Category: Words To Live By

Recently, I went to a coffee shop I normally go to at least once a week and decided to change things up by trying a new type of latte and a different topping for my croissant. What harm could that cause, I thought? Within minutes of beginning to consume both, I was breaking out in hives and feeling itchy, especially on my face. As soon as I discarded both and switched to my normal order there, the problem went away.

The fact is my body is extremely sensitive to everything I put into it these days it seems. Food, drinks, medicine, etc., I have had a number of reactions to plenty of things I’ve ingested or even put on my body topically over the years, things that probably aren’t ever a problem for the rest of the mass populace. Why I tell you this is that it’s the very same reason why I’ve had to make the difficult decision not to do any of the COVID vaccines at the present time, because I don’t want to risk having any more serious reactions with my health. And if you’re wondering what I reacted to in that coffee shop order, it was either the oat milk or almond butter, two things I’ve ingested before, that suddenly created a problem for me!

Nevertheless, while I fully support all COVID vaccinations in the hopes they will help remove this pandemic, I’m frustrated because companies are now moving in the direction of requiring vaccination cards if you want to do business with them. I’m having to face this very thing now with the cruise line my partner and I plan on sailing for our 10-year anniversary in 2022 that we already have a down payment towards. Cruise lines are just the beginning of a growing number of businesses that are talking about requiring vaccinations cards when doing business with them. While I don’t have a problem getting a COVID test, or taking all the necessary precautions of mask-wearing, remaining socially distant, and using hand sanitizers, requiring a person to have to carry a vaccination card feels as if rights are being taken away. Because I really don’t have the luxury of taking a COVID vaccination shot and assuming I won’t react to it.

For most people though, getting the COVID vaccine isn’t going to affect them whatsoever. Some, like my partner, might get localized pain at the injection point or minor body aches, but the vast majority will probably have little to no reaction at all. I wish I could safely say the same would be true for me. But when something as simple as drinking Chamomile tea causes me to break out in painful hemorrhoids (yes that’s true!), or taking Gabapentin a number of years back when prescribed caused me to hallucinate, or taking Ciprofloxacin a number of years ago as well for a prostate condition caused me to have red welts all over my body and extended damage to my skin, or consuming many other things I’ve tried where each has caused me serious side effects, some taking months or longer to resolve, I’ve had to accept there’s a significant chance I’d react quite negatively to any COVID vaccine.

So, yes, I’m frustrated, because it really does feel like my rights are being taken away when vaccination cards start becoming a requirement to do things like take a cruise. I mean, what if restaurants, movie theaters, airlines, etc., start following suit? Could this become a world where you’re only “good to go” if you have a vaccination card? While I know vaccinations for this virus are important, especially in light of me having had the dam thing for the entire month of January, and still having residual smell and taste issues since, it should still be a choice with no positive or negative ramifications stemming from that choice.

Regardless, I want to make one thing very clear. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, as I fully support whomever chooses to do a vaccination, especially a COVID-one. My stance on not doing a COVID vaccination presently is more about my health and the very difficult life I’ve been living long before this pandemic ever hit our world. I’ve had so many health issues that adding one more to my plate could very well break me for good. So, when there’s potential for me having yet another crazy reaction to something I don’t ultimately need right now for survival, I’m choosing to not take it for now. So yes, I may have to accept the fact that if the new norm of our world is the requirement of vaccination cards to do things, I may actually become a leper of sorts in society. But, if there’s one comforting thought in me saying that, at least I know Jesus will unconditionally love even lepers like me too…

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

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