What if?! English poet and Anglican priest Malcolm Guite wrote a grand poem with this question posed (poem posted below). “What if every word we say never ends or fades away?” We have all heard and probably rejected the singsong “Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words shall never hurt us.” Forgiving the words (or asking forgiveness for hurtful words spoken) may right some of the wrong, but the forgetting is the challenge.
I started thinking about this topic when scrolling through Instagram and seeing the post below by @MomsofBigs.
What would a hashtag be for things I regularly said (and still say) to my children?
#IllLoveYouForever
#GodLovesYouMore
#AudienceofOne
#BeCareful
#KeepShortAccounts
#TextMeWhenYouGetHome
So regular affirming things are cool to remember, but we also have to contend with those things we have said in anger or disappointment. Worth mulling over in hopes that we can remove some of that injury.
Words form the thread on which we string our experiences – Aldous Huxley
Fortunately the things we speak to those we love, those we work with, or strangers we meet (or even in processing our experience of these with someone else) – these things we speak aren’t inscribed on our skin. What if the experience of those words though never fade away?
We have an endless supply of words and how we choose to use them. I say we choose wisely the words we use – in our thoughts as well as in our speech – choosing life-affirming words vs. person-diminishing words. Using words we would have no problem having tattooed on our skin forever.
Closing with this gorgeous poem of Guite’s. Read it aloud. Add a beat. Definitely a spoken word piece.
What if every word we say Never ends or fades away, Gathers volume gathers weigh, Drums and dins us with dismay Surges on some dreadful day When we cannot get away Whelms us till we drown?
What if not a word is lost, What if every word we cast Cruel, cunning, cold, accurst, Every word we cut and paste Echoes to us from the past Fares and finds us first and last Haunts and hunts us down?
What if every murmuration, Every otiose oration Every oath and imprecation, Insidious insinuation, Every blogger’s aberration, Every facebook fabrication Every twittered titivation, Unexamined asservation Idiotic iteration, Every facile explanation, Drags us to the ground?
What if each polite evasion Every word of defamation, Insults made by implication, Querulous prevarication, Compromise in convocation, Propaganda for the nation False or flattering peruasion, Blackmail and manipulation Simulated desparation Grows to such reverberation That it shakes our own foundation, Shakes and brings us down?
Better that some words be lost, Better that they should not last, Tongues of fire and violence. O Word through whom the world is blessed, Word in whom all words are graced, Do not bring us to the test, Give our clamant voices rest, And the rest is silence. – What If– by Malcolm Guite
We can use our words wisely. Right? What if…we did?
[I have often written about words. Here. They matter and don’t really go away.]
OK…who hasn’t heard this encouragement? “You’re stronger than you think.” I have never cared for it. Why? Because it pushes the weary soul, doing all we can to stay afloat already, to “just keep swimming”.
Not that any of us wants to quit whatever we’re about…but…is there a truer truth?
The “stronger than you think” quote has been attributed to A. A. Milne, author of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. Written by and published in the 1920s. This was a time post-World War I and prior to The Great Depression and World War II. The expression of “pull yourself up by your boot straps”and the mentality of self-reliance was fueled in those days, in literature and culture. It continues today.
[Now, you should know Milne did NOT write that expression. A writer at Disney must have. It is a quote from the animated film (1997) “Pooh’s Grand Adventure: the Search for Christopher Robin”. Pooh’s dear friend Christopher Robin is going away to boarding school and is trying to give Pooh, and himself, the courage for them to be apart. That message is there but not in so many words as in the Disney film.]
So…after that bubble burst, let’s return to the oft-quoted “stronger than you think” encouragement we find everywhere. It seems to speak to our culture…across generations.
Self-reliance. Work harder. Work smarter. We can do better. Sigh…
When we are told by a friend or family member, or even a social media stranger, that we’re stronger than we think, we are not being encouraged to lean on community…or God. We are given the message that somewhere inside ourselves, alone, without others, we can tap into more strength than we are feeling at the moment.
Is that really encouragement? I know we mean well…but do we really want to offer up Disney verbiage to a real struggle?
When I’ve gone about as far as I can go, can I slog out more, just with my own “main strength and awkwardness”? Maybe. At what cost and to what gain?
I got a phone call earlier today from a mom needing an understanding ear on a hard struggle involving her young son. She’s a terrific mom. Yet…she’d come to the end of her rope on this one. She sounded on Empty. Did it help that we talked? I think so…and definitely it helped to pray afterwards. She will find the way to help her son. She has a way forward even if she doesn’t see it clearly yet. Through her own resolve and experience. Through deep community. Through an enduring faith in a wise and loving God.
The Apostle Paul speaks so eloquently and practically on this issue of our weakness and God’s strength. In fact, when we come to the end of ourselves, we find God’s strength perfect in our weakness. It’s both a hard truth and great comfort. We don’t like the experience of coming to the end of ourselves. Nor do we like to see our friends and family moving so close to that reality. For this reason, we encourage those we love to dig deeper.
You know I love words…and I squeeze as much good out of them as I can. The Pooh video clip above and its messages of the richness of relationship do have meaning for us. Part of that meaning is how sustaining relationships can be even with we are apart from each other. However, the best part of relationships and how much stronger they make us comes from the moment-by-moment reach of them in the present. When we are there for each other (and pray for each other) we become stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks.
When we seek to encourage with words like “You’re stronger than you think”, your heart will be heard. Lean in with those words…and pray for that one in the struggle.
[Mandisa sings about how hard things make us stronger BUT she says that in the face of God being right there with us – holding us through whatever comes. We can rest in Him…and each other.]
Quick take on favorites of mine over the last couple of weeks:
1) Beyond the Guitar’s Latest – Enjoy!
2) Parenting Pearls – So thankful for wisdom of others…especially in parenting and raising children to be mentally healthy and resilient. How other cultures parent is also intriguing. Below are some of both.
Mom blogger Becky Mansfield wrote a great piece on things we don’t want our kiddos to forget. Please share in the Comments what you hope your children don’t forget.
The situation with my mom (cancer and heart) and my dad’s (Parkinson’s and dementia) health has been making me so sad. I wish I could be with them right now. ? So my sister sent a video of them together tonight, dancing to Neil Young. ? Take a moment to love your loved ones. pic.twitter.com/y2fBu26NlP
4) Words – As much as I love words this quote from Jesus’ teaching gives pause: “But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.” – Matthew 12:36-37
Words matter. Words mean things. We should be generous with life-giving words and sparing with words that destroy. Silence and restraint have their place.
Then, on a lighter note: there’s this sweet game that is all the rage right now. Wordle created by Josh Wardle (launched in October 2021). I love it because it is not time-consuming. You get one word puzzle a day that is challenging but doable. So fun.
5) War – We have all read and watched about the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia. How to respond? Who to respond? I won’t pose an opinion here because we have so many, and they don’t help really. Praying is the most important thing we can do. Below are some links I found interesting this week (well, links that weren’t behind a paywall). Praying…
“Think Little. Nearly every one of us, nearly every day of his life, is contributing directly to the ruin of this planet.” Berry went on to say that he was “ashamed and deeply distressed that American government should have become the chief cause of disillusionment with American principles.”
In a Jefferson Lecture in 2012, he quoted Stegner’s description of Americans as one of two basic types, “boomers” and “stickers.” Boomers are “those who pillage and run,” who “make a killing and end up on Easy Street.” Stickers are “those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in.” They are “placed people,” in Berry’s term—forever attached to the look of the sky, the smell of native plants, and the vernacular of home.
He told the crowd that, as a member of the human race, he was “in the worst possible company: communists, fascists and totalitarians of all sorts, militarists and tyrants, exploiters, vandals, gluttons, ignoramuses, murderers.” But, he insisted, he was given hope by people “who through all the sad destructive centuries of our history have kept alive the vision of peace and kindness and generosity and humility and freedom.”
“A properly educated conservative, who has neither approved of abortion nor supported a tax or a regulation, can destroy a mountain or poison a river and sleep like a baby,” he writes. “A well-instructed liberal, who has behaved with the prescribed delicacy toward women and people of color, can consent to the plunder of the land and people of rural America and sleep like a conservative.”
“If two neighbors know that they may seriously disagree, but that either of them, given even a small change of circumstances, may desperately need the other, should they not keep between them a sort of pre-paid forgiveness? They ought to keep it ready to hand, like a fire extinguisher.”
“Jesus said, ‘Take no thought for the morrow,’ which I take to mean that if we do the right things today, we’ll have done all we really can for tomorrow. OK. So I hope to do the right things today.”
[Today is Mom’s birthday – 19 of them now in Heaven. This blog adapted from the Archives. ]
Our little family never lived close to the grandparents. This was not easy…for any of us. Before I married, I lived close to home, and Mom was my best friend. She died almost 20 years ago, and I miss her every day still. To people who knew her well, I would often say “when I grow up, I want to be just like her.” Still working on that.
Mom and I shared a weakness for words…they are probably excessively important to us, delivering both positive and (sometimes) negative weight. She was an amazing encourager. She rarely missed an opportunity to lift another’s spirit or to speak loving truth to someone desperate for God’s touch.
When I moved away to take a teaching job, she and my dad helped me with the move. New Haven, Connecticut would be a 2-day drive from Georgia. At that time, it was the farthest I had ever wandered from home. She stayed a week to help me settle in. While there, she was such great company. We explored the city together and laughed over a new culture and cried at the missing that was ahead for us.
