Nov 22 2012
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Aging, Family, Holidays, Life

Everything Happens. A Thanksgiving Day Reflection.

Sh*t happens. Everything happens for a reason. These are two popular phrases that many use, and few combine. When anyone tries, the outrage is reflexive. Disease? Disaster? Death? Happening for X reason? That’s language of blame. We’re sensitive to blame, and the way it reveals our refusal to own the result of our actions.

It’s much easier for us to say that good things happen for a reason. There’s no outrage. We accept the relationship between the terms, and happily extend them. We say, “everything” while we mean only “good” things. There’s no blame, so there’s less resistance. Some folks like to say that a good result was “meant to be.” Good fortune is then gifted by God, or the kindness of another. I suppose that can be true. Still, along the way, I think we miss that when we say things like this, we’re absolving ourselves of the good fortune which can also result from our actions. Instead we’re giving it to a someone else, or higher power who has a “plan.” I wonder, why are we so unwilling to accept that we have the ability to make good choices ourselves?
—
My Dad is in the hospital. Last week he had an emergency quadruple bypass. He’d been at a used book sale, and found himself slumping and without energy. My mom, from her corner of the room they were in, saw that he was supporting himself by holding on to a post. He was sweating. He didn’t know what was going on. “I couldn’t figure out what was happening” he said later. He’d been feeling a dull pain in his chest for weeks. We’ve learned since that his arteries were 90% clogged. I shook my head when he told us he was trying to “figure out what was happening.” Of course he was. It’s his, there’s-an-over-the-counter-medicine-for-this, way that he has of problem solving health issues. It’s a way that he doesn’t make good decisions. Choices. A person makes hundreds each day. Most of them don’t make any difference in our lives or that of others. It’s not something we think about because there isn’t any need to. It’s simply part of living.
—
At the book sale, a volunteer staff person saw my dad slumping, and asked him if he wanted a glass of water. He accepted the offer. My parents were grateful for the moment of kindness. I’m not sure if anyone tried to help them after that. Further kindness at the book sale is not part of the story they’re telling. At this point, additional kindnesses are as likely to be details hidden behind the larger moments leading to his surgery, as they are of something which did not happen. It can be a challenge to offer help. We don’t want to offend. We’re convinced that we don’t know how. We are afraid that we’ll do the wrong thing. We think things like it’s not really our business to get involved, because who knows what the real situation is… The way those questions play in our mind? They’re the dark side of the wide Libertarian streak we’ve embraced. It’s not just government we don’t trust. We don’t know how to trust each other, or ourselves. These same things also make it difficult to ask for help when we need it.
—
Last night a friend said, “Bypass? I went through that with my dad in January.” Another, “my dad had a new ticker installed five years ago.” And, “mine had this done ten years ago.” In the last week, I’ve been amazed at the sheer number of people who have joined in, saying “me, and us, too.” As a friend put it on Facebook, “It’s not so much that we ‘like’ this status, as we ‘understand.'” For me, the chorus of these messages is another reminder that while we have a terrible habit of thinking that no one understands what we’re going through, we all move through the same kinds of things in life. Often these events, are exactly the same.
—
After drinking some water, my parents returned home. The next day they called my sister, who lives a few short blocks away from them. She called their doctor, and made sure he would see them on Monday. Monday’s visit to their GP led to a return on Tuesday for tests with a cardiologist. That doctor drove them to the hospital in his own car. In retrospect that may not have been the best choice–an ambulance being able to provide more support–but in the moment it was a decision that spoke to the urgency the situation required. From my sister, to my parents doctors, here were good decisions. We make them, too.
—
Today is Thanksgiving. The family is dining today in the hospital cafeteria. I’m a little anxious about that. It’s different. It’s also something that people do every year. We won’t be alone. Not in this, either. Another friend said, “Thanksgiving in a hospital with a sick relative? Been there. Done that.” For a brief moment I thought of asking, “Yes, but, how was the stuffing?” Then I remembered the most obvious thing. This day isn’t about the what of the meal. The work of service by those preparing and providing the food, will still take place. It’s not about the where of the meal either. Home isn’t about walls and a roof. Home is where ever you happen to be, with people you love. Today is a day for being together. A family gathers, and give thanks. In this, a life where everything happens.

