A Personal Narrative

A few months ago, I sat in my advisor’s office with a drop slip. This seminar class is a two credit-hour class for School Psychology majors (which I am). I felt like I couldn’t handle four courses while working full time during the day. As I listened to Dr. Coffen give me the pros and cons of dropping, and listened to a fellow student convince another classmate to stay in, I decided I could do it. I have never learned as much about people as I have in this course—or about myself. Even though I am not a good public speaker, I have tried to write openly and have loved to listen to each person speak and share something with the rest of us. I want to share some things about myself, my history, my ethnic roots, and most importantly, those areas of the mind that are so important to counseling and oral history.

I am a European-American by descent. By identity, I am a simple Christian. I grew up in Niles, MI, just south of here. Last Spring Break (2005) I spent ten days doing my genealogy and found out I have at least four generations in this area. The search for roots can be a great activity if you are looking for the right examples. It can also lead you to truths your enemies would rather have left alone. My search reminds me of a quote from Mary Jo Rillera,

“Wanting to know and wanting to search are two different things/I’m not sure when I changed from wanting to know to understanding that the only way I could ever know was to undertake a search. Whenever that was, great confrontations began…” (1981).

Until a year ago, I did not know anything about my roots beyond my grandparents. My mother and father were born and raised in Michigan. Both had spent time in psychiatric hospitals for different reasons. As I progressed further into my ancestry, something leaped out. The Skinner side had men of honor: ministers, community leaders, and soldiers. I had expected to find deviants. My mother’s side had blue-collar workers, laborers, and community-minded people as well. Nowhere in the records was any reference to mental illness. Since I had been told my mother and father were “ill” all my life, this opened up can of worms and I have been told that some things are better left unsaid. This process has left me with fine models that have motivated me to do something special with my life, and has also left me with some severe estrangements.

Both sides attended church. My father’s mother’s side was Swiss-Mennonite. They sought refuge in the Ohio area from German persecution in the early 1920s. My father’s parents went a step beyond that. My grandfather Skinner was a music leader at Maranatha Bible Conference Center in Muskegon, MI. His wife stood by him, playing the piano, singing hymns with him worship the Lord, until they both retired. They actually made a gospel record in 1947, simply titled, The Skinners. His father was a Methodist pastor. And my G-G grandfather entered the Union Army in 1865 in April to fight for the 8th Infantry division in Spotsylvania. He died exactly 36 days later, leaving behind a wife and 3 children. He was 34. When I learned this, it was April, 140 years later, and I was 34. I feel a bond with this man from that long ago.

The Skinner’s can be traced back to England and Germany. My ancestors migrated in 1645 into what was New Amsterdam—a Dutch outpost for immigrants from the Netherlands and northwestern German areas. The Webbers (my mother’s side) was from the Netherlands. This brings up the issue of the Yorks (the English loyalists) v. the Dutch (settlers of New Amsterdam) and what is now Manhattan Island. As you know, the Yorks won the battle and the Dutch moved out, taking with them the old “New Amsterdam” and leaving behind, New York.

Closer to home, my mother was a troubled teen. She may be what we call bipolar these days. Her mother suffered epileptic convulsions most of her life. My mother was committed to an asylum her junior year of high school for throwing an iron at her father. An uncle once told me that “the old man deserved it,” but my mother’s sister silenced her husband, telling him that “some things are better left unspoken.”

I still use the term asylum, because if I don’t, it takes something away from her legacy. She was introduced to the psychotropics and became addicted. My mother suffered convulsions of a different sort, by way of Electroshock Therapy. The practice’s pioneer, Ugo Cerletti, saw seizures as an unconscious “terror-defense,” washing bad memories away as positive changes subsequently took place. He quoted a poem by Padre Dante in his essay Old and New Information about Electroshock, to make his point:

“As he, who while dreaming sees,
And after the dream is over,
The emotion remains while the picture has faded away….” (Cerletti, 1950)

Don’t let your dreams fade away, or the dreams of those who have been exploited.

My family and I differ with regards to weather or not this committal was justified. In the end, she spent seven years behind those walls, enduring the types of treatments we sometimes see on video. She met my father there. He was “doing time” for “disorderly manner” and having “carnal knowledge.” My culture could not condone such depravity at the Bible Center.

If I could have shared anything with you all, it would have had something to do with growing up a “son of the asylum” and losing my mother at such a young age. She was 47. I was 16. It’s not a racial identity, but the legacy of your parents is with you every day, just like a tumor at times for those who feel abandoned, yet invisible. God commanded us to Honor our parents; I must face the facts that I did not always keep that commandment.

Emotional control was very important to me growing up because it was in such short supply. The day I fell apart was the day this world took its toll on my mother. She died in 1986 and I have never been the same. Weather adopted out, or orphaned as I was, this severance is unforgettable. Rillera writes,

The adoptee suffers the loss of the natural nurturing connection. After nine months in the womb and maybe days or months of mothering, there is an abrupt severance…. It is easy to see how devastating severance from mother can be to the child…. We should not underestimate or minimize the effect that severance can have on a…[child]. The loss suffered…is not limited to the severance shock; there is also the permanent loss of family background, cultural heritage, and the opportunity to accurately see oneself as an extension of one’s lineage and genetic influence…. The experience has been likened to amputation” (p.5).

It set me apart from my friends and started a life long process of trying to uncover what really happened, why things happened, and how a system that is supposed to be your “meal ticket” could have done such a thing to your family.

I have had little connection to my ethnic group because of this. Talking about being a member of a European-American culture means two different things—skin color and values. I have two cultural identities—Christian and European-American. I can talk about both.

Franz Kafka is one of my favorite authors. If you haven’t read him, check out Metamorphosis or Letter to My Father. I like him because he represents an individual that was stripped of his Jewish roots, his identity, and his writing is testament to his self-abasement. Even when confronting his abusive father years later in a book and being congratulated for his “catharsis,” he stated, “All I could do was bemoan in writing that which I should have done upon my father’s breast.” In other words, his writing was not sufficient. There is something permanent about rejection. It leaves a void that makes all discourse about anything metaphysical an exercise in futility. Worse yet is not being able to forgive because someone ignores you.

I dislike some things about both of my cultures. I cannot ignore the exploitation done by my forefathers of each. I think of the men and women harmed by psychiatry, first of all, because it was so real for my own situation. It compares to the oppression races may feel. J. Meerloo wrote of a concept called “menticide.” He said,

Menticide is an attack on man’s very mind, on his sovereign will and conviction. It destroys free thought and makes servile, mechanical instruments of his inviolate thought processes. In the hands of dictators and secret police, menticide is more deadly than lethal weapons, yet it is still unrecognized as an official institution for the suppression of…opposition.”

