5 Things I Will Never Do Again

 I will never again accept love that doesn't honor and cherish.

I was raised to believe that love doesn't keep score--doesn't look out for its own interests, doesn't draw the line at giving 50%, doesn't count the cost. And these things are true, when love is healthy and reciprocal and safe. However, my commitment to them in the absence of any other concerns has led me to put my own needs and well-being, not just on the back burner, but completely off the stove.

I was lucky enough to get a second chance, with a love that gave and gave and gave. I got something that many people never get, the opportunity to be loved by someone who wanted my best above all else, who rejoiced over my success, who gave me a safe space to live and learn and grow. The fact of the matter is, I'm not looking for love again at all. I've been so fortunate, I've had love like so many people only dream of, and I couldn't ask for anything more. But one thing I can say without hesitation is that if love ever comes into my life again, I will never, ever again settle for less than I've had.

 I will never again fail to stand up for my kids. 

There were a lot of years during which my top priority was to make my family work. In order to do this, I believed, it was necessary for everyone to give and to forgive. I still believe that, and in healthy relationships this dynamic of reciprocal grace is a key foundation. However, like most wise principles for working relationships, this can morph into something dysfunctional and damaging if it doesn't exist within healthy and appropriate limits.

I expected my kids to give and forgive in ways that were harmful to them. I allowed them to experience mistreatment as part of a relationship, when they had no ability or power to knowingly consent to a sacrifice like that. They were too young to understand how or where to set their own boundaries, and it was my responsibility to teach this to them, model it for them, and set healthy and protective boundaries for them in the meantime, and I failed at this. 

One time--once--and only when I felt there was nothing left to lose, I gathered my resolve and stood between my child and his attacker, not caring about the consequences. It was good, and scary, and I felt brave and dangerous and right. But it was long overdue. My kids deserved better from me, and there won't be another time when they don't get it.

 I will never again consider my mental and emotional well-being an unnecessary luxury.

I used to evaluate everything in life based on one simple question--"Do I need it?" By this I meant, can I live without this thing? If whatever was in question was not something I needed to physically live, it pretty much failed the test. I would not invest time and energy, or especially spend money, on anything that wasn't necessary. I wouldn't grant myself margin or give myself any slack for any needs that weren't unavoidable.

A lot of things have changed my perspective on this. For one thing, as a parent, I realized I regarded my children's needs completely differently than my own. This raised the question of why my own wellness would be of less value than theirs. On top of that, being loved by someone who cares for your total well-being makes you start to suspect that your well-being is worth caring for. Having cancer also makes you take a look at your life with a different perspective. And frankly, some of the shift is probably just getting old, and hopefully gaining some wisdom to go with it.

So the older I get, the more I've changed my idea of what it means to need something. If my kids asked for a mental health day off school, they got it, and if I needed one, I took it. I've re-evaluated my priorities. I do cut myself some slack. I work a lot harder to take care of myself and the people around me in ways that are about more than survival, and I'll never go back.

I will never again judge my body by toxic cultural standards around weight and attractiveness.

Wow, guys. This is a big one. And to be honest, it's hard. I haven't mastered it. I still slip. But it is so, so important.

Something major had to happen for me to get to this place. The messages of fat-shaming and the cultural pressures around women's standards of attractiveness came home to live with me. And in order to survive this, I had to completely detox myself from any form of buy-in. So here's where I'm at today. I don't shame myself around food. I don't ever eat anything because of feelings of guilt or obligation. I choose food that's good for my body, that tastes good, that makes me feel good. I eat in ways that support my relationships and my larger life priorities. I participate and I celebrate and I nourish myself. I'm not afraid of the scale--I weigh myself. I'm not afraid to lose weight if there's a reason--I had a medical issue this last year that I knew I could improve by taking off a little, so I lost 15 pounds. But I reject the idea that losing weight is automatically good and something to be congratulated about. Losing weight is neutral. Gaining weight is neutral. Weight is morally neutral. No matter what that number says on the scale, I can be healthy, happy, beautiful, and worthy of love. And I'll remind myself of that as many times as I need to.

I will never again measure my worth by my productivity.

OK, well, that's a lie. I totally will. But this one is aspirational.

Several years ago, in a blazing hot early September, while camping on my parents' property, my mom asked the group of us if we would pick one of my parents' apple trees. She'd done it herself the year before, she said, but just wasn't feeling into it this year. We quickly agreed and set to it. I will readily admit that I was the first one to quit and go inside for a few minutes' break in the air conditioning. I came back out to find the rest of the crew dropping off as well. Rick was the only one who worked the whole time, completely harvesting every usable apple on the tree. Understand, my mother, in her 70's, had previously done this task herself.

If you know my parents, this doesn't surprise you, because you already know that they're an unstoppable machine. Both in their late 70's now, they are starting to slow down, but the two of them can still outwork people half their age. All my life, I've planned for their visits by compiling a task list of things that would take me weeks to accomplish, because they come, they see, and they conquer. They are really a marvel.

What has also taken me all my life, though, is to learn to view this as my parents' unique gift, rather than the basic standard for all human life. It was great to grow up in a family that attacked life like the Incredibles every day and always came out on top. And to be honest, most of my life I've had a pretty high capacity myself, at least compared to most people, if not to my mom and dad. But since 2019, I've slowed down a lot, and that's brought on a lot of uncomfortable confrontations with guilt, shame, depression, inadequacy, and all the feelings associated with not living up to my own expectations (and what I imagine the expectations of others to be).

I don't know what the future holds for me in this area. Maybe I'll go back to kicking life's ass, and maybe I won't. But either way, I hope I'll make peace with the fact that I don't have to in order to be a worthwhile human, and maybe even be able to know that I'm actually still doing a good job.

All Things New

Come broken and weary
Come battered and bruised
My Jesus makes all things new
All things new

Come lost and abandoned
Come blown by the wind
He'll bring you back home again
Home again

Rise up, oh you sleeper, awake

The light of the dawn is upon you
Rise up, oh you sleeper, awake

He makes all things new
All things new

Recently, at Salt & Light, we had something new happen. Someone who was a part of our community left us. By itself, this isn't unusual. We are creating a motley, beautiful, strangely assorted family here, and it's messy. People often leave for various reasons--some exciting, such as a great move or a new job, and some a little less joyous, such as incarceration, hospitalization, or job termination. This time, though, one of our community departed through death. We lost our longtime volunteer and receptionist, Donna.

Donna was on my reception team, and she and I got to know each other well over the years we have worked together. There is pain in her story, as with many who come to Salt & Light. (If you are interested in hearing more about her journey, the first two minutes of this video will paint a better picture, but I'll warn you, I need the tissues at 1:47 every. Single. Time.)  Her unique experience equipped her with a few of what her son, at her funeral service, lovingly described to me as her "quirks".

It would be easy, if you didn't know the whole story, to see some of these quirks of Donna's as flaws, instead of the remarkable gifts that they were. For example, at first glance, she may have seemed like a fragile person. Even she felt that way sometimes, I think, as we all do. But in her life, the things she had overcome seem nearly insurmountable. She had carried a heavier load than I can imagine bearing. She had endured things that might have ended me. Even now, her own medical issues were overwhelming, and every day, her body tried to betray her in some new way, but no matter how exhausting or difficult her circumstance became, she continued to find new ways to work around, to accommodate, to overcome and keep going. Her strength amazed me--I wish I could aspire to a fraction of it.

She also seemed to be easily frightened, sometimes by small things--it was easy to startle her by appearing too suddenly in the doorway behind her. But in reality, her bravery was astonishing. She had faced terror and death in her own experience; she had taken enormous risks to save her life, herself, her children. She was intimately aware of every way, every day, that danger and harm lurk just out of sight. And yet she faced those odds, on her own, unblinking, every day that she went out to face the world.

Sometimes Donna seemed to say just the wrong thing at just the wrong time, in just the wrong way. But in my office, next to the reception desk, I can overhear the conversations with callers and people who walk in to the front desk, and I know how many times Donna's "wrong thing" was just the right thing for someone. She spoke to everyone with a response she thought would be right for someone who was hurting or afraid; she assumed that was true of everyone she spoke to. And isn't it, really? I have heard her throw that lifeline out to so many, and many times she has thrown it out to me, by making that assumption. I envied her the wisdom, sometimes, to have the right words for people who are barely hanging on.

Donna saw the darkness but looked for the light. Every day I saw her we laughed. She knew how to find happiness and gratitude in the smallest things. I believe this is not in spite of, but because she was so well-acquainted with all the ways that pain and loss can come to us in this life. Heartache sharpens your senses for joy. It's a heavy burden to carry, however--this load of suffering that is not only your own, but belongs to others, belongs to the world. That wisdom in grief comes at a cost. Your spirit, however content, grows weary.