Sep 11 2012
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Forgiveness, Healing, Life

For 9/11: Being Whole, Together, As We Are.

I watched him run, my friend’s small boy, all of three years old. We were in front of Sweets’ school, the children having just finished singing what I call “The Promise Song,” during their morning assembly.

“I am a promise, I am a possibility, I am a promise, with a capital P, I am a great big bundle of potentiality!”

I was still singing as I bounded down the steps, taking them two at a time. That’s when I saw my friend, watching her son, and I imagined, marveling, as he chugged along. The distance from the steps to the sidewalk is around fifty yards. As he moved past the halfway point, I realized he wasn’t slowing down. The sidewalk was now twenty yards ahead. The street was twenty-one. What was about to happen was unthinkable. Realizing this, my friend Karen, started running, too.

I was still singing, but my voice was soft. My attention was with Karen, and her child.

“I can go anywhere that I want to go. I can be anything that I want to be. I can climb the high mountains, I can cross the wide sea.”

The “wide sea” of asphalt now lay a few feet ahead. Karen, was closing. Would she get there? I continued, “I’m a great big promise you see!” My voice trailed off. He was on the sidewalk when he fell. Karen scooped him up moments later, his laughter having turned into a wail. There was no blood. No apparent scrape. The surprise of falling had simply taken his glee and turned it inside out.

She picked him up, giving consolation the way a mother does, holding her child close. As I reached them she said, “He’ll be okay. I think he’s stunned, more than anything.” He seemed fine. The fall was in his past. We walked. I looked at her and said, “Isn’t this a beautiful day? It’s clear and crisp. I love this weather.” “I know, the sky is so blue.” I looked up. “You’re right! Wow. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. THAT doesn’t happen enough in this town.” I was taking in the sky when she said, “It was this clear on September Eleventh.” In the silence that followed, I thought of that day’s empty sky.

—

Before singing “The Promise Song,” we’d had a moment of silence, and the Principal read several reflections from Messages to Ground Zero: Children Respond to September 11, 2001. Before going to school, I'd joined my daughter, saying these prayers, written by my neighbor. We’d also watched James L. Martin’s reflection on the events of that day in 2001. September eleventh remains a day where people stop, and remember.

—

As we reached her car, Karen put her son down saying, “Let’s see if all your parts work.” He’d stopped wailing, shortly after we’d started our conversation. He walked easily to the car. If he needed more proof that he was fine, there it was.

—

In 2009 Joe Biden read an excerpt from Mary Oliver’s poem, “Wild Geese” at the Ground Zero Memorial Service. His reading came just before a moment of silence, marking the point in time when the second plane struck the World Trade Center.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

—

Another friend said this morning, “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel normal on this day. Eleven years later, I definitely don’t.” His words took me back to Karen, and her son. My friend’s sense of the world is still turned inside out.

—

When Joe Biden read Mary Oliver’s poem at the Memorial Service in 2009, he skipped the first five lines of the poem.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

For me, those lines change the experience of the poem. Read as a whole, it puts first line he read, “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” in a different context. We’re not mourning while “the world goes on.” We are people trying to love, what we love. We wrestle with our ability to do that. We beat ourselves and each other up, longing for proof that our love is strong enough. We can be told left and right, time and again, that “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination” and that we have a place “in the family of things” and the words will float through our ears. We can do things like sing “The Promise Song” until we are hoarse, and the words will remain outside our hearts.

The tension of hearing words like those in the poem and the song, coupled with our deep desire to be enough as we are, and at home where we are, is fully felt on days like this one. Days where our sense of what it means to live, and breathe, are turned inside out and revealed as modest constructions.

I like the phrase President Obama made famous during a speech on Super Tuesday in 2008. Quoting the poet June Jordan he said, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” At the time, he was criticized for this turn of phrase. It was called messianic, and self-congratulatory. Andrew Sullivan noted then that “The point is surely that we shouldn’t wait for someone else to save us, or lift us up, or fix our problems or address our fate. We are the only ones who can do this.” That also means “we’re responsible for our own failure.” We see much, want to control outcomes, then blame ourselves or others when we fall short. We hold on and don’t know how to let go, how to turn it around.

September eleventh remains a point of wounding, instead of a place where healing can occur in relation to everything that happened that day. Like every child that falls, we were stunned. We wanted to wail. Instead, we put up a front. We wanted to show strength in the face of trauma. In wanting to present well to the rest of the world, we tied ourselves to our wound.

