Grasp

http://lisajobaker.com/2012/09/five-minute-friday-grasp/

I grasp at moments, seeking to hold on to a minute or two of pause in a busy day, and they slip through my fingers like sand as the telephone rings, and someone knocks on the door.  I hide myself away for a moment of peace, and there is a need, as the tears flow and I comfort the hurting as my heart beats out the rhythm of time passing.  Minutes race by and appointments pop up with no time to plan, and I grasp for my papers, unfinished, the sermon still forming in my head as I take a deep breath and pray that it all falls into place.  There's the grasp of a hand on my shoulder in passing, and I stop again, smile, and summon my swirling thoughts into stillness as I reach for a greeting, a word of connection.  I grasp, seeking, and yet what I find is not what I had searched for.

I seek rest, and find connection.

I seek peace, and find hurt.

I seek stillness, and find that I am caught up in the chaos of busyness.

I seek myself, and find You.

I grasp the sense that You are here through it all.  You are in it all.  You are guiding me to a new understanding that although I can't control time, I don't need to.  When I am in your grasp, you are bringing all things together for good.

Finding Nemo: a parable for parents

We're in another rough phase around here.  It seems that happens whenever we slip into a comfortable place.  I understand that these are the "growing pains" with two young kids who are growing into independence, especially two who inherited the strong wills of their parents.  As much as we prod, cajole, reward, push, demand,encourage, and punish them into obedience, they push right back with attitudes, yelling, defiance, and rude words.  It's a frustrating business of needing to teach them how to behave, and yet feeling my own behavior unravel in the fruitlessness of it all.  The only breakthroughs seem to come when my calm words break through after a day of yelling and reprimands, and I end up with a sad and sobbing boy in my arms, who covers his face and says through hiccups, "I'm in trouble."  I feel broken as well, especially after the girl wakes up in tears twice during the night, and I imagine she is having nightmares of "mean mommy". After reassurances and love, grace and new beginnings, we promise to try again the next day.

Today, I sit in a blissfully quiet house.  John and the kids are off early to church, and I get to lounge around a bit as I'm going to visit a different church this morning in preparation for preaching there next month.  Before they left, Brady cued up an audio version of the "Finding Nemo" story for me to listen to while they are gone.  My sweet boy, his attitude of defiance washed away in his morning bath, wants to share what he loves with me.  Yesterday, John had taken the kids to see the "Finding Nemo" movie in 3D.  (Yes, my husband is awesome.  He's the one who stays at home with the kids, then takes them out on a Saturday morning so that I can get a break.  Bless him.) 

This movie has always tugged at my heart, so it's probably best that I wasn't in the theater with them sobbing my eyes out.  Of course it starts with the death of the mother fish and her eggs, with the exception of Nemo, who has hatched during this traumatic time.  His father, Marlin, is left to raise his only son as a single parent, and is haunted by his losses.  He becomes tightly attached to his son and frets about giving him any freedom or independence, afraid that something bad will happen and he will lose him.  In spite of his best efforts at control, something bad does happen.  Nemo rebels, and swims away into the very danger his father had warned him about.  He is captured by divers, leaving his father and a memory-impaired fish named Dory to search for him.  John came home and shared one of the movie lines with me:
 
Marlin: I promised I’d never let anything happen to him.
Dory: Hmm. That’s a funny thing to promise.








I can so relate.  As a parent, there are so many worries.  Responsibility number one is always to protect our children, and beyond that, we always want to shield them from anything that could hurt them.  All of our rules are either an attempt to keep them safe, or to teach them how to live well in the world.  Part of me naively believes that if I control them and control our situation, then I can keep bad things from happening to them and to our family.  I can keep us in this nice safe bubble.  Although I know that is not reality.  If I've learned one thing in parenthood, it's the fragility of it all, that my sense of control is only an illusion.  I see the harsh realities all around: children battling cancer, accidents, depression, rebellion, death...there is so much hurt and pain, and we can't do much to stop it, only hope and pray that it doesn't touch us.

I know, too, that it's a disservice to protect our children from failure and pain as those are the things that help them to grow, to find their strength and resilience, and to become independent.  Shielding them from experiences also keeps them from experiencing the joy and adventure of life.  As the movie dialogue continues:

Marlin: What?
Dory: Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.

In the end, Nemo finds his own strength through his journey of independence, and is able to be the hero, saving both his father and himself.

I pray that I will have the faith to trust that the values we are teaching are sticking somewhere, as evidenced by the moments in which they allow their caring hearts to shine through.  May my letting go of control be for them the gift of independence that will help them grow in strength, courage, and faith.  May we always find one another again and again, even as we fight the currents of the ocean around us.

the 99 things that went right today, and the ONE that went WRONG

It was a day of beauty, puddle hopping, and loving messages scrawled on my office door, of meetings with good friends, and students coming together to share in worship.  There was productivity, and the promise of family hugs and good books at the end.  All was well, except that ONE thing.  It was really not a big deal, but it clouded my thoughts all day.  I had sent out a memo to faculty and knew that some would find it unwelcome or unimportant, yet I tried my best to send it from a humble and supportive place, hoping some would find it helpful.  And the first response was very positive and affirming.  But there wasn't much of a pause between that and the second ding of an incoming email that blasted me for my insensitivity and my erroneous information.  This faculty member felt personally insulted by how I had presented the memo and the timing of it.  Her words seems to scream at me through the email and I recoiled, shutting the message window without even reading it completely.

My first response was anger, as I felt the heat rising to my face, and my immediate impulse was to fire back a response.  Fortunately, I was in the company of friends, so I took a deep breath and tried to put it out of my mind.  It kept popping back, intruding on every positive moment, and I found myself complaining in a meeting about what a crappy day I was having, a day that outside of this one instance had seemed pretty ideal.

Isn't it strange how 99 things can go right, and all we can focus on is the one bad thing?  I continued getting positive responses from my email, so I felt affirmed that my attitude and tone in it had not been insensitive.  I wanted to feel justified, but I mainly felt shame--that someone had pointed out my mistakes, that I had been seen in a different way that what I intended, and that I had unintentionally hurt someone.  Fortunately, I've been reading Brené Brown's new book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.  If you haven't heard about Brené, you should check out her amazing TED talks .  She is a researcher studying shame and vulnerability at the University of Houston.  She talks about "shame gremlins" and how they sneak up on us and feed on our fears, making us feel that we are not enough.  Because of shame, we often act out in anger and defensiveness and try to ease our pain by hurting others.  

Because of this reading, and because of a lack of time today due to back-to-back meetings, I was unable to react and had to wait until the end of the day to craft a response.  Thankfully, I'd had the time to identify my shame triggers, think about how the other person was reacting out of pain, and I was able to apologize for my errors and the hurt I had caused.  I received another response later that thanked me for my kindness, and continued to correct me, but this time out of a spirit of helpfulness and cooperation instead of attack.  I'm grateful that we now have the potential to work together instead of having an adversarial relationship.  How easy it would have been for either of us to go in a different direction.  After hearing about the divisions between faculty and staff on campus, this was my first experience of the tension that exists.  But it's hopeful to know how it can be cut with vulnerability, openness, and communication instead of reactivity.