She filled my freezer with her baking, and, while I was at work, she wrote notes. Then she hid them everywhere. After she flew home, I began finding them. In my coffee mug. Under my pillow. In the pocket of my coat. Among my reference books. Behind my music books on the piano. She was with me in the love notes she left, and it made the distance between us…less.
My mom and I also had a weakness for bits of paper. I have kept every one of her notes. These from that move over 30 years ago are fading…red ink on pink paper. There is a lifetime of notes between Mom and me. The tradition she started on that first move has become a life-long tradition for our family. Our visits back and forth, across the US and then the globe, have been papered by these little notes.
Our children, from the time they could write, entered into this tradition much to the joy of their grandparents. Before we would leave from visits with them, these three young ones would write of their affection for their grandparents and hide them all over their houses. I delighted in their cooperation in this conspiracy of love.
Mom always wrote notes…not just to us but to so many. She and her Sunday School Class ladies would send cards every week to the sick ones or the sad ones. She had a special burden for the elderly, for widows (including functional widows, deserted by husbands) and for fatherless children (again including those “orphaned” by still-living fathers). She inspired me by her humble ambition .
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. – James 1:27
I am so thankful for my mom’s bits of paper…for her love…and for her perseverance in encouraging and serving others. Her generation is sadly almost gone, and it is for us to pick up these traditions, or traditions like them. Passing them on somehow to the next generations…Maybe there won’t be bits of paper or love notes like in the past. I do hope we still take the time to write. Definitely, the call to serve and to encourage is as current as ever. My life continues to be rich with those, young and old, who reach out with words of kindness and encouragement. Written or spoken, they are love notes to the heart.
Thanks, Mom. Thank God for you.
Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. – 1 Thessalonians 5:11
Happy Friday! It’s been a sweet week around here with birthday celebrations, snow, and so many captivating discoveries. Hope your week has worn well for you. Here are this week’s faves of mine (please share yours as well, in Comments, below).
1) Beyond the Guitar’s “Halo” – For twenty years, Halo and its sequels are wildly popular videogames (first person shooter). I don’t know it personally but first saw it played by son Nathan and his high school buddies. Halo Infinite came out before Christmas 2021. It is the latest rendition of the game. The theme is beautiful as you’ll hear with Nathan’s arrangement and performance below. Another amazing feat of taking a gorgeous orchestral piece of music and rendering it beautifully and a single instrument. His classical guitar.
2) Best Film Scene – Full disclosure: I haven’t seen the 2021 film CODA(“children of deaf adults”), but I will. It came to my attention from Josh Larsen’s tweet below, looking for fan favorites:
What was your favorite opening scene at the movies in 2021?
Several folks replying to his “scene of the year” question posted “CODA (2021) – The Audition”. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched that scene. Goosebumps. Every. Single. Time.
In mid-life, my mom began working in a printing company. It was a loud workplace and everyone wore earplugs and communicated often with hand signals while on the floor. She made friends with a deaf woman named Mary. Mom didn’t have to learn sign language to communicate with Mary on the floor, but their friendship grew as did my mom’s determination to learn how to truly be a friend to her. I can’t tell you how proud and enthralled I was at Mom’s learning sign language at her age…just to truly know and understand her deaf friend. They had a long beautiful friendship even after retiring from their work. Both have since died.
We have a hearing-impaired son (whose hearing is assisted with hearing aids, but who still engages with the world a bit differently because of his hearing issues. He struggles learning languages and depended more on lip-reading early on before we knew for sure he had hearing issues. He amazes us still how he has dealt with life in the hearing world.
This scene…this movie…captures some of this tension. Also the tension of the blue collar work world juxtaposed with the arts symbolized in the young [CODA] Ruby’s pursuit of admission to Berklee School of Music. You see the beauty of both.
Josh Larsen and others like him are why I stay on Twitter. I follow the most remarkable people and they open up ideas to me that are life-giving. [I don’t follow people otherwise.] Josh is a podcaster but has also written the book Movies Are Prayers. Check it out. Here’s a review.]
[P.S. I LOVED the review of the film CODA by some deaf moms. Oh my goodness! How rich and tender. Can’t wait to see the film myself.]
3) Secure Attachment – The flourishing of relationships is strongly impacted by the nature of attachment from infancy. The baby with her parents/caregivers. Was (s)he seen, truly seen, by the adults caring for her and was she soothed, kept safe and secure, in ways that communicated the same to her? Or was the attachment more geared to the caregivers’ needs or emotional strain at the time?
Psychiatrist, research, and educator Daniel Siegel has given us so much help in parenting our babies. His work on attachment-based parenting is ground-breaking and foundational to how we look at the role of the adult caregiver in raising resilient children into adulthood.
When parenting our little ones, we need to be aware of how our own stress (including the past experience of our own being parented) is affecting our attachment to them…how we communicate our care for them. Then how ever secure our children’s attachment to us might be, when hard things happen to them (trauma later in life), they can fall back on the security of their early childhood attachment. Let’s say, these young people, even young adults, did not have a close attachment to their parents, they can psychologically “walk those memories back” such that they can become more secure and flourishing adults.
This may make some wonder why I pose these ideas. “We’re all doing the best we can”, right? My parents were divorced when I was little and I have huge gaps in my memory. I wonder at that. My mom was super loving and understanding of our needs, but she had to work long hours and just wasn’t there much.
Also, in my family and friend groups, there are those who have endured terrible trauma in relationships, both as young children and into their teen and young adult years. Are they flourishing? I hope so, but it isn’t always clear. Reading and thinking through AND talking together about attachment (having reading so much of Siegel’s work) have been helpful and made me more hopeful.
4) Letters to Children – Author C. S. Lewis felt great responsibility in answering the many letters he received through the years. Especially replying to the children who wrote him. The small book C. S. Lewis’ Letters to Children is especially delightful as he writes both eloquently and playfully to them With respect for them as fellow readers and a certain peership with them in loving the characters and stories in his books. In particular The Chronicles of Narnia. No question was treated as childish. In fact, we can learn quite a lot about Lewis in his correspondence with these children.
For this blog, I’ve screenshot just a few of the letters. They were magnificent. In fact, in one of his letters he shared with a child the two favorite books he had written: Perelandra andTill We Have Faces. What a wonder to have a letter from this great storyteller! Lewis wrote hundreds of letters over the course of decades of his life, right up until the day before he died.
[I have saved letters…especially from my mom and a few other adults in my life. Letters these days are a treasure. Are you writing any? Are you young people saving any?
The weather here has been quite cold and wet. A small snowfall stayed with us due to temperatures remaining below freezing. This kept me wanting to stay inside, except for one trip to Cracker Barrel for a birthday breakfast. In the country store attached to the restaurant, you can always find word art, images of which you will find below.
My love languages are words and acts of service. Blessed with both for my special day. Cards. Grandchildren drawings. A dinner at home with the kids taken care of completely by them. Sweet birthday. Thanks to many of you for your greetings, and I hope your 2022 birthday is a good one.
[Today is Mom’s birthday – 19 of them now in Heaven. This blog adapted from the Archives. ]
Our little family never lived close to the grandparents. This was not easy…for any of us. Before I married, I did live close to home, and Mom was my best friend. She died several years ago, and I often say to people who knew her that “when I grow up, I want to be just like her.” Still working on that.
Mom and I shared a weakness for words…they are probably excessively important to us, delivering both positive and (sometimes) negative weight. She was an amazing encourager. She rarely missed an opportunity to lift another’s spirit or to speak loving truth to someone desperate for God’s touch.
When I moved away to take a teaching job, she and my dad helped me with the move. New Haven, Connecticut would be a 2-day drive from Georgia. It was the farthest I had ever wandered from home. She stayed a week to help me settle in. While there, she was such great company. We explored the city together and laughed over a new culture and cried at the missing that was ahead for us.
She filled my freezer with her baking, and, while I was at work, she wrote notes. Then she hid them everywhere. After she flew home, I began finding them. In my coffee mug. Under my pillow. In the pocket of my coat. Among my reference books. Behind my music books on the piano. She was with me in the love notes she left, and it made the distance between us…less.
My mom and I also had a weakness for bits of paper. I have kept every one of her notes. These from that move over 30 years ago are fading…red ink on pink paper. There is a lifetime of notes between Mom and me. The tradition she started on that first move has become a life-long tradition for our family. Our visits back and forth, across the US and then the globe, have been papered by these little notes.
Our children, from the time they could write, entered into this tradition much to the joy of their grandparents. Before we would leave from visits with them, these three young ones would write of their affection for their grandparents and hide them all over their houses. I delighted in their cooperation in this conspiracy of love.
Mom always wrote notes…not just to us but to so many. She and her Sunday School Class ladies would send cards every week to the sick ones or the sad ones. She had a special burden for the elderly, for widows (including functional widows, deserted by husbands) and for fatherless children (again including those “orphaned” by still-living fathers). She inspired me by her humble ambition .
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. – James 1:27
I am so thankful for my mom’s bits of paper…for her love…and for her perseverance in encouraging and serving others. Her generation is sadly almost gone, and it is for us to pick up these traditions, or traditions like them. Passing them on somehow to the next generations…Maybe there won’t be bits of paper or love notes like in the past. I do hope we still take the time to write. Definitely, the call to serve and to encourage is as current as ever. My life continues to be rich with those, young and old, who reach out with words of kindness and encouragement. Written or spoken, they are love notes to the heart.
Thanks, Mom. Thank God for you.
Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. – 1 Thessalonians 5:11
1) October Creepy – This year, we seem to be in need of bigger and earlier seasonal celebrations. Our neighborhood could totally be a drive-through Halloween fête with houses and yards dressed up on all sorts of creepy ghouls and goblins. The kids must love it!
For musical creepiness, Nathan Mills (Beyond the Guitar) delivers with five spooky themes (from shows too scary for me). Never having seen the shows, his interpretation of these themes is lovely and haunting (maybe that’s where the spooky comes in). Enjoy.
Still my favorite October offering of his is the theme from Stranger Things. All that sound from one guitar?! Crazy good! Here it is again:
2) New Politically Charged Words – These words may not be new to you, but they are to me. What words have you had to sort out in these strange times of redefining culture and society? Please comment below with words of your own that have forced their way into your vocabulary. For you non-native English speakers/readers, how about in your language? Any words you’d be willing to teach us?
Mansplaining – a man talking down to a woman, explaining something he assumes she does not understand
Safetyism – a culture or worldview where safety is considered sacred and must be protected
“Dog whistle” – a coded message communicated through words or phrases commonly understood by a particular group of people, but not by others
Pander – to provide gratification for others’ desires; to cater to or exploit the weaknesses of others
Schadenfreude – enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others
Illiberal – opposed to liberalism, not broad-minded
Populist – a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people
3) Dads – Do an online search of the importance of fathers and you’ll be reading all day. We are so grateful for our moms (see Friday Fave 5 below), but dads are the unsung heroes. My biological father was a ghost in my life. After my parents divorced when I was 5 years old, I saw him once after that. Once. Fortunately we later had a step-dad who became a dad to us.
Having dads actively involved in kids’ lives, whether they live with them or not, can make huge differences in their success in life. Both in how they see themselves and their place in the world. It matters.
These two videos are just a small evidence of impact. Sweet!
Dads make a difference. We all know it. Get up out of the recliner, Dad! We know you’re tired, and we understand it isn’t always easy to connect with your family. Go find that son, daughter, grand of yours…and be to them what no one else can be.
4) Lockdowns – Physical distancing will continue for many of us especially those most at risk for contracting COVID-19, but for the rest of the world, “lockdown is a terrible experiment”. So says Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff. We’re told to “follow the science” which seems reasonable, but the science is evolving. COVID-19 is a new disease. We are learning every day.
Photo Credit: Twitter, Martin Kulldorff [I took a screenshot in case his Twitter account got shut down or the Tweet deleted.]
Dr. Kulldorff and more and more others are encouraging “focused protection” – with the elderly and others at higher risk the focus. Then everyone else should take precautions – wash hands, keep some distance, maybe wear masks. However, any proposal to lockdown a whole state or country will only cause its own harm. The unnamed prognosticator Ethical Skeptic says the same as he follows data of deaths not by COVID per se but related to COVID (in particular, lockdowns).
5) Family Glue – When the image below crossed my Facebook newsfeed, it immediately resonated. My mom was our family’s glue (my mom-in-law continues to be the glue on my husband’s side of the family). Photo Credit: Lessons Learned in Life, Cardinal Crossing, Facebook
When Mom died, we still rallied around our Dad.
When he died, things got a little shaky. Someone has to take over that role of family glue, or holiday celebrations shift and family gatherings, in general, become tenuous. I would have loved taking on the responsibility of holding our extended family together, but living far from them made that impossible. Still, we try. How thankful I am for siblings, nieces and nephews who make space in their schedules and nearer relationships to gather to celebrate the memories of great old ones gone before us and the family bond we carry. What a blessing!
Who is your family’s glue? How do you hold together over the years? You folks who still manage family reunions and fun traditions are my heroes. You who put up with all the idioscyncrasies and prickly nature of family hold a deep place in my heart.
I hope our children have family glue in their DNA. My Mom’s delight in us, her readiness to always forgive, her holding us together no matter what are in my DNA for sure. So thankful for her…my mom-in-law, and those in our extended families applying the glue.
Glue only works in contact with what needs gluing.
Friday Faves on a Monday. The struggle is real sometimes. Like a friend says, life itself must always trump writing about life. Blessings on you, Dear Ones.
117,470 extra-other deaths, & we can't explain them via Covid virus. What caused these deaths? Why is this group growing twice as fast as Covid deaths?
These are the critical path questions. Never trust anyone who avoids the critical path, yet also claims 'virtue' or 'science'. pic.twitter.com/VzTV6X4sqd
Against Fear – Heather Mac Donald – [Don’t let the pro-Trump flavor of the article, any more than with pro-Biden bent, cause you to miss the reasoned content.]
Twitter has actually been a help to me. I follow (and therefore learn from) people of influence, excellent thinkers, and soldiers in the battle for good. At times, our values are not in lock-step. At times, especially in today’s culture wars, even these voices point to other voices way more stern or biting than their own.
I fell into this myself this weekend, and for that I’m sorry.
Someone I follow re-tweeted another who had really strong emotions about something that happened this weekend. It related to the death of President Trump’s brother and how some were treating his death in a hurtful, political way.
