Abode to 2008

2008. All in all, it's been a good year.

Gabe has learned to read and is beginning to really enjoy it. He reads books almost as much as he collects books, which reminds me of his mother. Gabe's 7th birthday party was held at the Young Chef's Academy, where he and several friends cultivated the culinary arts. And, soccer was again a major part of our fall. He seems to be well-rounded. Still, what encourages me most is witnessing the unfolding of this compassionate, funny, and resilient young boy who calls me mom.

Relationships have been a highlight this year. Attending my 20 year reunion at Occidental College provided the opportunity to rekindle longstanding friendships, and also enabled me to transform some college acquaintances into new midlife friends. I also re-entered the dating world in 2008, realizing that "it was time". The timing was nudged by a chance meeting in an airport that led to a whirlwind long-distance Verizon-supported romance. After being reminded of a part of me that I'd shut down for some years, I briefly entertained just "dating" and staying away from relationships only to realize that simply wasn't me. For the past several months, I've enjoyed cultivating a solid foundation for a relationship with a lovely man who helps me to better know myself even as I get to know him. He and I share an appreciation for meaningful conversation, a propensity for the ironic, a deep love for our respective children, and an ability to enjoy life at its simplest. I celebrate all that I am learning with him, including the opportunity and discipline to practice the present and let the future unfold on its own.

I know 2008 was filled with challenge in our world, including the economic downturn. And my life has it's share of woes to be sure. Still, this context has reminded me of the value of the simple joys in my life...meaningful work, a warm home, good friends, a wonderful son, and good health.

2008 has not only been good but has has taught me what "life is good" really means.

Christmas Tunes

My son and I have a small booklet of family devotions for Advent. One of the entries begins by saying: "Let it snow; let it snow; let it snow. Whoever wrote that song probably didn't have to shovel the walk and driveway". I laughed out loud and thought to myself....'exactly'! Similarly, Winter Wonderland wasn't written by a single person. And clearly Irving Berlin wasn't thinking about Bethlehem when he penned White Christmas!

When did a primary image of Christmas become big happy families roasting chestnuts on an open fire [I don't know about you, but I've never roasted a chestnut.)? When did Christmas become about mistletoe and kissing your beau in a "wonderland of snow"? I'm sure my functional family envy mediates my experience of Christmas culture, but I also know these images aren't the point.

Christmas is, actually, about joy; the human embodiment of the fullest revelation of God. Christmas is also about community; the commitment of Joseph to God and to Mary, surely in the midst of much public ridicule for an out of wedlock pregnancy. In addition, Christmas is about displacement and vulnerability; the God of the universe left the comforts of the eternal to take the form of a tiny baby who experienced the challenges of dependence in our temporal world. Christmas is about discomfort; Mary gave birth to the incarnated Christ in a venue built for animals.

Christmas, perhaps, embodies the promise of paradox; I wonder what might be different today if Irving Berlin or Bing Crosby had captured that notion in a catchy tune.

Paradox

In The Promise of Paradox, Parker Palmer not only explores but actually celebrates the contradictions of the Christian Life. The 2008 edition is a republication of Palmer's first book, published 30 years ago when Palmer was 40. In his preface to the 2008 edition, Palmer explores the both the blessing and the curse associated with reissuing Promise. The blessing of returning to the joy of first time authorship, a feat he previously thought himself incapable of. The curse of reading in print what he once believed, and finding points of confirmation and contradiction with his convictions three decades later.

As I've wrestled this week with paradox - hope and fear, joy and suffering, disappointment and expectation - Palmer offers some wisdom: "The promise of paradox is the promise that apparent opposites can cohere in our lives, the promise that if we replace either-or with both-and, our lives will become larger and more filled with light". I think I'll hold onto that promise and allow the apparent opposites of my experience to live in tension, as it were, and just see what happens.

"Hopes and Fears"

Some Christmas Carols are really wonderful reminders of the truth of the the gospel and its relevance for all of life, including the rough times. Indeed, may our "hopes and fears" be met in the incarnation!

O Little Town of Bethehem.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

For Christ is born of Mary, and gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars together, proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the King, and peace to men on earth!

How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.

Where children pure and happy pray to the blessèd Child,
Where misery cries out to Thee, Son of the mother mild;
Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!

The Game of Hope

Hope as the "expectation of something desired"(Oxford Dictionary of Etymology); sometimes expectations go unmet. Random House Webster's augments this definition by noting that hope is "to look forward to with a reasonable confidence", reminding me that perhaps there are times of unreasonable looking forward to. The greater our expectations and desires...the greater sadness when our hopes go unmet. And, while there is perhaps room for "hope against hope" theologically, sometimes the psychological reality of lowering our expectations is a better survival option. Creating space for hope then feels like a game of limbo. We keep lowering expectations in order to avoid disappointment until we have few hopes and lose our balance altogether.

