My eldest daughter is not a big one for blessings, or prayers. She is not a big one for the subject of God in general. She is somewhere on the agnostic/atheist spectrum – at times willing to throw down the gauntlet that there is no God at all, but other times, unwilling to go that far. I’m okay with it; I know it is her journey, but I am sad for her. My belief in God and Love in all its manifestations are the focus of my studies, my practice and my way of life and so I used to see Keara’s rejection of God as a rejection of me and all I have tried to give her.
Now, I simply see it as a reflection of her own life experience, her natural tendency towards skepticism and a posture of protection. But every once in a while I see a glimpse of a girl who wants to believe, a girl who opens her heart and allows Love in. Ultimately, my hope is that the seed has been planted, the seed of love, protection, openness, vulnerability – that it is okay to be soft, to let the ones who love you love you in the name of something greater than they are. Ultimately, I hope her life yields an abundant harvest of Love and relationship.
I love to ritualize moments in my family’s life, and so we often do blessings and prayers as people hit certain milestones, but last night, I decided to try something different. I didn’t want “god-language” to get in the way of Keara’s hearing what we had to say.
I played a short guided Metta meditation by the Buddhist teacher, Sylvia Boorstein, with her husky voice and New York accent. It is a gentle introduction to the Buddhist practice of blessing, which involves the simple repetition of these four lines, beginning with yourself and radiating out to others.
May you feel safe. May you feel content. May you feel strong. May you live your life at ease.
That’s it and yet, it says almost everything. In safety, we do not act out of fear and all the negative consequences it brings. In contentedness, we are not greedy, grasping, envious, or backstabbing. When we are strong, we protect the weak, not just ourselves. To live at ease does not mean we live without suffering, but rather, that the end of the story is already assured.
We sat through the guided meditation as a family, each of us in silence, and in our own space and then we gathered around our daughter and sister, the one who is leaving our shared space, and we blessed her with the following words.
May you feel safe. May you feel content. May you feel strong. May you live your life at ease.
And in those moments when you cannot feel safe, content, strong and at ease, then may you take a deep breath, center yourself and draw on the resources you’ve been given.
Remember your gifts, your talents, your deepest desires and what you are working towards.
Remember your history, what you have accomplished and the obstacles you’ve overcome.
Remember your family and friends whose Love will never waver and whose support you can always count on.
Remember that Love is your birthright, the place you came from and the place you will find your home.
For it is there that you will find the freedom to become most fully yourself, and committed to your future,
Where you will find the courage to embrace hard work, to overcome setbacks, to process your confusion and disappointments and learn from them.
May you always come home – to yourself and who you truly are – gloriously Keara Moses Kirkpatrick, a creative, passionate, determined soul, who is a gift we call our own.
Amen.
Amen, Keara. That is our wish and our blessing for you as you move into your own space in the world, physically, spiritually, and professionally. You know where to find us whenever you want to come home.
Team Kirks: Me, Finn (16), Molly (13), Tim and Kiko (18)
This past week, our family was at the Happiest Place on Earth: Family Camp at La Casa de Maria in Montecito, CA. We’ve been back for three days, but I’m just now coming home to Gabacho Drive, here in sunny San Diego. I’ve been working and cooking and cleaning, but until this afternoon, I was just going through the motions. My head was in the clouds and my heart was broken, with pieces of it scattered across the state, carried off by the people I love. Some of them I’ve known since the day they (or I) were born, some I met just last week.
Heartbreak is a funny thing, because it can happen by Love or sorrow, with tears of joy, or pain. But both kinds take time to heal and regardless of the cause, you are never the same again. After three days of centering prayer and reading, after seeing and talking to my people back home, most of my heart is back in my chest, but not all of of it. That’s one of my favorite things about camp; if your heart is open and you are willing, you never know how you will be put back together again.
I’ve written a few times about Family Camp- you can catch up here and here – but to be clear, here are a few more things you should know.
My family goes to Family Camp, but Family Camp isn’t just for my family. Some of us share a name, or DNA, but most of us don’t.
It is called a Christian family retreat, but that doesn’t mean it’s denominational, evangelical, or fundamentalist. Our “fundamentals” are Love, forgiveness, inclusion, acceptance and healing, as exemplified by Jesus the Christ, but our “good news” is that we’re all in, baby!
Unlike retreats put on by industry professionals, Family Camp is run by a team of volunteer families who draw on their own gifts, experiences, faith and forty years of tradition to create a safe place for families to draw closer to each other and God.
I had two opportunities to speak and share my ideas this past week, and many opportunities to listen and learn and since you weren’t all at Family Camp with me, I thought I’d share a few of these moments with you. Today will just be something I shared, but I hope to gather a few more thoughts from my friends who also spoke.
The theme for this past week was Seasons: the seasons of the year and the seasons of our life, what they offer us and how we might approach them. We began with Summer, worked our way through Autumn, and Winter before being reborn in Spring. The artwork and presentations were beautiful in really creative and non-professional ways and I don’t mean that as a dis to our team, as much as a reminder that we aren’t putting on a show, so much as creating a loving, but imperfect home.
Our family, along with my brother and his wife, was in charge of talking about Summer, which was perfect. Summer is our season, our jam, our raison d’etre. We are surfers, swimmers, lifeguards. We love water and waves, the sandier and saltier the better. As you can imagine, we talked about Joy; we talked about Abundance; we talked about Sabbath and Gratitude. But we kept it real; we also talked about all the less pleasant seasons that come before summer, the winters when you are frozen by disappointment and fear, and the springs that melt your heart just a little bit. We also admitted the downside of clinging to the summer season and resenting anything that darkens our days. (Mea Culpa!)
For my own growth and benefit, that’s what I tried to focus on in my talk – how to be grateful, everyday, for every moment, and every season, no matter what kind of weather I’m in. It’s a practice I’m working on, all the time, and I thought I’d share it with all of you.
Gratitude for Seasons 2015
This past year, I began studying the mystics from the 17th century Spain – John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila – and while they are beloved by many in the Catholic Church and everyone raves about them, I don’t think most people have actually read them. I think they love the idea of them, the quotes that have been pulled out and put on holy cards, or the saint’s lives they heard about them growing up. I think this is true, because when I actually read John and Theresa’s work, I really struggled with them, especially with their depictions of God. This God they loved so much was a God who would come and then go, who loved them and then left them, who seemed to punish and then reward them. I just didn’t get it. While I understand that is what we feel like God is doing sometimes, it isn’t what I actually believe is true about our unchangeable, all-loving God and so I brought my questions to my spiritual director and after we talked about them for while, she said, “If you want to know what God is actually like, look at nature. If you can find a parallel there, it will be true.”
Now, I don’t know if that is entirely accurate, but I started looking and it did help me see God in a new way, in the joyful nurturing of the small, wild animals in my yard, in the majesty of the NASA photos I follow on Instagram, in the vastness of the ocean I float in, but especially through the seasons. There are times in our year when the sun is closer and there is warmth and abundance and seemingly never-ending days. The nights come, but they are moderate in temperature and short in length. But there are also times when the earth has moved away from the sun and darkness seems to be prevalent, and it is uncomfortably cold, and nothing grows and we struggle to survive and we feel like it’s the end of the line for us and sometimes we feel abandoned and angry, or scared.
But it isn’t the sun (or God) that has changed positions, but the earth (or us) who moved. And it isn’t like the earth moved away because it was bad, or mad, or mistaken, or sinful. It just did; it’s the natural, cosmic pattern; it’s the way the universe works. You can count on it and this pattern is actually the very thing that allows life to exist, for our world and for our own selves to grow and evolve and thrive. Perpetual summer would lead to death, just like a perpetual ice age.
