Every Person

         There is a story called “The Miracle Worker,” about how Anne Sullivan was able to get through to Helen Keller, a youngster born both without hearing or sight, when many others had failed. To call this a miracle is to miss how Nick Groth got through to Robbie and Anne reached Helen. The story chronicles Anne’s meeting the undisciplined Helen Keller, daughter of rich and indulgent parents. Helen had no manners and was allowed to eat off anyone’s plate at dinner. With discipline and loving-kindness, Anne is able to get through. “A Miracle,” we proclaim. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

         Anne Sullivan’s first years were rough. Orphaned early, abused and beaten, she went from foster home to foster home. She and her brother were finally shipped to an asylum, their favorite place to play, the morgue. An asylum in the late 1800s in Massachusetts was where they sent anyone who was “mad,” unwanted pregnancies, deformities, diseases they could not cure like tuberculosis and the discarded. Anne’s brother died while she was there.

         Along came a Priest and a ward worker who knew that Anne’s life had been tough and asked if she would like to get her own eyes treated and get out of this place? She said, “Yes!” After a successful eye operation, she went to the Perkins School and learned to work with those who could not see or hear. So why was Anne Sullivan able to reach Helen Keller?

         Because she had mastered the circumstances in her own life and knew there were only two choices for Helen, either find a way to communicate or spend the rest of her life on the floor, playing in the spaghetti.

The power to master the circumstances in your own life resides within you!

You have the capacity!

Any capacity you admire in another resides within you!

You are Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Christopher Reeves and Mahatma Gandhi!

         What I discovered in that maximum-security prison in Somers, Connecticut was that the capacity for all things resides within each person. The indomitable will of a Nelson Mandela and the perseverance of Christopher and Dana Reeves are within you. The grace and dignity of a Mother Teresa is within you! The person reading these words, you! Not someone else. This capacity is within all people!

         And the use of the word capacity is critical. This is not about “talent” or “potential.” It is that, as human beings, we arrived with a “main frame” capacity for all things. Think of it as a computer full of wiring and capacitors before any programming is installed. Babies arrive with it.

One Example

This letter is for a very good friend of mine, and I don’t take the word friend lightly. Seeing that I really don’t have any others. So this letter is to whomever it may concern, and everyone else.

My name is Bill McIntosh and I have a story to tell. So please listen.

I’m a 34 year old male, average build, average height. Have a wife, been ten years now, and a seven year old son. We ain’t well off by any means, and we three still have our disagreements. But the bills get paid, and there’s food on the table everyday. And at the end of the night we still tell each other “I love you,” no matter the disagreement.

I’ve recently started my own business, building custom furniture. Haven’t sold anything yet, but I have a handful of pieces about ready for display. Should be kicking off real soon. Really can’t complain, now can I? But I sometimes still do. Residue of the programming I was taught growing up I suppose. Which is the point of the story.

From a very young age (birth to be exact), I was programmed to be a failure. See, even at birth the actions of people around me, and for that matter, the people/persons not around me, had an effect. My dad, I learned he didn’t care about me, (Why? I don’t know.) He left my mom 8 ½ months pregnant with me, and she had a dad who died a month earlier. He pushed her (my mom) down a flight of stairs and told her he was going on a fishing trip. He never came back. Heard he went to Florida to produce smut movies. “Who cares?” Right? That’s what I learned from my dad. I also learned my mom became an emotional wreck. Odd, me being a newborn and her crying more than me. She’d cry when she woke in the morning, in the afternoon, at night, whenever I’d cry and when she fed me. I think the combination of my mom’s dad dying, my dad leaving her, and the fact that she didn’t want me (Reasons being, my dad leaving her, and me not being a girl.) led us down the path we took.

She remarried shortly after. Four months later, I think. She must have felt abandoned, vulnerable, unprotected. Like I said, she had lost her dad, husband and had a newborn baby. So she clung onto anyone who took notice. It ended up being this big, fat, dirty, mean guy. I remember the guy couldn’t even clean himself completely. My mom had to get areas he couldn’t reach. I knew this cause I was made to watch. Now I didn’t remember this all from the beginning. She was with him a few years, and some of it stuck with me. But who cares, right, dad? Besides I had a new dad, and mom wasn’t crying no more. They even had a new baby, and this dad stuck around. I didn’t get this, but I learned real quick that my new sister was his real daughter and I was only my mother’s son. But he still paid attention to me. He’d scream and holler, sometimes even hit me. My mom would make him take us kids to the park. In the car he’d reach back and give me a good smack just to show he still cared. Left a bruise a couple of times to show my mom how much he cared. He told her I fell off the slide. I later learned my mom knew he was hitting me, and that when I was younger, he was performing sexual acts with me. I also learned this to be acceptable, normal. It had to be. I had a dad who showed me he hated me, and a mom who approved.

