DAMNIT - I AM NOT A ROBOT–Don Hanley’s blog #102

. . . But they, i.e., teachers, ministers, family members, and our culture, sure tried to make me one. Read these sentences slowly:

Now repeat after me: I am a good boy if I do what I am told to do. If I do not obey, I will be punished in some way. I might be spanked or hit, or I might miss something like a meal, or be put on a ‘time-out’. I could also be ignored or face other punishments. I will live in fear. In the most severe homes, churches, or schools, even if I don't understand what I am supposed to do, I will be punished for not doing it.

“I am a worthless little pile of shit.” That one line was laid on me when I was six years old in 1939. Most others had different and softer labels applied to them, but they too often were not helpful enough to lift the mantle of being too small, too ignorant, or not helpful, and so on. “You are a good boy (or girl)", is of little help.

“God made me and I must love Him, serve Him, obey Him, and fear Him, if I wish to go to heaven when I die and be happy with Him forever.” I know Him and learn what He wants me to do by carefully listening to what the holy priests, or wise parents, or teachers, or other adults who are smarter than me, tell me what to believe and to do. Again, I live in fear.

Throughout my 90+ years, I have often wondered what kind of telepathic communication parents use to get their children to be obedient. Now I believe that they share a similar kind of fear about being a ‘good parent’ or being condemned by the society of parents around them. When I was working as a family therapist, I was assigned a young mother of a two-year-old who found my home address. One Sunday, she saw me working in our backyard. She brought her baby to meet me because she was having visiting time with the girl after having her taken away due to child abuse. She plunked the girl down on the grass, and as the baby sat there like a little zombie, Mom took a few steps over to me. She looked at me and then at her baby and exclaimed, “Isn’t she such a good little girl?” She clearly had not heard or understood anything I had said in our first three counseling sessions.

Researchers now tell us that the most complex entity in the universe is the human brain. It contains literally trillions of cells. When I read this, I thought of a twelve-year-old girl in England who was featured on 60 Minutes and who had composed a complete symphony—complete notes for every instrument in the symphony orchestra. The journalist asked her where the music came from. She answered, “From my head. Don’t you have music in your head?” She had not lived in fear. I’m afraid that many, if not most, children’s heads are drowning in fear rather than hearing the ‘creative music' or other giftedness in their heads.

Our individual brains contain billions of creative impulses, while a robot only has the ones stored in its programmed system. Study history and see the hundreds of hours of creativity that have been drowned by fear.

Now, ponder your own mental journey, and if you are a parent or other kind of teacher, stop drowning any creative pulses and fully own the phrase, I Am Not A Robot – and, of course, don’t just eat the menus.

My Awkward Journey Through the Teen Phase– Don Hanley’s blog #100

When I awkwardly made my way through Phase Three of my Adolescence, the seriousness of the Adult phase was already firmly in place by the time I was 12, and I was working as ‘that little man’ at the lumber yard. I was proud of that, and then I saw the film, Keys of the Kingdom, and decided that I would become a priest because that would be a good way of being a ‘special somebody’.

By becoming a priest, I could avoid the questions about sexuality because they were forbidden to be married and thus did not have sex. I thought I was growing up fast, which would help me be better than I was or any other kid or my brothers. I believe that I was still the child who had feared my ‘down there’ part of myself. So, a shrunken ‘little man’ grew up and. hoping to change the way the Church treated children. I had thought of going to a minor seminary for high school, but I cancelled that when my dad died when I was 14.  I did the ‘manly’ thing and did my best to help my older brothers take care of my mom and sisters by paying the weekly grocery bill and taking care of the yard. Many years later, as a family counselor, I learned that most teens were awkward during those years.

I buckled down even harder at school because I learned that to become a priest, I needed to attend college and possibly even graduate school. I needed to be very smart. None of my older siblings had gone to college, and I thought they were pretty smart, so… When I arrived at the seminary at age 23, I learned that I didn’t need to be so smart; I just needed to be obedient and a good memorizer. And even later, I realized that many priests weren’t even good thinkers. Many even seemed to be stuck in a kind of unhappy third adolescence. When I was a priest, I asked a fellow who had been a priest for 20 years what he thought of the Vatican Council. he proudly replied, “Listen here, young man, I went to the seminary when I was 14, and I haven’t thought of questions like that since. I let the Church do my thinking for me.”  His tone of voice said that I should think like that, too. I remembered getting a cold chill down my spine. I thought of that guy a few years later when a new bishop condemned me with the angry decoration, “You, Father Hanley, are a Free Thinker.”  I felt scolded until a friend said, “Don, that is a compliment!” Now I believe that remaining an obedient child or other-directed adolescent ultimately results in stunted priests and nuns.  

  Recently, I watched a documentary entitled Ordinary Men that depicted German men aged 35 to 50 who were drafted into Hitler’s army. They were too old to go to the ‘front lines’ in the war, but they could line up the Jewish prisoners, who were primarily women and children, and systematically shoot and kill them. Thousands of men were signed up for this duty. I had thought that they were forced to do this or be killed or have family members killed. But the film stated that If they did not obey this order, they were given latrine duty or some such job and labeled ‘cowards’, ‘unpatriotic’, or some such label. The film showed the shooters drinking and having a good time after ‘work’. I guess their early obedience training in early adolescences stayed with them. They told the judges at Nurenberg that “We were just following orders.’  

