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Humbled. Chastened. Abashed.

I’m not quite sure what to call it, but I think that is what I felt as I sat at my computer this morning.

It started out simply enough, a quiet cup of coffee together before Tim headed off to work and the kids woke up. We’d been on a family vacation for a few days. The house was a mess and the pantry was bare.

There was work to be done.

I knew I would be busy this day, with home and office work, with emails to answer and send, calls to make and return, pages to read and write. But I thought of how Tim was leaving for work before 7, shaved, showered and dressed – with shoes and socks on even – and how he wouldn’t be back for at least 10 hours. I thought about how most my work could be done in my pajamas and slippers, without ever leaving the comfort of my own home, or car, or neighborhood. In gratitude, I wanted to go the extra mile. As I looked up at him to say goodbye, I said, “Is there anything special I can do for you today, babe?”

I thought he might mention a favorite meal for dinner tonight, something he needed from the market, or a chore he wanted me to do.

Instead he took my hands in his, looked me in the eye and said, “Could you be happy when I get home tonight?”

Gulp.

I laughed and said, “Of course, I’ll do my best!”

And he laughed and kissed me goodbye and left. Within an hour, I had the kids up and all the breakfasts and lunches made and packed. I collected the swimsuits and towels and water bottles and hats and backpacks and fins and got them to their right owners. I applied sunscreen and hugged and kissed and sent my little lifeguards off to their 10th consecutive day at the beach.

And then I stopped and thought, “What did he mean by that?” and then I sat down to write.

Last year, my friend Nanette took me to a two-day seminar called, The Extraordinary Value of a Man. Go ahead and laugh. I know I did when I heard what it was called, but I adore Nanette and would go anywhere and listen to anything just to spend two days with her. I heard many things that weekend that made me uncomfortable as a middle-of-the-road feminist. I hate to hear traditional gender roles and stereotypes discussed as facts. I understand the danger of essentializing genders, of saying, “This is how men are…”, or “This is what women want…” As an academic, I understand how powerful and therefore how damaging those cultural messages can be. But as a woman and a wife, I heard many other things that were true of my husband and myself and the way we relate to each other. So although I think the seminar might have been more appropriately called The Value of an Extraordinary Man (because there is a big difference), one particular line helped me to understand better where this morning’s strange request came from. I had scribbled in the margins of a handout from the weekend,

“When you’re happy, he’s winning.”

Let me clarify; I don’t think it’s strange that Tim wants me to be happy. I do think it’s a little strange that he asked to me to be happy. Generally, I’m a happy person. If you ask people to describe me, my smiley demeanor is one of the first things they will mention. Happiness, at least on the surface, is my default setting.

What I think Tim was really telling me when he left for work today was that he needed a win. When he comes home tonight, what he really wants to know is that what he did all day matters, that I have benefitted from his hard work and effort, from the sacrifices he makes to provide for our family, not just financially, but across the board in every way. He doesn’t want more accolades, or appreciation, or even fawning servitude. He just wants to see me smile. If the kids are smiling as well, that’s even better.

So what about those emotions I mentioned when I sat down to write about this? How could such a simple request bring about such a strong reaction? It certainly wasn’t his intention to make me feel that way and if I know my husband, he’ll apologize as soon as he reads this, even though he simply answered my question.

Tim didn’t call me out. He didn’t criticize me, or admonish me to do more. He simply asked me to be the one thing I claim to be  – happy. When I look at my life and the many things I am fortunate enough to have, I don’t know how I could be anything else. We have everything we need, and many things we want. We have health, home, family and friends. We have each other. Are there stresses and worries and things that go wrong? Absolutely. Is there pressure to succeed and perform at ever higher levels? Of course. Are there fights and parenting dilemmas and tension every day? You bet.

Can I still be happy at a certain time (around 5pm), on a certain day (Monday, July 30, 2012), in a certain place (our home)? I am certainly going to try. Depending on what happens at 4:59, making his favorite dinner might have been a whole lot easier. It doesn’t change the fact that my happiness is one of the things he is most proud of.  It’s chastening to think that the gift I share so freely with others has not been so freely given in my own home.  However, a little humble pie might be just the motivation I need to make it happen tonight and any other night I might forget to be grateful for all that I have.

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No matter what faith tradition you come from, or even if you come from none at all, we’re all familiar with some version of The Golden Rule:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

We learned it in our kindergarten classrooms, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the nose-pickers and glue stick-eaters, pretending we weren’t one of them. We heard it echoed at the start of every school year, when teachers established the rules that would govern the classroom. From playground politics to sticky-fingers in the supply cabinet, they could always refer back to that ethic of reciprocity, forever posted in a prominent place for all to see.

