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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)

Family Dynamics

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“Gotta move different when you want different.” – unknown

Last Monday I got frustrated with Miss O when we were getting ready for school. Or should I say, not getting ready for school. I prompted her five times to get her shoes on, she got mad at me for repeating myself. I told her that I wouldn’t have to repeat myself if she would put her shoes on…nothing new. I’m sure a conversation that happens between kids and parents in households all over the world since the beginning of time. Or at least since shoes became a thing.

So we were both irritated when I dropped her off to school. And then Mr. D was silent as we drove on. By the time we walked in the front door of his pre-school, it was clear that he was upset. We sat in the chairs outside his classroom for a while, and then had a tearful drop-off which is unusual for Mr. D.

This has happened enough times for me to discern the pattern – Mr. D is so attuned to the emotions of the household that any disturbances in our mostly good natured vibe affect him, even when the upset doesn’t involve him.   

Wow, families are complex. Now I don’t have to just be responsible for my own emotions but also the impact that I’m having on the group and vice versa?

I think about what it was like in my family growing up. My sister was usually upset about something, my brother was tired of hearing her complain and just disconnected, and I felt that I needed to be no problem since my parents were having to deal with my sister. It’s a pattern we maintain, by and large, to this day.

My mathematical nature likes patterns – they are so useful to predict what will happen next. But sometimes patterns just hold us in a mindless call and response. Until one person breaks out by saying, “I’m so tired of this banter that keeps us from saying anything real,” the other person(s) in the pattern may not realize there is something habitual that has been holding everyone in place.

Thinking back to my little family, I think this applies too. When I get tired of the same conversation about the same shoes, I’m always surprised how effective it is to change the dynamic by changing the order. Shoes before breakfast helps break the stalemate. What’s harder is changing the natural tendency that Mr. D has to carry the tension. Maybe that’s a case of where making it visible helps to dispel it. Hopefully that works because we aren’t going to stop wearing shoes.

I’ve written a companion piece on the Heart of the Matter blog about some advice I got from a friend long ago to never back a kid into a corner and instead always offer them a way out: Building Bridges to Each Other. Please check it out if you have a moment.

(featured photo is a pair of Converse high tops that Miss O got as hand-me-downs)

Podcast Episode 3: On Mountaineering, Martial Arts, Overcoming Challenges and Motherhood

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I was so lucky to be able to spend time podcasting with one of my favorite blog buddies, Betsy Kerekes. Here is the link to our podcast and show notes for our fun discussion about handling the tough things in life – specifically mountaineering, martial arts, overcoming challenges and motherhood.

Wynne Leon's avatarThe Heart of the Matter

When I was new to blogging, I spent some time looking for bloggers that were good writers, aligned with what I was interested in, and who I was inspired by. I lucked out by finding, Betsy Kerekes on Parenting is Funny.

There’s much to love about Betsy but I think what stuck the most for me is that she tackles hard things with humor and grace. This is true for parenting and now that she’s changed her blog name to Motherhood and Martial Arts (MMA), it’s true for martial arts too.

I’m not a martial arts practitioner, but in the great stories she tells about learning, getting injured, and keeping up the practice, I’m inspired by her grit all wrapped up in a lovely package. Whatever it is she practices, she moves me to laugh about all the great lessons she learns.

So I know you’ll love this entertaining podcast…

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Strong Back, Soft Front

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This week it seems like I’ve had to be very firm with myself to focus on the things I have to get done and not just the things I want to get done. At the same time, I’ve been trying to hold compassion for all the things that are unsolved in me. It makes me think of this wonderful phrase from Roshi Joan Halifax – Strong Back, Soft Front.

Wynne Leon's avatarSurprised By Joy

“Do small things with great love.” – Mother Teresa

Last night we returned from a small outdoor party right at my son’s bedtime. I went to take off his shoes and socks and start to get him ready for bed and he was lying on the couch, head on the pillows, looking very much like a little grown man taking a load off after a long day. When I told him it was time to get his jammies on and stooped to pick him up he said, “No tank ooo.” At 23 months “no thank you” is his most powerful phrase and although I’d never claim that he fully understands the politeness of it, it’s still quite effective.

It makes me think of a phrase I first heard used by Brene Brown, “strong back, soft front” but I believe was originated by Roshi Joan Halifax, a Buddhist teacher. Strong back…

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The Current Underneath

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I was reminded of this great story from my meditation teacher about how she disturbed the quiet, calm, lovely atmosphere of a yoga class to scream out the door. I thought it was worth sharing again.

Wynne Leon's avatarSurprised By Joy

“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” – Dolly Parton

Last night I was out with my kids as they biked, my 5-year-old on her new big bike and my toddler on an old-school Radio Flyer tricycle. I suggested to my daughter that she go all the way around the block on her bike while my son and I worked best on how to make progress on his trike. This was a new freedom for my daughter, riding away from us on the sidewalk and being on her own for a whole block albeit one she knows well because we walk it all the time. She’d done it several times and was exhilarated by the freedom until the time when she came to the long back straightaway and didn’t see us. My son and I had made enough progress…

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Airing the Wounds Out

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Something that I did right the other day when my kids had a melt down reminded me of this time when I got it wrong. I’m so grateful that life gives us opportunities to learn — and to heal when we don’t get it right.