I was on a six-week medical leave when I got the call, and hadn't seen Donna in person for more than a month. I didn't get to say goodbye. I miss her. I take some comfort, though, in her last words to me, a text that said, "I know, because you always tell me, that I am so strong." I hope that this small gift I seem to have given her was even a small bit of what she gave to me in the time we knew each other.  She had begun to talk, recently, of moving to Florida, a place she had only visited once, but she spoke with such longing of being somewhere that her soul felt at peace. Donna was not afraid to die, and I admit, my grief at her passing is not sadness for her, but selfishly, is simple pain at my own loss.

I realize that since the moment I heard that she had left, had gone to sleep and kept on sleeping, I have been thinking of this Andrew Peterson song, All Things New, as "Donna's song." I think it would speak to her, my friend who knew so intimately about brokenness, pain, and loss, and who nevertheless celebrated each small joy in the world.  Every day, Donna got up again, no matter how huge the obstacles or how great the cost, to face the darkness and to try, once again, with all her might, to make things a little brighter. And now at last, there is nothing left to do but rise up--wake up to what she hoped and longed for.

My Jesus makes all things new.

White on White

In an earlier post, I wrote about a thread on Facebook, on the page of a popular black blogger, in which she prompted her black readers to ask white readers one question that they'd always wanted to know. In that previous post, I described how, while the thread contained a great deal of good discussion and what seemed to be real discovery for many people, there was also a theme that kept popping up among white respondents who did not find themselves identifying with some of the questions that were asked. Time after time, commenters who were white, but did not recognize themselves in some particular aspect of a question, responded by giving some version of the answer "I guess I must not really be white," or even, "I guess I must be black."

This joke, I wrote, can be a joke for people who have the option of seeing their race as inconsequential. Like other serious subjects, it is easy to joke about if it has not touched you in ways that are painful or difficult. If it is not a matter of life or death.

Today, however, I'd like to pose a different question. And that is, when is a joke not a joke?

I think that most of us haven't reached adulthood without realizing that at the root of all jokes is some kernel of truth, or at least the intention of one. All of us, I imagine, have at some point been on the receiving end of a "joking" statement that hit too close to home, or was knowingly meant to hurt. That's a negative example, but there are positive ones also--in fact, I'd guess that most of the jokes that the majority of us encounter in our lives are well-meaning, and often occur without any conscious intentional subtext. Nevertheless, it's the truth behind the joke that makes it funny, and I also think that can tell us something important about what the speaker is really saying, even if it's not something they are conscious of trying to communicate.

In all these responses where white people joked about not being white, I believe there was an intended kernel of truth that is important to see and name. Despite all the protests admonishing me to lighten up, enjoy the fun, and appreciate the joke when I suggested that maybe the joke wasn't appropriate, I believe that at some level, the joke wasn't really even a joke.

What I heard, over and over, was a striving to separate from whiteness--to say, "I'm not THAT kind of white." Some people even went farther in putting this into words. I saw responses that said, "There is Florida person white and other person white." More than one person adopted, "I am invited-to-the-cookout white and you are I-want-to-see-the-manager white." As a white person, I heard other white people working hard to say two things. First, "I am one of the good white people. No, really. I'm a good one." And second, "I'm like you. We think alike. I know just what you're talking about. All those other white people might be clueless as hell, but I get it."

I believe I can hear these things being said because I can identify with the impulse to say them. I think our shared history in this country, a history of racism and oppression, acknowledged by all, not only has deep roots on which we are all drawing, but casts long shadows in which we are all still living. Racial discrimination and inequality in this country are not things of the past. And while both the marginalized and the privileged may wish it were so, we are coming to that wish with different motivations, and often with different understandings of how to make that reality.

People and communities of color understand that the only way to overcome and move forward from our past is to face it head on. Our legacy of racism and injustice must be acknowledged honestly in order to be reckoned with. But for those of us whose white skin has afforded us generations of privilege at the expense of people of color, there can be a deep desire to move away from the shameful heritage of oppression in our past by a process of disassociation--to say, "I am not one of the people who caused this, I am not one who perpetuates it, I have no desire to prolong it." We feel the need to distinguish ourselves from the bad actors of both the past and the present. This is not only because it is painful to connect ourselves to unjustifiable wrongdoing, but because it is difficult to admit that our connection to it could create feelings of anger, resentment, and animosity, and that it's reasonable and appropriate if those feelings are directed toward us, even if we aren't personally, intentionally, individually responsible for specific instances of this wrongdoing. It would be much easier, much more pleasant, to put all that behind us--not only to expect to be already forgiven, but to expect it to be understood that we don't need to be forgiven, that we have nothing to be forgiven for--and to move on to being friends. We would like to focus on being accepted by each other, on being liked by each other, on being like each other. Instead of doing the hard work of listening, hearing, understanding, we would like people of color to know that we already understand. That we never would have made those mistakes in the first place like our ancestors did, like those other people did. Because we are the cool white people, the woke white people, the nice white people, the innocent white people. We get it. And we hope this will make everything OK again.

The problem with all this is that, of course, it can never make everything OK. Racism and discrimination continue to exist. White privilege is still real. And one of the things that allows these injustices to endure is a persistent refusal by those of us who benefit from them to allow ourselves to be made uncomfortable by acknowledging that benefit, which is the bright dividing line between us, and in which we are complicit. But the line is still there--our refusal to acknowledge it, as with so many things, makes it no less true. Paradoxically, our refusal only highlights the reality of the distance between our experience and the experience of those on the other side of the line. We don't get it. We can't get it, and we won't get it. And the worst thing we could do, under these circumstances, is insist on acting as though we do.

I know all this is difficult to swallow, but if we can make it past the worst of it, there is good news. The good news is, fellow white people, we don't have to get it, we just have to receive it. We need to listen--humbly, and without defensiveness; we need to make our best efforts to understand how our actions have impacted others and continue to do so; we need to take the initiative in finding out how we can be an ally; we need to be open to hearing about our own mistakes. But we cannot gloss over or seek to eradicate our differences by distancing ourselves from our white experience. It's important that we respect the dignity and make room for the voices of people of color, but it is equally important that we own the responsibility and the power of our whiteness. We must be able to see ourselves clearly and come to terms with that truth in order to move forward together honestly and with real humility, not just shame or guilt. The barriers between us can never come down until we learn to accept and appreciate both ourselves and others, just as we are.

Laura Knows

In one of my favorite pieces of writing, an article called 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable, author David Wong describes how the number of close and trusted friends that most of us have in our lives is drastically dropping. Most of us, he says, have at most two people we feel we could confide in, and about a quarter of us have no one.

Given these statistics, I've been fortunate in my life to have a number of close and trusted friends, many of whom I've either been lucky enough to know for a lifetime, or hope to know for a lifetime from now. But for the last 20 years, the good fortune that has been a part of my adult life in a way that goes beyond friendship--that has been companion, sister, partner, and soulmate--is Laura.

Laura is the best, in the way that I know that all your best friends are the best. She is smart, and funny, and brave and beautiful. She is faithful, and always has your back. She is the definition of humility, and sacrifices herself for others. She has a list of other good qualities a mile long. But Laura also has a superpower, and it is this--Laura knows.

She knows all the things that I don't know, like how to re-create a perfect replica of Chico's tacos, and how to do math problems that have "infinity" as a possible answer, and how to put a strip of toilet paper over the sensors on those awful automatic flush toilets to keep them from flushing before you want them to. She knows about science. She knows about engineering. She knows about education. She knows about marketing. She knows about pets and shoes and hair and jewelry and how to make tamales without a recipe and how to lay shingles on a roof. She knows the right questions to ask about everything, all the time, even when she's just hearing about that thing for the first time. She knows how to think about things, and how to think about people--how to listen and learn and understand.

Most of all, Laura knows about me.

By that, I mean that Laura knows the real me. There is no part of my life that is off-limits to her, or hidden from her. She knows all my stories, all my secrets. She has been there, not just for me at my best, but for me at my worst, and then some. She doesn't think I'm some otherwordly saint, or wise counselor, or supermom--she knows I'm nothing special. She has seen, and keeps on seeing, all the ways I'm broken, messed up, selfish, prideful, foolish, wrongheaded, and blind. Laura knows exactly who I am.

To be honest, it hurts a little to know that Laura knows all this. I guess I'd like it if she thought I was the most special person, you know? Sort of a perfect person, without all that bad stuff.

But you know what the best part is? Laura does that too. She does that anyway. She believes I am special. The difference is, I just don't have to live up to the impossible standard of being free of all those other things.

Laura has taught me--is teaching me--the most important thing I need to know in life, which is that this is how love works. This is what it means to be the Beloved. She is helping me learn to be less of all those wounded, broken things; and, even when I can't, she is leading me to live better with myself and others. She is doing all this just by loving me as I am--as if I'm the most special just the way I am.

