Shepherd's Guide Brain-Teaser #3

Like all the other Shepherding posts this is a brain-teaser I feel will be reassuring to readers. The article’s source text is the book Fortunate Son by Walter Mosley (2006), and it is a very good read for anyone looking for a “feel-good” book to delve into over the holidays! Arrested development is a term used in psychology to describe developmental suspension that occurs too soon in most cases. It is an abnormal state of regression usually occurring during preteen and preadolescent stages of child development. It can also describe abnormal physical conditions in human development resulting from defective genes or developmental deficiencies. Mosley’s allegorical missive is a memorable work of fiction chronicling two impressionable youths. The importance of staying hopeful, even when life happenings are at their most disagreeable is the message I feel Mosley is attempting to communicate! The principle characters in Fortunate Son (2006) are victims of arrested development.

Most literary works of fiction contain two important components: Protagonists [main character(s)] and antagonists [those opposing the main character(s)]. Authors often serve as social poets highlighting the virtues and foils plaguing humanity, while drawing attention to aspects of a characters’ personality that led to moral conscience conflict. There are two brothers presented for analysis; one white and the other one not. One born privileged and the other, it seems, destined to struggle for the most basic essentials that truly all humans should have access to. Like most humanities source texts, Mosley’s fable offers up no clear-cut answers, or well-defined resolutions to leave readers feeling they completely understand the characters and their plights. Mosley does tackle some tough issues like race, communal status, privilege, and societal inequities though; and his book made me contemplate peoples' perceptions of race. One boy was born privileged and the other it seems, was destined to struggle for the most basic essentials that truly all humans should have access to. Like most humanities source texts, Mosley’s fable offers up no clear-cut answers or well-defined resolutions to leave readers feeling they completely understand the characters and their plights. Mosley does tackle some tough issues like race, communal status, privilege, and societal inequities though; and his book made me contemplate peoples' perceptions of race. Reading and ultimately learning about characters in stories can help with peoples’ moral development in general, but the activity is particularly advantageous to forming a "sense" of morality. For instance, children that regularly ingest literary characters inadvertently absorb positive attitudinal traits that foster clear-headed navigation of difficult life happenings, and emotional stamina leading to accomplishments.

There are worse things than being born to unmarried parents who barely knew each other. However, in Thomas Beerman’s case, his father chose to go AWOL shortly after his conception, and this changed everything for both mother and child. Thomas Beerman lived with his mother's lover since he was the age of two. Minas Nolan was a Nordic widower with a son of his own. Nolan, was a heart surgeon at Helmutt-Briggs hospital where little Thomas (Tommy) Beerman was born with a hole in his lung. Elton Trueblood abandoned Branwyn Beerman as soon as she announced she was pregnant. Tommy later renamed "Lucky" spent the first six months of his life in a germ-free ICU encircled by glass. After Nolan convinced Branwyn to remove Tommy from his encapsulation he endured countless infections. The following eighteen months of his life were convoluted with pneumonia, a series of minor infections, and high fevers every other week. By Tommy's second birthday Nolan declared the "bubble boy" was 100 percent able to live a normal life. The other youth protagonist in Mosley’s story was born into a more financially stable two-parent family. Yet families headed by two married adults are not necessarily better off than unmarried, impoverished ones. From observation it seems financially stable couples usually possess more combined material wealth, and monetary security to occupy their minds from any areas of discontentment. Their money acts as a type of diversion from any unpleasantness. The former matriarch of the Nolan family died of child birth complications after giving birth to Eric. Eric Nolan was born weighing 12 pounds and 12 ounces. As one of the nurses at the hospital commented, it was as if Eric had sucked all the life out of his mother until there was nothing left. Having been consumed, she surrendered 36 hours later. Dr. Nolan was suddenly a single father working long days well into most evenings. In all probability he immersed himself in his job to distract from the pain of instantaneous widowerhood. Branwyn became the mother of both boys’ hearts! When they were about eight years old she became ill after taking care of an influenza-stricken Eric, and later passed away after three days of bed confinement. Both Branwyn and Ahn, the Nolans' Vietnamese nanny, were muses guiding the two boys; dead or living. Additionally, along with Dr. Nolan they each served as shepherds at various junctures in the lives of the two (Mosley, 2006). Let's see what you, the reader, believe after absorbing this shepherding post!