This mind control took the form of the inquisition on the one hand, and slavery on the other. It caused countless Jews to amputate, if you will, parts of their identity, such as did Kafka in Prague to survive the Holocaust. His self-hatred stems from genocide and menticide. Recently, it has found its way to the perversion of the medical and legal establishments, a system my mother found herself in 1957. She spent her college years engaged in the “moral education” of the state asylum. This legacy remains with us all.

There are things I am proud of about the Evangelical Christian culture. Christ commanded us to be fishers of men, and to spread His word throughout the world. Some groups take this more seriously than others. Others do so by preventing “strongholds” of pornography, totalitarianism, and Nazism. My family has a rich history of fighting for the weaker man and spreading the good news of the gospels.

I grew up listening to my grandfather say that America was a haven for all people, a place that was God-ordained. I didn’t know what he meant. He was speaking of the resolution of the Civil and Second World War, where tyrants were defeated in the name of Jesus, Truth, or Freedom (all the same).

Abraham Lincoln was clearly a man of devout Christian faith. His antislavery position was a little timid; he saw the best means of expediting the eradication of slavery was diplomacy and only then by force of arms. I am of the abolitionist sentiment, and scores of Union soldiers fought on the moral issue of slavery, alone. I am proud that we stood up and fought anti-Semitism and slavery, even though it was way late. Those were different men than the ones that came before spreading racial division, patriarchy, and empty-headed automatonism I want to believe my culture believes that all men were created equal and are willing to fight for it.

In my first reaction paper (see "Crazy at 17") I talked about a friendship with a black friend growing up. His mother and my mother talked secretly, so that my aunts and uncles who were bigoted would not see them. It was a shame my mother was a closet pluralist, but it had to be so. It was my earliest memory of skin color, and the first message I received about race.

My first experience with feeling different was at Albion College, 1988. I was a freshman. I was homesick. I was having anxiety issues. My father paid a rare visit and gave me the best advice of my life. He said, “Son, you’re no different than any of these other people here. You’re just as smart as they are.” I dropped out that spring. His message remained, however, despite the grieving I had to do.

I often try to imagine what its like to be black, or to be Asian, anything but who I am. It’s not something I’m good at. At least it doesn’t come easily. I have made mistakes on how I approach people to find out. You cannot simply say to someone, “Tell me what it’s like” without sounding like a wacko or gigolo. And then again, there’s a way to approach people that isn’t threatening. I can’t imagine being preoccupied with race anymore than people without an anxiety disorder can imagine being preoccupied with worry. On the surface, they are very different.

On another level, some people have to weigh most of what they do according to cultural norms, skin color, and social discrimination. I have never felt discrimination. I have received a few less points on admissions applications because I am white, but it’s a little different. I was raised to trust God, the education system, police, and that capitalism would work if you worked hard enough. When I watch cops enter “tenement areas” on TV, I have a sick feeling in my stomach that “we” have did this to these people. This is a form of white guilt, and also compassion. I ride the school bus into Benton Harbor’s poorer districts to pick students up for school. It is like being in a 3rd world country, and I wonder why?

This class has opened my eyes to the shared legacies we all have. Homosexuals are fighting a system that they feel rejects them. Japanese have been interned and their people suffered nuclear attack. Women have been oppressed and continue to be abused and treated differentially. I won’t say that it’s all men. These are effects of a disobedient, unrepentant, prideful spirit.

There are exceptions. In his book, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," Ernest Hemingway describes a café owner’s effort to be connected to the dark side of life by staying open all night. The man said, “Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be some one who needs the café.” This man remained a light and offered his café as a place of solace in an otherwise meaningless urban wasteland. God is always open, too.

I have set myself apart from the world and other men because of the Bible. The spirit of this café owner and the sacrifices of my G-G grandfather, who lost his life at age 34 in the Union Army, as well as other good men I have met on this campus, have gave me an identity that I can be proud of. The Word of God saw me through the darkest days and nights of my life. I have been labeled a “burnt child” and “disordered,” but I accept neither tag. The Lord said, “No one has suffered more than I” (Lamentations 1:12). Who are we to cry when our creator has sacrificed His life so that we may live, and live abundantly? But that’s so much easier to say in this beautiful library.

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Rillera, M.J. (1981). The Adoption Searchbook. Triadoption Publications: Huntington Beach, CA.

Meerloo, J.A.M. (1951). The crime of menticide. Am J of psychiatry, 107, 594-598.

Cerletti, U. (1950). Old and new information about electroshock. Am J of Psychiatry, 106, 87-94

Bluestein's Creating Emotionally Safe Schools: A Guide for Educators and Parents: A Review

School safety is as much about emotional safety as it is physical safety. This is Jane Bluestein’s thesis in her recent research-based book, Creating Emotionally Safe Schools (2001). This book is a model for educators, as well as parents. It is also a moral imperative. To not concentrate on creating a climate where students feel safe, able to learn, free from harassment and humiliation, and free from normative testing pigeonholing is to deny the fundamental principles of learning and motivation. Physical safety and emotionally safety are inextricably entwined. It may be that a safe emotional climate is the foundation for physically safe schools.

Bluestein offers two compiled and purposefully subjective definitions of emotional safety based on student survey data. The first, a quote by James Delisle, includes such factors as seeing a smile on the teachers face the first day of school; being able to use the word “Neanderthal” instead of caveman without being made fun of; and having a teacher who hands back papers privately. In another definition, Debra Sugar, MSW, says basic affective safety depends on being able to “act without fear;” being able to question teachers without fear of punishment; and “being valued for who I am instead of how well I perform.” These definitions are not clinical, and because of the breadth of factors this work discusses, clinical or more limited definitions might not fit into the array of psychic situations Bluestein attacks.

The author continues by discussing, what affects emotional safety in schools? Bluestein enters the book by describing the very obvious, that there are literally hundreds of broad factors impacting feelings of emotional safety. Doing so pays attention to the individuality of each student and the different thresholds of what emotional threats may look like. This centers the problem from a student’s point of view; because there is no typical student, there is no way to narrow the factors by potency, and no way to rate them, as they are experienced differently by each student. This results in Bluestein treating the array of factors essentially equally, and is the primary problem of the work. Because she will not narrow the topic to mainstream ideas of threat, or discount typically less-intense threats, the book unfolds in countless directions with 80 pages of chapter notes, references, and recommended resources for the reader continue his own research.

This all-inclusive approach of identifying a plethora of factors and speaking to each one is less induction and more literature review. In the end, there is never a clear definition of what emotional safety is, or clear attributions from a student perspective as to what the most salient factors are. What comes out of this review is more of an indictment on educational nuances—teacher idiosyncrasies, and student sensitivities, and a strong argument against any behavior that causes “student upset.” This validates the chronic whining student, as well as the seriously hurting. Putting them all in the same pool seems to betray the idea of screening, on its face, for every child would be at risk for damage. However, pooling the lesser-threat of student discomfort over a long period of time with an intense act of assault treats both equally according to possible outcomes. We know some of those that have engaged in school shootings did so because of years of teasing. This “consequentialism” acts to expand the field and validate each student.


