Loved into being
It’s a golden fall day here–the leaves have started to turn and the sun is shining brightly so it seems as if Midas has kissed the world. I’m still inside, looking out–but with windows open to coax in the breeze. I’ve taken the day off to clean house and prepare for a small gathering of family and church folks to help us celebrate the coming of age of our eldest daughter.
A question I hear in the circles I travel is: ”who loved you into being” and I’m reflecting on that today. I’m wondering who loved my daughter into being the person she is today and will become. It is a long line. It is a long line of people who not only loved her, but those who invested in her father and in her mother over the years. The people in our bloodline, as well as those in our circle of care and community. And I don’t always think how deeply that line extends–until golden days like today when given a stretch of time to do so.
I have invited only a small number to our house tonight–mostly because these are the people I am comfortable inviting to a last-minute, thrown-together gathering, but also because they stand in for a lot of other people both here and gone.
One of my daughter’s favorite movies is the Disney cartoon, Mulan, and part of the movie came back to me as I wrote those last few words–the bit about the ancestors. Just an image floated to mind as the ghosts of the ancestors are consulted. It reminded me of something that my own mother wrote recently, when I realized–quite viscerally–that she is the last living grandparent, greatgrandparent, etc., that my children have. It also reminded me of Temple of my Familiar, by Alice Walker–a book I haven’t read in forever, but which haunts my faith formation almost as much as The Color Purple sparked it.
I realize that I am too temporally situated. I forget to look back at the long line and I forget, a lot of times, to simply look up and around me and see that there is so much more going on in my world and in the worlds my children inhabit that forms all of who I am in this moment, all of who they will be in the coming years. And so I steal moments on golden days like today to think about the circles that surround us–those seen and unseen. And when I say unseen, I don’t only mean the ancestors, but those who influenced the lives of those who shaped us and who we will never meet. I think of the people I have met and known in these last several years that my children will never meet or know deeply who have absolutely changed my understanding of myself, of my role in the world, and my ability to be loving and present with my children and with others. These unseen hands are as much a part of their lives as those of the hands that cradled them when they were babies.
My parting thought as I catapult into the day with lists and loaves: I’ve been listening to a lot of Sweet Honey in the Rock and am captivated by the simplest of ideas–that as elders, it is our responsibilty to have faith in our children–and to tell them so. So I leave you with Indaba (I prefer the version just by Sweet Honey, but I could only find video with other choirs):
To Cape or Not to Cape
We had a recent dinner-table exchange that was, I hope, very instructive for those who needed it and thought might be very helpful for those who are raising teenage daughters but have never been one.
It started just before dinner, when our youngest daughter (13 and in 8th grade) posted on FaceBook “like this if you want me to wear a cape to school tomorrow.” When her older sisters (Senior, almost 18, and Junior, 16) saw this, they began firing off comments that amounted tried to not-so-gently pursuade the youngest that this would amount to social suicide, regardless of how many “likes” she got. Middlest daughter even went into youngest daughter’s room while she was at the computer and hid the offending cape (a cheap Halloween hangover of purple with black and silver spiderwebs–not even a really cool cape*, in the eyes of the sibs). Now, I don’t generally side with the room invader, but in this instance, when no one looked, I sort of giggled.
At the table, Oldest daughter, said something akin to “if you wear that cape, you will become weird-cape-girl. Donny Wilson (name changed to protect the fact that I can’t remember the name of the kid) danced weird at the 8th grade formal and he is still known as Donny who danced weird. Seriously, you don’t want to do this.”
The conversation went on in this light for a while, older sisters giving younger sister some hard-learned and strongly-worded advice. Most of which came down to “seriously, you don’t want to do this.”
And then their father chimed in with: “What’s going on?”
“Youngest one,” I said, “posted ‘like this if you want me to wear a cape to school’ on her FaceBook and her sisters are …” and my sentence was drowned out by:
“You are not wearing a cape to school.” And then, with the method that never works and yet for which he has become known, he stated the same thing, shaking his head, about three or four more times. We all watched him. I was looking right at him with eyes wide, doing with my eyeballs what I could not do with my hands for fear the girls would see me, which was giving him the “stop talking NOW” look (which is when I dart my eyeballs sideways very quickly in an effort to not do the slashing the throat with the hand move that most people take as a queue to “stop talking NOW). But he didn’t. Stop talking, I mean.
And then he took a breath and popped a potatoe in his mouth and oldest daughter looked at him, then at me, then back at him with a smile and said “Jeesh, if you say it one more time, I’M going to wear the cape to school.”
Lesson learned? Probably not, but it was rather funny to see him get it in a way I’ve never been able to impress upon him.
By the way, she decided, after careful deliberation, to NOT wear the cape. “Maybe closer to Halloween.”
—
*Lest you think we are an “anti-cape” family, I’ll assure you there was much discussion at the table about what would be a cool cape to wear and what would just be pathetic. We talked about how their blankies would still make great super-hero capes, but they all decided against that, as well.
In all seriousness, the issue raised my eyebrows and concern more because she has had some issues of unwanted attention lately that I cautioned against amplifying with the cape-wearing. We’re monitoring this as closely as we can, at this point, as we all know how dangerous unwanted attention at this stage of the game can be.
We Are More than We Think
I want to ask you (and me) this question today and every day: Do you know–I mean deeply at the root of your being know–that you are not only enough but that you are essential?
I spent the morning with Sweet Honey in the Rock on my iPod and found myself weeping with the realization that I have sold myself–and you–short. I keep thinking I am not enough and that the work I do is only ancillary, unimportant. And then I started hearing the words. And I started thinking about my kids. And I started thinking about my church and this faith tradition.
And I wept.
Do you know? Really know?
It is a minute-by-minute learning, isn’t it?
A Prayer for the Ministers
A Prayer for the Ministers
For those who are coming in
new to a congregation or to ministry, itself
As intern, interim, contract or settled–
I would wish for you a smooth settling,
If I didn’t know that this is rare
and not always welcomed,
even by you who must
ignite
inspire
encourage
and lead.
May you find a core of worshippers
who love the challange
as much as the chalice
who will take leadership as a lesson learned
and, in turn, lead change in realms
within and without the walls of the religious home
you share.
May you find passion and lust
for compassion and justice
and process and tradition,
and for the transformative power
of each of these.
May you find a people who
honor your theological knowledge
and wisdom, your leadership
and courage, and still question
all that they don’t understand.
May you find yourself in a place
not unlike any other place you’ve
ever worshipped and still,
find it new. And whole,
even in its brokenness,
if brokenness there be.
May you find shelter,
and tear down shelter
where it is unneeded
to bring to the desperate people
regardless of whether they give
to the church or may ever step foot
within.
May you be guided by
principles, practices and people
who are grounded by the
challenging force of the gift
we neither earned nor deserve
and yet yearn to bask in each time
we gather.
May love guide us
as we earn each others’
love and respect
as we do the work of the church
in ways that honor our understanding
of church.
May it be so
One size fits none
Sunday we made a mad dash to the Outlet Mall to purchase one new outfit (at least) for each of the girls before school starts on Wednesday. Church is 20 minutes west of our house; the outlet mall is 45 minutes east of our house. Church ended at noon and eldest daughter had to be at work back by our house before 4:00. Do the math: 3 daughters + 3 outfits + less than 3 hours + one less than patient dad.
Shopping with the dad was both helpful and problematic. Helpful in that he saw the sign to purchase gift cards and decided that would probably be the best way to manage the day. Since how we have learned to do back-to-school clothes shopping is to set a $ limit and let them figure out how to stretch it, he loaded up three gift cards usable as if it were an American Express card, and sent them on their way. There was also a coupon book that came with the gift cards, so the eldest two immediately saw the benefit of buying items together and splitting the savings (30% off purchases over $50; buy two get the second half-off… that kind of thing).
Youngest daughter was a little deer-in-the headlights, but managed a few things. We sat outside one store with a very long line while the eldest two waited to pay, and decided that husband and youngest would go to a jeans store while I waited for the others. Sitting in the sun, waiting, and I get a text from husband saying “she’s trying on 4 pairs.” “Great,” I respond. “I’m hopeful,” he says.
When I show up ten or so minutes later, she’s tried on 8 pairs and only found one that fits. There’s a sale there–buy two pairs of denim, get any one other item for free. Husband can’t walk away from the word “free,” so we comb the store looking for another pair of jeans. When I go back to the fitting room, I discover that the reason she isn’t not finding anything she likes is because she is trying on the wrong size with the hope that the next pair the same size will look good. As soon as we move up a size (much to her disdain, but that is the stuff of being in 8th grade), she hits the motherlode. And my husband hits the roof.
Why does she have to try on so many pairs? He keeps hissing at me as I’m dashing from the front of the store (where the juniors jeans are) to the far back (where the fitting rooms are). Not being helpful, I tell him. We are pinned for time. Other two have been to another store, made purchases, and are back. Eldest is nervous about being late for work. Husband is pacing and starting to snarl. “Why can’t she just pick two and lets go.”
Once we are in the car (and believe me, I’m saving you some hairy details by skipping ahead here), my husband starts to gnash and fume again. I’m sitting there thinking how happy I am that my daughters can shop quickly, decisively, and without a lot of guidance from me and make decent choices while he’s wondering why our youngest cannot shop like a 52-year-old man. Finally, I said to him: when you are a 13 year old girl, or can say that you have been a 13 year old girl, you will get it. Until then, keep your mouth shut.
Why, indeed, can she not do everything as he does it? Why not order her jeans from Lands End and be done with it? Yes, why can’t she buy her jeans at the Dad Jeans Store?
This is, of course, a fight we continue to have about just about everything–that the girls have minds of their owns and wish to use them, even when it flies in the face of his need for speed and efficiency, especially when it challenges his world view of logic and reason. My daughters don’t live in the world of one-jeans-fit-all. Neither does their father. Just as he used to get cranky when we would walk at the pace of a 5 year old and his legs longed to stretch to fit his 6’3″ frame, he gets cranky when the rest of us don’t match his pace in shopping or parenting or political world views.
My job, I realize, is to remind him that you don’t come out of the womb 6’3″, any more than you start out with savvy shopping skills.
Still and all, we got it done. The girls each came home happy and with a complete outfit or two and they even had $$ left on their cards to spend on other needs elsewhere. And yet, my assessment of success and my husband’s don’t quite match up. I wonder what we will have to talk about when these girls leave home?
Cupcakes for the Tea Party
Thank you, Andy, for this lovely reflection “And a small cupcake will guide them.” I made pancakes this morning and pondered this story and its applicability. I’m estranged from my church community right now–at my own hand–but I realized the weariness Andy speaks of can be broadly applied. I’m weary of fighting. As I’ve told a few members of my congregation, I have three teenaged daughters–I find very little spiritual revitalization by going to church to fight more. This story reminded me of what I can do to create the change I wish to see. I think the term to be applied here is “interrupting” unwanted or anitsocial behavior. Cupcakes are hard to carry around–perhaps this is why old women carry hard candy. “Lifesaver, dear?” can be a really good interrupter.
Beyond my own church issues, though, I have been wondering if we Liberals (insert Progressive here if that’s what you prefer), are drowning agains the Tea Party wave because we keep doing what we always do: reason. The facts are pretty plain and have no bearing, it appears, on anything Michelle Bachman or Rick Perry have to say about government. But we keep rattling off facts and historical data as if that is going to change the mind of one person who truly believes the earth is 6,000 years old and that the founders of our country fought to their deaths against slavery.
While cupcakes are lovely, the real question is (and was raised beautifully by Andy) how do we engage with people again on a human-to-human level? How do we interrupt antisocial behavior that allows us to call each other names (stupid or fascist or anti-patriotic, for example) without engaging in the same, exact behavior?
We watched The Pricess Bride for the umpteenth-thousandth time last weekend and it reminded me of something I would like to say to the people who follow the Tea Party manifesto if I had a national platform to speak from: “These words you are using, I do not think they mean what you think they mean.”
I am naive about U.S. history, I will tell you that. I’m grateful that my daughters have grasped an interest and understanding of history in a way that I never did (American history was taught as an exercise in memorizing dates and men’s names and my memory has never been all that responsive to either of those things). But here’s one thing I did/do retain: that the original Boston Tea Party was not about “No Taxation,” it was about “No taxation WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.”
We have never waged a war before without raising taxes. To not raise taxes to cover the costs of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last ten years is not just illogical, it is, I argue, immoral. We must pay for these wars, and, more importantly, pay for the physcial and mental care our troops require. When legislators sign pledges that say they will never raise taxes, they are, in essence, saying they refuse to govern. Saying no to everything is not governing –any more than saying yes to everything is parenting.
What cupcakes do we have to offer the Tea Party people we meet in our daily life (and I recognize that not everyone who may read this is a Liberal or Progressive–but I am saying the following specifically to those who are Liberal or Progressive and who are tired of trying to argue against irrationality–it just doesn’t work says the mother of three teenage daughters who become hormonally irrational once each and every month)? So let me ask again, what can we do to interrupt antisocial behavior and explore our shared humanity in hopes of broadening not only their mindset, but our own?
I’m tired of the fight. I’m tired of the desire to hide from the fight. What I need are tools to help me do what Andy has done so well in this story. How do we stop that which puts walls between us and begin to build bridges that explore our collective responsibility?
Lifesaver, dear?
A few things having Lupus has taught me
It’s been just over two years now since the flare that landed me in the ER and finally got us all thinking “something is wrong” triggered the Lupus diagnosis. Luckily for me, I didn’t find out just what I had before I attended our denomination’s annual meeting, at which, I spend many hours standing, talking, and walking. Just back from the 2011 meeting and having slept soundly in my own bed for the first time in a week, I took the morning slowly and realized that having this illness diagnosed has helped me with many things:
- It is not a character flaw to be tired. It is, alas, human.
- It is wise to listen to your body–even if it means missing the things that you cherish.
- There are days when the body must lead, just as there are days when the head says “tough it out.” Both need to be right at times, for your physical, mental and career well-being.
- Trust your friends and family who tell you to sit down.
- Airplane travel is evil.
Okay, Lupus didn’t teach me that last one. That’s just my general understanding of the way we travel these days. It hurts to sit in strange ways for hours on end–whether you have Lupus or not.
The bells of the church behind our house are ringing out noon time right now and I can honestly say I’ve done very little. But it has been a productive little. I’ve had coffee, checked in on FB, and visited with two of my daughters (the other still is in her vampire cave). Last night I was not much more than mush. And when I woke this a.m., I was only a little bit more than mush. But right now, fortified with toast and rest and a littlebit of FB love, am feeling like I might be a functioning human being.
I thought I was going to have to go in to work today. I still may, but the thought of being a body at rest today is winning. And I’m letting it. Soon, too soon, I’m going out into the world to buy my daughters new swimming suits. I’m not sure that this short bit of respite this a.m. will carry me through that, but am sure the rest of the day will.
Even though I go to our General Assembly in work mode, I always learn a lot when I go through my interactions with really fantastic people. And some less so. I’m grateful for the opportunity that is my life. The people I know through work are amazing and brilliant and compassionate, as are the people in my family who love me through it all–and all of them carry me when I feel like mush.
Having the diagnosis of Lupus, I now recognize when I need to be carried (Lord, not physically–that could hurt someone!), and I even sometimes recognize when others need me to carry them. These are gifts. Lupus is not the gift. But there are byproducts of having this thing, of recognizing vulnerabilities and limitations, that allow one to be gentle with oneself and with others–especially after one has been less than gentle out of sheer exhaustion.
This dance I’m doing now is a new one, and I have not yet mastered it. There are many things I’d like to do that I have not yet been able to do. And there are many things I wish I could “undo” that I have done wrong or in a fumbling manner. But who am I to expect perfection from myself or anyone else?
As I write this, I must also remember that I have been diagnosed wtih a mild form of the disease. There are people out there who suffer more acutely–for whom the activity of the last several days would not only be strenuous, but impossible. And I hold them in my heart and mind as I ponder my next tasks.
Of certitude and gratitude
Whenever I feel righteous, I know I’m missing something. I know I’m overlooking the wrongness of my certainty. Not the wrongness of my point of view, but the wrongness of knowing that I cannot be wrong. Because I am. In some part; or from a different angle.
Whenever I feel the pull of certainty, I turn my head to the side and try to look at the issue somehow differently. Like my daughter looks at the world: when she watches TV, she swivels her head about 15 degrees off center. Most people look straight on at the television, but not her. We had her tested when she was a baby but they found nothing but a proclivity for doing so. I now wonder if she does this because of her traumatic birth, or the fact that she is the second child and was never allowed the seat right in front of the tv–that was held always by her just-older sister.