And of course, in addition to summers and winters, there are all the in-between times – the falls and springs that have their own beauty and their own pain, but whatever season we are in, we know that it is not the last season; there is another one right on it’s heels, as soon as we get comfortable and used to the one we’re in, or right when we think we can’t stand it for another day, for better and for worse, the season will change; life will move on.
At the very beginning of our day, we talked about the fact that summer time for a lot of people is about JOY. It’s about moments of unbridled laughter and bare feet and sweet, cold ice cream and family reunions. It’s also about ABUNDANCE – the sense of the “enoughness” of life that comes about in this season – that all the things we really need are actually right here, even if it’s just taking a deep breath standing outside with your feet in the grass and the setting sun on your face. Tim talked a lot about the concept of Sabbath – of learning to take a break and protect your down time, so that each day is filled with the things that really matter. (I’ll catch up on that part later.)
And so if we are in a SUMMER time of abundance and joy and we have the sabbath space and time to reflect, then the natural response of our heart is going to be gratitude. And that’s what I want to talk about today.
Gratitude is one of those words and concepts that has been talked about so much and is so overused that I was tempted to chuck the whole concept.
Kids- How many times have you been told by your parents, “How about a little gratitude? Quit being so ungrateful! Who has a grateful heart?”
Parents – How many times, in your hardest parenting moments, have you heard the voice in your head reminding you how LUCKY you are to have kids, even when they are screaming at the top of their lungs and leaking fluids from every orifice? How grateful you should be for every moment of their young lives, because time flies by? And how you will never get these days back to be grateful for every one of them?
Sometimes, we hear the word and we just go, “ugh.” But Gratitude is so important that I thought I’d try to bring a fresh perspective to it, because it is going to be a theme of the week- finding something to be grateful for, something to appreciate about each season of life we are in – no matter what it is, or what’s going on.
So I went where I always go for good ideas and found a TED talk by David Steindl-Rast, an Austrian Benedictine monk and he asked a really good question of his audience and I’m going to ask it of all of you.
Brother David Steindl-Rast
He asked, “Are happy people grateful, or are grateful people happy?”
The answer is YES. They are both true, but not in the way we might originally think. Our default setting, our instincts tell us that if you are happy, you will be grateful. And if you are happy, it’s because you probably have a lot of things going right for you, but that is dead wrong. Some of the most miserable people in the world are the ones who seem to have the most to be happy about! They have all the money, the opportunity, all the privilege, all the connections and fame in the world. Everything the media tells us will make us happy doesn’t move the needle a bit.
And sometimes the happiest people in the world have almost nothing.
Gratitude is the X factor. It doesn’t matter how much or how little you have. If you have gratitude, you can be happy.
You can’t choose to be happy, but you can choose to be grateful and if you start with gratitude, and live in a space of gratefulness, you will be happy.
And summer is a time when it’s easier to be grateful, for many of us anyway and especially most of us under the age of 18, who get to be on summer vacation, or those of us who live in California.
Because gratitude comes in two forms –
Sometimes gratitude happens spontaneously and we call these – Gratitude Events.
A gratitude event is when we receive a gift – something we value – freely. We didn’t earn it, expect it, work for it; it just showed up. So that might be a really generous birthday gift from our parents, or an invitation to the movies and a sleepover from a new friend, or flowers from our spouse, but a Gratitude Event could also be a beautiful sunset, the smile of a newborn baby, or a spontaneous hug and kiss from our normally reserved kid. In those moments, gratitude just springs from our souls. Out of nowhere, a gift was given and our natural response is an upwelling of gratitude.
For me, summer is full of those Gratitude Events. I won’t even list them all here, but you saw a lot of them in Tim’s video. Readers, you don’t have to watch the video, but it does capture some of my very favorite moments of being a part of Team Kirks.
Whatever your internal thermometer is that tells you “your special season” – mine is set to summer. How many of you know what I am talking about? It’s like your Gratitude Event Meter is just pinging over and over again, all day long. How many of you have your gratitude event meter going off the charts in summer? How about Christmas time? Fall? The riot of color in a garden in spring? We all have a season, in the year and in our lives, when it’s easy to be grateful and that’s awesome.
A sharp spike in our Gratitude Meter makes it so easy to be grateful and happy, but it’s unsustainable and so when the events aren’t rolling in, we can tend to get sad, feel deprived, or depressed and that’s a problem. And when it takes more and more to surprise us and make us feel grateful, that’s a problem too. How many of you have friends who seem to have everything they could want, certainly everything you want, and yet, they aren’t happy? They’re Gratitude Event setting is way too high.
That’s why the other type of gratitude is even more important. According to every religion, every spiritual authority, every faith tradition, every positive psychologist,
We need to learn Grateful Living – which is realizing that EVERY moment of our lives is a gift from the Universe, a gift from God.
It’s something we didn’t earn. Every breath we take is a gift, and if we can learn to be grateful for that breath and then move even beyond that, we realize that in every moment we have the opportunity to find something more to be grateful for.
Paul Williams – the guy who wrote “Rainbow Connection,” Kermit’s theme song – is a recovering addict – who’s been sober for 24 years now and he wrote a whole book called Gratitude and Trust and he said that apart from his children, his sobriety – just waking up and breathing and existing on his own, without any assistance from drugs and alcohol – is what he is most proud of. After hitting rock bottom, he said,
“I’m grateful for everything that has happened in my life – the good and the bad.” And that’s the way he lives his life. “If you’re in a car wreck, you’re grateful no one got hurt. If someone got hurt, you’re grateful they didn’t die; if they die, you’re grateful for the chance to know them. It’s expandable – gratitude – one size fits all, so put it in your heart and use it.”
That’s the thing about gratitude. You only need to start with one small ounce of it and it immediately begins to build on itself. If you can find one thing to be grateful for, you can find another and another.
I want to share this poem by Carrie Newcomer with you. Though I read the poem during my talk, click on the link here to hear Carrie read it herself. Seriously, watch the video below. Hit start, close your eyes and enjoy ninety seconds of her beautiful voice, reminding you of all the simple, precious things in a life.
And after the poem, look at this.
People who wonder if the glass is half full or half empty miss the point. The glass is refillable.
Whatever you want in your glass – you’ve got it and if you want more of it, it’s on the way. If it’s Joy or Gratitude, or Resentment, or Anger, or Envy, you’ve got it. It’s your glass. Each of us get to decide what gets poured in our glass.
As the mystic, Theresa of Avila, said, “It’s heaven all the way to heaven and hell all the way to hell.” (And yes, that’s the mystic who drove me crazy just last year!)
You want more happiness, gratitude, abundance in your life? Just fill it up! It may sound stupid, but it is a proven psychological phenomenon. Gratitude is an ever-expanding emotion. If you can find just one thing to focus on and be grateful for, then you will find another and another and another. Like Carrie Newcomer’s poem, it builds from just one simple deep breath when you can say, ”I am grateful for this breath, for the fact that I am alive and in this moment, I am not suffering. There is nothing I need.” Richard Rohr defines suffering as “anytime you are not in control.” We can all think of a dozen ways we are “suffering” right now, but we can also close our eyes, take a deep breath and realize that right here, in this moment, we have an abundance of everything we need – warmth, air, food, hydration, companionship, rest. We might not be suffering at all.
David Steindl-Rast said the practice of Grateful Living can be taught, just like we were taught to cross the street when we were kids –What do you do when you get to the curb? You STOP, and then what? You LOOK both ways and then you GO.