This has been a week in which hope has taken a bit of a beating. My dad returned the hospital this week, and while he is doing much better today, it was a nerve-wracking week from 3000 miles away. With each bout of illness, I come to terms again with the reality that my hopes for a warm father-daughter relationship have gone and will most likely go unfulfilled. Hoping for a different relationship with him does not rise to the level of "reasonable confidence", and yet hope dies hard. I had a reasonable confidence that my son's dad would follow through on his child care commitments, and he fell through yet again this week. And I have challenged myself to not so lower my expectations that he is able to meet them. Yet, it's not easy. And finally, I got through the week with the backdrop of expectation for bringing my "friend, friend" to a special event. This definitely rose to the "reasonable confidence" barometer given that he committed a few weeks ago and hasn't fallen through on any commitment in the six months I've known him. Unfortunately, he forgot and double-booked himself which we realized only yesterday. The disappointment here clearly exasperated by the dashed expectations which have largely characterized my week. He is still working to "fix" the situation, and while I am hopeful, I also recognize that I could be disappointed.

In the middle of all this, I've had some friends who have listened and done their best to help. One gives voice to my sadness when I seem unable to do so myself. Another reminds me to speak truth and yet another encourages me to grieve. If truth prevails, that is a form of hope. And finally another friend, who, when I posed the possibility of him doing me a big favor to help me with my dad dilemma responded, "I will work out whatever needs to be worked out!". Some people simply rise above our expectations....turning the game of limbo into one of hurdles..how high can you go!

There are hopes that are reasonable and some that, perhaps are unreasonable, and hope in people is always dicey. The big hope I need to not sacrifice to the limbo of lowered expectations is that all disappointments are not the same. Some who mess up can't be trusted to or are incapable of fixing things. Still, there are some people who when they mess up do, indeed, do all they can to "put things to right", as N.T. Wright coins in. And there are still others who put things to right even when they had nothing to do with what went wrong. And, I need to be careful not to let even a few major disappointments cause me to let other exemplars of hope fulfilled, such as these friendships, fall down like a series of dominoes.

Intersections

I've been pondering the connections between joy and suffering quite a bit as of late. I have always considered them to be two distinct experiences that aptly describe entirely different moments in time. I am beginning to rethink that demarcation.

My son's dad recently had a daughter with his girlfriend. As any 7 year old would be, Gabe was thrilled to be a big brother. Given my inability to have biological children, the reality that my former husband now has a biological daughter is rough. Because "mom-ness" trumps all else, I keep my sadness to myself and celebrate with and for Gabe his new identity as a big brother. I'm not saying it's easy, but easy has never been an apt descriptor of motherhood.

After a bit of wallowing in being on the suffering side of this equation, I realized my divorce is, essentially, a reversal of the above. While I desperately wanted to stay married to Gabe's dad four years ago, it is now true that the divorce essentially liberated me from great pain; it has become my joy to be whole again. On the other hand, this is a great loss for Gabe. This is merely one exemplar among many that, perhaps, easy is also not an adjective often appropriate to childhood.

And I could go on....my joy as an adoptive mother is intricately tied to the suffering of an entire country. If Guatemala had not had such tumult, I would not have had the opportunity to become a mom to my wonderful Guatemalan-born son.

We aren't promised a life without suffering, and yet I still want to make meaning of how joy and suffering are often two sides of the same coin. Dog gone if I didn't wish joy was always pure. The suffering of Jesus on the cross is also the resurrecting Jesus....it was the very sacrifice of Christ that enables my new life. Perhaps the human condition reflects the interconnection of joy and sorrow in a manner that can bring us closer not only to the Christ who saves but also to the one who suffered. And knowing that Jesus suffered so, oddly, brings me comfort and a sense that I am not alone. It is the Jesus who is able to "suffer with', the etymological root of compassion, who walks alongside me, and all of us, in our suffering.

The Power of Repetition

Sometimes [actually, oftentimes] I will listen to a song over and over and over. It's how I learn a song so that I can sing it myself, which begins essentially with knowing it well...knowing it so well that I do not have to think about knowing it. Still, with each repeat, I hear something new...something I hadn't heard before....and that new insight then becomes a part of the song from that point on. Sometimes I hear something during the umpteenth listen that I surely should've gotten all along. Such as after singing what seemed a typical woman done wrong song turned out to be, quite atypical, as the woman is Mrs. Claus and the wrong-doer is Santa himself. [I highly recommend Jason Robert Brown's Songs for a New World...hilarious, inspirational, and a terrific vocal workout all rolled into one!]

Last Sunday in church, I realized how liturgy does the same thing. I was a guest at my friend's Lutheran church, and the liturgy there is rich. As we collectively prayed The Lord's Prayer, new images came to my mind as we stated "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us". The mutuality of God's forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of our neighbor somehow became more real. The older I get, the more I crave liturgy. It's an avenue to hear the gospel in a manner that feels both more at home and yet new at the same time. And sometimes it helps me "get" something that it seems I should have grasped from the get go.

