Tag: perspective

Moral of the Story

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“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” – Allen Ginsberg

My 6-year-old daughter told me a story she heard from her Parkour coach, Lewis.

Lewis and his brother were at a water park. On one slide, there was a man and his daughter in front of them. The man, who was really big, put his daughter on his lap and pushed off when it was his turn.

When it was Lewis’ turn, he found that the man had gotten stuck and he had to push him all the way down the slide. At the bottom the man said, “That was fun!”

My daughter then turned to me and said, “Do you know what the moral of the story is?” I waited with baited breath until she revealed, “When you go to a water park, you’ve got to have fun!”

Ha, ha, ha. Not the moral I was expecting. But we all get to have different takeaways on this thing called life!

Other People’s Writing: Dec 30th

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Henri Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest and prolific author. In the forward to his book, The Inner Voice of Love he describes a period of mental and spiritual anguish catalyzed by the sudden interruption of a friendship. To heal from this agony, he took a six month retreat during which he wrote down spiritual imperatives that were his notes on working through his pain and healing.

He never intended for these notes to anything other than private. But eight years after he’d worked through his anguish, a friend convinced him they could be helpful to others. The last note of the book, it includes a quote that knocked me over with its power: “Your future depends on how you decide to remember your past.” Here’s the passage:

As you conclude this period of spiritual renewal, you are faced once again with a choice. You can choose to remember this time as a failed attempt to be completely reborn, or you can also choose to remember it as the precious time when God began new things in you that need to be brought to completion. Your future depends on how you decide to remember your past. Choose for the truth of what you know. Do not let your still anxious emotions distract you. As you keep choosing God, your emotions will gradually give up their rebellion and be converted to the truth in you.

You are facing a real spiritual battle. But do not be afraid. You are not alone. Those who have guided you during this period are not leaving you. Their prayers and support will be with you wherever you go. Keep them close to your heart so that they can guide you as you make your choices.

Remember, you are held safe. You are loved. You are protected. You are in communion with God and with those whom God has sent you. What is of God will last. It belongs to the eternal life. Choose it, and it will be yours.

The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen

(featured photo from Pexels)

Photo of the week: Oct 23rd

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Last weekend my friend Eric and I took the kids on a long bike ride. My toddler was in a bike seat behind me and my 6-year-old was on a third wheel bike attached to Eric’s.

It was a gorgeous fall morning with moderate temperatures, colorful fall leaves, not too many clouds and we biked five miles to a marina on the waterfront where we met my brother and sister-in-law. And we got to ride bikes down the dock!

Along the route we saw so many interesting things in addition to the water, boats and beautiful leaves:

  • A draw bridge go up right as we were passing underneath so the movement and the sound of the mechanism echoed and clanged right over our heads.
  • A police car that disgorged a cop right in front us carrying what my daughter thought initially was a radar gun but turned out to be a cup of coffee.
  • A woman with pink hair getting ready for a breast cancer benefit race.
  • A little kid not much older than my toddler wearing a shark helmet, riding his own bike with his dad and trying so hard to race us.

So when my daughter said to my brother, “Guess what we saw on the way here?” I was surprised by her answer, “A dead bunny.”

We all see things differently… 🙂

The Work of Friends

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“My friends are the beings through whom God loves me.” – Saint Martin

My six-year-old daughter’s friend called her bossy the other day. Oh-boy, did this touch a whole chain reaction of feelings in me, not many of them that I’m proud of. Judgment of the little girl, defensiveness for all girls who dare to live out loud, and an instinct to criticize the name-caller in order to reduce the sting to list a few. But more than that, an internal outburst at the insidious nature of learning so that just when I’ve finally figured out how to belong to myself and not worry too much about what anyone else thinks, life takes it up a notch so that I have to master NOT reacting on the behalf of my children.

Assuming (and hoping) that I have many years to go with this experience of supporting these children as they grow through self-acceptance and however they come to terms with the good and bad of other’s acceptance, I brought this question of how I was going to deal with it to the meditation cushion.

Here’s what showed up. I wouldn’t do my kids homework for them because it steals their opportunity to learn and grow. But I will answer questions, fuel their desire for learning, sit with them and hold their hands if necessary.

In the same way, I can’t do their social work for them. It also would steal their opportunity to learn and grow. So my job is the same – to sit beside them, help them uncover their own wisdom and hold their hands if necessary.

My daughter and I talked about how she felt. She decided to ask her friend if she had been called bossy, how that felt and talk about treating others the way she wants to be treated. I heard a little bit of the conversation and kept my mouth shut. As first steps in the realm of friendship go, it went okay.

Then I went and talked to my friends about this indirect experience of life that comes with parenting. More than anything, the fact that I’ve had these friends through many ups and downs in life and friendship, helped widen my perspective. I’ve never been able to solve their problems either. But through them I’ve learned to walk alongside others, letting go of what I can’t control and breathing in to the faith that showing up is what we are called to do with others and it works!

