and accepted they are, even creating a special website for them. But the Church continues to teach that if you act on your same-sex attraction or transgender urges, you are sinning and should be excommunicated from the Church. So in honor of October being LGBTQ History Month, I am sharing my personal history with LGBTQs, a few of my favorite movies about them, and hopefully, in this small way, expressing my love for them.

The first time I thought seriously about LGBTQs (or homosexuals, as we referred to them back then) was in the early 1980s. I sat in a church leadership meeting listening to a therapist who explained that homosexuality is a perversion, and a young man becomes homosexual due to the lack of a strong male (father) figure in his life. Even back then I wondered how true that was. Did that mean every son of a single mother was destined to be gay? If that were true, why did one son turn out gay while another son in the same family did not? But worse, I wondered how that teaching made fathers feel if one of their sons turned out to be gay. Now we can blame both the father and the son! The Church, back then, also taught that masturbation leads to homosexuality. If that were true, 98 percent of men would be gay, not the five to ten percent of the population that actually is.

Back then, I didn’t know anyone that was LGBTQ – at least that I knew of. My first face-to-face experience with a gay person occurred when we moved to Houston in 1986. Two men lived next door to us. They were young professionals, sharp in their appearance, and two of the nicest neighbors we have ever had. I learned later they were gay men in a committed relationship with each other. After learning of their sexual preferences, thankfully, despite my church’s teachings, my opinion of them did not diminish in the least. They were the same men before and after I found out. This scene from the film, Love, Simon,[i] emphasizes this point:

Since those days in the early 80s, I have discovered that one of my best friends is gay, three daughters of other good friends are lesbian, two sons of high school friends are gay, my nephew is gay, one of top the executives of my former employer is gay, and my son’s in-laws have two lesbian daughters, both of which have married their lesbian sweethearts.

And I love each and every one of them.

LGBTQs love, laugh and experience life like the rest of us. Gay and lesbian parents, for example, have the same dreams, fears and concerns as all parents do, although their family dynamics might be a little more complicated than straight couples, as illustrated by this clip from The Kids Are All Right,[ii] a film about a lesbian couple dealing with their children:

When my good friend came out to us, he struggled to find the courage to do so. How sad is that? Isn’t that what best friends are for – having someone to confide in who won’t judge us? And like Simon, he can breathe a little easier now, with his secret out. After that experience, I now laugh at this next clip from Love, Simon which reverses the roles:

I watched Love, Simon in a packed movie house, and I am glad I did. The audience laughed and cried along with Simon and his friends and family. I shed more than my share of tears, not just because of what was happening on screen, but I felt the love and acceptance of this audience of all ages, different genders, and ethnicities toward Simon, and indirectly toward all LGBTQs, and I realized how far we have come since the 1980s.

Meanwhile, my church continues to campaign against same-sex marriage and taught that being LGBT was a choice because God would never make a mistake. In discussing this with my good friend, he remarked, “Why would I ever choose to be gay?” My friend then explained that the way we have treated gays throughout the years, he would have to be a masochist to choose such a lifestyle. And he would know, as he went through destructive conversation therapy, and listened to the counsel of Church leaders who told him if he married a woman and played the part of a heterosexual, God would remove his feelings of same-sex attraction from him. Like many other gay Church members, he tried it and found it just doesn’t work that way.

Pastor and writer, John Pavlovitz, said it this way: “Yes, LGBT people are absolutely making a choice. They are choosing to be the most honest, authentic versions of themselves. They are choosing to be led by the unfiltered direction of their hearts, just as you and I are. They are choosing to relent to the things that in all of our lives, never can be chosen. The only relevant choices for straight Christians are whether or not we will treat the LGBT community as fully complex, intelligent, emotionally intricate human beings; and whether or not we will be willing to examine both our personal opinions and our theology accordingly. The choice is ours.”

 In Utah, the home of the Church, the highest cause of death in youths ages 10 to 17 is suicide. The state’s rate of suicide for all ages is 60 percent above the national average. Experts debate why this is so, but many suspect the Church’s stance on LGBTQs might have something to do with it. Stuart Matis is a good example of this (although he lived in California). In 2000, Matis walked up the steps of his church building with a note reading “do not resuscitate” pinned to his shirt and shot himself. He was 32 years old, a member of the Church, and gay. After a lifetime spent struggling to reconcile the Church and being gay, he explained in his suicide note that “for the first time in over 20 years, I am free from my pains. As I believed that I was a Christian, I believed that I could never be gay. Perhaps my death … might be some catalyst for much good…. My actions might help to save many young people’s lives.” The same night Matis was writing his suicide note, his mother was writing a letter to Church authorities asking them to change the Church’s position on gays.

To the Church’s credit, it has joined with state agencies to improve its suicide prevention programs, and many other Church leaders have shown great empathy to the LGBTQ community. The Church even tacitly supports Imagine Dragons’ lead singer, Dan Reynolds’ LoveLoud festival benefiting the LGBTQ, as portrayed in the documentary, Believer.[iii]

To me, the best way to help prevent suicide and depression in LGBTQs is to let them know they are loved and accepted. But many of us don’t know how to demonstrate that love and acceptance. Thomas Montgomery, the father of a gay son and member of the Church, explains his family’s struggles:

“Today was my first day in a new ward [a Church congregation]. It is unavoidably true that one of the reasons for our move was to find a fresh start in a new ward. By way of synopsis, our son Jordan came out (gay) three years ago. While it was a great shock, our family rallied around Jordan.  As we became more educated, we realized how damaging being in the closet is. We were not ashamed of him. Also, our ability to protect Jordan was severely limited unless he was out. So we crashed out of the closet as a family.

“The impact of this news was jarring to both family and friends. Our learning curve was steep. While well-intentioned, many were not willing to look past stereotypes. In Church, this was manifest by gossip and passive-aggressive behavior that felt very much like shunning. Our leaders looked up the [Church’s] leadership chain for direction and found none.  In this vacuum, they came to the conclusion that we were just one family. ‘We are not going to upset the apple cart for just one family,’ was what we heard over and over….

“This emboldened those who were offended by a gay youth in their midst. A few refused to take the sacrament from him as a Deacon. Others would shame him (and us) in the name of defending marriage. As this Church environment grew intolerable, we sought refuge in a neighboring ward. But the same overall policy was in place.

“This story is the beginning of a process that has dramatically impacted my family’s relationship with the Church. In our first ward, I wasn’t crushed by the fact that our ward had a few people who were largely uneducated on LGBT issues and were deeply hurtful to us. That was something I expected. I was crushed by the fact that my friends and people I had served with for 10+ years stood by and did nothing. They were paralyzed by indecision, looking for permission to love a gay youth.”