Motherhood as Noncompetitive Sport

A friend of mine mentioned her discomfort with "mommy group conversations"; the "advice talk" about getting your kids to bed, to eat well, to get dressed, to use the potty is plain daunting and leaves her feeling disconnected more often than not. She is a mother of an almost 6 year old, so it's not as if she's without need of advice. Still, she'd rather turn to a book. And while I've read my share of books to raise my son, I realize that I've benefited most from a particular genre of "mommy group".

Just yesterday, I had a mommy conversation after our boys jumped on the bus. After sharing my horror at something wildly inappropriate my son had recently exclaimed, one mom simply said:"he's a boy" and "boys do that for shock value". She laughed and helped me laugh and begin to let it go. As the mother of three boys, she knows what she's talking about. And, as a fellow Christian, her advice to "let it go" has credibility. Another friend of mine and I have discussed over the years how our children sleep with us. For Western parenting, this is, as they say, "not good". But she and I are inching our way into reclaiming our adult only beds; our methods are imperfect and our progress occurs in fits and starts. And we walk alongside each other both celebrating the starts and encouraging each other in the fits.

Mommy groups have become a competitive sport. Mom conversations on playgrounds and school drop-off points are all too often punctuated by one-upmanship: "Oh, my four year old daughter is reading chapter books!" "Oh, my son was potty trained at two!". I leave these mommy conversations feeling exhausted and alone. I am drawn to the real and the genuine struggle of motherhood...the challenging times, the stuff that's not in books, the moments the developmental theorists left on their analytical cutting room floors. And it is the mom's that share in this journey that give me energy and courage. They help me know I am not alone in my worries or my imperfections.

My son potty trained only when we "really had to"; we had a preschool deadline [he's very much like his mom....more productive with deadlines!]. He is just beginning to be confident in his reading at age 7 1/2, and he didn't go to sleep in his "big boy bed" until he was 6 3/4. When I beam with joy that my son says he "likes reading" or when I celebrate my ability to have an hour or two to myself after Gabe goes to sleep by himself in his own bed, my "mommy group" really "gets it". And, similarly, I really understand and celebrate with them in their moments of triumph. And our celebrations seem both more credible and more real because we have walked alongside each other in the muck. I say, three cheers to mommy groups with the motto: we "mommy group" to know we are not alone.

Climbing in Love

I am eight months post my 3 year relationship sabbatical. At times, I want to retreat back to self-imposed intimacy exile, yet I know that relearning this stuff is crucial. Recently, I've been re-immersed in the "early phase" of a relationship...the head over heals part, the think about him all the time part, the wonder how his day has been part. I feel looney and vulnerable, ridiculous and buoyant, sixteen and forty-two all at the same time.

I like this phase because it's fun and it feels good. I enjoy sharing joys and sorrows with someone else. I enjoy the unfolding of each experience, the new insights of each conversation, the series of "firsts" that accompany a new relationship.

I dislike it because it is scary. It feels too good to be true, and regardless of how the future goes...this experience is temporal. The newness goes away. The first kiss happens, by definition, only once. These moments fade.

Infatuation, I am learning, looks similar whether we date as teenagers or in midlife. My perspective on the experience, however, has definitely changed alongide the shift in my ideal date. As a young adult, my dream date involved dressing up and going out. At midlife, my dream date involves jeans, cooking in, and playing Yahtzee.

There are more substantive arenas in which my 42 year old perspective differs from the teenage one. I now realize that relationships are not, ultimately, about "falling in love". "Falling" is involuntary and accidental; that is not love. This morning's sermon, the culmination of a series of sermons pondering the meaning of love, confirmed this. Love, our pastor asserted, is patient and kind. Love is humble and "does not insist on its own way". In sum, love is intentional and feels more, at times, like an uphill climb than a fall.

My sabbatical, and the work I did amidst it, helped me tap into the ways that I previously lived out a distorted vision of love. My patience depended on being right. My kindness extended only as far as I got my own way. I craved the experience of falling in love, without the real work. And now I am learning, slowly, how to take love one step at a time. Watch my footing. Hold onto the rope. And enjoy the view while I climb.

(Random) Acts of Kindness

Today I received an e-mail from my son's second grade teacher. The Subject line read: "Today". As any parent might imagine, I braced for the worst. Since I hadn't heard from the nurse, I figured he was healthy. I assumed that Gabe had been mean or hit someone or refused to do his schoolwork. ....in short, I assumed Gabe had done something wrong. How wrong I was. I opened the e-mail to read the following:

I wanted to send a quick email to tell you how much I enjoy having Gabe
in my classroom. He is truly a neat kid and I see him being kind to ALL
students in the classroom. Just today, I witnessed him helping another
student that was feeling down ~ Gabe kept telling him positive things
about himself and he included him by asking him to play at recess. I
love seeing these random acts of kindness and I wanted to share the kind
act that Gabe displayed today. He is such a sweet boy!

