Category: Words To Live By

Fraternity and sorority hazing recently arose in nationwide news once again with another tragic passing of someone who was pledging a fraternity where alcohol was the cause. In this case, it was a young man named Stone Foltz, a 20-year-old attending Bowling Green State University and also pledging the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity there. Since 2000, there have been more than 50 hazing-related deaths like Foltz’s in the United States. While that number may seem insignificant, there are countless hazing-related incidents that never get reported, many of which end up causing PTSD to the one hazed. I should know, as I went through it myself during my freshman year at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

I’m thankful I can start this article out with at least one positive statement about hazing in that my fraternity at RIT, Phi Kappa Psi, has strong policies in place today to prevent hazing from ever happening. But back during my fraternity days, hazing happened all the time and it was just an acceptable thing. On some level, I think the movie “Animal House” made hazing seem cool. That’s probably why I saw so many incidents of it not only in my own chapter, but also in many others on campus as well.

Over the years whenever major hazing incidents would surface in the news, like in Foltz’s recent case, people tend to ask what the purpose of hazing actually is. Originally, hazing was seen as an effective way to teach respect and develop discipline and loyalty within the group, quite like what many branches of the military still employ to this day. But is it really effective? From my experience, it wasn’t and only created more pain in my life instead.

One of the biggest incidents of hazing I went through that to this day I still remember quite vividly was the night I and my five pledge brothers were blindfolded and guided onto a sand volleyball court that was near our chapter house at the time. There we were told to dig. Eventually we discovered five very warm cans of the cheapest beer you could buy locally, deep in the sand. The brand was one called Golden Anniversary. After the five were unearthed, we were instructed to each take one and down it as quickly as possible. It was nasty and felt as if it had baked in the sun all day. After plenty of dry heaves, I finished the task and thought, “Thank God that’s over!” But it wasn’t, because after silently being guided back into our chapter house, we saw on the bar there, five nicely organized rows of five cans of the same brand of warm beer. We were instructed to each choose one of the rows to stand in front of and once we did, informed we needed to finish all 25 cans of warm beer before they all finished their one can of cold Coors Light they held in their hands. Oh, and we were also told to make use of the garbage can in the center of the room if needed during the task, but not to stop until the warm beer was all gone, even if that meant throwing up repeatedly. With none of my pledge brothers being big guys with high alcohol tolerances, and with mine only being about three beers before I started to black out, I wasn’t all too keen on doing the task. But I wanted the acceptance of those brothers so bad! So, I didn’t question the task. Once they counted back from 3 to 1 and said “Go!”, I began to chug as fast as I could. I hurled along with my brothers and even took over some of the slack when some of my pledge brothers gave up. We finished the task and were all miserably drunk and sick to our stomachs because of it, but then we then got to celebrate with more drinking. I don’t remember the rest of that night, like I didn’t on most nights I drank back then. But unlike Stone Foltz, I’m alive today to live and tell a true story of the horrors of hazing. Sadly, that was just one of many others I could speak of, which regrettably, became a sad rite of passage that continued on for a while longer in my chapter until ramifications from it finally led us to thankfully put an end to it, once and for all.

Hazing never made me a better brother, a better person, or a better anything. If anything, what it did do was lower my self-esteem, increase my PTSD, and make me an angrier and more mentally imbalanced individual. While I don’t know anything about the life Stone Foltz once lived, I wonder if he was like me, a shy, nerdy kid that was always overlooked for much of his younger years, who just wanted for once in his life to find acceptance and love, and was willing to do whatever he had to, to get it, even at his own expense. Regardless, hazing is stupid and toxic to the health of everyone involved. Earning respect, learning discipline, and garnering loyalty have come in my life today through acts of service, unconditional love, and kindness. They come naturally from my heart and not from someone shouting in my face during line-ups done in 90-degree rooms where people called me a total piece of shit because I didn’t remember some trivial piece of information in my pledge book about one of the brothers. Yes, that did happen, and yes, a lot more even worse than that too.

The bottom line is that all forms of hazing need to stop, immediately! Because people like Stone Foltz deserved to live a far longer life, one where people got to love him for just being himself. Not because he was willing to drink to excess for acceptance, not because he was willing to do anything for acceptance, but just because he was good enough for just being himself. I am thankful my Phi Kappa Psi chapter at RIT today believes in this and I hope that I may somehow have helped in sharing my experiences with hazing.

So, if you happen to be someone who is currently being hazed or suffering from PTSD from it being done to you at some point in your life, know you’re not alone. Please, find someone safe to talk to about it because it will help, and if you can remember one thing from all this, you truly are fully worthy and deserving of being loved and accepted just as you are.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever had someone you cared about abruptly leave your life without any understanding as to why or “ghosted” you, as it’s often referred to in today’s terms by a loved one who suddenly disappears and leaves you wondering if or what you did wrong with no real semblance of closure?

I recently went through this with someone I at first was merely a Facebook friend with. Over time though, we got to know each other much better, going from acquaintances to close friends. While we never did meet in person given him living several hundred miles from where I reside, we did speak frequently via text, phone and Facebook video for almost a year. I was most drawn to his career path, as he had been a pastor for over three decades of his life and often had a number of conversations with him that were quite deep involving God. I was grateful for each of them, as most of the friends I’ve had in life don’t have much of an interest in regularly discussing religious or spiritual types of things.

Nevertheless, when I contracted COVID in the beginning of 2021, I never heard from my friend whatsoever, which left me real surprised. Once I began feeling well, we would speak only twice more, on two separate Sunday evenings, where I truly thought each of those conversations went well as always. One of the things he consistently told me was how much I got him to think about life in different ways from the norm and was grateful for that. But when it came time to talk on the subsequent Sunday after our last chat, he didn’t answer his phone. The next day I’d receive a very brief email void of any real connection or emotion that simply said “he was going through something dark that he didn’t want to discuss with me and was only going to focus on his career and studies until he felt better and that he’d contact me once he re-emerged back into the land of the living.”