Wynne Leon's avatarSurprised By Joy

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” – Winston Churchill

My kids and I spent the weekend with my brother and sister-in-law. Sitting around their semi-circular teak dining room table with a padded bench seat, I was reminded about a conversation we had there about a year ago.

“My mom said I should go find another mom,” My daughter said to my brother and sister-in-law. It was all I could do to not explain but because they are wise, they teased out the story from her. She was having a fit that seemed to be part of what came with being four because I wouldn’t let her do something. It had been going on for a while (it seemed like a fifteen minutes although it was probably five) and she said, “I’m going to find a…

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Sliding Glass Door Moments

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I came across this post when digging in my archives. Maybe it’s the picture of Miss O on the other side of the door with one shoe on that tugged on my heart but I thought it was worth resharing.

Wynne Leon's avatarSurprised By Joy

“Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty –
that is all you know on earth,
and all you need to know.” – John Keats

I was reading yesterday about how the English poet John Keats wrote “Ode to a Grecian Urn” while he was dying from tuberculosis at age 24. As tragic as that is for him, my mind immediately thought of his mother and how she must have felt. Clearly my becoming a mother has altered the angle from which I think about life. I’ve heard of decisions like mine to become a mother described as sliding glass moments – moments where you can see life on the other side and choose whether to open the door and cross the threshold.

I’m fascinated by our sliding glass moments because they define the major plot lines of our lives. They are the story we tell others when we first meet. I was…

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Ying and Yang

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“We spend the first year of a child’s life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down. There’s something wrong here.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

The other day I was driving in the car with my kids when my 2-year-old son, who’s favorite show these days is the British cartoon Peppa Pig, started doing a great imitation of Daddy Pig snoring.

My 6-year-old daughter laughed and then asked, “When we get a daddy will he always be falling asleep, snoring and messing up the map reading like Daddy Pig?”

Which made me want to snort with laughter like Mommy Pig does.

It seems like toxic masculinity is a term we bandy about these days. It reminds me of when I was a kid in the 70’s and Bobby Riggs and Billie-Jean King played their Battle of the Sexes and male chauvinism was such a hot topic.

But years ago I read something from University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson that made me think that this topic is deeply seeded in humans. In his book 12 Rules for Life, he talked about selection of male partners.

Woman are choosy maters (unlike female chimps, their closest animal counterparts). Most men do not meet female human standards. It is for this reason that women on dating sites rate 85 percent of men as below average in attractiveness. It is for this reason that we all have twice as many female ancestors as male (imagine that all the women who have ever lived have averaged one child. Now imagine that half the men who ever lived have fathered two children, if they had any, while the other half fathered none).

I thought that was a stunning statistic of the big picture view that only 50% of men, averaged over all time, have fathered children. But then it’s the next part of the passage that gave a hint about toxic masculinity:

It is Woman as Nature who looks at half of all men and says, “No!” For the men, that’s a direct encounter with chaos, and it occurs every time they are turned down for a date. Human female choosiness is also why we are very different from the common ancestor we shared with our chimpanzee cousins, while the latter are very much the same. Women’s proclivity to say no, more than any other force, has shaped our evolution into the creative, industrious, upright, large-brained (competitive, aggressive, domineering) creatures that we are.

I know Dr. Peterson is a controversial character. But taking this argument at face value, but it doesn’t seem like too much of a leap to believe that women have sought out men who are certain, successful, strong and seemingly invulnerable. And so perhaps women can help to change that nature too, or at least I’d like to think we can help:

By raising sons who are free to grapple with their emotions.

By being a safe place for our brothers and friends to talk about the pressures they feel.

By helping out with map reading.

By letting our daughters know that it’s great to choose men who let their non-aggressive flags fly.

By listening and supporting everyone who says this is hard.

Maybe when I have a partner in life again, he’ll fall asleep and snore. But like Daddy Pig, he’ll be able to laugh about it because he knows we don’t expect him to be perfect, just true.

What do you think? Can women help with toxic masculinity? Is it too much of a buzz word to have much meaning? Is it okay to quote someone like Dr. Peterson even if I don’t agree with how he’s been politicized?

(featured photo from Pexels)

Sunday Funnies: June 26

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Another installment from my dad’s humor cards.

The backstory: My dad was a Presbyterian pastor for 40 years. He kept a well curated stack of humor cards – little stories or observations that he 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.

When we cleaned out his desk after he died 7 years ago, I was lucky enough to stumble on this stack. I pull it out regularly to have a little laugh with my dear Dad. Now when I post one of them, I write my note next to his and it feels like a continuation.

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!”