Tag: inspiration

Deep Enough

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“When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt you head back and laugh at the sky.” – Buddha

My honorary aunt and uncle came to visit recently. They were my parent’s best friends since before I was born so every time I’m with them, it feels like old times. Talking with my 92-year-old “uncle,” he asked about my son going to daycare all day during the week. “He seems so little for that” he says. And I agreed and added, “True, he is little. But I need the help.”

My uncle looked off, squinted his eyes as if he was trying and failing to imagine choosing to be a single parent, taking care of children, working and balancing it all. Then he looked back and gently said, “I guess I could see that” in a tone that confirmed he couldn’t.

My uncle is a renowned Biblical scholar and retired professor of Theology. He once spent 17 years writing a book on the gospel of Matthew. But he has very little practical knowledge of the world. Years ago my uncle visited a college in Texas and was sitting next to a rancher at a meet-and-greet dinner. The rancher said he had 300 head of cattle and my uncle asked how many cows that was. The rancher famously replied, “I don’t know about where you come from but here in Texas, our cows only have one head each.”

In the moments when I struggle to find any sense of the spiritual plane in my hectic life, I sometimes envy people like my uncle who seem to have created calm and ordered lives in which to acquire deep knowledge of the Divine. I would love to be so deep in the study of life, Mystery and God. But life has called me to be broad instead.

When I sit to meditate in the morning, I usually find I already am participating in the mystery of life, just in a different way than the enlightenment I imagine I could reach if I had hours to go deep. In the quiet moments before I wake my two kids and go full on to get them out the door, I often get a glimpse of the Divine and Universal Flow find right here in my beautiful, messy life.

Sure, I have popcorn in my bra and am changing diapers in the back of my SUV between dropping my daughter and school and my son at daycare but I don’t need to be a scholar to know that God is right there, laughing at the gentle touch between us.

My uncle has only been able to been so deep because he has my aunt who has handled almost all the details of their life, their kids and grandkids. At the end of their visit, she said to me with a smile and a wink on the way out, “I don’t know how you do it all.” And I felt the presence of God in that spark of knowing that passed between us.

(photo from Pexels)

Feedback Loops

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“Life is an echo. What you send out — comes back.” – unknown

My son and I were reading before bedtime. He climbed up on my bed with the pile of board books, snuggled in and then said, “Come up.” After I did, he said with a clap, “Good boy, Mama!”

When I put my daughter to bed, after we say our prayers and I snuggle her up so only her little face is showing above the comforter, I say “Good night, beautiful girl.” And she replies “Good night, beautiful mama.”

I studied feedback and control systems in college when getting my Electrical Engineering degree. But nothing has been more effective and more immediate than parenting in reminding me that life is an echo. My kids show me every day that what I send out comes right back to me, usually in the same tone.

Trust Falls

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“The angel seeing us is watching through each other’s eyes.” – Rickie Lee Jones

My friend Eric was over the other night and my daughter accidentally did one of those “trust falls” when she tripped over something, fell backwards and he caught her. She thought that was so much fun that she wanted to do it again and again.

Watching this, I was trying to think who I trust to catch me. As I started listing all the wonderful people in my life in my head and thinking whether I’d trust them to catch me if I metaphorically fell (like if I got sick), I started automatically providing excuses why I wouldn’t ask. Like there’s Lindsey but she is so busy, there’s Eric but he just started a new job, there’s Katie but she’s a half hour away, and there’s my mom but she should be enjoying her senior years.

I had to meditate on this for a while. Why is it that I don’t “trust” any of the people that I really and truly trust? And the answer is my own fear of vulnerability. I don’t want to ask. I fear having to ever own that there are some days I’m a hot mess on the inside.

Of course this is all thankfully hypothetical but also represents my ongoing battle with over-preparing for life. It’s not just now. I can think back to when I climbed mountains and I would check the packing list over and over so that I wouldn’t have to ask anyone to borrow anything. Or sleep with my contacts in so I wouldn’t be late to tie into the rope team when we’d leave for our final summit bid in the middle of the night.