Have a terrific day.

My heart was deeply warmed by her observations; this is a Gabe that I see often. I experience him to have this amazing compassion, often for those younger or less powerful than he...he seems to inherently reach out to the "least of these" in his world. Still, my qualitative research self recognizes that, when it comes to Gabe, I am absolutely and utterly biased. My love for him has expanded my capacity for love itself, and thus I cannot possibly be objective when it comes to Gabe as subject. Even as Gabe's teacher shared her observation of Gabe's act of kindness, she lived out her conviction. In sharing with me a view of my son from beyond my vantage point, she displayed an absolutely and not-so-random act of kindness. And I am deeply grateful!

Spirituality and its Discontents

A close friend of mine, Michele, once told me I had the "spiritual gift of discontent". I recognized that her feedback accurately portrayed my sometimes "glass half empty" mindset and my uncanny ability to look at 10 things, 9 of which are perfect, and notice the 10th. After all, I come from a long line of "discontent" in my family. And I have, over the decade since I first heard this, intentionally tried to not only notice but also to verbalize what is right. And, working on my tendency toward "discontent" has been good.

Still, recently I have begun to return to the recognize the "spiritual gift" element too....that it, there is some positive in Michele's statement. N.T. Wright suggests in his book, Simply Christian, that the hunger for justice evident in human experience is an "echo of a voice" that beckons us to faith. The hunger is evident in our desire to "put things to right" and this requires noticing what is wrong. So, perhaps my "spiritual gift of discontent" is indeed a gift as evidence, perhaps, of God's purpose for my life to participate in putting some little part of the world "to right".

Love in the Small and Big Stuff

Gabe and I visited Harrisburg Brethren in Christ Church this morning. It was my church home for a decade, and while I'm searching for a church at the moment...I keep coming "home" to H-BIC. While I love the theology of grace amidst the brokenness and the multi-ethnic vision, I struggle with the theology of the worship where there seems to be little "we" and a lot of Jesus and me. I desire for the community of faith to be more evident in the worship. It was great to visit, and to be in a place where Gabe and I both know others and are known.

The sermon was on a verse from I Corinthians 13 where Paul says that "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful"(4-5). Essentially, Pastor Woody suggested that the reality is that life is often hard and unfair. There are some little things in life that we need to just "let go". He said, and I quote, "some of us need to learn the art of not sweating the small stuff". [Only Woody can make theological connections between Scripture and the texts of pop culture.] Now that's easy when we're talking about how different people squeeze toothpaste or interpret scrabble rules, but what about the stuff where letting go isn't so obvious. But life's disappointments also impact the big stuff. Our challenge, then, is to discover what we need to do when our deepest desires go unmet.

And the answer, in a nutshell, is to allow the love of Christ to transcend real experience....for us to choose kindness and patience in the midst. And, God uses all things...sometimes especially the junk in our lives...to transform us. As much as I wish I'd been spared some of life's disappointments, I wouldn't trade who I have become in light of them. And I know that the transformation of the junk in my life occurred solidly amidst the community of H-BIC church. It was good to visit “home” this morning, and challenged me to reconsider the parameters for choosing church in the first place. Perhaps I , too, need to let go of the "small stuff" and return to a place that has faithfully helped so many through the "big stuff" of life's disappointments.

The Fruits of Weeding

Gabe and I have attended recently to the tasks of weeding and mulching. Gabe has been absolutely amazing! He has focused on tackling the tallest weeds, and has made terrific progress. He has made $13.00, but it is apparent that his primary motivation is not financial. He knows he is making mom very proud. With every bucket, he has retrieved me from the mulching, asked me to remove my garden glove, held my hand, made me close my eyes, and guided me carefully to his work area. When he has me situated perfectly, he asks me to open my eyes and I say "WOW! You are amazing. I can hardly believe your progress!". And he gets this adorable glimmer in his eye and his dimple emerges along with a bright smile. He really has made me very proud. Some days I can't get over how blessed I am.

We've made some great progress overall. Just one side of the house left to weed, spray, and mulch. I remember almost four years ago when I first started to take care of the house on my own, I journaled about weeding as a metaphor for "dealing with the junk in your life". My real and metaphorical house was more weeds than anything at that point. I literally discovered a rose bush under some very tall weeds. I thought then about how important it is to take care of the weeds and to keep at the difficult work of plucking out the challenges.

Recently, I've discovered the real fruits of weeding; once the weeds are clear, there is space to imagine what might be. As I've weeded through some difficulties in my own life, I now have room to see what might be. Four years ago, all I saw was weeds. Today, I am not weed-free [no one is, I presume] but I am content. I have a wonderful job that fits me, and a vision for my future is emerging. I have recently ventured into dating, and realized I have a good sense of what is most important to me in a life partner. Even my house, which I’ve been slowly renovating, is beginning to look like what I only once imagined. And I have a wonderful son, who is showing the fruits of being raised by a healthy, whole mom.

