No surprise then that as the recent heavy snow melted, forecasters were warning us of flooding. What did follow was perhaps less severe than forecasted. Yet things are very wet.

Weather is on my mind since once again we will en masse go out overnight tonight here in King County to count the unsheltered homeless. Our team of eight, for example, will gather with some 400 others to sign in at the Compass Center, and then depart by 2:15 a.m. We’ll head to an area with which I’ve become too familiar.

It’s an area that has changed enormously over the ten years I have been part of the Count there. It underwent a significant transformation in recent years as it became part of the Seattle Light Rail route. This included tunneling through a hillside where in past years encampments existed. Now it is concrete, metal, and lots of fences.

Surprisingly we are still counting about the same number of folks who are homeless in this area. It varies between 10-15. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it must be remembered that this area is one that’s been disheveled for years. Finding a safe place at night here is not all that easy.

So, once again, we will trudge into forest and scour parking areas, in many ways hoping to not find anyone and yet at the same time knowing that if folks are here, we hope to be able to count them.

The appropriate question of course is why there are unsheltered homeless. Some might say — especially those who have big opinions and less knowledge about homelessness — that they choose to be homeless. For every one who chooses to be homeless, I’d say there are 20, maybe more, not choosing homelessness.

Truth be told, the helping system is saturated. It is underfunded. It is inadequate to the need. This is not to say that there is waste, that there is anything untoward among those seeking to and providing help. In most cases, agencies are struggling. They struggle with providing services as if they are trying to keep a morsel of bread from a loaf in every mouth possible. Yet morsels do not sustain.

The homeless system is saturated and the ones we count are in fact “the run off.” I do not demean these folks in that figurative description. But like the ground that when it is too saturated becomes the avenue for runoff, so too are the neighborhoods of our cities where folks simply want to find a safe place to sleep.

So, over night we will count. We’ll look for tents, for vehicles, for individuals walking about to stay warm. It will be below freezing tonight so I hope many will go seek the overnight winter shelters that are open, though once again, they fill and there is not enough space.

Finally, as we count tonight, I will wonder as I do every day in fact, why exactly we as a society allow homelessness. Why do we in fact sustain homelessness? It is ours to sustain just as much as it is ours to end. So I as we go out to count tonight, I already know I will be back next year.

Our misperceptions and misconceptions often weigh us down and create conflicts. I was among many introduced this week to a post that was written about how we view Martin Luther King Jr. It stands by itself as the kind of read that ought to be required. The title is, “Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did,” by Hamden Rice. You can find the whole piece by following this link:

http://www.angryblacklady.com/2011/08/29/you-have-no-idea-what-martin-luther-king-actually-did/

The following segment from Rice’s piece seems particularly appropriate:

“So anyway, I was having this argument with my father about Martin Luther King and how his message was too conservative compared to Malcolm X’s message. My father got really angry at me. It wasn’t that he disliked Malcolm X, but his point was that Malcolm X hadn’t accomplished anything as Dr. King had.

I was kind of sarcastic and asked something like, so what did Martin Luther King accomplish other than giving his ‘I have a dream speech.’

Before I tell you what my father told me, I want to digress. Because at this point in our amnesiac national existence, my question pretty much reflects the national civic religion view of what Dr. King accomplished. He gave this great speech. Or some people say, ‘he marched.’ I was so angry at Mrs. Clinton during the primaries when she said that Dr. King marched, but it was LBJ who delivered the Civil Rights Act.

At this point, I would like to remind everyone exactly what Martin Luther King did, and it wasn’t that he ‘marched’ or gave a great speech.

My father told me with a sort of cold fury, ‘Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south.’

Please let this sink in and take my word and the word of my late father on this. If you are a white person who has always lived in the U.S. and never under a brutal dictatorship, you probably don’t know what my father was talking about.

But this is what the great Dr. Martin Luther King accomplished. Not that he marched, nor that he gave speeches.
He ended the terror of living as a black person, especially in the south.”