How far our culture has fallen!
I hit the “like” button because I agreed with the wrongness of such actions. The writer closed his tweet with something like, “Jesus, help them.”
When Dave saw the “liked” tweet, he gently reproved me based on the content of the whole tweet. I had totally read “over” the f-word planted angrily in the body of message.
That four-letter word that turns a movie rating from PG to R. That four-letter word we would never use in polite company. That four-letter word that intends anger, hatred, contempt.
Yipes!
Have I grown insensitive to that word? Seeing it written in graffiti all over our city. On posters in riots. Chanted loudly on video in news reports.
Have I grown cold to it?
NO!!! Yet, it is possible in that moment I had become blind and for that I ask forgiveness. To any who might have seen my “liked” tweet from another. To any more near who might experience blindness in me.
Forgive me.
Years and years ago, I used to listen to Steve Brown on the radio. Doing chores at home or on the many errands peopled by small ones. He encouraged me. He said something one time that has stuck with me. Not verbatim, but something like this: “If you’re moving away from God, He will grease the tracks. Same, if you’re moving toward Him.” Both those experiences have been mine over time.
May our worldly culture never have to be used of God to open our eyes to depravity…especially creeping into our own hearts.
Help us to always have eyes to see.
Truth matters. Foulness mixed in may not taint what is true, but it distracts from what is true. It can change the truth-bearers and truth-hearers. I never want to be a partner in that.
Forgive me. I will be more watchful in the future.
I don’t know about you, but this pandemic has me way more distracted than I want to be. It’s a good thing to be informed and to abide by the recommended safe practices. The struggle for me is the bent toward being glued to the news updates. Becoming a content expert on the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) as a private citizen will not make a difference in the larger…global…sense of this problem.
For the moment, let’s be champions of safe practices and in tune to our communities, especially the most at-risk, vulnerable. We can still reach out, in creative ways, still maintaining social distancing for now.
How thankful we all are for the medical/nursing professionals, first responders, scientists, and policy-makers out there helping us get through this! Also the lab workers, waste management folks, truckers, grocery and other food providers, farmers, etc. etc.
Two weeks…let’s pray these two weeks can make a difference (in all our countries) in the morbidity/mortality of this strange and sobering disease.
2) Words matter. – Our nation has been divided along political and ideological lines for some time now. With the growing and deadly problem of the Coronavirus in our country, we are being compelled to come together to turn around the devastation of this disease. In just over five weeks, we in the US have gone from a handful of cases to over 25,000. The political race for the next US Presidency has gone almost quiet, as everyone with any power does what they can for the sake of all Americans.
This is so REFRESHING.
It makes me feel like we are one country and I haven’t felt like that for a long time.
For our politicians to be willing to cooperate across the aisle and to speak the truth to each other and all of us, it sends a huge message of hope. Maybe we can come together as a nation again one day.
I wrote earlier this week about what we could learn from Mr. Rogers. The quote below is his…and serves us well today. If forgiveness didn’t take root in your young lives, it isn’t too late.
“Forgiveness is a strange thing. It can sometimes be easier to forgive our enemies than our friends. It can be hardest of all to forgive people we love. Like all of life’s important coping skills, the ability to forgive and the capacity to let go of resentments most likely take root very early in our lives.” – Fred Rogers
3) Leading Teams – Patrick Lencioni in the business world and Carey Nieuwhof in the church world are two of my favorite thought leaders. Below you will find two recent posts by them. Lencioni talks about the ideal team player in a new TEDx talk. I read his book of the same name and was enthralled by his talk on the three attributes of that team member – humble, hungry and smart. He also points out what you have to deal with when a teammate doesn’t have all three. The TEDx talk is a fast and fascinating rendering of his book.
Then Carey Nieuwhof takes on our current situation of teams working remotely. With so many of us practicing social distancing (a new phrase thanks to the Coronavirus), leading a “digital team” can be complicated. Nieuwhof gives wise counsel in his quick read below. Personalizing the experience of working from home is key.
4) Long-lost Relatives – Have you ever gone looking for relatives you’ve lost touch with? I’ve certainly done that with friends, and thanks to Facebook, long-ago relationships were happily rekindled.
In recent days, with the threat of this virus, and our hearts enlarging toward others, an opportunity presented itself to find cousins long-lost. Because of my parents’ divorce, my biological father’s family was a complete unknown. My mom and her siblings grew up with an alcoholic father). As happens with adult children of alcoholics, the shared pain was not something that held them together. One cousin who I haven’t seen in at least 30 years reached out to me, and we had a long and lovely phone conversations.
He filled in so many gaps on his family, and I was grateful. We also talked about my family, of course. His genuine interest and care touched my heart. Now I’m inspired to widen the search. To be honest, some of the conversations ahead may be painful…losses unshared, evolved misunderstandings…who knows what I will encounter. The risk is worth the reward of knowing these people… overdue as it is.