Thinking in relation, means thinking differently about who we are. We’re used to being part of communities that are born from boundaries, and differences. My family. My town. My country. It’s a way of thinking that separates, and leads to statements like, “you’re either for us, or against us.” That phrasing isn’t just one that comes into play when terror strikes. It’s what happens when we yell at kids, for setting foot in our yards. It happens in our homes, when we decide that an either or ultimatum is the only solution to the behavioral matter of the moment.

What if we let go of the way we’re wedded to good and bad? Us and them? Red state, and blue? If we stop judging and start joining, perhaps we can quiet the voice telling us we have failed again. That we are not good enough. A voice that leaves us to “have to walk on [our] knees / For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.”

Letting go, we might just realize that to find the way through “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

In standing back and letting her child run, my friend Karen was brilliant. I wonder if she sees it that way? After all, you can look at what happened and say, “she let him fall.” I know she didn’t let him fall. What she did was let him run. She could have run with him from the start. She didn’t. That’s Karen opening up “what’s next” to a world of possibility. In this case her son, falling, and our conversation. If she had run with him from the beginning, our conversation would never have taken place. If she and I had not spoken today, you would not be reading these words. Vulnerability is the secret that helps us turn things around. It’s the thing that always works. Not because it is impossible for others to resist. It always works because being vulnerable changes who we are.

Brené Brown says, “When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make….Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.”

Being vulnerable is what happens when we let ourselves be caught up in our mother’s arms. It’s the way we move through from being wounded, to healing, and finding ourselves whole, you with me, together, as we are.

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Jul 15 2012
2 Comments
Forgiveness, Friendship, Healing, Life

Spin Class Wisdom, And The Love We All Desire.

This morning, I stumbled across this essay: “Everything I Know About Prayer I Relearned in Spin Class.” It’s by a young Jesuit named Michael Rossman. I found it via James Martin‘s Facebook page. He discovered it this morning, in the Sunday bulletin at St. Cecelia’s parish, (Boston). I laughed when I saw the title. It’s a nice piece. One chock full of wisdom.

Reading it called to mind some of the people who’ve helped me understand both the importance of being part of a community (Rossman’s #1), and the challenge of living in community. Nothing takes a person off a pedestal of admiration, the way living with them does. The ordinariness of life. The ebb and flow, with its endless repetition and sameness. Once you understand the ups and downs of a person’s moods, you can see through the sheen we all project to hide our brokenness, and fear of rejection. To see, you have to look. We can choose to not look, and avoid the question altogether. But if you dare–and I think all great loves and friendships require that we do–what remains is the simple choice to be with another person, not as we’ve imagined or hoped them to be, but as they are.

I think the choice is something we first encounter with our families. Having known us all our lives, they can typically see through our facades. We see through theirs, too. We know each other too well, in the sense that when change happens, family is often the last to accept it as real. That, of course is the same reason most of us are our worst critics, we know all the history.

Being able to accept each other as we are? It’s the reason some friendships last, and others, don’t. Everyone wants to belong, to be accepted, and loved. Even Jesus did. I think it’s the secret to happy marriages, too. Someday I hope to test that hypothesis.

Being able to accept ourselves as we are? I think a lot of that involves coming to terms with our vulnerability, and brokenness. If yours is like mine, I’m sure your family is more than willing to help you do this. Of course, they’re often the people we have the hardest time hearing. All that history gets in the way, differently.

I like the way Rossman pointed to the way he’s supported by a communion of saints (#9), who “inspire, guide, and intercede.” And that he allows that the “communion of pop singers that blast from the speakers during [Spin} class could also analogously serve in a saintly role for spinners – even if some of their lyrics or personal lives may not always be so saintly.”

I sometimes consider of some of the bloggers I read in a similar manner. I’m thinking in particular of three women (#5?) who don’t live in my neighborhood, and that I don’t really know, or know well enough to consider part of my community (though one lives about twenty miles away). They write from different places, at different paces, and for different reasons. They are part of my communion of saints because of their willingness to dive deep, and be vulnerable (#10). Again and again they teach me the importance of taking first steps (#11), and pushing through to the end (#3) even though I have no idea where it is. For all of that–it’s a lot–I am in their debt.

