14 Year Olds, Groups, and Ireland

14 Year Olds, Groups, and Ireland

As I write this, my oldest child is celebrating her 14^th birthday with thirteen of her closest friends. Hip Hop party music is streaming, soda’s are being sipped and abandoned with half their contents left while screams and giggles of excitement fill the house. My daughter appears sure of herself as do her friends who easily navigate amongst each other. I sense no drama. No tension. No problems. But I am sure beneath the surface there are insecurities and resentments that might even go unnoticed to those who are feeling it. Or perhaps this is just my own projection of my experiences with groups: delightful, loving and necessary with a shadow of intolerance of others’ peculiarities especially in large or drawn out doses.

Next month I will be placing myself in a group to travel 100 miles by foot on a pilgrimage through Ireland. Pilgrimages are meant to be experienced alone. One can travel together while pilgrimaging solo. I am aware that I need intention and focus to stay in my, “own” space yet the aspect of group travel is still there. And with this comes dread. Interestingly, I like everyone who is going and from an outsiders perspective there would appear to be no problems. Just like my eldest and her gaggle of buddies. Yet, I know the shadow side of groups. It is like they say about fish and houseguests: After 3-days they both stink.

My trepidation arises out of a combination of experience, self-awareness and the unknown. I know pretty well how I work in groups and the results can vary wildly. The best results have always been when I’ve displayed my professional persona. Knowledgeable, gregarious and in control tend to net favorable results in the work arena. My second best showing is with my mother/wife persona. Personable, stable, fun and can keep the kids alive? Great! When these identities are stripped from me I am often times left floundering and wondering how I should act. It’s not pretty. Grasping for something. Should I be a clown? A know-it-all? An introspective intellectual? A party girl? Somebody help! I can drown in my own existence while the group I am with looks around and wonders if anyone will throw me a life-preserver; humiliation at its peak.

So, the question is, “How do I navigate a personally meaningful solo pilgrimage while living into the tension and paradox of a group of travelers?” Or perhaps the real question is, “How do I live into my own tension and paradox?”

God, I wish I were 14 again…not really.

Abundance #7 or God is not Homogenous

God is not Homogenous. 

Years ago I sat in my priest’s office and cried. I wept so intensely that I thought I might not stop or that my body might give out before my sorrow. When I was finally able to look up from my lap I glanced at him and uttered, “I’m a mess.” My hot, swollen face begged him for a balm to ease my miserable state. His expression was one of painful knowing and he simply said, “We are all a mess.”

At the time I wondered if these words were any help at all. I truly wanted to believe that life could be smooth, faultless, and easy. I wanted to feel assured in the presumption that somewhere out there existed people who were not a, “mess.” I never wanted to fully embrace the brokenness that is.  Yet, as the years have progressed I have learned to lean into that raw reality of life.

During work meetings, I have made a practice of attempting to feel others’ souls. This could be an attempt to avoid the monotony of paperwork or some other avoidant measure but I would like to think that I am working on my relationship with God through deepening my understanding of people’s spiritual presence. One thing I have noticed is once I am able to get past a person’s psychic baggage, personality quirks and pent-up emotional issues what I generally experience is extreme variations. Spiritual energy it seems is as diverse as thumbprints. Through this I have come to understand that God is not homogenous.

I am at a loss when I hear talk of, “We are all the same in God’s eyes.” Are we really? Perhaps those who thoughtlessly mumble these kinds of clichés are offering a simplistic ideal of spirituality intended to quell their own anxiety about their worthiness. In this construct, God is being seen as the great equalizer, a type of soul blender emulsifying all of creation into a putrid, colorless puree.

To be clear, this is not an argument for the maltreatment of those different from us but rather a call to respect diversity fully. Giving lip service to respecting diversity because, “deep down we are all the same,” seems like an ideological error because in my experience we are not the same. Yes, we are all broken and yes we are all blessed with gifts but these things do not make us the same. True acceptance of diversity is honoring the patchwork of souls God has presented in this world.

Thinking back to that visit to my priest I wonder why I was dismayed by the stark realization of the messiness of humanity. Perhaps there was fear that broken people could not truly be loved. It has taken me awhile to love my own broken self as well as the diverse broken souls who have been placed in my life. Ultimately, I believe this is the root of true abundance, to practice healthy self-compassion while honoring the true soulful diversity that is.

Abundance #6

Abundance #6

There was a young mother at Trader Joe’s today with her whining, intermittently screaming toddler next to her. On her front, she wore a new baby who was, at least temporarily, sleeping. She sheepishly glanced at me and I smiled broadly. Her eyes shot to the ground and I was transported to a time very recently when I was very much like that mother. I remember the seemingly ceaseless corrections of behavior, the mid-shopping trip dart to the bathroom, and the explosive diapers from the infant who was tethered to my chest.