The reason we don’t all live gratefully and therefore happily is that most of us – not necessarily most of us here, but maybe some of us here- forget to stop. Just like it said on the Time
Seriously, who killed it? We did.
magazine cover – we GO GO GO. All the world is go go go. And to be truly happy, which is to be grateful, we need to stop, instead of rushing through everything, trying to get to the next thing on our list, on our way to our goals. Steindl-Rast suggested we make stop signs for ourselves to remind us to take a deep breath. They can be mental ones – like prayers – when we wake, or at dinner, or bed time – when we can find, not just a general thank you, but a specific thank you. But they can be actual stop signs too. When he came back from living in Africa, he didn’t want to forget what a miracle it was to have clean, running water again, so he put a hand-written stop sign on his water faucet and on his light switch to remind him of the miracles of his life. We could put one on our mirror – dirty clothes hamper – steering wheel – computer screen at work. Once we have stopped and taken that first breath in front of the very thing that we take for granted, for which we can be grateful, even if it aggravates us, we can look around and find something else to be grateful for – the clean water, the electricity, the semi- healthy body that gets us around, even if it has wrinkles, the too many clothes we have to get dirty, and the washing machine we have to clean them, the car, the job, all of it and finally we GO; we embrace the moment and find JOY in it. When we enjoy it for that moment, it’s possible to have that gratitude inform and affect the rest of our day.
One of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, says it beautifully and simply:
Of course, Brene Brown shared the idea. She’s full of ideas.
In virtually every moment, there is something to be grateful for. That does not mean we have to be grateful for the bad things, the evil and tragic things. I don’t believe that. And if we find gratitude in the midst of bad things, it doesn’t mean we are glad they happened, or that the good outweighs the bad. It just means that even in this tragedy, in the midst of this hate, I can find some glimmer of Love, some glimpse of God. I think that’s what Jesus did on the cross when he asked God to forgive his murderers. Forgive them God. He found something to overcome the negative, even in his last breath, so that he could say in trust – Into your hands I commend my spirit.
That is how I want to go, gratefully, free of hatred and resentment, and if that is the way I want to go, then that is the way I want to live.
A line from recovery that I’ve heard is that you get to keep the gift by giving it away. And believe it or not, that is true of joy and gratitude, and love and kindness too. It’s been proven that it is almost impossible to sustain positive feelings if you keep them to yourself. You can keep your anger, your hatred, your resentment and doubts, all to yourself, all day, every day and they will grow and fester and flourish, but that’s because they are burdens. Gifts – love, joy, happiness – multiply if they are shared, given away and the more abundantly you share them, the more you have, until you finally realize there is more than enough.
So I have one final thought. and as a mother, I know it’s true: we protect what we love.
And I would just like us to think about the fact that if we aren’t consciously grateful and aware of the preciousness of the things we love, then our love can become habitual, and possibly even taken for granted, like a favorite old sweater, or stuffed animal, or favorite childhood story. You love it, but from distance, in your memory, or the image of what that thing is. And so staying actively grateful – conscious of the specific, ever-evolving nature of the people we love and the things that bring us joy, the people and things that make us feel whole, alive, excited – is so important. If we forget to love them actively, then we will forget to protect them in our hearts and minds, and even especially with our time. We want to Love well, protect well, enjoy and appreciate our lives and our relationships well, because we know what can happen if we don’t. We see it everywhere, all over – in families, neighborhoods and nations and across the world.
I want to end with this song, “Grateful,” by a man named Nimo Patel, who has devoted his life to sharing a message of Love, service and gratitude. I especially love the chorus, which goes like this: All that I am/ All that I see/ All that I’ve ever been and all I’ll ever be/ Is a blessing/ It’s so amazing/ And I’m grateful for it all.
I’m grateful for it all.
For all of you: for old friends and new, for the family we are and the family we will become, for the life I have and the life I have yet to live, I am grateful. I have failed and will fail a million more times, but “There’s a million things to be grateful for,” and I don’t want to miss a moment, caught in fear, or self-pity, or resentment. So, every day, I will try to stop and breathe, look and go, hopefully, in gratitude.
Remember that broken heart I talked about at the beginning of this blog? More than anything else at Family Camp this year, my heart was broken open by gratitude for the people I met, the Love I experienced, the stories and laughter and tears we shared. I was fully me, fully alive and aware of every gift: every baby’s smile, every toddler’s tears, every teen’s presence and every friend’s fierce hug and I thank you for it all.
If you are interested in learning more about Family Camp at La Casa de Maria, you can go to the website here.
This is a post that has been begging to be written for weeks now, but it’s something I’ve been putting off, perhaps because writing about it makes it far too real.
Two weeks ago today, my sweet Kiko, known to the world as Keara Moses Kirkpatrick, graduated from The Academy of Our Lady of Peace. In just over two months, she will be going away to college. As individuals and as a family, we are in a time of transition. There is joy and sadness, eagerness and anxiety, hope and nostalgia for all that has been and all that will be.
We attended a beautiful ceremony at her school, but I am a big believer in rituals, so we couldn’t leave it at that. While both ceremonies and rituals use words and actions to mark the significant events in our lives, they operate on different plains. Ceremonies signify the outer experience; they are the stuff of photo opportunities and awards, for public consumption on a large scale. Rituals take place in more intimate spaces, sometimes with no more than one, or two present. Ideally, they speak to the interior processes that the ceremony celebrates. Rituals can be sacramental, in the broadest sense of the word: personal, grace-filled moments that transcend our every day experiences. Ceremonies can be organized by anyone; rituals are best experienced by those we love.
One of my favorite rituals is to write my kids letters, annually on Holy Thursday, but also for significant events in their lives. It offers me an opportunity to look back at what they’ve done and who they’ve been, as well as dream about who are they are becoming and what they might do. Sharing those letters with my kids, out loud and sometimes in the presence of others, is always a sacred experience. In case they had forgotten in the course of their daily lives, they are reminded of the power and possibility of their own story.
At Keara’s graduation party, with our family and close friends gathered around us, I toasted her with the following speech. I am posting it here, not only to share my own pride and joy, but also perhaps to inspire you to find a way to “ritualize” the next milestone in the life of someone you love. You don’t need to worry about being particularly eloquent, or using a lot of words. They don’t even have to be your own. Your favorite poet, or songwriter might know just what to say. If you’re nervous, allow them to do so. The important thing is to find some special way to connect what has occurred on the outside with what is happening on the inside. An expression of your Love and perspective may be the very thing that propels them forward with greater joy, confidence and determination.
Graduation toast, given on May 30, 2015
A couple weeks ago, Keara went on retreat with her senior class at OLP and they asked her parents to write her a letter. I thought today might be a perfect day to share some of my thoughts from that letter with all of you, her family and friends, who love and support her and have watched her grow over the years.
While I was writing the letter, I was listening to “Never Grow Up” by Taylor Swift and reminiscing about all the stages and ages she’s been through over the last eighteen years. She is on the verge of going to college, moving out on her own, for a while at least, and maybe forever.
The first age Swift talks about is infanthood, with “your little hands wrapped around my finger…” I still remember those days, when I held her in my arms ALL THE TIME. She was only happy being held in my arms or Tim’s, and even then not always. But she quickly became a happy baby, big smiles, big love all around. As all of you know, Keara was a priceless gift to me – my daughter, the one I got to keep and raise and hold and love and dress and play with. Keara, even though I had your dad, until I became your mom, there was a little bit of an emptiness in me. But your presence filled me up and gave my life more meaning and purpose and great, great joy.
Taylor Swift goes on in her chorus to say,
“Oh darling don’t you ever grow up, don’t you ever grow up, just stay this little. Oh darling don’t you ever grow up, don’t you ever grow up, it could stay this simple. I won’t let nobody hurt you. Won’t let noone break your heart. No, no one will desert you. Just try to never grow up. Never grow up.”
Though the teeniest part of me sang along with Ms. Swift, I’ve never clung to the chorus, or the meaning of her song with you, or Finn, or Molly. Even when you were just toddling around, I couldn’t wait to see who you would become and what you would do with your life.
The possibility of you has always been endlessly fascinating to me.
You have become all I hoped for and more. In elementary school, it became clear how smart you were, how disciplined, how engaged, how fun-loving. Your teachers all loved you and you had good friends. Some of them moved away and some friendships faded and my heart broke a little to see your confusion and sadness at the loss of relationships you had invested in. You didn’t want to talk about it, but I knew and tried to support you with love and encouragement. And you always managed to find new friendships that were even better, because you have such a good heart, imagination and willingness to engage with people.
I know that pattern has repeated itself in high school as well and I hope you know it’s okay. Although it’s not the way friendships are “supposed to go,” according to Hollywood and TV shows, it’s actually true of most people’s life experiences. Friends come and go. If you are changing – and I hope you are always changing – then friendships will change too. People grow in different directions. When something dies, even relationships, it becomes the soil from which something new, something richer can be born. (I will stop with my usual lecture theme now. I can feel you rolling your eyes!)
When you went to middle school, I watched you step into your individuality even more, or at least try to find it. Like T Swift, I would have liked to say to you, “Don’t lose the way that you dance around in your pjs getting ready for school.” You did lose it for a little bit, but through the last four years of high school, that joyful, funny, smart, playful soul has resurfaced and you will dance around in your pjs (or anything else), at any time of day or night. It makes me so happy when I see the little girl you once were, in your smile and laughter as you move.
I wish that I could say that, like Ms. Swift claims that “No one’s ever burned you; Nothing’s ever left you scarred,” but I know that’s not true. I’ve seen you hurt, but I’ve also seen you rise again, every time. You know how to cry, but you also know how to start over. You know how to pick yourself up, put on your lipstick (the feminine sword and shield) and go back out there to be an even stronger, more resilient, and confident woman.
I hope I’ve earned your trust and that you will allow me to stand by you forever, as your mother and as the woman who loves you most in the world, as someone who will always encourage you and lift you up in Love.
I will always, we, this family, will always, always, always lift you up in Love. We will always be loyal to Keara Moses, who we fell in love with before she was born and will love beyond this life.
There are things I think you are and will be forever, Keara. The young woman I know, Love and respect is independent, funny, creative, talented, compassionate, smart, passionate and fiery. I could also include your inner strength, confidence, individuality, determination, independence, and ability to stand out in that list of qualities. None of those gifts came easily to you and I recognize the work you’ve done to become the person you want to be, the kind of woman you admire. You also have interests that I love to watch you involved in, like baking, sewing, music, costumes, makeup, hair, fashion, acting, dancing and the list goes on…
Let me just say that these lists are incomplete, for your life is only beginning. The first eighteen years of life are formative and fun and filled with memories that shape who you will become. But the next sixty and seventy years ahead are also those things. Life is incredible raw material for meaning, purpose, passion and happiness and I’ve seen what you do with raw materials: You create beauty! It’s unique, a little dark around the edges, but fantastically powerful. You’ve done it in all sorts of mediums and so I have total confidence that you will do it with your very self and the life you’ve been given.
“Never Grow Up” ends like this:
“Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room. Memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home. Remember the footsteps; remember the words said, and all your little brother’s favorite songs…”
Take your memories with you throughout life Keara and I hope they are more good than bad, but don’t look back with longing or regret. Your future holds so much promise and joy. I could not be prouder of the daughter we’ve raised and I know you will continue to do great work. We believe in you and are here for you, always.
Cheers!
In this time of graduations and weddings, “Cheers!” says something, but your Love can say a lot more. Don’t be afraid to speak up. We need to. We assume our loved ones know how we feel about them, but they don’t, not really, unless we told them yesterday.
All of us, not just our children, long to be seen, in our joy and pain, to have our triumphs applauded and our struggles encouraged. A kiss on the cheek, a hug on the way out the door, a mumbled, “I love you,” can’t possibly communicate the depth of our feelings for the complex, beautiful people we live with and among. So when the next occasion arises, or perhaps for no occasion at all, find a way to say more than comes easily and make the moment a sacred one.
Mother’s day is approaching. It’s hard to forget it if you are on social media, as sentimental posts about the glory of moms flood the news feeds. Ostensibly, these images were created by men and women for their mothers, but obviously, they were created by moms for themselves. More than anything, they are a reflection of how we hope our kids feel about us. We share them as a tribute to our mamas, but really, we are just sending them as love letters to ourselves. A mother-child relationship is infinitely more complex. It’s a wonderfully complicated combination of love, devotion, and gratitude, with a healthy dose of resentment, and old wounds mixed in. If you don’t have mixed emotions about your mom, then you’ve done a lot of inner work, or you’re in total denial.
I know that traditional Mother’s Day offerings are flowers, brunches and pretty cards, but is there space for a little bit of honesty too? A bit of gentle teasing about all the things your mama really taught you?
The first things that come to mind about my mom can’t be romanticized, though they can be appreciated. She taught me how to burn chicken, go to church, play Scrabble and clip coupons. She taught me to love the beach, dancing and the Jackson Five. She taught me to prioritize travel, education and physical activity. She taught me self-discipline, thriftiness and that reading is a wonderful way to spend your time. I’ve used all those skills and they have served me well. If you want lessons, I will give you her number.
But there were some things my mother couldn’t teach me, because she didn’t know how to do them herself. My mother does not snuggle, except with babies. Her hugs are all shoulders and hipbones, even for those she loves deeply. Handholding is inefficient and slightly uncomfortable. Strong emotions are suspect, to be squashed if possible. Tears are dehydrating. Poetic language beyond her. If she feels something, you might know it, but probably not because she told you herself. Risk-taking is synonymous with irresponsibility, as is following your instincts and eating out too often.
Though they aren’t my favorite qualities, I understand where they came from. They are part of a family legacy, passed on to her from devout, depression-era parents, who raised eight children, making sure everyone got some, but no one got more than enough. That was true of candy bars, soda pop and probably even love.
While those are the easiest things to rattle off about my mom, they certainly aren’t the whole picture, so I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you a little more. It is Mother’s Day after all.
This is my Mother’s Day card for Sylvia.
For better and for worse, I am my mother’s daughter. I have learned and unlearned a thousand things from her, but these are the ones that I hope to carry on.
She is fiercely loyal to her family and friends. She shows up to every event on time and she does not gossip. Sylvia’s got your back. She is deeply faithful to her God and her husband. You do not make mass every Sunday and stay married for forty-eight years without saying to yourself, every day, “I’m in this for long haul.” She shows up where she’s needed. There is no task too big, or too small. From rocking a baby, to mopping the floor, to organizing charity events, Sylvia is on the job. Her home is open and so is the kitchen. Children, grandchildren, friends, friends of family, and friends of friends from foreign countries have all found a warm, clean bed and a full fridge in her house, just a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean. No checkout fee required, only the hope of a good conversation.
Finally, my mother loves her children deeply, though she rarely says so. Words are not Sylvia’s forte, but ironically, they are mine. I need things spelled out for me and so for years I mistook her acts of love and service as her children’s inevitable due. I thought that sacrificing a career and personal creativity, making meals, driving carpools, and planning family activities was just what moms did. I thought it was their job. I know better now.
It was a choice and it’s a choice she continues to make for all of us. Her job is even bigger now that we are all married with kids of our own. Instead of the four she started with, she now has four daughters, four sons, and twelve grandchildren. She makes sure everyone has some, and hopes that it’s enough. But I have to admit, she set our expectations pretty high and though she won’t say so, she probably feels stretched thin, meeting the “needs” of her ever-growing family.
So Mom, here is my Mother’s Day “gift” to you today. I’m sorry it’s in my native language of words, expressing perhaps too much honesty and emotion. Tomorrow, I will try to show my love for you in your native tongue of action. When I see you, I will give you a sideways hug, play a game of Scrabble, and clear a table. We can do some dancing, cuddle some babies and walk on the beach. Together, we can show our family how we love them.
P.S. If you think I’m being hard on my Mom, whom I love and respect dearly, I write this knowing full well my own children will have a laundry list a mile long of the things they need to unlearn from me and my “love.” It will probably include an overemphasis on deep breathing, inspirational quotes, and self-awareness, as well as an obsession with laundry day routines, repetitive menus and the reapplication of sunscreen.
It’s Holy Thursday, a day I’ve always loved. Holy Thursday was the day before “the bad day,” the day we captured and killed Jesus, the day before the whipping and crucifying and dying. When I was young, I used to get a migraine every Good Friday. Our mom would pull us in – from twelve to three in the afternoon, the hours Jesus hung on the cross – no TV, radio, or friends, just quiet playtime or reading, in solidarity with Jesus. It was like our own mini, pint-sized crucifixion. I used to dread that time. As the inevitable call to come home crept closer, I could feel the headache coming on. Later, there would be a church service, a dark, somber affair, with great drama, a reenactment of Jesus’ suffering and death, a time for compunction and weeping for all that we had done to put him there, followed by a simple meal at home. I don’t remember those evenings after church. I imagine they weren’t joyful, lighthearted, or boisterous, our usual routine. I imagine we slipped off to bed, each to our own quiet reverie, overwhelmed by all that we had seen and experienced.
I am grateful, however, that Good Friday was the only day of the year where the image of Jesus’ death, and our complicity in it, was emphasized. The substitutionary atonement theory existed, but not as a major theme in my life. We weren’t told daily that Jesus died to pay for our sins, that the difference between our guilt and God’s greatness could only be overcome by the blood of God’s own son. Though it was on full display once a year, it was quickly followed by beautiful, glorious Easter Sunday. Before dawn, we were up and dressed and eating candy. By 6 a.m. we were singing Alleluia en masse on the church lawn as the sun rose in the East, secure in the knowledge that death had lost its sting. The risen Jesus had gone to prepare a place for us in the dazzling glow of the glory of God.
For some readers, my Easter memories might sound similar to your own, while others might think my family sounded like religious nuts. Who exposes a child to a reenactment of an ancient death penalty and tells them (or allows them to be told) it’s at least partly their fault? It all seemed so normal at the time…
But what is normal now?
That’s the question I ask myself continually. What is the new normal? What is right for today? What have I taught my kids? What do they know, or believe? More importantly, what do their hearts tell them?
I have raised them in Church, with religious education and the Bible. They know most of the prayers, and have received the appropriate sacraments. I did these things as I felt called, honoring the tradition I was raised in, the very one that set me on my journey with God.
I pray their hearts tell them that Love is the answer, that connection and compassion are the keys to happiness, that authenticity is the only way to be a person of integrity in the world and to be authentic means that you need to know who you are. The only way to know who you are is to be still long enough to find out, to be willing to listen to the urgings of your heart, the still quiet voice inside you, and when you hear that voice, you have to be brave enough to act on it and be willing to fail, to know humbly that no one has all the answers, but that questioning the status quo, the way things are, is the only way to keep growing. If you aren’t growing, you are going backwards. And, oh yes, in case you forgot, Love is the answer.
And by Love I don’t mean that sickly, sweet, destructive emotion that is depicted in almost every TV show and movie produced in Hollywood. Love is the ability to keep your heart space open when everything in you wants to shut down and say, “No, not this.” Love is the ability to be brave when you want to run away, to do the right thing when the wrong thing or even no-thing is so much easier and safer. Love has the power to change the world, because it is the root of compassion, justice, equality, hope, humility, commitment, faithfulness, and tenderness.
Do my children know this? Probably not yet, not entirely, but I am sending them the message every chance I get, including tomorrow, Good Friday, “the bad day,” when I will ask them to attend a service with me. What I hope they see, when we commemorate the death of Jesus, is not a death that “had to happen” because we sinned. I reject that premise entirely. But rather the underlying truth of the universe it reveals:
Something has to die, so that something new can be reborn. It might be a dream, a relationship, a belief, a tradition, or even your very sense of self, but what follows can always be better than what came before if you Love. If you hold your heart space open, if you don’t shut down in bitterness, or fear, if you forgive reality for being what it is, Life will begin again. Love always wins.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called God, “Love energy.” Love is the Alpha and the Omega point, where we came from and where we are headed, but we will get there a lot faster if we participate in the process. By choosing Love ourselves, we can live an Easter miracle each and every day.
P.S. If you remember my Holy Thursday tradition, it continued this year. I am so grateful that at their ages and stages, my children still participate in this ritual of tenderness and blessing. You can read more about our annual foot-washing here and here.
Ready for our close up, Team Kirks comes together for the filming of our 2014 Christmas video.
Dear Friends –
Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Cheers to the Winter Solstice!
For the last five years, our family has chosen to send out a Christmas video in lieu of a traditional card. It always seems like a good idea until I start receiving beautiful pictures and messages from across the country. The cards communicate so much joy and holiday perfection that it makes me want to disseminate pretty pictures of my family too, instead of posting a bizarre video on Youtube. As long as the Internet exists, so too does our foray into absurdity. However, as C.S. Lewis once said, “We are embarked” and for the other four members of my family, there is no going back. Every year, it takes patience, creativity, humor and teamwork. This year, it also took a little more trust, at least on my part.
As I age, I tend to feel ever more foolish during the filming process and critical of how I look in the final product. This year, it’s more ridiculous than ever. But as Tim wrapped up the editing process, and I began to fret about what people would think, I read a reflection from Richard Rohr, O.F.M., one of our favorite spiritual writers and advisors. It was about being a “holy fool.”
According to legend, every once in a while, St. Francis would do something really ridiculous to embarrass himself in front of the people of Assisi. He paraded down the street in nothing but his underwear. He played seesaw on the town fountain all day long. He spoke to animals loudly and without shame. He never wanted people to see him as “more” than he really was.
Obviously, I’m no saint, but I can learn from the quest of the “holy fool.”
When you are a “holy fool” you’ve stopped trying to look like something more than you really are. That’s when you know, as you eventually have to know, that we are all naked underneath our clothes, and we don’t need to pretend to be better than we are. I am who I am, who I am, who I am; and that creation, for some unbelievable reason, is who God loves, precisely in its uniqueness. My true identity and my deepest freedom comes from God’s infinite love for me, not from what people think of me or say about me….
If you watch this year’s Christmas video, or scroll through the past years, the characters in the videos aren’t the “real me,” but they aren’t any less me than the woman I am sweating at the gym, studying theology, or cooking dinner. The videos are simply the most embarrassing versions currently on film.
The real me is who I am as I am held by God in Love. When I remember that, it doesn’t matter what kind of “fool” people take me to be and I have the courage to hit the Send button to my Christmas card list (and ultimately to all of you).
If I were going to say anything about my family, beyond what you can see in the video, it is this: I am proud they have the confidence to be “fools” for at least one more year. From Tim to Molly, they know who they are and they know they are loved. What more could a mom ask for?
I hope that over the next two weeks, there are more times of joy and peace than sadness and stress and that somehow, at some time, you get to play the “holy fool” and experience the freedom it brings.
On Sunday, my family returned from our week at La Casa de Maria Family Retreat. I’ve written about Family Retreat before, what it means to us and what it could mean to all of you. You can catch up here.