And I am strangely willing to take her word for it, because if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that Laura knows.

Eyes Off The Ball

So, as you may have heard recently, I missed my son's school registration and failed to get him signed up for his sophomore year of high school. It wasn't just a one-day thing. I missed the entire two-week period of online registration. And when I was done missing that, I missed the day of make-up walk-in registration.

It's not that I wasn't paying attention. I knew he needed to register for school. It's just that I had a lot of other things going on. His older brother was starting college this fall. I was trying to manage housing assignments, book lists, dorm furnishings, parking permits, financial aid, and all the other things that go along with starting that new venture. Plus, on another front, there were all the things involved in moving a child out of your home. The packing. The cleaning. The organizing. For that whole two weeks, it looked like another house threw up inside of my house. And then there are the normal things that go along with starting school for everyone--haircuts, doctor appointments, new glasses, clothes shopping. Every day, high school registration was on my list. And every day, I thought that in another day or another couple of days I would have the time and money to take care of it. And then it was over.

Moms are supposed to be great at multi-tasking, and most of the time we are. One reason, I think, is because we seem to have been gifted with a brain that is laser-focused on everything that needs to be done. You've heard that saying, "Keep your eye on the ball?" Moms are some of the best people I know at keeping our eyes on the ball, even when there is more than one.

But what happens when there are just too many balls in the air? That saying seems like good and necessary advice if you want to hit it out of the park, which is why it's so often used, but let's face it, folks--it's a BASEBALL analogy. And in baseball there is only one ball. I don't know about you, but I have significantly more than one ball in play at any given time.

All the things I listed above are just the extra things that are happening at a snapshot in time. I haven't even addressed all the balls that have to be kept moving every day, just as a part of living. The house, which has to be cleaned, repaired, maintained. The meals that have to be cooked, the groceries that have to be bought, the dishes that have to be washed and dried and put away. The bills that have to be paid, and paid, and paid. The car that needs fuel and insurance and tags and oil changes and new wipers, tires, brakes.

Oh, and then there's work. Just a minor detail.

And while we are doing all this, there are the children, who need more, so much more, than just being housed and clothed and fed. They need someone to encourage them and comfort them. They need opportunities to have and solve problems, to learn how to have strong, healthy relationships, to find their power and their voice as they increasingly step out into the world. They need to be led, launched, listened to. They need to be loved.

So all these balls I have to juggle are not just the trivia and logistics of living, but also the stuff which makes a life. They are the tasks on my to-do list, plus all the things I need to teach, and model, and pass on. And therefore, of course, all the things I need to learn, understand, improve, and heal--all the ways that I myself need to grow. The spinning, flying, rising and dropping balls represent everything I have yet to do and everything I have yet to do better. So where, I ask you, am I supposed to keep my eye?

It's no wonder the school registration ball was dropped.

I don't know if you've ever tried juggling in real life. I have made a couple of half-hearted efforts at it, just for entertainment, and based on them, I can assure you, I'm not a juggler. But I've recently learned from someone who actually possesses this skill what is required to do it successfully. It turns out you have to take your eyes off the ball.

No one, apparently, can actually simultaneously watch that many moving objects. If you try to keep your eye on all of them, monitor them, catch them and release them all at just the right time, you will inevitably lose track of one, then more than one, then try to go back and catch the ones you have lost, and the whole operation will come crashing down and they will fall.

The secret, it seems, is to pick a focal point beyond the balls.

When you focus your eye on a distant point, rather than trying to watch each individual ball, you're able to see the big picture--it lets you pay attention to all the balls at once. You can know where your hands need to be for each one, the perfect time to catch and to release, because you can see them moving together, making up a coordinated whole.

In my life then, with all the many balls that I have in the air, what is the thing I can keep my eyes focused on? 

It can't be the house or the finances or my work. They are still all just balls. It can't even be kids or family or all the people, places, and causes I love, even though those are the things that I live and serve for and that motivate me daily. None of these things are significant enough, beyond enough, to bring order to the whole picture. I am too close to all of them. And "what is essential,"  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince reminds us, "is invisible to the eye."

Being the Beloved, it turns out, is the focal point.

I've written often in these pages about knowing ourselves as the Beloved of God, and about the writings of theologian Henri Nouwen that expound on this idea as the core truth on which everything turns. I've talked about how understanding this idea will impact all our relationships and all our actions, how it will change the way we see ourselves and all the others in our lives. So it should come as no surprise that it is also the key to the juggling. Knowing you're the Beloved, Henri says, "you can handle an enormous amount of success and an enormous amount of failure." This is true because your acceptance, your value, your Beloved-ness, will never rest on whether you keep all the balls in the air or you drop some. And, strangely, just knowing this will make it easier to keep them in the air. You can forgive yourself (and others) for the failure to love perfectly, or to do perfectly, and just go ahead and love. You can celebrate what matters, and let go of what doesn't. You can focus on being there for others, just being with them; you can stop experiencing them as another thing on your list of things to do. You can even let go of the list from time to time, and just put all those balls down for a minute--if your worth is not measured by your success as a juggler.

In a photo, bringing one object into focus will make the other things fade into the background, blurry and indistinguishable. Focusing on our Beloved-ness will not work that way. Instead of making all the other things unclear and hard to make out, it will let you see them better, more clearly. Looking beyond will sharpen your vision to see things as they really are. You will be able to know where you really need to be, and what you really need to be doing there, what to catch and what to release; you will see the big picture, the coordinated whole. Some balls might still drop. But they will be the ones that did not belong in the first place, the ones that never mattered.

Tomorrow is a Monday, and Mondays are often the hardest day, when all the things I have to do seem to pelt me unmercifully from every direction, demanding to be held and caught, to be coordinated and managed, challenging me to prove my mastery of them or be beaten down to a shameful defeat. I just hope I can remember, even once the onslaught has begun, to keep my eyes off the ball.

Nerd Night

I know I'm dating myself, but there was a time when being a nerd was not cool.

Some of you are old enough to remember the time I mean. (Some of you may be old enough that you just found out being a nerd is now cool. It's OK. Don't worry. But unfortunately it doesn't apply to us, only to cool, young nerds. It's hard to explain.)

ANYWAY. Back to the time when nerds were lame. My pastor at the time, who was also our youth pastor, told all of us high-schoolers that we were going to have a special event called "Nerd Night". Our instructions were to dress for the occasion, to look as nerdy as possible. The picture above is a bit the worse for wear, but you can see some of us ready to go. As you can tell, my friend and I decided to go retro instead of hard-core nerd, and are wearing some old dresses of my mom's that we scrounged up, with some fairly tacky costume jewelry. Not strictly dorky, but definitely not on fleek. And yes, the biggest nerd there in the middle is Brad, our pastor. I'm guessing there was not a pen left in the church.

Brad came to pick us all up in the church van for Nerd Night. Needless to say, we had never participated in a Nerd Night before, and we didn't know what it might consist of, so we were surprised--and not in a good way--when Brad drove to a local hangout, parked the van, and informed us that we were all going inside, and were going to stay, hang out, and order pizza. Then he got out and went inside.

Easy for him to say, right? At least that's what I was thinking, I don't know about you. He may have had a little bit less to lose by appearing in his nerd getup in front of whichever of our friends and classmates might be inside. It's just possible that it may have taken a few people what seemed like a long time to get out of the van and get inside. In fact, if I were to speculate, I would say that one or two people may have had to make a couple of tries--going all the way to the door only to return to the van and gather courage for a second attempt. It's so difficult, isn't it, especially for teenagers, exposing yourself as vulnerable in front of your peers? Eventually, though, we all made it in.

Once inside, a funny thing happened. At first it was just as you would expect. Mortifying. We shrunk down in our chairs. Glanced surreptitiously around to see if anyone was noticing us. Looked reproachfully at Brad, who was ensuring that we couldn't escape notice, as he employed full Nerd Mode, sitting up as straight as possible with his six-foot-plus frame in the chair and saying loudly to our server, "WE WANT EXTRA DOUGH. CAN WE GET EXTRA DOUGH ON THIS PIZZA?" But you know what? Amazingly, the world didn't come to an end. Maybe some people looked. Maybe they even stared or laughed. But it turns out it wasn't really that big of a deal. In fact, after a bit, it actually started to be....well...fun. Our nerdiness stopped bothering us. We began to embrace it. In fact, in a weird way, we felt kind of proud of it. When we finished eating pizza, we asked Brad if we could go downtown and walk around, and he was only too happy to oblige. We wanted to prolong our Nerd Life--we wanted to see more people and have them see us; we wanted to flaunt the weirdness of our nerdity in the most public space possible. We weren't ready to go home and go back to being normal, non-nerdy teenagers again. (Well, not intentionally nerdy, anyway.)

