Delve

He shows me his list.  There are at least ten things on it, maybe a few more.  He’s thought long and hard about what he wants to do in the coming year.  I tell him I wholeheartedly support every action he wants to take.  Some of the tasks will enable others; I see quickly which should be tackled first. I surmise some will take care of themselves if he chooses to start with the priorities.  And as I consider his list a bit more deeply, I recognize this is not just what he wants to do, but who he wants to become.

   

What’s on the list gives all sorts of information about what he values:  His well-being, security, relationships and nature.  He is full of wanderlust, and maybe a touch of just plain lust. I know this feeling of pent up desire; he’s pressing hard on his glass ceiling, not sure he can handle the upheaval he’ll create when he breaks it; not sure he’s willing to put forth the energy needed to live at these new heights, above the safe and familiar bounds of the past he’s looking to leave behind.

It’s certainly normal to question yourself on the threshold of this kind of change.  We all have limits threatening to hold us back.  Some are real and some are imaginary. We’re paralyzed until we address them.

He takes the first step; he is defining who he wants to be. Maybe he’s known this for a while; I don’t know how long his desires have been incubating in his head.  What I do know is he demonstrates a tremendous amount of courage in bringing them to me, and he’s ready to do the work.  Rumi, when he speaks of finding love, says this: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  It is the same when we seek to become who we want to be.  We need to look within ourselves and understand how we are standing in our own way.  It is amazing what the world seems to set at our feet when we look within and change ourselves instead of trying to change others.

But what happens when we encounter chronic limitations within ourselves requiring continuous effort to materially alter?  Where does the energy come from for this kind of transformation?  How do we be who we want to be within the confines of who we are?

We all have chronic limitations, a default position in some area of our being requiring constant manual override.  Most of us expend an excessive amount of energy attempting to conceal these weaknesses, and when we feel like they are spotted we make excuses for them or we blame someone or something else. What if, instead, we admitted our weaknesses, accepted and assessed them?  Are they real, or have we made them up in our heads?  Is there a “cure”, so to speak, can they be eliminated?  If they can’t be eliminated, how do we manage them?  To manage our weaknesses is to own them. Owning them removes the power they have over us, and replaces it with the fuel we need to manage them. When we’re comfortable saying “This is not my strength, but here’s how I manage it,” we become comfortable with ourselves.  And when we are comfortable with who we are, we can stretch into who we want to be.

So I’m asked who I want to be.  I created a list similar to his over four years ago.  I transformed myself into someone who, to paraphrase Dallas Clayton, pursues what makes her happy with the intent to make others happy. I share my art and writing with the world in hopes I inspire others to put their own creativity out there. I lead with confidence, and pour a tremendous amount of time and energy into coaching others so they can do the same. I create safe places for people to connect by striving to ask thoughtful questions in place of supplying answers.  I use my manual override regularly to manage, among other things, my inherent lack of patience, my desire to control situations and to be outgoing when my shyness wants desperately to prevail.  And these days I’m seeking to understand what prevents me from maintaining my home and why I possess so little faith.

I am a work in progress, driven by my values. I started my journey with a list and a conviction attributed to Socrates:  “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Solstice

The mercury drops mercifully, shedding the load of humidity she’s carried strapped on her back since the break of day when dawn stretched her sleepy arms up into the clouds.  The sun is on the backend now, making her slow decent in the evening sky.  At this moment, she’s aligned her column of light with the tops of my blossoming day lilies, casting her glow across the bright orange petals stretching their necks to be seen above ferocious weeds attempting to choke the color from neglected beds.  My yard, like my hair, and other aspects of my life is wild. I can’t be bothered to tame any of them.

 

Dogs bark, kids at play sing out to each other in muffled lyrics I’m not meant to make out, but their little voices I recall so clearly.  It was only yesterday when my boys giggled with glee pulling sunfish out of the pond out back. Evening, just before the sun sets is the best time to fish, as the water grows eerily still and swimmers make their presence known leaving reverberating circles upon its surface.

A cool breeze is blowing now.  As I sit here the first lightening bugs begin their game of tag, emitting intermittent, iridescent clues.  It’s the gloaming on the longest day of the year.  And it’s been forever since I took the time to sit outside, tuck the world in bed, and hold her hand until she falls asleep. It’s almost time to turn the nightlight on:  Tonight it’s the Strawberry Moon.  

Sweet dreams and welcome to summer.

Tribe

“We need to be there early,” I insist, “my family gathers.”  The dynamics make little sense to someone new, but he soon experiences the phenomenon himself when we arrive late by family standards, which in reality is a full twenty minutes before mass on this Wednesday morning, to a lobby teeming with the chattering members of my clan.