There is a terror on the streets also, especially for those who are hungry and/or homeless. It is often more than simply “inhumane” in any one way and can be quite inhumane in almost every way. Yet within that circumstance there is life lived by those making the best they can out of conditions. That is not always their best effort either, just like it isn’t for those of us housed who make enough mistakes that stay hidden simply because we have privacy. But the bottom line remains, how we judge, discern, determine, pass along all that we see and hear and experience, it requires an ability to get to the heart of things. Just like Martin Luther King Jr. “ended the terror of living as a black person” is not the usual description we get on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

This title has likely stayed with me far longer than the book’s contents. As a result I am borrowing some of it because sometimes I think we fall short on the intentional when it comes to how we go about making things better and bringing about change.

Additionally, since we recently saw the movie “War Horse,” there is another feature at work in “things that make for…” In that movie, a horse, and in fact two horses for a share of the movie, form the protagonists. We see war from the persepctive, such as we can and the movie can provide, of horses. It is World War I and the use of horses was still necessary. I won’t elaborate the story here but rather will say that from the perspective of seeing that horses were in fact expendable and just one more piece of the “machinery of war,” there is an intention to look more widely. One scene particularly has two opposing soldiers meet mid-battlefield under flag of momentary truce to disentangle a horse from barbed wire. It is at once poignant, prophetic, and compelling.

Part of the humanity that is lifted is the relationship most have to animals, such as horses, when in fact the horse is seen as companion on earth, as partner in a relationship unique in its own ways, and full of grace.

I admit that the most recent dog we have owned, a black labrador retriever, has brought that connection to living things in a new way for me. Jack the Lab doesn’t supplant my spouse but in so many ways broadens who we are as a couple and as individuals.

I look at the work I do with regard to ending homelessness and learn daily. I see so many who are experiencing homelessness and who have a pet or two. Some would say, “These are homeless! They have no right to put a pet through that!” Perhaps. But then, it is companionship that is the heart of living for any pet (I will even grant that is true of my friend Joe’s snakes).

Things that make for ending homelessness require a new way of being companions. It may come via a pet, or a horse, or even a stranger. What is most necessary is that we see, that we learn, that we understand, that that the rules for war, the guidelines for being organizations, the ediquette of being a person means to be in some way or another a neighbor who alleviates suffering, who cqares for other as self, and who stands against those ways we do otherwise.

Consider the things that make for…. Are you making-for-good on purpose?

That part-time-ness continues. I am contracted to work 25 hours a week, and without fail I hit 40 and quite often pass 50 hours/week. It isn’t that I am a Type A personality (workaholic type) but rather it is the nature of the work itself. I do my job much like those beside me who are volunteers; that is, there is no time clock.

I spent the first years of my time with the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness as a volunteer myself. I was new to Seattle and King County, and I was also somewhat new to the choice to make ending homelessness fill my time. There was much to learn about geography, for example. I’d cut out the small maps in the real estate section of the paper to learn the neighborhoods of Seattle, for it seemed that was one of the few places such a map existed. There was much to learn about local governments, the people and the jurisdictions. There was much to learn about the systems that for the most part were not in place to end homelessness.

In 2004 I moved from volunteer to staff. As Director I have worked part-time and for a few years, full-time. I am now back to part-time, again going on 40-50 hours/week. There is no way to end homelessness part-time.

Yet, systemically, in all too many places and ways, there are structures and/or organizations still relying on part-time labor. Of course this can be justified as cost-efficient. I don’t mean to blame. But there is an enormous downside.

There is no way to end homelessness part-time.

I was discussing this was a colleague who works as clergy part-time and as homeless advocate part-time. It likely hadn’t dawned on me why, when I asked him about not being at an certain event, he replied that he is part-time. I was quiet a moment, and said, “Yes, of course. You are limited by the hours the organization has you doing the job.” Now as Pastor, as most of us who have pastored and/or who now do pastor know, that role stands apart from the clock. Sure, one can squeeze in more “off-time” whenever possible, but is a 24×7 job. It requires being available even at those times when the official role may be off-clock. It is responsive to the demand of members when there are emergencies, and so on.

So I forgive myself weekly for the long hours. I too work 24×7. Some weeks off-time is not infringed, as is true for part-time clergy. But mostly I am available. I get a lot of weekend phone calls and the emails rarely relent on topic. I don’t write this as complaint. More, I puzzle how organizations with limited funds decide three persons doing part-time work adds up to one really dedicated person. I know there’s “waste;” that is, employee lull time. Maybe the logic is that 3 do less lull time than 1 does.