Those same two sisters are leading the worship service at church this a.m.–their topic is “Doubt.” This is familiar, well-worn territory for me: doubt. Some of us might even call it “home.” And this is why “certainty” feels foreign.
But there is a certainty in relief; when your body and your mind relax around a decision made and one sinks into it and says “it is done.” Doubt and certitude (a word I have trouble typing without my inner twelve-year-old making a Weiner joke inside my head), are no longer at odds and sleep comes easily and fully in ways it has not during the struggle between those two icons of human frailty.
Whenever I feel certain, I entertain doubt more readily and coax it back to me with questions. “Did I do the right thing? Are you sure? Who else has been harmed in the making of this choice and how can I make amends?”
A mess has been made in my life–of that I am certain. But I am overrun with relief at a choice I have made to distance myself from it for the time being. And that is quite freeing.
Shifting …
There is so much to process, so please forgive if I say a whole lot about very little or very little about a whole lot. That which I would love to write about in great depth, I probably won’t write about at all–a conflict with the leadership and vision of the church I love and have been cradled in. I won’t say much about that because, I’m finding, that I’m afraid I am stuck in my own certainty, a place I rarely dwell. I am still working through this, am still sure that in sticking with my certainty, I will be the loser in ways much wider than I would were I to do what I usually do: mete out appropriate portions of blame, responsibility, and forgiveness to all involved (including myself), as that is the way of conflict (rare that only one person is injured or injuring). But I’m unable to move in any direction other than retreat right now, which has me struggling with feeling like a quitter and a complainer rather than as I like to picture myself, as a leader. Enough said. I struggle. You struggle. A decision will be made. I will live and be stronger for having made whatever decision is made.
I am stronger, having said that much. I am stronger, I find, for reasons I had no idea would impact me so greatly when I first started writing this blog nearly 5 years ago. I had no idea of an online community when I started writing. I had been lurking on the blogs noted on UUpdates for several months before I dipped my toe in. Some of the bloggers caught my eye and heart almost immediately. I eventually started leaving comments on blog posts leading those same bloggers back to my little posts.
I came to know exactly how important the wider web of electronic support could be when my father became ill and then died. But I also found supportive the comments on the struggles of parenting, of remaining in community in church, of being human in a faith full of said humans that often don’t appreciate their own (or other’s) humanity. Even when I stopped writing somewhat regularly, I have continued to dip into the UU blogging community on a regular, if not daily, basis. It is, in many instances, what has sustained me in some very low tides.
More than the personal, though, the blog world–especially that of the UU blog world–has allowed me to learn about and experience my chosen faith tradition, to both challenge and affirm my thoughts, feelings and actions about who we are, how we are, and what we can (as in “Yes We Can,” not as in “May We?”) do. I found myself wondering big wonders about possibilities, probabilites, and even desires because of them.
I’ve come to rely on your thoughts, your connections, your hopes and your visions. I’ve come to rely on a community that is far beyond my physical realm–a community that does not let me shout into the wilderness without appropriate response, a community in which I feel held and loved. And I find it a brave new existence to know that many of those people holding me in accountability and love are people I have never met and may never meet.
What’s prompting these thoughts also comes from the experience I’ve had lately with FaceBook. The connections we get to make in this digital age can be significant and meaningful and I would hope can help us all to connect more vibrantly. I see this in the experience of the students I interact wtih daily–who live all over the country, but stay involved in each others lives through the interwebz. I see it, too, as I (and my children) find ways to be a part of the lives of my nieces and nephews, all of whom live in other time zones. They share photos of kids and pets and each other and we who get to see them rarely feel connected in new ways. We banter back and forth across the country in real time and so when we get the opportunity to see each other again, it is not as if years have gone by, but as if days or minutes.
This is significant and important and as I look toward what is next in our family’s spiritual life, it may be done through internet connections moreso than through physical ones. And what I’m trying to say is that I’m fairly certain that won’t be an exact exchange of experience, but it will be/can be meaningful. This is good to know right now. I would like to have a reason to stay connected with my home congregation other than that there is nowhere else to go. Knowing and experiencing online spiritual sustenance allows me to say there is somewhere else to go–making the decision, then, one that I can ponder from many angles and avenues.