About this point I was 5 and “Uncle” Butch came along. Now “Uncle” Butch was an awesome guy. Really big and strong, made my mom laugh, took us places, and best of all, he seemed to like me. He started spending more time around, but always leaving before dad got home. Well, come to find out “Uncle” Butch wasn’t really “Uncle” Butch, but the guy mom was cheating on dad with. She became pregnant and there was a big scene between mom and dad. They hadn’t done anything in a long time for this to occur. Dad beat mom up pretty good, mom kicked dad out and Butch moved in. Dad didn’t like this and called dad outside. Dad was no match. Butch pistol whipped him, and urinated on him while he was down. Dad was never seen again, and Butch was the new dad. This is where my real learning and programming began.

See Butch was a successful convict. He was into insurance scams, and burglaries. He was good at it, too. I remember coming home from school and seeing VCRs and stereos stacked from floor to the ceiling. Looking on my parent’s bed and seeing jewelry and cash covering the blanket. It was so cool, I wanted to be just like him. He had so many friends. These friends would come over and drink and smoke marijuana. Do other drugs I wasn’t allowed to see. They’d all laugh and have fun until everyone went home and then dad would become real mean to mom. I’d sneak out of my bed and listen at their door. I’d hear him hitting her and her crying for him to stop. I was so scared, sometimes I’d wet myself. So scared, I didn’t dare help her. Remember, I said he was big and strong, and he had hit me once already. Punched me in my chest. Hurt pretty bad, too. So, I’d go back to bed, wet pajamas and all and cry myself to sleep, real softly mind you. Dad had a rule. Men don’t cry. And if you were caught crying, you got something to cry about. But this was all normal and besides, “who cares,” right, dad. Getting hit became a normal part of life for me shortly after that. Not saying that I didn’t deserve some of it. I was out doing some of what I learned. Let’s see, I was hitting my sisters, fighting in school, stealing, drinking and smoking a pack of butts a day by the time I was 7.

At age 9 I was sent to a boys’ home. My mom had abandoned me. Visits and phone calls became less, home furloughs were taken away because my dad had shot himself with a rifle while I was in front of him. I started to really hate my mother. Not only for the abandonment but for not caring what went on with her son in the boys’ home. The abuse was physical, mental and sexual. We had it all. Details really not really needed. I ended up getting kicked out of the boys’ home shortly after twelve. They only harbor children up until they turn twelve. I got to stay a little longer. My case was special. It wasn’t that I wasn’t ready to go home, I was. I completed everything they had to help me. Including fornication with staff. It was the home that wasn’t ready for me. Reluctantly, the state allowed me to go home. Six months later I was admitted to Jackson Brook because of a suicide attempt. It wasn’t a suicide attempt, it was a stupid dare with classmates on a field trip. It was an excuse for my mother to get rid of me because my dad didn’t want me around. I don’t know why! I was turning out just like him. Maybe it was I messed up the balance. My mom had my sister from her previous marriage as her favorite, and my dad had his daughter from this marriage as his favorite, and my real dad, well, he just didn’t care. So they got their happy family, and I’m in the nuthouse getting EKGs and shots of Valium up the butt in the padded room so they could figure out what was wrong with me. I wasn’t crazy, I was confused, mad, and maybe a little scared. Though I wouldn’t admit to that one. I don’t need wires on my head or drugs in my system to figure out what’s wrong. I just need someone to listen. No one does. I was released, no conclusions on my mental stability. No shit! Nobody listened. Put these blocks together, what do you see in the picture? Who’s the President? Always these questions, but no one hearing.