Following The Golden Rule was tough enough to do back then, but in many ways, I think it’s even tougher to do now. Oh, we might think we’ve got it down, waiting patiently in the Starbucks line, holding the door for strangers, and wishing acquaintances and friends “Happy Birthday” on their Facebook pages, but every day, from gossip (celebrities count!) to driving (don’t we like to see a blinker once in a while?) to how we greet our loved ones when they come home, we are challenged to act only in ways we would want to be acted upon.

Because of my faith tradition, I have had the added bonus, (or onus) of following Jesus’ precept to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” As a young person, I thought the two rules were synonymous, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see how much more challenging it is to follow the latter, instead of simply abiding by the former.

Take carpooling, for instance. Are you familiar with the “Golden Rule of Carpool?”

Carpooling is a fact of life for most families, a necessary evil one moment, and a lifeline the next. With careful planning and selectivity, a carpool can magically reduce your driving workload in half, sometimes even more. It can give you time, peace of mind and a little more money in your pocket (or a lot with gas at $4/gallon.) However with the wrong people involved, carpooling becomes an exercise in frustration and masochism. Any experienced parent knows this, which is why we manage our carpools so carefully.

So on the surface, it would seem that the “Golden Rule of Carpool” is pretty straightforward. Carpool with people you trust. Show up on time and on the right days. Deliver children to the destination in a timely manner. Bring them home again safe and sound and having learned no new curse words from the moment they entered your vehicle until they left it. That is “doing unto others what you would have them do unto you.”

But is there a difference between that and “Christian Carpooling?” Recently I was challenged to think about what it means to truly follow in my Rabbi’s footsteps and “love my neighbor as myself” when it comes to the daily grind of transportation.

I’m not speaking of the times when we “rise to the occasion,” as my mother calls it. I am sure we’ve all stepped up and helped out a friend, or neighbor in need, due to sickness, injury, or hardship. In those cases, we don’t even mind doing all the driving ourselves, if it truly helps someone. We feel kind of good about making the sacrifice and deep down we expect that someone would do the same for us, if circumstances were different.

But what about those times when there is no need, no ‘occasion’ to rise to? What is The Golden Rule when it comes to someone else’s convenience, especially if it slightly inconveniences you? This was my dilemma.

My three kids have gone to a jr. lifeguard program every summer for the past four years. The beach is about 15 miles from our home and I have carpooled with the same two families every year. We have the “Golden Rule of Carpool” down pat. We show up. We drive safely. We even treat all the kids to Slurpees once, or twice a week. There is music; there is laughter; there is dancing; there is joy. This is my wheelhouse; sandy, salty, sunburned, wet-headed kids are a favorite of mine.

My carpool was planned weeks ago. We even included a new family for two of the four weeks when they needed our help. The passenger manifesto was maxed out at seven, (which is why so many of us can never get a Prius though we long for one.) I had an IPod full of summer pop music to wake the kids up on the morning commute, and I was looking forward to hearing all about their adventures when it was my turn for the afternoon drive home.

And then on Saturday night, just two days before the program began, I got a text from a mom I know in the neighborhood. I wouldn’t call us friends, but we are definitely friendly.

Her: I saw your kids are in Junior Guards with one of mine. Can we carpool?

Alas, No, was my easy answer. We are all full up, with 5, then 7. Sorry!  But, I added with Christian charity, if you get in a pinch, give me a call and I will try to help out! 🙂

She responded back quickly with Do you know such and such? which I did, of course. That family provided our #6 and #7 for part of the program.

Me: Yes, they are with us. Sorry!

To which she replied, Oh, you have 7 and I only have 1! Boo… hoo… 😦

At which point, my guilt kicked in. Something about those numbers tugged at my heart and I gave up on the “Golden Rule of Carpool” and switched to the concept of “Christian Carpooling” instead.

(A downside to a daily practice of meditation and prayer is that you become more and more aware of how everything you do is an act of faith.)

I started to think about how many carpool parables Jesus might use if he were alive today in Southern California. I thought about how I had “many” and she had only one. I thought about how I was part of the “inside” group with my carpool all organized and fun. I thought about how it must feel to be on the “outside,” just she and her child. I thought about how truly golden it would be if I reached out and included them, however I could.

I thought about all those things and then I did nothing.

