So many things can change your life, apparently, based on the advertisements that promise a product will do so. A long-lasting lipstick. A new kitchen gadget. A software tip. The latest monitor.
Are these really life-changing? Improvements, maybe. More convenient, perhaps. But life-changing? I think that’s hyperbole in the service of marketing.
Once you become aware of how this phrase is used in advertising and headlines, you can’t stop seeing it. I suggest that when we do, we let it prompt us to consider, first, how shallow it sounds and, second, what can truly change our lives or someone else’s.
To jumpstart your thinking, here are some things that are truly life-changing:
Making kindness a habit
Sharing
An attitude of curiousity instead of judgment
Practicing being present in the moment, alone or with others
Humility
Setting and respecting personal boundaries
Slowing down
Extending and receiving compassion
Listening
The life change that will come from any of these makes us more decent humans. We benefit, and so do our communities. The ripples of change can be farther reaching than we can imagine.
We gotta think bigger than the lipstick or the coffee gadget, people.
For five years – basically ever since it became obvious, at least to me, that our country had become divided over facts or “alternative facts” – I’ve prayed for the truth to be revealed. Meaning, in general and specifically, for it to become clear what was real. Since then, I’ve seen it happen over and over. In some cases people rethink, and sometimes they hang on to what they’ve come to believe. But that’s not what I’m here for today.
When we ask God for something, God doesn’t always answer like we expect. But God always hears and takes our requests seriously. I asked God to reveal truth, and God is revealing truth to me that I wish I didn’t have to look at. But this is part of the deal.
Here’s an example:
One of my clients is sharing stories with me of his family’s involvement in the history of their community. It’s my job to ask questions to spark his thinking, transcribe and edit what he tells me, and organize the stories. In preparation for last week’s meeting, I did some research of my own on the area, which also happens to be the area I grew up in and where my ancestors settled in the early 1800s. So I felt like I had a head start on the context, but at a minimum I needed a refresher.
After reading one website that gave dates for when the U.S. government forced Native Americans off that land, I got out a file of my dad’s genealogical research. Turns out my third great-grandfather bought land from the U.S. government during that same timeframe. I already knew that he had done that, but I’d never thought further to ask where the government got that land in the first place or searched for dates to compare. Clearly, it was land stolen from the Potawatomie people. As a result, they were forced from their homes and marched hundreds of miles further west. So my family could make a home and our government could make some money.
I can’t look away from this truth. I hate it, but it’s not fiction. Neither is it news that the U.S. treated Native Americans so unjustly throughout our history. This makes it personal, though, for the first time. Now I’m responsible to give some long hard thought about what to do with it.
There’s more I’m coming to know that I’ve not seen before about my role in white supremacy, even though unintentional. I’m wrestling it and writing about it, too, but it’s too much for here. At least for now.
This seeking and asking for truth to be revealed is a risky thing. But necessary. Because the truth shall set us free. Eventually.
My roots reach to Florence. Not the city, the Grandmother. Like Mary, she’s not famous, but her story deserves to be heard and honored for Women’s History Month — at least my Women’s History Month.
Florence
Florence was the oldest of six children. Her mother took in laundry to supplement her father’s income to support the family. Florence left school after eighth grade, not because she didn’t value education, but because she wanted to contribute to her siblings’ ability to stay in school and get a high school diploma, which most of them did. So when she should have been in 9th grade, she went to work at a factory that manufactured burlap bags among other things. Later, she worked for a local department store doing custom alterations to women’s clothing.
She did not get married as quickly as generally expected of women in those days. When she did marry, it was to a widower named Roy with three children. In addition to mothering them, she gave birth to a daughter — my mom — when she was 35, in the early years of the Depression.
During the Depression, Florence and Roy struggled. They managed to keep their home, but it was iffy from month to month. Their situation was more precarious because of Roy’s emotional state and drinking, which made it difficult for him to maintain a job. Today, he would be diagnosed with depression and alcoholism. Under the influence, he was verbally abusive to Florence. Sober, he was sorrowful and apologetic. During World War II, with both his sons in the Armed Forces overseas, he took his own life. Florence found his body hanging from a rafter in their shed. My mother was 14 at the time and the only child remaining at home.