What a joy to see the value of attending to the weeds both literally and figuratively. While I still attend carefully to the "weeds" in my life, I know that the weeds no longer overwhelm the beauty and the joy in my life. And as I weed with my son, the process of weeding and the experience of joy actually merge.

On Being a Woman

I was asked this morning by a man I barely know for some "tips on housekeeping'. If not for the humor in the question [shall we say the less than pristine state of my household], I might have lost it. Perhaps there is serendipity in the reality that this was an on-line venue. I politely responded that my housekeeping is a disaster, and that right now I'm doing yardwork...which is also woefully behind.

Perhaps I should've let loose instead: "No, and why the hell did you ask?". Are you assuming that because I'm a woman that I must be good at housekeeping?". Or perhaps, I might have hearkened back to a previous e-conversation he and I had regarding what we'd discovered about ourselves since our marriages. I, for example, discovered soon after my husband moved out of the house that the house was a real mess and that there was nothing to eat. I had taken advantage of my husband's domestic gifts; for all the larger flaws in the marital relationship, it's crystal clear that I ate very well and that the house stayed clean....and I did little to contribute to these arenas. Perhaps, I could have returned the question with an equally stereotype-laden question. "So, my car won't go...any tips?" So, I've got my money on the Patriots this season...you?" .

I do not embody the domestic gifts all-too-commonly associated with being female. Moreover, I often drive miles out of my way rather than ever stop and ask directions. I rarely, if ever, tear up during movies. In fact, I rarely tear up at all. I yell at the television during Buckeye football games. I bring home the bacon as a single parent, and did so for the majority of my married life. If one were to decipher my gender solely on the basis of these characteristics, I'd land quite solidly in the male column. Either I'm not a woman, or we still have work to do on gender stereotypes. And, as Sojourner Truth declared, "Ain't I A Woman?"

Meme

I was tagged by Jenell at The Paris Project with a meme, which of course is completely new to me. An internet meme, according to Wikipedia, is "used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads in a fast way from person to person via the internet. The term stems from the broader term, Meme, which is a a "unit of cultural information that propagates from one mind to another as a theoretical unit of cultural evolution and diffusion". For this meme, here are the rules.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you’d like.

Here are the seven facts about myself.

1. My great-grandmother, Alice Stebbins Wells, was the first policewoman in the United States. She was arrested so many times in her early years as an officer in Los Angeles for "impersonating a police officer" [others assumed she had stolen her husband's badge] that she was issued Policewoman's badge #1. My middle name is Alice, in her honor.
2. I love black licorice, but it doesn't love me.
3. My favorite place in the world in Laguna Beach....fond memories of my favorite grandparent, beautiful roses, ocean, cliffs....what's not to love?
4. During recent runs in both Central PA and Southern California, I stopped...literally...to smell the roses. In PA, I heard a voice from an upstairs window yell "Always take time to smell the roses" and I smiled affirmatively in the voices direction. I noticed a California driver notice me smell a rose, and she smiled. A smile on the face of a California driver is nothing to sneeze at. Perhaps its a bias from my Southern California upbringing, but the California roses were much more fragrant.
5. I am a daughter and a mother, but I feel like I'm parenting in both directions on my family tree.
6. I'm renovating my house in the Arts and Crafts tradition, and my son is used to saying "hello" by name to the seemingly random stream of men who let themselves in to our home each morning.
7. I am very happy to be 42!

One of the cultural realities of the meme is rapid revision of the original unit of information. In that spirit, I've tagged not seven but three blogs I like:

Malinda at ilni1
Kristina at tinabeth
Amanda C'est ma vie!

I assumed, at first, that martial discord was a typo for marital discord, but in tracking this particular meme's history, it turns out that martial discord is a image of war. My latest image of martial discord occurred in the airport when a family welcomed their soldier/husband/father home. I was heartened to witness their reunion, but deeply distressed and saddened by where he'd been and why he had to be there.

Cynthia

Last Lecture

I recently finished Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture. Pausch describes the premise of the Last Lecture on college campuses saying,

"Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull over the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? (p. 3)

What makes Pausch's text particularly powerful is that this Last Lecture is not hypothetical. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months before the lecture, he delivers the lecture with a prognosis of 3-6 months of good health. He his happily married and has 3 children, the oldest is 6. It would be easy for Pausch to focus on "woe is me". What I like is that Pausch frames the question by considering impact on the world as opposed to focusing on what he wants for himself.

Pausch's wisdom is about "really achieving your childhood dreams", and speaks to how, ultimately, each of his childhood hopes has been fulfilled, but perhaps not in the way he imagined. For example, he never got to work at Disneyland as an Imagineer...but, he did get to become a de factor Imagineer during a sabbatical from his faculty appointment. Thinking about how childhood dreams, and how they have come to fruition in surprising ways, is sound advice.

Reading Pausch's book begs a response in the reader similar to that of the audience of a Last Lecture. As I read his text, I was invited to imagine my own "last lecture". And, at the moment, I'm still ruminating.

Simple Pleasures

Today has been a day of simple pleasures. This morning, I went for a run and stopped to smell the roses...literally. This afternoon I shopped for vegetables at a local farm market. My son and I enjoyed fresh strawberries after he came home from school, and we made lime jello. Dinner included fresh, sliced tomatoes and steamed sweet corn. We even blew bubbles from the front porch. Dessert was vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup...the closest thing to complexity today was rainbow sprinkles. I bought flowers at the market, and planted them in my yard. Red salvia annuals and a perennial called "Ms. Manners"; given my lack of gardening sensibilities....a flower that advertised "obedience" was one I simply couldn't resist.

As I reflect on my day, and how I got there, I contemplate the nature of pleasure itself. A pleasure can simply mean a source of enjoyment or delight. Pleasure, however, also connotates that which is frivolous or a diversion from the real work of the day. As in, are your traveling for business or pleasure? [can it ever be both?]. So, while today was a delight...I also felt a nagging sense that I should've been getting something "done". Which brings me to contemplate simplicity. While simple means not complicated or complex, I found today to be complicated. I didn't even jot down a to do list today. No deadline loomed, and, as a result, I wasn't sure what to do next. My day of simple pleasures emerged out of lack of direction rather than intention.

Simple pleasures are a spiritual discipline, one that I have yet to cultivate. Tonight, I'll read some fiction and rest. Tomorrow, my to do list beckons.

I'm "Breaking Up With You"

I just spoke to Gabe on the telephone. He is in Ohio with his dad and his Maw Maw and Paw Paw. Gabe is having a wonderful time; he saw lots of fun animals at the Cincinnati Zoo yesterday and is enjoying his 9 month old
cousin.

He was very cute bringing the call to a close. He was on the land line telephone, and apparently went too far from the base. Amidst all the static he said, "I'm breaking up with you". I just smiled and told him to have a great day!

I'm sure it's one of the few times when the words I'm breaking up with you bring a laugh and a smile.

Academic Life

My son tonight brought me further close to earth in seeing how young eyes view academics. We were at the college and we passed a colleague on the green. When I told him that she "taught English", he responded: "People are cuckoo. That's easy....'hi', 'thank you', 'bye'". Clearly he simplified teaching English with speaking English [which isn't actually that simple either]. Still, it begs the question of how hard it is to understand the academic profession.

I have a great deal of respect for academics, for living a life devoted to furthering knowledge. Not only discovering new knowledge but also to furthering access to crucial ideas among the next generation. I have a great deal of appreciation for the demands of academic life, for the long hours of study and grading and writing. It is also a life that is hard to comprehend from the outside. People tend to think academics have it easy, often not teaching in the summer. But, most don't comprehend how much work goes into great teaching. And how that work often demands long, albeit nontraditional, hours.

I Am From

In my pluralism course, we composed poems entitled "I Am From". The activity, described by Beverly Daniel Tatum in her book, Can We Talk About Race? helps the author grasp his/her own culture. Reading our poems in class invited students and teacher to share our cultural stories. Essentially, the author begins each stanza with "I am from" and follows up with people, food, places, and the like. What is your "I Am From" poem?

Here is mine:

I am from board games and TV

Afternoons of homework, snacks, and

Mary Tyler Moore.

I am from day trips to the beach and Big Bear for snow.

I am from small yards and concrete fences,

Pomegranate and orange and peach and lemon trees.

I am from cranberry nut bread and Sees candy.

Monkey bread on Christmas morning.

I am from margarine and generic brands

and cream of tuna on toast.

I am from Friday night football, seeing dad at city hall,

and mom in the school library. I am from divorce, single parenthood,

making ends meet, and new beginnings.

I am from Alice Stebbins Wells—

who blazed the trail for female police officers

I am from Lew and Marian, Vera and Ray,

JoAnne and Walter.

I am from generations of slow but steady progress.

Motherhood as Motivation

Oftentimes we moms ask what we are sacrificing to be moms. The reality is that sacrifices are abundant. We give up time. We give up all or part of work. We even, at times, give up our dignity when we unknowingly leave home with spit up on our sweater or a cheerio on our butt.

I have realized, however, that motherhood also motivates me. As my son grows up, I am reminded that life moves quickly. Watching him is more real, somehow, than seeing the quite obvious changes I see in the mirror. As a toddler, he needed me all the time....to be fed, dressed, and to avoid physical disaster. He turns 7 soon, and he needs me a whole lot less now. He can get his own food, at least snacks. He can get dressed, when we wants to. He can play in the neighborhood without my watchful eye, although I watch him like a hawk. He has play dates now where I end up with unanticipated "free time".