When I really dig deep, I see that I trust my spiritual guides like my dad and God much more than I do living people. Because I don’t have to ask out loud!

When it comes to trust falls, I think it is far easier to be the person catching than the person falling. Unless you are a 6-year-old and then you love doing the falling. But if I remember correctly from the group building exercises I’ve done in the past, you have to both do the falling and the catching.

A good reminder that we have to practice vulnerability. So I’ll go first. I started blogging regularly because working remotely and being a parent means that I don’t have enough conversations with adults that go deep. That leaves me feeling this weird kind of loneliness that isn’t bored or even unhappy but just scared I’m missing the point.  So I write but I don’t advertise this to anyone outside the blogging community just in case I’m overreaching. But I aspire to one day own all of me and to know the power of doing so.

Whoa! That was scary. But I’ll catch you if you want to take a turn!

Betrayal and Forgiveness

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“True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for that experience.‘” – Oprah Winfrey

My daughter’s 7-year-old friend came over the other day with the news that their former au pair had betrayed them (her words). The gist of the story was that au pair had agreed to stay with the kids for a weekend and then backed out. Our young friend said that her parents had found someone else to stay with the kids while they travel leaving only the feeling of betrayal to somehow process.

That word, betrayal, always reminds me of my ex-husband. Because when his friend and my business partner told me of my husband’s infidelities, my husband at the time felt so betrayed because his friend told me. And the more he declaimed it, the more embedded I felt in his betrayal of me and our wedding vows.

In this circular pattern of pain and distrust, there seemed to be no way out. I couldn’t get any resolution of what had happened because every time we touched on it, even in counseling, it just triggered my ex-husband’s feeling of betrayal. He could bring more dramatic outrage to the table so I always ended up bottling it up in a misguided effort to make it stop. When we finally divorced, I was so relieved that cycle was over.

But it left me having to forgive my ex-husband without any satisfying resolution about what had happened. Which was even harder work. Our wisdom traditions talk about the power and necessity of forgiveness. Growing up as a pastor’s kid, it was like the bread and butter of our family. Knowing that and wanting it, I still had to find out my way of actually forgiving. I was like a goat tethered to a stake always covering the same ground until I did.

In the end, I discovered meditation as a way to lean in to the mess of it all and develop a bigger perspective. That is when I finally figured out how to forgive. The pain of betrayal led me to the life of meditation and perspective. Which has then gone on to give so many more gifts of faith, confidence and personal belonging that allowed me to choose to have kids on my own. Looking back, I have never been so glad for the gift of pain leading me to the richness of life.

I know forgiveness is extremely hard to do when we feel like keep the wound open provides evidence that we were the injured party. I recently read a quote by Henri Nouwen, “Your future depends on how you decide to remember your past.” In that passage, he was talking to himself but the Truth of it brought tears to my eyes.

Watching my daughter’s friend as she told me the story, I could see her rewriting her history of the 18 months the au pair lived with and cared for her based on this last interaction. If I could amend Henri Nouwen’s Truth slightly, I’d add that “Your kids future also depends on how you decide to remember your past.”

Receiving Pain

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“Only love, with no thought of return, can soften the point of suffering.” – Mark Nepo

When I trimmed my 2-year-old son’s hair recently, he’s started saying “Ow” with each snip. I checked to make sure I wasn’t pulling his hair or in any way touching his head with the tip of the scissors and continued. And he kept saying, “Ow.” It was possible he was the first person I’ve ever heard of to have feeling in his hair but his body language and smile told me it was more likely he was saying something that got a reaction.

But it brought to mind for me all the different ways I’ve received other people’s pain. I’ve dismissed it as not as bad as they are reporting. I’ve wondered when they will get over it. I have compared it (both inwardly and outwardly) as not as bad as something I’ve experienced. And I can report that none of these methods are helpful. The only way that I’ve found to bear witness to pain and to help alleviate suffering is to believe that every word they say is true and to listen as they process their story.