At first, I accepted his email at face value and responded briefly by saying I’d be praying for him and looked forward to him reaching back out when he felt better. Over the course of the next few weeks though, he continued to post things on Facebook and communicating with others on there, including expressions of humor that really didn’t seem to appear as if he was in a dark place at all. I totally began to question if his email hadn’t been the real truth.

I finally opted to email him after almost a month had gone by without any communication and asked for reconnection or closure. Honestly, it had been kind of painful watching him connect with a number of others on his Facebook timeline, but never once reaching out to me in any fashion. In that email, I’d let him know I missed chatting with him but also asked if we could reconnect and talk about what was really going on, as friends are meant to share in each other’s burdens like he and I had already done thus far. I mentioned as well that if he didn’t want to connect anymore with me to please just let me know so that I could have some type of closure. I waited a full week after that, but never got any response, which is when I realized that sometimes in life we have to create our own closure when we aren’t given any, so I did.

A full five weeks from the last time we had spoken, I emailed him a final heartfelt letter essentially saying that while I didn’t understand his complete silence with me, I accepted it and needed to create closure for myself. I said goodbye in a loving way and let him know I wished his ministry and life well and then finished in saying to please reach out if he ever wanted to connect again. I then unfriended him on Facebook and went on with my day feeling much better.

In the past, I’ve waited around indefinitely when things like this have happened, only to leave me feeling angry, hurt, and resentful, always wondering if I did something wrong. Creating closure for myself this time around seems to have prevented this from happening, of which I’m very grateful. It’s not only helped me to move on, but also accept it was his stuff and not mine and his loss in the end.

Personally, I live by a strong integrity and accountability today and I’d never do what he did to me to another, especially someone I love or grown to really care about. I tend to believe that we all deserve some sort of closure when a close connection comes to an end, but often we aren’t given that, so I’ve learned it’s up to us to either continuing living in pain and resentment, or to create closure ourselves and move on, which I’m thankful to report now I was finally able to do the latter.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Recently, a local priest in my vicinity after preparing the elements for communion in front of their congregation said, and I’m not joking here either, that those who voted for President Biden shouldn’t receive the sacrament that day. A female parishioner there got so upset she left right then and there.

Hearing this directly from another priest friend of mine and confirming the story’s validity was incredibly disheartening. I wanted to believe it was just “fake news”, but sadly it wasn’t, as that woman had come to my friend in anguish over the whole matter. What’s truly sad is that Christ welcomed all to his table. ALL! To suggest anything otherwise, especially over who voted for who in the last presidential election is truly sad and despicable on so many levels.

I personally have experienced this very thing in many different churches throughout my life, where my sexuality, or my gender, or my not being a member there, or my not being of that specific denomination or faith, etc., excluded me from being fully a part of that church in some way.

Wasn’t it Jesus who associated himself and even broke bread throughout his life with social outcasts, beggars, prostitutes, lepers, tax collectors, Pharisees, Sadducees, Priests, roman soldiers, and many other foreigners. Wasn’t it Jesus who never turned any of them away? 2,021 years after Christ lived and people are still being turned away from his table!

The more times I hear stories like this, the more I have no desire to ever step foot back into a church again for worship. I’d rather worship from home where I can be me and don’t have to conform to someone else’s judgments of what they think is acceptable in the eyes of Christ and God.

Stories like this painfully remind me of the numerous times I faced rejection at places of worship by pastors, the worship team, or even members, due to my being a “practicing homosexual” and suggesting that was detestable in the eyes of God due to their interpretation of their religious books of reference.

Do you know what I really think is the most detestable in the eyes of God? Turning anyone away for ANY reason at any place of worship of Him. Doing so, or even telling anyone they aren’t accepted for any reason in God’s eyes, is one of the lowest things I think you can do to someone on their spiritual journey in life. Because it often drives a hungry seeker of God completely away, leaving them in shame, feeling like they aren’t good enough, even in God’s eyes.

All of this reminded me of another story I heard not too long ago of a lead drummer at an evangelical church being asked to step down from his position on the worship team because he was living with his girlfriend and having intimacy with her, someone he deeply loved, but out of wedlock. The result of which was him leaving the church altogether for awhile, even relapsing back into his drug addiction to cope with the rejection. This is much of the same reason why I chose alcohol and drugs for a good period of my life because I thought God had made a mistake with me. I believed the lie that many religious people told me that I would never be accepted in God’s eyes so long as I was in a same-sex relationship. I even tried to date the opposite sex because of this. I tried to force myself to be with women and couldn’t even get an erection no matter how many times I tried. Yet, I continued to live the lie all to be accepted by God and the churches I attended. Thankfully, God eventually helped me to see otherwise by letting me know He made me this way and showed me it was ok to be with one man, so long as I remained monogamous and devoted to them.

Nevertheless, God is nothing but unconditional love, which Christ demonstrated here over two millennia ago. But religion continues to say otherwise through examples like this priest and his views on communion, or the rejection the LGBTQ community continues to face in so many churches, and plenty of others who aren’t really fully welcomed until they conform to “A, B, or C”, all of which gets interpreted from someone’s ego’s interpretation of what the religious book they follow says.

Regardless, I pray I never turn anyone away from God. Sinners or saints, who am I to judge? All are welcomed to Christ’s and God’s table, for communion, for worship, for membership, for leadership, for anything. Telling anyone otherwise is in my book attempting to play God and that for sure is something I’m not and never will be.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson