Tag: creativity

The Archetypes of Story

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“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” – Neil Gaiman

This was originally published on 7/5/2023. Heads up – you may have already read this!

My kids have been clamoring for me to tell them stories at bedtime. They don’t want made up stories, they want real stories.

One of their favorite protagonists is Simon the Bad Cat. He was a character with a capital “C” – I adopted him from a neighbor when she moved. He proceeded to get into all sorts of trouble breaking into other people’s houses, picking on my dogs, and getting into cat fights. He lived a full life of 19 years and left behind a treasure trove of stories.

Telling these stories has made me think of the hypothesis that are a limited number of plot lines for our stories. I’ve heard this theory in several different ways from nine to twelve archetypal stories. But drawing from overview on Wikipedia of the work of Christopher Booker, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories here they are:

  • Overcoming the monster
  • Rags to riches
  • The quest
  • Voyage and return
  • Comedy
  • Tragedy
  • Rebirth

Can I fit the Simon stories into these categories? Here are our favorite bad cat stories:

Rebirth: Simon the cat got a claw stuck in between his shoulder blades while fighting another cat. It abscessed and made him so sick that I had to take him to the vet so they can drain the wound. Simon died on the operating table and they had to use kitty CPR to bring him back. Did the hero return home transformed as a wiser cat? Well, he did mend his fighting ways so that we never had to drain an abscess again.

Comedy: Five doors down was a neighbor named Steve who hated Simon because he was always getting into his stuff and messing it up. But it was a love/hate relationship because he noticed how smart Simon was as well. One day when Steve was showing some new tenants around the shared laundry room, he told them they must never leave the outside door open because there’s a bad cat that would get in. They pointed to a shelf right about Steve’s shoulder and asked, “Like that cat there?” and Steve turned around to see Simon smugly listening to his speech.

 Voyage and return: Simon the cat had a habit of breaking into houses and garages that he subsequently couldn’t get out of until someone opened a door. So I was used to him occasionally being gone for a night or two. But when he went missing for twelve days, I did all I could to find him: putting up posters, walking round the neighborhood calling for him, calling the pet shelter. Finally, I accepted that he was gone forever and gave away his food. On day 13, Simon nonchalantly walked up to the back door and demanded to be let in.

Overcoming the monster: I met Simon when I had a 150 pound dog, a gentle mastiff named Samantha. When we’d go out for a walk in the morning, Simon would hide in a bush, then jump out and smack Samantha on the rear. Then having “overcome the monster” (or at least scaring her half to death), he’d proceed to join us for our 12 block walk through the neighborhood.

Telling these stories to my children, I wonder if it is just a silly ritual. But I believe it helps them at a deeper level to make meaning out of their lives and days. Maybe one day when they are struggling with a monster or experiencing the rebirth and renewal that sometimes comes with life, there will be a niggling of a Simon story that reminds them they aren’t alone on their journey.

Perhaps it’ll even help them understand my story of the quest and how that led me to have them as a single parent. Even if it just creates a basis for loving stories, I believe it will help them to live fuller and more imaginative lives.

Don’t you still love a good story?

Observable Characters

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“Nothing is more painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” – Mary Shelley

“What are you going to be when you grow up?” must be the most frequent question my young kids are asked. For adults that don’t really know them, it’s a good conversation starter. But I think it also indicates how attached our identities are to our work.

It’s what Vicki Atkinson and I talk about in this week’s episode of the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast. Identity at the unemployment office.

One of the fascinating positions that Vicki has held is as a career counselor at the unemployment office. She gives us a glimpse into how the jobs we do become our identity by telling us the stories of some of the people who she coached.

We talk about how being a helper or a boss manifests even when someone is no longer doing that job.

I love Vicki’s powers of observation and ability to draw thru lines – talents that show up when she writes, tells stories, and in the many professional roles she has played.

Here’s a snippet of the podcast where Vicki tells me about the people she met at the unemployment office (with captions so you don’t even have to have the sound on):

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. Each episode of our podcast starts with someone telling a story in each episode.

Search (and subscribe!) for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Pocket Casts OR Listen to it from your computer on Anchor Episode 72: Smiles from the Unemployment Office

Or subscribe to our YouTube channel to see a video clip of each story: @SharingtheHeartoftheMatter.

Links for this Episode:

Episode 72: Smiles from the Unemployment Office on Anchor

Vicki’s personal blog: Victoria Ponders

Vicki’s post: Different is Good

Vicki’s book: Surviving Sue

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

Related podcast episodes:

Episode 71:  Catching an Edge with Wynne and Vicki

Episode 70: “A” is For Ambivalence with Vicki and Wynne

Episode 69: All You Have To Do Is Ask with Wynne and Vicki

Memoir Writing: Understanding the Why

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“Growing up as a kid, we don’t notice that our parents are growing up too.” – unknown

This post was originally published on 6/7/2023. Heads up – you may have already read this.