If you need someone’s permission to love a gay youth, you have mine. The movie, Pride,[iv] is the true story of how gays and lesbians united with striking miners in England in the summer of 1984. The film portrayed how these rough and tough miners first rejected the gays and lesbians, but as the two groups got to know each other, the miners began to tolerate the gays and lesbians, and then accept them. Ultimately, each group fully supported the other in their causes. I love the sentiment of this clip, which is the sentiment we should have for all those around us whom we have marginalized:

Members of the Church, in general, are wonderful, loving people. Many are wonderful examples to me of unconditional love. I will not let the words or approach of a certain few Church leaders diminish my love and respect for those good members of the Church. Nor will I allow those same few leaders to change the way I feel about my LGBTQ friends and associates. And to those friends and associates, may you know that I think you’re perfect, just the way you are.

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[i] Love, Simon

• Production Companies: Fox 2000 Pictures, New Leaf Literary & Media, and Temple Hill Entertainment
• Director: Greg Berlanti
• Screenwriters: Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker (based on the novel by Becky Albertalli)
• Starring: Nick Robinson, Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel
• Release date: March 16, 2018

[ii] The Kids Are All Right

• Production Companies: Focus Features, Gilbert Films, and Saint Aire Production
• Director: Lisa Cholodenko
• Screenwriters: Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg
• Starring: Annette Benning, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo
• Release date: July 30, 2010

[iii] Believer

• Production Companies: Live Nation Productions, 9.14 Pictures, and Another Brother Productions
• Director: Don Argott
• Screenwriter: Documentary
• Starring: Dan Reynolds, Aja Volkman, and Ben McKee
• Release date: June 25, 2018

[iv] Pride

• Production Companies: Pathé, BBC Films, and Proud Films
• Director: Matthew Warchus
• Screenwriter: Stephen Beresford
• Starring: Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, and Dominic West
• Release date: September 12, 2014

Warning: This post is full of personal information about me, so if you are someone who doesn’t like to listen to people talk about themselves, you might want to skip this one. I will understand. But perhaps you can at least somewhat relate to some of my experiences – and my feelings about those experiences.

You’ve probably heard the expression, “It’s better to be lucky than good.” We say it when someone gets a break for being in the right place at the right time or knowing the right person, rather than being talented enough to get the break on their abilities alone. We express a similar thought when we say, “It’s not what you know, but who you know, that counts.” I like it when good things happen to someone else – except when I wish that someone else were me. I admit it; sometimes I’m jealous of those that seem to get something they don’t deserve or that I deserve more (in my humble opinion). But don’t we all feel that way from time to time? If jealousy were a physical disease, almost all of us would be terminally ill in the hospital.

We often use jealousy and envy interchangeably, but I like the distinction Aristotle made: “Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbor to have them through envy.” In other words, jealousy is inward directed, and can sometimes motivate us to work longer and try harder, while envy is outward directed, and can lead to hate of another. Using Aristotle’s distinction, I’m not sure I have been envious – where I took steps to prevent someone from getting something I wanted – and although I have never thought I was a jealous person, upon reflection, I have been jealous at times, at love, at work, and at writing.

One of my favorite romantic comedies is My Best Friend’s Wedding.[i] When Julianne learns that her long-time friend, Michael, is engaged, she decides that she loves him, and does everything she can to break up the wedding, including getting another man to pretend they are engaged, hoping to make Michael jealous enough to drop his engagement. But as the story progresses, Julianne must decide if love or jealousy motivates her. Here is a classic scene near the end of the film (spoiler alert):

In my love life, I have never gone through anything quite so dramatic, but I have felt the pangs of jealousy from time to time. I remember one incident in particular. My wife, Janene, had returned from a weekend visiting her sister and told me that, while there, she had run into an old boyfriend. So far, no big deal. But then she told me that she could sense that the former boyfriend still had feelings for her. Fortunately for me, nothing happened, except with me. Someone once said, next to the atom bomb, the greatest explosion is set off by an old flame. Jealousy exploded within me, even though I was the one who ultimately had won Janene’s heart. But it was also a reality check. Although it had been over a decade since Janene and this man had broken up, he still desired her. I realized once again that I had married someone special. And I better treat her that way. Since then, I have not been the perfect husband, but it was not from lack of trying.

The classic family film, Toy Story,[ii] is premised on jealousy. Buzz Lightyear, a boy’s newest toy, threatens Woody’s status as the boy’s favorite. Enjoy this scene where Woody’s and Buzz’s battle for top toy leads to some unintended consequences:

While Toy Story is not set in a work environment, it demonstrates what can happen when peers become jealous of each other. And haven’t you felt similar jealousy when someone other than you got the promotion you thought you deserved? It happened to me. XTO Energy hired me as the number two lawyer in the department, with the promise, if I didn’t mess up the opportunity, that I would be moved to the top spot when my boss retired. Things were working out as planned until ExxonMobil got in the way, which bought XTO three years after I started there. I felt lucky to have kept my job, as typically, a company that buys another will replace existing management with their own people. But I didn’t feel quite so lucky when my boss retired two years later, and ExxonMobil moved one of its own into the top lawyer position instead of me. Sure, my new boss was qualified, but that didn’t stop me from being jealous. Hadn’t I been promised the job when I started? I knew how XTO (and its people) did things better than the new guy. And I believed I was at least as good as, if not the better lawyer. So how did I react to being passed over? Unlike Woody and Buzz in Toy Story, instead of working with the new guy to make XTO a better company, I did the opposite. I shaved my head and grew a goatee, and vowed to work only so hard as required to get the job done. I gutted it out for another six years until retirement, but work was never the same, and I never fully got over those feelings of jealousy. But now I’m retired, and he is not!

As a writer (using that term loosely), I continue to experience some jealousy. I started writing as a hobby back in the early 90s when a woman at work challenged me to write a legal thriller as good as John Grisham’s. And so, I wrote Unrighteous Dominion (you can buy it or download it from Amazon!). I have never talked to any “regular” person that has read Unrighteous Dominion who did not enjoy it (although I’m sure those people exist). But despite praise from many, no publisher or agent got behind it, leaving me to self-publish it (maybe it was ahead of its time, as the premise of it is sexual harassment, and might have gotten more attention in the current “Me, Too” movement). Surprisingly, I have never felt jealousy toward John Grisham. Although I believe Unrighteous Dominion is as well-written as many (most?) of Grisham’s novels, I am happy for any practicing lawyer who makes it as a fiction writer.