What we learned was that there was something freeing in it, in this total disregard of the standards we would normally work so hard to observe. The rules of the teenage world often center around striving for mastery of whatever will make us liked, accepted, envied, and looked up to by our peers--and avoiding whatever it is that will cause us to be judged, looked down on, rejected.

The adult world is not so different.

After Nerd Night was over, Brad took us all home, but first, he stopped in the van to talk to us about how the Bible says that we are aliens and strangers on the Earth, how our citizenship is in Heaven. We should not be afraid to be different, he said, because we belong to a different country.

How different it would be, wouldn't it, if we learned to embrace the things that we fear will bring us rejection, judgement, and shame? Our world honors the smart, the strong, the cutting edge, the pulled-together, the always-rising. But what freedom, what joy there could be, I suspect, in no longer being afraid for others to see our weirdness, our brokenness, our imperfections. If only we could know, with the certainty that would set us free, that we belong to a different king, a different country, and in the economy of that kingdom we are valued, treasured, beloved, none the less and all the more for the things we believe we have to bury away. Maybe it would be best if every night was Nerd Night. Maybe if we tried it, we would find that the judgements of others we fear are just that--our own fears, and nothing more. Maybe it's time to try it and see.

In The Shadow Of The Giving Tree

Lately, I've been doing some difficult thinking about why relationships fail. Now, we all know why some relationships fail. For better or worse, it is simply true that some relationships are ill-advised, ill-executed, and ill-fated from the beginning, for a variety of reasons. But there are others, relationships between people who are seemingly mature, emotionally capable, strong and stable, who have a good foundation and a high capacity for love, and I think we are all more puzzled when these types of relationships don't succeed in the long-term, both for those we know, and even for ourselves. Honestly, some of the divorces I know have shocked me to my core, and none more than my own. And an over-analyzer like me has to stop and wonder--is there a common theme? A reason that is more than just individual circumstance, why so many seemingly solid relationships eventually founder and fall?

Obviously, I don't have the answer. But there is something I've observed that is at least common to many of the relationships that are close to me, and I believe it is relevant to many more. It goes back to something I have spoken and written about many times, both here on this blog and elsewhere, a thought from theologian Henri Nouwen, about how the identity of every human is as the Beloved of God. I've mentioned before that Nouwen even goes so far as to call this the "core truth of our existence".

In his powerful essay "From Solitude to Community to Ministry", Nouwen says that being able to hear the voice that calls us Beloved comes from practicing the discipline of solitude. (If you haven't read this essay, by the way, please do. I don't care who you are, or whether you believe all this God stuff or not, just take a few minutes. I think you need this in your life.) Solitude, Nouwen says, does not equal loneliness; knowing yourself as the Beloved is solitude, holding that knowledge at your core, not needing to have it supplied from an outside source. Holding onto that truth, listening to that voice before all others, is what enables us to enter into community, into relationships with others, without having to expect others to provide this for us. Rather than loneliness grabbing onto loneliness, for those of us who truly know ourselves as the Beloved--in the center of our being, our guts, resounding through our whole being, he says--we can enter a relationship prepared to give without reservation, without expectation, without keeping score. We will be giving out of our overflow. We will be able to forgive others for not loving us perfectly, unconditionally. We will not need them to do this for us, because we are filled up inside, in all the places that matter, with the knowledge that we are God's Beloved daughter or son, that no matter where we have been or what we have done, we remain in His favor.

NOT knowing yourself as the Beloved, however, is a vacuum inside.

In the well-known children's book The Giving Tree, author Shel Silverstein tells us the story of a tree who loves a little boy, and as the Boy grows up through every stage of life, the Tree is there to give whatever the boy needs. The Tree, deeply rooted, drawing its sustenance from deep within, has much to give, and is made happy by loving the Boy, and by seeing him happy. The Boy, however, is always roaming, looking for fulfillment in first one thing and then another--at first finding it in the simple pleasure of being with the Tree, but when this proves inadequate, seeking it in young love, then a house of his own, then a wife and family, and at every turn coming back to the tree in sadness and dissatisfaction, asking always for the next thing he believes will fill the void. In the end, after the Tree has given everything--its leaves, fruit, branches, and even its trunk--and has nothing left to offer, the Boy returns as an old man, looking only for a place to sit and rest, and sits down, satisfied, on the withered stump that remains.

This story is often lauded as an example, a model of selfless giving to be emulated, which I don't believe it to be. Yet even if the ending of this tale was a desirable outcome for both Tree and Boy, in my experience, this cannot be how the story ends in life. Every time, I am surprised that the Boy-turned-man does not douse the stump with gasoline and set it alight, crying out over the crackling flames in his pain and emptiness, "I need wood to make my cane! YOU NEVER LOVED ME!" Because a person who needs a partner to fill them up can never be satisfied; this is not work that can be done from the outside. The Tree will give and give until it is nothing but an old, barren stump, this much is true--but even then, the Boy will never truly feel loved until he knows he is Beloved, and this is not something that can be given to him by another.

So on this the relationship founders, and ultimately falls. One who does not know himself as the Beloved can never forgive our failure to love him perfectly. And there is much--so, so much--to forgive, since none of us, no matter how well-equipped to love, can ever love perfectly. And every one of our many failures to do so is seen by our loved one, that unknowing Beloved, as a rejection, an insult, an abandonment, a wound. Our failure to love him as he deserves is a failure to confirm that he is worthy of love.

As a result, every action of our unknowing Beloved in the relationship can be justified by this, our failure to love adequately. To me, the most poignant and true moment in the Giving Tree story is when the Boy comes to ask of the Tree nothing but wood to make a boat "that will take me away from here", demanding the Tree itself to help him find happiness far away. After all, when we fall short of what is needed, what is left for our loved one to do for their pain but punish us with silence, treat us abusively, seek better comfort in the arms of another lover, a companion, a friend, or a find a new life far away? We were those who were supposed to LOVE them, love them in the way they most deeply needed, that affirmed their worthiness of love and belonging, in the way that made them truly know themselves as Beloved. And we accepted this--this awesome, terrible, impossible responsibility. But there is only One who can call us Beloved, so in doing so, in taking this responsibility that was never ours, we have made a terrible mistake, one with the most serious consequences for both us and the ones we love.

On the front flap of the book cover on my copy of The Giving Tree, the publisher describes the role of the Tree in the story as "a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return".  And perhaps this is where the trouble lies. As we enter into relationships with others, do we look for solitude that can join with solitude? Or do we blithely attempt to create in ourselves the solution to another's loneliness? Are we drawing, always, back to the only one who calls us all Beloved, inviting others to join the Beloved community? Or do we rush into the breach, giving, giving, giving, leaving nothing but a withered, barren stump of ourselves, the memory of Beloved community only a wisp of smoke in our wake, serenely accepting our loved ones' inability to give in return, bereft of the knowledge of themselves as Beloved like us? We have contributed to our own downfall--to ours, and to theirs. It's time to stop. For ourselves, and for the ones we love, we must find the strength to swallow our pride, embrace the limits of our purpose, step out of the shadow of the Giving Tree, and into the surrender of community as it's meant to be. Only then, as Nouwen says, can we create space in which God can act and speak; and then, he assures us, something surprising will happen. In our total surrender, he tells us, God will act to make us, not accomplished, but fruitful, as He acts through us to call others back to Himself. And in the end, only that will make our joy complete.

On the Stable Wall

I recently took my teenaged son on his first college campus visit. (I know. Believe me, I could hardly get my head around it myself.) We had a great time together, actually, and we loved the school, but if you know my son, you'll already know that the last thing he wanted was a lot of individual attention. So instead of scheduling a personal visit, we chose to attend an official campus visit day, along with hundreds of other prospective students. This meant traipsing around for a day and half, attempting to keep up with a whole pack of excited, exhausted teenagers and their enthusiastic student guides, as they attended classes, department open houses, Q&A breakfasts, all-campus guest lectures, and residence hall events.

Frankly, I am just too old for all that kind of nonsense.

But my son needs to develop independence, right? To learn how to competently navigate and direct his own educational experience! After all, I'm not going to come to college with him. It's for his benefit that I skip some of those things in favor of a stroll over to the union coffee shop, or a comfy seat in the library. Or at least just sneak out repeatedly to look for a bathroom. (Hey, I already said, I am old!)

It was on one of these covert excursions, while the other students and parents were being herded off to some lecture hall or other, that I found myself in the most depressing, most institutional, most typical college bathroom of the trip. You know the type--outdated tile and fixtures, lots of stray paper towels, the flickering lights reminiscent of Tom Hanks' office in Joe vs. the Volcano. And it was there, on one of the graffiti-covered walls inside a stall, that I encountered the following message: "You are loved. You are chosen."