Bluestein includes two appendices: 1) A 6-section, 70-item checklist to “assess” a schools emotional safety; and 2) A brief worksheet as an initial step in assessing goals, needs, and supports needed to achieve goals. As well, the book contains a 67-item list of compromising and/or painful emotional anecdotes that represent “emotional harm.”

Are teachers the primary culprits? Bluestein has chosen to focus on teacher-factors. So, how are teachers hurting students? Of the 67 items in Bluestein’s list of painful student events, 47 are teacher-caused factors. Two examples are, 1) not allowing student input into curriculum or rules, and 2) students witnessing other students being shamed, spanked, or punished.

In another section entitled, Movement and Learning, one student said, “A really great teacher is somebody who lets us do other things like play cards, do sports, or do arts and crafts.” Bluestein argues, rightfully so, that movement is a basic human need (a stronger need in some than others), and that teachers have to incorporate movement, hands on activities, and other modes of expression. Using a child with ADHD as an example, Bluestein argues that extended seatwork and sedentary learning can result in “acute pain.” This brings the matter full circle from one of a philosophy of education to a moral and perhaps medical needs-based pedagogy for those with attention and activity problems. Though seatwork may be counterproductive to positive emotion, it may be a stretch to compare it to something like a nervous breakdown.

Bluestein takes a hard line on traditional school structures that will not change, comparing them to other stressors such as bullying, media violence, and war. After the horror of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, some schooling took place in a bomb shelter. During the Cold War, students managed to proceed with academics while fearing nuclear attack. In the 1990s, the popular culture bombards children with other stimuli: Guns, knives, substance abuse, promiscuous sexuality, and gangs. Is posting an “F” or writing a child’s name on the blackboard really that stressful?

In part II, Bluestein charts a blueprint to safety. First among the tools is that schools must foster the idea that it’s OK to fail. She quotes William Glasser, “Failure is a far better teacher than success.” It’s this fear of failure—both of students and teachers—that cripples learning. This need to have all kids on the same page is egalitarian, and it denies the diversity in children that do not fit into the NCLB model for a range of factors. This model is inconsistent with the art of teaching, Bluestein and William Glasser state that it “cripples” children and leaves some no alternative than to be “left behind.”

Bluestein does not adequately make the point that failure is only acceptable “if its on the path to success.” It’s assumed. However, she argues cogently that there are many paths to the same goal, and not all children can—or should—be forced into the same path.

Bluestein turns her attention to bullying and zero-tolerance late in the book. She notes the most common intervention to bullying is punishment, and that it’s ineffective. Bluestein recommends an early-on prevention approach that teaches replacement behaviors. This means that students are given ways to meet their power needs, in lieux of a power struggle. No specifics are given on how power needs can be demonstrated. Secondly, she argues for a focus on empathy. In humanistic terms it might appear to be placation; in behavioral analytic terms I would describe this as differential nurturing. To avoid the ignoring pitfall, teachers must take an aggressive lead in teaching social skills—both for the bully, and the bullied. Often the victims of bullying are targeted because they lack social skills. Providing opportunities for them to be successful and build relationships can deter some bullying. Instead of more rules, restrictions, and punishment for bullies, she argues for more counseling, rehabilitation, community-volunteering, business mentoring and partnership projects, and placement in lower student-to-teacher ratio classes.

This book is a how-to book for those interested in creating emotionally safe schools. The largest portions of this work describe ways teachers can change, thus it’s essentially a pre-service and inservice teacher training tool. Because teachers are on the front line, they have perhaps the most influence in changing the emphasis from sitting still and taking tests to a craft of teaching that uses multiple intelligence activities and measures success according to student diversity, not an egalitarian one-mold-fits-all verbal and mathematical proficiency model. Parents and administrators, school psychologists and teacher unions can do as much to take the “pressure off” kids to sit still and perform, and place them in situations where they can achieve to different expectations.

I think the thrust of this work missed the boat. Bluestein quoted districtwide survey data from Houston schools where 60% of the students felt unsafe. They felt that way due to reasons as innocuous as teachers glancing at students (eye contact when misbehaving) to standing to close to them (proximity control). When it comes down to it, creating emotionally safe schools means teaching students “other-esteem” as well as self-esteem. The former received no attention, accept a sidenote in the bullying chapter suggesting reactive community-service. The students who are clinically emotionally disturbed (no where near the 60% suggested) are probably as fearful of their teachers as most people are of Christians. It’s hyperbole. It’s popular with certain schools of thought with certain agendas, but not exactly accurate.

An analysis of emotional safety issues leads one into a sea of ideas. This is where Bluestein finds herself. Instead of finding four or five categories of danger and describing their effects on student threat perception, she speaks to each fish that irritates, crowds, bumps or otherwise ignores her attempt to swim. “Unsafe” implies a threat. The failure of this book is that a threat depends upon what the student thinks is a threat. This book begs for realistic clarification to include teacher and clinical perspectives.

Much of this work sounds like the old open-classroom movement repackaged. It’s an effect of what liberal educators see as a recent conservative reaction to old-guard pedagogy. What I love—and dislike—about this work is that it treats the negative emotions in an all inclusive way. On the one hand, who doesn’t want to motivate kids, eliminate embarrassment and humiliation, reduce the use of response cost and coercion, either by seduction (bribery) or force? Students need opportunity to learn. Bluestein is arguing for elitism—the idea that all students aren’t the same. I like her brand of it. Elitism isn’t constrained to mathematical and science giftedness, but includes artistic, musical, and naturalistic intelligences—intelligences ignored by many administrative, teaching, and political elites that support pigeon-holing students according to restricted, normative test scores.

Of Naval Gazing

Two weeks ago, some of the men spoke up about not advertising what you’re not selling. Some women noted that men lust no matter what they wear. Ten years ago, our female principal issued a warning to staff: No open-toed shoes, shorts, or sleeveless shirts. A few female teachers and therapists rebelled, but none like “Jane,” who came to work the following day dressed like Daisy Duke. She was consequently sent home. When she returned in the afternoon, she was dressed like Eliza Jane Wilder, the timid, yet stern exemplar of 19th century school teacher propriety, in a gaudy toe-length frontier dress, only the skin of her hands and face showing. What was going on in our school?

First of all, Jane was married at the time. Does that really make a difference? She certainly didn’t think so. She had a habit of wearing as little to work as possible, complaining about the heat or needing to be comfortable. All well and good. I considered myself a feminist. At the time, the whole debate was meaningless to me. Later, after I got married, I changed my opinion. Counselors, your male patients will have opinions on the matter. For myself, it is important to know where I was coming from before marriage, and then after.