In the summer of 2015, I was pregnant with two projects. The most obvious was my daughter, but I was also about to give birth to a memoir about my father. My father had died in a bike accident the day after I finalized plans to become pregnant by invitro fertilization. His death kicked off an urgency to take the recordings I’d made of my conversations with him, and finish the effort I’d begun before he died to write about his life.

I spent the nine months of my pregnancy nurturing both projects, afraid that if I didn’t finish the book I might not be able to after my daughter was born. Then on a night in August 2015, at the end of the day on which I’d finished the very last line edits for the book, I went into labor with my daughter.

Essentially, I gave birth to both at the same time. And both events were joyous, scary, and full of “what now?”

I’ve also come to realize that there is another parallel between book projects and children – our understanding of them grows with time. This is the thing that surprises me the most – that with the benefit of hindsight, I continue to learn about what I myself have written. Who knew that was possible?

Here’s what I mean. I recently was reading Vicki Atkinson’s book Surviving Sue which is about Vicki’s journey with her mom, Sue, who suffered from anxiety, depression, alcoholism, Munchausen’s by Proxy, and Alzheimer’s. On the surface, I wouldn’t have drawn parallels between that and my memoir about my beloved father who didn’t suffer from any of those things.

But reading Vicki’s incredibly insightful, entertaining, and reflective words about her mom as she charted a trail through Sue’s life, I realized that we all navigate a path in our parents’ shadow. Whether we dig deep into what that was and write a memoir about it, or choose to go our own way and not think about it, the influence of a parent, present or absent, is powerful.

I think my beloved dad was an incredibly helpful influence on my life – and yet there are habits of his that I still carry, like aversion to conflict, that I need to heal. Maybe even more so because he didn’t do that work.

As I devoured Vicki’s well-written and insightful book about Sue, I found myself engrossed in the themes that Vicki wrote about, including:

  • Rethinking our parents as people
  • Understanding complicated family members and finding ways to love them anyway
  • Tending to unresolved childhood pain
  • Secrets and lies and how the weight of distortion impacts mental health
  • Dads and daughters and special bonds
  • Grace and patience

Whether the themes related to something in my life or not, reading a memoir from someone like Vicki who has done the work to understand the patterns in theirs is so inspirational. Whether our parents were hurtful or helpful, being able to tell their stories is an incredible gift to ourselves to uncover the a-ha of how their touch continues.

As we search for our “why’s” in life – the power behind what motivates us and defines us, figuring out our parent’s why’s is incredibly illuminating. Watching the way that Vicki uncovers that for her mom in Surviving Sue is like being at an archeology dig. Instructive to see the way she teases out the gems, suspenseful as we wade through the project, and thought-provoking for how we can apply it to our own lives. Then we can uncover, as Vicki does so masterfully, the objects and knowledge that give us the power and a chance for intergenerational healing.  

(featured photo from Pexels)

My book about my beloved father is available on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith

Vicki’s book: Surviving Sue print edition

Vicki’s book Surviving Sue Kindle edition

It’s Just Like Riding a Bike

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“I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.” – Maya Angelou

Riding bikes with my kids has given me a new appreciation for the learning process. That is to say, I’ve come to see “two steps forward, one step back,” in a more growth-minded way.

I bought eight-year-old Miss O a bigger bike (24 inch wheel) with gears. She hopped on and owned it. It was like she aged five years in that one move because it was bigger and sat her up higher.

As a result, four-your old Mr. D got her old bike, a medium sized bike (18 inch wheel). I moved the training wheels over from his small bike. But even with training wheels, he got a huge boost in confidence and speed from having a bigger sprocket.

We’ve spent the week riding everywhere and in all sorts of conditions. We’ve gone round the block so many times we must have worn a groove. Then one night we rode around our local little lake to get pizza. The next night we went up the hill to get pie. All the while, I’m riding behind Mr. D watching him wobble back and forth before he gains his balance, my fingers crossed that the training wheels will hold.

Then, we got the small bike out of the garage to pass on to another kid in the neighborhood. Mr. D hopped on his old bike, now without training wheels.

I held the back of the small bike for a moment. Before any of us could really think about it, Mr. D took off – riding the bike without training wheels. So, Miss O and I took turns running up and down the block a dozen times holding the seat for the start until Mr. D mastered that too.