Today, as we celebrate the holiday, for many of us, our thoughts will turn to the true meaning of Christmas. Nothing, to me, conveys it more purely than this. Our lives are filled with both joy and pain. We live in a world of brokenness. The struggle is real. Every day, we are bombarded with messages from every side, pressing us with their urgency, persuading us of their truth, exhorting us of their importance. "You are not this. You are not that. You must have more, do more. Work harder, be smarter, do better, because there is only you. And you are never enough." But the God of the universe came to us, not in the trappings of state, or even the everyday surroundings of the store or the street, but in the grime and squalor of the stable. By no accident, in the place where things were least inspiring, most gritty, least triumphant, most real, he entered our world with only this message, the same one he has for us today--"You are loved. You are chosen." The writing on the stable wall is the only thing that matters. Today, as every day, you are the Beloved. Not just in your triumph, but in the place where things are most bleak. In a setting knowingly, decisively devoid of splendor, you are the treasure he comes to seek. Wherever you are, even in the grime, the waste, the graffiti, let his message break through.

You are loved.
You are sought after.
You are chosen.
Merry Christmas.

Pass It On

At some early point in my grandparents' marriage, my grandfather bought my grandmother a fur coat. This has always been a fact that fascinated me. Having never known them when they were young and in love, it seemed to me an act so out of character, so at odds with what I knew of them. They were the ultimate practical midwesterners, a farm family whose values of thrift, hard work, and utility saw them through the Great Depression and eked out a living from their land for their family's future. The coat was beautiful. I don't know what kind of fur it was--nothing exotic, I'm sure, most likely rabbit. It had a burgundy lining that was a satiny material, and the one time I put it on, it slipped on so effortlessly and felt so light. And I always imagined that my frugal grandmother, with her warm, sentimental heart, when she wore it, must have felt completely wrapped in such extravagant love.

My grandparents' move from their enormous farmhouse to the tiny apartment where they spent their final years necessitated a major downsizing of their possessions, and the coat was one thing that had to go. As it turned out, there was an acquaintance of the family who had a special skill--she was able to take fur coats and turn them into teddy bears. So my grandmother's coat became several very warm, very soft brown teddy bears. The satiny ribbons around their necks were made from the coat's burgundy lining. Most went to family members--Grandma and Grandpa kept one.

I don't know for sure what Grandma did with it, I only know it was on her bed as long as I can remember. That doesn't mean she slept with it, but I like to think she did. I hate to think of her sleeping alone. I have always hated sleeping alone, even when I was a child. I'm raising at least one child who hates to sleep alone too. After the divorce, when his father had been out of the house for only weeks, it was a first line of attack. "Mom, I've been thinking. Your bed is made for two people, and I really wouldn't want you to be lonely." No. You are not moving into my room. "But Mom, wouldn't it be great if we could just use my room as a playroom? It could be so neat and organized!"  Good try, but still no. I suppose some day he will eventually get too old, but in the meantime, while I feign obligatory mild annoyance at being occasionally woken in the middle of the night for a storm, or a nightmare, or some other reason, I am still just as satisfied that there is space for him to lie down in my room until morning.

There is something telling to me about that moment at the end of the day, when all that's outside retreats and we are left with only our nearest and dearest, pulled close in the place of both our greatest vulnerability and greatest safety. I like to think that on those long nights after my grandfather was gone, it was the bear that kept Grandma company, with the same warm love as the coat he bought her always had. When Grandma died, her bear came to me, and it sits on my bed too. She may not have slept with it, I guess, but I often do. I think about how it must have been for her, sleeping without her friend and partner of 73 years, and how I hope the bear was like having a hug from him again. I think about how, for me, it is like having a hug from her. I wonder, what are the tokens of extravagant love my boys will have from me, the talismans that will keep them company in the night when I am gone? And maybe Grandma and I are both too old to sleep with a teddy bear, but I know she wouldn't have minded about a thing like that, and these things I also know--there is love in the world, and we are not alone. And we must keep passing it on.

That's Just Perfect

This OCD joke is everywhere now--mugs, memes, t-shirts, and even on an embroidered pillow I saw--but the first time I encountered it was at least 10 years ago, before all that, when it was a cartoon in Reader's Digest. A friend of mine, waiting in the dentist's office, read it, and told me later, "I saw this--it made me think of you!" I guess maybe it was because she had been present to see the look on another friend's face when, on an earlier occasion, they were browsing through my recipe box, and the second friend suddenly asked in consternation, "Wait. Are these in alphabetical order?"

OK, so I have a bit of a reputation. I like things a certain way. The right way.

I like to think of myself as a "recovering perfectionist", however. I hope I'm getting better. After all, I only spent *cough numberofminutes cough* looking for a version of this meme with proper punctuation! Seriously, though, I admit that the siren song of perfectionism has always held a certain lure for me. There is something so appealing about the idea of doing everything perfectly right. And perfectionism, although a futile pursuit, is one that our culture affirms and even idolizes.

Sometimes I think that those of us who are prone to perfectionism tend to think that the only thing wrong with the desire to be perfect is that it's impossible. We all know we can never get there, and that trying will ultimately prove futile. But the truth is, I think it doesn't even matter that perfection is impossible to attain, because even if we could accomplish it, I think we'd find that the accomplishment would let us down. Here's why.

1.  Perfect doesn't touch what we need it to touch.

When we think about being perfect, we have the idea that it means always being right, and always doing right. But in actual fact, to be truly perfect requires something different. Real perfection is not about "rightness"--moral self-improvement. That kind of perfection is actually a lowering of standards, because it's only superficial; it's on the outside. Real perfection would be through and through. In order to be truly perfect, we would need something to touch much deeper--to perfect our hearts, our souls. To make us patient, kind, joyful, humble, forgiving, unselfish. We would need not only to be right, but to be good.

Our real struggle for perfection, then, is over the primacy of self. Removing ourselves from the place of greatest importance is the only path to genuine goodness of heart. And, in a supreme irony, this is the one act that perfectionism will never allow us, because at its heart, perfectionism is all about self. The relentless pursuit of our desire to justify ourselves by our own means, through our own efforts, will yield nothing but an obsession with ourselves and our own outward appearance.

2.  Perfect can't grow what we want it to grow.

But what if I'm mistaken? What if we can achieve goodness through striving for perfection? People smarter than I have certainly thought so. Benjamin Franklin, for example, went to great lengths to record his detailed plan for mastering 13 essential virtues of the heart, including humility. However, I think on deeper examination, we have to acknowledge that even Franklin had to accomplish his plan through trial and error--and it turned out to be a lot of error. In fact, if you read Franklin's journal, you'll find that one of the primary things he learned during his attempt was finding himself "so much fuller of faults than I had imagined", and that is a very important piece of discovery. And in the end, not only does Franklin conclude that it is impossible for him to reach the perfection of virtue he has been striving for, but that, with regard to the problem of pride in particular, "even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility."

So we see that even if we look deeper, past external self-improvement, to a higher standard or different definition of perfection, the virtues we then value can't be developed through a self-focused act of the will. We might, as Franklin says he did, make some improvement in the mastering the appearance of them, but not the substance. Patience, humility, perseverance, resilience, grace--all these are traits borne of suffering, trials, discomfort, surprise. In order to really grow and change, we have to mess things up, make fools of ourselves, fall down and get back up. We can't become the person we envision without making mistakes. True perfection--or the closest thing we can reach--is only arrived at through the experience of our own imperfection.

3.  Perfect won't do what we want it to do.

But why do we really want to be perfect anyway? I think it's because the idea of perfection isn't appealing only as an end in itself--its attraction is in what we think it will do for us. Deep down, we somehow believe that if we just do everything right, we can somehow make everything else go right too. Perfectionism is an effort to gain control, over ourselves and over our circumstances. If we can just do everything exactly right, we can make sure of the outcomes for the people, interactions, situations, and relationships that make up our lives. Things will always go the way we hope. Certainly, at least, no one will ever be able to look down on us, criticize us, be angry with us, or dislike us if we are perfect. Being perfect will make us good enough, in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. In other words, we believe that our perfection will protect both our loved ones and ourselves from the unexpected, the undesirable, and from failure, pain, and rejection.

The unfortunate truth is that perfection can't cause any of this to happen, or keep any of it from happening. Life is unpredictable, and the world is sometimes a painful and scary place. Bad things happen. They happen to us, and to the people we love. Sometimes this is because we make mistakes, but not always. Sometimes it's because other people make mistakes. And sometimes it's just the way the world is. It's broken, and we can never fix it all on our own. We can only do our best, and even then, even if our best was perfect, it is no guarantee that things will go right, or that others will love us, accept us, or approve of us. As long as we live as broken people in a broken world, there will be tragedy and loss--we will hurt each other, and things that no one understands will sometimes happen. No matter how perfect we are, nothing can change this.