But I have never gotten over feelings of jealousy regarding my second book, a sappy little Christmas story called, The Presents of Angels. (You can get it on Amazon, too, but better yet, if you would like a copy, let me know, and I will send you one.) When Unrighteous Dominion didn’t take off like I thought it might, I followed the lead of another writer, Richard Paul Evans. He originally self-published a little Christmas book called, The Christmas Box. He then went to everyone he knew and told them if they bought one copy, he would give them another to give away as a present. That year, I received at least two copies of his book as a present from relatives. His marketing campaign was so successful a leading publisher decided to publish it. Since then, Evans has published over thirty novels, all of which have been New York Times bestsellers. There are more than 30 million of his books in print worldwide, and they have been translated into more than 24 languages. I read The Christmas Box (and at least one other of his novels), and to this day, I cannot understand its success. The Presents of Angels is far superior. I know I’m biased, but many others agree with me. I even got it published by a small publishing company. But the commercial success of The Presents of Angels has been limited. I would have been happy if I had one-tenth of the success of Mr. Evans. I am hoping my jealousy will motivate me to continue to write. That is one of the reasons behind this blog. And the sequel to The Presents of Angels is on the horizon.

The movie, Atonement,[iii] dramatically illustrates the unintended consequences of jealousy. But here, envy, more than jealousy, is involved. [Spoiler Alert!] A thirteen-year-old girl has a crush on her older sister’s boyfriend. When she catches them making love, her envy leads her to accuse the boyfriend of the rape of her cousin, even though she saw the real perpetrator. That one act of envy ends up destroying the lives of both her sister and her boyfriend. The young girl, now 18, tries to make things right in this scene:

But in an interesting twist at the end, this girl learns that it is too late to make things right, and so she attempts to atone for her envy-motivated actions by publishing their story.

One of the saddest unintended consequences of jealousy (and sometimes envy) is that the person you are jealous of often doesn’t know about your jealousy. They continue to live their lives as they normally would, while you are left to let your emotions fester, harming no one but yourself. Richard Paul Evans has no idea I am jealous of him. Janene’s old boyfriend would probably laugh if he heard I was jealous of him since I got the girl. And even if my former boss at ExxonMobil knew I was jealous of him, which he probably does, he was not about to change his position and status to appease my jealousy. My jealousy, then, only hurt me.

One thing to remember is jealousy is a normal reaction to things that happen to us and others. Experience has taught me that jealousy can be a good thing if it motivates you to do something or to do something better, such as improving a skill, talent or craft. But it can also discourage us to the point where we give up on something we do well. And envy only leads to hate and potentially the destruction of other people’s lives. I hope we will always know the difference between jealousy and envy, and only use jealousy to motivate us for the better.

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[i] My Best Friend’s Wedding

• Production Companies: TriStar Pictures, Zucker Brothers Productions, and Predawn Productions
• Director: P. J. Hogan
• Screenwriter: Ronald Bass
• Starring: Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, and Cameron Diaz
• Release date: June 20, 1997

[ii] Toy Story

• Production Companies: Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures
• Director: John Lasseter
• Screenwriters: John Lasseter and Pete Docter
• Starring: Tom Hanks and Tim Allen
• Release date: November 22, 1995

[iii] Atonement

• Production Companies: Universal Pictures, StudioCanal, and Relativity Media
• Director: Joe Wright
• Screenwriter: Christopher Hampton (based on the novel by Ian McEwan)
• Starring: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, and Saoirse Ronan
• Release date: January 11, 2008

 

 

People are going crazy over Colin Kaepernick again. This time, Nike is to blame (or praised, depending on your point of view). Nike just made Mr. Kaepernick a spokesperson for its new ad campaign on the thirtieth anniversary of its “Just Do It” ads. You would have to be living in a far away country if you are not aware of Kaepernick’s protest against racial injustice and law enforcement’s treatment of minorities by his kneeling during the national anthem. Many people, though, have looked at his protest as disrespect for the American flag and the military who protect this country. The announcement by Nike in support of Kaepernick has caused some of those people to boycott Nike and even burn their Nike shoes and socks, while others have stood with Nike and Kaepernick. In short, if we listen to all the chatter, we are racist if we do not support Kaepernick, but if we do, we are disrespecting the flag and the military. There is no middle ground. How did the world get so polarized? Meanwhile, Nike, one advertising expert has estimated, has received more than $43 million in free media exposure.

Sadly, the support for, and outrage against, Kaepernick and Nike is only one example of the times in which we live. If you are a public person, a company selling goods or services to the public, or even a “regular” person who uses social media, it is hard to even breathe without someone praising you or despising you. An executive of Twitter recently had lunch at Chik-Fil-A and posted his lunch choice on Twitter. Social liberals went crazy, calling him all kinds of names and criticizing him for supporting a business whose owners are outspoken against same-sex marriage. How does picking a place to eat mean that you are either for or against LGBTQs? When this particular executive later apologized for his lunch choice, others criticized him for caving to pressure from social media on something as insignificant as his lunch choice. Maybe that’s the point: a lunch choice should be considered insignificant – not important enough to tell the world about it, and not an indication of one’s views on an issue. Similarly, In-and-Out Burgers recently made a $25,000 donation to a GOP candidate. Immediately, the Democratic Party called for a boycott of all In-and-Out Burgers. In short, we have lost our ability to tolerate those with opposing views to our own.

I once thought the world was getting kinder, with the civil rights movement, the Me, Too and equality for women movements, and the growing acceptance of the LGBT community. But lately, we have taken some giant steps backward. Now, it seems, you can’t even order a latte without someone going ballistic, as illustrated from this scene from Kicking and Screaming[i]:

Buddha once said, “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” And the resulting punishment of our anger is that turns into hate. Or in the words of Cicero, “Hatred is settled anger.”

It often starts innocently enough. I recently re-watched the thought-provoking film, Changing Lanes,[ii] where a lawyer and an insurance agent have a fender-bender that escalates into a feud. Here is the accident:

Each of the men reacts negatively to the actions of the other until this happens:

Like the characters in Changing Lanes, the anger that we direct against another sometimes starts out having little to do with that person. We are dealing with other issues that we can’t control or just having a bad day in general. When our lives seem to be spinning out of control, we direct our anger against someone or a situation we think we can control. In short, our anger or hatred often is the result of simply trying to understand the world. When life seems to have little meaning or rationality, we want to lash out against someone, something – anything – to help us make some sense of it all. I often feel like Ben Affleck’s character in this additional scene from Changing Lanes:

How do we learn to respect and be more tolerant and accepting of others? Although I may not be the most tolerant person in the world (although I’m trying), here are some things I try to do.

When I disagree with the words or actions of others, at a minimum, I try to realize anger is not the answer. As Lawrence Douglas Wilder said, “Anger doesn’t solve anything. It builds nothing, but it can destroy everything.”

Next, I try to determine what’s really behind the anger and hate. Someone once said, “Anger is a natural defense against pain. When someone says ‘I hate you,’ they mean ‘You hurt me.'” So when I feel like lashing out at someone, I try to remember to take a breath and find the real cause of my building resentment and anger. If my anger is due to the actions of the person I am angry with, rather than lash out, wouldn’t it be better to talk it out?

