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    I am writing to anyone who cannot begin to understand why she or he has done what he or she has just done.  Why has she overreacted?  Why has he shut down?  I am writing for anyone who has trouble connecting to and focusing on the sounds and the sights of the immediate world.  I am writing to anyone who has a repeated involuntary movement of muscles- the muscles that produce shudders, or the muscles of the face, the ones around the joints...  I am writing to anyone who has trouble making eye contact-especially, but not exclusively, children.

    What do I have to say?  How about that we are not out of our minds, even though we may be treated for problems of the mind.  Shudders, difficulty in attending and focusing, distance from the rest of the world- all of these may be traceable to experiences of being over-powered.  I say may be traceable.  I may well be wrong, but it is worth looking into.  

     I am writing to anyone who has been over-powered by means of physical force or by means of gestures and/or words coming from an assigned position of power-over.  I am writing to anyone who is conscious of such a chapter in his or her life story.  I am writing to anyone who has no consciousness of such a chapter in her or his life story.  I am writing to anyone who believes that that painful time can be over-come by means of mind exercises.  I am writing to anyone who believes that she or he has overcome the effects of power-over.  I am writing to anyone who has been told that words and gestures coming from assigned power-over are false and will pass away on their own.  I am writing to anyone who has ever told anyone that that statement is true.

    I am writing to anyone who has ever heard that precious saying about sticks and stones.  

    I am writing to the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, who define shame as

The painful emotion arising from the consciousness of something dishonouring, ridiculous, or indecorous in one's own conduct or circumstances (or in those of others whose honour or disgrace one regards as one's own), or of being in a situation which offends one's sense of modesty or decency.

    I am writing to tell them that their definition does no justice to the experience of shame, and so I must be writing to Shakespeare and Tennyson and the others whom they quote.  I am writing to tell them and to tell you and to tell anyone else that:

    When we are over-powered, we are shamed, and this shame involves every part of us and this shame doesn't go anywhere without a big fight.  Over-power is evil, and its effects are evil.  Shame is evil.  Evil would like nothing better than for you and for me to believe that its effects can be overcome as easily as we skip over a decorative garden fence.  

   The only solution for shame is humility- being treated graciously and truthfully.  Humility can be very hard to find, especially when we do not know that it is the one desire of our hearts.  When humility is in the vicinity, we have the possibility of a big fight, a fight like we've never heard of, a fight that is at least as scary as any other fight we have ever seen.        

    I am writing because I see the world around me through this lens.  I know something about the power of power-over and have seen some of the power of humility.  I could be wrong, but if you just shut down or your best friend just overreacted wildly to a really small thing, I believe that it is very possible that neither you nor your friend have lost your mind.  I believe that that is definitely worth considering.