I don’t know what all came together to make it possible for Florence and my mother to stay in their home till mom graduated from high school and married, but that’s what they did, traumatized single mom and daughter together. At least partly it was income Florence made from her work as a gifted seamstress. But was that enough? Support from their extended family must have mattered a lot. After my mom married, Florence moved into the home of her sister and brother-in-law. By this time Florence was working full-time for a local dress factory.
Six years later, Florence married again. She gave up her job in town and moved to her new husband’s farm. She had a garden there. They had a few beef cattle and chickens. Florence continued to use her sewing skills to create clothing for us and herself. She kept us supplied with eggs. She carried on and loved on us. I did not know this husband was abusive to her until after both of them died, when my mother shared that with me.
Women like Florence have superpowers. What else would you call it when they can remain soft and loving while persevering through repeated hardship, abuse, and trauma?
Their lives also reveal the need and value of laws that protect women and give them the same rights as men. Florence did not have the support of the law or her culture to live her best life. I think she would empathize with those who still face economic barriers that restrict the ability of all the children in a family to go as far in school as they would aspire to reach. She would cheer more broad access to mental health services for troubled family members, trauma-based care, and financial assistance for single parents and orphans. She would be glad to know that women like me and the rest of her descendants now have the option of therapy to aid us in healing and stopping cycles of unhealthy relationships.
Florence was sturdy, in body and spirit. Other words for sturdy are robust, hearty, strong. Like a tree with deep roots that stands tall but knows how to bend in the storm. Able to withstand blows. Blows from loved ones and from injustice should not happen, but when they do, sturdy keeps standing.
Sturdy says, “Nevertheless.”
Florence, I’m sturdy too. Thank you. I honor you. I miss you.
It’s Women’s History Month. Let me tell you about Mary, one of my elders. She’s not famous, but she is representative, I’m sure, of many women whose character and grit have made us who we’ve become.
Mary
Mary was the second of seven children. She was born the same year France gave the Statue of Liberty to the United States. When she was 18 her mother got a restraining order and then divorced her father. He was called a drunkard in the documents, and he had abandoned the family and was attempting to sell everything they had when the restraining order became necessary. In the records of the proceedings, Mary’s mother said she had asked him what she and the children were to do, and he had answered, “You and the children can go to hell.”
Mary’s children and grandchildren – including me – never heard her speak of her father.
Mary went to work as a switchboard operator for her small town, when telephone communication was still fairly new and calls had to be manually routed. One person whose calls she put through was a young man named Frank. He liked the sound of her voice, told her so in a Valentine he mailed her, and eventually they married.
By all family accounts, Frank did not drink and was kind and responsible.
As a young farm wife and mother, Mary didn’t have it easy. One day as she was pressing the family clothes, the gas-powered iron they had – fairly innovative at the time – exploded, badly burning one of her arms, the thigh on the same side, and the side of her neck. She was laid up for a time as the doctor worked with her to battle infection and pain, all prior to the introduction of antibiotics and modern burn care. Infections would recur. Pain would flare. All available topical antiseptics caused nasty allergic skin reactions; rubbing alcohol became her only option. She learned to clean and dress her own wounds and carried on – for 35 years. She did not receive skin grafting until 1951, after its development following World War II.
Mary had two children when the burns happened. About the same time she had three brothers in Europe as soldiers in World War I and the world experienced the flu pandemic of 1918-19. But also at the same time, Mary learned to drive a car. She and Frank didn’t have one, but a neighbor did, and Mary would often be asked to drive a bunch of her friends to town or to visit others. Mary also helped a local doctor as needed. “He said I should have been a nurse,” she told me once. She went along to home births and helped tend others convalescing. And Mary gave birth to two more children.
Mary’s children saw her chase a bull back in his pen with a pitchfork. Mary killed snakes. Mary was the family disciplinarian. She also baked fabulous cookies and pies, sewed clothes and coverings, and at least tried to teach her children to dance to her Irish music records.
Frank died six months before my parents married. Mom and Dad (her son) immediately moved into Mary’s house. I grew up there with her, my grandmother, as the third adult in my home. My mom told me Mary took care of both of us after I was born. When my twin brothers were born, Mary and Mom became a child care team.
