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[mildlymusing]

written December 26, 2022

When I was in high school and enduring a particularly rough season of life, my godfather challenged me to memorize Luke 12. While my endeavor to memorize the entire chapter was unsuccessful, I studied it over and over, and I still revisit it during applicable seasons and circumstances.

If you have known me forever, it’s a bit on the nose for me to say life hasn’t gone as I planned or thought it would, regardless of my faith, placement, or role in various challenges. As children, we are taught that doing the right thing in all situations will pay off in the end; I have begrudgingly reached a secure vantage position to tell you this is not an enduring truth. “Good” doesn’t always win, and “bad” seldom loses when it is most deserved.

Leaders (and teachers) will tell you that one of the biggest problems with confronting a few people in a large group setting, is the tendency for the target audience to miss the message. It’s human nature to normalize and justify our behaviors to fit everything into our personal narratives, but in doing that, we miss opportunities to feel discomfort, and learn, and be refined, and GROW. Often our perspective grants that for which we are searching … If we are searching for validation, there is most certainly a place to find it, regardless of its moral relevancy or our ability to see things objectively. One of the biggest issues with independent study of the Scriptures is that God’s rebukes often fall on deaf ears; we convince ourselves He’s speaking to the “other” involved party.

Back to Luke 12. Jesus doesn’t always grant us the answers for which we are SEARCHING. Sometimes, the answer is the very opposite of what we want to hear; while God (in the NT) promotes fairness and justice, I often find myself most uncomfortable and challenged when it comes to how I choose to RESPOND to what I perceive as grossly unfair or unjust. And, in the moment of reception, it’s a natural, comfortable response to apply a morsel of unwelcome wisdom to someone else’s life. “That wasn’t meant for me; that was intended for someone else. I’m clearly doing the right thing.”

It is my hope for ALL of us, that as we close out another year and begin a new one, we recognize the opportunities, even amidst our despair, to learn empathy the “hard” way. May we maintain a receptive posture and willingly accept opportunities for growth, even when the process is miserable. May we view unfair situations as educated grown-ups and be willing to grow through them, even when moral correctness fails to find victory or when evil refuses to vacate the winner’s circle. May we, also, when presented with opportunities to promote or protest the unfair or unjust treatment of others, make morally correct choices.

We have been given much, and from us, much is expected.

“And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.” Luke‬ ‭12‬:‭47‬-‭48‬ ‭ESV‬‬

[mildlymusing]

Veterans Day 2023 - Grandpa Dawkins

Veterans Day is this weekend, and I’m [again] delivering on the promise I made to my grandpa before he died. I will keep telling the stories and ensure they’re passed along after me. 🖤

Gerald Ellis Dawkins, called G.E. by his mother, was a PFC in Company “A” of the 54th Infantry Battalion in the 10th Armored “Tiger” Division. He was drafted into the Army in October 1944, at 18 years and four months old.

After basic training, he was admitted to Officer Candidate School, but the Battle of the Bulge led to the cancellation of all officer training, and he was sent directly to Europe to help break the Allies free from the last German offensive on the Western front.

He had never seen a ship or the ocean, and in February 1945, he boarded a Liberty Ship in New York. After 14 days of “flip-flopping back and forth like a row boat,” they arrived in Le Havre, France. On a train, they “slept like bums all over the floor on the boxcar” for several hundred miles toward the front, and finally reached the 10th Armored in a truck, while under German fire, at the Battle of Crailsheim (early in April 1945). There, he “learned to shoot and try to stay alive.” He was a machine gunner; he worked with a .50 caliber machine gun (M2 Browning) and a Browning automatic rifle.

Where they camped, the snow was four inches deep. They walked 50 to 100 feet in the snow to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

He could outrun everyone in his division because he, recently, had been a distance runner in high school. He made friends that way, because although his fellow soldiers were bigger and tougher, and he was little and couldn’t fight, he could run. On 30-mile marches, he would often carry someone else’s pack. “They called me ‘Kid,’ because I looked like a kid, and I was younger than anyone else.”

Nearly half of his company died, even though it was only in combat for about six weeks.

After the German surrender, he was in Ettal, Germany, near Oberammergau, with the 54th (See his postcard of Ettal Abbey, where they stayed.). His company transferred to the 45th Infantry Division (Oklahoma National Guard unit) on July 25, 1945. Soldiers from the 45th stayed in confiscated homes as they remained at Dachau, Hitler’s first and longest-running concentration camp, for liberation/occupation. They fed soup to Jewish prisoners and maintained the camp as they found it, so the prisoners could receive medical treatment and investigators could document the atrocities for the Nuremberg war crimes trials.