The theme for Family Camp 2014 was Storytellers. We covered a lot of ground in five days. We began with the premise that our stories are all a part of God’s story and worked from there. None of us are excluded, no journey or character is too small, or insignificant. We talked about the stories we love, the ones we tell ourselves to get by and the stories we hide behind. We talked about Love stories we embrace and the ones we’d rather forget. We gathered each day with the premise that listening itself is an act of love. (Thanks Storycorp!)
Though I spoke throughout the week on a variety of topics, my favorite talk, the one closest to my heart, came on Thursday, when we open up the floor to any storyteller who wants to share. In those moments, before I handed off the mic, I was able to explore a theme that has been the focus of much of my journey over the last several months and years: the relationship between Fear and Freedom.
The theme of the day was inspired by Momastery.com. This is their image.
The words that follow are the ones I spoke last Thursday at Family Retreat.
“Until Glennon Melton put those two words together, I had no idea they were related, but after I saw it, I wondered how I could have missed it.
Sometimes, the stories that are the most sacred to us, the most holy, the most personal, are the ones we are the most scared to tell. What if someone doesn’t understand, or respect our story? What if they judge us, or treat us differently after we share it? What if our story includes something we did wrong, or that we don’t have a resolution for yet? It can be really scary to tell our story, because we don’t have the answer to those questions.
Trust me when I tell you that it was really scary for many members of our team this week to get up and share their stories. We’ve done some things right, but we’ve also done plenty of things wrong and there were no guarantees on how you would experience it, or react to us after we shared it.
But we chose to be story tellers, because of those two words up there. The parts of our stories that we are the most scared of can only become sacred, or holy, if we share them. If we keep our stories hidden inside us, God can’t use them to bless others. Only by overcoming our fear and sharing our life stories do they become sacred – tools that God uses to bless others and the world. When we share our stories, it also gives others an opportunity to bless us with their love and compassion.
That’s what today is about – sharing our Sacred/Scared stories.
The great Maya Angelou who died last year said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” And I believe it. And I believe the main reason we hold those untold stories inside of us is because we are afraid.
I’ve been told that the most frequent command from God in the Bible is “Fear Not!” I’ve heard it appears well over 100 times. The association I have with the line “Fear not” is from one story in particular. Anybody want to guess which one? THE ANNUNCIATION, of course. So I never thought of “Fear Not!” actually being a command that God wants us to keep. I always thought “Fear Not!” was a command that really only applied because an angel had appeared and scared the heck out of you.
But over the last few years, I’m beginning to learn differently. It isn’t “Fear Not! This super extraterrestrial being who just appeared out of nowhere won’t hurt you!” It’s “Fear Not. I am with you.” And that is a very different thing.
I used to think fear was normal. I used to think fear was a tool God used to keep us in line, to keep us safe, or to keep us from making bad choices. But I don’t think that’s it any more. God has way better tools at God’s disposal than Fear.
Fear keeps us imprisoned; fear paralyzes us. It could be fear of anything – of injury, of judgment, of failure, of sadness, of conflict, of solitude, of rejection. And God tells us over and over again to “Fear Not.”
At one time, I would have been hard-pressed to say what the opposite of fear was. In my mind, the opposite of fear was just being “Not Afraid,” being in your comfort zone.
But now I know that the opposite of Fear is FREEDOM. Freedom to take off the mask. Freedom to be ourselves. Freedom to speak our truth. Freedom to share our story. Freedom to step into our story, the one God has had on offer for us all along.
This week I heard other storytellers say that same thing.
The song and music video, “Try,” was about being free from the fear of how we look without our makeup on and what our culture thinks about female beauty. (Readers, if you have not seen it, take the time to watch it!)
Rachel shared in her story on Tuesday that in her vision of God reaching out to her, the word over the white column was “Freedom.”
While Todd and Amanda were a little afraid they were falling in love and afraid to tell everyone, their story could never blossom into the love affair that changed both of their lives and set them free to write a new chapter.
The theme of Chase’s song “Leave” last night in the talent show was that he needed to be free and Ali needed to let him be free. As a mother, as someone who loved him, she encouraged him over and over to “Kick down the walls of resistance” that were imprisoning him.
I don’t think those are just coincidences. Freedom is the key to any story inspired by God.
Just the other day, I heard Erwin McManus, the founder of the Mosaic church, say that when he’s asked about who will have life after death, he says it’s the people who have life BEFORE death. We do not have life if we are afraid.
Freedom is God’s desire for us. Not freedom to commit sin, to act without consequences, to tell lies, to live our lives however we want, but rather Freedom from the lies we tell ourselves. Freedom from sin which always rears its ugly head when we are living a false story, the one that tells us we are separate from God.
Fear makes us Scared. Freedom allows us to make our lives Sacred.
Twenty-three years ago, when I got pregnant with my daughter Sarah and gave her up for adoption, I was terrified of people finding out. I did everything I could to keep her existence a secret from virtually everyone I knew and for almost a decade, virtually everyone I met. As long as I was scared to tell that story, it was not truly sacred. While I was afraid, I was never free.
And the person I was most afraid of telling that story to was my future husband. The story I was telling myself was that I was damaged goods. I was afraid I was unworthy. When I was 19 years old and pregnant, I was already afraid of my future story. And ironically, or rather, perfectly in God’s way, God set me free from that story when I was seven months pregnant and met Tim. I never had to tell the story again.
The Truth set me free and when I was brave enough to share my story with others, it set others free as well.
When I finally started to share my Sacred/Scared, many girls have come to me pregnant, unsure of what to do, but who look at my story as one of possibility and redemption. But it didn’t start that way. It started with me, sitting in my scared and them, sitting in their scared, with no possibility of a sacred Love to be born.
Today we are asking all of you, the Storytellers who have been among us all week, but who haven’t gotten a chance to share a story with us yet, to come on up and share a story. It might be scary; but I promise you, it can be sacred. It will be a little of both, but we are here, knowing that “Listening is an act of Love,” one that we all want to participate in.
So please, if you have a Sacred/Scared to share, if you feel that little flutter in your chest, please consider sharing your story with us. Today is your day. It doesn’t need to be long; it doesn’t need to life changing. But if you would like to share, we’d like to hear it and be blessed by it.
Thank you.”
Many people got up and shared their Sacred/Scared on that day. It was powerful to watch the transformation in their bodies as they moved from Fear to Freedom. It was powerful to watch everyday people doing God’s work here on earth, embracing the storytellers with unconditional Love and support. I can’t share Thursday’s stories here, because they are not my stories to tell. We can only, ever, tell our own truth and allow others to tell their own, but I will say this:
It does not matter if we are rich or poor, strong or weak, male or female, old or young, gay or straight, black or white. If we look at our stories honestly, we will all find ourselves in the characters Jesus healed and set free with his forgiveness: the lepers, the lame, the woman at the well, the Lazarus in the tomb, and perhaps, most especially, the disciples who abandoned him.
And if we understand that our stories follow the pattern of the Christ, we will also reach out and set others free. It may be by feeding the hungry, comforting the afflicted, lifting up the oppressed, or simply standing in loving acceptance of each other, until such time as our assistance and opinion is desired.
The Scared can only become Sacred if unconditional Love is the primary directive and that is what I love about Family Retreat at La Casa de Maria. For over 40 years, the experience has brought families to greater Love and greater freedom. It has helped them tell better stories. Those stories have changed their lives, homes, communities and the wider world. Family retreat is the light on a hill, the mustard seed that grows, the yeast that changes everything and I, for one, am going back next year.