When talking it out, I have learned it is better to use “I” words rather than “you” words. In other words, I try to express how others’ actions make me feel, and not lecture them on what an idiot they are to believe a certain way. But even this technique is no guarantee that anger won’t result, as illustrated by this clip from This is 40[iii] (sorry for the language):

In closing, please remember two things. Just because we don’t agree with a person’s view on a certain subject does not mean that we support the opposite view. Everything is not black and white; there is a middle ground. And tolerance does not extend to bad actions. All of us are entitled to believe what we want, to our own set of beliefs, values, and perspectives, but our actions should never hurt other people, regardless of their beliefs – or ours.

Being tolerant can be uncomfortable, but even tolerance should not be our final goal. Acceptance and love of others should be what all of us should aspire to. We are taught to love our neighbors as ourselves, even those neighbors that annoy us, those we don’t understand, and those that frighten us. As we take the time to get to know others, their cultures, their perspectives, and why they believe the way they do, I have found that those neighbors become less annoying, and less frightening, which leads to greater understanding, acceptance, and love. That song from the 70s is just as true today as it was back then: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. No, not just for some, but for everyone.”

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[i] Kicking and Screaming:

• Production Company: Universal Pictures and Mosaic Media Group
• Director: Jesse Dylan
• Screenwriter: Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick
• Starring: Will Farrell, Robert Duvall, and Josh Hutcherson
• Release date: May 13, 2005

[ii] Changing Lanes:

• Production Company: Paramount Pictures and Steve Rudin Productions
• Director: Roger Michell
• Screenwriter: Chap Taylor
• Starring: Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson
• Release date: April 12, 2002

[iii] This is 40:

• Production Company: Apatow Productions and Forty Productions
• Director: Judd Apatow
• Screenwriter: Judd Apatow
• Starring: Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann
• Release date: December 21, 2012

 

I believe in reincarnation!

But not in the Hindu sense. In my last post, I discussed the miracle of birth in connection with the birth of our fifteenth grandchild. Today I want to consider the miracle of rebirth, which, in my mind, is more important than birth. Or, as Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

Some of my grandchildren have T-shirts that say, “Choose Kind.” That expression comes from the movie, Wonder, where Mr. Browne teaches his students about the precept (sayings to live by) first stated by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer: “When choosing between being right and being kind, choose kind.” One of my favorite precepts is: Do not fear change, for it is an unchangeable law of progress.

I recently retired from 39 years of practicing law. In those 39 years, I changed jobs eight times and moved 12 times. It really wasn’t because I had a hard time keeping a job. Early on, I had adopted this philosophy in connection with new job offers that came my way: everything else being equal, always choose the new job. Why? Because it is through change that we change – or at least have the opportunity to. But change just for change’s sake, is not progress any more than noise is music.

So with my retirement, comes change. We moved into a new home to be closer to most of our kids and grandkids. Moving has been hard, but in the long run, the move will be the easy part. The harder part will be how we handle a new neighborhood, and worse, a new lifestyle. I worry about making new friends, I consider whether I should attend a new church congregation, and I question how to spend my new free time. (I know, “first world” problems.) In short, will I take this opportunity to make some new music in my life, or will I just be making noise? Will I actually experience a rebirth of sorts, or will I be Exhibit A to what Tolstoy once said: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

Fortunately, I find some inspiration in movies. I love films where the main characters reinvent themselves for the better: Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (or Scrooge or Scrooged or Ebenezer), Frank Abagnale in Catch Me if You Can, or Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

Of course, the first thing we must do to make a positive change is to get off our butts and do something, as illustrated by this clip from Into the Wild[i]:

But we never want to confuse motion with accomplishment. Some people (as well as many organizations) experience paralysis through analysis. We are busy, busy, busy analyzing and reanalyzing a situation, but we never decide to do anything about it. So let’s get in motion first, and then worry about whether our movement is accomplishing anything.

Sometimes we don’t know what to do to change ourselves. An easy way to start is to decide the kind of person we want to become and act as that kind of person would. Or we fake it until we make it. It’s a cute little saying, but it actually works.

If we tell ourselves we are a particular type of person and start acting that way, we begin to fool others, and more importantly, ourselves. One of the best examples of this is the classic film, My Fair Lady[ii], where Henry Higgins determines he can turn even the poorest, most backward Cockney flower girl into a princess merely by teaching her how to speak, dress and act correctly. Here is a short clip where Higgins shows off his accomplishment:

If you are old, like me, you’ll remember what Michael Jordan (and Nike) taught us back in the 80’s. If you wanted to be a good basketball player, all you had to do was wear Nike Air Jordan’s. The ads showed Michael Jordan making some impressive play and then told us repeatedly, “It’s gotta be the shoes.” Although many of us bought Air Jordan’s, few of us bought the idea that shoes alone would make us great basketball players. But we still wanted to “be like Mike.” And who is to say that a new pair of shoes won’t do wonders for our self-image? I admit I’m a shoe guy. As a poster I once read says, “Life is short; buy the shoes.”

This talk of shoes reminds me of one of my all-time favorite films, The Shawshank Redemption.[iii] First, here are Andy and Red talking about what they would do if they could change their circumstances:

Andy then decides to “get busy living” by doing something to change:

Like Andy, sometimes we must go through a figurative half-mile of sewer before we can improve. Habits are hard to break; new character traits are hard to build.

Sometimes, the change we hope for remains out of reach. We don’t quite reach our goals. In those situations, we need to remember that often the journey is more important than the end result. In those situations, please remember these inspiring words from Coach Carter[iv]:

Remember that someday is not a day of the week. Let’s choose change today.

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[i] Into the Wild

• Production Company: Paramount Vantage and Art Linson Productions
• Director: Sean Penn
• Screenwriter: Sean Penn (based on the book by John Krakauer
• Starring: Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, and Catherine Keneer
• Release date: October 19, 2007

[ii] My Fair Lady

• Production Company: Warner Bros.
• Director: George Cuker
• Screenwriter: Alan Jay Lerner (based on the play by George Bernard Shaw)
• Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, and Stanley Holloway
• Release date: December 25, 1964

[iii] The Shawshank Redemption

• Production Company: Castle Rock Entertainment
• Director: Frank Darabout
• Screenwriter: Frank Darabout (based on the short story by Stephen King)
• Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and Bob Gunton
• Release date: October 14, 1994

[iv] Coach Carter

• Production Company: Coah Carter, MTV Productions, and Expedition Films
• Director: Thomas Carter
• Screenwriter: Mark Schwahn and John Gatins
• Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Rick Gonzalez and Robert Ri’chard
• Release date: January 14, 2005

 

 

There is nothing more humbling than holding a new-born infant. I recently had such an experience as one of my daughters-in-law gave birth to a boy baby.  Welcome to your new world Nikko! Nikko’s reaction? He cried, I’m sure, realizing the kind of world he just entered.

