Don't Blame Me, This Post Just Grew - Beaver Dams, Watercourses, and Ranting

 A former partner, Susan McLaughlin (a truly super lawyer!) replied to one of the endless things I've been posting on Facebook, this one about beaver dams.  It requires more than an acknowledgement in a reply.  In fact, it just grew into a short blog post.  I’m ready for the endless parade of hearings I have tomorrow, so I got time.

Watercourses are - from the source to the ocean - connected ecosystems.   Some people think a word like "ecosystems" is some sort of liberal, modern-day doublespeak and means nothing.  How silly.  It means that nature has slowly evolved, with only rare, occasional sudden changes (think the Mt. St. Helen's explosion, the Tunguska event, etc.), and any figurative grit between the stones has slowly been worn down over geological time.  Nature fits neatly. 

Humanity is the first creature who has had the ability to change nature abruptly and my goodness have we done so with a will!  The examples are legion: carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (bad, good, climate change, non-climate change, whatever, it's still at a high level due to some extent or near-total extent due to humans), the "harmless" cloroflorocarbons which still are wreaking havoc with the protective ozone layer in the mid-statosphere, microplastics in damn near everything (the effect of which we aren't sure about, but it's either neutral or bad, and I'd prefer not to eat plastic), yadda, yadda, yadda.

Yeah, I know I'm on a rant.  Either live with it or ignore it, I can live with either decision.  The Guy From Boston passed away, so I’m using a little of his thunder, although he was a master as cursing which I will never, never match.  Hey, I miss Joe and his cigars.

If you do something to any part of the watercourse, you change it.  Destroying beaver dams because they are damn inconvenient is common, but we don't know what we are doing to the whole system.  Maybe very little; maybe a great deal.  

One major contributor to humanity effects on watercourses is common in Appalachia, mountaintop removal mining.  When you fly over it, even at commercial altitudes, it is fugly.  Fugly is reason enough to quit it, but I’m in a small majority that think that.  They remove the "overburden" (the stuff above the coal seam), take out the coal and burn it, and toss what is not coal in the valleys below where the coal seam was.  That destroys the upper part of the watercourse and the flora and fauna necessary to the completeness of the ecosystem is gone.  Aw, it might kill some fish or mollusks that we never heard of, how sad.  Well, dammit, it IS sad, because we don’t know the importance of those creatures to the health of the ecosystem.  We just don’t know.  Look, we have seriously impacted the bee population.  No bees, no pollination; no pollination, no vegetation; no vegetation, no food; no food, we die.  That’s more than an “oopsie,” that’s serious shit.  We don’t know all of what we are doing.  We know SOME of what we are doing.  By mountaintop mining, we are exposing lots of silicates.  (Remember the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel dug in the 1930’s?  A large number of the people who worked on the project died of silicosis, which is a particularly nasty way to go.)  We are exposing other products which nature has kept underground for Her obscure purposes – Purposes that we will not realize until something comes up and bites humanity.   We sit in the lap of our Mother the Earth, and make a holy mess.  Humanity ought to have our collective asses kicked.

I don’t pretend to know nearly as much science as I need to nor am I amongst real nature nearly so often.  Ok, that’s my fault.  That doesn’t keep me from considering that we might be digging ourselves into a hole that sooner or later, may kill us.  As I tell my client who have dug themselves into a hole, the first thing you do is quit digging.

Mizpah.  I hope.

Someday, I might explain that.  If you knew my beloved late brother Oce Smith, you might already have a clue.

The Lawyer as the Sin-eater

 As a legal advisor and advocate, we lawyers fill a critical role in the lives of our clients and indeed all of those with whom we come in contact.  I still remember the first time I was addressed as “Counselor” by a senior lawyer.  I startled me then and still startles me now.  It is not just a title, it’s a description of what we do and the difference we make in people’s lives.

But it does have a cost.

We are aware of the role of secondary trauma, aka “compassion fatigue” in a lawyer’s life.  That from chronically dealing with direct trauma victims.  Oh, the spirit of “I can take anything, bring it on” still lives on, but the effects of secondary trauma are there.   You can admit them, you can deny them, but they are still there.  The burdensome effects get worse and worse as we take more and more on ourselves.

Prosecutors deal with crime victims.  We deal with juvenile victims of crimes, who are too young to realize that it’s sometimes a very dirty world.  The young ones often believe that their bad experiences are their fault, a sort of vast justice for something they must have done.  Defense counsel must give a “zealous defense” to the perpetrators and then must endure, privately, the effects of encountering a little victim.  Personal injury lawyers – on both sides of the cases – deal with the grievously injured.  They must keep a straight face as victims recount the details of direct trauma and the continuing effects of them and their families.  For that matter, every lawyer who deals with real people faces with what is, to them, terribly traumatic events.  The lawyer cannot help but having the client’s trauma “rub off” on the lawyer. Often, after months or years or decades of helping or wounded people, a lawyer with a shred of humanity in them will develop severe pain from another’s trauma and a genuine case of post trauma stress disorder (PTSD) will result.

If a lawyer has started out with PTSD, perhaps as an abused child or a combat veteran, the secondary trauma brings trouble on all the quicker.

For the client, for the lay person, talking to a caring lawyer – “getting it out” – can be a relief and a start to personal healing.  The lawyer can be skilled at diminishing some of the crushing burden of the client’s prison of trauma.   Often, the lawyer is the first professional to notice – and care – that what the client has refused to believe is a “big deal” really is a “big deal.” The lawyer may be the first one to give the client permission to experience their hurt and deal with it.

Trauma is almost a physical manifestation.  It doesn’t just go “poof” and vanish magically.  Where does that trauma go? 

Often, it goes right to the lawyer.  Then, it the LAWYER who experiences that wakefulness that comes at 3 AM, where the lawyer is the one who counts the holes in the ceiling tile in their bedroom.  It’s the lawyer who has unbidden anxiety and depression.  It’s the lawyer who starts to hide a little booze in their desks.  (Oh, use vodka – it has less odor!)  It’s the lawyer who feels that they need to always be guarded in their environment.  PTSD is real, no matter how you get it.

The lawyer is no more free and available to take on the burden of the client's experiences and sins than the next person, but it is our JOB to do so.

Sins?  Well, yes.  You see, the lawyer has become the new “sin-eater” in our society.

The practice of “sin-eating” is as old as these hills and valleys of ours.  In its original form, “sin-eating” was a mixed Christian-pagan practice brought to Appalachia from the British Isles (mainly Wales and Scotland) in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  It  endured actually and secretly into the 20^th century and still endures a little bit even in the 21^st century.  We lawyers do it today, even though we call it something different.

Sin-eating starts with the obvious truth that humans are not perfect and, from time to time, they sin.  To a “believer” in one or more Deities[1], to accumulate sin is to “earn” some sort of negative reward after your death.  That negative reward is usually something physically punishing and really bad.  However, in most religious practices, a human can earn a reprieve by practicing good works and faith.  All it takes is the time to do good works and be faithful. 

Everyone can change their negative behaviors.  According to Jacob Marley’s Ghost, Scrooge has no idea of "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?  It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago.  You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"  Even Scrooge has a chance:  “You have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.  A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."[2]  All it takes is time to bank up good deeds and thoughts.

What if you don’t have time?   What if you don’t really want to live the good and moral life?  How do you escape that post-death experience? 

Simple.  Your friends and relatives find a sin-eater.[3]  The pure sin-eating experience requires a “wayfaring stranger,” unknown to the deceased.  They are shut in the room with the “sin-eating expert” and the deceased.  A loaf of salted bread and a cup of water are located on the body.  The designated sin-eater repeats the “expert’s” incantation and, poof, the sin is translated to the sin-eater.  The soul of the deceased goes to its reward unburdened by sin.  The wayfaring stranger is sent on their way, never to return.  (Do not despair for the Sin-eater!  After good works and faith, they work themselves into good graces with Deity.)

The Sin-eater does what the modern lawyer, with their computers, cell phones, and fancy offices do.  We invite the client to tell us the truth, no matter how bad it is.  We either genuinely don’t judge them or we at least conceal the judgment.  We assure them that while they may have screwed up, everybody screws up now and then.  And then we try to fix it.  Simple, right?

Maybe to the client it’s simple, and relieving.  But then, in our own minds and hearts, we need to process what we have heard.  Then, we must fix the damage to OUR hearts.    We might do it in a healthy manner.  We might go for a walk, go swimming, or practice meditation. We can spend time in nature.  We can ourselves talk with a valued friend.  In some cases, some medication may help. (Booze is NOT a helpful medication.)  We can even (shock!) get some “professional help”!

(Hey, relax, it’s not a huge deal.  Besides, if I can do it, YOU can do it.) 

The first time you ever represent a client, you have absolutely guaranteed only one thing:  There will be a LAST time.  The time between is called your “career.”  And you career is way too important to you, your family and the many people you touch to take lightly.

Take good care of yourself.  You are worth it.

Mizpah!

 

 

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[1] The author is quite comforted and comfortable as a Christian.

[2] Dickens, C.  1843.   A Christmas Carol.  Chapman & Hall.

[3] What follows is a delightful (to the author) discussion of Sin-eating.  It’s drawn from A Wayfaring Sin-eater and other Tales of Appalachia, by James Gay Jones, 1983.  McClain & Company.  You can obtain virtually any out-of-print and low-volume printed books from “Bookfinder.com,” which uses the ABEBooks, Alibris and Biblio condition rating system, so you’ll know what you are getting.