All this has made me think of the rhythm of growth. Sometimes you have to go back a step to see how far you’ve gone.

It makes me think of the feeling I get when I go back to the town where I went to high school. With the swirl of old memories all around, it’s easier to see where I’ve grown.

Or when I dust off an old favorite recipe and discover how I’m better at trusting the timing.

Or when I hike a familiar trail and feel the burn of my muscles within the certainty that I can make the summit.

Or when I re-read something I wrote years ago and I can discern how it’s gotten easier to put my authentic self on the page.

Sometimes we have to go back to figure out how much we’ve learned.

Writing From the Heart

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“There is a wisdom of the head, and…a wisdom of the heart.” – Charles Dickens

This post was originally published on 3/1/2023. Heads up – you may have already read this.

The other day I read a beautiful post that was a tribute to a dearly departed pet. It was so touching and zinged me right where there’s a sore spot from missing my beloved dog, Biscuit, that died six years ago. I had to walk away for about 30 minutes before I could write a comment.

I find this so often be true – the topics that are the closest to my heart are hard to write about when the tears are still flowing. When I had to say good-bye to Biscuit, the next day the only words I could manage was to put a sign next to the cat who was also grieving the loss of his buddy:

Cat missing his newly departed dog

So this set me off wondering why it is so hard. Loss of perspective? Lack of clarity so I can’t yet make meaning? Inability to see the keyboard when the tears are flowing?

Thinking it could be a left-brain/right-brain kind of thing, I looked up the neuroscience of writing and found this New York Times article: This is Your Brain on Writing. Turns out that left-brain/right-brain isn’t much of a delineation that they make these days. Instead the article describes the results an fMRI study of the brain while writing including the detail that in expert writers, there is a part of the brain, the caudate nucelus, that lights up. The same part of the brain doesn’t light up for novice writers, a result that made sense to the scientists because the caudate nucleus is the part of the brain associated with expertise. Which was interesting but didn’t get me any closer to an answer.

Then I looked to our sacred texts and the spiritual world for wisdom on those moments when I can’t write. I was reacquainted with one of my dad’s favorite quotes from 17th century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal: “The heart has its reasons, that reason does not know.” My dad often cited this quote in an argument about belief in God – that our heart knows even if there isn’t any proof for the head. Maybe those topics that zing me are too close to my heart so they haven’t made it to the head yet?

Next on my list of possible explanations was poly-vagal theory about the three states of our nervous system. When I wrote about it for a post, The Unified Theory of Breathing I summarized the three states as: ventral which is calm and regulated, sympathetic the fight or flight response, and dorsal which is when the nervous system has been so stimulated that it shuts down. Perhaps when I can’t write, I’m flooded, in a dorsal state and can’t write? While this alludes to an answer, I don’t feel like I’m dysregulated and can’t write, just that I can’t find the words.

Finally, I turned to the world of yoga and meditation and found an explanation that makes sense to me. Stillness. When my waters are muddied, I have a harder time seeing into my depths. In times of life when the waves are choppy, I am all churned up inside. It’s only when I reconnect with my inner stillness that I can see well enough to cross the space between me and you.

What I found to be as fascinating as the question itself were the lenses I looked through to find my answer. Brain science, theology, physiology, and meditation – my four go-tos and I usually find the answer sitting in meditation. Must be why I do it every day. A confirmation bias loop because it works for me.

Here’s my take-away from the journey: It’s hard to write when I’m too wet and stirred up in my heart. And it’s also hard when I’m too dry and too much in my head. I have to aim for somewhere in the middle where I’m soft, warm, and clear.

What about you?

The Imposter Syndrome In Blogging

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“Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.” – Mark Twain

The was originally published on 5/3/2023. Heads up – you may have already read this.

On a recent podcast, Dan Harris was telling a story about when he suggested to his wife, a physician who graduated top in her class from a prestigious medical school and has practiced at some of the best teaching hospitals, that she might suffer from Imposter’s Syndrome. His wife’s response made me laugh out loud. Dan said it was something like “It’s interesting that some other people felt like that but I really AM an imposter.”

This Ten Percent Happier podcast with Dr. Valerie Young, an expert on the syndrome for more than 40 years, is fascinating for their deep dive in Imposter Syndrome or “feeling like a fraud, despite evidence to the contrary.” She also noted that some areas are more susceptible to this kind of thinking and being creative is one of them. According to Dr. Young, “when you are in a creative field, you are only as good as your last book or your last performance.”

Or, to expand on the professor’s point — your last blog post. That really resonated with me. Here’s why I think that.

I didn’t go to school for it.