This makes me think of a winter climb I once did on Mt. Whitney with a good friend about 3 months after her boyfriend died of cancer. He’d been cremated and she was climbing with him in a little urn attached to her pack. She kept on mentioning Rick to the other people in the group we were climbing with, none of whom knew us from before the trip. And because she was talking about Rick as if he was with us (and I suppose he was if you counted the urn), they would get a pretty confused look on their faces and eventually take me aside to ask me who Rick was. But it was a group of really nice people who let her talk and talk and talk about him. We were slogging in thigh deep snow up the side of the mountain and had days to listen.  It was like an extreme walking meditation.

After a while, I thought we’d heard enough about Rick. I fortunately never said anything. Because it wasn’t until my dad died that I understood that the telling of the story of his sudden death in a bike accident and talking about what an amazing person he was were both such healing ways to help process the surprise of finding him gone.

So I’ve adopted some of my dad’s wisdom. As a retired pastor, he often was asked by friends, mentees and former parishioners to go to coffee for advice or to air the pain of living. And if you asked him how it went, he’d smile kindly and say, “Mostly I listened.”

My kids give me lots of opportunities to practice to listen to their pains and I do my best to calmly bear witness, not lecture about safety (at that moment at least) and just slather them with love. As I cut my son’s hair and he giggled and said “ow,” I started narrating that he was the bravest person on earth to get his hair cut. In that way, we made it through together!

And Then I Woke Up with a Tattoo

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“Knowledge increases by sharing, not by saving.” – Lyrical

About 10 months ago when I started to blog regularly, I remember LA of the Waking Up on the Wrong Side of Fifty blog saying in a comment that I would develop great blog friends. Given that the platform lends itself to self-awareness and sharing, it’s a reasonable assumption. But I didn’t really understand the familiarity that develops when you follow someone, dare to comment and create a history over time.

Now that I do, I’m so grateful for the blog community. The awesome power of sharing wisdom, practicing putting words to this experience of life and telling stories. I have learned so much and I have laughed a lot. It’s like spending an extended time sitting around a table swapping stories with people from around the world.

And then coming home with a tattoo!

Thanks to the hilarious Betsy from the ParentingIsFunny blog. Her friend had them made for her birthday and in recapping the adventure she offered to send extras to anyone who would wear one. Happy birthday, Betsy!

Nice to Meet You

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“A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.” – Stendahl

My kids and I have had a dog staying with us this past week. Kelty is a delightful, well-trained Springer Spaniel who at 12 ½ is old enough to pretty much know what to do without direction and deaf enough to have momentary lapses when she wants to look for food and pretend she can’t hear us. My kids have been so excited to take care of a dog so they’ve split up the responsibilities. My 6-year-old daughter scoops the food for her and gives the cup to my 2-year-old son so he can put it in the dish. Or my son goes around the yard looking for poop so that my daughter can pick it up. Hilarious!

The only creature that isn’t happy is our cat who refuses to even meet the dog. She has spent the week lying mostly on the front porch glider occasionally coming in for food or to run upstairs where the dog doesn’t go to have a nap. She’s young, strong and confident enough to roam the entire neighborhood, catch mice and take care of herself but none of that translates until a willingness to meet this nice older dog, She even follows us when we take the dog out walking like she wants to join but darts away if the dog looks at her.

Somehow this has reminded me of me. Specifically about my willingness to meet men. Not that I dart into bushes 😊 but more figuratively that if I am ever to find love again, I’m going to have to start with at least intending to meet men. I’ve had the confidence to walk this path of having kids on my own, I’ve managed to figure out how to juggle most everything – work, house maintenance, kids but the idea of falling in love again unsettles me.