If you have time, and the inclination, you can find their windows into the love we all desire, here:

Maternal Dementia
The Jennie Blog
Canned Beer Classy

Jun 11 2012
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Family, Growing Up, Just Fun, Love, Music, Parenting

I Missed You So So Bad!

The rule is simple, and clear. I am allowed to sing, in the car. That’s it. Step outside of the vehicle and my lips better seal. Sweets negotiated that deal to protect herself from the embarrassment of public parental crooning. She knew just what she was doing, too. I’ll sing about anything at the drop of a hat.

Related minor rules include the following: Dad does not dance in public, nor skip. She treads lightly there. She’s seen my personal version of a Monty Python “Silly Walk”. I think she knows she’s better off. At home, I’ll dance to some of the songs on Glee, too (I worked on these simple steps for a while). As long as I stand behind her, I’m okay. Now you know the reason why we don’t watch “Dancing with the Stars” or “So You Think You Can Dance” in my house. It’s not that I think I can dance, it’s that I keep trying.

Every once in a while, an allowance is made. Tonight was one of those nights. I was permitted to indulge in various renditions of Carly Rae Jepsen’s number one hit “Call Me Maybe” for close to an hour. Yes! It wasn’t an early Father’s Day gift, no. I just couldn’t get the lyrics right. We must have listened to various versions of the song, twenty different times on YouTube. The Harvard Baseball Team lip-synced cover. The dubbed Obama spoof. Assorted lyrics-on-the-screen videos. I even tried using the Suzuki method! It didn’t matter. I’d play a section, pause, and botch the lyric. Sweets thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen. I haven’t seen her laugh that hard since she last watched the Mirror Scene in Duck Soup.

The first part of the song I got right, is the bridge where Jepsen sings:

Before you came into my life
I missed you so bad
I missed you so bad
I missed you so so bad!

I think the truth those words express about love, is perfect. As I sang the bridge, I was tickling Sweets. The words brought tears to my eyes. They capture my experience of having kids. When you’re welcoming a birth, and you feel a child’s first kick, it’s hard to deny that his/her presence in your life is filling a space you didn’t know existed. I think that’s what it’s like when a heart discovers true love.

Jepsen captures perfectly the sense true love gives that “I always needed you.” It’s not because I was lacking and the child, or lover completed me, no, not that. For me, the words aren’t those of adolescent pining. They belong to an adult heart, proclaiming the life-giving essence of true love. It’s the fundamental realization that the presence of this person in your life is helping you become more than you were, and more of who you already are.

Before your true loves come into your life, you have no idea life can be richer, or more real than it is. After they do, you can’t imagine living without them in it. If you have to? There’s sadness, and thanksgiving. They may be gone, but the richness they helped you discover, remains.

The next time you hear this song, why don’t you call them to mind, and join me in proclaiming this truth:

Before you came into my life
I missed you so bad
I missed you so bad
I missed you so so bad!

Apr 27 2012
2 Comments
Family, Healing, Lent, Parenting

Too Soon.

My friend Rico was killed last week. The trouble I have writing the word murdered, speaks to the tenderness of the wound. He was thirty. In calling him my friend, I’m being generous to myself. It is how he made me feel.

Though he only lived a few blocks from me, I only saw him on school days, as I dropped off or picked up Sweets. He was never too busy to say hello, and often extended his hand for a complex four stage hand shake that I never got right. I was often self-conscious of my inability to make each move. It didn’t matter to him, it was part of the way he welcomed people. That’s what stays with me.

Rico didn’t know it, but he was one of my role models for being welcoming. The most important and precious lesson he taught me, again and again, was the importance of welcoming everyone, always. What did I do to merit the handshake, his smile, and the less frequent hug? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Yesterday afternoon, I asked Sweets if she wanted to go to the viewing. She said no, she didn’t want to go. She knew who Rico was, and knows his eldest daughter, who is also ten. “She’s not really my friend, Dad.” “I know,” I said. “I never saw him outside of school, either. Still, it’s important to go. You know what it’s like to almost lose a parent. Do you remember that?” She cast her eyes downwards. “His kids are  Dilworth kids, just like you. Dilworth isn’t just your school, it’s a community. When things like this happen, we come together. That’s one of the most important things people do, supporting each other when they’re hurting.” She looked up and let me know with her eyes that I was pushing a little too hard. A knock at the door signaled her moms arrival. She picked her up, and continued a similar version of the same conversation as they made their way home.