In my professional life, I’m an expert in Microsoft collaboration software – things like creating structure and process about where people put and find their files, and workflow (e.g. how do I submit something for approval?).

Does my electrical engineering degree have any bearing on that? No. Outside of some basic troubleshooting and thinking skills, there isn’t any relationship between my degree and what I do now. I could draw a similarly loose relationship between the writing classes and I took in college and writing now, but I wouldn’t ever call myself an expert because….

Writing has been around a long time.

Writing has been around for about 5,500 years. I’m pulling that number from this delightful Psychology Today article about The Evolution of the Written Word. It’s a lot easier to feel like I know a good deal about collaborative software even though it changes daily and I’m always have to look something up. But writing? Well, there’s been Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, Garcia Marquez, Rushdie, and Hemingway and just typing that list makes me remember all that I don’t even know about the great writers, much less about writing.

No one pays me to write

For whatever I do and do not know about Microsoft software, I’ve been able to make a living out of a career providing consulting services around it. I’ve even published a couple of technical books, some of the least profitable parts of my career, which doesn’t bode well for me making a living from writing. But no one pays me to write, or at least not that I’ve managed to figure out yet, which makes me lack in the most basic form of transactional affirmation.

For some people, and I’m thinking of my colleague, Jack Canfora, who have made a go of writing as a career, the mantel of a writer seems to fit a lot better. Which affirms my inclination to think of myself as just a hobbyist.

And yet…

So why persist as a writer? Because writing feels more meaningful than any single consulting project I’ve ever done. Because writing requires me to dig deep and put myself out there is a way that is not required with computer consulting. Because writing about life creates a goodness in my experience that increases my enjoyment in life.

Here’s what I’ve concluded. Sure, sometimes (or a lot of times), I feel like an imposter as a writer and I know I’m not alone in that feeling. But every one who lives their authentic words out on paper can’t be an imposter to their experience. Any one who has hit the word “publish” has indeed created something. No one who uses words to create feelings in others and communicate should suffer from the distinction that others may have done it better. All who bleed, figuratively speaking, to put themselves out there should be proud of the effort.

What about you? Do you feel like you’ve suffered from Imposter Syndrome as a creative? What have you done to combat it?

(featured photo from Pexels)

The Glass is Refillable

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“Only the closed mind is certain.” – Dean Spanley

This was previously published on 9/28/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

I was traveling last week, something I haven’t done without my kids in 7 years. I’d perfectly engineered the school drop-off and transfer to the nanny, filled the fridge with food, done all the laundry, and even unloaded the dishwasher. I thought I had everything well in-hand.

But then I got to the airport and all my planning fell like a stack of cards. My flight was delayed. My transportation to the hotel when I arrived at the destination changed so I needed a last minute rental car. I took a wrong turn and had to back up in a strange car on a dark road. I didn’t know how to navigate New Jersey turnpike tolls and was guessing. I got to the hotel so late that they were no longer serving food so I ended up eating the cup-of-soup noodles you get by pouring hot water over and they are only marginally less chewy than styrofoam. Then as I gave up and just tried to sleep, I could hear a very faint security beep if I lay on my left side so I had to only lie on my right. Anytime I forgot and turned over, I woke up.

I was tired, pissy, disappointed and completely spent.

More than that – I was surprised. My congenital optimism as described in  Rose-Colored Glasses had predicted none of this. When a couple of days later I talked this over with my friend who is a self-proclaimed pessimist, I asked if optimists and pessimists suffer the same amount: optimists from disappointment and pessimists from catastrophizing.

My friend asked something like, “Why can’t you set your expectations differently?” Well, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get that right either. I could imagine how things would go wrong but I doubt I’d be any closer to reality.

“People who wonder if the glass is half empty or full miss the point. The glass is refillable.”

unknown

Refillable – yes! But first I have to empty it of all the bubbly stuff I put in there to begin with. What works for me is to get up every morning and meditate to make friends with uncertainty. That practice of mindfulness helps me to embrace that I have no idea how things are going to unfold, no matter how much I’ve planned…or maybe even more poignantly, how much I’ve dreamed.

Whether we come at it from a perspective that everything is going to be great or that nothing is going to work, the truth remains that we don’t know. Even the people that I’ve met who identify as realists don’t know how something will unfold. Being optimists, pessimists or realists might set the tone of how we feel about the day before us but the mystery of life remains that we can’t predict how life will turn before us.

This brings to me something I heard Franciscan Priest Father Richard Rohr say about certitude.

“The thing called certitude is a product of the enlightenment, and it did so many good things for us, science and medicine but it made us feel that we have a right to something that we really don’t. Our ancient ancestors grew up without expecting that. So they were much more easily able to hold on to mystery in general, God in particular. Whereas we worship workability, predictability, answers – we like answers.

