Ghosted!

 From Urban Dictionary:

Ghosting

Ghosting is an online term that can have at least two meanings

First:
Ghosting can mean the viewing of a stream/streamer for the purpose of gaining information that could be used to gain an advantage against them (no matter if they're a team or an individual)

Second:
Ghosting can mean the shutdown/ceasing of communication with someone without notice. This can include but doesn't always require the closing or shutting down of social media accounts or ports of contact such as email addresses or phone numbers.

The second part is a symbol of our day and age.  It is more of a pop-culture term to describe when a person ceases contact with another person unexpectedly or without provocation.  Often times, it relates to someone ceasing contact either via social media or electronic communications such as emails.  Simply put, when you "ghost" someone, you suddenly disappear from their life without any explanation.  I suppose that it is easy to happen in today's world of impersonal electronic communication.  You can simply stop speaking to someone because you do not have to see them face-to-face.  It is perceived as "easier" to just stop sending text messages or electronic communications to someone rather than tell them directly that you are not interested in continuing your relationship with them.  Ghosting is a phenomenon.  There is even a television show called Ghosted: Love Gone Missing with hosts former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay and musician Travis Mills.  Similar to the show Catfish, the hosts help people who enlist their services to find out why someone has stopped communicating with them.  The world of online dating is synonymous with ghosting.  People go on a few dates, one is really not feeling a connection with the other person, and that person just stops communicating.  I suppose it is easy enough.  Online dating has been reduced on some apps to a person taking one look at another person's picture and deciding to "swipe right" and reject them based on one picture.  Our society has grown increasingly impersonal, and this is a big question of cause and effect. Are we becoming impersonal because of societal changes, or have societal changes made us impersonal?  I vote for the latter.  Yes, some ways of doing our lives have changed.  We do not have to shop for anything anymore if we do not want to.  We do not have to shop for clothes, gifts, food, and even medical treatment can come into our homes via the Internet.  When we do not interact with people, it gets easier to reduce others to those without feelings, those we do not need to respect.  In other words, we are failing to recognize others as human beings worthy of our total respect.  Now, if someone is treating us badly, then it is appropriate to ghost them.  If someone was being insensitive, verbally abusive, or disrespected us on a continued basis, no explanation is necessary.  Sometimes it is healthy to get away from other people, and their treatment towards us is complete justification for leaving them.  Some people do not deserve an explanation; others are so toxic that they would use your words against you.  However, that is not what I am referring to in this situation.  Ghosting is the intentional and abrupt ceasing of communication with another person for seemingly no reason.  

Sometimes, when another person ghosts someone, it is not for the reasons that one would think.  On the television show Ghosted, there were varied reasons why the "ghost" stopped contact.  Some people stopped contact because they were in a relationship with someone but were already married with children.  Another episode featured two seemingly best friends, one was gay and the other was so religious that she would not accept him.  It was a painful episode to watch as the religious friend told her former friend that she was in such disagreement with what she perceived as a "lifestyle choice" that she would not even be friends with him.  And yet another episode featured two lifelong friends, one of whom ghosted the other because the friend supported the former President, and she did not.  So, it is not easy to put ghosting behavior into a box.  It is not just about dating; it can be and is often times about friendships.  My mother had a longtime co-worker and friend "Martha."  Martha was a kind woman who did some very nice things for me in the time that they were friends.  She was a friend to my mother, they did things outside of work, and they seemed to have a solid friendship.  Martha also had other friends from the job who considered her a friend and respected her tremendously.  A few years ago, Martha decided that she needed a change in her life and moved to another state.  She let everyone know how difficult it would be to leave her friends behind but asked them to be happy for her because she had been through a painful divorce and needed a fresh start.  They all graciously understood, including my mother.  Since Martha moved, nobody including my mother, or her co-workers have heard from Martha.  People have worried that she was in ill health or that something bad had befallen her after she moved.  But nobody knows for sure.  My mother and her co-workers had the conversation about Martha, and a lot of them believe she ghosted them.  They do not believe she is in ill health; rather, she just moved on from her old life.