With each developmental milestone, I realize he not only needs me less but also needs me to be me. As he grows older...the dreaded teenage years...it will be my responsibility to have an identity outside of him so that he is not overburdened with entertaining his mom. I don't want him to feel guilty for having his own life. Motherhood, in some ironic twist, reminds me that I must get a life. Now, where shall I start?

AA and Christian Community

Frederick Buechner writes in Beyond Words that one can't help wondering if Alcoholics Anonymous embodies "what the church is meant to be and maybe once was before it got to be big business". Buechner asks us to imagine the church as 'Sinners Anonymous', a place where we acknowledge that "I can will what is right but I cannot do it" and "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do", as Saint Paul put it. Essentially, Buechner wonders if there is something the church could learn from AA.

I was a guest at a Saturday night AA meeting recently, and was overwhelmed with the truth in Buechner's query. In a spirit of authentic community, we went around the circle sharing thoughts on the evening's theme, gratitude. Each individual introduced him or herself saying "Hi. I'm 'Sadie/Joe'. I'm an alcoholic". And the others responded warmly and immediately with "Hi Sadie/Joe". Each 'Sadie/Joe' then shared his/her thoughts on gratitude.

I was overwhelmed as individuals shared thanks for everything from finally being able to sleep to having hope for starting over. There was thanks for being able to speak truth about the real stuff of life. All in all, I noted a distinct theme as gratitude for each other. One person said "you are my family and I dig it". Another affirmed, "among you I feel home". I heard a deep thanks for the empathy associated with genuine community: One woman said, "I have people to call and to tell my problems; I never thought I could call others...I thought my problems were not big enough. Now I call". A man tearfully expressed thanks for being "totally understood". As the sharing went around the circle, there was absolute attentiveness to not only the words being expressed but also to the sentiment behind them.

One man suggested in the midst of his comments that "every now and then you get an epiphany". And as the circle came to me, I shared mine. " Hi. I'm Cynthia" ...to which I heard a warm reply "Hi Cynthia". I indicated that I was a guest and simply but genuinely affirmed that "I'm grateful to be here." And, I truly was. I am thankful to have witnessed people being loved deeply in the midst of all the crap of life. I am deeply thankful to have witnessed real acceptance, love, and grace; these are, in my estimation, the very qualities within a community that serve, ultimately, to transform individual lives.

I wonder alongside Buechner what it might mean for Christian community if it looked something like, "I am Cynthia. I am a sinner", and the community responded with a "Hi Cynthia" that resonated warmth and welcome. While I have experienced moments of grace in the community of faith, on the whole I often feel that my sinner status must be checked at the church's front door. It requires a leap to imagine the church on the whole as a place where I can say "I am really struggling to do the good that God desires but falling absolutely short" and getting a response that resonated acceptance before judgment, love before advice.

Ultimately, I am thankful to be reminded of the power of community to walk alongside us in our healing and to love us so deeply that we "do the good" that God desires not as a matter of our own will because the gospel reminds us that individual will is insufficient. Rather, we can do the good in the midst of a community that enables us trust more fully in the power of God to transform us only by meeting us exactly where we are.

War

A neighbor told Gabe her dad was working for the government in Texas; Gabe asked if he was going to be "in the war"?. I don't mean to jump to conclusions but connecting government and war so immediately concerns me, especially in the mind of a 7 year old. Still, in the current social and political context, what are images associated with government? War is definitely one; our government is engaged in physical wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and engaged in wars of words with many others.

We are in the midst of a presidential election and on the brink of controversy over the Democratic nominee. The electoral and popular votes are potentially at odds in casting the ultimate decision. We are debating whether Florida and Michigan should now count or whether there should be a re-do. It sounds vaguely familiar. It is no wonder that our young adults are so cynical about the political realm.

I have, and continue to discipline myself, with the audacity of hope....but it is a discipline. How can we teach our children and our young adults the power of government to do good in the world? Are there models of hope and good that I am missing? How can we galvanize the current interest in politics into a full-fledged revival of the role of government in and for the people?

Given the current realities, this is war. How oxymoric to be at war for hope.

Playdate Humility

Playdates are times when children experience the world of the other, and it is sometimes filled with envy. "Hey, I don't have that toy!" " You are so lucky!" " My mom NEVER lets me watch that!" Today, Gabe hosted his friend Alec. As they played with Playmobil toys, of which admittedly, Gabe has a plethora, Alec said he only has one Playmobil toy, and I was proud of Gabe when he didn’t respond. Well, later Alec picked up a piece of another toy and said, “What is this?”. When I noted that it was a Tinkertoy, Alec queried, “What’s a tinkertoy?”. Gabe, not skipping a beat said, “You don’t get out much, do you?”. Given my own propensities for sarcasm, I shouldn’t be surprised. I don’t imagine that Gabe would look at Alec’s Wii or DVD collection and wonder if he doesn’t get out enough, but perhaps he does. At any rate, what does it mean for a child to equate his toy collection with seeing the world? Playdates are times where you really begin to understand kids, particularly your own. There is something humbling about seeing my son in the midst of his relationships with peers.