But I still maintain that there is no way to end homelessness part-time. Homelessness isn’t a stack of papers that on Friday can sit til Monday. Homelessness is people. Even for those like me who don’t mostly do direct service. People who are homeless are 24×7. I know those part-timers know that. I don’t fault them. I fault the structures, the organizations that seem to think corners can be cut. My clergy colleague as half-time doesn’t get half done what I get done. He’s required to stop, in part because he has an half-time call. Oh, to be sure, he could put in 30 hours for each position, though I tend to think he may do that as Pastor – put in the 30 hours – which assures he won’t go over 20 to end homelessness. Every little bit counts, right?

I’m not so sure. There is no way to end homelessness part-time.

It is odd, I suppose, that too many of us make this transition amid the toxicity of excessive alcohol and escapist parties, humming auld lang syne and blowing horns and tossing confetti. It is all at once celebration and wake.

Yet so much is and will be unsettled, within us and around us. In America half the country is officially in poverty. The future is bleak. The present is one meal to the next. Jobs are scarce and layoffs abound. Folks who ought to be able to work and contribute face an unwelcome early retirement. Pearl S. Buck wrote, “To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.”

It might seem that hope will never return. It might seem that it is initiated by us and that without our initiating it, on our own, by ourselves, that hope does not exist. Yet hope is bigger than what I do or don’t do. Hope is like a seed, planted, built-in even. I happen to think it comes with birth as capacity within us, as power within us, as is described in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus felt power flow from him when the afflicted woman touched the hem of his garment. Emily Dickinson wrote of this, “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.”

We watch those publicly calling themselves “Occupy” and we wonder how they would suppose that marching, camping, protesting in the streets could possibly change the entrenched power of wealth. It seems that along with tents they spilled into the streets armed with statistics, with data, with all that would be necessary to make a case that the 1% dominate and that the 99% are subjects in all the worst sense of the words. Yet it took more than just numbers and studies to stand in the streets, to camp overnight, to battle the corporate giants. These who gathered and still gather needed what will not make the banners but must be present within each one. Paulo Freire described it: “Without a minimum of hope, we cannot so much as start the struggle.”

It is the deep dark secret in some cases; that is, that we hope. We hope for something better, for things more just.

Perhaps it begins with confession. After all, none of us, even those seeking the idealistic high ground, is perfect. Those who are homeless are already portrayed as fatally flawed by many, in great part wrongly as to their circumstance, and occasionally accurately, but nonetheless, the portrayal brings no remedy or grace. Those of us living under a stable roof are hardly any more perfect, in large part fortunate, lucky, accidental, and in many other ways grateful that what could have skewed sideways remained straight. But we do not deceive those who see clearly. Oscar Wilde knew us as well as anyone. He wrote, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

I have long held the words of Charles Simic as a special map of who I am and when I fall short of who I want to be. Simic said, “Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships.” I confess that I stand opposite a lot. It aggravates many, indeed. I see the usual ruts and while now and then those ruts deliver us safely to desired destinations, for the most part I see them as impediments to all that we value. Sam Keen wrote, “Sign on the muddy road in Tennessee: ‘Choose your rut carefully. You’ll be in it the next ten miles.’ ” Stepping back from the bustle is what the end of the year requires or what any transition requires. Call it a resolution if we wish but nevertheless, is it change at work or just fantasy?

The best resolution might be to not demand the outcome as much as to reboot the tools that we require, that in fact we need, to move forward. And make no mistake, contrary to what I hear too much of from those campaigning for the Republican Presidential nomination, moving backward is not an option. It is the epitome of foolishness and delusion, and worse, harm.

So it is not always that we seek hope because we want to produce good things as hope’s outcome. As “Occupy” is and will further need to discern, change is not black and white. In a country like ours, where so much entwines and is built parasitically to rise or fall in tandem, real change will be muddy. Ending homelessness requires remedies that take what is and tweak it one step to the left or right so that we exit that rut. Recently deceased Vaclav Havel, author and political leader, said, “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.”

