Tag: kindness

Sibling Supportiveness

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“There’s a sun in every person – the you we call companion.” – Rumi

My kids and I were sitting on my bed reading books before bed and my 6-year-old daughter leaned over and kissed my toddler on the head and said, “Love you, Baby.” He said, “No kiss, La-la.” And so I kissed him on the head and he said, “No kiss, Mama.” But he was smiling so we kept kissing him and he kept saying “no kiss” and laughing.

My kids have such a sweet relationship. When they are in the car and my toddler hears a siren or other noise that scares him, he’ll say, “cared”, my daughter will say, “Want to hold my hand?” and he does.

I work hard to make this happen. I sit with them as they work things out and act as interpreter. I also narrate why he mimics her so much because he thinks she’s the coolest thing ever. I do this because I grew up as the younger sibling of someone who hated me. She was four years older than me which is the same age difference as my two kids. When we’ve talked about it as adults she said, “I don’t know why I was so mean to you.”

My opinion is that my sister has always struggled with feeling like she didn’t belong in our family because she was the one “realist” amongst a pack of optimists. I came along and the easy, happy disposition I was born with challenged her fighter, questioning nature and it is her makeup to push back.

Whatever my sister’s reason was, I find it fascinating to think about the dynamic now. Having kids that are the same age difference has been fear-inducing and healing for me. I was terrified that the same pattern would repeat itself. And now I’m starting to trust that there isn’t any scary truth that four years difference makes siblings not like each other.

There isn’t a more influential factor on my parenting style than the wounds of my childhood. I was scared to live with my sister – scared that anything I professed to love she would destroy. If I had long hair, I was scared she’d cut it off at night, if I liked a particular stuffed animal, I was scared she’d take it or destroy it. To be fair, I don’t think she ever did – but she threatened a lot. And I think I’m still scared of admitting I love something in case that means it’s taken away.

My mom was tired of kid squabbles by the time I came along as the third child. She was ready to move on with her own professional and personal development and given how talented and smart she is, that was only natural. But it meant that telling her my fears or about the conflict was not a fruitful path. She’d call it tattling or say we both caused it, no matter what happened. There was no path to resolution for me as a child – no understanding, no naming it and no way out of fear.

So every day I work at building trust between my kids and making sure they are source of comfort, not anxiety for each other. It heals me alongside helping them. It’s another reminder to me that nothing is wasted in this life – every wound can become a source of knowledge and inspiration. I hope that long after I’m gone, when they are scared, they will still talk to each other about it and hold hands.

Difficult Compassion

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“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” – Mother Teresa

Recently my kids and I have had a couple of encounters with apparently homeless people that along with the proliferation of tents in the parks that came with COVID have my almost 6-year-old daughter asking a lot of questions. In one encounter, a man with a belt still tying off his arm for shooting up was hollering and trying to take off his pants and another man was threatening him with a baseball bat to emphasize that he should keep his pants on. In another, a man was crawling down the busy street near where we live with a look of sheer agony on his face and one arm outstretched.

I often am confused about how to talk with my daughter about these matters. She may only be going in to first grade but she talks like she is a 9-year-old, is very observant and asks a lot of good questions. To top it off, the homeless problem is so apparent and pervasive that I certainly don’t have any great ideas about how we are going to fix it. But we came up with an idea that she could draw something and we could make some care packages for people that we see.

Yesterday she wrote this note without any help from me:

We nowe you are homeless but we care. Sorry you are homles.

Do not smoc. Do not take drugs becus they make you feel bedder for a few minets but wen it goes a way it makes you feel wurs.

My daughter – age 5.9 years

She then started taping on extra pieces of paper so that she could continue. In addition to being fascinated about what content she’s taken in from our many discussions, I noticed how hard it is to stay in empathy before moving to advice or judgment.

The other day my friend, Doug, asked if I could remember the name of a guy we used to work with. He said something like, “You know, the guy who’s wife left him, house burned down and his dog died?” “Oh my goodness,” that’s terrible I thought and still had no idea who he was talking about. But it wasn’t long before the thought crossed my mind that this poor man really must have pissed off God.