Mary was 36 when the 19th Amendment passed, giving women the right to vote. I wonder how many times she voted. I wonder if that’s why as long as I knew her, until she was no longer physically able, she served as a Democrat election judge every election.
She walked with us to the corner store, and she walked the beach in Florida when she spent time there with my aunt and uncle. I was fascinated by her collection of seashells and sand dollars, and by her photos and postcards from her road trip across the West to California with friends. She watched General Hospital and Billy Graham crusades on TV and became enchanted by Johnny Cash, “the man in black.” I distinctly remember her threatening to “go get a job” once when she was frustrated with her dependence as she neared 80, and my dad gently talking her down.
Mary’s hardships did not define her. She would have none of that. I grew up seeing the scars from her skin grafts ever day. She didn’t try to hide them. However, I could not see or understand the scars beneath her surface. Now, as an adult woman who has experienced some hard things of my own, I realize that I vividly saw the grit, tough love, and creative living that grew from and over her trauma.
Women like Mary have helped build strong families and communities. They have benefited from institutional changes that made women more equal citizens, and in their own often understated ways they have contributed to those advancements.
We follow the path they marked, and we discover new land. I honor Mary. I’m grateful for all she gave me, including the grit in my bones.
The events of last week were horrific. But ultimately, maybe necessary, because like racism, white supremacy, abuse, and so much that’s destructive, when kept in the dark, it festers and grows. Like mold in a bag of potatoes. Like cancer on an ovary. And in the end, there was hope because our Constitutional electoral processes held, and we will have a new president and vice-president in another week.
Unfortunately, the horror of insurrection is probably not done. Healing and reconciliation will take a long time and can’t happen without accountability. Otherwise trust will be meaningless. We must keep our eyes wide open, painful as that is.
I’m not sure what I could add to the many words that are being written about Jan. 6 – and I think that date will live in infamy like Dec. 7 and Sept. 11 — but here’s one take I’ve been thinking a lot about.
I wonder how many of the people in the crowd that stormed the Capitol sang, as children, “I’m in the Lord’s Army”: “I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery. I may never fly o’er the enemy, but I’m in the Lord’s army – yes sir!”
Apparently that song has been around as long or longer than I have, but I never heard it in the church I grew up in. That makes sense because that denomination was and is one of the historic peace churches. The first time I heard it was at the Baptist church we started going to when my politically conservative husband was “saved” and I followed his leadership into a fundamentalist Baptist church, because in that culture that’s what wives were supposed to do. Kids, including ours, always seemed to enjoy singing this song, with its motions of marching and shooting and flying. I was appalled. But silent. And I even participated as a Sunday School teacher, I must admit.
I’m thankful my children never adopted the militaristic right-wing version of Christianity. But many others did and still do. Please understand, I’m not condemning those who have chosen to serve in the military. That’s not what this is about. It’s about the fact that for decades white conservative Christians, among others, have been trained to think of themselves as a remnant, as the last bastion of liberty and morality, as a militia if need be.
I won’t be silent anymore. This is not the way of Jesus.
Christianity and Americanism are not the same.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Jesus does not call us to march on and over our enemies or shoot at them. He calls on us to pray for them, reason with them, love them – and not to wait for their agreement with us. He expects us to consider them first as fellow humans and neighbors, not enemies. To stop thinking in us vs. them terms.
I saw one commenter on social media say that if you call these forceful acts at the Capitol by Christians wrong, you’d have to say the Crusades were wrong. Well, yeah, exactly. Conversion at the point of a sword, literal or figurative, not only doesn’t work — it’s wrong.
Some of Jesus’ words were captured by Matthew, one of his disciples, in what has become known as the Sermon on the Mount. In my youth this was the core of belief and guidance for our lives. In it, Jesus points out that healthy trees bear good fruit and relates that truth to how to discern false prophets. Contrary to popular belief, prophets aren’t predictors of the future. That might happen, but primarily they are people who speak truth, often to power. At least they are supposed to. Last Wednesday we had a dramatic demonstration of the putrid fruit of today’s false prophets. Every spiritual leader who has trained their flock to think of themselves as “the Lord’s army,” who has preached that Trump is “God’s anointed” or some version of that false prophetic narrative, everyone who has taught that God requires unquestioning devotion to a leader and that America is uniquely God’s chosen people bears responsibility. We’ll be living with that fruit as long as this mass delusion continues.