How we make sense of what is and how we have it alleviate the harm that we currently see escalating, without at the same time creating war between us, among us, and within us, is our resolve for the coming year and years. Let us begin by agreeing that we must change, some slowly, some swiftly, be we homeless or housed, it begins and moves forward with each one of us, borne by love or at minimum respect for neighbor, by faith or at minimum trust that the other wants peace and security for each neighbor, and finally by hope that at minimum we will make sense out of what will too frequently look like the gutter but can be a place from which we see the stars.

Hope. Please.

The experience of homelessness is not unlike other forms of oppression in our society. It is not new. Perhaps the other most recent, most enduring, and most offensive has been racism. I wish racism existed no more. However, it is evident even today as we listen to those who simply do not like anything this President does. Few explanations include racism, but it is there, plain ans simple.

So on this solstice, I offer the words of a great man.

Howard Thurman, in his book, “Jesus and the Disinherited,” writes, “In a society in which certain people or groups – by virtue of economic, social, or political power – have dead-weight advantages over others who are essentially without that kind of power, those who are thus disadvantaged know that they cannot fight back effectively, that they cannot protect themselves, and that they cannot demand protection from their persecutors. Any slight conflict, any alleged insult, any vague whim, any unrelated frustration, may bring down upon the head of the defenseless the full weight of naked physical violence. Even in such a circumstance it is not the fear of death that is most often at work; it is the deep humiliation arising from dying without benefit of cause or purpose. No high end is served. There is no trumpet blast to stir the blood and to anesthetize the agony. Here there is no going down to the grave with a shout; it is merely being killed or being beaten in utter wrath or indifferent sadism, without the dignity of being on the receiving end of a premeditated act hammered out in the white heat of a transcendent moral passion. The whole experience attacks the fundamental sense of self-respect and personal dignity, without which a man is a man. In such physical violence the contemptuous disregard for personhood is the fact that is degrading.”

The contemptuous disregard for personhood afflicts us without pause. It is something each one of us enacts, be it in our own household and/or in the streets and neighborhoods that shape our lives.

It is time to hold a candle up to be a light in the darkness. It is time to have a regard for personhood, and to see how that changes the world in which we live.

There’s a recurring movement that happens in our country when we near a holiday. The needy are seen as if for the first time, especially by the media. I have already seen several needy families brought into a media setting, their perilous circumstances recounted for all to see and hear, and then slowly but surely a charitable bounty is given to them to alleviate the harm that poverty, debt, and other burdens exact. Everyone stands and applauds, the family weeps, and the host of the show beams.

Don’t get me wholly wrong. Helping folks one by one is not wrong. It feels good to watch this, mostly. If I try to sit in the shoes of the family being helped, I personally cringe a little. That much attention of my pain and then having it publicly alleviated….ugh. I know. Be thankful. Still.

Many on faith communities sometimes do well helping one by one. It is historic. It is not perfect, since sometimes one gets helped, another doesn’t. But the fact is, our arbitrary standards are the main impediment to doing all we can. These are days when we ought do all we can. Help one by one, if that is who comes for help. Help one-at-a-time if that is the way to help sooner than later.
Make it more than a transaction, a disbursement. Get to know the ones who are helped. Build a relationship. Say, “come back, stay in touch.”

It is also a time for twos. By this I mean partnerships. For example, each congregation that helps too often does so singularly. By this I mean they don’t engage neighboring congregations. They don’t pool resources, leverage assets, and thus increase the number of folks they can help. Too often everything stays centered on that one who was or is being helped. It’s satisfying, after all. Why risk facing the inability to help many more?

It works similarly with those who work with and beside congregations. For them, mostly in the nonprofit realm, their satisfaction with their own work and client base – of course determined by the limited resources they have – remains relatively constant. They too can do more, can widen the circle, by partnering. More and more, this is becoming evident in practices as much as in theories. Still, there are too many who think their brand needs building, their fundraising requires their strong singular brand, and that to partner too vigorously risks who they are and what they get to help those who come as clients. Ugh.

Ending homelessness, helping those at risk, indeed takes one-by-one. It also takes working in twos, and threes, and fours. There isn’t space or time to be otherwise or to do otherwise.