So what can we say then? If the pursuit of perfection is empty, what good can we take away? I think there is still something. The beauty in the complete barrenness, the empty promise that is perfectionism, is that it reminds us who we are. We are the Beloved. And as the Beloved, it is not our job to do any of the things we have tried to accomplish through our own perfection. We cannot save ourselves from pain, failure, or loss; we cannot make ourselves loved, accepted, respected; we cannot ensure that everything in our world will go right; and we do not have to. We were not created for this purpose. As the Beloved, we were created to be loved. And so we are. We need do nothing to earn it, and nothing that we or anyone else can do, say, or think, can change it. Our value is secure--our welfare is assured. Perfection can never offer us either.

How's That Working For You?

I am not a morning person.  And by "morning", I actually mean "before noon".  If I'm going to get up and get going in the morning, I need something, as my friend and director Julie used to say, "to take the sting out", and that usually means food. Fortunately, one of our regular receptionists subscribes to this same theory of mornings, and whenever she's in the building before noon, she comes bearing donuts.  LOTS of donuts.

In my workplace, many people do not regard the donuts as a positive development.  I am surrounded by co-workers who meticulously track their weight, body measurements, miles run and walked, calorie intake and burn rate, and various metrics of food ingestion.  People monitor their daily grams of protein or sugar, eat "meals" of carefully measured amounts of cottage cheese and peanut butter, and replace food altogether by drinking mad-scientist-looking concoctions that they create in the break room blender or bring from home in a Mason jar.  One of my co-workers appears to subsist completely on a diet of popcorn and grapefruit--when I asked him if he eats anything else, he said, "Lettuce?"

This, as you can imagine, leaves me alone with a lot of donuts.

It's a problem.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the break room with my friend Victoria, contemplating the vast array of fried sugary goodness.  She was saying that she had been really disciplined and hadn't eaten one.  I was saying that I had eaten one, and that the last thing I needed was another.  Victoria laughed.  She said, "You skinny people. Small people always want to be smaller.  I'd be happy if I was your size."

All I can say in my own defense, is that at least I had the grace to be embarrassed about it.  I told Victoria, "I'm sorry.  I do get the problem. I actually wrote a whole blog post about it. But it's hard, when it's yourself."  Victoria, always gracious, agreed.  "It is."

And I walked away kicking myself, but even then, even then, here's what I was thinking.  I was thinking about how many times I have told myself exactly what Victoria said.  That there are people who would be happy to be my size, who would consider themselves skinny and beautiful, who would accept and love themselves in my body, so why isn't that enough for me?  If so many other people would be happy with what I have, I should be happy with it myself.

I thought about it, off and on, for the rest of the day, and until now.  And I'm happy to say that at some point along the way, my thoughts about it changed, when I suddenly realized something.  If being my size would really make people happy, then why doesn't it work for me??

I know.  You think I already said that, right?  You think I'm just repeating myself.  But listen.  Just hang in there with me for a minute.  The words are almost the same, but follow me--think.  Think about it differently.  Victoria said she would be happy if she was my size, and I believed her.  We both believed her.  But let me ask you a really important question: would she??  Would any of the people I was thinking of earlier--if they became my size, would they really be happy with it?  Because I think that if being my size (or any size) is really what makes people happy, then it would be working for me. And not just me, but all the small, skinny people Victoria is talking about who always want to be smaller.  It would be working for every woman I wrote about in that blog post who is 25 pounds lighter than me but still thinks she needs to lose 10 pounds.  And for every woman I see at the gym and think, "I'd be happy if I was her size," but she's still frowning later when I see her on the scale. I have been thinking of it backward.  It's not that if other people would be happy being my size, that's proof that I should be happy with it.  Instead, it's that if I'm not happy being my size, it's proof that no one else would be either--at least not if size is what they were depending on for that happiness.

And the people I am really envying?  The people who are at peace with themselves, body and all?  If they are happy, it's not because they are smaller than me. It's because they are smarter than me. Because at that moment, I see, in a blinding flash, AGAIN, the lie that has crept in yet another crack and obscured this truth:  If being any certain size would really make us happy, make us love ourselves, accept ourselves, become witnesses to our own beauty and power, then it would already be working for all of us.  This lie--that skinniness equals happiness, or worthiness, or lovableness, or even beauty--has so deeply pervaded our cultural and individual consciousness that even when we have seen the falsehood in it, even when we are vigilant in our attempts to combat it, it still lurks there, just under the surface, secreting itself in the hidden places we will not see, camouflaging itself in the cleverest disguises, manipulating even our attempts to diminish it into mind-bending tricks that unknowingly grow its power.  It is evil. And I am not exaggerating.  If being the Beloved is indeed the core truth of our existence , the sacred truth on which everything rests, then this is its true unholy opposite, this lie that says we can never be perfect enough, pretty enough, small enough to be loved.

Almost every morning when I eat breakfast, I see this tagline on the back of my cereal box:  "More whole grains, less you!"  Let me ask you this, what kind of a message is that?  Whose voice is it, that we still, in spite of everything, are allowing to say to us, "You know what would really be great here?  Less you.  If you could just kind of shrink down a bit.  Just keep getting smaller. The closer you are to non-existent, the better that will be. We'll all like that.  You'll be happy then.  Trust me."

Make no mistake, people.  It's not the donut that is our enemy.

Dear Woman at the Gym: A Love Letter

Dear Woman at the Gym,

Every day I see you, and I wonder why you are here.  I don't know you--we never talk, except maybe to say hello in passing, or to give a little nod of acknowledgement as we move briefly through our shared space.  Then we move on, occupied with our own thoughts, spinning through our own orbit.  So it might seem strange that I notice you, or even more strange that I care, but I do.  I have no idea what brings you here.  But every day, I wonder, and every day I also hope.

I see you lifting weights, or on the treadmill, or in the pool, and I hope it's not because you think you have to.  I hope it's not one more thing on your endless to-do list.  I hope you came because this is your time.  I hope it's something wonderful and healing and indulgent that you are doing for yourself, right out in the midst of all the busyness and the chaos and the pull and tug of obligation, and the million and a half things you do every day that are not for you but for others.  I hope you know you have a right to it, that you have a right to be good to yourself, and this is what that looks like for you.

I see the fierce energy and endless effort you put forth, and I hope you aren't working so hard for anyone else--not because you think you need to, if you are to earn the approval or affection of someone close to you, or because you are afraid of losing it.  I hope the person you are working for is you.  I hope you are filled with the absolute certainty that here, as well as everywhere in your life, you are surrounded by people who both care for you as you are, and are invested in your well-being, and that's what lights the fire I see inside you.

I see you in your cute yoga pants and your headband, and your workout tank that says, "Too hot to warm up", and I hope you believe it.  I hope your perseverance here isn't driven by a heart or mind that's filled with shame or criticism for yourself.  I hope when you look around, what you don't see is people thinner than you, happier than you, better than you, people that make you think you don't measure up, people that you doubt you'll ever become.  I hope you see that you are already there.  I hope you don't come because you hope it will make you feel like you are amazing, but because you are already amazing and you know it.

I hope that being here is the best part of your day.

But if it's not.  If everything I hope for you is not true.  Tomorrow, please do me a favor.  Please try to take a step back, and look around at all the rest of us.  Try to take a look through my eyes, the way I see you every day.  Every day I see you, and you are so beautiful and so strong and you fill me with admiration, and every day I know that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can hurt you or stop you or stand in your way, and that it is very important for you to be as good to yourself as the good that other people want for you.

We don't know each other, but you can take my word for it, because who would know better than me, the person who sees you every day?

Every day, I see you.  I hope you do too.

Things My Mother Taught Me

There's a quote I've seen circulating on Facebook for a while that says something like, "The voice you use to talk to your children will be the voice they use to talk to themselves."  As a parent, that thought is both inspiring and terrifying, with enough emphasis on the terrifying that sometimes we might hope it isn't true.  But as someone's child, all of us know that the truth in it is enough--we all recognize that voice inside our head.

For some of us, that parental voice is loud and overpowering; for some, it is quiet, hidden, and we must strain to hear.  Every parent, bound by imperfection as are all of us, speaks a mix of truth and falsehood in our memories, and the messages are altered also by the way we remember them, interpret them, understand them.  Most of us, however, are fortunate enough to have parental voices that speak more good than bad--that encourage us, instruct us, remind us, and empower us--and I am one of those.

I believe the first time I realized just how often I thought of or spoke aloud some advice, saying, or thought of my mother's, I was already a young adult and college student living away from home.  In a group of friends, I had made some reference to a saying of hers--which one exactly is now long forgotten--and someone replied with joking exasperation, "Can't that woman ever leave us alone?!?"  That was the beginning of my coming to understand the way that, even as adults, whether they are physically present or not, our mothers come with us wherever we go; and that this seems true for my mother, in particular.