Vacation

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“Another name for God is surprise,” – Brother David Steindl-Rast

Twenty years ago my friend Jill and I were looking for something to do for a vacation and considered going to a spa in Arizona but as lovely as the hiking, yoga and pilates schedule and menu sounded, we never could pull the trigger. We thought we’d get bored. Instead signed up for a trip to climb two Mexican volanoes, Mt. Ixtacchuatl (17,200 feet) and Pico de Orizaba (18,500 feet). While I already summitted Mt. Rainier (14,400 feet) once (as had Jill) on my second attempt, that was in my backyard since it was 60 miles southeast of Seattle where I live. This trip was the start of what I came to think of as vacations in my early adulthood. I’d sign up for a trip, usually with a friend or two to climb something as time and budget allowed. It was how I saw Russia, Nepal and Peru when I was single – usually dirty, tired and out of breath but so delighted for the change of perspective and chance to adventure.

Now I’m redefining what vacation means as a mom with two young kids. Our range is a lot closer to home and my budget is a lot tighter so we’ve tried a few things pretty close to home. The first trip we tried was six hours by car – that was too far as I can feel all you experienced parents inclining your heads in agreement. The second trip was eight hours by boat but a big boat that we could move around on. Better because the boat was an adventure in and of itself but we came home a little stunned from all the pounding through water. This weekend we went with a friend to a AirBnB cabin on Whidbey Island about an hour and half trip from our house. Better yet!

But regardless of how we have gotten to our destinations, I’m fascinated by how the kids take it in. They get to the new environment, and then regardless of what is outside, explore every nook and cranny of the temporary quarters.  In the first place we rented, they seemed to have a plethora of toilet cleaning brushes and my toddler discovered each one and wanted to carry each one around until I confiscated them. Nothing is familiar so it seems the kids spend a lot of energy mapping out their new world as I follow along making sure it’s safe.

Then come the new activities – beach combing, swimming in the pool, finding new playgrounds. Everything, even if it’s an activity that we’ve done at home, seems more adventurous. If it’s a beach like it was this weekend, it seems to come with cataloging it as a new entry of what a beach looks like – more sandy, less rocky, more sea life, less driftwood. My five-year-old daughter ran through every tide pool with her arms outstretched yesterday in a glorious expression of taking it in.

So eating and sleeping become huge issues. They seem to consume massive amounts of food to support all the novelty. Going out to eat is not only new because they are places we haven’t gone before but also because we haven’t done it much during COVID. There is a dichotomy of wanting to have the staples I’ve brought from home as one form of familiarity and willingness to try something new since everything else is new. Sleep, I’ve learned is much harder if we all try to do it in one room. WAY too exciting when it’s WAY too necessary.

I come to the end of each time away absolutely exhausted. This is where I have had to redefine what vacation means to me. It certainly isn’t less work. It’s definitely less predictable. But now I see that’s part of the joy – to find the Universal where we go. Somehow God makes it so that by switching everything up, we are renewed in our life together.

I’ve realized that I never liked vacation where I just sat around and thank goodness, because that doesn’t seems to be part of this new era. And I’ve found in another way, it’s like my mountain climbing vacations – I’m usually dirty, tired and out of breath but also delighted for the change of perspective and chance to adventure, this time seeing the world… through the eyes of my children.

Live in Your Hands

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“Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I read a story the other day about an old sage whose last instruction was “Live in your hands.” I find that both cryptic and useful. Cryptic because of all the time I spend meditating to get out of my head but where I usually think I’m trying to land is living from the heart. And it’s useful because I can so easily observe what I do with my hands.

On Sunday, I was home with my kids and we had nowhere we needed to be and no one coming over. On a day like that, my hands cook, clean and soothe. I hold my hot tea in the morning with my hands, I spend a lot of time holding my baby with one hand and cooking or cleaning up with the other. There is also a constant effort to stem the tide of destruction and disaster. My hands put away toys, cap the playdough, sort the puzzle pieces into their appropriate slots, they cut paper, pour paints and wash brushes. And they touch my kids a lot – changing diapers, combing out hair, cleaning the dirt from tiny little nostrils and that small spot on the bridge of the nose next to the eyes. My hands rub backs, hold hands when we go on a walk around the neighborhood, soothe cries with little pats and drum rhythms on little backs. My hands flair out for a good move in a dance party, hold the paper steady for a drawing challenge and fold in for a magic trick my daughter makes up. Then the end of the day comes and my hands apply lotion, help with jammies, smooth out the sheets, turn the pages of bedtime books, fold into prayer pose and flip the light switches off. And finally, I got some time to myself so my hands type on the computer, tap texts out on the phone and brush my own teeth and hair.

I am often frustrated at the end of a day like Sunday that I didn’t get anything done. I love finishing things and on a day home with my kids, it feels like I finish nothing. But living in my hands was a fascinating way to observe where the time goes. The job of parenting at my kids ages of 1 ½ and 5 ½ is so physical, it’s a hands-on job. And spending the day observing that made me appreciate what an honor that is because it won’t always be the case.

Live in your hands. My new favorite observation point. What do you do with yours?