Sometime later, they traveled by train to Nancy, France, and trained to invade Japan until Japan surrendered in September.

He returned to the States in September 1945 and was stationed at Fort Sam Houston until July 1946, when he was honorably discharged.

HONORS EAME Campaign Ribbon with One Bronze Star Good Conduct Medal Army Occupation Ribbon - Germany Victory Ribbon One Overseas Service Bar Combat Infantryman Badge

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

as written by Gerald Dawkins, PFC, 10th Armored Division, 54th Infantry Battalion:

“Barely out of high school, in October, I was drafted into the Army and sent by bus from Oklahoma City to Camp Chaffee (later Fort Chaffee), next to Fort Smith, Arkansas. It was my first time away from home. On the second and third nights, I quietly cried myself to sleep. After eight days, we were taken by bus to a train station. I had never been on a train. It was dark, and I was on a Pullman with a bed on the bottom and a curtain pulled down beside me. By morning, we were in Memphis, where we changed trains. I had my first lunch and dinner on the diner. We were not told where we were going, but big signs were showing us destinations; ours was Birmingham.

“When the steamer, soot-covered with coal and steel dust, pulled into Birmingham, we stopped and backed up, and after about an hour, we were eastbound. We wondered where, and after dark, we arrived at Fort McClellan, Alabama, named after a Union general who brought prosperity to the Confederate state. Military service took me from wagons and horse-drawn implements to France, Germany, and back to England to prepare to go home for two weeks and on to invade Japan. Harry Truman stopped that trip.

“My first furlough at the end of basic training was in February, for one week, then to Fort Mead, Maryland, for seven days, then to Camp Shanks, New York, for six days. While there, George Birkicht and I went into New York City on a one-day pass. Both of us were from Pottawatomie County; we were in service and overseas and assigned to the same company in the 10th Armored Division in Europe. In that one day, we saw the tallest building in the world (1945 – Empire State) as well as subways. That was Sunday. By Tuesday, we were on a Liberty Ship headed for Europe. The ship was in a convoy of fifty, bucked, and bounded for 14 days. I was in a lower bunk. My nose was three inches below the bunk above me. The big fear was German submarines. The Navy dropped depth bombs all night, waking us up. It was new to me. I had never seen a lake over one acre in my life.

“Our ship ride ended in a harbor in Le Havre, France. After landing, we loaded onto boxcars (40 x 8) and stopped at a remote town in Alsace-Lorraine, France. We slept in a bombed outbuilding without heat for three nights and then loaded onto trucks to who knows where. When we stopped, we could smell smoke, and some of it was gunsmoke. We were in Crailsheim, Germany, where we occupied civilian homes. The trucks that brought us in could not go back because the Germans had taken all our highways for 50 miles.

“I then became a private in the 10th Armored Division. It was April 9, 1945. I rode in a half-track, which was often shot at and, at times, strafed by German planes. I saw my first jet. It looked too fast, but our anti-aircraft hit one. The next day, I saw dead Americans and Germans, all under the age of 20. On April 12, I was young and dumb and brave. An enemy jet strafed us. Some ran for cover, and I remained in the half-track and unloaded a .50 caliber machine and missed him. We heard that President Roosevelt had died. German radio advised us to surrender. 

“On April 16, we rallied in an open field (city park). An enemy 88 shell hit a vehicle and hurt one of our men, but he only had minor injuries. The next day, our food kitchens caught us. My roommate was Charles Keller from Alabama. 

“April 21 (Saturday), up before dawn on the road. Dawn comes at 6:30 a.m. and dark at 9 p.m. I remember Tony Passero coming in and waking me while it was still dark, and I popped out of bed like a cork. It was a hot, rainy day, alternating between the two. We made our way south to Gruibingen, which we reached by late afternoon. We passed through bad boll on the way to Gruibingen. The town (Gruibingen) was on fire, and we stopped by the house of a man who spoke some English and was well-dressed. Regardless, we ate his bread and jam. Just outside of town, there was a wounded G.I. (Wallace Bryant of the 2nd Platoon) up on a grassy hill slope, and he called out to us. A medic peep went after him. It is strange how he got there. 