A few days ago, I reached out to a friend of mine, "Denise."  I met Denise a few years ago as a result of her job.  Denise was warm, welcoming, and a very down-to-earth person.  She was one who shared warmth and shared her life with everyone.  I immediately was drawn to her.  Denise and I both discussed how we were similar kinds of people, and she brought a lot of good things into my life.  She seemed to value me as much as I did her.  And the very nice thing is that we continued to see each other via Zoom once the pandemic started.  Earlier this summer, Denise left her job due to some conflicts which she did not feel she could resolve there.  I discussed it with her at length, and she even asked me to write a letter of support for her.  It was the first time in my life someone had ever asked me to do something like that for them.  I did it because I felt like it was a friend calling on me to stand in the gap for them, and I was glad to do so.  If anything, it made me feel honored that she thought enough of me to do that for her.  After that, communication started to fall off.  I was the one who made the last contact, and I am never one to pester someone.  We had made some tentative plans to connect, but they never materialized.  Still, Denise was on my mind throughout these last few months.  I decided that I would send her an email wishing her a Merry Christmas and telling her that I hoped she was well.  Denise never responded.  Truth be told, it was upsetting to me.  If it weren't, I would not be writing this blog post about ghosting.  I do miss her and the warmth she brought into my life, the things we had in common that we shared a passion for.  I really do feel like I stepped up to the plate for her and was a true friend when she needed friends to support her.  I cannot think of anything that I might have done which offended her.  And that is the bad part of ghosting.  When someone stops communicating, most people immediately go to, "What did I do wrong?"  They take it as some kind of indictment about them.  But then again, I don't know.  Maybe Denise has COVID or some kind of other illness.  Perhaps something else happened in her life.

This is the worst part of ghosting-the not knowing.  As humans, we have a tendency to go over things in our head over and over again.  We will continue to replay scenarios, remember conversations, and ruminate on what "might" have happened.  The truth is, unless we really know, we will never have the peace of mind needed to resolve the situation.  And we are responsible for our own closure.  Sometimes it happens in life that we do not get to say the things we needed to say to someone or have that last conversation.  My own "guess" is that Denise wanted to move on from her previous life and the reminders of her job. I was likely a reminder, and I was expendable.  Again, I will never know.  Just a guess.  Long before Denise, I always had this saying: "I would rather someone come up to me and say f$&k you rather than ignore me.  At least I know where I stood."  The act of ghosting is, in part, ignoring someone.  I think that in most cases, ghosting someone is just a lazy way out of a relationship.  There are varying degrees, yes.  If you are on an online dating app and are just texting with someone for a few days, there is a big difference between that and a longtime friendship such as the one my mother had with Martha.  Regardless of the circumstances, it is always the right thing to do if you are in a relationship with someone to tell them that you intend to move on, you have moved on, or that person has offended you and you do not wish to be their friend anymore.  That is especially true if the first two scenarios are why you have chosen not to let the person know.  Yes, it would likely upset them.  But on the flip side of things, it is likely just as upsetting for your friend not to know.  

I suspect that I will never hear from Denise again.  Even if she was severely ill or something, she had 5 months or so that she could have written me an email letting me know.  I think she just moved on.  I am upset about it, but I will accept that life goes on.  Maybe Denise was just meant to be in my life for a season, as that old saying goes.  People are in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.  Ghosting throws a real cramp into that theory, but it is life.  My hope is that this trend of ghosting sees an end.  Yes, we have become impersonal as a society, but these are the ugly kinds of things that happen as a result.  We can never forget that whether someone is a love interest on a dating app or a longtime friend, as long as that person did not treat you in a horrible way they are deserving of your best.  That includes difficult conversations about walking away.  

As for me, when I hit publish I am going to call one of my other friends on the phone and wish her a Merry Christmas.  We have a solid friendship which is going nowhere.  Actually, it is heading for an even deeper friendship as time goes along.  Friendships take time and maintenance, but they are well worth it in the end.  