It was over a decade I was either attached to a baby through a breast or an umbilical cord. The ensuing preschool years were wonderful yet left me with a rattled interior that I think most moms might agree is a paradoxical mix of post-traumatic stress and Disneyland-like euphoria. In retrospect I wonder why I was so stressed out. I wonder why I felt I would never get through each of my children’s toddlerhood. It was really just a blur.

There I stood in Trader Joe’s and stared at that mom and thought, “Her babies are so cute, and that time goes so fast.” My heart sank and I realized I was one of those moms. A woman I swore I would never be, an older woman cautioning a young, exhausted, borderline deranged mom that, “It goes so fast, enjoy it now.” And the crazy part is, I really thought I was enjoying the time. Yet, it was swept away.

So, there in Trader Joe’s, I thought of the difficulty I had this morning with one of my older kiddos and I wondered if this pattern of fretful thinking and motherly exhaustion will ever cease. The unending concern for raising children seems to make life slow down but then you wake up one day and realize that those babies who you checked for breathing in the middle of the night are actually getting pretty close to driving or going to college or having children of their own!

That is when I stopped and realized that as time passes it is even more important for me to try to be present and appreciate the abundance of each of my children’s existences even if time seems to slip by without any notice of my motherly emotional state. Perhaps more importantly, I need to mother myself and absolve my guilt for not scrapbooking ever moment or in all honesty wishing that certain developmental stages would come to an end.

My deep hope is that the love that I have for my children and for myself will be enough. That I won’t have many regrets and that I will be able to cherish the memories I have of my kids’ childhood.

Time is not abundant but I believe love can be.

Abundance #5

Abundance #5

Tonight I had a conversation with our children’s 1^st grade teacher who we have been blessed to have in our lives for many years now. The topic of conversation eventually led to homework. She is well aware that our kids, except for our first born, have been terrible at completing homework in the early primary grades.

I hold a strong belief that homework for young students is essentially useless. I believe that a certain amount of myth surrounds the need for the completion of homework. “It will build study skills,” they say or “It will reinforce core concepts.” I actually think homework in the early elementary years is meant more for the parents than for the students. The only caveat being reading to children, which I find to be one of the most important things parents can do at home.

Every week I sit in meetings and listen to teachers admonish parents for their child’s homework not being done. My heart sinks for these working poor parents who are often times holding down two jobs and I worry for the kids who might also be saddled with the stress of what I perceive as educational establishment hoop jumping. I internally roll my eyes and think, “Well, my kid’s homework isn’t done either and I should know better.” Or should I?

I think my distrust of the usefulness of homework comes from having been homeschooled Kindergarten through 8^th grade. My parents chose to educate me from mail order curriculum at a time when homeschooling was considered potentially illegal. No enrichment classes with peers. No drop-in PE to exert some energy, no art classes to socialize in. It was just the basic information you needed to get to high school.

My early education consisted of between and hour and a half to two hours of instruction with a small amount of individual work. This was a consistent pattern except on days when my mother was too depressed, tired or sick to teach me. Then I did nothing but play in my room or outside.  Needless to say, I never had homework because it was all homework.

As a mother who very much wants my children to succeed academically others have outwardly wondered why I have thumbed my nose at giving my kids more than a feeble, “Do you have homework?” on any given school night. It is difficult for me to remember only completing two hours or less of school related tasks on any given day and still ultimately doing well in high school, college and graduate school and then expecting that my children attend school all day only to come home to do more school work. On an intuitive level this is the stripping of abundance.

I want my children to grow up knowing that it is ok and preferable to not work all of the time. I would love for them to have interests outside of school and work. I want them to believe they can be whole, happy human beings whose purpose is not solely to “succeed” or spend inordinate amounts of time away from what nourishes their souls. I pray they can find abundance and not an abundance of homework.

Abundance #4

Abundance #4

I love to write. Ideas stir inside me and demand to be expressed. But there is more. It is not just processing my inner thoughts, which could be done verbally. The progression of writing drops me into an otherworldly space. An out of body sensation is usually present as I phrase and rephrase the content and word order. I like things to sound just right as I attempt to reveal my mental and emotional life to others.

The vulnerability in writing thrills me. Anxiety and excitement, two sides of the same coin, play themselves out whenever I publicly share my works. I wonder if this is how gamblers feel, a mix of the fear of loss (in a writer’s case criticism or rejection) with the potential of a big win. But what constitutes a, “big win” for an amateur writer?

A couple of years ago when I first started to blog a friend at the time asked me in a rather negative way, “Why would you think anyone would want to read what you have to write?”  This question haunts me every time I click the, “publish” button on the Blogger website.

My answer to that friend’s antagonistic remark has changed since I initially responded. At the time my response was a self-protecting, “I write for me and no one else.” Although, when I think about writing now, especially through the lens of nurturing abundance in my life, I know that writing isn’t just about me. My soul longs to positively impact at least a few people through my written word. Whether it is presenting a new viewpoint, offering a funny story or perhaps showing others that they too can write.

So, I will continue to write with abundance and hopefully some self-love and compassion.