 

I am a child of the sixties and seventies, an era when adults laid down their roots in relative proximity to their own childhood homes, kids outnumbered the bedrooms in the house, moms mostly stayed at home, heading upstairs to apply a bit of lipstick and rouge in anticipation of dad walking through the door at the appointed time like clockwork every evening. Our social lives revolved around my father’s family. Cousins were part of birthday parties, holidays and summer vacations.  We celebrated baptisms, first communions, confirmations, graduations, and weddings.  Attendance at family reunions could easily sail into triple digits. Still today my family comprises a full one-third of my Christmas card list.

We’re here today to honor one of our own. I look around this capacious church and I feel an intense pride and admiration. The tight net my father and his siblings knotted with their spouses and expressly cast across their growing families not only brands my childhood, but bonds and binds me to the most stable and loyal shelter I’ll ever encounter. It’s where my values are rooted, where my sensibilities, creativity and integrity are modeled and fostered.

 

Early in life I choose one from the brood to tether myself tightly. As girls we share our hopes and dreams, write to each other in secret code.  As young women we make a pact we’ll be there to take care of each other no matter what; we imagine living together in our old age.  As I listen to the stories of a faithful man recounting his 67-year friendship with the one we’ve loved and lost, I consider the depth and breadth of my relationship with her. She turns my pages with me; she possesses the intel, the grace, the love for me to speak eloquently of my essence when it’s my turn to move on. It is a gift to be so completely known.

After mass we find ourselves congregating in the lobby again, and even though we’re all scheduled to meet at the cemetery, followed by lunch at a nearby restaurant, we linger.  It’s a hallmark of my family.  The joke is you better start saying your goodbyes the moment you walk in if you expect to walk out at a reasonable time. This is our culture; it’s who we are.

I’ve had the debate at the office about whether culture can be taught.  There’s no curriculum for culture, and there is no mainlining its absorption.  It’s kinesthetic learning. It is hands-on, requiring full immersion, repeatedly over time. In making a priority of coming together for the joys of life my dad taught the family culture to us. And as such created a haven for us to be known and to draw upon in the pain.

When the circle of life prevails, those who are present the moment we enter this world are gone by the time we find ourselves in need of an escort out.  Thank goodness my family is comprised of gatherers and lingerers. We get to leave this world surrounded by familiar faces who have memorized the recipe for our unique brand of love and support, serving that magic elixir we were welcomed in with a generation or two ago, by mothers and fathers eager with anticipation and possibility.

Leaven

“I don’t stand up to anyone.” Her statement startles me in its unabashed delivery. I’m sure it feels like an inescapable truth she proclaims.  And with it I find an appreciation for the comfort she displays as she is unapologetically herself. I imagine she’s kneaded this dough of hesitation and resignation to the point of exhaustion, finally baking it into a self-acceptance she can bite into without tasting any bitterness.  Could she change it?  Sure.  But there’s conviction in her confession.  And I get it.  I’ve been tied to the same apron strings.

This behavior surrounds us; this backing down, or never stepping up:  The professions of loyalty a devoted customer can’t seem to articulate in the presence of her superiors. The right answer lodged in the throat of a team member afraid his thinking might be too far outside the box.  It’s one of the most powerful parables of faith:  A disciple and the denial he makes not one, not two, but three times.

What causes us to keep our dissidence under wraps?  On the surface it appears to be group think. As recently as last night I’m warned, along with my friends, that we’ll fall prey in the game we’re playing, the challenge we’ve accepted to find our way out of a locked room.  We’re told we’ll uncover clues we won’t agree on how to apply, and we’ll lack the independence to consider every option, making discards in favor of the loudest voices.

We can get twisted up in believing we’ll need to fiercely defend our perspective.  Or that speaking up commits us to presenting our case for a ruling. Or that others will think less of us or ostracize us for our beliefs or choices. And so we make the decision to say nothing at all.  We press ourselves up against the wall or slide down a little lower in our seats in hopes we won’t be called out for who we are.

The origins of debate are in respect and freedom of speech, yet somehow over the course of time debate has devolved from a forum for understanding into a contest that must have one winner.  Expressing your opinion isn’t about being right or wrong, it’s about believing you are worthy of having an opinion.

Isn’t not standing up to others really about not standing up to yourself?  Being capable and willing to articulate your beliefs, values and pride in the choices you make demonstrates self-confidence and self-respect. It’s a deficit of self-respect that prevents us from speaking up. It’s simple, really:  When you demand respect from yourself, you’ll have no choice but to find the voice you need to command it from others.

We’re not required to ask for permission to be ourselves, yet many of us fail to live our lives fully waiting in vain for someone to grant it.  The only person preventing you from rising is the only person you control. Are you standing up to her?