Namaste

An amazing number of people - people who consider themselves deeply spiritual, people who don't consider themselves at all spiritual - respond from a place deep within to the greeting, Namaste ~ "The Spirit within me salutes the Spirit in you."   Basic acknowledgement that we all flow from the same Source; through spirit.

How I would love to say Namaste to the different people who brutalize, in many different ways, people around our planet or across the USA who come across as social, political, economic bullies.  Well, I've always been a big believer in "think globally, act locally" - - today, I get to do just that, to someone who bullied a friend of mine, right in front of me.  

Last night, I had the pleasure of enjoying dinner with a grannie client at her very nice senior residence.  We were foregoing the cafe for the more formal dining room.  To start out the evening, we had a sip at the Club Room bar.  

Our table consisted of myself & grannie client & several other olders that I've come to consider good friends.  It was a fine evening, until near the end, as we were preparing to exit to the dining room.  Inexplicably, one of the group who was staying at the table turned to one who was leaving with us & asked, "What day is it?"

Did the others at the table freeze, or was that just me?  The person she asked the question is a quiet, kind soul known for his quick smile & cheery greeting.  And for being challenged by dementia.  He is an enthusiastic, valuable part of discussions, can function just fine on all the basic levels, BUT cannot remember what day of the week it is.  Last night, the group was asked several times, "Is today Sunday?"

The others might not have looked horrified, but I certainly did.  The woman making the heartless jab looked across at me & said, "I like to tease him." And she did, a couple more times.  He was all confused smiles.  Praise be, I could get him away to the dining room, but the event left me shaken & enlightened. 

It was my second experience with bullying among my older friends, at the same upper-end elder residence.  The first time happened during a current events discussion.  In that case, I responded by leaving - not just because of the verbal bullying of two of the participants (and, by extension, the whole group), but because the rest of them accepted it.  I waited out in the hall for my grannie client, quite happy reading my ever-present book;  at the close of the discussion, the group applauded the bully, which earned a rueful smile to myself - people are pretty predictable.  Which is why bullying succeeds in the first place - too many people accept it, even make it seem acceptable, perhaps from a desire to not make waves.

Maybe I'm super sensitive to verbal bullying.  It was such a common part of my life, I didn't even know what it was - it was just normal.  When I taught at a school for at-risk students, I had first-hand experience with how hard it is to address the problem, to stop it.  One of my students - pretty, slight build, smart, placed at the school because she did something stupid - was clearly being bullied by an all mouth, imposing bearing, well-built classmate.  The victim would never lodge a complaint - swore up & down that  no bullying was taking place - and her tormentor took care to never ever do it around any of the teachers or staff.

Back then, my hands were tied. Yesterday, it happened right in front of me.  The experience gave me fresh understanding of something that happened in my own family, long before I was born.  One of my older brothers was tossed by the neighborhood bully, a kid who terrorized all ages, into a prickly bush.  As recently as ten years ago, my oldest brother was still bitter at Dad for not having stormed to the boy's house to have it out with the tormentor's dad.  I already knew Dad's side, shared with me long ago - he was afraid that making an issue of the atrocious act might result in retribution, to great atrocities.

That was this morning's dilemma.  Make that last night's.  When it wasn't keeping me awake, it was invading my dreams.  It was only as I showered (what is it about water & AH HA moments?) that the best next step came to me - send her one of the Namaste cards I picked up at Trader Joe's (great cards).  But what to say?  She clearly considers me a friend, or she wouldn't have been cruel right in front of me.  How to build on that friendship for a constructive end without having a destructive impact on the teasee?

As I wrote that, it hit me while so many people let verbal bullying go noticed but unacknowledged.  It doesn't matter how old we are, relationships matter.  In my personal situation with it, nothing was said by others because they knew I wasn't making a fuss & that speaking up could have a negative impact on their relationship with the perpetrator (who, incidentally, had a tough go at life & took it out on me).  Imagining how much more intense that desire to keep friendships intact - how ever painful it might be - if I lived in a senior residence, typically with few if any friends from my earlier life.  Fertile soul for heartless tormenting.  

Because it not only wasn't funny - except to the tormentor - to see a kind person verbally abused, it was heartless.  

When I walked out of the discussion on Thursday, I knew that it wouldn't do my reputation much good.  Sure enough, people stopped me yesterday to say they'd heard I'd stormed out in an emotional huff, advising me to just let such stuff not get to me because "he is never going to change."  Yes, that's true. And I will happily take my grannie client to the discussion, because she enjoys it heartily (reminiscent of her parents talking over dinner!) - and I will wait in the hall, out of sight, reading.  

Count me in as someone who sat up & took notice when I heard the quote attributed to Edmund Burke & used so effectively by Dr. King ~ The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.  I stand with doing something because namaste is more than just a word or glib greeting.  It resounds with so many because it speaks to something deep within each of us - our common sense of humanity.   

Now, if I could only figure out what to say...