I asked myself, “Self? What can you do about this new rule?” I circulated a petition to lighten the mood, entitled, “PETITION FOR OPEN-TOED SHOES, TANKTOPS, AND SHORTS,” for the men to sign. We would then give it to the principal as a sort of chauvinist joke. When it returned to me, it had every signature in the building on it—male and female, save one, who took it too seriously and turned me in. I went to the office. I was lectured about the merits of decency, the high standards of education, and the distraction of sexual signals.

Grammer, et al., (2004) sought to find out if females at a nightclub dressed differently according to sexual motivation or relationship status. Among several conclusions, one was that women at a nightclub—married and single—dress the same. They do so for many different reasons other than sex: Comfort, to feel bold, or to feel stylish. Another conclusion is that men value modesty in long-term partners, and see women in tight clothing and showing more skin as less restrained. In other words, the tighter and more revealing, the more open to suitors a woman appears (to a man). Still a man’s problem? Men wonder what the married woman dressed like a “single woman” is thinking, and it reminds of us the old Gary Puckett song, “Woman, have you got cheating on your mind?”

When women were asked if they were aware of the social signals (modest/sexy/bold) their clothing styles sent, Grammer concluded that they were aware. This indifference to the signals clothing sends to men is what bothers men, and in part, defines the schism between men and women on what’s acceptable female-dress.

For all you marital counselors, here’s a counseling issue you might face. Say a man exacts some control over what his wife wears, or his daughter. What happens? When men ask women to take some responsibility for the male-visual lust problem, they run the risk of 1) Being called a Bible-thumping conservative; 2) being called a hypocrite; or 3) being called a chauvinist. I’ll give my own testimony as an example of how a man might reason.

First of all, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 6:23), and all includes me. God was probably not proud of the content of my petition, for He said, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak” (Romans 14:21). He asks if our hearts are pure and reminds us that the path to Heaven is narrow. I would add that’s it’s both narrow, and full of temptation. It is easy to trip, but I don’t want women covered up from head to toe because we men are afraid that bending over the oven on the Sabbath will interrupt our prayer. This is why Muslim women were historically restrained from cooking on Islam’s holy day (Landau, et al., 2006). I like a good, oven-baked Sabbath dinner.

Second, to the issue of hypocrisy. Is it exploitation and lust when a married man explores another woman’s emotions, secrets, and dreams in general? One student was very assertive about this. Is it hypocritical for me to ask my wife to cover herself so other men can’t see her naval, while I try to get a female to share intimate details about her life and heart for a story? Would I want my wife taking men’s ethnographies or oral histories? No, but my wife’s not a writer, either. Baring the soul should only occur in certain settings: marriage, in confession, in prayer, in counseling, or with close family, to name a few. And even within these frames, the person listening should be trusted and treat information with confidence. Sharing is very intimate and can be deeply personal, and I think this person was right to draw a comparison to how seductive this sort of sharing can become in impure minds, equally, if not more so than a woman flaunting a beautiful body. I’m no hypocrite, but I think I learned something there.

Third, I was one of a few who raised his hand declaring myself a feminist. When it was clarified that a feminist is interested in equal—not special rights—for women, more raised their hands, but still not a majority. I took the BEM and, to let my bias show, am androgynous. How happy I was. ‘I’m not a chauvinist pig,’ I thought. I don’t beat my wife when she wears something I don’t approve of; nor do I flog a man for ogling her when she doesn’t. I simply point him out and remind her that I’m the only man that brings her a fuzzy naval.

Are women really indifferent to the sexual signals their bodies and their clothing send? It’s one thing to ignore the oaf that’s staring at you—despite your wedding ring. It’s another to ignore your husband’s anxiety that lust invokes. We are also to be pure of heart and to take responsibility for our sins. Perhaps clothing is in that gray area. We are commanded to fear only God. Maybe men who build walls, privacy fences, and pull the curtains may fear more than He. Counselor’s run the risk of blaming one or the other for this fear, or blaming the oaf at the bar. We don’t want a return to the 15th century, or to embolden our girls to follow the lead of Brittany Spears.

It was a surprise to me how many women signed my petition. Most of these were married. I can’t say that Jane—or any female that worked there—was indifferent to arousing young male students, any more than I can that Jane just didn’t like her boss. Men may converse with women at different levels for different reasons, as well. Conversation, clothing, and attraction do not condemn people. It’s how people respond to them, and how they are used. With God’s grace, I hope we all find common ground.

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Grammer, K., Renninger, L, & Fischer, B. (2004). Disco clothing, female sexual motivation, and relationship status: Is she dressed to impress? The journal of sex research, 41, 66-74.

Landau, M.J, et al, (2006). The siren’s call: Terror management and the threat of men’s sexual attraction to women. Journal of personality and social psychology, 90, 129-146.

Farewell, Pop

Eulogy for My Father

I want to thank Reverend Sandy Elfring for those kind words about my father. I know that Dad enjoyed his time at your church, and very much wanted to return there this spring.

I look about this room at family—daughters and grandchildren to Bob—in laws—nieces—brothers—my uncle, Howard, my father’s only sibling from Colorado, who delivered such a poignant and elegant eulogy. I see others here, I hope all friends of Bob’s in some way—perhaps you lived here at the SkyRise; maybe you attended Church with him. What a blessing to have so many choices around you to Church. It is a truth that my father took full advantage of his local worship opportunities, and I hope made many friends and acquaintances along the way.

Perhaps there are those here from AA—my father was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and fought for his sobriety for many years. For the last seven years of his life, he won that battle. I count his annual tokens a valuable possession, tokens I know that he was very, very proud of—and for not only himself, but for his families—past and present. If you are here from AA, or if you ever helped my father to sobriety, thank you for coming.

If you are here from the Methodist Church, or any church he attended, and you ever encouraged his faith, thank you for coming. He counted you all among his most precious people, I am sure.

If you were simply a friend, or simply had a pleasant encounter with my father, if you lived in this place that he called home and if you ever spoke or did something nice to him, thank you for coming. And thank you to the SkyRise, who has graciously opened its doors to us once again.

Each of us comes to this place with a picture of Robert Rupp Skinner in his or her mind. I hope he’s smiling in that picture, for like all of us, happiness is what he ultimately sought, whatever that happiness means to each of us, I know Dad struggled to attain it in his own way, just as we all do.

We come with our memories; I want them to be happy memories. It’s not a function of a son, or any speaker for that matter, to negate to wholeness of a person that one never fully knew. Neither is it my intent to stand up here and paint a picture of a saint. My Dad would be the first to tell you he was no saint, but he would also ask you before that conversation ended, “If you are not a saint, then what are you?”

Regarding sainthood, I remember listening to a television evangelist say, “You are one or you are the other. You are saved or you are a sinner.” I wondered if it was as black and white as that, and I wondered, what of the verse in Romans, 6:23 to be exact: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” If we are all sinners, then can there even be a saint?