I went home one more time. Actually hung out for awhile. Went back to school and got a part-time job working with my dad, who was a manager at a fish plant on the wharf. He took the job with an ulterior motive. He planned a faked back injury and collected insurance money. I got fired. Guilty by association. Was still in school, but no job. With no job came no money. I was still too young for a job permit, and I liked money. So I took my few life skills I had learned and set out to make money. I wasn’t good at acting, so I opted for burglaries. Shortly after fourteen, I left home (tired of the bullshit) and continued my career. My career was halted within 6 months when I was caught for a house burglary, and a chain of car burglaries. Spent 90 credits or roughly 9 months in the Youth Center. Was released and continued my path of self-failure. In and out of the Youth Center two more times, graduated to the county (Cumberland County Jail) and finally prison (Maine State). Two trips there wasn’t enough. It took the third (Worst and best by far). I got a seven and a half year sentence for burglary. Got a girlfriend of two years, three months pregnant with my son. I was twenty-six and had left a path of chaos behind me. I’d set out to be a failure and succeeded. None of the blame was mine, mind you, but something was definitely wrong and I knew it. So I set out to figure it out. I had plenty of time to figure it out – I took every program that became available to me, took all the job tracks to learn a skill. And, honestly, most of it was bullshit. Some of it had purpose, but most of it was out of books. Then in 2004 a new program became available. It was New Horizons and they wanted 25 participants. I signed up and was accepted. My first class we were introduced to a gentleman wearing a pair of overalls and a blue blazer. “Here we go,” I thought. But I remember three of the first things he said. “1. Hello, my name is Bill Cumming. 2. If I start to fall, let me. My leg is made of mostly chicken wire.” And. “3. I want to ask you not to believe anything I tell you.” This caught my interest. If I’m not to believe this guy, then why am I taking this class.

For the next few weeks we all met once a week for a few hours, and at the end of each session, we would get a silly homework assignment. Something like look at yourself in the mirror for a couple of minutes or self reflect. In prison this is a little hard. To look silly or weak is not what you want. But I found a way and time to do it. Not really knowing what I was reflecting on. But found the more I did it, the more I learned about myself and others. Or rather not so much about others as I learned that the emotions and feelings others have, are just that. Their feelings and emotions. Now if these people are allowed to have their own feelings, then so can I. Therefore, I’m allowed to make my own decisions and choices of who I want to be. This started a new direction for me.

I didn’t speak with Bill after the program until I was released. He asked me what I wanted to do. What was gonna make my life complete? I gave him my spiel. Told him of past history. Obligations, Responsibilities. He asked me what I knew how to do, what I liked to do, what made me happy? I told him I liked to work with my hands, that I had been involved with the wood working program at the prison and became pretty good at it. He informed me of a program called the Starfish Fund. And that it was to help individuals pursue their goals. I jumped on the opportunity. I was given a chance. Someone listened.

And now here I am. Like I said in the beginning, a husband, a dad who is here, helping with my share of responsibilities. I take pride in the things I do and in myself. Happy with where my business is headed and have a new direction in life. I don’t completely know what will happen. But for now, I am complete. And as for what one person can do — well, it’s a whole lot more than what a bunch of people who want to do nothing can do.

         So others might understand his achievements more clearly, I asked Bill M. to write his experience in relation to the New Horizons Academy, What Every Person Can Do and The Starfish Fund. I have edited it only for clarity of meaning. It is my hope that it will allow you to know what I mean when I speak of the power that resides within all people.

         How is it I am so sure we all have the capacity to lead meaningful, productive, contributory, joyous lives? There are three things I would ask you to consider. Given all of our scientific research and theological writings, there are two primary theories regarding how human beings came to be. Those who believe each theory are absolutely convinced they are right and absolutely sure those with any other notion are wrong. It matters little, except for the “rightness” of it.

         According to people of Christian and Jewish faith, the Story of Creation allows that God created the world and then Adam and Eve and from there on evolved the whole human race. After the existence of Adam and Eve, each time they conceived, it began with two cells, a sperm and an egg combining to create a single cell which developed into another human being. So, in a very real sense, according to this tradition, we are related. Literally related, traceable, cell by cell, generation-to-generation descended from Adam and Eve.

         Now, for a moment, consider the Darwinian theory of evolution. According to this theory, once you go back from human beings you get to mammals, then on to birds, amphibians and smaller creatures, finally arriving at the single celled creature, the amoeba. So we originated with a single cell and have evolved over time and mutation to human beings as we know them.

         The next time you go to the grocery store, take a very careful look at your relatives. Using either of the most adopted and believed stories of the origins of our beginnings and existence, you and I are literally related. With the exception of those with an additional gene or chromosome or catastrophic biochemical imbalance (less than 1% of all people), you and I are related and share the same capacities. Again, think of the guts of a computer before any programming is installed. The capacity, depending on the programming is identical.