If you were a fly on the wall in my house today, you would see me bouncing around from one activity to another. I’m cleaning, I’m reading, I’m laundering, I’m writing, I’m texting, I’m talking. My mother would say I’ve got “ants in my pants,” but I can’t help it. It’s Christmas Eve in June. My baby comes home tomorrow.
After 17 days, Molly Grace will be back from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She left on a red eye out of Tijuana on the 13th with good friends to vacation and to learn about the culture and language of Mexico. She went to school, cheered on El Tri in the World Cup, won a Corona beer dispenser for her dad and finally succumbed to Montezuma’s Revenge in the last few days. All in all, I’d say she’s had a pretty amazing time. I’m really happy for her, but I’m ready for “amazing” to be over, so I can hold her in my arms again.
Una tostada de pollo, por favor.
A week after Molly left, Kiko also departed for a new adventure. She packed a bag and headed to Huntington Beach for two weeks to live with her grandparents and intern at Roadtrip Nation in the graphic design department. She’s been working with Photoshop and I-design and had her work posted to their Facebook page. Though she’s home for a day this weekend to visit (and let me do her laundry), she’s eager to return to work tomorrow.
Roadtrip Nation, work on display
Finn has been an only child and an easy child at that! He goes to work every morning as a jr. lifeguard assistant, comes home mid-afternoon to eat and then disappears with his friends in the neighborhood to watch World Cup, play soccer and video games, swim and eat some more. He passes out before ten every night, exhausted from his busy schedule of work and play and food intake. Apart from newborns, I think teenage boys are the best example of the simple mechanics of human biology. With little to no fuss, they eat, sleep, poop, work, play; repeat. When allowed to follow their circadian rhythms, they grow at a superhuman rate. Under the cover of darkness, they stretch out and bulk up all at the same time.
I love that my chicks are out of the nest, that we’ve raised them to be independent, brave and adventurous, that their manners are such that other people actually like having them around. I love all that and I would never stop them from doing the things they are doing, and yet, I woke this morning with a big smile on my face, knowing that in 24 hours, the whole crew would be back together, even if only for 24 hours. I won’t get them all sleeping under the same roof, but they will all be in view. I will be able to hold them and hug them at will (their will, of course; mine might be overwhelming).
Strangely enough, it was almost harder to watch my 17-year-old drive just 100 miles away for a week, than it was to watch my 12-year-old fly off to another country for half a month. One was foreshadowing; the other was just a vacation. I waved goodbye to Molly with a grin on my face, knowing we’d be talking every day. She was going to have a good time, but she was going to miss us something fierce. Her heart is here. When Kiko headed up the 5 Freeway, I knew she wasn’t looking back in any way. Her heart is in her own chest and her eyes are focused on the future, the “out there,” beyond us and our hometown. In a year or so, Keara will be driving away for good, with Finn not far behind. The empty nest is approaching and the past few weeks have given Tim and I an idea of what’s in store: a lot more time together, just the two of us. Luckily, that’s not a bad thing.
Tim and I have always been mindful that our marriage comes first. We got some great advice when we were first married, which has been echoed through the years from various sources.
“The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” The reverse is also true. “The best thing a mother can do for her children is to love their father.”
We took that message to heart when it was easy (which was before we had kids) and we’ve tried to hold on to it as things have gotten harder (the last seventeen years). At times, we’ve prioritized the kids’ wants and needs, sports and schoolwork, saying yes to too many things, telling ourselves that “the kids come first.” But every time we’ve gone down that path, even for a few months at a time, we look at each other and shake our heads, wondering how we got so off track. We’re burnt out and sad, feeling isolated from the person we love and respect the most. We aren’t doing the “best thing” we can for our kids anymore, even though that was our intention. So we pull back the next season, saying no to a few more things, saying yes to a few less. Over the years, we’ve learned that being right with each other is the only way anything else can be right at all.
Every once in a while, I think the universe gives us a glimpse of what is to come. It’s like the fog clears for just a moment and if you are paying attention, you can learn a lot about the road that lies ahead. If you’ve got your head down and miss it, you might be in for a nasty surprise. I think these last couple weeks were a moment of clarity for me. I enjoyed our almost-empty nest, but only because it was temporary. More importantly, it gave me a sense of what was to come and what I need to do to prepare for it.
When Keara was born, we were given a gift by a woman whose own children were close to grown. In the card, she had hand-written a portion of Kahlil Gibran’s poem, “The Prophet.” I read it then, with no comprehension of what it meant. Today, I understand it better, but I hope that by the time I have to release them from my bow, I will have fully embraced the wisdom therein.
“On Children” by Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet, they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Occasionally I get asked, “What are you reading?” It’s an easy question to answer because I’m always reading something and usually a couple things. When I’m really undisciplined, I’m reading too many things.
I’ve had a love affair with the written word for as long as I can remember. Oprah, Time, Fitness and Rolling Stone magazines sit beside my bathtub; some have pages torn out to pass along and others are dog-eared for Tim to read at his leisure (or at my insistence). Two or three “New Releases” lay an arm’s length away from my pillow, ready to pick up if I have a few moments of mindless energy to burn at the end of the day. (I never limit myself to just one in case it’s a stinker. Life’s too short to finish bad books.) I also have piles of books on religion, spirituality, philosophy, poetry and prayer collecting dust under various reading lamps around the house.
Despite the diversity of its subject matter, my reading material all shares one thing in common: it’s typically disposable.
Shocking, I know.
For a die-hard reader, a scholar, a former academic and a book lover, I am really good at not owning books and when I do acquire them, letting them go.
Books are rarely purchased and even then, almost never new. I borrow them whenever possible from friends and friends of friends and the library. This practice is based on both my personal philosophy and necessity. I don’t believe we need to possess, or hoard the written word. Unless a book will be read over and over again, I’d just as soon pass it on to the next person who asks. While I used to have huge bookshelves filled with tomes I didn’t need, I now have only two small(ish) collections. The second reason is more practical. I simply can’t afford my reading habit. If I had purchased all the books I’ve coveted, and managed to read somehow, I would be thousands of dollars in debt with no hope of getting out.
I’ve also been blessed with friends who can and do buy books and like to share them with me. Sometimes I get the copies when they are finished. Sometimes, they buy a copy for each of us to read together. Those are my favorite books, because we are reading, learning, discussing and growing together. That is actually how the Torah is studied in yeshivas, often in chavrusa, or a close learning pair. That ancient model holds wisdom for all of us when it comes to our reading: a book of substance, a mutual desire to learn and be transformed, and a promise to be diligent, respectful and engaged in the process.
Though I didn’t know the word at the time, Tim and I first fell in love as chavrusa in a sense – and I hope I’m not offending any orthodox readers here by using the word in this way. He brought me a copy of his favorite book, The Catcher in the Rye, so I could read it; I handed him Siddhartha. And so it began… the passing back and forth of books, which led to a passing back and forth of ideas and values and visions and ultimately, our hearts.
Over the years, there have been many books we have studied together that have transformed not only ourselves, but also the course of our family’s life. One of the first was TheSeven Habits of Highly Effective Families by Steven Covey, which I’ve written about. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman taught us to how to better show our love for one another. Tattoos on the Heart by Greg Boyle S.J. and Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber introduced us to new ideas about faith and struggle. The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J. Nouwen brought us both to tears and a deeper understanding of what Love is and how we are changed by it. Next on our list is The Conscious Parent by Dr. Shefali Tsabary. Without the commitment to our own and each other’s growth as individuals, a couple and a family, I don’t know how we would have made it this far, or this happily.