But the very next day I got a phone call from her, asking again very nicely to please include her child in our carpool, at least at least for two weeks before the other kids joined in.

On the spot, I caved and Tim just shook his head. I have a long and checkered history of taking on other people’s carpool problems, but I couldn’t help it. Though I didn’t want to change my plans, it just didn’t seem right not to make her problem my own.

Is that last statement a sign of Christianity, or co-dependency? Is there a difference? Is that why we have so many co-dependent Christians?

And so in the midst of my Sunday chores, while my kids were out back, swimming and eating popsicles, I began the shuffling of responsibilities, the emails, and phone calls to the original parties: the “Would you mind…?” and the “How about…?” and the “Does this work for you?” When I got to the end of the driving assignments, I had apparently made a mistake, because then the text messages began. Our new carpool member couldn’t drive certain days and times and though the requests weren’t unreasonable by any means, I had to be the dispatcher, and start over again.

Sigh.

Why does “Christian carpooling” always come back to bite you in the butt?

I would like to say that my charitable impulse to include our new carpooler made these chores a breeze. I would like to say I felt good about rearranging our schedules. I would like to say I did it all with a smile on my face and love in my heart, but I would be lying. I didn’t. I was actually pretty darn bitter about having to spend time on a beautiful afternoon on something I didn’t want to do in the first place.

While I think I did the right thing by helping out this mother and child, I sure wish that when I have an impulse to do the right thing that impulse would stick around a little longer and carry me through the execution phase as well. But I guess an impulse is just that – a pulse. In my case, a split-second surge of goodwill, of trying to love my neighbor as myself, caused me to lose an hour or two to general crankiness, which I directed at the people around me. It was “the Cheese Touch” all over again.

When Tim called me out on it, I didn’t know what to say except this: I wish I were more holy, more Zen, more able to have my inside emotions align with my outside actions. I’m trying to get there, but when I struggle so much to get it right when it comes to something as simple as carpooling, I’ve clearly got a long way to go.

Post Script: We are three days into the jr. lifeguard program and our additional passenger is lovely. Neither child, nor parent has added one bit of stress, or unpleasantness to our days. In fact, the conversation is better with this one around.

Note to self: Make the effort. Withhold judgment. Love your neighbor.

Disclaimer: If you read this and knew I was writing about you, thank you for carpooling with us for these next few weeks. It’s a pleasure.

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Many, many years ago, I was a part-time faculty member in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at SDSU. It was my dream job – or rather, it was the job I dreamed of having, when having a job was just a dream.

At twenty-one, I was finishing up my B.A., applying to grad school, and engaged to be married to the man I loved. Tim and I went back and forth about whether I would get my doctorate and take a tenure track position wherever it was offered, or whether we would put down roots in San Diego and open a surf shop. Obviously, the surf shop won. One of the deciding factors was that I wanted to be a full-time mom to the kids we would have someday. While doing my research, I didn’t get the feeling that a university professor could take years off to lie on the floor and read board books and push around wooden trains.

So I dreamed of a part-time position, teaching and mothering in tandem, and my dream came true. From the time I got my master’s degree until I became pregnant with our third child, I had steady and regular employment at several different campuses around Southern California. And when I finally left, it wasn’t because things weren’t working out the way I hoped they would.

I left, because I wasn’t who I thought I was.

I had always loved to read and write. At twenty-one, I couldn’t imagine that wouldn’t always be the most important skill I had to share with my students and if I couldn’t teach them how to love reading and writing, then at least I could teach them how to do it well. So I taught them how to read critically, how to say what they meant, and sometimes even how to find something meaningful to say.

But after a few years of teaching, of watching students come in and out of my classroom, becoming better readers and writers, I realized that it wasn’t actually what I wanted to teach them any more. I realized that there were more important things I wanted them to know. I was teaching them how to write, but I wanted to teach them how to be.

Does that sound arrogant to you? Pompous? Conceited? If it does, you’re right and unfortunately, those words describe most of the college professors I had ever met, or at least the ones I disliked the most and I DIDN’T WANT TO BECOME ONE OF THEM. I didn’t want to be another authority figure, who ostensibly taught their subject matter, but in reality, filled lectures with their own personal philosophies. It didn’t matter if it was communism, atheism, socialism, patriotism, Catholicism, or simply hedonism. Although I couldn’t have named my ‘ism’ at the time, I knew I was struggling to teach without it.