Tommy seemed to embark on his journey through a living hell much earlier than Eric, post his mother’s death. Though Eric was given a foreboding admonition from Ahn not long after. She told Eric during one of their heart-to-heart chats he was born to a complexity of existence, in the same sense all virtuosos do! She said Eric was likened to an orphaned tiger baby in a parable from her childhood. A tiger fell in love with a beautiful young maiden, and asked her to run away with him and live in the forest. The young woman's mother warned her not to go with the tiger because he was a man-eater and would eventually devour her. Still, the young woman believed the tiger's profession of love to her and agreed to go with him. On her wedding day the young woman wore a yellow robe as was her tribal cultural custom. A few years later a little baby was found wrapped in a bloody yellow robe in the middle of a forest clearing. The baby's grandmother took the baby and raised him up to be a king and leader of his people. Later during one of the young man's crusades to unite his people, a tiger emerged from the woods and approached him while surrounded by his armed men. One of the men struck and mortally wounded the tiger, and the young king looked deeply into the eyes of the tiger as it lay there dying. At that moment he undoubtedly “knew” the truth about his parents (Mosley, 2006). It can be lonely at the top indeed! Eric was slated to be the "golden boy" who won at everything he did! He was the more fortunate son indeed but to his dismay, he somehow managed to diminish the light of the people he loved most. First his birth mother and eventually "momma" Branwyn. It seemed to me while reading Mosley's account that Thomas Beerman was expected to lose from the moment of his conception! He had a kind benevolent surrogate father, yet despite that he ended up living out the remainder of a former privileged life in a ghetto! Without giving away Mosley’s amazingly teachable finale, the unfortunate son whose life was synonymous with loss, misery, depredation, and degradation, ended up saving the life of someone very important to his brother Eric. Someone Eric probably placed in danger in the way only he could do without intending to. Tommy ended up a wimpy, pampered momma's boy turned drug dealer. After that, a homeless, beat-up, battered wanderer that chose to show up at his brother’s home, per chance! Eric's long lost colored brother and prodigal son had returned, and walked right into the middle of a Nolan family drama (Mosley, 2006). ?

Tommy moved into his birth father’s house not long after Branwyn's death. He earned the name “Lucky” while attending Carson Elementary. His closest friend at that time, Bruno, named him Lucky after his first day of school, in which he had a melt-down. Tommy began sobbing uncontrollably in a classroom full of staring children, after the sun shone through the homeroom window and blinded his eyes. The teacher asked Bruno to walk his new classroom buddy to the school nurse for an evaluation. After asking a few probing questions, she allowed Lucky to stay with her the remainder of the school day. During the walk home Bruno commented on how lucky Tommy was to be allowed to stay in the nurse's office when he really wasn't sick. Tommy's time at Carson Elementary was to be short-lived though. One day he just decided to stop attending school; opting to spend his free time in an abandoned alley behind his father's house instead. The discovery of the paradise hideaway was bitter sweet but worth it in some respects! He found the oasis after a humiliating confrontation with some neighborhood bullies, who roughed him up pretty good! Bruno and his older sister, Monique showed up just as Tommy was bracing himself for a blow to the head from one of his assailants on his way to school. Monique immediately started beating, punching, and kicking the boys, quickly disengaging them. She instilled the fear of assault by an angry black girl into those hooligans! After the beat down Bruno formally introduced his sister to Tommy, and she showed him the "secret way" to school to avoid any further neighborhood confrontations. This was when Tommy found the creeping bugs and critters, a little pond with green algae growing over the top of it, an abandoned incinerator, and a large tree that was the home of a giant parrot he named "No Man." Monique later became a shepherd (and muse) for Tommy too (Mosley, 2006)!