So I know first-hand how hard it is to stay in empathy. I start moving to judgment or advice because it feels like having an explanation of why bad things happen makes me feel safer that they won’t happen to me. Understanding that tendency has helped me practice a better kind of compassion, one that tries not to presume to know the journey another person has walked but is willing to help. It haven’t gotten any less confused about how to talk about these huge problems with my kids but I think it has helped me to have more open-ended conversations with them where we can recognize the humanity of others and be curious about how we can help.

In that spirit, my daughter and I settled on just drawing hearts that say “we care” on the back. I don’t think they will solve homelessness but I do hope that they bring a moment of being seen.

Five Pieces of Writing that Inspired Me: #5 Showing Up

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“He is able who thinks he is able.” – Buddha

Sometimes the problems of the world seem overwhelming so that I feel anything that I could do wouldn’t matter in the slightest. Then I think of this story that Frederick Buechner told as part of a sermon he delivered and I remember that we just have to show up.

The Best She Could

In any case, it was this same George Shinn who in 1880, five years before being asked to start your church here in Chestnut Hill, was summoned once at midnight to the bedside of an old woman who lived by herself without much in the way of either money or friends and was dying. She managed to convey that she wanted some other woman to come stay with her for such time as she might have left, so George Shinn and the old woman’s doctor struck out in the darkness to try to dig up one for her. It sounds like a parable the way it is told, and I am inclined to believe that if someone were ever to tell the story of your lives and mine, they also would sound more like parables than we ordinarily suppose. They knocked at doors and threw pebbles at second story windows. One woman said she couldn’t come because she had children. Another said she simply wouldn’t know what to do, what to be, in a crisis like that. Another was suspicious of two men prowling around at that hour of night and wouldn’t even talk to them. But finally, as the memoir of Dr. Shinn puts it in the prose of another age, “The rapped at the humble door of an Irish woman, the mother of a brood of children. She put her head out of the window, ‘Who’s there?’ she said ‘and what can you want at this time of night?’ They tell her the situation. Her warm, Irish heart cannot resist. ‘Will you come’ ‘Sure and I’ll come, and I’ll do the best I can.’ “And she did come,” the accounts ends, “She did the best she could.”

Listening to Your Life – Frederick Buechner

Five Pieces of Writing that Inspired Me: #4 Leaving a Mark

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“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” – Dalai Lama

This meditation from Mark Nepo made me think about how we touch the people we are closest to all the time. Even if not physically, our presence and especially our words shape everyone around us. Whenever I think of how we rub off on each other with every encounter, this meditation is what I’ve come to see in my head.

The Work of Love

“Love courses through everything.” – Fakhruddin Iraqi

I recently learned that the first form of pencil was a ball of lead. Having discovered the lead, if scratched, would leave markings, people then wrestled with chunks of the stuff in an attempt to write. Through the work of many, the chunks were eventually shaped into a useable form that could fit the hand. The discovery became a tool.

I am humbled to confess after a lifetime of relationship that love is no different. Be it a lover or a friend or a family member, the discovery of closeness appears in our life like a ball of lead – something that if wrestled with, will leave markings by which we can understand each other.

But this is only the beginning. The work of love is to shape the stuff of relationship into a tool that fits our hands. With each hardship faced, with each illusion confronted, with each trespass looked at and owned, another piece of the chunk is whittled and love begins to become a sacred tool.

When truth is held in compassionate hands, the sharpness of love becomes clear and not hurtful.

The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo

Gratitude Journal

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“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller

I woke up early this morning and sat down to meditate as I do every morning. When I sit on the cushion, usually what I’ve been worrying about, sweating the details of or puzzling over comes up. So I spend the next few minutes leaning in to whatever it is that’s got me by the throat and trying to make friends with it. If I’m lucky, I get a few moments of that stillness that feeds my soul somewhere in the process.

However, this morning nothing rushed towards me. My family is doing fine. There are plenty of things I could and probably will worry about sometime but at this moment, none are pressing. I am full – of rest and love and faith that all will be okay. Wow wow wow!

So here’s my list of things I’m grateful for to mark this spectacular moment:

A parent that I never met created a fund for the teachers who are ran a camp for our kids this week. While the teachers were with our kids, someone smashed the windows of their cars and took backpacks and coats. I’m grateful that in response to that unkindness, someone did the work to unite us in kindness and care as a community to help pay for the repairs.