This pastor believed that the saved among us are, and ought to aspire to be, saints, and that sainthood is not an anointing, but a quest. I do believe that like many of us, Bob counted that aspiration, that quest that we call religious transcendence, that quest for what is good and Holy, among his top priorities, if not the pinnacle priority of his life. And like so many of us, I believe he struggled with regret and remorse and doubt and recrimination. How close he came to that goal is not for us to decide. What is left for each of us to answer is how well did we help Bob—and if not Bob—then someone else in the same searching boat—find his way to shore? I do believe that indifference adds to self-recrimination, and to the extent I lost concern for my father’s struggle, in light of my own, is a burden I will forever bear. It is a burden that only forgiveness can ease, and he is no longer here to provide me—or any of us—with that sort of absolution. But, I feel that when he said he loved me, and I heard him say that he loved all of his children and grandchildren, and yes, brother, that he was giving us the best—the most honest—part of himself, a self confused at times, full of those doubts and regrets, but one that was trying, with three simple words, to further himself along his path, and bring us with him.

I saw him pray, and I know that he walked to church many mornings and many afternoons when it was cold enough to nearly freeze your lungs, and sometimes hot enough to melt any of that prayerful energy. I don’t think he wanted to walk alone, not to Church, not to dinner, and not to AA—but he walked—more times than not, and he was happy doing those things because he knew that it was what he ought to do—if not for himself, then perhaps for some future day when we would all gather around and kindly remember him for trying—for that was what he was doing, even if he was alone in doing so.

We may come with mixed emotions, of which some of us will struggle with more than others. Some will find peace sooner, and by some act of divine grace or natural law, grieve less painfully, hopefully with much dignity and a fair amount of beneficence toward those that struggle with his departure more urgently.

We come with questions, perhaps regrets; we come with hopes, and faith, and some, a certitude that we live on beyond this physical realm. We may come here hoping that what we hear today might spark us to rethink the way in which we have treated those around us, or treated ourselves. Perhaps that will happen, because I think Dad would want something good to come of what his son had to say about the way that he struggled to reach his goals.

How do we remember those that have passed? How are we to remember them? I’ve already given you my picture of the ascetic Bob, wandering a noble path toward his idea of sainthood. It’s my gift to him, for in his core, I think it’s who he was. But, perhaps the path itself is less interesting than the quest. The goal is never as inspiring as the events that occur on the hero’s journey, or how—to use the language of a story—that hero negotiates his crises.

What was his journey like? What did he face? What great attributes did he demonstrate in the face of danger? What was at risk? What was to be gained? And what can we learn from Bob Skinner?

If Bob was a character in a novel, he’d use no profanity. He’d eat a lot, and he’d pray. He’d be a quiet hero, but purposeful. If he were our protagonist, he’d lead us toward some answer, toward some resolution. He’d face down his demons; he’d exact a certain justice upon them; he’d bring back with him an elixir of some sort, a potion for us whom he had left, for ourselves to fight those same demons with someday, if fate would so desire.

I googled Dad’s name once and found that in the fiction world, there is a series of books by Quintin Jardin, a Scottish author, based on a character called Detective Chief Superintendent, Robert Skinner. Speak of creating a legacy for one man: Jardine’s titles include, Skinner’s Rules; Skinner’s Round; Skinner’s Ordeal; Skinner’s Mission; and Skinner’s Trail. How cool, I thought. “Dad will love this!” I ordered Skinner’s Rules from Amazon and gave it to him for a birthday gift. I suppose you’re wondering why the remark about profanity. Growing up, my father used more than a few curse words. I’m sure he did at the bars, too, and elsewhere. The first line in Skinner’s Rules, the author speaking of noble Scotland, read with some profanity: “Edinburgh is a two-faced bitch!” Such a metaphor drives someone like myself to read on. But Dad didn’t get much past those first words. If he did, or if he had read on, he would have read a truth that may describe not just Edinburgh, but all cities—and by extension, all of us:

“There is the face on the picture postcards, sunny, bright and shining, prosperous and smiling at the world like a toothpaste ad. But on the other side of the looking glass lies the other face: the real world where all too often the wind blows cold, the rain lashes down and the poverty shows on the outside. That cold hard face was showing as Bob Skinner made his way to work.”

To understand the hero, one must have some reference with which to interpret his or her actions—a history, a morality, a meaningfulness that may describe their hopes, aspirations, and dreams. Dad wrote such to me in a poem in 1983. As I look upon it with mature eyes, I can see amidst its inspiration a reference with which to gauge my father’s legacy—his actions—and his dreams. It is called the Castle Builder, written by Henry W. Longfellow:

A gentle boy, with soft and silken locks.
A dreamy boy, with blue and tender eyes.
A castle builder with his wooden blocks.
And towers that touch imaginary skies.

A fearless rider on his father’s knee.
An eager listener unto stories told
At the Round Table of the nursery,
Of heroes and adventures manifold.

There will be other towers for thee to build,
There will be other steeds for thee to ride;
There will be other legends and all filled
With greater marvels and more glorified.

Build on, and make thy castles high and fair,
Rising and reaching upward to the skies;
Listening to voices in the upper air,
Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.

It must have touched the father in him, as well as the adventurer, and the guide in him that I so longed for as a child, in whose absence I lament this day.

I look upon these verses from my grandfather’s eyes, as well. He must have felt pride in his own son, when Bob played and dreamed and built. What a gift it is to watch a child dream dreams of castle building. What a gift to watch a child grow into a man who not only keeps those dreams, but passes them on, the longing for their realization in his son, his own achievement in question, perhaps in ruin. This is generosity—this is beneficence. This was my father at his truest and truly best. This is what my father gave to me—the wish, the hope, the dream that I—that we around him—keep reaching, keep building for the future, as stalled as it may have seemed in those days in 1983—it is still alive in me, and must be in all of us. What a tremendous responsibility it is to take a baton like that from a father, for Bob and for me, but what a wonderful gift of faith and hope it is.

My Dad fought mental illness maybe all of his life. He fought addiction. He fought broken relationships. I know he fought himself over having lost not one, but two marriages. In his mind he must have felt he lost children and grandchildren, too. Loss can consume an individual without forgiveness. He fought for his dignity, and he fought for those he loved, and he fought to be loved. Sometimes I fear that I didn’t recognize that fight, that effort to build, and that my own regrets are nothing more than my own misrecognition of something lost to me, something contained in Longfellow’s poem. My father was a dreamy, gentle builder of a castle. He did not lose his faith in mystery, in particular the greatest mystery on earth—nor do I believe he ever lost his faith that the castle he was building was not earthly, but meant to exist Heavenly—and contained rooms for all of us. Unfortunately, it was too often a quest he felt compelled to walk alone.