5) Shared Sacrifice – This is a new expression for me. I thought it was a concept borne out of our fight as a nation against the Coronavirus. However, it’s been used before – this idea of all of us cinching up our belts for one another’s sakes. President Obama talked about “shared sacrifice” and now President Trump calls us to it. Sociologist Jerome Karabel posted this week a beautiful piece on how the US steps up during times of war:
“America’s history demonstrates that, in times of war, we can rise above our ardent individualism and suspicion of the government and come together to defend the public good. So if we can…come to perceive today’s crisis as a war, we will rise to the occasion as we have done in the past.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, a spirit of shared sacrifice was everywhere visible: in the thousands of men and women who volunteered for duty, in the public’s acceptance of rationing, in labor’s no-strike pledge, in the purchase of war bonds by Americans of every economic level, and in the eighteen million “victory gardens” which produced one-third of the nation’s vegetables. During World War II, business converted to wartime production with astonishing speed, producing 300,000 military planes, 86,000 tanks, and 71,000 ships…[Today] the nation is at war with a deadly and stealthy foe. Like World War II, the current situation demands personal sacrifice and social solidarity. But unlike in World War II, we cannot wait years to win the war; this is a war that must be won in weeks, or at most, months. Every day of delay has the potential to cost thousands of lives. And if we do not act with decisiveness now, the toll may go well beyond the 405,399 Americans who died in World War II.” – Jerome Karabel
As government advances billions, if not trillions, of dollars into our economy, we in the private sector, businesses and private citizens, can share the burden of a nation under attack…and we will.
That’s five of my favorites for the week. How about you? The Comment section below is waiting for your words on life in this season of the Coronavirus.
The beauty of this brought tears to my eyes. I read where Italians sang this to cheer one another during the horrors and deprivations of WW2. https://t.co/rQzR4w2KUm
Welcome to your weekend…unless it’s not. Here are my favorite finds for this week. A couple are longer than others. Pick and choose. Hope it’s helpful.
1) Pink Panther on Guitar – In 1963, The Pink Panther comedy film debuted starring David Niven and Peter Sellers. So popular, it launched a cartoon series, followed by several sequels and a 2-film reboot in the 2000s starring Steve Martin.
The jazzy theme for Pink Panther was written by American composer Henry Mancini.
Nathan Mills, at Beyond the Guitar, has masterfully arranged and performed the theme. It brings back waves of nostalgia from those films/cartoons. All through my younger years, the Mancini theme was part of high school band performances and jazz dance concerts.
This piece is something altogether different and yet delightfully familiar, at the same time. Enjoy.
Here you go:
2)Avoiding Dehumanization – For some time, the verbal bashing of people in the news and on our own social media has been unsettling for me. Character defamation, name calling, shaming, and blame-shifting are escalating and inflaming.
When we find someone’s speech or behavior inhumane or dehumanizing, how does it help the situation if we call them out by behaving similarly? Does that not put us in a similar camp with the one we consider offensive?
Author, researcher Brené Brown speaks to this much more articulately than I:
“Here’s what I believe: 1. If you are offended or hurt when you hear Hillary Clinton or Maxine Waters called b**ch, wh**e, or the c-word, you should be equally offended and hurt when you hear those same words used to describe Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, or Theresa May. 3. If you felt belittled when Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “a basket of deplorables” then you should have felt equally concerned when Eric Trump said “Democrats aren’t even human.” 3. When the president of the United States calls women dogs or talks about grabbing p*ssy, we should get chills down our spine and resistance flowing through our veins. When people call the president of the United States a pig, we should reject that language regardless of our politics and demand discourse that doesn’t make people subhuman. 4. When we hear people referred to as animals or aliens, we should immediately wonder, “Is this an attempt to reduce someone’s humanity so we can get away with hurting them or denying them basic human rights?” 5. If you’re offended by a meme of Trump Photoshopped to look like Hitler, then you shouldn’t have Obama Photoshopped to look like the Joker on your Facebook feed.
There is a line. It’s etched from dignity. And raging, fearful people from the right and left are crossing it at unprecedented rates every single day. We must never tolerate dehumanization—the primary instrument of violence that has been used in every genocide recorded throughout history.” ― Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
We need to call ourselves to the same standard we expect in others… I sure don’t mean this to sound preachy. Many times, in various situations, I’ve wanted to call out someone’s words as being hurtful or disingenuous or their behavior as deceitful or self-serving. We want to do something!! Words are the cheapest action we can take. Does it change anything to verbally criticize someone on social media? I don’t think so.
Psychologist and author Dr. Henry Cloud, in his excellent book Necessary Endings, counsels us how to deal with three different types of people – the wise, the foolish, and the evil.