My daughter and I rode our bikes to a local donut shop and instead of bringing my wallet, I just brought a $20 bill. Turns out that they stopped accepting cash as part of COVID and so when we went pay after we’d ordered, I didn’t have a way to do so. A dad with his kids outside saw this happen and went in and got the order they’d restocked after we’d turned away. When I tried to give him my cash, he said, “I don’t take cash either.” I’m grateful we rode away from there with food in our bellies and the warmth of strangers in our hearts.

When I wondered to myself this week about whether I’m doing the work I should be and specifically whether I should spend time writing, I received two comments that helped me know that I’m heard and valued. I’m grateful that the mysterious process of asking for what I need from the Universe worked to keep my head in the game so that my heart can speak.

My daughter made a sign that said, “Yor the best mom.” While I appreciate the words, I’m most grateful that she learned to read and write in a year where she mostly had online Kindergarten. I’m grateful that she is learning the immense value of words to reach other people and to share what I love, which is to read and understand someone else’s experience.

My 82-year-old mother golfed with some new friends in a tournament about an hour from where she lives. I’m so grateful that she is so healthy, resourceful and energetic as to be able to find all sorts of ways to enjoy life at every age.

One evening this week I was watering plants with my son and he ended up soaked. I laid out a blanket on the ground with a couple of pillows and after I covered him with a towel, we laid there together and looked up at the dazzling evening blue sky. I’m grateful that even without too many words, we can look at the same beautiful view, point, laugh and know that we belong to each other.

I’ve listened and read so much great content lately (many mentioned in this post) that seems to be converging on the wisdom to give up perfectionism and celebrate being the messy, imperfect and authentic person I am. I’m so grateful that I woke up this morning and that for today, I feel like I am enough.

Co-Creators

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“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” – Dalai Lama

Listening to a podcast with Tara Brach and Dr. Kristin Neff about fierce self-compassion, Kristin told a story about a man she worked closely with and once supported who turned out to be a narcissist and sexually abusive to young women. She said something like, “Until this happened, I had no idea how many narcissists were around but so many people I’ve talked to have a story about one.” And sure enough, what popped into my head was the narcissist that once was in my life. I worked with him and he was once good friends with my ex-husband. Because our relationship was tangential, I’ve largely dismissed any effect that he had on me but I realized as I listened that there are so many unkind things he said about women that pop into my head more than they should. Like the time he said a particular woman was like butter. And I naively asked what? “She’d be totally hot but-her face.”  That I remember that probably a dozen years or more since it was said, goes to show how powerful words can be.

Later on in the podcast Dr. Neff, an assistant professor of research at University of Texas, talked about the idea that we are co-creators of our lives. The people around us influence who we are. That makes me so grateful that I spend most of my time with my kids who are joy monsters. And it also explains why they affect me so deeply – not only because my observations of them resonate with my own experience in such a lived way that I learn great lessons but also because they are changing me as part of my ongoing story.

It also calls me to really intentional about what I let in. As I was listening to the podcast, remembering about the narcissist who used to be in my life and the things he said, my eyes caught a picture of my wise and kind dad. In great contrast to the narcissist, my dad would have never said those unkind or demeaning things about women. I had this perfect a-ha moment when I knew I’d let a narcissist affect my assumptions about how men thought of women in general and that was a great deal more influence than I should have ever given him. If our lives are co-created with other people, I want to make sure to draw my conclusions from those around me that I admire, respect and inspire me and to edit out the rest.

Three Things

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“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.” – Buddha

I’m a sucker for things are written in wood, anything that advises to be kind and advice that comes in three. So I couldn’t help but notice this sign when we’re stayed at a beach footage this weekend.

It made me think about what my three instructions would be. Be curious. Be vulnerable. Be kind.

But I keep wanting to add on with things like never stop trying and it’s going to be great, kid! Which is why I never write in wood.

A Thin Place

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“Nothing among human things has such power to keep our gaze fixed even more intensely upon God than friendship.” – Simone Weil

We baked cookies for our neighbor and her husband yesterday. They have been taking 24/7 care of her elderly mom for a week now since she suddenly became sick and unable to care for herself. My daughter made a card for them and we put the card with the cookies and some puzzles and set off to deliver them. My neighbor’s mom only lives around the corner. My daughter wanted to carry the basket and when she handed them over, our neighbor cried. Then I cried.