Later, at the viewing, I felt a tap on my shoulder. She’d come with her mom, after all. “I’m glad you’re here” I said to her. “It means a lot. To me, to the family, and everyone that we both don’t know that’s here.” “Yeah, and that’s just about everyone.” I laughed. “It is. These are people who loved him, and only some of them, and we don’t know any of them! They don’t know us, either. We’re letting them know that this person they loved, touched people they had no idea he knew. That’s a blessing for all of us, and a tribute to the nice guy he was.” We chatted with a few folks, and sat for a while before leaving.

Rico leaves behind three children, the youngest of whom is in kindergarten. The school is taking a collection for the Cooper family, for after-school care, uniforms, and the like. If you’re inclined, you can send a check to Dilworth Traditional Academy, at 6200 Stanton Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206. On the memo put “Cooper Family Fund.” Thanks.

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Apr 08 2012
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Faith, Family, Life, Love, Parenting

The Love In My Heart.

Bud was sitting in the backseat of the car as we pulled up to his mom’s house. He said goodbye to my friend in the front passenger seat, and looked at me. “I love you, Dad.” “I love you too, Bud. Do you have your keys?” He waved them in the air so that I’d see that he did. Then he got out of the car.

As he walked away my friend turned to me and said, “Wow. Did you hear that?” “Hear, what?” “He told you that he loves you! He’s almost fifteen for Chrissakes! When you were his age would you ever have told your Dad that you loved him in front of one of his friends?” He paused, long enough for me to realize that the answer to that was an obvious no, then added. “You two, have done a wonderful job with your kids, you know?” I nodded, and smiled. “He’s a great kid.” Pointing with his index finger, my friend waved his right hand the way I remember his father doing when he wanted to make a point. “They both are.” We sat with the stillness of that for the short ride to my home.

Sometimes I think telling me she loves me is Sweets favorite thing to say. “I love you Daddy.” “I love you, too, Sweets” is our typical exchange repeated through the day, every day. It’s said frequently enough that it’s like a mantra. I used to wonder if she was checking to see if I really did love her. As if there was a possibility in her mind that I might not respond, or say, no. Now I think it’s just the air we breathe. She’s rich and full. Like a good mantra, “I love you” grounds us.

Sweets is young enough, that her “I love you” comes from a cup that only remembers that love overflows. The wonder of Bud’s “I love you” is that he is old enough to realize that not everything works out in the end. He loves the repeated phrase from the Hunger Games books, “May the odds be ever in your favor…” and is discovering that life, like the game in the book, is unfair. The world can be hard. At the same time, he is also learning to identify his needs. It’s the coolest thing. Something like that can only happen when a person begins to understand who they are. Neediness, in contrast, comes from our emptiness. From the way we feel that we’re lacking, and so, we need approval for example, to know we’re okay, or we need to be in a relationship to feel whole. He’s growing up. He’s beginning to have a sense of  who he is. What a kid!

I love them both. I would do anything for them. When the kids were younger it was easy to see cause and effect between what I would do as a parent, and the impact it had. Just think of the game “peek-a-boo.” Adults don’t play peek-a-boo with kids because it makes the adult feel good, though it does that in a marvelous way. We do it, because we see the joy the child experiences from the play of the game. I think it’s one of the ways we are reminded what it means to love another person unconditionally. Sebastian Moore reports that Marshall Rosenberg–who works in conflict resolution–says that “what we want above all things is to be the cause of joy in each other.” We want to love and be loved. Not for any reason or because of anything we do. We want to be loved for ourselves, as we are.

The kids and I have all the disagreements parents have with their kids, of course. The way I make them happy is different today than it was when we played peek-a-boo. Then, many games brought the cry “Again Dada, again!” Seeing them happy remains something precious, as does seeing them become individual selves. When I told my son that I didn’t like the Hunger Games movie, he didn’t take offense. He didn’t receive it as a rejection. Instead, he calmly suggested that I read the book. That is exactly what my friends said. That sort of thing is happening more and more. Still, I wonder, am I leading them anywhere good?  I worry, even though I know it doesn’t matter how much I want to try and see down the road of their lives. Anything I think I see, is an illusion. Heck, I have a tough enough time seeing down my own road. Anyway, that’s my head trying to control, a richness my gut knows only comes when I am true to the love in my heart.