What Would Tammy Faye Do?

 "You can watch whatever you want the rest of the day, but not until I watch Jim and Tammy Faye."  That was the sentence of the day during sick days and summer vacation days.  It was stated to me every morning by my evangelical mother who loved watching the PTL television show.  Of course, it did not appeal to me as a young child.  It was somewhat perplexing, actually.  Tammy Faye Bakker wore more makeup than any celebrity I had ever seen.  And she was always crying.  Always.  I was not sure why.  And many times, my mother would cry along with her, too.  And I had no idea why, either.  It was a big production with Tammy Faye crying, Jim with his used car salesman shtick always asking for money, threating they would go off the air if they did not.  It was my mother's wish to go to Heritage USA, their theme park.  It was purported to be at the time the country's third largest resort attraction behind the Disney destinations.  Truthfully, it was not mine.  We were drug to church every time the door was open, much more than any child I knew.  I did not like getting up on a Sunday to go to Sunday school, would rather be home on Sunday nights and really did not care to go on a Wednesday night, either.  Religion really is not interesting to a lot of children.  The trip to Heritage USA never did come to fruition, but several Christian families that we knew paid thousands of dollars to them in exchange for a scheduled trip to the Christian themed park.

It was the spring of 1987 when the explosive allegations against Jim Bakker came to light.  I do remember that it rocked the world of evangelical Christianity.  While the Bakkers appealed to Christians, they were routinely panned by comedians and sitcoms.  Those in the media, especially the Charlotte Observer, were already suspicious of their finances and had already reported on the questionable statements of financial solvency put forth by the ministry.  The Bakkers became a laughingstock.  Jim relinquished control of the fledging ministry to charlatan Jerry Falwell Sr.  They appeared on Nightline in an interview in which Jim hideously defended himself, saying that people were out to get him.  One look at Tammy Faye during that interview would show a woman in tremendous pain, almost to the point of not being able to barely speak.  Her eyes, though covered in the usual eye makeup and mascara, were dead.  She often looked down, she never faced Jim.  She sat and stared, barely there.  It was a case of a man dragging his wife out to make himself look better, to present a united front.  But you could clearly tell that Tammy Faye was there physically but a million miles away emotionally.  Jim was sentenced to prison for defrauding his followers out of millions of dollars, and those families would never see their money ever again.  I do not remember much about the Bakkers after that. I had forgotten about them.  I do remember Tammy Faye popping up on some television talk shows, and she had one briefly, but that was about it.  And she did divorce Jim and marry another man, Roe Messner, who also was sentenced to prison for financial fraud.  

In 2005 or 2006, I was flipping through the channels when I came across a show called "One Punk Under God" on the Sundance channel.  The subject was Jay Bakker, Jim and Tammy Faye's son.  At the time, he pastored a church in New York City which was rather unconventional.  People smoked cigarettes and as Jay preached, he would interrupt himself to light up someone's cigarette.  He was tattooed and had plenty of earrings.  Jay was far from his Jamey Charles days on the show.  But I remember thinking how cool this was.  Jay clearly understood that everybody had spiritual needs, and that some people did not fit into a conventional church setting.  A year or two later, Tammy Faye would enter the public eye again when she announced her incurable cancer diagnosis.  She passed away in 2007.  There were several documentaries made about Tammy Faye before her passing, including "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" in 2000.  The documentary saw some playing time after her passing, and I saw it for the first time.  I did not realize that Tammy's life after PTL was so closely aligned with the LGBT community.  I sought to find out more about that, and I found that Tammy had a mutual love and relationship with the LGBT community.  Some of that had to do with her days at PTL, where she cried on television and admonished Christians for not embracing and caring for those with AIDS.  It showed that she cared about what happened to those who were suffering in the early days of AIDS.  Tammy would go on to say that when the church turned its back on her, the LGBT community embraced her.  I became an advocate and ally for the LGBT community when one of my best friends came out of the closet around this time in 2000.  And once I did, I met a world of people who just wanted to be accepted as they were.  Tammy Faye understood that and gave them the love and accepted which was sorely missing in churches espousing the teachings of Jesus.  She did what many others refused to do in evangelical churches.  I say refused because there were horrible people like Jerry Falwell who did nothing but rail against the LGBT community in a hateful way.  