See that little girl at the top of the page? I’ve been getting reacquainted with her in this season of my life. I think we’re still learning from each other.
I love that little girl who fell in love with the ocean way back then.
Who gnawed on a chicken thigh bone in a stroller while her mother and grandmother washed other women’s feet, broke bread and drank grape juice during communion at her first church.
Who didn’t want to go to bed and fought like a banshee not to.
Who was a killer hula hooper.
Who set out to read all the books in the library and just about made it through all the biographies in the children’s section before she graduated to the adult library.
The girl who was told to be a good loser so the boys could win.
Who was teased for being shy or angry or smart or naïve or interested in boys.
Who loved Louisa May Alcott but was too timid to be Jo.
I am sad that she/I was never encouraged to even have dreams, let alone go for them. I understand why, but I still grieve that absence. I wonder how many parents who experienced the Great Depression instilled in their kids that a steady job that paid well or a husband who was a good provider was the end goal. Finding your passion and working toward a dream would have been viewed as a luxury and clearly irresponsible.
Actually, all the life coaching and career counseling and dream-seeking common today are still privileged ways of thinking, aren’t they? Necessity means you do what is available.
The husband-as-good-provider is thankfully from a bygone era. Most women don’t want it. I don’t want it. Been there, done that, and it was not secure at all. Financial independence or interdependence is the way to go. Let’s be real, too — two incomes are almost always necessary in today’s economy.
My journey these past couple of decades has been about exploring myself, my passions, , my values. My core, so that I can live a life of purpose, on purpose. That little girl at the top of the page is my companion on the quest. Together, we will be brave. Together, we will live an integrated life. Together, we will play. Together, we will be good neighbors and decent human beings.
I’ve wondered for some time whether Jesus came to save us from our shame, more accurately than from our sin. I’m not a theologian, and I’m not a Biblical linguist, but at this point in my life It means more to me to think of it that way.
This line of thought all started a few years ago when I read a book by Curt Thompson and heard him speak. Thompson is a psychiatrist. His book is called The Soul of Shame, and his presentation was on that topic. He took us back to the Garden of Eden story to examine where shame comes from, what shame looks like, and what it does. It was the kind of talk where I took notes, where I came close to tears, and where I felt like light came through the clouds.
Two takeaways: Shame causes us to hide ourselves out of fear instead of sharing ourselves out of love, and shame creates a barrier to creativity, to healthy relationships, to fully being who we are meant to be – because we are hiding ourselves. If sin is separation from God, shame fits the bill big time.
Let’s remember that guilt and shame are different. Guilt is about something we’ve done wrong. It serves a purpose: to guide us to correction. Shame is about something being wrong with us as a person, not measuring up, being deficient. Shame serves no good purpose. It just mires us in muck and messes everything up.
Brene Brown is another writer and speaker on the topic of vulnerability, probably more widely known. She talks about the harmful effects of shame storms and how to stop them. She and Thompson both say that the way to heal shame is to bring it into the light, to summon courage to step out of the bushes and let ourselves be seen. In the language of Christianity, we confess. We speak our shame. We lay it at the foot of the cross, and shame loose its power over us.
Shame can be sticky, though. You think you’ve shed it, but there it is again, accusing you, stinking up how you live. Besides revealing the shame that has tried to keep you hidden, it’s healing to reframe its story. So here I am, publicly doing both.
Name the shame
I had good parents. But into every childhood some dysfunction falls. As a result of teasing by one parent and others, I developed shame for my stubbornness, my anger, and my shyness. I learned to hide the anger and stubbornness. I became shyer because, well, I needed to hide myself. These are part of my nature, not actions I had any reason to feel any guilt over.