Feb 29 2012
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Lent

Take lots of little steps. Then…leap!

It’s Leap Day.

This morning I found myself running into an unending string of encouraging words on Facebook, telling me to do something special today. Yes! That’s wonderful stuff, being encouraged to seize the day. Except, please, would some of you mind coming back tomorrow? With the same message, and enthusiasm. And, um, the day after that. Could a few of you–what the heck, let’s just map out March! I mean, if it isn’t too much trouble.

Each of those days, will only come once. Too many of them pass by without my noticing.

The sun has set where I am. Was there much of a sunset, or were the skies covered in clouds? It rained most of the day. I noticed that. And it warmed up, too! Did the sun come out as well? I don’t know. What about where you are?

What I love most about Leap Day, is the way it allows us to acknowledge that something we use every day is imperfect. Our calendar is close, but if we didn’t add a leap day every four years, eventually we’d really have Christmas in July! Isn’t it interesting that people never complain that no one has “fixed” the calendar? Or that the calendar is “broken?” We don’t worry about it. We don’t fret. Not, at all. We use it as it is, and adjust as we go. Across the globe we’ve agreed, if the year is 365.2425 days long that’s good enough to live by!

Today, a friend shared this quote with me,

“Take all the time you need to heal emotionally. Moving on doesn’t take a day, it takes lots of little steps to be able to break free of your broken self.” ~Theresa

I don’t know Theresa, but I think she’s wise. Breaking free of our broken selves, takes many little steps. Mostly, I think, breaking free is as much about accepting and owning your flaws as anything. Loving them even, because they’re part of you. Owning them so much that you forget to worry about them, the way we never think to make the calendar a concern.

Another thing I love about Leap Day is that it repeats. One adjustment isn’t enough. Correcting course is an ongoing process. That’s also one of Lent’s gifts. Yesterday, in a moment of weakness, I ate a piece of chocolate. I rationalized that I was eating the cookie for the coconut and the caramel, not the chocolate. The cookie was a Girl Scout Samoa/Caramel Delite. All right. I’ll admit it. It took two to get me back on track. They are so good. Once the taste of chocolate lingered, as it did, I remembered why I was giving it up. I. Love. Chocolate. I didn’t bash myself, I put the cookies away. I was off task (they’re a reminder to follow my plan for the day). I know where the box is. I know there are more cookies. I’m not going to have one. I won’t even have .2425 of one. I will take my little steps, and adjust as I go. When I’m ready? Then, I’ll leap!

Feb 27 2012
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Lent

Ten Seconds And Grace.

I think the video is its own measure of Grace.  If you’d like to read more about Mr. Rogers, and this moment, you’ll find a wonderful piece here. I found the video via this story in Mental Floss.

Feb 25 2012
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Lent

Possibility. What’s Growing Inside You?

Yesterday in a conversation a friend said, “Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt.” The turn of phrase works as a way of conveying, “yes, I understand you.” In this case I was left thinking. Which part of what had already been said was my friend responding to? Later I wondered what we miss when we reduce experience, instead of sharing it.

Every morning when we wake, we make choices. A husband rolls over in bed and kisses his wife. He is choosing the marriage. Your child walks into your room and says, “Mom, I’m hungry. What’s for breakfast?” Maybe you ask for a moment, because you can’t think until the smell of “good morning” coffee drifts through your home. You make breakfast (or delegate it to an older sibling). In both cases, you choose to parent. You go to work, to the job you have. Typically you don’t think about these events as decisions you’re making, not really. You just make them. After a while you recognize a sameness to each morning. To each day. There’s comfort in that.

There’s loss, too, when we move through our mornings and miss the wonder that’s present. Your spouse is choosing you, as you are her, even if she just rolls-over in response. Your children start the day with expectation, because you’re good at the thing no parent ever believes, being their parent. You go to work because it gives you life, or gives you the income you need to live.

What if we recapture some of the wonder? Imagine the possibilities. What follows is excerpted from Robert Fulgum’s blog. Here’s to breaking through the sameness of the day, and finding wonder. Here’s to possibility. What’s growing, inside you?