Thanks to all of you who have been keen and connected. And thanks for the opportunity to work through this tangle.
On Being Human
Plenty of time this week to collect my thoughts –none however to put those thoughts in the bucket that is this blog and sift through them. Of course, my week started like yours, with the news of the death of Osama bin Ladin. Eldest daughter called up to us to tell us to put on a network because we were watching Iron Chef or some such. Eldest joined me, husband and middlest in front of the living room TV and we waited as the predictions rambled on and we all sat, baited breath, for the President to stride toward that podium.
I went to bed that night not really feeling any different–though I felt myself wondering why he was to be killed and not taken, but not enough. I saw the people streaming to the White House on the news and heard the cheers and wondered: is this the right response to the news of the death of another person (remembering, too, that others were killed).
Over the next couple days I checked in on FaceBook and the blogs and saw that there was a range of emotions out there–not many of which I shared.
On Tuesday we went to my youngest daughter’s track meet at the middle school and a friend from church sat with us (her youngest, too, was competing). We all were there–eldest, middlest, husband and I–huddled against the cold and the wind of a not very May day. My friend asked if I had seen the piece in the newspaper about Nathan, who had grown up in our church and went off to college and was in the first wave of students who showed up at the White House and who felt very comfortable cheering at this news. When I quietly noted my surprise–not shock, not outrage, just surprise–my friend agreed. And then eldest daughter joined in by saying something like “We grew up being told he was the worst man ever, of course we would celebrate.” Okay, I thought. Okay.
Next day I received a poem from my mother with the refrain “we’re all assassins now.” Okay, I thought, okay.
Perhaps this is another “sandwich generation” moment–which requires me to take some time and evaluate all that I am thinking and feeling–and all that is contradictory in all that I am thinking and feeling.
Not everyone lives comfortably holding beliefs and feelings that are contradictory. I would offer that I don’t either. But I know the territory. It is my home. I can sit here thinking “the death of one diminishes us all” and still feel undiminished by the killing of Osama bin Ladin. I can agree, theoretically, that this was an assassination and we, by our ideals as Americans, should not be in the business of assissination, and still feel okay with taking part in this one. I’m not saying I’m right and everyone else is wrong, but I am saying that these things can be within me at the same time and I will not explode.
But I didn’t grow up in the post 9/11 America. The fears our children have lived with under the surface are not our fears and I don’t think we will know what these ten years of their formation has done to their future lives for many years to come. Sometimes you just need to talk to a kid to understand that there are always different perspectives–and I wonder if those who don’t have teenagers and young adults in their lives to snap them into a different perspective can hear that a depth and breadth of listening needs to be happening now.
As usual, there’s more talking than listening going on and more judging than any of us needs. I loved Lizard Eater’s post this week. I loved how she can pinpoint the complexity of it and allow us all the space to be okay with our own feelings. I also found the Rev. James Ford’s reflections on FB and on his blog helpful–to have a Zen teacher reveal his own feelings and that he is not especially proud of them allowed me to not run away from nor shame myself for feeling less than concerned about this particular death and the way in which it was played out. For me, there is the reminder:
Well, again, as I hoped to point to originally, these are examples of how we are all caught up in the great mess together. We are one body, you and I, in all our separateness. Both and. The mysterious manifestation of the real. For good and for ill we’re tied up together, woven out of each other. Mr bin Laden is part of us, part of me, part of you. Even as each of us is responsible.
This is the hard part–and this is also the easy part. I’m not saying that I am bin Ladin–but I am saying that his life, his actions, his death are now a part of the story we all will tell of our own lives. He has been for ten years–I just didn’t know it so tangibly as I do now. We are all impacted by all of this and by each other’s actions. And we may very well all be assassins now. But if we travel down this path too far, we we also not find we have been all along? Does this mean we are all revelers, too–holding our flags and being glad in the face of a killing. Does it also mean that we are not also all connected by those who hold us to our ideals and find fault?
This being human stuff is just so darned complex and requires so much of us. It’s a wonder we all get out of bed every day and build buildings and buy coffee and show up together to worship. But we do, and on good days, we do it with open minds, open hearts, and a willingness to hold conflicting thoughts and emotions at the very same time.