It was a holy moment, the kind of moment that Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal church calls a thin place where God is just that much closer. The unexpressed weariness and worry in our neighbor met the softness of a kind gesture and out leaked some tears from the River of Life.

I’m completely flummoxed by how to teach faith to my kids. I look back to the Sunday School and all the church activities from my youth and while they were fun, I just didn’t get it and neither did my siblings.  It was only life in it’s raw, humbling way that made me search for the wider current that unites us all. Now I can tell you Christian stories, practice Buddhist-inspired meditation, find God out in nature and read anything deep in order to keep life vital.

So I’ve tried Sunday School for my daughter as a base hoping that it starts the seed that will grow into whatever works for her. But yesterday, witnessing two grown-ups cry over a plate of cookies while the spark of the Divine crackled in the air taught more than 100 Sundays. Even my toddler just stood there smiling watching something he didn’t understand. It reminded me that the unplanned lessons sometimes are the best.

The Choice Between Right and Easy

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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

In the fourth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the dark wizard Lord Voldemort has returned and the headmaster of Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Albus Dumbledore says, “Soon we will all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.”

I don’t know much about fighting dark wizards but making the choice between what is right and what is easy seems like something that describes the job of parenting. Maybe I’m predisposed to think that because I’m reading Harry Potter out loud to my child but nonetheless here are some of the many choices I think we as parents face:

We have to decide whether or not to teach our children manners or let them discover them at the hands of their maybe less tactful peers.

We have to decide whether to inculcate a sense of respect for nature and resources of the earth or risk ruining the earth for themselves or our grandchildren.

We have to choose between instilling a deep sense of kindness and compassion for others or suffer knowing that we might have added to the aggression of this world.

We have to choose between raising children that have a healthy sense of boundaries and self-worth that they inherited from watching us or let them figure it out on their own perhaps after doing great damage to themselves.

We have to choose between letting our kids spend their days immersed in screen time or engaging with them to foster real experiences and adventures in this world.

And none of these choices is easy because it means we have to walk that walk when we are distracted, tired and want to live our own lives reasonably well. But I find it interesting that the distinction is not between right and wrong but between right and easy because it’s effort not evil that defines the choice.

Speaking for myself, I don’t do perfectly on any of the parenting choices but more often than not I make the hard choice as I know most parents do and have done throughout all the ages. There is some science to support why as I learned when I listened to an interview Nicholas Christakis, the Yale sociologist who studies how we have evolved as a species. His view as laid out in his book Blueprint is that our evolution has come with some uniquely wonderful social features – to love, to teach others, to cooperate. He holds that humans are wired for good which is so inspiring to hear.

Because we aren’t alone in our choices. We have the magic and faith that comes from our relationship with the Divine and we have our connection to each other. In Harry Potter, Dumbledore’s pronouncement about choosing between what is right and what is easy is part of a moving speech about how unity and friendship carries us through the hard choices and hard times. Our connection to everything that is bigger than us powers us through the moments when we have nothing left in the tank. Over and over again we discover we can do hard things – and we do!

The Gift of Perspective

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“If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.” – Buddha

I thought I had a great way to teach perspective to my kids. I asked my daughter how many houses she could see when she looked out the ground floor window of our house, it was about three. Then I took her up to the floor above and ask her how many she could see and it was about seven. Finally we went out onto the little deck on our rooftop and I asked her how many she could see and it was more than she had numbers for. “Olivia” I said “this is the perspective that you get when you are older, you know that everything fits into a larger picture and you are able to see more of it.” Brilliant, right? The problem was she was only three. 🙂

I find myself pondering the little crumbs of wisdom other parents have given me since I became a parent until they finally click. Someone said when my oldest was a baby in a bucket car seat, “At this age, parenting is physical but after that it becomes psychological.” And when my daughter got to the age of choices, power struggles and motivation to do chores, that line made sense. Another said when my son was born, “The great thing about having two kids is while you love them both, you like at least one of them at any given time.” And when I realized that the Universe is kind enough to make it so only one of their phases really pushes my growth at a time, I got that one. Most recently someone said to me, “It gets easier. It gets less busy.” And I can’t wait to discover when that becomes true.

It strikes me that this is the gift we give to other when we share our experience. We mark the path of how they can go forward like rock cairns on a hiking trail. They are tokens of kindness and wisdom for others to follow so that they know they are going the right way and they are not alone.