I remember . . .
Kindergarten . . .
Little white paper cups with a cotton ball inside.
And some water.
On top of the cotton, a seed.
The cups were placed in a cookie tin.
The tin was placed on the window sill in the winter sun.
Above the steam heat from the radiator.
And we waited . . .
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . .
And waited . . .
Thursday, Friday . . .
And over the weekend, while we were not watching, the miracle happened.
By Monday the seeds had cracked and something white was reaching down while something green was reaching up.
A tiny plant had come to life.
WOW!
I still remember . . .

It’s been a long time since I did the seed-in-the-cup drill.
But I did it again on Friday.
A brown ceramic tea-cup, a cotton ball, water, and two nasturtium seeds.
On a south-facing window sill to catch the sunlight.

Like a gambler throwing dice at a craps table I shouted at the seeds,
Come on, baby, do it for Bobby!
Bobby needs Spring!

(Saturday afternoon.)
Peering at the two still-inert seeds through the magnifying glass, I see nothing. No sign of life.
I know it’s in there.
But so far, nothing’s happening.
I am impatient.
Come on, come on, come on – do it!

(Sunday morning.)
Nothing . . .
Maybe they’re not seeds – just little rocks after all – I’ve been scammed.
Maybe I should try a new batch – raid my wife’s supply saved from last year.
Maybe I should open another packet of seeds.

I did buy nine packets. (Nine is my lucky number.)
I have California orange poppies, a morning glory mix, blue corn flowers, three other kinds of nasturtiums, a mix of flower seeds to attract hummingbirds, and a mix to attract butterflies.
Enough to cover half the yards in the neighborhood.

The mixes never seem to work out and grow and bloom.
But I buy them because of their possibilities.
In my mind it is high summer and they are doing their job.
The yard is full of flowers and hummingbirds and butterflies.
When I open the packets and poke around in the seeds with my fingers, that’s what I imagine.

(Sunday afternoon.)
When I was a child my father often warned me that if I swallowed a seed – orange, watermelon, grapes – a plant would grow out of my nose and ears.
A harmless father joke, I suppose.
Little did he know how seriously I took the proposition.
Or how often I deliberately experimented with seed-swallowing.
And how anxiously I checked my ears and nose for signs of green sprouts.

The results were disappointing, of course.
But I attributed the failure not to my father’s mischief but to my choice of seeds and lack of information about how to fertilize them.
I even ate some dirt.
Yes, I really did.

Recall that every part of the nasturtium plant is edible.
So . . .

In tribute to my father’s sense of humor . . . in memory of my childhood hopes . . . in the firm belief that maybe I’ll get it right someday . . . and knowing that when it comes to matters of LIFE, anything can happen . . .
I ate three nasturtium seeds on Friday afternoon – just after I placed the other two seeds in the cup.
Maybe this time . . .

(It’s easy, actually – like taking a pill. Think of seeds as a diet supplement.
I popped them into my mouth, swallowed, and washed them on down with a glass of warm water. No dirt this time.)

As I was falling asleep that night, I laughed out loud.
“What’s funny, dear,” my wife asked.
“Wait and see,” said I, imagining the moment in a few days time . . .

“What’s that growing out of your ear, dear?”
“Part of a salad.”
“What?”
“Nasturtiums – just wait until they bloom!”

~ Robert Fulghum

Feb 24 2012
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Lent

Being Mindful Of Your Treasure.

“Where your treasure is, so will your heart be.” (Mt 6:21)

It’s a simple idea. What’s really important to you should be where you spend the bulk of your time.

What are those “most important” things?

Day to day, are they getting the focus they deserve?

Staying focused on what’s most important in your life, often means letting go of things that take your attention elsewhere. Today, spend some time thinking about your treasures, and what might be getting in the way of your ability to give your them the time and energy, they deserve.

Gracious God,
Help me to open my heart and take an honest look at my treasure, and what things might be getting in the way of it having proper place in my life.

Help me be open to you, the ultimate perspective-renderer, as you teach me how to live, and love.

Amen.

——–

Adapted from +3 Minutes for Lent. It is one of the resources on Facebook that I’m using to keep the season this year. Each day you’ll find a verse, a reflection that you can pace yourself through, and quiet music to listen to as you reflect. If you prefer, you can have their reflections sent to you, via email. It’s lovely.

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