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The Fullness of Time

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“The years teach much which the days never know.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Miss O has been working on “time” problems in school. Like “It’s 12:40. Zach is supposed to meet his friend in 45 minutes. What time will it be when they meet?” She generally likes math but these problems are getting her goat at the moment.

So, we were settling into bed and she asked me, “Was time around when you were a kid?” Then she thought for a moment and continued, “Oh yeah, they’ve had it for a while.”

I couldn’t get out of the room fast enough to burst into laughter and write that one down. That she said this the night before my birthday wasn’t lost on me.

Hee, hee. Yes, they’ve had time long enough for me to count out 55 years. What else has the fullness of time given me?

Laughter

When we had a small party of family and friends to celebrate my birthday, as well as my mom’s and my friend Eric’s, the thing I enjoyed most was the laughter. Miss O and Mr. D put on a recital. There was great food and also presents, but the real gift was the just the lightness of being. Miss O asked why my eyes leak so frequently when I laugh. I don’t know exactly, but it has something to do with just being so happy to be here.

Perspective

Time has also given me the gift of perspective. It’s a bigger sea in which my hurts, my worries, and even my hopes feel less significant. They matter, but more as in a way that helps me set my sails instead of being the sea itself. I’m a far more patient person – but not because I’ve grown my patience but because the fullness of time helps me settle into the wait.

Heart

I have a favorite quote when it comes to the heart,

“God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open.”

-Hazrat Inayat Khan

When I first met that quote, it was like almost everything else that has become my teacher. I thought, “No, no, no.”

But time has shown it is less about heart break and more about giving up control. There are people, things, dreams, and abilities that hurt so much when they go. But the heart has no hands to hang on to them. Leaning into that is like opening windows in my heart so that the breeze can flow through.

So, has anyone figured out the answer to the time problem at the top of the post? Clearly, it’s “Who knows because Zach is always running late? But we’ll hug him when we see him.” 🙂 Or at least that’s the answer that the fullness of time has given me.  

Going to the Next Level

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“I am convinced all of humanity is born with more gifts than we know. Most are born geniuses and just get de-geniused rapidly.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

We are coming to the end of our school year. 28 more school days in third grade for Miss O. And 50 days until Mr. D graduates from his preschool program. Do you remember that feeling as a kid? Being not only ready for summer break but also ready to ascend to that next level?

It has me thinking of what milestones we have in our lives as grown-ups that celebrate our readiness to go on to the next level. There are some big ones like becoming an empty-nester or retirement. Or we have annual ones like birthdays, anniversaries, and New Years. But often, I find myself at those moments planning on what I’m going to do next instead of commemorating what I’ve learned.

Let me suggest that we take a moment to bring back that feeling of finishing a school year. To actually name something we’ve graduated from and celebrate it. I’ll start:

I’ve come to believe that I am enough. Or at least to understand that pretending to be someone else is ineffective. So if a situation or expectations make me feel otherwise, I try to slow enough to double-down on being me long enough to get through.

And by graduating, I don’t mean being done. It brings to mind another graphic from Miss O’s 3rd grade teacher:

It seems fitting on this last day of teacher appreciation week to honor our teachers by naming what we’ve learned. Are you with me? If you are stuck, maybe visit the list from Pick Three Affirmations to find a place to start.

(featured photo from Pexels)

For a story about the circle of life, please listen to our Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast: Episode 66: The Power of Story with Wynne and Vicki.

We are changing our format starting with this episode. Vicki Atkinson and I are big believers in the power of story – to connect us, to create intergenerational healing, and to make meaning out of the events of our lives. To set the stage, we will be starting with someone telling a story in each episode.

To listen to the podcast, Search (and subscribe!) for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Pocket Casts. Or subscribe to our YouTube channel to see a video clip of each story: @SharingtheHeartoftheMatter.

Photos of the Week: April 20

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“Happiness is the feeling you’re feeling when you want to keep feeling it.” – unknown

It’s Spring and we are out and about!