Tammy Faye and I had other things in common as well.  We were both sensitive and caring young women who also had a creative imagination.  Hers came out in puppets; mine came out in stories.  But we both had creative minds and sought to bless others with our creativity.  We both wanted to, and always do, want to make the lives of others better.  We feel it is our calling to care about those who are hurting.  We understand suffering.  Both Tammy Faye and I have been severely burned by people in the church.  That led us both to feel like we were both more appreciated by those outside of the church and recognized the needs of those who we knew outside of evangelical Christianity.  And we were both naive yet trusting young women of the same age when we met toxic men in a Pentecostal setting (that is a whole other subject that I probably do not have the energy to address right now but it is true indeed.) There were some things that were different about us.  For example, she probably cried much more in one week of shows that I would in a year.  I am nowhere near as outwardly emotional.  And I do not have the same evangelical beliefs anymore as she did until her passing.  Was she perfect?  None of us are.  I know a lot of people objected to their wealthy lifestyle, and it is fair criticism.  It was my understanding that Jim was the one behind the excessive gathering of donations from likely vulnerable people.  However, she did live very well off of the donations.  She purportedly asked for a large salary for herself and Jim even as PTL was folding.  Apparently, they never received it as the ministry ultimately failed and Jim was imprisoned.  

Throughout Tammy's life and beyond, she was able to touch the lives of people.  In a time where women were absolutely frowned upon in ministry, she was a kind and understanding face to women.  There are still not many prevalent women in the world of televangelism some 40 years later.  She humanized the other side of fire breathing, hell threatening television preachers.  Tammy connected with not only women but men, too.  She sang and always wanted to encourage people.  On her last appearance on the PTL show, she chose to sing "The Sun Will Rise Again."  Even though her heart was breaking, she still wanted to encourage people.  Her path led away from the traditional church to the people who were condemned by it.  In that, she mirrored the Jesus that her husband and many of their professional colleagues sold to the masses.  In fact, she seemed to be the ONLY one who did so.  Jim wanted to make sure that you knew God loved you but also needed your money more.  Falwell was just downright hateful; Robertson was also a money-grubbing nut job.  Note that Falwell died but raised a pervert; Robertson claimed the ability to alter the courses of hurricanes through his direct connection to God and just recently retired; and Jim Bakker peddles conspiracy theories and found himself in trouble with the law for selling a false COVID-19 cure.  Kenneth Copeland has wealth in excess of $800 million dollars, refuses to pay any taxes on his money and will not travel on public transportation because they are infected with demons.  But not Tammy Faye.  She lived a modest life until her passing.  Tammy Faye made some television appearances and had a short-lived talk show, but she continued her work of making the world a better place.  None of those aforementioned televangelists did anything to draw people to Jesus.  Tammy reached out to those who were shunned by people, showed compassion to those who were suffering.  In that fact, she was exactly like Jesus.  

I think that it is important to note that the legacy Tammy left is still being felt 14 years after her passing.  Jessica Chastain portrayed her compassionately in the movie The Eyes of Tammy Faye.  She said that it was her pleasure to do so because of what a great person Tammy Faye was.  She noted her outreach to others.  I felt the movie was very well done.  My only criticism is that some was fictitious; notably, that Tammy Faye had an affair with her music producer.  It was reported that Tammy Faye was attracted to him, but that the feeling was not mutual.  It was said Tammy was infatuated with him in real life but nothing ever happened.  In the movie, Jim blamed this affair for his discretions with Jessica Hahn.  Whatever Tammy's feelings were it was Jim who made the decision to have an affair with another woman.  Tammy felt alone at many times during her marriage. This story was also corroborated by Jay, who said that he never had any time with his father.  According to Jay, the time he spent talking with his father in prison was the most uninterrupted time he had with him.  Jim was so focused on running his ministry that he really did seem to let his family go.  We will likely continue to hear the stories of the Bakker family, especially Tammy Faye.  Why?  Because Tammy Faye lived an exemplary life.  She lived a life in the way many imagined Jesus to live. Tammy also raised a son who also does not fit in with the conventional church life and yet manages to touch the lives of people that other church people never would.