My son and daughter-in-law live in rural Virginia, so Janene and I went there to help babysit their son and my son’s son from a previous relationship so Mom and Dad could concentrate on the birth of Nikko. As I have learned from my own experience of having five kids, no one can plan a family’s activities like a new-born baby.

Humorist Don Herold once said, “Babies are such a nice way to start people.” But it isn’t always so pleasant for the mother, as this scene from the film, Baby Mama,[i] illustrates:

Daniella, my daughter-in-law, is a strong woman, both physically and mentally, so I’m sure her labor was not nearly as dramatic. The day after Nikko’s arrival, we took two of our grandchildren to the hospital to meet him. It was my first chance to meet Nikko as well. I felt a bit left out, as during our short visit that day, everyone got to hold Nikko but me. But during the next few days, I got plenty of opportunities to hold and admire my new little grandson. As I did so, I recalled one of my favorite scenes from the movie, Father of the Bride, Part 2,[ii] where both the daughter and the wife of George Banks (played by Steve Martin) deliver on the same day:

George Banks is right. Life doesn’t get any better than that. Here is Nikko. Like all babies, he is beautiful:

With his brothers and Dad:

 As a new parent, you quickly learn there is nothing like having a baby to realize it’s a changing world (pun intended). And one thing parents learn quickly is that the small, beautiful creature we call a newborn soon ceases to be an armful and grows into quite a handful. A significant portion of the childcare for Nikko will be provided by my son, Matt. In his family, Matt is the stay at home parent while Daniella works as a successful doctor at the local hospital. Many people think the so-called traditional family, with a working father and a stay-at-home mother, is the best arrangement for a child. But I have learned the most critical family arrangement is the one that has as many loving participants as possible, regardless of who is bringing in the income. It really does take a village to raise a child effectively – parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and others. It sometimes even takes a village to get a child a great haircut as this photo of my grandson, Dad and Grandma illustrates:

Because love is the key, biology doesn’t really matter. Love and commitment are more important to a child in the long run, regardless of genes. I love this scene from The Object of My Affection,[iii] which emphasizes this point that you don’t have to be the biological father to accept the responsibility of being one:

I have seen this work in my own family, as one of my other sons and daughter-in-law, first became foster parents, and then adoptive parents, to Dax, one of our 15 grandchildren. Although adopted, you would never know it from the way the entire family loves and accepts Dax. Nothing touches me more than feeling the love among family members, regardless of origin, looks, or abilities. And nothing angers me more than the hurt and abuse – whether physically, mentally or emotionally – of a child.

Experts tell us the first three years of an infant’s life might be the most critical. The Beginning of Life[iv] is an excellent documentary that explores a child’s development during those critical first three years. Babies are much more than just their inherited genes (although that is a large part of who they are). Young children are also shaped by their environment and their relationships to that environment. If we could create a better environment for all newborns, we can radically change the world (and not just their diapers). Here is the trailer:

Netflix has turned this documentary into a six-part series, The Beginning of Life: The Series. If you are a new parent or if you just love babies (and who doesn’t?) I highly recommend investing your time in this series.

One of the greatest things we can learn from a young child is to explore and enjoy being in the moment and admiring the simple stuff. A toddler loves, for example, dropping a spoon from his or her high chair. They love hearing the noise it makes. And they also enjoy watching mom or dad’s reaction. When was the last time we, as adults, found joy in such a simple thing? Sadly, adults are too worried about what happened yesterday, and what could happen tomorrow.

A final shout-out goes to those parents who, for whatever reason, give up a child for adoption. I can’t think of anything harder to do than that. But giving up a child for adoption is one of the greatest acts of love imaginable. In that light, here is my favorite scene from the movie, Juno[v]:

With all the terrible things happening in the world, it is a tough time to be born. Yet I hold great hope for Nikko because of the love of so many people surrounding him.

If only it were so for everyone.

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[i] Baby Mama

• Production Company: Broadway Video, Michaels-Goldwyn, Relativity Media
• Director: Michael McCullers
• Screenwriter: Michael McCullers
• Starring: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Sigourney Weaver
• Release date: April 25, 2008

[ii] Father of the Bride, Part 2

• Production Company: Sandollar Productions, Taylor-Made Productions and the Meyers/Shyer Company
• Director: Charles Shyer
• Screenwriters: Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich
• Starring: Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, and Martin Short
• Release date: December 8, 1995

[iii] The Object of My Affection

• Production Company: Twentieth Century Fox
• Director: Nicholas Hytner
• Screenwriter: Wendy Wasserstein (based on the book by Steven McCauley)
• Starring: Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd
• Release date: April 17, 1998

[iv] The Beginning of Life

• Production Company: Maria Farinha Filmes
• Director: Estela Renner
• Screenwriter: Estela Renner
• Starring: Laura Schichvarger
• Release date: May 5, 2016

[v] Juno

• Production Company: Fox Searchlight Pictures, Mandate Pictures, and Mister Mudd
• Director: Jason Reitman
• Screenwriter: Diablo Cody
• Starring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, and Jennifer Garner
• Release date: December 25, 2007

 

 

Chuck Borough wrote, “Teach children to be their own bosses at a young age, and they will not follow every little boss they meet on the playground. Be generally their advisors, never their bosses.” I have debated with myself lately whether or not I was a good parent. I think all parents do that at some point, but probably more so as we get older, especially if we see our own kids making some of the same mistakes we made. (If any of my children are reading this, please don’t think I’m referring to you!) One of the greatest things we can teach our children, or better said, help them discover for themselves, is their own self-worth. Stated another way, of all the opinions people have about us, the only one that matters is the opinion we have of ourselves. Sadly, though, most of us determine our own worth by the views others have of us. And so we often live our entire lives to please and gain the admiration of our spouse, our friends, our church, our school, or our community and never end up genuinely pleasing ourselves.

I have always maintained that the most important thing we can do as a parent is to teach our children that they can live without us, or in other words, help them to become independent, functioning adults. In short, we raise our children to be secure enough to leave home but we hope they will want to come back to us – but only for a visit. I always smile when I think of a friend of mine who gave each of his kids a suitcase for their 18th birthday. It was a not-so-subtle hint that it was time for them to make it on their own. Before anyone can live independently at 18, though, they need to learn particular skills before that age. And to me, again, the most important skill a young child can learn is a sense of self-worth. A positive sense of self is best learned as a child, but even as adults we can (and should) develop and expand the good feelings we have about ourselves.