We think we have a right to certitude.”

Father Richard Rohr

With the help of meditation, I come back to knowing that I don’t know and then I feel more able to improvise. When I touch uncertainty, I let go of my plans. When I empty my head and hands of the vision of me being in charge, I more readily accept the mystery unfolding before me.

The glass is refillable. Indeed it is. I concede that it might be my optimism that gets me up and ready to practice refilling it. But whatever it is, I have to work at it every day, meditating in order to make friends with uncertainty in a practice to embrace the mystery again and again.

Meditating on uncertainty on my recent trip helped me enjoy the experience: it wasn’t as I had expected but it had lots of twists and turns that fed me in significant way. That interpretation might sound optimistic but it’s much deeper than that – its meaningful. And isn’t that part of what we ultimately want from life?

(featured photo from Pexels)

Writing Last Lines That Count

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“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable but they’re never weaknesses.” – Brene Brown

This post was originally published on 4/19/2023. Heads up that you may have already read this.

On the last morning I saw my beloved dad, he greeted me with a hearty “You look great.”

His untimely death a short time later has permanently etched all the details of that breakfast into my treasure box of memories: the yellow walls of the Varsity Restaurant on NE 65th street, the booth in the open section, the jeans and sweater I was wearing, the cupcakes I gave my parents for their upcoming drive to Arizona, the eggs and waffles, but it is those words that are most precious.

Because both my dad and I both knew that he wasn’t talking about anything to do with my hair, make-up or clothes – he was talking about the light in my eyes. How did I know that it wasn’t just my dad being his effusive self? Let me explain.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned about last lines. As much as we’d like to prepare for them, many (most?) don’t happen how and when we think. Take my dad’s line – neither of us knew that in 6 days time, after arriving and unpacking for a winter in Tucson, that he’d get on a bike, hit a car, and die almost instantly.

That might be an extreme example, but even for the end of a friendship or relationship, the speeches we plan are not what end up expressed. Life, interplay, and random things happen to make things unexpected. So we have to instead do the work to speak honestly and communicate authentically whenever we can.

For me, that work began when three years before my dad’s death when I went on a whim to a meditation class. After 90 minutes of seemingly innocuous visualization and breathing exercises, I spent the rest of the day weeping. It turned out to be just what I needed to start opening all the compartmentalized boxes within and let life flow again. The grief, and shame that came from my recent divorce and that I wasn’t as successful at everything I believed I was supposed to be, came pouring out and I was given openness in return.

So that in the two years before my dad died I was able to choose to broach the subject of spiritual beliefs with him. To talk about what mattered the most to him as a Presbyterian pastor of 40 years. It was a risk because we didn’t talk about religion in my family once all of us kids were grown. Out of respect for keeping things amiable, we’d just stopped talking about our differences.

When we braved the waters of deep beliefs and possible differences to engage in conversation about why he believed what he did and vice versa with me, that meaningful dialogue changed the perception of difference between us and removed the barrier of what we thought were off-limits zones.

Peeling back that veneer of friendly and loving banter in which my dad and I always talked, to delve into deeper issues created a closeness that was precious. My dad knew I was interested in him, I’d spent hours recording our conversations, and I gained relief from my fear that I was doing life “wrong” in his eyes by focusing on meditation instead of theology.

And that is how I knew that my dad’s last line to me was not about the surface details of appearance but instead about a light that had dulled in the last years of my troubled marriage and then divorce. And then through meditation, openness, and vulnerability, that light had been stoked back to its full glow. Sharing that journey with my dad made it possible for him to comment on it.

His death affixed all the details of that breakfast in my mind. But my heart will always remember, “You look good.” It was a gift that started with changing our patterns long before the last line. It’s so hard to talk with our loved ones about the topics that seem most fraught. But in the grief of losing someone, knowing that kinship was there helps.

If we want to have great last lines, we have to risk the vulnerability to be seen.

“You look good.” Which as last lines go, was pretty damn amazing.

My book about our conversations and my journey to find what fueled my dad’s indelible spark and twinkle can be found on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith.

Sometimes The Dead Speak

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“See, broken things always have a story to tell, don’t they?” – Sara Pennypacker

Funny how much we want the voices of the dead to weigh in on some subjects. I published a post on Monday, The Set Up, that told the story of a family incident that happened 35 years ago. The code of secrecy between kids being what it is, it’s an incident that I never told my dad about. Especially as the youngest kid, it would have been a serious breach to tell my dad what happened so I don’t know what his response would be.