I am glad that I took the time to understand the crying woman that I really never understood as a young child.  She was a kindred spirit that I never knew personally, yet somehow, I do.  On behalf of those who were touched by Tammy Faye, I say thank you to the woman who shared so much love with the world.  We need more people like her.

Here is a great video by YouTube personality Jen, on her channel Fundie Fridays.  Jen is an atheist who absolutely loves Tammy Faye, as evidenced in this video.  

THE TAMMY FAYE EPISODE - YouTube

Have a happy holiday season!

Where Are You, Mr. Drummond and Daddy Warbucks?

 As of the time I am writing this, a live musical version of Annie was recently staged on NBC for the holiday season.  The story of Annie, the orphaned girl, has been a part of our culture for almost 100 years.  When Annie debuted in 1924, she was a comic strip character.  The comic strip ran from 1924 through 2010, having run through several wars and saw many changes in American society.  Notably, orphanages have all but disappeared in the United States.  In many other countries, orphanages still do exist, but to the detriment of the children living in them.  Conditions are poor, both physically and emotionally.  We understood that and transitioned children into the foster care system, or "group homes."  Still, we have a large population of children 18 and under who for numerous reasons find themselves as wards of the state.  According to child advocacy group Children's Rights, some 443,000 children are in a foster care setting on any given day in the United States.  As of 2019, more that 71,000 children whose parents lost permanent custody of their children were waiting to be adopted.  Parents lose custody of their children, whether temporarily or permanently, based on their ability to care for their children in the most appropriate manner without being abused or neglected.  Children are not taken in haste.  They have to be subjected to horrendous physical or sexual abuse, a substance abuse problem, or severe neglect.  But such cases do exist.  My first experience with a foster child was one of my best friends in junior high, "Linda."  I met her in seventh grade.  She lived with a very kind family who regularly fostered children.  I did not know this when I first met her.  She was always talking about her brothers and sisters, and I remember commenting on what a large family she had.  It was then that Linda explained that they were not her real brother and sisters; they were her foster brothers and sisters.  Little by little, Linda shared the story of how she came to live with her foster family.  She grew up in a large city on the I-95 corridor and was taken into the foster care system at around the age of nine or ten.  Because it is not my story to tell and I value confidentiality, I will not discuss why she was taken into foster care.  Suffice it to say, the reason was awful.  No child should ever have to deal with what she had to.  Sometimes Linda was difficult to get along with.  But that is most children and teenagers.  Truth be told, the friend that was supposed to be my "best friend" was much worse.  And Linda would be fine the next day.  She didn't carry out grudges or drama.  Linda and I went to school for two years before her parents decided to put her into a different school.  I am not sure why, except for the other school had a better academic reputation.  I lost a bit of contact with Linda around that time, but we tried to stay friends.  Linda went without any contact for a while, and then I got a phone call from her.  She went from her foster home into a large group home for girls in this area.  Linda was not allowed to see anyone. She went to and from school, and that was it.  I really do not know why she left her foster home.  It was never understood.  But I do know that her foster parents were stable people and it sounded like a much more hospitable environment than the group home.  Linda told me stories of daily fights between girls, a lot of bullying and harassment, and even a resident emptying out someone's hairspray and replacing it with urine.  It is no wonder that children who grow up in the foster care system or as wards of the state yearn for anything better than they have.