Then as a college student I became pregnant before I was married. My fiancé-then-husband got to finish school; I had to quit. It’s just how it was then. That child and the two who came after were and are treasures I wouldn’t give up for anything. Yet part of my growth has been to realize that for years I’ve carried shame not for the premarital sex, but for not finishing school and starting a career. That’s what I was supposed to do. I shouldn’t have had to give up either. But in that place and time and culture, I did.
Reframe the shame
Bringing into the light the things I have carried shame for, I reframe them. What good can I do with them instead?
My anger – I have legit reasons. The world is not as it should be. Speak it.
My stubbornness – It’s a gift. A strength. It makes me resilient and determined.
My shyness – it’s okay to be quiet and sensitive and cautious. I am more confident now. The less I feel the need to hide, the more I can just show up as me.
Quitting school, etc. – When I could, I finished. I’ve been finding my way ever since. Late bloomer, but nevertheless. I care deeply about women making their way, finding their voices, living to their full potential, equality.
Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to imply this is an easy process. Thompson writes extensively about the neural pathways we lay down with years of shame responses. Reframing can take a while to create new ones.
I recommend reading Thompson’s book, The Soul of Shame, for yourself. It will at least make you think. And if you have shame clouds, it might let some light in.
Getting outside to walk is a healthy habit. It’s even more important during the pandemic, as long as we keep distance from others and wear a mask. The past few months I’ve been making walk dates with friends, one at a time, and it’s been a great way to get sunshine, companionship, and exercise all in one activity.
I’m not a gym person. I prefer to build physical activity into normal life. For instance, My condo is on the third floor. We have no elevator. Carrying groceries up from the car is a quick weight workout. Pre-Covid, when I went to office buildings, I would choose the stairs instead of the elevator. I enjoy walking, but I am more motivated to walk to get somewhere or with someone than just to walk to get the steps in .
Walking, pathways, and journeys all carry symbolism, and I’ve had a journey, hoo-boy. But here, now, I just want to reflect on times when walking was a more organic part of my life, re-feel it in my body, see and hear and smell the places my steps took me.
Back in the day, the other neighbor kids and I were allowed to walk to and from school without adult supervision even in kindergarten. One day it snowed hard and I decided to make a snowball and roll it all the way home, like when you build a snowman. By the time I reached the end of our alley, the snowball was much bigger than me and I could barely budge it. But I was determined. I was also oblivious to how late I was and how worried my parents were getting when I didn’t get home on time. They were glad to see me but still lectured me on always coming straight home.
My walks to and from elementary school were made slower on occasion by my attention to nature or fear of dogs. When it rained and the street was full of worms, the thought of stepping on them disgusted me, so I gingerly chose each step to place my rain-booted feet between them. At least once this slowed me down enough to make me tardy, and I was totally embarrassed to have to tell the teacher, classmates, and my parents why.
I remember walks to G & G Grocery, a little neighborhood store, either by myself or with Grandma, Mom, or my brothers. We didn’t do major shopping there, so carrying home whatever we bought was not an issue, especially when we divided bags between us. The store was about a half mile from our house. We always walked on the same side of Dewey Ave. and crossed near the store. We had walked the route enough to know where the sidewalks had cracks, where tree roots were pushing up bumps, and where a well-off homeowner had recently replaced a section. If we were lucky, Mom had given us money to buy a Popsicle, which we ate on the way home.
I remember walks home from junior high and high school. I rode to school with my dad, who was a high school teacher on the same campus, and I usually rode home with him too. But occasionally, when the weather was just too gorgeous in spring or fall, I’d tell him I wanted to walk. He never left school until 5:00 so he could go pick mom up from her work, and if I walked I didn’t have to wait for him. School was on the east side of town and we lived on the west side. It was about 3 miles and the walk was invigorating. I could notice things. I could think. I could imagine myself the main character in a novel, walking through an English town or wherever. I felt strong and capable.