But I found a sermon that he wrote almost 38 years ago that gives me a pretty good idea of his approach. It’s long as a piece of writing. If you want to skip down to the family story, skim down to the paragraph near the end that starts with “Several years ago Carolyn and I.” Carolyn is my mom’s name.

Parenting

October 12, 1986

Dr. Richard H. Leon

This is the both the worst of themes and the best of themes to address. It is the worst because who can speak with clean hands about parenting? Surely not I. We all have so much to learn and so much we would like to forget that it is a bit ludicrous to stand up and speak about parenting as if we knew best!

But this is also the best of themes because it is the arena of our lives that consumes the most energy and that concerns us the most. Every small group experience I have had reminds me that when we talk about the rhythms of daily life they nearly always revolve around our family-life… relationships with our parents, our spouse, our children, their children…etc., etc., etc..

From the start I want to say tha the church has not always been the best place for honest parenting-talk. I don’t know your experience. But in my lifetime I have seen the church err more often than not in two ways: in an effort to uphold moral law we have come down hard in judging wrong behavior… and in an effort to celebrate successful family life we have made it hard for people to face their pain openly. Tolstoy said, “Happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” And this morning I want to open the door to the Biblical perspective on the painful side and the grace-ful side of parenting.

Coping with guilt and grief

The first concern I have is the painful side of guilt over ways we fail our children as parents and the grief that comes when children do not live up to our dreams and ideals. Life tells me these feelings are almost universal in parents. Don’t we all feel like we have failed in one way or another in raising our children? And don’t we all feel the grief for lost dreams for our children? I can still recall the first time I felt this…it was when one of our children first defied Carolyn and me and refused to follow our direction and meet our expectations. And that was at age 3…not to mention the broken dreams during their teen-years!

How do we keep from concluding that their failures are all our fault? How can we learn to accept that each of our children are separate from us with a mind and will and personality of their own?

It is helpful to me to name the full sweetp of the realities that shape us. The point here is to note that although parents have a great influence over children … there are many other ingredients in the recipes for our children’s lives. Let me list at least seven of these ingredients.

Genes – from the first moment of birth, before parents can do anything to influence children, it is clear that every child is different. It is a simple matter of genetics. We look at our three children and see that their responses to life were distinctly different from day one. Our first child was laid back and relaxed…our second was wound up so tight she couldn’t keep her head still to nurse…our third child was happy and charming. They had those marks when they were born…they still have them!

Growth patterns – every day is a time of growth and development and the setting for each child is different so that given their different temperaments and these different circumstances they all follow different patterns of growth. A lot has been done lately with our birth-order. First children grow accustomed to take the lead (bossing others around, some say), middle children get caught between not being the oldest in the lead or the youngest who is always the “cute” one; and youngest children come into their world with experienced parents who are too tired to push like they did the first times around!

Parenting – make no mistake about it. How we raise our kids does make a difference. We bear a heavy weight here … but it is not the only force at work in our children’s lives.

Culture – I have lived in enough different countries to see both the common humanity that we share and the cultural differences that train us up with different beliefs and values and realities. The irony of this matter of culture is that those places the western world calls “backward” are the same places where children are raised to respect and obey their parents!

Peers – a graph would show that the degree of parental influence in a child’s life starts high and steadily declines, and the degree of peer-power starts at nothing and steadily increase until by the teen years these two lines cross and the end is near! The force of peers soon becomes the dominant force in life… until a time in early adulthood … sooner for some and much later for others… when self0rule takes over from peer-control.

Church – I may seem strange to include church as an influence in many of our children’s lives..but hopefully this is true. The place of Christian families and friends, teachers and church school and worship and young leaders … all this is potentially a great force for balance and health.

God – We are born by god’s grace, created in God’s image and we all one day return to face God. And the force of God in our lives is something we acknowledge by faith even though we know many cannot see it. Scripture teaches that God seeks us all out as a shepherd searches for his single lost sheep. If we simply give God a chance he will move mightily in our lives and the lives of our children. I must confess that this truth gives me more comfort, hope and confidence in the future than anything else I may say this morning. God loves our children even more than we do and he is not idle about his love!

So, there are at least seven forces at work in the lives of our children. Our places a parents is central and strong … but all that happens in our children’s lives is neither all our fault … nor all to our credit!

Coping with the tension between “law” and “grace”

Let me speak second about another prime issue in parenting … the constant tension between laying it on (the law) and laying off (grace).

One of the best passages in scripture to examine in this regard is the parable of the Prodigal Son … or better yet, the Loving Father. This may be the most astounding store in all literature. It touches every one of us on several levels and all at once.