         One more issue from the scientific community gives even more weight to the notion that we share identical capacities. Twelve years ago a Scottish scientist cloned a sheep using a single cell. Each cell of every creature contains the DNA for the entire being even while each cell is unique. They say that to print the explanation of the DNA of any cell would require six or seven volumes of encyclopedic size.

         When human skin is cut deeply enough, it bleeds. Whether stitches are required or not, the skin heals by the blood touching the two separated pieces of skin and then forms new skin. Look at any scar you have and you will be able to detect the newer, born from blood, skin. In periodontal procedures, a form can be put against a piece of human jawbone that has been worn down from infection, it fills with blood and if conditions are optimal, the blood forms new bone which attaches to the old. How does the blood know how to grow skin in one place and bone in another. It came wired that way. Its capacity to do that was passed down generation to generation.

        The capacity for loving-kindness and the capacity to kill are passed down generation to generation to all of us. The question becomes, what gets watered, what gets nurtured, encouraged and rewarded? Do some people arrive with a genetic predisposition which makes them statistically more likely to have problems with drugs or alcohol? Of course. And what are the chances that I and my relatives from Scotland would love Scotch whiskey and have such a predisposition? And what about our Irish brothers and sisters love of Irish whiskey?

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of man (and woman) as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.

– Helen Keller

         So the question becomes, do we want to engage in the “daring adventure” of life? We all possess “The Power Within,” the only question is access. It is not that some have possibility and others not. Are there advantages for some? You bet. Money could be an advantage to some, a detriment to others, depending on the “groundedness” of those who control it. The granddaughter of one of the most powerful men in the United States told of being regularly abused by him in the library of the patriarchal home. High expectations make some things easier for those of privilege. For others it is pressure. Child abuse is not restricted to an economic class. In every case it depends on whether the adults in a child’s life are “grounded.”

         What I mean by grounded is that they have a solid sense of their value and worth in the world. They are loving, kind and generous. They treat all people with dignity, respect and grace. They are clear about why they are here, how they want to be and what they intend to do. Only people who are grounded in this way can create the possibility for others to be so. What “transfers” is that experience, not ideas or words. The two ingredients necessary are absolute loving-kindness and the realization that in every second there is a choice.

         At some point each of us develops a context about our lives. At a very basic level, we either decide we are valuable and matter or that we are useless and don’t matter. There is no way to know for sure what produces that decision. Perhaps hearing your parents discuss wishing you had never been born. Certainly, physical sexual or mental abuse is likely to produce a negative context. It could be the loss of a significant adult. It could be simply being treated as if you were furniture.

         Breaking the cycle of an “I Don’t Matter” context requires the unconditional love of another human being and the experience of producing tangible results that the individual knows they created. Communicating to another that we know that every person, at their very core, wants to experience love, that their lives count for something and that they are powerful enough to choose can be a life altering experience. No amount of therapy alone will take the place of this experience. Great counselors create a loving environment where people come to know they can take charge of their own lives.

         People who wish to have a positive personal influence on others must possess two specific characteristics, unconditional loving-kindness and consistent personal disciple. If people experience that we are consistent, keep our agreements and follow through, they are much more likely to know that we mean it when we say, “I love you!”

         One of my favorite examples of this process of “worth transfer” was an eighth-grade teacher who had had the same youngster for two years and had been unable to reach this clearly, “I don’t matter,” youngster. Going to the well one more time, she went home and brought two flowerpot presentations as a gift for this young man. One was a beautiful, prize- winning African Violet, which she had raised. The other was an old cracked clay pot which she filled with gravel and into which she stuck a dead branch. At school, she asked the young man which pot he preferred, which one he liked better. “The beautiful one,” he responded. “Well,” she said, “You may have it if you can see that your life will be just like these two pots, either beautiful, healthy and well-cared-for, or lifeless and of use to no one. I will show you how to care for this plant and you will have to promise to take care of it and yourself, otherwise, I give up. I have done everything I can to get through to you and I don’t know anything else to say. I care about you, your life and how it turns out. No matter what I say or do, it will be you that decides to create a valuable life.” Over a period of three months, this youngster, with constant reminders of choice about lessons and how the hour or day turns out is up to you, turned it around.

The only tyrant I accept in the world is the ‘still small voice within.

– Mahatma Gandhi

         None of this is about technique or philosophy. It is about the experience of absolute loving-kindness and the power to choose. And choose, and choose, and choose and choose.