Things we put in our mouths. It’s a long list for Cooper.

Cooper at ease

Our new passion

Thumbs up and riders up

The dandelion in the first picture actually grew in the middle of a boulder. How’s that for toughness?

And Miss O was out with her grandmother, then asked to borrow her grandmother’s phone, and snapped a picture of the sign of the week knowing that I’d want it.

The Art of Letting Go

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“Let go or be dragged.” – Zen Proverb

When I walk Cooper the dog in the morning, our cat, Simone, usually follows along. She is masterful at blending in or when other dogs come along and then appearing out of the shadows to keep pace with us when all is clear.

Yesterday, another neighborhood cat started aggressively running toward Simone as if to say, “How dare you cross that patch of sidewalk?”

Sensing the movement, Cooper turned to face the neighborhood cat. It stopped in its tracks. It seemed to be weighing whether confronting our cat was worth risking Cooper’s involvement.

After a long moment of stare down with Cooper and Simone, the cat ran opposite the way we were going.

I chuckled and thought to myself “Life is about wisely deciding what to let go.”

It reminded me of a conversation I had with my brother this past weekend. He said that he used to teach people how to make a to-do list.

  • List everything out.
  • Put it in order.
  • Draw a line in the middle and just accept you were only going to get the top half done.

Then he glanced around my kitchen with the unread newspapers, the mix of dog toys and kids toys on the floor, and the school art projects waiting to be hung and said,

“Maybe only the top third in your case.”

Yeah, but I made a delicious dinner. I’m getting better at letting go of the rest.

(featured photo is mine: Simone on the family walk)

Photos of the Week: March 30

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“Plunge boldly into the thick of life.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Argh!! I made the mistake of taking the kids with me to Costco.

The Crocodile Cave is pretty easy to set up though. It’s taking it down and trying to put it away in a storage case that’s a problem. Harder than any tent I’ve ever tried. After I wrestled with it (kinda like a croc) for at least 15 minutes the other night. Miss O asked if I got her slime out before I put it away.

“No,” I replied, “Where did you put it?” She sweetly replied, “In the climbing hand holds. Can you go get it out for me?”

That was a “no.” 🙂

After which I was very glad we got some soothing time in nature, hiking with my dear friend, Katie!

“Mom, the cat cut in front of me to get inside for dinner first! Can I sweep her away?”

First, Mr. D experimented with scootering through puddles. It ended “wetly.” So the next day, he prepared by putting on all the outer wear he could find. He stayed dry from the puddles but was pretty sweaty… 🙂

First picture here is a little random except for anyone that remembers Mark Petruska’s hilarious post Sock-Sock-Shoe-Shoe. Miss O, unprompted by me, announced she was a shoe-shoe-sock-sock girl.

And the sign of the week – oh, I relate!

Rose-Colored Glasses

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“You know what’s funny? When you look at someone through rose colored glasses all the red flags just look like flags.”- Wanda Pierce

This was previously published on 7/27/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

A few weeks ago I had plans to take my kids to a wedding in Leavenworth, WA a couple of hours away from where I live. On the day we were to leave, my stomach hurt. I chalked it up to a deli sandwich that I’d eaten the day before and loaded the kids into the car anyway. My only concession was to bring a can of Ginger Ale to calm my stomach but I judged my ability to go and take care of two young children was fine because that was as bad as I was going to feel.

I’m a congenital optimist. That is to say, I don’t work at having an optimistic attitude and it took me at least 40 of my 53 years to figure out how deeply my outlook is colored. And even that is an optimistic estimate because I’m still working it out. There are a few things that my optimism has categorically gotten wrong:

  • Dating: Nothing in common? No problem, I just figure that makes it interesting.
  • Traffic: Despite living in a metro area with consistently bad traffic, I always go with the low end estimate of travel time.
  • Weather: When it’s raining, as it does often in Seattle, I think it’s great because that means it going to stop when I want to go out for a walk.