Again, we need to remember that our five phases of development are always with us – they are not like steps, but various kinds of growth phases. I believe my 92-year journey is just that – a Journey.  And I have learned a great deal and I hope that you have also learned a lot on your journey as well. I have written about the first one-third of my journey in my memoir Finding Flowers in A Little Pile of Shit. Through writing, I learned and added to my knowledge, as well as subtracted some ‘learnings’. And some of my ‘subtractions’ show up at the darnedest times when I thought I had forgotten them. I have experienced a profound sense of wonder when learning about early giftedness in people, such as a 12-year-old in England who composed a complete symphony with music for each of the many instruments in the classical piece. When asked where she got that music, she answered, “In my head. Don’t you have music in your head?” Our human mind and body are amazing things that continually amaze me, keeping me in a state of wonder. I hope it does for you, too. And wonder is one of the characteristics of the Fifth Adolescence.

I learned of this fifth stage of adolescence when I was 34 years old. Professor Boelen at the University of Loyola declared that strains of wonder and other forms of giftedness can appear at any age. Still, they usually blossom forth in full bloom around age 35 to 50 and last ‘until death do us part’.

I hope you are still blossoming forth and not becoming a booming idiot, and not just eating the menus of other people’s thinking.

THIRD ADOLESCENCE & BACK TO NAZARETH–Don Hanley’s blog #99

The Third Adolescence is our growing phase, spanning approximately from age twelve to twenty-five. This is the time when a person begins to take on a separate and unique identity, often driving their parents batty. I was glad to hear the professor state that this phase of human development lasts until age 25, not 18. But the news media – print and television – continue reporting 18-year-olds as ‘men’  and ’women’ rather than boys and girls.

An 80-year-old Vietnam War veteran told me he was drafted into the army at age 20 and was sent to Vietnam. He said that if he had thought what he thinks now, he would have gone to prison rather than go into that war.  Art Buckwald, a news columnist at that time, wrote that the way to end the war was to draft 35- to 50-year-old men, rather than 18 to 26-year-olds. Buckwald realized that 18 – 25-year-olds were still boys. I finally got the answer to my question, “What’s the matter with those guys?” as I watched the newsreel showing hundreds of men, really boys, marching and saluting Hitler in 1943. They were impressionable boys taught to obey their teachers and other ‘masters’. As I write this, I am aware that we, here in the U.S., now have a similar kind of ‘master’ and training program in place in our schools—and in too many families.

Reflecting on my own young life, I realize that I did not have a well-nurtured infancy and childhood, and I began to feel like a young adult when I was eleven. I ignorantly began to have disdain for those ‘silly’ students who seemed to play around all of the time. I even worked as a student and did find some awkward ‘joy’ in learning. Of course, I received many ‘attaboys’ from teachers and other adults.

I took a break from my writing and decided to take a nap. I was happy to have a dream that took me back to the first century after Jesus was murdered, and here’s the wondrous dream: I’m back visiting with Mary, Jesus’s mom, and John and their current visitor, Peter, Jesus’s oldest pick to be an apostle. Mary greeted me with her usual warmth, “Well, Don, we have missed you for a while. Welcome back to Nazareth, and this is Peter, whom I think you’ve met.” I nodded and she continued, “Peter told us that he has somehow been appointed the lead follower of my Son’s apostles and other followers, and he was telling John and me about a dream he had last night. Peter, please start over so Don may hear it from the beginning.”

Peter did, “Well, Don, I had a very revealing dream that we may all learn from about our friend, Jesus. As you may know, I was a dismal coward when the Romans arrested Jesus, and I am very ashamed of that. I had a dream that corrected that for me. In my dream, after Jesus died there on the cross, I ran up to Mary…” Peter nodded to Mary and continued, “…as she was crying at the foot of the cross where Jesus was still hanging, although he had died.” Peter stopped and wiped away his tears, and then added. “In my dream, an archangel came to Jesus as he awaited his execution in the Roman cell and said, “Jesus, you are beloved of God, our Father, and he is giving you a choice – you may avoid this horrible death on a cross if you choose to accept a gift of a weapon that all of your followers may use to kill in seconds. They can kill in seconds all of those who do not believe in you, Jesus, and your message, or refuse to follow Him. All you need to do is say ‘yes’ to this proposal and use it to rid the world of those who do not believe in you and your message instantly. If  you say ‘Yes’ to this gift, you will avoid the terrible execution the Romans have for you.” 

The angel did not need to wait for Jesus’s response, for immediately, Jesus said, “I desire that all humans and all God’s creation are united in a bond of Love with Our Father. I, and I hope. all of my followers will choose to die for me and  my message of love and for our God, our Father, rather than kill for us.” The angel did not look disappointed when he vanished.

I was amazed by the dream and said, “Peter, thank you very much. I love that dream, and many of Jesus’ followers throughout the centuries have made the same choice that Jesus did. Many choose love, and, unfortunately, many choose to kill for Jesus. I left Nazareth before I could thank Mary and Peter. Now . . .

Take a moment and look at your own choices and your opportunities to say ‘yes’ to Jesus’ message of love – and don’t just eat the menu.