The story builds on a father’s relationship with two sons. Both are raised in the same household with the same values. Notice how different the sons are in their views of life. Is it the parent’s fault that one is strong-willed and self-centered and the other is compliant enough to stay at home? (We also learn that the older son was jealous, harbored hurt and anger, was unforgiving and self-righteous … but that’s a different story!)

Look at the tension in the father’s life when his son asks for his inheritance and wants to leave home. We have to assume the son was old enough to leave. We have to assume that the father did not respond with this same generosity and grace when his son said that at 3 years old … or at 10 … or even 16. Can you picture what the father must have thought about at this request? Like:

  • “…What will my neighbors think?”
  • “…is this fair to my oldest son?”
  • “…will I look weak?”
  • “…if he squanders it will I be responsible?”
  • …”my father would never have let me do this!”
  • “…and I never would have thought that way!”
  • “…if I hit him hard enough will he change his views?”

The tension was between reading his son the law … or giving his son his freedom. And the amazing turn of the story is that contrary to his culture and his own family values the father in Jesus’ story lets his son go free. It is almost as if the father is saying … “the only way I can win my son’s heart is to let my son go.”

Lessons from the gospel to guide parents

I would like to see if we can extract some lessons from Jesus’ story of this loving father than can help us in the task of parenting. It should be noted from the start, however, that these lessons are not given in the passage just because it worked with this second son but because these lessons are consistent with a parent’s love. In other words, the justification is not one of success … do it because it always words … but one of love … do it because you love your child and this is how God loved you!

There really is only one lesson to note, it is the lesson of unconditional love. There is no other way to describe this father’s love for his son. He loves his son without asking him to conform to his standards, expectations, or dreams. He loves his son even though it brings great pain to himself … and as he might have guessed, even to his son. There are three choices the father made that mark unconditional love as a parent.

The first mark is in 15:12 “So he divided his property” and it is the choice between acceptance-release or rejection-restraint. For a father to release a son with his inheritance in that culture was to invite mockery. It meant taking the insult of one’s son who in effect is saying “I wish you were dead” and not fighting back. The temptation to reject his son must have been enormous.

And this may help us see that unconditional love is not an instinct, it is a decision. We do not love like this with our feelings … we love like this because we make a decision that it is most loving. And this truth applies to our relationships as husbands and wives as well as parents and children. When insulted you need to ask a question that short-circuits your feelings: “what is the loving response?” It may not always be acceptance and release. There are times for discipline and restraint. But it will only be acceptance and release if you decide it will be that!

A second issue is waiting and hoping or giving up on someone. Look at the 20th verse: “he saw him a long way off.” You only see someone a long way off if you are looking for him and waiting for him.

When he gave his son his portion and saw his son off to the far country it would have been very easy to conclude the son has chosen his own way and there was no way he would ever take him back.

The pain of separation must have been so intense that it is not hard for us to imagine a response of simply trying to forget that this son was still living. You and I see this often, don’t we? I recall one family that we were very close to in our pastorate. When one of their daughters got pregnant and had to get married it hurt the mother so much that she simply dismissed her from her life. Even though she lived only a few miles away in the same little township the mother chose to terminate the whole relationship.

But this father in Jesus’ story did not give up. He must have gone to a view-point that looked out on that road to the far country every day to watch for his son’s return. He prayed for his son and waited for his son to come home. He did not hurt less by doing this. But he hurt better. That is he did not let the pain of the separation destroy the hope of his love.

And thirdly, we see unconditional love as making the choice between forgiveness or punishment. Verse 22 goes like this: “But the father said to the servants, quick bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was lost and is found.”

This is not cheap restoration, it is as costly to the father as letting him go because all the village would have expected the father to punish the son for his insult and foolishness. But love sees the beauty of the future relationship rather than holds the pains of the past rejection. His son has paid for his sin in his own way and it is now for the father to celebrate his return not punish for his wrong.

Several years ago Carolyn and I were going through a time of considerable pain and struggle with our middle child. At that same time I was studying this passage for my own sake and for helping others. We tried to shape our love with the encouragement of these lessons. It was not easy. Let me see if I can describe the situation without too many details that betray trust.

We had had one of those summers-at-home-after-a-first-year-of-college situations. We were trying to let her live on her own as she had at college while at the same time stay sane when that meant doing things at considerable variance with our wishes. The summer went well by avoiding conflict … not the best model to follow, by the way. When school started and we began writing to each other, the issues then surfaced again and it was just plain painful. By November it moved beyond pain to trauma for all of us. Then Carolyn and I received a letter that opened up a new dimension… in it she spilled out long-held feelings of being the “least-loved” of the kids and “most criticized” for what she did when the others were just as “bad!”