Wise people – Dr. Cloud points out that wise people can take feedback and use it in a helpful way. In dealing with wise people, talk to them (not about them). Put the truth out there in non-judgmental ways. Because they can handle feedback and will most probably use it to make changes, the way to deal with people in this category is to keep talking. Bring your concerns to the table and thoughtful and respectful ways. Communicate your own willingness to work for change, by actually working for change. No blaming, nor rationalizing behavior (yours or theirs)…staying in “good faith” relationships can actually invigorate the process of changes.
Foolish people – “The fool tries to adjust the truth so he does not have to adjust to it.” Again, talking about the person rather than with her doesn’t change anything, and, in fact, can inflame the situation if done publicly and she hears of it.Dr. Cloud advises, when dealing with the foolish: stop talking. Nagging will not improve a situation with a foolish person. Rather, set limits and, if possible, create some sort of consequence for the problem you wish you could talk to her about. Limits gave you some space and protection. That consequence alone may drive the person to look at their behavior and change it… At least, it takes the responsibility for change off of you and on to her.
Evil people – If the person you want to castigate on social media (or whom you want to believe news reports on her behavior) has shown herself to be evil, then don’t expect change. It can happen, but not by your behavior reflecting hers. As Dr. Cloud talks about putting limits up for yourself with foolish people, you put limits on the evil person when at all possible. He quotes the Warren Zevon song, “Lawyers, Guns and Money“. Maybe somewhat facetiously but also seriously, Cloud is warning to use what resources you have (within the law) to put distance between the evil person and you (and those you love). Antagonizing them in the news/on social media helps no one…and it dehumanizes everyone in its wake. [Guns have become a difficult and divisive subject. Guns is used here in the context of wars against evil or protecting oneself or one’s family against evil.]
3) The Power of Words and Names – Just as name-calling (see above) only dehumanizes us, we can use words and names as agents for giving life and honor. They can actually elevate a person, people, or situation. They can move people toward their best selves.
Words mean things.
Author, educator Karen Swallow Prior has written a fascinating book on how her voracious reading of books from childhood onward strongly and positively impacted her. To become the person she is today. The book is entitled Booked – as it should be.
Dr. Prior makes note of the power of words and names in her Booked chapter on E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. In the story, a spider, Charlotte, gives her pig friend Wilbur a different understanding of who he is by the descriptors of him that she wove into her web. Powerful.
“Charlotte’s Web is a metaphor for the power words have to shape us into who others see us as well as how we see ourselves.” – KS Prior
“Names are powerful words…All words are names, for all words signify something. The power of naming is a subset of the power of all language. God spoke the universe into existence and, in giving us the gift of language, He gave us a lesser, but still magnificent, creative power in the ability to name: the power to communicate, to make order out of chaos, to tell stories, and to shape our own lives and the lives of others.” – KS Prior
I love the power of words and parallel power in names. When we lived in North Africa, names and their meanings told us about who belonged to who and what they valued in the giving of names.
How we use words and how we choose names are part of what we give to the world…and to those we love.
4) After School Restraint Collapse – When our children would come in from school grumpy and disrespectful, I would feed them. Then we always had a bit of a break before any homework or other expectation was foisted on them. Little did I know that these are prescribed interventions for something called After School Restraint Collapse.
At the first of the school year, children (and young people) are adapting to new teachers, new routines and rhythms, new expectations. They are trying to cope with all the new and keep their names “on green” or off the teacher’s watch list. By the end of the school day, they are emotionally and physically done, so to speak. Thus, the disagreeable behavior on transferring from school to home. It’s like they need to blow off steam, or get out all the pent-up energy, trying to stay well-behaved all day.
Besides nourishment and a bit of a break, all the authors recommend that personal touch with their parents. Connecting through the day (notes in a lunch box or a book) helps. Having a no-expectations quiet affirming moment (in whatever way the child prefers receiving it) is also encouraged.
5) Using a Timer for Work – When it comes to writing, I could sit at my desk for hours on end. Sometimes, in fact, I do. However, other responsibilities clamber for attention. Using the alarm clock function has become a daily habit for me not to get lost in what is right in front of me. Just recently using a timer as well has become a great discipline. For larger tasks, I may set the timer for 30-45 minutes. For smaller tasks, and just to stay on track, I set 10 minute intervals. Before starting back up, a stretch break or checking on a teammate or a quick food or drink refreshment are all welcome.Photo Credit: MaxPixel
Sometimes, the timer works as a stop point, to move on to a meeting or another work function. Time fairly flies anyway, so a timer has given me a sense of both urgency and intentionality. It has also helped me be aware of when I’m wasting time or it’s being wasted by someone else (of course, that bears some gentleness in dealing with either situation). Photo Credit: Facebook, Jason Morehead
A timer has helped not just with writing and other work day responsibilities but also with cleaning house. It has added a sense of reward seeing how much can be done in short spurts of time.