I have long been in the habit, when I receive any particularly profound compliment, of deferring any credit to my parents.  There is so much truth in this that it would be impossible to give anything like a comprehensive account of what my mother taught me, or how she shaped me, or influenced me, since the implications of the person I became, simply by being born into my family, are so far-reaching they cannot be articulated.  However, on Mother's Day, here are just a handful of Mom-isms that have served me well, and that I hope I've managed to pass on to my own boys also.

1.  "Don't act lousy, and don't throw your trash around."  Actually, the credit for the wording on this one goes to my brother, who, on a long car trip, was anxious to get out at the rest stop, and didn't feel like waiting on Mom's version of the speech to be delivered before we were allowed to exit the vehicle.  So he pre-empted it with this shorter version, his best summary of all Mom's many admonishments about decent public behavior.  If I had to give a one-sentence version that actually came from Mom, I guess it would be, "Try to act like you've been out in public before."  But the sentiment is the same, and it is this.  Your behavior matters.  Everyone else might throw their wrappers on the ground, but you don't have to.  Everyone else might be an inconsiderate jerk, but you don't have to.  You can make a difference.  You can set the example.  People are watching you, and it will make more impact than you think.  One person doing right, behaving appropriately, acting with grace, is valuable and important, even if you are the only one. Especially if you are the only one.  Be that one person.

2.  "There won't always be someone around to help you fold a sheet."  This means you might as well learn how to do it yourself.  You can be just as strong, capable, and independent as you set your mind to be.  If there's someone there to help you, great.  Teamwork is awesome.  It can be easier and more fun when you can share every task with a partner.  But life isn't always like that.  Many everyday things, and yes, even many hard things, you will have to do alone.  You can do it.  Figure out how.

3.  "Never just wait."  Don't get me wrong.  There are times in life when waiting is appropriate.  Sometimes you just don't know what to do, and waiting is the only thing.  Sometimes it just isn't time yet.  Waiting with patience was something taught, practiced, and prized in my household.  But this advice was given in the kitchen, with cookies in the oven.  When something's in the oven, you don't just stand and wait for it to come out.  There are dirty dishes everywhere, baking supplies that need to be put away, and probably laundry lurking somewhere that needs attention.  Look around, see what needs to be done, and do it.  Take the initiative.  Be a contributing member of the team.  Don't wait around for someone else to have to tell you what to do.  When you know the task, when you have the time, don't waste it.

4.  "You shouldn't just be ignorant."  I've written about this one before, in a previous post that described my parents' attitude to learning.  This statement is the perfectly logical reason my mom gave me for her need to learn something "about Normandy".  As I said in that earlier post, I learned from my earliest days that learning itself is fun, exciting, and important, that ideas and information of all kinds are valuable and relevant, and that this continues in all areas of life, indefinitely.

5.  "You meet the need of the moment."  In relationships, there is no keeping score.  Marriage, or any other relationship, contrary to popular belief, is not a 50-50 deal.  No two people can ever move forward together successfully in life, bound by the idea that you meet the other person's needs as they meet yours.  Life is hard.  Things change fast.  Bad stuff happens.  We are in it together.  We don't earn our place, not in marriage, not in friendship, not in family.  We don't merit love by doing.  We don't say to each other, "Well, I feel so bad about everything you've done for me when I've done nothing for you."  (Or even the other way around--"Here's a list of everything I've done for you, but what have you done for me lately?")  That isn't how it works.  Love, by its existence, out of its abundance, meets the need that is now.

6.  "When you love someone, that doesn't mean you think they're perfect; it means you see their faults and flaws, and you love them anyway."  First hearing this statement, riding somewhere that I don't remember with Mom in the car, the initial shock was finding out that she did not think my dad was perfect.  Here's why that is significant--it means that even though she didn't think him perfect, as far as anyone could see, she loved as though he was.  Now, as an adult, I've come to understand this as the bedrock of every successful relationship, whether parent and child, husband and wife, or loving friend.  I've written often about being the Beloved, and how that is, according to Henri Nouwen, "the core truth of our existence"; it's a difficult truth for many people to grasp, and I've often been asked why it seems to come so easily to me.  This is why.  From the first moment of my existence, this is the way love was understood, practiced, and taught for me.  My worth and value as a person, my worthiness of being loved, was not based on my performance, or on my perfection.  Love was given by grace; I, by existing, was enough.

The older I get, the more I see what it looks like to try to go through life without this last understanding, the more I realize how everything, everything, depends on it.  All the previous items on this list can only be accomplished with this belief underlying them all.  Knowing this, constantly, unshakably, every day, is a gift I was given that I have continually grown to appreciate and that will never leave me.  I hope it's a gift I manage to give my children in the same way it was given to me, and that someday, someone somewhere has to ask them if I will ever leave them alone; and I hope that the answer for them is the same as it was for me--nope.  Not ever.  Thanks, Mom.

Beloved

"I'm always late because I'm a procrastinator and I procrastinate because I'm overwhelmed and I'm overwhelmed because I'm a perfectionist and I'm a perfectionist because I need affirmation and I need affirmation because I feel unworthy and I feel unworthy because somewhere, sometime, something in me cracked and the idea that I am lovable leaked out... I broke."

I've been thinking today about this passage from a recent post by Jamie the Very Worst Missionary.

I've shared it with many of my women friends, especially many of my single mom friends, and it resonates with every one.  Many have messaged me back to thank me for sharing, to say how it went straight to the heart of their own fear, anxiety, and struggle.  I want to ask us all today--why is that?  Why do we all feel so unworthy?  Why do we believe we are unlovable, unacceptable?  I think back to a long-ago conversation with a beloved friend, one of those people who makes the world better just by being in it.  His life was filled with good deeds, and his heart with nothing but kindness and good will for other people, specifically, and humanity, generally.  But he spoke that night on the phone about a nagging feeling of incompleteness.  Somehow, these things could not make him enough.  No matter how good you are, how hard you try, nothing you do on your own can ever make you good enough.  You cannot make yourself lovable, acceptable, beloved. 

Religious people will tell you they have the answer to this conundrum.  "That's why we need Jesus," they will say--"because we can't do it on our own."

Raise your hand if you just heard me say, "That's why we need Jesus--because Jesus can help us be good enough."

Yep.  That's what I thought. 

Why is this so hard?  Why must we insist on making ourselves good enough?  On seeing even Jesus as simply a system of self-help so that we can finally accomplish it?  Why is it that, as my friend Bill said recently, "We're Midwesterners!  We have to EARN our grace!"  My pastor, Randy Boltinghouse, just finished preaching through the New Testament's parables of grace, and a few Sundays ago he spoke about the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  In the story, the tax collector asks God for forgiveness, and goes away accepted, but the Pharisee simply thanks God that he is already so righteous.  The Pharisee doesn't ask for anything, Randy said, because he doesn't think he needs it.  I guess that might be right.  But I suspect the Pharisee does know.  I suspect he knows, and is afraid to admit it, even to himself.  Especially to himself.  We are all afraid to admit that we are in need of grace.  Why?  Because we think Jesus will be horrified at how much fixing up he has to do.  In fact, maybe our worst fears about ourselves will be realized, and he will even declare us unfixable.  Jesus himself will confirm what we have always known, deep down--we are unlovable.  Unacceptable.  Even he cannot do anything with us.

But grace is not about fixing us up and making us good enough.  Grace is about accepting us as we are.  Randy spells it out for us this way:  "Through Christ's sacrifice, we are accepted before we start.  He will refine us later, yes.  But he qualifies us first."

Grace is not there in spite of the mess-ups.  Grace, as Jamie the Very Worst so beautifully puts it, is there FOR the mess-ups.

I've written in an earlier post about Henri Nouwen's claim that being God's Beloved is the core truth of our existence, and how truly possessing that knowledge will affect every relationship in our lives.  But it not only touches our relationships--it is realized in our every individual action.  The procrastination, the perfectionism.  The way we see ourselves when we look in the mirror.  Behind everything we do, we find we are carrying that aching emptiness, in the space where we should be holding tightly to the consciousness of being the Beloved.  But there is hope for us.  We can realize our true identity, if we are willing.  It can happen, and, as Jamie the Very Worst says, when it does....

"...Jesus finds me like that, leaky and late, and He scoops up the pieces and makes me new. I'll probably break again tomorrow, or in like five minutes, but He'll keep scooping, again and again, until the day I finally get it, until the day I learn that I was created to be loved. And that day, that glorious day, the angels will sing in Heaven and, by God, I. will. be. on. time."

The Truth

I have a confession to make.  Once, in a Bible study, I started a fight.  Not on purpose.  But it was a real fight, and I mean the kind of fight where people stand up and shout.  My friend said later, "I was afraid we were going to have to call someone to come and get the kids."