And so, uneasy in my professional life, I carried on for another year or two, until I stumbled across an essay in an Oprah magazine from January, 2001. I still have the original page, tucked away in a file. It was written by Parker Palmer, someone I had never heard of at that point and it was called, “Are You Listening to Your Life?” Palmer’s words resonated with something deep inside me.

He said, “I was in my early 30s when I first began to question my calling, teaching at a university and doing it reasonably well, but I felt stifled by the confines of academic life. A small voice inside was calling me toward something unknown and risky, yet more congruent with my own truth.” He admired Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. He had read their work and allowed it to change him. He went on to admit that “Clinging fearfully to my academic job even though it was a bad fit, I tried to teach the way I imagined my heroes would. The results were rarely admirable, often laughable and sometimes grotesque, as when I caught myself preaching to students instead of teaching them. I had simply found a ‘noble’ way to live a false life, imitating my heroes instead of listening to my heart.”

And as I read those words, curled up on my couch with a cup of tea on a January afternoon, he spoke to my heart and he broke my heart. I remember the tears streaming down my face and my heart beating faster. Becoming a college professor was all I had ever wanted to do professionally. I had never conceived of a time when I would not want to read literature, write about literature and teach literature. I didn’t even know what else I could do. I just knew what I had to do, even though it seemed impossible. I knew it was possible, because I saw him do it first.

Frederick Buechner, an author and theologian, defined vocation as “the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” I knew that there was a deep need for good writing instruction – any school principal, college dean, or business leader will tell you that, and I knew that I could meet that need; I was good at it. I had the reviews and renewed teaching contracts to prove it. But after my many years of teaching, I also knew that I would not find my deep gladness there.

I couldn’t teach, or preach in my classroom any more – it just didn’t matter enough to me if they knew how to write a thesis, organize an essay, or correctly punctuate a sentence. I still loved literature. I still loved being around young people. I still wanted to influence their lives. I just knew that my vocation was not teaching. I felt that staying in the profession was a disservice to my students and myself. It was no longer an authentic way of communicating who I was and what mattered to me. Maybe it was naïve to quit and get out of the work force, but I wasn’t able to see another way to listen to my heart and I had the privilege of making that choice.

For the next ten years, I found my “deep gladness” being a mother. As a bonus, nothing about that career choice kept me from sharing my “isms.” I didn’t have to hide my personal philosophy from “my students.” I was and still am allowed to teach, preach and even screech what I believe. As a matter of fact, it’s my responsibility to teach them how to be and as a bonus, I get to teach them how to write as well. It is one of the perks of my job, but as a full-time position, it’s rapidly coming to an end. They are all proficient writers, but even more importantly, they are beyond-proficient, decent human beings and so once again I have become uneasy in my “professional” life. While it has brought me “deep gladness,” I believe I can do more to “meet the world’s deep need.”

Though I wasn’t sure what I was “supposed” to do, a few years ago I started to write for an educational non-profit.  I began to speak to different groups when invited and last year, I started this blog. I hear from time to time that it has helped someone to think about how to be in this world and those comments always make me smile, because deep down I know I am still teaching, though maybe not in the traditional sense.

Ironically enough, I recently came across Parker Palmer again, this time in his book A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. Though I got it at the library, it is covered in my sticky notes, of different sizes and colors, some for me, some for Tim, and some for my friend T, who reads every great book with me. She already has her own copy on order from Amazon.

In the very first chapter, he lays out a problem many of people face, myself among them.

Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished, or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other. In the process, we become separated from our own souls. We end up living divided lives, so far removed from the truth we hold within that we cannot know the ‘integrity that comes from being what you are.

At twenty, I pursued a career in good faith, thinking I knew who I was. At thirty, I took a leap and fully embraced it, but in the smallest terms possible, within the four walls of my home and the four people who lived there. At forty, I am knocking those walls down again, while trying to remain faithful to who I am and the truth I hold within. It is the truth I have learned over the last twenty years of teaching and writing, parenthood and marriage, business and friendship.

I am here to love. I am here to be with people, to support, and to serve them. In my best moments, when I am patient and humble and kind, I am here to help people see for themselves who they are and what they are capable of.

And it doesn’t matter whether I do it in a classroom, or a conference room, on paper, or in person. It is my vocation, “where my deepest gladness meets the world’s deep need.”

What is your vocation? What are you called to do in the biggest terms possible? How are you living it out?

That isn’t a loaded question. I think we all live out our vocation in at least some small way in our lives. It’s what gives us the ability to find joy, to smile and love and ultimately, to carry on, each and every day.