I remember a walk on Crescent Beach, Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida, at night with a guy named Chris King. My cousins and I had met him on the beach that afternoon. He was basically a stranger. A handsome stranger, two or three years older than me. He asked me to meet him and walk that evening. I did. It seems risky in retrospect, but it was safe and lovely. Just lovely. A memory that still makes me smile. He was a gentleman. My parents were hosting a big family gathering for a dinner of the fish the men had caught earlier in the day. I ate and then disappeared without telling them. So once again they were worried about me. My cousins knew where I was going. The night was balmy. We sat on the rocks with our feet in the water and talked, shoulder to shoulder. It was very special to me, a shy teen who lacked self-confidence when it came to boys, who had had unrequited crushes and very few dates, to experience a guy showing interest in me, walking with me on a beach in the moonlight, almost kissing me at the end but not pressing it when I avoided it, offering to go up to my parents with me which I declined. I never heard from or saw him again.
I remember other walks on the same beach, with family members, down to Point of Rocks or up toward the public beach, every day when we were there over Christmas breaks. Decades later, when I got to spend a few days in Florida and walk on Ft. Lauderdale Beach, it all flooded back to me. It felt like I was home.
I remember walks to the Rogers Park tennis courts with Cathy or Sharon. Or Sharon and Mike and Tom when we double dated those few times, with a stop at The Chief on the way home.
I remember walking on the railroad tracks with Art at Goshen College at night. The ties were not spaced quite right for me to step consistently on or between them. His legs were longer, of course.
I remember walking everywhere in Point-a-Pitre in Guadeloupe during SST. I was in the best shape of my life that year, not to mention I had the best tan. It was about three miles from our apartment on Rue Abbé Gregoire to the classroom apartment in Raisée. Several of us would often walk it, and sometimes walk home as well. If we didn’t allow enough time or were not feeling up to it, we’d walk to the bus stop and get a ride – did it cost 40 centimes? We walked to do any shopping. The streets were fascinating: kind of jumbled and definitely busy. That night Sonya and I got invited by travel agents to spend the evening on the cruise ship, we invited Lynn and Don to go with us. We took a bus to the docks from Raisée – by then Sonya and I were both staying with families who lived in the same apartment complex as the classroom apartment – but by the time we left the ship it was too late for the buses to run, so we walked the three miles home. Sonya had had polio and walked with a crutch and a leg brace, so the guys took turns carrying her. They would have had to walk further to where they were staying – or did they have access to the classroom apartment?
I remember walking on the race bank in with Mom, Max, and the kids. Then later, by myself that autumn I was caring for Mom. Then later, with Paul and Laura when they visited. The earthy smells. The water beside us. The bittersweet vines. The trees and the Beachy farm on the other side of the trail, the houses on the other side of the race. Ducks. The dam and the falls and the trail winding through the woods and out over the marshy area.
I remember walks with Edith and sometimes Jen in our neighborhood. Sometimes we’d go out to Jen’s ranch and walk down the sandy lane from their house to the road and back. Good friends. Good talking. Good movement.
I love these memories. I felt good when walking was part of my life. Physically, mentally, socially. I was more adventurous, more can-do. Why have I not kept up walking? Because I don’t have a place to go, or because I don’t have someone to walk with. Still, I need to walk. I need to reclaim that part of me. Yet here we are in a pandemic with the spread increasing. Can I do it safely as things clamp down more again?
I started 2020 thinking this was the year for me to make another quilt. It had been 13 years since my last one. I was looking forward to playing again with the colors and textures of fabric and spending chilly winter evenings underneath it as I hand-quilted it. When the pandemic hit in March, the quilt was still in the idea stages, and I started making masks instead. A few hundred later, the quilt started saying, “Remember me?” as I looked at the pile of fabric scraps too small for masks.
Here is the result, waiting to be finished. And it’s telling me stories.
The most obvious symbolism is that making it through this pandemic requires the kaleidoscope of all of us working together. We didn’t know what that would look like back in March, but we have a better idea now. Many of us have experienced the creativity and beauty of our communities gathering up the bits and pieces of our lives and weaving them together. But the analogy breaks down when we ask whether as a nation we have covered each other, because due to political divisions the national crisis has failed to bring us all together to act in a unified way for the good of all. I recently heard from a friend with connections in Italy that her friends there talk about tolerating stricter COVID guidelines because they “don’t want to end up like the United States.” This is what we’ve come to.
The quilt is telling me another story, though. It represents me.