The Art of Packing

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“Great things happen when men and mountains meet.” – William Blake

My daughter was looking in my drawer of kitchen accessories and asked about an open-ended tube I had in there. I explained it was a tube for mountain climbing so that you could fill it with something like hummus or peanut butter and then crimp the end to seal it up. They way you don’t have to carry more than you need. She asked, “Why not take the whole container of hummus?” And that sparked the muscle memory I have of loading a backpack for a 2 or 3 day climb and paring it down to just the essentials.

It seems to for every trip I’ve made an equipment list, packed more than necessary with me for the travel to the mountain and then at the base, sorted through to pack only what I need to feed me, keep me safe and warm and also my share of group gear for the team. It’s an art that I learned from experienced mountain guides and it very much affects how well the climb is going to go. Pack too much and you will wear yourself out on the lower reaches of the mountain getting to the first camp. And if you pack too little you will likely be uncomfortable or even worse, unsafe, on the upper part of the mountain when you need that extra layer or extra battery for your headlamp. If you forget to put in the group gear, you might just be the goat that didn’t bring the tent poles and jeopardized the trip for everyone. Many things can go wrong when packing. On one trip climbing some volcanoes in Mexico, a guy on the trip couldn’t find his Payday bar at a rest break. Then we stopped again at 16,000 feet on the side of the mountain waiting for the lead team to try to get some ice screws attached so we could cross an exposed part of the route and he found it in his boot.

Since I haven’t climbed any mountains since I got had kids, it’s been a least six years since I’ve done the packing but I still hold on to it as such a great metaphor for the journey through life. At some point, it helps if we empty out all that we are carrying in our pack and make sure we are ONLY carrying what feeds us and keeps us safe. If we carry too much baggage, like memories of all the times we’ve failed, it hampers our ability to go far.  And if we carry too little, like not figuring out our patterns of picking unhealthy partners or friends, we expose ourselves to the same dangers again. If we don’t carry our share of the group gear, like concern for the health of the community and planet we live in/on, the whole enterprise could fail. And if we can’t find what we need, sometimes it helps to sit down, take off the pack and find out what is making our metaphorical boot so uncomfortable before we continue on.

I get a chill when I think of how edifying it is each time I try to explain something to my kids. Which is good because my daughter’s next question was, “Why do people climb mountains anyway?”

Healing the Divide

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“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

There’s a divide that runs right down the middle of my family of origin – I call it tree people and forest people as inspired by the phrase “Can’t see the forest for the trees.” The tree people are so good at details that they are the ones you want to invite if you need help painting a room or weeding a patch of garden. The forest people are generally better at navigating the ups and downs of life and are the ones you want to invite when you need advice or help troubleshooting a systemic problem. Even with different perspectives, we managed okay until a tree person sued a forest person. Now it’s hard to see that we all stem from the same ground.

So I’ve thought a lot about the root cause (pun intended) about the pain in my family. And when I read the following passage about belonging in Brene Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness, it resonated as the real reason that my family is divided.  

“Even in the context of suffering – poverty, violence, human rights violations – not belong in our families is still one of the most dangerous hurts. That’s because it has the power to break our heart, our spirit, and our sense of self-worth. It broke all three for me. And when those things break, there are only three outcomes, something I’ve borne witness to in my life and in my work:

1. You live in constant pain and seek relief by numbing it and/or inflicting it on others;

2. You deny your pain, and your denial ensures that you pass it on to those around you and down to your children; or

3. You find the courage to own the pain and develop a level of empathy and compassion for yourself and others that allows you to spot hurt in the world in a unique way.

Brene Brown

My dad was a Presbyterian pastor and so the church defined our lives growing up. Amidst all the wonderful things that came with the church community – friendship, values, service and faith, came an unfortunate side effect of an expectation of conformity to an image of a good Christian kid. As the youngest kid, I think the inferred expectation of having to be a living example was much lower or it just didn’t phase me but I imagine that it was harder for my siblings. As such the feeling of not belonging because they didn’t fit the precise mold began early.

I think about this a lot with my kids. As a side effect of being at home together in this year of pandemic, although sometimes feeling cramped, we have enjoyed the luxury of more time building the base of belonging. Now with schools opening up and more activities available, I am both relieved to see my kids start to branch out and concerned with keeping that feeling of deep connection going. I saw some great advice posted by Tina Payne Bryson, co-author of The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity and Resilience in Your Child: “If you are a parent of a baby or toddler, then I have two big tips for you: 1) Delight in your child. It doesn’t have to be all the time, but find time every day to truly delight in them. 2) Take care of yourself. You matter, too.” It’s great advice because when I delight in my kids, I’m present and celebrating who they are and it not only works for my toddler by also my 5-year-old.

I don’t yet know whether my kids are forest people or tree people. Seeing my family’s experience has taught me that I’m willing to work hard to ensure that my kids know that whichever they are, that we inhabit the same ground, stem from the same Earth and are fed from the same soil. We might not see things from the same perspective but I’m betting that if we know we belong together, we will be willing to share our experience, our lives and our delight. Here’s my hope – if I start with my kids then the goodness of healing will ripple out maybe to my family of origin and then beyond.

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.