But what, exactly, is self-worth? The dictionary defines it as the sense of one’s value or worth as a person. It is somewhat synonymous with self-respect or self-esteem. Dr. Lisa Firestone points out that self-worth should be less about measuring yourself based on external actions and more about valuing your inherent worth as a person. Here is a clip from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs[i] that reminds us to focus on who we really are – not what other people think of us:

In other words, self-worth is about who you are, not about what you did or do. But don’t we all grade ourselves by what we have done, not who we are? When someone asks me to tell them about myself, I respond by saying things like, I’m retired now but I practiced law for almost 40 years. I am married to a wonderful wife, and we have five great children and 15 beautiful grandchildren. I was born in Utah, lived in Colorado, and moved to Texas in 1985. In Texas, we have lived in the Dallas, Houston, Austin and Fort Worth areas. In short, this is what I have done in my life so far. But what I don’t say is, I like to write. I have a dry sense of humor. I love sports and watching movies. I am an “early to bed, early to rise” kind of guy. I like to eat burgers and Tex-Mex. Which approach tells you more about who I really am?

Self-worth should never be confused with self-importance – that we are too important to do menial tasks or associate with certain people. We often find that people who think they are too big for the little jobs are too little for the big ones. Or as someone once said, “When a man starts singing his own praises, it’s usually a solo.”

I started this self-assessment as a parent after watching the documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor.[ii] It is based on the life of public television’s Fred Rogers, who hosted the educational pre-school TV series, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, for over 30 years. Here is a trailer for that great documentary:

I was too old to enjoy Mr. Rogers growing up, as I was 15 when his TV show began. My kids never got into him either, preferring Sesame Street instead. Watching the documentary, though, I realized some great things about Fred Rogers, including he was not afraid to get down on a child’s level, but never in a condescending way. He helped kids feel good about themselves. And he spoke the language of love. Here are some of my favorite quotes from Mr. Rogers:

“Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.”

“You know, you don’t have to look like everybody else to be acceptable and to feel acceptable.”

“How sad it is that we give up on people who are just like us.”

“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”

“As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has – or ever will have – something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.”

I wish I would have repeatedly told each of my children similar messages as they were growing up. So with the aid of 20/20 hindsight, here are a few “wishes” of regret I wish I would have done more of as a parent:

I wish I had more patience to let my kids fail more. I realize that sounds sort of weird, but kids learn by doing, and they learn more from their failures than their successes. I wonder how many times as my kids were learning to tie their shoes, for example, did I step in and finish the job because we were in a hurry to get somewhere. But what message did that deliver to the child? “You can’t do it so I will do it for you.” I sometimes did similar things when playing games or putting together puzzles.

When my kids accomplished something, I wish I would have emphasized the qualities it took to reach the achievement. For example, when they got good grades at school, I would compliment them for being smart. I should have praised them more for working hard, for developing problem-solving tools, for being disciplined enough to get their homework done, as so forth. Those are the skills they would need to succeed later in life. And just being smart, without developing those other skills, is rarely a formula for success.

I wish I never squelched their dreams. I think kids need to develop a sense of reasonableness, but never at the expense of dreaming. Sometimes we, as parents, unknowingly place labels or limitations on our children that unconsciously tell them their dreams are too big. I love this scene from the true story, The Pursuit of Happyness,[iii] which dramatizes this point:

I wish I would have emphasized the positive actions of my children rather than the negative. When you think about it, how often do we, as parents, tell our children no! No!! NO!!! Granted, kids need discipline and boundaries, but I’m sure I punished them more for their bad behavior than I rewarded them for the good things they did. Our kids need more sermons like this one from Chocolat[iv]:

I wish I would have let my children make more of their own choices. Many parents today, including my own children, have learned this simple technique. Let your children choose between two or more acceptable options. Give them choices like, which of these books do you want to read before bedtime? Would you rather have green beans or broccoli with dinner tonight? When we let our children choose like that, aren’t we tell them that we trust them? That their opinions matter? Then as they get older, we should start emphasizing the consequences of bad decisions. We still let them choose but allow them to face the results of those decisions, whether good or bad.

These are simple things, but these techniques will help our children develop their self-worth. All of my kids turned out well, despite my sometimes lack of skilled parenting. I give them the full credit for that. I only hope Janene and I did a few things right along the way.

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[i] Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

• Production Company: Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation
• Directors: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
• Screenwriters: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
• Starring: Anna Faris, Bill Hader and Bruce Campbell
• Release date: September 18, 2009

[ii] Won’t You Be My Neighbor

• Production Company: Tremolo Productions
• Director: Morgan Neville
• Screenwriter: None credited
• Starring: Fred Rogers, Joanne Rogers and Betty Aberlin
• Release date: June 29, 2018

[iii] The Pursuit of Happyness

• Production Company: Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, and Overbrook Entertainment
• Director: Gabriele Muccino
• Screenwriter: Steve Conrad
• Starring: Will Smith, Thandie Newton and Jaden Smith
• Release date: December 15, 2006

[iv] Chocolat

• Production Company: Miramax, David Brown Productions, and Fat Free
• Director: Lasse Hallstrom
• Screenwriter: Robert Nelson Jacobs (based on the novel by Joann Harris)
• Starring: Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina and Johnny Depp
• Release date: January 19, 2001

 

 

During our trip to New Zealand and Australia, we had many great conversations about some weighty topics. I have been thinking a lot lately about the last issue we discussed: being a person of faith and having a believing heart. I have wrestled with this issue my entire life, trying to determine what kind of God I believe in and how to increase my faith in that God. Please forgive this very personal post, but I hope that expressing some of my musings on this subject might be therapeutic for me and might stimulate some thought and discussion among my readers.

I admire people who tell me that God has a plan for them and that they are placing their lives in His hands. For those people, if something goes right, it was because God blessed them. If something goes wrong, then God needed to teach them something. In one respect, it is an excellent way to live, because it helps to make sense of our chaotic world, as everything that happens does so for a reason. And so, chance meetings or coincidences become all part of God’s master plan.

films that portray miracles. I want to believe in God’s intervention in our lives. In The Cokeville Miracle,[i] for example, when David and Doris Young enter an elementary school and hold students and teachers hostage for several hours before detonating a bomb that only kills the perpetrators, I want to believe the children’s accounts of angels appearing in the school to protect them rather than attributing the deaths of the perpetrators to their own incompetence. But I also wonder why didn’t those angels protect the teachers and students at Columbine, Parkland, Santa Fe, and the many other schools where mass shootings have taken place recently. Why did God apparently answer the prayers of the children of Cokeville but not the prayers of these other victims? Again, in Miracles from Heaven,[ii] Anna Beam, suffering from a rare, incurable disease is miraculously healed following a freak accident. But to those people involved, it’s not a freak accident, but God is intervening in their lives. I want to believe that, too. But why was Anna’s faith rewarded when the faith of so many other sick children appears not to be? About the best I can come up with to explain the randomness of God’s intervention is that, live or die, it was God’s will. I try to take it on faith that God is smarter than I am – that he sees the big picture that I cannot. Or as Isaiah taught, God’s thoughts are higher than mine. I am left to adopt the Ricky Ricardo approach from the old TV show, I Love Lucy, in which he would often turn to Lucy and say, “Lucy, you’ve got some explaining to do.” Maybe someday I’ll have the opportunity to have a similar discussion with God.