“We moved on shortly with a German prisoner or two riding on the front fenders of the half-tracks and rode up onto the Stuttgart-Ulm superhighway. From Muhlhausen on, we had a hot reception. We were fired on from Gosbach and the hills on the left with burp guns. We could see our artillery shells bursting on the rock of the cliffs on our left. One mortar shell dropped to our right, and not long after, a bazooka shell burst right over my head on the embankment to the right. 

“We captured a few Heinies - some of them Turks. At a turn in the highway, we stopped, turned around, and headed back, sitting on the road for an hour or so. Just before dark, we rode through Gosbach and wound our way slowly up a steep hill, heavily wooded. We dismounted at dark to clear the woods, my squad mounting the three lead tanks, luckily. The tanks didn’t move forward at all, but the other squads roamed through the woods in a soaking downpour for a couple of hours. We lay on the back of the tanks and dozed while we became soaked to the skin. Pitch black night. At 11 or 12 p.m., we went back to the tracks. 

“Four men of our company were killed that day [April 21] - SSG William King, PFC Riley Miller, PFC Harold Leaman, and PVT Charles Keller.

“After the German surrender, the 10th Armored (my division) occupied Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Oberammergau. It was in the Alp Mountains and was cool. My battalion, 54th Armored Infantry, was in Ettal, near Oberammergau. In July, my company transferred to the 45th Infantry. The 45th was stationed at Dachau, the death camp, but we stayed in confiscated homes. We were being prepared to go to an invasion of Japan. We rode boxcars to Nancy, France, and continued to train for invading Japan.

“While in France, we read in Stars and Stripes newspaper about the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The best news was the surrender of Japan. I got a weekend pass and toured Paris. In August, we rode in a chair car on the train to the harbor and then a ferry to England. While in England, I got a pass to London, where we toured London, as we had toured Paris.

“We got on a ship from England to New York in late August and traveled to New York at breakneck speed; only five days compared to 14 when we went across to Europe. At the New York receiving camp, the Army served us a steak dinner. After five days, we all got on a railroad car with soft seats, pulled by a diesel and pushed by a steam engine. As we traveled across Ohio, I remember an apple tree near the tracks loaded with red apples. As we entered Arkansas, destined for Camp Chaffee, the train slowly passed a small town. One of the returning soldiers started yelling out, “Hi Mama,” and coming down a street was a beautiful, green, wooden-wheel wagon with his mom in her bonnet and his younger brother, both sitting on a seat in the front, pulled by two handsome black mules.

“After we got off the train in Camp Chaffee, we spent about one week and were given a four-week furlough. I caught the bus in Fort Smith at 6 p.m., and by 2 a.m., I was in Shawnee. My parents had no telephone, so I paid a cab four dollars to take me home. When I got home, I carried my duffle bag and stepped onto the back porch, and went into the kitchen. On entry, I struck a match to see. Dad stepped in and flipped a switch, and the 60-watt bulb in the ceiling flooded the room with light. The R.E.C. had come while I was away. My furlough was spent at work helping my dad and his neighbors harvest peanuts. Dad was prosperous enough to own a threshing machine. My brother, Howard, had a big truck (a half-ton Dodge), and he hauled peanuts to Shawnee for the farmers to sell to a mill. At the end of my furlough, I caught the bus in Shawnee back to Camp Chaffee. After one week, we all boarded a train to another unknown destination.

“We spent three days at Camp Walters, Texas, and were taken by bus to Fort Sam Houston in Texas. I spent the next few months in the Fourth Army Headquarters as a clerk in the intelligence until I was discharged in the summer. While at Fort Sam, I took 16 hours of correspondence classes from the University of Wisconsin.

“While stationed in Texas at Christmas, I got a week off and came home, and while there, my brother Earl came home after four years in the Pacific. It was a happy time.” 

In the photo of the Zugspitze peak - Grandpa had climbed up to the radio apparatus/cross and is standing next to it.

[mildlymusing]

my prominent truths from 2017

   and some other recurring shower thoughts  …

There are incredible people in my life, and each person’s placement in my circle has a purpose. It’s up to me to find that purpose and learn from it, so I can grow into a better version of me and, hopefully, be a blessing to these gems.

Some people will support and follow any leader, regardless of how profoundly inept, corrupt, stupid and/or malevolent he or she may be, as long as the follower believes there lies within that individual, room for personal gain. The ability of some to see only the best in a select few others is astounding.

Humans will use religion or lack thereof to justify pretty much anything. The very people who argue for absolute Truth will shape their personal truth around whatever matters to them, which is, unfortunately, often rooted in greed. This is human nature, and we have to fight against it.