I was immediately reminded of words that I have held onto for some thirty years now that were given to me by a mentor. They were not his words but were from the writings of a former Bishop from Brazil, Dom Helder Camara.

Camara’s words came to be called “The Spiral of Violence.” There are three stages to the spiral.

1.  Injustice    (a basic violence that produces covert violence by oppressors; also called INSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE)

When injustice builds and bursts, there follows,

2. Revolt    (More overt physical violence where people and soldiers are injured and killed)

To stop revolt, there follows,

3. Repression  (powers that be call out troops to put down the revolt)

The cycle repeats and leads to greater injustice, leading to greater revolt, leading to greater repression.

The only way to break the cycle is at #1, which addresses the root causes of struggle.

Thus, as my FB friend suggests, “escalation is necessary for justice” may be exactly the wrong path. I don’t know that she meant this as the application toward gaining justice in every environment and suspect her words were very narrowly aimed. Yet it is a method that tends to be a first response all too often as I watch those seeking justice in the world.  Escalate. Yet what escalate does is to initiate the spiral and in effect esclate the violence from covert to overt.

All this points to nonviolence of course. But it also points to remedying injustice. One of the best tools to remedy injustice is “to witness” and “to report.” I can say that easily in a country like the US where it is uncommon to be killed for being a witness who reports. I realize in settings around the world many witnesses are killed as they try to report INSTITUTIONAL violence.

There was a time not that long ago where it was dangerous to witness and to report. Life-threatening. For example, I watched the recent movie, “The Help,” yesterday. It is the story of the “colored help” who served the households in Jackson, Mississippi back in the 1960′s. The story is about a young white woman who seeks to document the lives of “the help” with a book of stories, some good and many more horrible. It is during the time Medgar Evers was killed, sending chills through the community of “coloreds.”

The threat of violence is well documented as unjust power in the work of Howard Thurman’s “Jesus and the Disinherited” where he writes, “The threat of violence within a framework of well-nigh limitless power is a weapon by which the weak are held in check.” In “The Help” the injustice is addressed by witnesses and reports in the form of a book that “reveals” — we people of faith call this revelation — the truth.

I won’t belabor all this as to how it reflects in parallel to those who suffer in homelessness, but it clearly does. Escalation as the chosen tool to exit injustice is often what leads to the spiral described by Camara. It is rarely the place of exit where injustice leads to justice. That is not to say that courage is not at work. Indeed, courage must escalate among those seeking to turn around injustice. In fact, it is the core tool to overturn injustice alongside a compassion that aligns each of us, one-by-one, with those who suffer and leads us to refuse to continue the injustice. If we need to escalate our refusal, then yes, escalate refusal, nonviolently. Refuse to cooperate. Or as Occupy encourages, refuse to do business with unjust businesses. But again, any escalation that leads into the systemic responses of revolt and repression simply will not lead to justice.

Mary’s words fit this third week of Advent 2011:  “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he has sent empty away.” We must keep hope alive, and few better ways have been used that the words of those suffering injustice.

I was immediately reminded of words that I have held onto for some thirty years now that were given to me by a mentor. They were not his words but were from the writings of a former Bishop from Brazil, Dom Helder Camara.

Camara’s words came to be called “The Spiral of Violence.” There are three stages to the spiral.

1.  Injustice    (a basic violence that produces covert violence by oppressors; also called                         INSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE)

When injustice builds and bursts, there follows,

2. Revolt    (More overt physical violence where people and soldiers are injured and killed)

To stop revolt, there follows,

3. Repression  (powers that be call out troops to put down the revolt)

The cycle repeats and leads to greater injustice, leading to greater revolt, leading to greater repression.

The only way to break the cycle is at #1, which addresses the root causes of struggle.

Thus, as my FB friend suggests, “escalation is necessary for justice” may be exactly the wrong path. I don’t know that she meant this as the application toward gaining justice in every environment and suspect her words were very narrowly aimed. Yet it is a method that tends to be a first response all too often as I watch those seeking justice in the world.  Escalate. Yet what escalate does is to initiate the spiral and in effect esclate the violence from covert to overt.