Some people will bring them together. The movie, Serendipity,[iii] is based on this premise. Serendipity means finding something of great value when you are not looking for it. In this scene, Eve (Molly Shannon) applies logic to disavow the notion that Sara (Kate Beckinsale) will find her soulmate (John Cusack) through fate since both are engaged to others. Yet, in the end, the five-dollar bill taken from the tip in this scene has a telephone number on it that results in Sara ultimately ending up with her soulmate. It is a fun love story, but hard to swallow in real life unless you are a hopeless romantic:

I believe I found a soulmate in my wife, Janene, and it was definitely serendipitous on my part that I found her. But I am not convinced that God led us to each other or that either of us would not have had a great marriage if we married someone else. Does that make our love any less real or less satisfying?

In this scene from the film, Signs,[iv] the Reverend Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) describes what he sees as the two groups of people in the world: those who experience something lucky and attribute it to God who is watching out for them, and those who believe they were, well, just lucky:

I tend to agree with the two groups of people described by Reverend Hess, but I don’t necessarily believe that everyone in the first group (attributing everything to God) will live with hope while those in the second group (all is chance) will live in fear. I think people in both groups are striving to get through life the best they can regardless of their belief.

While I hope God sometimes has a hand in the things that happen to us, I have adopted more of a Forrest Gump[v] philosophy:

Life just happens, and the important thing is being able to distinguish the difference between what is serious, and what is just life.

Recently, I watched the Broadway musical, Bandstand.[vi] I loved the entire play, but I especially liked this song sung by the mother of the female lead, who learns that her new boyfriend was the cause of her husband’s death in World War II.

• JULIA (spoken):
• It was his fault! Ma, he’s here and Michael isn’t and it’s his fault!
• I want to believe everything happens for a reason-
• JUNE ADAMS (sung):
• No, no, no
• Everything happens, just that
• Everything happens
• An event, or a death
• A catastrophe
• Any reason as to why
• Is a reason you supply
• It just happens
• Everything happens
• It’s not fate, no great plan
• It’s not destiny
• Putting faith in that cliché
• Gives your own
• Free will away
• When things happen
• And they will happen
• You can waste your whole damn life
• Assigning bits of philosophic meaning
• To the failures and misfortunes intervening
• And I’ll tell you what you’ll get
• Just a lifetime of regret
• No, no, no
• There is no reason for why
• Everything happens
• It’s the changing of a season
• It’s a fact
• And it’s a constant
• And the only sane response
• Is to adjust
• Not to wish it hadn’t happened
• When it must
• Now the church will tell you one thing
• And your friends, perhaps another
• If I were you I’d listen
• To your slightly dotty mother
• Who lost out on her own fair share
• Of good times and of laughter
• Listen
• What matters when things happen
• Is what happens after

I find great comfort in the words of that song. Maybe what is important is not whether God is directing each step of our lives, but how we react to the things that happen to us, good or bad, irrespective of God’s intervention. If my goal in life is to improve my talents and abilities for the welfare and benefit of my family and others, if my destiny is to become my best, highest self, do I need to know that God is orchestrating every step of the way? I think not.

Perhaps my wife, Janene, said it best: “I have a great deal of faith in the process of life and that living true to my heart and my conscience will be enough. I believe I am a better person for having faced some adversity and done some soul-searching and finding some conviction to stand on my own, with each person finding their own happiness and having their own journey.”

In closing, here is what Anna Beam said she saw while she was unconscious after falling from the tree:

In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter if others believe our personal experiences, as long as we believe them, and act upon them to be better. In other words, it is more important to live a good life than be right. And as Anna says, those that don’t believe us, “will get there when they get there.”

Thanks for listening.

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[i] The Cokeville Miracle

• Production Company: Remember Films
• Director: T.C. Christensen
• Screenwriter: T.C. Christensen and Hartt Wixom
• Starring: Jasen Wade, Sarah Kent, and Kimball Stinger
• Release date: June 5, 2012

Miracles from Heaven

• Production Company: Columbia Pictures, Affirm Films, and Roth Films
• Director: Patricia Riggen
• Screenwriter: Randy Brown (based on the book by Christy Beam)
• Starring: Jennifer Garner, Kylie Rogers, and Martin Henderson
• Release date: March 16, 2016

[iii] Serendipity

• Production Company: Miramax, Tapestry Films, and Simon Fields Productions
• Director: Peter Chelsom
• Screenwriter: Marc Klein
• Starring: Kate Beckinsale, John Cusack, and Jeremy Piven
• Release date: October 5, 2001

[iv] Signs

• Production Company: Touchstone Pictures, Blinding Edge Pictures, and Kennedy/Marshall Company
• Director: M. Night Shyamalan
• Screenwriter: M. Night Shyamalan
• Starring: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, and Rory Culkin
• Release date: August 2, 2002

[v] Forrest Gump

• Production Company: Paramount Pictures
• Director: Robert Zemeckis
• Screenwriter: Eric Roth (based on the novel by Winston Groom)
• Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise
• Release date: July 6, 1994

[vi] Bandstand

• Lyrics by Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor

 

As many of you know, I started my retirement in style by spending 15 days in New Zealand and Australia. So “G’day, mate” (pronounced “good eye, mite”), the typical greeting in Australia, and “Kia ora,” which is Maori for “hello.” This post will be a little different from the usual, as I want to share my impressions of these two great countries. But I’ll throw in a few movie references, and even a photo or two. (A big shout out goes to Martie Mumford, my sister-in-law, who acted as our group’s unofficial historian and photographer, and a big thanks to Martie, Tom, Lynda, Mike and my beautiful wife, Janene, for making the trip so enjoyable. We spent every moment of the 15 days together and got along great, despite some intense discussions on lots of serious subjects. The biggest problem we had was trying to decide where to eat.)