When you chase something from which God has repeatedly attempted to protect you, there will be fallout. Lots of tears. Heart ripped in two. Utter devastation.

There will always be someone who thinks shedding bad light on you makes him/her shine brighter. If you refrain from making it a competition or conflict, all that shines, in the end, is their foolishness. If you choose to engage, you inevitably become who they say you are. 

Some people will never be able to see through your past, or their past, or mere appearances, or preconceived and ill-perceived opinions. There are people who never want to know you because disliking you is much easier for them. Confirmation bias prevails. Some people who dislike you may have valid reasons and some people may despise you, simply, for your outspokenness on some issues or silence on other issues. Just have to let it go.

Sometimes, there is nothing you can do to fix a situation. Sometimes, “fixing” a situation, isn’t fixing it at all.

I abruptly lept from a career in public education that I treasured, in an attempt to find peace and solace – something – and explore my options, only to realize I was, simply, experiencing a massive valley within my profession; I needed clarity, and distance provided it. In my attempt to find a reprieve from everything going on in my life, I walked away from comfort and several extremely supportive relationships, and I often regret it. I needed to step away from some extracurricular responsibilities, and that was a solid decision. I needed to learn to say, “no,” and not overcommit. I have regrouped and adjusted my focus. The challenge I accepted has grown me into a better educator. I know where I need to be, and when I’m there, I will never second guess it.

Caffeine is a necessary part of my everyday.

High school seniors are easier to manage than fifth graders. Elementary teachers deserve all the praise, and they don’t get enough of it.

“Classroom autonomy” means different things in different circles.

“Poor” is rarely defined similarly by different people. Additionally, the income thresholds for SNAP benefits (food stamps) are ridiculously low. When people indicate there are welfare recipients “living it up,” they are gravely misinformed and merely targeting people for their differences. 

Empathy is generally lacking and requires practice. We can all work on developing empathy. Experience shapes who we are and determines how well we are able to understand others; realizing this is half the battle.

There is no substitute for being physically present during someone’s time of need and during the regular, good times.

My children and their needs come first - before my job, my friends, washing my hair, answering my phone, or anything else. God willing, I will have time for everything else later, but for now, my children take precedence over all. If I am expected to make anyone or anything a priority over them, I will move on. I, already, deal with guilt over missing their school-day events and having to work full time, plus some, and balancing our full schedule.

Addiction is impossible to understand when you aren’t an addict. I’ve reached a point in my life where I think infidelity might make more sense or be easier to process than having someone choose a substance over saving a marriage.

Sometimes lessons are learned after the fact … What matters more is that lessons are learned. 

Having infinite hope, while romantic in consideration, can be detrimental to our wellness and prevent us from accepting reality.

You cannot EVER make sense of repeat physical abuse at the hands of someone you love unconditionally. Further, it’s impossible to make sense of loving that person endlessly. People love to judge “women who stay,” but there aren’t enough words to explain the hope, and the damage, and the pain, and the shock, and the denial and avoidance, and the betrayal … Dealing with it changes you.   

Severe mental illness is heartbreakingly real. It doesn’t make sense, and it often robs us of loved ones. Mourning the death of someone still alive is excruciating.

We all need to pick up the phone and call people more often. There is no substitute for making that connection, even if time is limited.  

There is no such thing as the perfect family, and I have been the biggest critic of my family, at times; however, without them, I would be facing epic struggles. My parents and extended family have stepped up and dropped everything to help in moments of need while I fought back tears, they have sold [LuLaRoe] leggings so I could make the credit card payments from my failed business endeavor, they have sacrificed their personal lives and adjusted work hours to accommodate changes in my life, they have shown up just to hang out with us in the evenings, they have provided countless meals, grocery trips, donut runs and Starbucks drinks, they have withheld judgment and criticism when opportunities to offer those words have presented in abundance … LOVE is an action, and sometimes, we have to allow people to truly love us as they best know how.

I wish I had chosen and fallen in love with a career, earlier in my life and education, that would have prevented me from depending on anyone else to provide for my family, in the event I ended up on an unplanned path. If there is a lesson I will make sure my children learn early, it will be to set themselves up for complete financial independence.

If you are involved in an auto accident, gather your own information; do not rely on others’ accounts.

I probably should invest in an endless supply of white sage smudge sticks and use them regularly in my home, vehicle, and workplace.

There is no such thing as a “good year” or a “bad year” in my life. There will be good and bad in 2018, and what matters most is how I learn and respond. “… Sitting back and not participating in the correction of your course - is not an option.” - Trevor Scott