The Ancient Greeks inscribed “Know thyself” at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. I’ve found that self-awareness to be a powerful tool to help correct for my inclinations. Specifically, to help me peel back the rose colored layer that my mind adds to pretty much every scenario. It helps me to add 15 minutes to my travel time, dress appropriately for the weather and realize that I don’t need to sign up for every date.

Even as I’m optimistic that I’ve learned how to adjust for my optimism, life presents me with new opportunities to be self-aware. As I traveled on that trip with my kids out of town, my stomach pains got worse and I had a couple of sleepless nights crammed in a hotel room with my 2-year-old and 6-year-old. Now I realized my optimism had told me that how sick I was when I first got the symptoms was as bad as it was going to get. Oops!

Fortunately, it wasn’t all that bad and I just needed to power through getting us home safely. And since optimism has signed me up for a lot things I think are going to go great and turn out to require a lot of resolve (I can think of at least 2 mountain climbing trips in this category), I am plenty experienced at powering through.

Mark Twain said, “There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.” Maybe that’s because if optimism hasn’t killed us before we reach old age, then it’s poor form if we haven’t figured out that it’s all a trick of the mind. I don’t think my optimism is going to ever go away but when I see it now I laugh and say, “Hi, Old Friend!”

(featured photo from Pexels)

Expansiveness

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“People change when we are cherished.” – Father Gregory Boyle

This was previously published on 8/31/2022 – heads up, you may have already read this.

When my inquisitive daughter was about 3 ½ years old, we had a conversation about perspective. We looked out our back door at the houses around and I asked her to count how many she could see. Three. Then we went to the second floor and I helped her count – seven. And then we went to the roof, looked at all the houses we could see and concluded it was more than she had numbers for. I told her something like “This is what perspective looks like when you get older, you know that everything fits into a larger picture and you are able to see more of it.”

Even for my very verbal daughter, this was mostly lost on her but I could see her trying to think about it. When I recently heard a Ten Percent Happier podcast with Father Gregory Boyle and he presented the most expansive view of love and its power to change that I’ve ever heard, I felt a little like my daughter trying to understand perspective. His view is so big and powerful, that it might take me years of practice to fully understand.

 Father Gregory is a Jesuit priest whose work as a pastor in the poorest parish in Los Angeles that was also in the area with the highest gang activity led him to start Homeboy Industries. It’s a number of different businesses than serve to employ and train former gang members and serve the community.

Even though Father Gregory was talking about love in terms of gang intervention, a topic that has little intersection with my experience of life, his expansiveness offers a whole-hearted practice of love that I found mind blowing in its potential to change us from the inside out. Here’s how he described it in a nutshell:

“The practice – Catch yourself before you are judgmental. How do you stand in awe at what people have to carry rather than in judgment at how they carry it? You are catching yourself all the time.”

Father Gregory Boyle

And when he was asked if he ever messes that up his reply was, “Only all the time.”  

Providing more detail on the practice, Father Gregory described,

“So part of the invitation is to catch yourself. Our hard wiring would direct us to demonize. Demonizing is always the opposite of the truth. You are about to do it with the shooter in Uvalde. At no point are you cosigning on bad behavior. You are just saying two certain things. Everyone is unshakably good.  We all belong to each other.

“Now let’s roll up our sleeves. How do we help people? How do we pay attention? How do we notice people before they buy high-powered weapons? How do we include people? How do we move people out of the isolation that depletes their sense of hope? How do we infuse people with hope for whom hope is foreign?”

Father Gregory Boyle

 Father Gregory just buried his 255th kid that died as a result of gang violence. And yet he still is touting this incredibly hopeful vision of how we belong to each other. The work he’s done over 40 years is phenomenal, heart-breaking and transformative. His take on burnout and how to avoid it was fascinating.