Dad, please keep smiling in Heaven and know that we will keep building, keep reaching, keep striving for our own sainthood, in whatever form God wishes that to take. Please know that you were no more alone than the rest of us, and that I believe you when you said, “All our questions will be answered someday.” I hope we can all sit down and talk about them in the castle that you have built, to where you now reside. I hope you have no more regrets, only answers. I hope our ancestors have embraced you with a shade of the warmth that is in this room. I forgive you, and I pray your forgiveness in turn.

Thank you all for coming, and thank you for remembering my father.

Trench Love Phenomenon: Crazy About Abraham Maslow

Trench love. How romantic does that sound? There is just something basic, something almost sacrificial about that phrase that conjures up images of raw, animalistic passion in the face of death, a sort of odd combination of martyrdom and instinctual reproduction. Who wouldnt want to experience the pleasure of sexual release just one more time before the Luftwatha makes one final, devastating pass? Isnt procreation the last dying wish of every man on a doomed and descending aircraft? To heck with worrying about oxygen masks and floats when you are ten thousand feet over the Atlantic in freefall. Maslows hierarchy suggests that human needs must be met in some order; and sex is number one, everyone; right up there with the need to breathe, eat, shelter, and sleep. So bear with that pitiful creep on the plane and the two Iraqis making out in the afterglow of a roadside bomb in a snipers crosshairs. Maslows hierarchy might just explain the whole trench love phenomenon.

There is a poignant scene in the old, yet unforgettable situation comedy, M.A.S.H. that may best depict our trench lovers. As Hawkeye Pierce and the voluptuous Hot Lips Hullahan are hunkering along the baseboard of some small shack in a remote Korean battlefield, the two suddenly realize that they are uncontrollably attracted to each other and begin to make passionate love between explosions and an occasional tear. Incidentally, there is a basic need to be clothed in Hollywood, so the nudity was omitted in the show, and coitus assumed. Absurd? No. Its Maslowian. According to the pyramid, the two were behaving as Maslow, himself, would have predicted.

This Hollywood scene must validate the hierarchy. Certainly, there are other instances of putting ones safety on the line to satisfy ones basic sexual desire. This scene is natural; it cannot be an ad hoc fallacy. The kissing Iraqis and the plummeting passenger are anecdotal examples, sure, but certainly two of perhaps billions (pinky to lip and eyebrow raised). There is just something disturbing about looking at Maslows evolving pyramid, and reconciling the idea that sexual gratification comes before safety and security. Equally so, the idea that sex ranks first (with food and water and fig leaves), and affection and belonging come third as if sex has nothing to do the latter, is reprehensible. Maybe this explains why there is no outcry when a man cites mismatched libidos as a reason to divorce his lonely wife. Judges understand Maslow. Aha.

Isnt human connection primary? Ask any fetus. But I ask you, the biologist, doesnt loneliness have some potent chemical correlate, like sex has its testosterone? Lets name it now. We will call it Allleftalone. It is produced in the thymus and disappears in proportion to the glands disintegration. That might explain why Maslowians might consider alleftalone less dominant than testosterone, which remains into late adulthood and can always be replaced with Viagra supplements. There is, for the lonely, however, no synthetic alleftalone. The best we can do is SSRI therapy, which might make you suicidal. At least it makes you want to sleep which is a primary "need." Another possibility is injectable amphetamines, which makes you feel like you are surrounded. It is yet and unlikely to be approved because it rots your teeth and, oh by the way, kills you. Dont forget,I am reminded by some screaming inner animal, we are NOT talking about parental love or the selfless love of Christian agape, we are talking about the trench! Damn my id all to hell. He doesnt care if he is alone or with three people or with a beast. Where is Freud when I need him, and where did my superego and thymus go?

So, safety isnt the primary need. Then what is shelter: Maslows safety concubine? We have a primary need for a wigwam, is that it? Or a hut? Is shelter an umbrella? How about the bomb shelter I built over in Jersey at the expense of countless hours at home? Does that qualify as a safety concern, or should I burn my airline tickets when we are invaded and bed down with the spouse? Give me a sexual break! I suppose Maslow would say that I was building an underground sex parlor, not a bomb shelter. Yeah, Baby, he says, with horn-rimmed glasses and an English accent. Maslow can explain why two soldiers, bunkered down trying to evade shrapnel, experience an intense and overwhelming need to procreate, heterosexual or otherwise. But he cant explain my bomb shelter! Wait, can homosexuals reproduce?

Heres the protocol for all us wannabe X-ray techs according to Maslow. 1) Understand where the patient is on the hierarchy and attend to those needs in order. Patients will have concerns about sex and food and whether they are covered. Remind them that lunch is at noon and dinner at five. Make sure they have a gown or gonadal fig leaf. And oh yeah, offer them the yellow pages so that they can look up the number of an escort service assuming they are single and willing, of course. This need for sex is more potent than any fear of falling, so have the yellow pages ready and secondarily, a gate belt and sponges. 2) Every patient comes into Medical Imaging fearful to know and to understand. But wait, this ranks fifth. This is way up the pyramid of needs, somewhere ahead of spirituality. Oh wait, thats not a need according to Maslow, even though Nitzche said that if there wasnt a God, it would be necessary for man to invent Him. Sounds like a need to me. But, I need to make sure their esteem is good. To hell with anyone elses. But, they need to feel belongingness and love, too. Lets see. Belongingness and love has nothing to do with sex or spirituality or other-esteem according to my id, or knowledge, so that leaves 3) polite conversation and aesthetics. Light a candle and have fresh cut glads about the room to make it feel more like home (glads are as resilient to radiation as a Venus flytrap). Wait, I cant probably have fire around 84,000 volts of electricity. If there are allergy concerns about the glads, than pictures will do. Nod as if you care about what is said, just like you do in your recliner when your mate says something unintelligible. Aesthetics is extremely important, right up there with self-actualization, which probably has an autoerotic component. 4) Take decent film, and shield the gonads but not necessarily in that order.

Remember, trench love is in the back of every persons mind. You may need to fend off exhibitionists in x-ray. Just look at the floorboard fire of Major Hullahan and she was a nurse.

We are talking about trench love, so watch your creepy touch. You might just be arousing the battlefield beast within this 400-pound female sumo wrestler. Who doesnt want to experience the intimacy of raw lust in a cloud of pulverized Korean Japanese Maples or in the sterility of a medical imaging room, where that hovering cancer looms like a Blackhawk helicopter? Wait! Intimacy and raw lust probably arent inclusive. Darn it! But ah, it all brings to mind an image of the late Francis Scott Key writing our national anthem while undergoing a Craniogram somewhere in a remote Philadelphia sick ward. How schizoid, yet how romantic.