All this points to nonviolence of course. But it also points to remedying injustice. One of the best tools to remedy injustice is “to witness” and “to report.” I can say that easily in a country like the US where it is uncommon to be killed for being a witness who reports. I realize in settings around the world many witnesses are killed as they try to report INSTITUTIONAL violence.

There was a time not that long ago where it was dangerous to witness and to report. Life-threatening. For example, I watched the recent movie, “The Help,” yesterday. It is the story of the “colored help” who served the households in Jackson, Mississippi back in the 1960′s. The story is about a young white woman who seeks to document the lives of “the help” with a book of stories, some good and many more horrible. It is during the time Medgar Evers was killed, sending chills through the community of “coloreds.”

The threat of violence is well documented as unjust power in the work of Howard Thurman’s “Jesus and the Disinherited” where he writes, “The threat of violence within a framework of well-nigh limitless power is a weapon by which the weak are held in check.” In “The Help” the injustice is addressed by witnesses and reports in the form of a book that “reveals” — we people of faith call this revelation — the truth.

I won’t belabor all this as to how it reflects in parallel to those who suffer in homelessness, but it clearly does. Escalation as the chosen tool to exit injustice is often what leads to the spiral described by Camara. It is rarely the place of exit where injustice leads to justice. That is not to say that courage is not at work. Indeed, courage must escalate among those seeking to turn around injustice. In fact, it is the core tool to overturn injustice alongside a compassion that aligns each of us, one-by-one, with those who suffer and leads us to refuse to continue the injustice. If we need to escalate our refusal, then yes, escalate refusal, nonviolently. Refuse to cooperate. Or as Occupy encourages, refuse to do business with unjust businesses. But again, any escalation that leads into the systemic responses of revolt and repression simply will not lead to justice.

Mary’s words fit this third week of Advent 2011:  “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he has sent empty away.” We must keep hope alive, and few better ways have been used that the words of those suffering injustice.

He was bundled in a few sweatshirts, under an partially open hooded rain jacket. His beard had grown longer than when last I recall seeing him. He looked more despondent, which might sound like, “duh,” if it were not for the fact that this man has usually been a rather positive-energy panhandler. He usually waves, greets people, moves around a lot.

Life outdoors as a person who is homeless does take its toll. The way this man had energy and now had lost energy is not unexpected. At the same time, bringing this man to safety is as important as it is for any other facing harm from homelessness. Yet, how?

I wrote his message down. “Any act of kindness will be appreciated.” I work in the world where acts of kindness happen. Often they happen via those who have a roof on behalf of those without one. Perhaps as often these acts of kindness happen between and among peers. It’s not perfect. It can be dog-eat-dog, so to speak. It’s about survival. But those who suffer know it matters to act kindly to those beside whom they suffer harm. It’s not perfect, but then, lessons usually aren’t.

I look around at those not homeless and see kindness in short supply. One Facebook friend, i.e. someone I have not met in real life but with whom I converse on Facebook, wrote recently, “I am not a b*tch. I’ve just had a few bad years.” It’s clear that something in her life motivated the post. Interactions with persons close enough to matter, names hurled or just hinted at, gaps expanded between those one thought had trust.

A good share of the way we will end homelessness must be built between and among those of us who have allowed kindness to become secondary. It may seem that we are often more willing to help the stranger at risk but in fact I think we are quicker to condemn than help. The reason is kindness. When we don’t practice kindness with each other, we are less ready to practice it with others, those in harm’s way lose too. In fact the old kick-the-dog adage is more true than not. When we are unkind with those who matter to us, we will lean to being more unkind, exponentially so, to strangers.

We witness this in unexpected places. Seattle, a generally compassionate city where voters even have regularly approved a housing levy to help build low-income housing, becomes a neighbor-against-neighbor circumstance when it’s not just a handout at an off-ramp that’s sought but in fact, perhaps permanent housing for the homeless or a hygience drop-in center or a person living in their vehilce on one’s block.The kindness is sucked away as fast as if it had been vacuumed.

“An act of kindness will be appreciated.” It will. Try it to one nearby. Because it might surprise those who may have gotten used to your being a “b*tch” or whatever other name you have been given. Try often, again and again.