“You go to the margins not to make a difference, you go to the margins so that the folks there make you different. If you go to the margins to save the day, and rescue people, fix people or even to make a difference, it’s about you and it can’t be about you. So you burn out. You burn out not because you are so compassionate but because you made it about you.”

Father Gregory Boyle

Like any athlete that has practiced his or her jump shot so many times that it looks easy in their hands, Father Gregory makes loving people no-matter-what sound simple. I know, as I suspect we all do, that it isn’t easy. But maybe that’s something that perspective teaches us – that simple ideas when practiced over and over again have amazing power to change.

For a light-hearted post about loving whoever shows up, please see my Wise & Shine post today: The Inspiration to Write: A Short Vignette

Sunday Funnies: August 6

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A re-run of my dad’s humor cards. They make me chuckle all over again – so I hope you enjoy them whether it’s the first time or second (first posted on 6/26/2022).

The backstory: My dad was a Presbyterian pastor for 40 years. He kept a well curated stack of humor cards – little stories he heard, found or saw and then typed onto 5×7 cards. Then he wrote in the margins when he used that particular item. His humor was often an easy way to settle in to something deeper – by laughing and thinking about the buried truth in these little nuggets, it paved the way to an open heart.

Perspective

A father and son in a huge rig were plowing their large acreage. At the end of a long hot day they came to the last run, alongside the highway. At the end the corner was too sharp to turn without spoiling part of what they’d done, so they opened the gate onto the highway and figured they would turn their 40 foot rig around there.

About the time they were in the middle of the highway, a small racy sports car came up over the hill at about 90 miles an hour. The driver panicked when he saw this huge 40 foot rig across the road in front of him and thought for sure it was the end, until, just before he ploughed into them, he saw the open gate into the field. So he spun off the highway, jumped a ditch, zigged and zagged across the soft dirt and then smashed into a tree.

The father turned to the son after watching this whole scene and said, “Whew, we got out of that field just in time!”

Deep Contentment

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“In some ways, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but less.” – C.S. Lewis

Things are going great. I was handed a new job so providentially that I would have been thumbing my nose at the Universe to turn it down. We’re getting a new puppy, and dogs are one of my favorite things on this planet. My kids and I just returned from a beautiful week of vacation and we are healthy, centered, and bonded.

I mention all this not to celebrate the good fortune but as a back drop for what comes next. I mean, celebrating the good fortune is also worth doing, but it’s not what I’m getting at here. It’s that I experience a lot of moments as I’m looking down this future thinking, “Holy crap, how is all this going to work?” My excitement for what is to come is peppered with sharp spikes of anxiety. I know it’ll be a lot of work and there are going to be tough moments, but I don’t know what they will be.

This is when I realize that faith is as important in the up times as well as the down. My dad once told me what he wished for his kids in terms of faith, “But life has been so rich for me because of what I have come to know of God through Jesus that on that level I yearn for you to know the same deep contentment and certainty that you belong to God and God loves you.”

It’s his phrase “deep contentment” that keeps coming back to me when I feel anxious. To watch my dad navigate life – the ups and the downs was to see what deep contentment looks like. It looks like someone who made life seem easy. It looks like someone who had an incredibly deep well of grace and love for others. It looks like someone who was centered, focused, accomplished an incredible amount, all the while, smiling with this knowing gleam in his eye.

In 2005, David Foster Wallace gave an incredible commencement speech at Kenyon College. It included this,

“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship. In the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace’s speech, combined with the words from my dad, reminds me that I get to choose my faith, and use it to fuel my contentment both when life is good and when life is hard. When I do that enough times, I become less buffeted by the winds of fortune, whether they be up or down, and I start to find deep contentment of my own.

For a sister post about anxiety, please read my Heart of the Matter post: Borrowing Trouble.

For more about my dear dad, I’ve written a book that is available on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith

The quote for today post came from Mitch Teemley, Less Glory, Please?

(featured photo from Pexels)