Final thoughts on Maslow. First, he must have known someone who died from, for lack of a better word, horniness. How awful to die of a ruptured seminal vesicle. How painful to be consumed by a firestorm of raging testosterone? Perhaps though, Maslow was onto something. Could the trench love theory possible explain the phenomenon of death by spontaneous combustion? Voila! He has done it! Human beings can burst into flame from sexual deprivation, just as though they might waste away from starvation. Scary, scary stuff.

But perhaps I have it all wrong. Perhaps I am a victim of my own religious beliefs. Have I made the basic mistake of equating love with sex? Has my religion obliterated the gray area between these exclusive ideals? Was my abstinence a betrayal of my manhood? Is marriage, the context in which I have lumped these two needs, a Euro-Christian convention that has artificially divided my vas deferens from my heart? Will my wife really refuse me this release until I consent to buying her a blindfold and chaps? Wait! Where do blindfolds rank? I can only pray that my overactive id be irradiated, and my mismatched libido doesnt get me in trouble with my shrink, and wind me up in x-ray where some cute young thing with creepy touch threatens that gray area that I hold so dear.

Crazy at 17

If you had an African American friend growing up, did your teacher treat them the same way he or she treated European American students? Victor was my childhood best friend. He was of African descent; he was also the class clown and wore his spankings like badges. Some might say we are only sensitive to our own pain as a child. To an extent, I believe this to be true. This might explain why I dont remember if he was treated differently in school, and why I never reacted much to his being treated differently by my own family. Hes not around to ask these days. Heres my take on interracial friendships.

At age 11, I joined a little league baseball team. That is how I got to know Victor. Our coach didnt treat us any differently. In fact, Victor had privilege. Plain and simply put, he was better then the rest of us. Because of it, he started first base, batted cleanup, and I learned to pitch. Malanowski, in a 2002 NY Times column, talked about the boon of black-and-white buddy movies like Die Hard, Shawshank Redemption, and Men in Black, that pair a white friend with a black one. This is a lucrative strategy for the box office. Incidentally, its one of the nobler aspects of Hollywood to unite different races in a common quest. Whatever the intent, Victor and I were like Danny Glover and Bruce Willis. We played hard, stuck together, and if we had anything to say, would die hard.

I dont remember a Black History Month in grade school. I dont remember any racial education. Brammer wonders if the fact that we dont recall the typical differential treatment of our former black friends is evidence of our own indifference. It was our schools one black teacher who left the most indelible mark on me. She said, Once poor, you will always be poor. It stands out because I remember waiting for her to tell me she was kidding, laugh, or ask me to rebut her. She didnt, and I couldnt. She dismissed me, and that was that. I doubt the rich kids were any more aware of my oppression than I was of similar comments made to African Americans by white teachers. Ignorance or indifference, it possesses the same sting. We feel our own pain best.

About the time of Alex Haleys publication, Roots, which my mother purchased and read to us after PBS aired its made-for-TV miniseries, teachers began offering a few examples of strong African Americans, here and there. Soon, the strong black images were replaced by old, wounded images of Kunta Kinte. Around the same time, it seems like they dropped the simultaneous examples of helpful whites. Gone were the heroic aspects of Kintes struggle and those of the white abolitionist. With such glaring omissions, its no wonder, Beverly Tatum (1999) expounds, the white children sat frozen in a haze of guilt and the black children, uncomfortably in the shame of victimization. She writes,

The Africans who were brought here as slaves were not all passive victims, and all whites were not bad.

She implores the educational system to provide concrete examples of each.

Nearing high school, Victor and I recalled our old days of playing baseball, staying out late, peeping in windows and stealing dirty magazines. We didnt lament our fatherlessness. Like our school paddlings, we glorified our struggles and cursed the wind as we rode on, chiding our mothers for missing so many of our games despite our own sin.

Once, an aunt and uncle pulled into my driveway to drop me off after we had won. Victor wasnt invited, and he walked home. With a mouthful of french fries, I exited the car to see Victors mom running out the back door of our home. Shortly, my mother was receiving the family lecture of dont be seen with them and you wont be bothered by them, referring to the problem we had been having with the neighborhood black boys flirting with my beautiful, blonde haired aryan sister. The only ones I knew that were peeking in windows were Victor and myself.

Rapidly, the truth began to blur into fantasy. My father quit calling, the family stayed away, my mother slept more and missed more games, became more suspicious and more dependent on her family for support. Dorothy stayed away, too.

I once asked my mother, Is Everybody a Racist? The suspicion comes from disappointed expectations. I was disappointed, but I couldnt put my finger on why or in whom. This was a dangerous condition. In my mothers youth, it was as much a symptom of mental illness as a justification for incarcerating us disappointees in lunitic asylums.

My mother answered my question by telling me a story of her own institutionalization. But what did that have to do with racism?

She said her hospital years were the best days of her life. She fell in love, blossomed into a woman, made friends of all colors, found refuge in a way, and strength in herself to have a family. Why she was committed had something to do with why she didnt attend many baseball games. She let it lay at that.

The images of Victors mother running out the back door, like she was a common thief, stayed with me...and remains with me to this day. I resigned myself to believing my mother was just sick like my family had always told me. It was as easy for me to ignore my mothers pain as it was for her to spare me the suffering she endured.

I wanted Victor to ride in the ambulance with me but they wouldnt take him. My Mom wasnt breathing or moving when Victor and I woke up that morning. Perhaps black people didnt ride in ambulances, at least in the front. I didnt know. My family didnt let him ride in their car either. All I knew was I was alone.

My mother used to say that Id be better off with those aunts and uncles. She got her wish. I moved in and soon, Victor and I were separated.

Years later, I had a chance to talk with Victors mother. She told me that she hadnt seen Victor in a long time. She lamented missing his games, and said she missed my Mom. I asked Dorothy why she fled my house the way she had on that sunny summer day so long ago. Always a woman of few words, she said she spent most of our games visiting with my mother because they both needed a friend. She said they couldnt be with each other at the games. I started to ask, Why not? but remembered Dorothys reaction to seeing my family pull in when she was in our home, and the lectures my mom endured.

I wonder if my mother might have had a friend that she stopped to talk to on her way home back in those days before she went crazy at 17.

Brandyberry (1999) implored her white friends to reach out, despite the consequences. Perhaps my mother did so long before it was fashionable. Perhaps she stopped to comfort someone from another race, talk, or share some happy times in her youth, like Victors Mom had with her...and me. Maybe that person happened to be black. Maybe thats why she was committed. I suppose its hard to say, but I can always hope thats the way it happened and be thankful I had a Mom like her and a buddy like Victor. You never bothered me, I told Dorothy, and she hugged me as if I were her own son.

*************

Brammer, R. (2004). Diversity in counseling. Belmont: CA: Brooks/Cole.

Brandyberry, L.J. (1999). Pain and perseverance: Perspectives from an ally. Journal of Counseling and Development, 77, 7-9.