I have a professional life. I have a personal life. I have a mind, a body, and a spirit. I am a social person. I am an introvert who needs time alone. In applying for jobs and in starting and growing my business, it has sometimes felt like showing any of the other parts of myself is unprofessional and will be held against me. And so I’ve tried from time to time to compartmentalize myself, but it just doesn’t work.
I started college at 17, dropped out before I graduated, and finished my bachelor’s degree when I was 54. In the meantime, I raised my children and nurtured their minds and spirits. I kept reading and thinking and taught them to do the same. I developed practices of frugality, creativity, and problem solving. I learned a ton about human relations and leadership. I learned and still enjoy gardening and canning and baking and sewing – and making quilts. I’ve experienced deep tragedy and crazy joy. It all counts. It’s all me.
The process of learning who I am meant to be in the world has been a long one. I am and have been a professional person for quite a while now, and it’s time for me to ditch any thought of needing to compartmentalize myself in order be taken seriously. As my business coach tells me, I need to show up with clients as my whole self.
How is the quilt related? My whole self is not all one color or shape. It is not whole cloth. And yet it is beautiful and warm and useful and hopefully gives me and others joy. Every year of my life has counted and made me who I am today.
Lately I’ve also been thinking about what my core values are. One of them is an integrated life that melds the personal and professional, the spiritual and the physical, the mental and emotional, the individual and social – all of me. I am more than the services and skills printed on my business card. I bring my whole person. In my life today, as a self-employed business owner who is semi-self-quarantined, I work and I make noodles and sourdough bread, and work and hang laundry on my balcony, and work and read and think, and work and walk with a friend.
This is me showing up as me. When I honor all these pieces of who I am and let them come out to play, my mind and heart are at their best. I’m grounded. I discover connections and insights I might not otherwise see. And I think being authentically whole gives those I relate to greater permission to be fully themselves as well. The resulting alchemy creates possibilities for all of us to do our best work and create a community where we can truly function to cover each other for the good of all.
Piece by piece, we create something beautiful. It won’t be perfect, but it will give life, joy, and warmth.
In the past three days I’ve seen opinions about the presidential election that disturb me from three relatives. Deeply disturb me. Hard-to-sleep disturb me. Because they get at something much deeper than this election. First I’ll summarize, then I’ll comment.
First, the opinion, stated in the most reasoned of tones by a highly intelligent man, that he has seen no evidence of self-serving from President Trump.
Second, the opinion, stated with conviction and a bit of motherly condescension, that the election is not about character, but is about platform.
Third, the opinion, stated with name-calling and slander against Joe Biden, that voting for a third-party candidate is better than voting for either him or Trump.
We are supposed to not judge others’ opinions and instead recognize that their perspective might be as valid as ours, right? But what if the opinions are based on lies? My problem with the first and third opinions is that they are based on untruth. The people who hold them have accepted lies and rejected the truth, starting with the fact – the fact, testified to by all our national security people and many military leaders, and found to be true in investigations – that foreign powers are messing with the messages we receive in an effort to destabilize our country and manipulate the electoral process in the direction of Trump, and that this is something Trump and his supporters in Republican leadership have welcomed and are leveraging. Instead, people voicing these opinions choose to believe what Trump tells them, that all our intelligence agencies are wrong and only saying this because they don’t like him. Deep state and all that. Once that belief is in place, the rest follows because of confirmation bias. Unless conservative news outlets or right-wing extremist conspiracy theorists are saying it, they won’t listen. And therefore in their minds Trump is a self-sacrificing servant of the people and Biden is a pervert. Both are patently false.
And dear God, it grieves me when people I love are deceived and resort to name-calling.
The second opinion, that it is not about character — Really? That’s not even logical. How can you trust a leader to do what he says if he does not have integrity? The person who expressed this opinion to voters appears to have become as transactional as Trump, in surrendering the value of character for his promised anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigration policies, which whether you agree with them or not, he can’t be trusted to carry out, let alone with any kind of justice or mercy or humility. Heaven help us if we continue to bargain away character in our choice of leaders.
Truth matters. Character matters. Things might get worse before they get better, but both will prevail. I have to believe that.
So will love. I love these people and am praying for guidance on how to best love them and honor truth and character.
Onward 