In 1978, the television show Diff'rent Strokes debuted.  A wealthy New York City businessman became the guardian of his late housekeeper's two sons who lived in Harlem. It was a lighthearted comedy, but it was also a fantasy.  Two young boys who were orphaned were whisked away to a luxury penthouse apartment by a wealthy man who cared about them, took care of their needs, and provided a life that children of limited means would ever dream of.  A few years later, in 1982, the comic strip Annie was adopted into a feature length movie.  A young, ragged orphan girl in New York City would be rescued by a wealthy man, Daddy Warbucks.  While the plot of Diff'rent Strokes was not directly tied to Annie, the two show similarities.  Orphaned children were rescued out of a life of poverty by a wealthy man and lived happily ever after.  A year or two later, a sitcom called Punky Brewster debuted on NBC with the same premise, only set in modern-day Chicago.  The fantasy of children being plucked out of a difficult, impoverished life by wealthy men apparently had high entertainment value.  The reality is that the Willis boys, Annie, or Punky Brewster would not be rescued by wealthy men.  They would be released into the foster care system with hopes for the best.  The good news is that while they may not have the wealth of a Mr. Drummond or Daddy Warbucks, there are good families who are willing to take in foster children and provide the stability they need.  But some do not.  I have read countless stories of foster children being treated as second class members of the family.  They were not allowed to sit with the nuclear and biological family members during holiday get togethers; they are often made to carry their meager belongings from one home to the next in garbage bags.  Some get moved in and out of different homes for a variety of reasons.  And their lives after the foster system can become difficult.  There is a concept called the "Foster to Prison Pipeline" which describes the high number of foster children who ultimately end up in the criminal justice system.  Death at a younger age is a higher outcome than those who are in a nuclear family.  Only three percent of children who grow up in foster care go on to receive a college degree, according to Foster Club.  Also, according to statistics gathered by Foster Club, over seventy percent of girls growing up in foster care will become pregnant by the age of 21.  My friend Linda had a similar outcome.  She was 23 when she gave birth to her first child, but the father of that child was accused of murder.  The father of her second child was murdered.  She did have a third child, but I haven't heard from her in quite some time. However, I do know that child had behavioral problems.  Linda attended a few classes at community college but does not have a degree.  She bounced around from job to job but did rely on public welfare benefits as a younger adult.  In short, Linda always struggled.  

I know that I would have fantasies of a loving family adopting me if I had a life like Linda or any other children in foster care.  Sadly, these systems are woefully underfunded and lack much needed oversight.  Most of the time judges or social service workers take a look at things on the surface and pronounce a child to be in acceptable circumstances.  But there is so much more to the story.  Children who are most at risk in our society are still among its most neglected.  A judge cannot take the time to determine if a child's needs are truly being met.  An overworked social services worker only has a little time to devote to each child on their caseload.  Some families mean well and truly care; others are in it for the pay that comes along with a foster child and do not provide anything beyond basic physical needs.  There will not be a Mr. Drummond or Daddy Warbucks for the majority of 

In this holiday season, take a moment to think of those children who will be in a foster home for the holidays.  Whatever spiritual practice you follow, send them a prayer or love.  You probably cannot be a wealthy person who can rescue them.  And because they are in a family setting, you likely cannot donate to a charity which will help them directly.  But if you know a foster family, consider even buying a child or the children in that family a gift.  Sometimes they just need to feel special, that someone cares about them.  That someone cared enough to buy them a gift.  Foster children desperately need dignity.  If you are able, be a mentor.  Ultimately, advocate for them by calling for your lawmakers at each level to properly fund child welfare programs.  No, there are no easy solutions to our foster care crisis.  And no, there are not enough wealthy millionaires who will adopt all of the foster children who need a home.  The care and cure lie within everyday people.  Be that person.  

For more information:

Foster Care - Children's Rights (childrensrights.org)

Foster Care Statistics - Child Welfare Information Gateway

6 Quick Statistics On The Current State of Foster Care – iFoster

43 Gut Wrenching Foster Care Statistics – Vittana.org