Now, I know what you're thinking.  What on earth could get people so riled up in a Bible study that there would be that kind of behavior?  Well, I'm going to tell you.  Many times, in a Bible study group, people will use a study book or watch a teaching video, and at this particular study, we were watching a video by a very well-known and highly respected Bible teacher.  I'm not going to tell you his name, because I'm just about to say some things he would find extremely disagreeable.

In this video, the preacher who shall not be named was teaching that we--humans--need to learn that we do not have inherent value.  In other words, it's very important that we understand that we are not valuable in and of ourselves.  We're not actually valuable, unlike real valuable things such as gold, for example.  In fact, we have no inherent value at all.  The only reason we could consider ourselves of any worth is because God, in his infinite mercy, has decided to assign us value, despite our complete and total worthlessness.

You may have heard that before, especially if you have spent much time around Christians or the church.  You have probably heard that about God.  How he is so loving and merciful that he loves us in spite of how disgusting and sinful we are.  That he accepts us, even though we are not acceptable.  That he values us, even though he knows that we are worthless.  What I would like to suggest to you, and the thing I "suggested" that night that started such a heated disagreement, is that this is a giant load of crap.

Now before anyone gets all excited, or any shouting has time to get started, hear me out.   I know someone is already dying to ask if I'm suggesting that God doesn't love us in spite of our sins.  I can clear that right up for you.  I'm not suggesting it.  I'm saying it outright.

Let me ask you to think about it this way.  If you are a parent, think about your children for a moment.  Really think about them.  About all the things that make them unique and special, about all the ways they are different.  About how each one of them is your own, and how you know them like no one else, and how you have your own love for each of them.  And when you think of them, with all their quirks, and faults, and flaws--even though, let's be honest, sometimes we want to kill them--when you think of your own special dear ones, how could any of us say that we love them in spite of their failings?  Or would we say, instead, that we love them with those things?  Of course we don't love the failings themselves, or the weaknesses and brokenness that we see in our children that we know will hurt them.  And we hope they will grow through those things, and conquer those things, and we work with them, help them, guide them, support them to do that.  But we love them, with all those things as a part of them, as a part of what makes them the unique creations they are at this moment in time.  Not in spite of those things.

We have fallen for a lie about God.  We have fallen for the lie that he accepts us reluctantly.  That he looks at us as worthless, but agrees to take us on anyway, simply because of his own goodness.  We have acted as if our sins make us repulsive to him, but that he holds his nose and takes us in.  We have taught ourselves to believe that is spiritual, even Biblical.  We have called it "humility," and "not thinking too much of ourselves."  And I'm sorry, but this is NOT what God tells us.

God tells us that he loves us as we are, that we have worth to him, that we are valuable as we are.  He loves us not in spite of our sin, but with it.  I know that right away someone is going to object, and start talking about how much God hates sin, and how he is a holy God, and so on and so forth.  But the fact is, I haven't disagreed with that.  I'm not talking about how God feels about sin.  I'm just talking about how God feels about us.  And how he feels about sin doesn't change that.

We have such a hard time with this, we struggle with this.  I believe it's because that lie speaks to something deep within us.  We know our own failings all too well.  It's too easy to believe in our own flaws, our own inadequacy, our own insecurities.  It's much harder to believe in being the Beloved.  So hard, in fact, that we want to push back against it, find "evidence" against it--some apparently even find it worth actually fighting over.

But you see, that's the message of the Bible.  From the very beginning, when God made us in his own image, proclaiming that his creation was thoroughly good, through the Psalmist's celebration of how we are each fearfully and wonderfully made, to Paul's affirmation to the Ephesians that we are God's own workmanship, God tells us that we are far from worthless, have never been worthless.  Quite the opposite.  In  Deuteronomy 7:6  (I know, I know, who looks at Deuteronomy?  Try it just this once, it won't hurt you.),  God says that he's chosen us to be a people for his own possession.  You will find it again in Deuteronomy 26:18 (OK, so I lied.  Look there twice.), where it tells us that we're his people, a treasured possession.  Again, in Titus 2:14, we hear that we're a people for his own possession.  Now, in English, that might not seem like much.  But in the language of the Bible, in each of those texts, the words that are used are words that mean a king's most valuable treasure--his special, prized, most beloved possession.  Did you hear that?  I am his special possession, not his special project.  His most treasured, valuable Beloved.  Me.  With my big mouth, and my proud heart, and my muffin top.  With all my faults and flaws, all my shame, and the mistakes and failures of my past, and the ones of my present, and of my future.  Me, just as I am, I'm the Beloved, and so are you.

And what does that mean for our being less valuable than something like gold that supposedly has "inherent value"?  I'll gladly tell you.  First of all, inherent value is an oxymoron and a lie.  Value is ALWAYS externally assigned.  Gold, like any other gem or metal, is nothing but a rock.  It's a rock that has been assigned a changing value by different cultures over time.  The value is constantly in flux, just like that of any other substance.  One of the most famous stories of the Bible is about a woman who poured some very expensive perfume on Jesus' feet, an ointment called nard.  The whole point of the story is about the incredibly high value of her gift.  Suppose I told you that I have a five-gallon bucket of nard sitting next to me right now.  Would you give me a quarter for it?  I didn't think so.  The assigned value of all these things changes, when the conditions or people that determine their value change.  But our value is assigned by God.  He is the one who says that we have worth, that we are precious, and guess what?  He will never go out of power, or go out of fashion, or go out of date.  He will never change his mind.  So our value as the Beloved, while externally assigned, is assigned by one who has existed since before time, will exist for all eternity, and is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  And that is the closest thing to inherent value there will ever be in this world.  It leaves gold, diamonds, nard, and everything else in the dust.  We are the Beloved, and that is the most valuable thing there is.  Period.

At this point, you may be starting to think I sound pretty full of myself.  I seem to be pretty excited about how great God thinks I am.  I understand your concern.  We all have a tendency to go too far in one direction or another, and we all know some people who have done that.  They are pretty sure that God loves them just a bit more than the rest of us.  That he thinks they are perfect, just the way they are.   Some have even made the serious error of calling that spiritual, even Biblical.  They've called it "confidence," and "righteousness," and "claiming our blessing," when in fact, it's simple pride.  But let me reassure you, that's not what it means to be the Beloved either.  Because when you know what it means to be the Beloved, you understand that it is ALL of us, and it's through nothing special that you have done.  I'm going to quote one of my favorite preachers now, my preacher, Randy Boltinghouse, who gave one of the best explanations I've ever heard of how, when you know you are the Beloved, you won't go one way or the other.  You will have both true humility and true confidence.  Here's how he described what that will look like:  "I don't think more of myself, and I don't think less of myself.  I think of myself less."

And that last bit brings me, finally, to why all this is so important.  Because that's the real question, isn't it?  Why does this matter?  And I want to assure you, it does matter, and it matters a great deal.  There's a Catholic theologian I love, named Henri Nouwen, who has written extensively about this subject, and he says that "being the Beloved is the core truth of our existence."  That's a big claim.  But I believe it's true, and here's why.  Because the message of the gospel, the message God has for you and me, is the message of reconciliation.  "Reconciliation" just means "getting right."  It means getting right first with God and ourselves, and then with others around us.  Getting right with God and with ourselves has to happen before we are able to get right with anyone else, and I mean anyone.  And getting right with God and with ourselves means understanding who we are as God's Beloved.  That's the road to freedom.

If we cannot understand and accept ourselves as the Beloved, we will never be able to move to that place of freedom where every interaction doesn't have to be about us.  We will never be able to get past our insecurities and our anxieties with our co-workers, our family members, our friends, our kids, and our partners.  Every difficult parenting moment will have to be filled with the fear that we have lost our kids' affection, or our offended pride that they have disrespected us.  Every exchange with friends will have to be motivated by our insecurity about whether we will experience their acceptance or their rejection.  Every day that we spend, either in a happy romance, or out of one, will have to be experienced as a measure of our own worth and desirability.

We will never be able to receive the love that is offered by the people in our lives without questioning its authenticity.  We will never be able to offer true love in return, because we won't be able to set aside our own insecurity and fear of rejection and risk making ourselves vulnerable to others.  We won't be able to give to our families, our friends, our children, our lovers, with the best we have to offer, because we will not have that true confidence and humility that lets us think of them first and ourselves less.  And that would be a tragedy, because we are all, all of us, more than that.

So here is what I'd like to say to you.  No matter how spiritual it sounds, no matter how your sneaky heart may whisper to you that it is true.  No matter who may have said it to you before, even if it was your mother, or your teacher, or a preacher on a Bible teaching video.  Please.  Don't buy the lie.  No one may have ever told you this before, but you can begin right now, from this moment, to know that you are the Beloved.  You can think like it, act like it, live like it.  Because that is who you are.  And that's the truth.