I have to admit, however, that one of the other reasons we’ve made it this far and this happily, is that Tim is not my only study partner and soul friend. No one could take that much pressure! My dear friend, T, is almost always reading something with me. We keep a running list of what we want to tackle next, add new ideas and cross off authors who have bored, or disappointed us before. When our kids were younger and our schedules less hectic, we met on a weekly basis. Now, it’s more sporadic, but no less meaningful, or productive. The ground rules are still the same. We are diligent, respectful and engaged. We are safe, trustworthy and non-judgmental. Finally, we are open: to new ideas, new ways of being and to each other. We’ve covered Bell, Bourgeault and Rohr, D’Arcy, Lamott, and Tolle. The list goes on and so does the struggle to learn from what we read and from each other.
Many of us didn’t enjoy school, or the books we were assigned to read and so as adults, we don’t read much, or if we do, we insist on books as “entertainment,” instead of education, snapping up the latest thriller by Patterson, or romance by Roberts. If we want to stay current on the latest trends in clever thinking, we’ll inhale the latest Gladwell, or Godin, and maybe a good biography here and there. There is nothing wrong with those books, or that kind of reading. It’s a healthy form of unwinding, especially when it’s accompanied by a glass of wine and a cozy spot for our tired bodies. In fact, it’s one of my favorite past times.
However, I think we’ve done a huge disservice to our children by continuing to accept and model that one’s education ends with a degree, that learning is a solitary endeavor, and that we will always be fed the answers. Too many people have only ever experienced a top-down model, where the teacher had all the information, to be delivered, regurgitated and forgotten as soon as possible. That kind of “education” doesn’t lead to engagement, curiosity, or a habit of life-long learning and it shows in our cultural obsession with celebrities, reality TV and blockbuster movies.
We may not be able to make significant, or successful changes in our public educational system, though it’s not from a lack of trying. Look at the debate over Common Core, No Child Left Behind and the College Board exams. We all want the same thing for our kids when it comes to their education. Ironically, it’s the same thing they expect in a chavrusa: diligence, respect and engagement when it comes to learning. We can’t legislate that and I think it’s silly when we try. I do know, however, that we can teach our kids those traits by modeling them in our own lives. I know it worked for me. My parents’ house is still littered with stacks of books with broken spines and ratty pages from being read so often. The television was never on at meals, because the expectation was that each of us had something better and more interesting to say.
I have kids in private and public schools and they’ve had excellent, mediocre and terrible teachers, but for the most part, I try not to sweat it. Like everybody, I am grateful for the good and frustrated with the bad, but I know the example we set at home is even more important than what they get at school.
I hope this is what they’re learning at home:
We’re in charge of our own educations and it never has to stop. We’re always looking for new material and it’s a lot more fun if we find someone to walk through it with us. Accumulating information isn’t the primary goal, because our hearts and souls matter too. An education that leads to transformation is way more important, even if it won’t get you into college and can’t be shown off at dinner parties.
So here’s my pitch to you. Enjoy your entertainment – in books, movies, and television. Embrace your time to unwind from stressful days, nasty bosses and unruly children, but at some point in your day, week, month, or year, go back to “school.” Engage your heart and mind. Pick up something new and challenging. Find a chavrusa and share the journey. You might just get to change the world in the process.
New Mother’s Day tradition? Running the R.O.C. race in Del Mar.
Though publishing anything here has been difficult for me of late, I felt a Mother’s Day blog was a non-negotiable.
It must happen.
This will be my third one, which means that I’ve been publishing for almost three years. Blogging feels like dog years. It’s been a really long time and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m slowing down.
It’s not that I’m not writing. It’s just that I’m writing about things I can’t share with all of you.
When I started the blog, Keara was 14. She was just starting at an all-girls, Catholic high school, with all the innocence of an oldest child raised in PG household. For the most part, she wasn’t even watching prime time TV yet. Finn was 12 and puberty seemed a long way off. Molly was still a baby in my eyes and she was happy in that role. Their stories were mine to use and though I was respectful, they didn’t have much of a choice. They could say “yes” or “no”, but with mom looking over their shoulder, eager to hit “publish,” I never once had a kid stop me.
Over time, especially in the last year, that well has dried up. There are plenty of stories, juicy ones too: love, loss, betrayal, effort and reward, victory and defeat, but for the most part, they are no longer mine to tell. I am a witness to them; I may be a part of them. I am learning, growing and changing from them, but the major players no longer want to be on stage and without them, the theater seems empty.
How many one-woman plays can an audience stand?
I guess we won’t know the answer unless I keep publishing, which I plan to do, just perhaps less frequently.
The other day, I watched an interview with Sue Monk Kidd, best known for her novels, The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair among others. She was married at 20, a mother of 2 kids and a working nurse by 25. On her 30th birthday, she announced to her family that she was going to become a writer. She was over 50 when her first novel was published. For obvious reasons, I was encouraged by her timeline, but what I appreciated even more was her wisdom.
When asked, “What do you know for sure?” Kidd replied, “What you pay attention to matters; the love I gave, the love I received are the most important things. Just to be is holy. Just to live is a gift. I know that for sure.” She also quoted Stephen Hawking, who said, “Real genius is radical humility, for when you humble yourself before what you don’t know, you open yourself to possibility.”
Listening to Kidd shifted my focus. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and though I hope for some authentic gestures of love and gratitude from my family, I’m going to pay attention to the things that matter. I can give love; I can be present. I will never be a genius, but life seems eager to work on my humility each and every day, which is great, because I want to be open to possibility.
Before she turned her hand to fiction, Sue Monk Kidd wrote three spiritual memoirs, which I discovered several years ago. Though I like her stories, I love her own. While reading When the Heart Waits, I took a passage and put it on a sticky note on my laptop. Though it isn’t always open, I see the title every day. It is called, “Sue Monk Kidd’s Prayer and Mine too” and it goes like this:
God,
I don’t want to live falsely, in self-imposed prisons and fixed comfortable patterns that confine my soul and diminish the truth in me. So much of me has gone underground. I want to let my soul out. I want to be free to risk what’s true, to be myself. Set free the daring in me – the willingness to go within, to see the self-lies. I’ll try to run away, but don’t let me. Don’t let me stifle myself with prudence that binds the creative re-visioning of life and the journey toward wholeness.
I’m scared. God make me brave. Lead me in the enormous spaces of becoming. Help me cease the small, tedious work of maintaining and protecting, so that I can break the masks that obscure your shining in the night of my own soul. Help me to green my soul and risk becoming the person you created me to be.
Tomorrow I may regret these words, but tonight I speak them, for I know that you are somewhere inside them, that you love me and won’t leave me alone in their echo.
Amen
She wrote that prayer some time around 40 and when asked on the show, “Have you become the woman you wanted to be?” Kidd said, “I am becoming that woman, yes.”
At 65 years old, she is becoming. I love that. Twenty-five years later, her prayer is still being answered.
Too often, I think the answers should already be known (by me) and the outcome assured. I falsely believe that I should have already arrived, but Kidd’s response humbled me. If I can accept that I am becoming and always will be, the possibilities are endless, not just for me, but for all of us.
So Happy Mother’s Day to those of you who have given birth, or raised children and loved your little ones so much you thought your heart would break, but a special note of gratitude to everyone who has nurtured something new within themselves and had the courage to share it with the world. Neither are small tasks and both are necessary for the good of the world.
Postscript:
Just in case you think I’m exaggerating how much my family life has changed over the last few years, here is a visual perspective.
Mother’s Day breakfast at Pipes Cafe, 2012
Here are some pictures of the kids taken within the last couple weeks, just two years later. I couldn’t even put the same filter on the images to make them look more cohesive. It felt dishonest, since they are so different and yet each image perfectly captures the attitude they put out the world: Keara crosses her arms, suspicious of it all. Finn is literally one of the most “laid-back”people I know and Molly is going to give you a smile and play the game, any time, any day.
ALISON KIRKPATRICK 