Six word memoirs

Val invites bloggers for their six word memoirs. Smith Magazine asserts, "Everyone has a story. Can you tell yours in six words?" at www.sixwordmemoirs.com. Some of my favorites are: "I colored outside of the lines" (Jacob Thomas), "Always working on the next chapter" (Milan Pham), and "A new memoir every five years" (Srini Rajagopalan).

Here are thoughts for my memoir titles:

On Confusing Marriage and Social Work

Shower to Stage: Confident Singing in 10,000 Lessons

Single Motherhood: Incentive to Wholeness

Vocal Complexities

I experienced conflict with a significant other; something upset me and I let him know. As we worked through it [successfully, I'm pleased to acknowledge], we addressed not only the what but the how. In my delivery, he gave me a 4; for content an 8. I acknowledge that 45 minutes of reflection had certainly improved my delivery, meaning that I could have been much worse! Clearly, I have a way to go.

Finding voice is complicated; it necessitates both tone and content. Authentic voice requires attentiveness to one's audience, that is to say, considering not only what one needs to say but also what the other needs to hear and how they will best hear it.

I have often privileged the content of what is right over the manner in which it is delivered. If I am honest, I privilege being right over being kind most often when I am in delivery mode. It is easy on the receiving end to privilege kindness and compassion. It is tempting in delivery mode to be righteous about the what....about the naive truth that "I am right". Speaking truth genuinely is hard. Living authentically is tough work. As I learn to speak truth more often, I must also learn to do so more compassionately. I cannot practice one lesson without the other.

I love the biblical narrative of the woman at the well. When Jesus meets this Samaritan woman, he speaks truth in a manner that communicates genuine love above all else. It is clear that Jesus knows her....really knows her. He recognizes the sin in her life, but simultaneously sees her pain and loves her in the midst. It is this expansive approach that makes the difference. She must be known, loved, confronted, and called to greater wholeness-and perhaps in that order-- in order to spark real transformation.

Learning this delicate balance in my own life is a slow, painful, but ultimately healing transformation.

Authenticity

Authenticity is one of the gifts evident in finding one's voice. It has been liberating to be my self and to live my self....with all my very real gifts and shadows. I have grown, as a result, less defensive. After all, admitting to my own faults reduces the temptation to defend an illusion [or perhaps delusion] of personal perfection.
Paradoxically, it has been both liberating and painful to recognize others' lies and delusions. I have endured two spouses who took liberties with the truth, and I often questioned myself rather than them. I questioned whether my ability to trust was compromised. I no longer question my own ability to trust...rather, I know deeply that I can trust my inner voice that wonders: "Is this true?". As I have owned my own shadows, I have, in turn, disowned the temptation to trust others over myself.

Living my life authentically means coming to terms with the lies I told myself within these relationships...lies about my own gifts, about trusting myself, and about speaking truth in the midst. Finding my voice means recognizing both the gifts and the shadows in who I am....affirming the gifts and mediating the shadows. It also means forgiving myself for disowning my sense of self in the past.

Giving Voice to our Stories

"Writing can be a creative and invigorating way to make our lives available to ourselves and to others. We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told - we may discover that the better we tell our stories, the better we will want to live them." -Henri Nouwen

Voice and the Next Generation

My 6 year old Guatemala born son, Gabe, and I have an evening ritual. After we read books and turn out the lights each night, we have a little conversation about our day. We ask each other for "favorite" and "least favorite" moments of the day. Sometimes we play "Two Truths and a Lie", where we say 3 things about our day and the other has to guess which, of the 3, is the lie. Last night, our evening conversation evolved into things we would change, if we could, about the world. Gabe said he would make "ticks extinct" and he would invent a special potion to rid the world of "mosquitoes". I'm not certain where his bug disdain came from, but it was a distinct theme. During my turn, I suggested that I would eliminate prejudice, which I defined in what I thought was good kid language as "when people tend to not like those look differently from them". I thought it was a moment to prepare him for both the reality of prejudice against those with darker skin tone as well as the opportunity we have to make our world a better place. Gabe's immediate response surprised me as he exclaimed, "I thought John Luther King took care of that". It took me a moment to recover from the cuteness factor and to respond, well "Martin Luther King, Jr. did a lot of work to change laws and helped us make a lot of progress"...but there is still work to do in people's hearts.

How does a 6 year old already believe that race relations were fixed 40 years before he was born? How will his perspective be impacted when he comes upon the realities of modern day race relations? Specifically, that he will, at some point in time, be treated in a particular way due to his ethnicity? It strikes me that Gabe's response is reminiscent of a lot of adults. Didn't we fix all that race stuff in the 1960's? I don't think so. But how do we honor both progress and the need for change? And do so in a way that both honors our predecessors who have instilled progress and also galvanize future generations to overcome cynicism and seek change?