Fortunate Son is the tale of a born winner and a born loser, or is it? Eric specifically, it seemed, was unable to surpass an emotionally-draining life’s trend without the preeminence of his shorter, wimpier, less-assertive, colored brother, Thomas. I believe Eric needed Tommy to help him balance all aspects of his wholeness. Personage involves all of the social aspects of one’s existence, by which people often define who they are. Personhood on the other hand involves all the physical or material aspects of a human being. Take colored people for instance. In today's society, although now able to enjoy the same rights and privileges as others, still have a great deal of negative self-concept personal baggage to grapple with. It all exists in forms of discouraging media imagery and their narratives, alarmingly disdainful social statistics post the civil rights era, and the added pressure of over-achievement within social systems designed to weed out (if not draw attention to) the undesirables living [and competing] within them. My shepherd gave me one of his reality check pep talks, or to use youthful urban vernacular, "Keeping it real!" His lecture topic: Perceptions of Race in American. He began with, "You [me] are positioned at the darker end of the color spectrum so you are going to have be twice as competent at everything to gain your countrymen’s' respect. [They] do not expect much or anything worthy of praise from you. It is this harsh reality you'll need to accept, and then embrace life with your eyes wide open as you work to accomplish each task and endeavor! You should feel good about all you accomplish, considering it the exception to the social stigma attached to you at birth in the forms of caste and class! The former is manageable although hindering in an everyday sense and the latter is surmountable. For what purpose though? To help others like yourself! People who likewise have been polarized and paralyzed, though full of potential!" Coming from a blue-eyed white person with straighter hair, my shepherd's remarks were hurtful to my self-esteem and overall confidence. In actuality, as I later found out during our chat, he's not [really] white. He said, "I'm just barely black!" Ha! "I want you to be on the lookout for individuals like yourself, who may/ may not look like you. America should be so lucky if you stay committed to such an important task! Further, as you ascend for the purpose of being a blessing to others, you'll need to assess white America's standards and then exceed above and beyond them like the Asian-American kids do! Not to compete with others though…no.. this 'exceeds expectations' ideal I'm proposing here is about the true fulfillment of our founding fathers’ intent in building a strong, fortified nation. Whereby its strength lies in the capableness, intelligence, and ingenuity of ALL its citizens. Even those who came to this country unwillingly deserve a chance to demonstrate their efficacy like all other Americans! Anything less is unacceptable, and this is why your forebears sacrificed themselves during the civil rights era! Now, it is up to you to do the same!" What a blow-hard! He continued, "White people will likely label you with whatever [they] feel best suites you, which will likely be based on your physical appearance.” North African, Arabian, Indo-Asian, Negro, black, colored, etc. I've been labeled as each! Those are just labels so the rest of society can assemble everyone into categories. However, for someone like me the categories are often saturated with pejoratives and colloquialisms. They are stigmatizing to the people labeled by them, and this is what most coloreds have to fight against in life…..the stigma!” I briefly digressed for a purpose….to transition into what follows.

Mosley (2006) tackles a difficult subject without his message becoming too preachy or self-righteous; or giving rise to "white guilt." Most of white America will never know how it feels to grow up or live in a ghetto. To my chagrin, the hero in Mosley’s story was a wealthy white male that helped to raise, rear, and provide financially for another man's son; who happened to be black. The biggest motivator of all was love for the boy's mother, Ms. Branwyn Beerman, whom he treated as his common-law partner until the day of her death. Elton Trueblood was a complicated man who more often times than not, was a poor excuse for a father. Any man can sire offspring but not all of them can behave like dads. This is why shepherds to act as Guardian Angels are crucial for orphans and children from broken or single parent-headed homes. Shepherding is not about buying things for underprivileged and needy children. Although at times doing so may be required. Really though, it is about teaching through demonstration the value of a dollar to pupils who have been financially disenfranchised most of their childhoods. In TAP (The Angel Project) our shepherds are professional wage earners who understand and ultimately convey to pupils that rough beginnings do not have to permanently cripple, impair, or hinder talents, marketable skills, and drive. Drive is what motivates people to refuse to accept negative aspects of their life situations; because they intuitively know they are temporary undesirable ones that can gradually improve. Shepherds often give counsel and guidance based on expertise, and at times provide for a pupil financially until they begin working and can pay their own way. A good shepherd will teach pupils the principle of motivation, which asserts diligent, continual, habitual, and perpetual efforts should be applied to pursuits until positive results are achieved!??

What children learn during formative years of brain development is the foundational base for burgeoning personality, self-efficacy, and the overall psyche. So what does a wealthy [white] heart surgeon have to impart to a black child born with a hole in his lung, and seemingly born to lose? The “bubble boy” who had to remain germ-free until the age of two and become physically strong enough to breathe on his own did survive! Thanks to someone else’s father who, out of his love demonstrated compassion by giving the boy a running start at attempting to win. With a little luck in his favor at times no doubt! Nolan, a trained doctor, told the boy’s mother something muy importante! That she should allow the boy to struggle a little so he could learn the depth, confines, and source of his own physical strength. To see what would happen! I think readers will appreciate Fortunate Son (2006) as much as I did if they get a chance to read it! It is a must for humanities studies and forward-thinking parents raising children in the United States. Ours is a country with turbulent past racial divides, in which many of us are diligently working to build bridges of understanding! ?

Frohe Feiertage 2023 von The Angel Project! Happy 2023 Holidays from The Angel Project! I am [still] calling on all seasoned professionals to consider shepherding in the upcoming year!

Remember, NOW is the TIME for GIVING! Give and likewise, equitably according to measure shall be given unto YOU!??

Mosley, W. (2006). Fortunate Son. NY, NY: Back Bay Books.?

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