Buckley, W.F. (1994, December). Is everybody a racist? National Review, 46, ___.

Malanowski, J. (2002). Colorblind buddies in black and white. [Electronic Version]. NY Times, Nov.10.

Tatum, B.D. (1999). Its not so black and white: An educators wisdom on teaching about slavery and other race-related issues. Instructor, 108, 29-31.

The Invisible: A Movie Review

Monday, May 21, 2007

The Invisible: A Movie Review

Nick, an aspiring poet and writer whose father has recently died, presents his mother with his opportunity to study writing in London. She dismisses the endeavor without discussion and Nick is left to decide weather or not he will leave his home or remain with her in an unwitting, yet pathetic internal enmeshment. Meanwhile, Annie, whose mother has recently passed, wrestles with the meaningless of a life of crime, violence, and lost love.

The movie opens at a birthday party with Nick Powel, our hero, being toasted by his mother. She presents him with a beautiful watch that becomes a symbol of their relationship, and later, a tangible clue that could lead police to her son’s dying body. I knew I was in for a healthy dose of new Hollywood’s ugly bastard child, Annhilism, when Nick cut the eyes out of his likeness birthday cake, ate them, and then fantasized about swallowing some saltpeter and a couple of spent shotgun cartridges. Nick’s friend, Peter, then gets a fingernail excised by our heroin, Annie, a beautiful high school wannabe gangstress, via Stiletto knife, who wants payment for loaned “merchandise.” Nick meets Annie by attempting to pay Peter’s debt in cash, but the gesture is unappreciated, prompting Nick to whisper, “You are broken!” to the stoic and eerily-detached femme fatale. It is easy to assume she is the either the victim of—or willing participant to—causeless anger—Hollywood’s handsome bastard child, but we find that the whisper resonates in our heroin at a deeper level. Unfortunately, like many of the teens of our time who aspire to paint their fingernails and souls an empty and meaningless black, she lacks the magnanimity to confront her existential malady with something other than rage. We are left contemplating the usual suspects of the origins of our heroes’ challenges: Europeanism, the evil clergyman, patriarchy, and/or the absent father. However, my presumptions were happily wrong! It was the loss of a beloved parent, a trauma portending some existential collision between the grieving children.

Annie and boyfriend/car thief, Marcus, steal a Mercedes and impulsively, Annie decides to swipe some jewels for added pleasure. When Marcus demands to keep the jewelry because of Annie’s growing impulsivity, Annie dissents. Her defiance prompts Marcus to place an anonymous call to police, turning Annie in and setting up the motive for the redemption-impetus—a misplaced revenge. Annie confronts Peter, thinking he had been following her and that he had seen the incident. Believing his friend had flown to London, and fearing for his own life, the beaten Peter provides Nick’s name to the angry Annie. Our hero, who has sought the contemporary counsel of alcohol, agonizes over his decision not to go to London and the possibilities of becoming a taxidermist and opening a Hotel—hints of Norman Bates, the quintessential puer eternus. An anonymous girlfriend finds the watch in his pocket and asks why he is wearing the old watch (given him by his deceased father) instead of the beautiful new watch. Since "everything good is dead," Nick tosses the plane ticket to her breast, and we observe him walking angrily down a darkened street kicking trash cans over as if he is welcoming the fate he has been poeticizing about. Annie and a group of thugs approach him and Nick is brutally beaten and left for dead in a storm drain at the bottom of a wood. Nick soon reappears and quickly discovers that no one can see him, save the dying, and he realizes that he is still alive. He begins the urgent task of working for his would-be killer’s redemption, hence his physical salvation, and the mystery turns on the hand of weather or not the troubled Annie will lead police to the sewer/tomb.

I found the story believable, in a troubling sort of way. One wonders why this teen girl, an Alissa Milano lookalike/fugitive wears a ski cap 24/7, whose long locks are revealed only twice: while showering in the high school locker room (where she has broken into to sleep), and during resolution. The transition from covering one’s locks to letting the hair down could be a visual metaphor for Annie’s spiritual transformation, if it is to occur. Behind this emotional trainwreck seems to be Annie’s unresolved grief of her mother’s recent death, and her father’s relationship to a woman that finds no necessity in nurturing, for example not preparing supper for her or her little brother. Who wouldn’t be troubled with a beautiful girl gouging her bedroom wall with the same Stiletto she’s just ripped a fingernail off with, in sight of her 8 year-old brother as she listens to acid rock on an MP3 player? This is the prototypical annihilist-in-short waiting, who seems to prefer punting a stranger’s head like a football to flying a plane with her little brother.

Fortunately, the line to hell called annihilism is cordoned with a redemptive rope, albeit a heavy one, guarding people from the abyss to each side, of which Heaven--in this case, redemption--lies on distant ground. Annie does go to the trouble to make her hungry brother a peanut butter sandwich before a little nighttime “football.” As well, her tears over her mother’s grave add to her redemptive potential. The guilt over what she has done to Nick also develops as Nick’s body slips closer toward death. Driven by faint ghostly admonitions, Annie seems attune to Nick’s plight, suggesting she herself is near-death. She is merely in line. Still toying with the confessional lifestyle, she breaks into her victims home and rummages through his old photos and papers, displaying her newfound empathy by appreciating the photo of a place where they both spent time with their lost parent. One can almost hear hell’s waiting line shrinking. But, when she realizes she attacked the wrong person, she attempts to correct matters by shooting the real nark, and in quasi-Shakespearean fashion, is shot near the womb as if Satan's sentinals had spotted a runner. In fact, the believability in this series of events is that an insatiable grief can drive anyone to desperation, irregardless of gender, irrespective of religious convictions dare I say; and without discernment, the most accomplished man or woman can fall prey to folly as easily as the troubled teen. This we see most remarkably in Nick’s grieving mother, who must wrestle with her own conscience in the face of losing both husband, and son.

I recommend the Invisible if you are willing to put yourself in the shoes of our troubled teens who have lost someone very special to them and have found themselves in a world where solutions are often dispensed like advice from oracles at the end of some long, sinister waiting line. If the path seems long and the faces exiting, sullen, perhaps one is standing in the wrong line. The angst of living near death is what Heidigger called the Abyss, that empty, forboding space that surrounds each of us at difficult times. Sometimes critics forget that we may be on one side of this chasm, by good fortune of by merit of possessing the rappelling, hiking, and scuba apparatus that was needed to cross. Let us not forget those that have been raised without preparation or warning are the fools that we hate, but their folly is not a death sentence or even a judgment. Confession needs to be made, for the things that we were given that we did not deserve—grace, and for the salvation of those that lacked that which they did deserve—mercy. My prayer tonight is that I be more gracious and more merciful, and for the Annies and Nicks of this world—God help us all out of line and into the Abyss where atonement awaits.