Being in the Southern Hemisphere, New Zealand and Australia were in the middle of winter. But even in winter, New Zealand reminded me a lot of Hawaii. Their natural parks system protects one-third of the country’s flora and fauna. Here are a couple of photos to show you what I mean:

Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city and is quite cosmopolitan. Outside Auckland, the country is mostly agricultural. Only five percent of New Zealand’s population is human; the rest are domesticated animals (mostly sheep and cattle). In fact, there are more vending machines in Japan than there are people in New Zealand. As crazy as it sounds, the thing that impressed me the most about New Zealand’s cities were the playgrounds. Take a look at these photos:

Of course, in the “States” (as the U.S. is referred to by those down under), no one would dare install most of the equipment found at a New Zealand playground due to liability concerns. But I understand the New Zealand personal injury system is much different than ours. It is similar to our worker’s compensation, where people who are injured are compensated at a set rate rather than relying on a judge or jury to impose pain and suffering and other damages. If the U.S. adopted such a system, we could do away with a significant portion of the lawyers in this country. (I can say that now that I’m retired!)

New Zealanders (or Kiwis, as they are known) are proud of the fact that there are only four types of poisonous spiders in New Zealand, three came from Australia, along with the black widow from America. And there are no snakes, so Indiana Jones would love New Zealand. When it comes to New Zealand and movies, most people think of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit movies, the filming of which brought over $200 million into the New Zealand economy – that’s over $40 million per person! But when I think of New Zealand movies, I think of Moana and Whale Rider, which give us a greater understanding of New Zealand’s Maori heritage, and my favorite New Zealand movie, The World’s Fastest Indian,[i] which is the true story of New Zealand native, Burt Munro, and his quest to break the land speed record on a motorcycle. It is a gem that, unfortunately, most people have never seen. Here is one scene from the film which I can relate to, as to reminds us never to underestimate the power of an old coot:

When we landed in Australia, the country felt like home to me. I suppose that was because I had served a two-year church mission there many years ago, and the landscape reminds me a lot of the mountain west of the United States. Like New Zealand, Aussies drive on the wrong side of the road, which is the left side. My brother-in-law, Tom, did almost all of the driving in New Zealand, while I did most of the driving in Australia. It does take some getting used to. The hardest parts were to remember which side of the car the steering wheel is on (I got in the wrong side of the vehicle at least twice) and which side of the steering wheel the blinker is on (I was continually turning on the windshield wipers when I wanted to signal a turn). And after we returned to the States, I continued to confuse the windshield wipers for the blinker. In Australia, you not only drive on the left side of the road, you must walk on the left side of a sidewalk as well. In fact, it is technically illegal to walk on the right side of a footpath there.

One of the things Australia is known for is their animals. The Tasmanian devil looks like a giant rat, and the wombat’s poop is square-shaped (that sounds painful). But of course, most people think of these Australian animals:

Neither the kangaroo nor the emu can walk backward, so Australia put them on its coat of arms to signify that the country is always looking forward. But Aussies are happy to eat their national animal and bird. And we joined right in, enjoying pizzas topped with both kangaroo and emu (as well as crocodile). And you can buy kangaroo and emu at almost any butcher shop.

Similar to New Zealand, Australia has three times more sheep than people, and 25 percent of the population was born in another country. More than 80 percent of the people of Australia live within 70 miles of the coast. And a beautiful coast it is!

If you visited a different beach in Australia once a day, it would take you 27 years to see them all. One of the beaches we visited was beautiful Byron Bay, next to Point Byron, which is the most easterly point of Australia. It has one of the most picturesque lighthouses anywhere:

When I saw this lighthouse, I immediately thought of one of my favorite movies set in Australia, The Light Between Oceans.[ii] It is the story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife who rescue an infant from a boat off the coast of their lighthouse and raise her as their own. The rescuing of the child is especially poignant since they can’t have children of their own:

All is well until they discover the mother of the child is still alive. If they keep the child (and the secret of where she came from), no one would probably ever know the child is not theirs. But will their consciences let them? It is an interesting ethical and moral dilemma that I am glad I will never have to face.

Both Aussies and Kiwis are proud of their heritage and sense of justice, while at the same time acknowledging their indigenous peoples. I found it particularly interesting in Australia where tour guides always take a moment to recognize the heritage of their aboriginal people. Australia declared 1988 as a year of mourning for the Aborigines, and in 2007, Australia’s prime minister issued a national apology to their native people for the way the English and other immigrants treated them. In contrast, here in the States, how often do we respect or even acknowledge the cultural heritage of Native Americans?

New Zealand was the first country to grant the vote to women (1893); Australia was the second (1902). Australia was the first country to put in place an 8-hour work day. Both nations were our allies in World War I and World War II. Many of New Zealand’s and Australia’s troops fought together at the ill-fated battle Gallipoli in World War I. Fifty-eight percent of all New Zealand troops in World War I were casualties. For Australia, World War I was its costliest war in terms of deaths and casualties. From a population of fewer than five million at the time, 416,809 men enlisted, of whom more than 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner.  The film, Gallipoli,[iii] depicts young Australians joining the war for patriotism and adventure, but realizing all too soon the horror of war, often resulting from the mismanagement of their leaders. Here is the ending scene:

Probably my all-time favorite Australian movie is Breaker Morant.[iv] It is the tragic true story of three Australian lieutenants who are court-martialed for executing prisoners during the Boer War, even though they acted under the orders of their superiors. Using these junior officers as scapegoats, the General Staff of the military were trying to deflect attention from their own war crimes.  Here is the ending scene (it is a bit long but powerful):

(The epitaph from Matthew 10:36 in the clip is hard to understand. It reads “A man’s foes shall be of his own household.”)

Of all the things that impressed me about New Zealand and Australia, the most impressive was the friendliness of the people, who were always willing to chat and always willing to help us find our way around. And I loved their laidback attitude of just taking life as it comes. “No worries” is a common expression in both countries, and they take it to heart. If we, Americans, could learn one lesson from our Kiwi and Aussie friends, I hope it would be that.

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[i] The World’s Fastest Indian

• Production Companies: OLC/Rights Entertainment, Tanlay, New Zealand Film Production Fund
• Director: Roger Donaldson
• Screenwriter: Roger Donaldson
• Starring: Anthony Hopkins and Diane Ladd
• Release date: March 24, 2006

[ii] The Light Between Oceans

• Production Companies: Heyday Films, LBO Productions (II), and Dreamworks
• Director: Derek Cianfrance
• Screenwriter: Derek Cianfrance (based on the novel by M.L. Stedman)
• Starring: Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Rachel Weisz
• Release date: September 2, 2016

[iii] Gallipoli

• Production Companies: Australian Film Commission and R&R Films
• Director: Peter Weir
• Screenwriter: David Williamson and Peter Weir
• Starring: Mel Gibson and Mark Lee
• Release date: August 28, 1981

[iv] Breaker Morant

• Production Companies: South Australian Film Corporation and The Australian Film Commission
• Director: Bruce Beresford
• Screenwriters: Jonathan Hardy and David Stevens
• Starring: Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson, and John Waters
• Release date: July 3, 1980