Well, this time it was my turn to reply and I found myself faced with several choices. How did I handle her anger? How did I respond to her judgment of our treatment of her? I could have lashed back and defended our side of the relationship. I could have tried to document the ways she deserved any anger or judgment we had shown her. I could have closed the door to the whole issue and pushed her further away. But largely because of the prodigal’s story and lessons I wrote back and said: “You’re right … we have not loved you in the way you needed. Please forgive us. We are really sorry for our part in your hurt.” It was not just a posture … it was genuine sadness and a genuine apology.

The response to that letter was like a shaft of light in a dark storm. She actually had a dream about it. In the dream, she was waiting with Carolyn for me to come to church … I was late … she asked Carolyn why and finally was told I was dead. She didn’t believe it, she went to see for herself, and found it was true. And then she came back to Carolyn and asked, “Is it too late?” Carolyn asked, “Too late for what?” And she answered: “Too late to tell Dad how much I love him.” She called the next night and told us about the dream and about her love. The dream was so strong that it turned our whole relationship around … and I believe it was God’s way of intervening in our relationship. We are closer now than ever before.

I am convinced that the letters that uncovered those deep feelings, the encouragement of scriptures that helped Carolyn and me respond through prayer and confession rather than through emotional reactions and self-defense, and God’s intervention through a dream (a familiar tool of God!) all brought about a miracle.

There are no guarantees when it comes to parenting … but the pattern of the prodigal’s father is God’s way with us. It is a pattern of swallowing pain and accepting the person … waiting, praying, hoping for that return from the far country … and forgiveness and restoration to the fullness of relationship. I do not believe this because it always works … I believe it because it is the way of health and truth and love. It is God’s way with us and in Christ it is God’s call to our love for one another.

I wish I could say that my dad’s relationship with my sister was all sunshine and rainbows from then on. It wasn’t. But by the time my dad died in a bicycle accident, they were probably as close as ever. A blessing for sure.

P.S. If you ever wonder if it’s worth writing down your stories and thoughts for future generations, here’s one example of how it absolutely does matter.

P.P.S. My book about my journey to find what fueled my dad’s indelible spark and twinkle can be found on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith.

Writing In the Dark

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“Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows.” – Rainier Maria Rilke

This post was originally published on 4/12/2023. Heads up – you may have already read this.

I wrote this post early Monday morning. Around 3:43am that is. I have all sorts of things I do in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. Mostly worry. Then I review my to-do list. Then I go back to worrying some more. Usually after about a half an hour of tossing and turning, I remember to start meditating and praying. After a few minutes of meditating, I kinda just flow into writing.

It’s all in my head in the dark. I know that there’s a lot of sleep wisdom that says to keep a notebook beside the bed for writing things down. But this composing in my head works for me. It’s not that I remember everything I write, it’s just that it slips me into a different mode. Eventually I’ll write myself back to sleep. The best part is that I even retain some of it when I awaken.

I recently learned of some interesting research from a Ten Percent Happier podcast with Professor Lindsey Cameron. She studied whether meditation helps at work, specifically focused on customer facing jobs, and the results were fascinating. She found that traditional breath work meditations helped with centering the person in a bigger perspective so that the ups and downs weren’t as jarring. And she found that loving-kindness meditation increased the ability to place ourselves in other’s shoes.

There’s research that shows loving-kindness practice reduces activity in part of the brain that’s active when we are anxious. And a study that showed we don’t want to practice mindfulness when doing emotionally taxing work. The example I heard in that case was a flight attendant who is having to pleasantly telling people to buckle their seat belts over and over again does not benefit from being more mindful in those moments.

Back to the point about writing in the dark. It seems our brain research is catching up with what our spiritual traditions have taught us for millennia. There are practices that help to literally change our minds. They’ve given us a tool set that we can use to help put ourselves in the best frame of mind to create, to understand, to be less anxious, to change, to be more altruistic, and so on. It’s no wonder I start writing in the dark after I start meditating, because the practice helps to shut down worry, and then I open up to creativity.

And it matches what works for me during daylight hours. In my post When I Write, I looked at what time of day works for me and it’s always after I’ve done the work to be quiet, to meditate, and to get a little perspective on life.

It feels a little clinical to separate out the meditation and prayer practices from the spiritual traditions and beliefs that tie us to a Higher Power. But in the middle of the night as I’m settling into a rhythm of breathing and repeating “faith over fear,” it’s also kind of fun to know I’m setting up the conditions for calming my brain. And that I might even get a post out of it.

(featured photo from Pexels)