I was playing a catching game with my kids the other day and my daughter said to me, “When we get a dad, we can play boys against girls.” Right! I know it’s the next part of the path I need to walk but like the cat, it’s never going to happen unless I need to try. Maybe at my age, I can find one a little like the dog – old enough to pretty much know what to do and selectively deaf enough to create some mischief from time to time. 😊

Tears Worth Shedding

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“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so you apologize for truth.” – Benjamin Disraeli

My mom was asking if my son still cries when I drop him off at daycare. He switched into a new class about two weeks ago and since the change, he’s had a harder time with that initial separation even though he’s perfectly happy after I leave. At the same time he switched classes, I also started taking him to Starbucks before school so that we could sit, look at cars and dogs and have a touch point for just the two of us after I drop his sister at school. My mom suggested, “Maybe he’s having a hard time at drop off because he likes the time with you at Starbucks so much.”

Which could very well be the case. But it begs the question if we should be distant with others so that they don’t miss us too much. Or we could be downright crappy to them. I know that my mom was not exactly suggesting that but it’s a little bit of a family tradition to be difficult when doing something for someone that you don’t want to have to do again. The unspoken strategy is to make it so painful that they’ll never ask again. Doesn’t that sound more fun that just saying “no”? 😊

I’ve consciously or unconsciously used this ploy for every guy I’ve broken up with. So I can say from experience, it doesn’t make the separation any easier. It just tinges all the memories with gray.

All of this reminds me of something I heard the writer Ashley C. Ford say, “I tried to live a disappointing life in order to not be disappointed.”

I understand the pull to stay very small in order to have a tidy life and never disappoint anyone else or myself. But I’ve learned that it doesn’t work to do anything but limit life experiences and connection to others.

This morning, my son and I went to Starbucks and had fun. We joked about who was going to school and who was going to work. He still cried when I left but I heard it differently. They were the cries of a huge love, the pain of missing each other and a big life. Those are the tears I think are worth shedding!

Praying for Rain

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“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them.” – Rabindranath Tagore

My friend, Mindy, told me this story about her son when he was about 6 or 7-years-old. It was the beginning of the school year and her son didn’t want to have to sit next to Henry in school. He came up with the idea to pray about it. The next day after her son came home from school, Mindy asked him whether or not he had to sit next to Henry. He replied, “Of course not, I prayed about it.”

I was reminded of this story the other day when my daughter was looking for her kinetic sand and said she’d prayed to God that she’d find it. I knew I’d thrown the kinetic sand out so no praying would help! I threw it out because I’d been praying not to have that stuff all over the floor and I knew how to make that happen. 😊 But it also made me think about my relationship to prayer.

The longer I live the less I know what to pray for. As our overall human and my individual scientific understanding of our world has grown, I’ve found it precludes praying for anything that I know how it works. And the more that I think I’m in control of my life, the less that I pray for things like money or even happiness.

So as I summon my centeredness and quiet as I meditate, I find myself instead praying more for a feeling and connection to the Divine. Praying for a voice that speaks kindness, a heart that serves from its depth and a mind that is childlike enough to search for mystery. I pray for an acceptance of things how they are and eyes to discovery the delight in it all. I pray for arms that are tender enough to hold everyone that I encounter during the day. I pray for ears that are open to listening and a patience to do it without judgment. I pray for a curious nose that can draw me to the sweet smelling things around me. I pray for a feeling of grace so that I face the day from my depths instead of my human fragility. I pray for feet that will guide me to my individual path that I should be walking and the courage to do it.

This weekend my daughter was praying for rain. I thought that one was likely to pan out given the forecast but it turned out that she was praying for rain right at that instant. So I shook the wet tree branch that she and my son were standing under and we laughed and laughed. Then when it really rained, we ran around, jumped in puddles, held our umbrellas upside down and sang. That turned out to be exactly what we all were praying for.

Big, Scary Dreams

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“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I got this fortune cookie “If your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough” when I was waiting on the results of my first ultrasound for my 2nd child. Since I’d undertaken the whole parenting endeavor intentionally as a single person, I could definitely attest that I was scared.

I carried in my purse all through that pregnancy and now it’s taped to my cupboard. I know that I’m not the only parent to wonder now that I have kids, do I still have the right to dreams that scare me?