Four weeks ago on an early Spring Friday night we found ourselves sitting in the back of a packed college auditorium waiting to hear one of the freshest political voices of the decade.
Barak Obama found his way to the podium as students, faculty, administrators and guests gave him a rousing ovation in obvious admiration for his already strong legacy of thoughtful choices and decisions as a freshman Senator.
He "had me at hello"...smart, humble, clear, concise....thoughtful, purpose-driven and generous...a social advocate of the highest caliber I was ready to offer my services - in advance - of a 2008 bid for the presidency.
His statement on holding national office rang true with what we were experiencing of his candor and irreverence for pomp and circumstance when he said, "I don't care about the title of Senator...I don't want to be something, I want to do something." I sat back in my very comfortable auditorium chair and had to fight to stay engaged in what he was saying...rather than spin off into my own orbit of self-examination....so I took out my PDA and pulled up a blank memo to capture that sentence for digesting later, and went back to listening to one of the most riveting hours of nonpolitical musing on the state of education in this country that I, as a former teacher and school principal, had heard in a long time...but more on that in another blog.
In going back over, what became, a long list of bulleted "quotes" from that evening later that weekend, I again was stopped in my tracks by his statement that in essence said, "I'm not seeking to be something, but to do something..."
I have long been focused on the difference between living my life as a verb, rather than a noun. But Obama's comments demanded that I revisit how effectively I have been letting my own life articulate that philosophy.
For most of my adult life I was all about the nouns...or at least thought I was. I needed a child so I could be a mother, I wanted to be published so I could call myself a writer, I wanted a classroom and a group of students assigned to me for nine months... so that I could see myself as a teacher...you get the picture...without the permission of a noun (the right...or any for that matter ... person, place or thing) I was not validated.
My journey out of this noun-based thinking came through what Mary Baker Eddy refers to as the "stress of circumstances"....
In 1988, after years of longing and praying (while both single and married) to be a mom, I was finally blessed with some hope that my dreams would be coming true. My husband and I were asked to adopt an unborn infant. I would soon be a mom. I had waited for so long for a baby so that I could begin my adventure into the inner sanctum of mothering, what I knew was my native land, indigenous culture, and first language...mommydom...filled with lullabies, chocolate chip cookies, and Babygap. I had helped my parents (and later my widowed mom) raise my seven younger brothers and sisters and I knew I could do it...I had the skillset and the long playlist of lullabies in my toolbelt to get me started, and as a former elementary school teacher and principal, I knew kids. All I needed was a baby (noun) and I was good to go. Now it looked like I was finally going to get my chance to be a mom (noun).
After our son was born, I enjoyed some wonderful days of bliss with him before it became clear that his birthmother was reconsidering her surrender and although it took quite a long time for her questioning to become conviction, my peace of mind was shattered with her first indication of uncertainty. How could I go back to NOT being a mother?
Since this is a blog and not a novel (and you can always call or e-mail and ask for specific details if you are so inclined...it's a healing that I never get tired of sharing) suffice it to say she did finally decide to parent "our" son herself and I learned some valuable (more so than I could ever have imagined at the time) lessons on the importance of being able to "surrender" (verb) in the office of motherhood.
My healing essentially came when I ceased to think that I was waiting for a baby (noun) to mother (verb). To "mother" is a verb. It includes expressing the qualities of care, order, nurture, affection, support, joy, attentiveness, etc. Being the expression of these qualities is active...not passive. You can do it anytime, anywhere, with anyone....it doesn't require a person place or thing to validate it's right to be. To "mother" is to be a verb...qualities in action. I didn't need to wait to DO it...and in fact it was exercising my right to "mother" (verb) that brought forth the child (noun)....not the other way around (and that truly is another story).
I now share the mothering of our four daughters and one son with their birthmothers, their fathers, their step mothers and fathers, their partners, aunts, uncles, grandparents (birth and step), teachers, coaches, camp counselors, bunkhouse moms....the world family.
With the realization that being a verb was life...a whole world of opportunities and possibilities opened up before me. I stopped waiting to get published before I thought of myself as a writer...I was, and am, a writer because I WRITE (verb) and always have written... voraciously...and suddenly I found that I was being published....often!
I ceased to wait until we owned a house (noun) in the right location (noun) before I would invest in home improvement with all the design skills and talents I enjoyed expressing, but started improving whatever space I was in....my office, a friend's backyard, the rental house we were in...first by bringing in beautiful thoughts, then possibly (if asked) by sharing ideas for how it could be rearranged or maybe even how a change in paint color or a decrease in clutter could bring out the beauty of the space...and without realizing it we were in "our own" home making improvements and investing our time and talents more broadly...not more significantly or in a way that more fully demonstrated my sense of "home" but just a further and fuller demonstration of those verbs that were already fully validated by their utility...not through a facility!
And the list of verbs that gave birth to nouns goes on and on!!
This "principle" has been most fully realized in my career as a Christian Science practitioner, or spiritual healer...there was a time when I thought my "practice" was defined by patients....NOT!!!
My practice of spiritual healing is defined, determined, validated by the PRACTICE (verb) of spiritual healing...first in my own heart, life, thinking....by the way I look at the world and those around me....the way I embrace my neighbor, the way I act on calls from the global community to engage in making a difference spiritually, the way I nurture the children (all children...of any agelessness) in my home (consciousness)....and then the calls from patients come in....not because I am a Christian Science practitioner....but because I practice the science (in the laboratory of my life) of being (verb) Christian (verb....loving, honest...you know the rest) unconditionally...without the need for nouns....just be cause it is who I am....I am a verb...
Thank you Mr. Obama for the timely reminder....
Now I am looking forward to turning words like summer and winter into verbs....as in, I summer (verb) in the mountains and I winter (verb) on the beach....ahhh...can't wait to see how those verbs give birth to nouns!!! No more waiting for summer....camp all year round...heaven on earth!
Showing posts with label Principia College. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Principia College. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Thursday, May 18, 2006
"Not all Who Wander are Lost"
Not all who wander are lost.
- J. R. R. Tolkien
Graduating from high school in 1972 this was as far from my motto as any truism could be. I had dreamed, planned and saved for my own version of the fast-track out of a family of 10 and into one of the top 10 universities in the nation. An academic resume I was proud of and thought would secure my successful admittance by the time I was 18 made my lofty goals appear attainable.
My trip was well-planned, the ticket purchased, and the destination clearly in sight.
Or so I thought....later that year my dad would pass on suddenly leaving a wife and 8 children without insurance, pension or homeownership. I was the oldest and suddenly my well-planned itinerary was sent fluttering into the nearby Atlantic and I was a "wanderer"....it took me a long time to realize, however, that I was not lost.
I have begun to ask myself....what would it take for the wanderer to be lost? Something is not lost on it's own, something is lost to someone. If I had been lost I would not have been lost to myself, but to someone....to God.
That just isn't possible if my concept of God is all-knowing, always present, and omnipotent as the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy aver.
There is a time in Jesus' career when one of the rulers of the Pharisees comes to him and states that he must be a teacher come from God because of the miracles he is doing. The Pharisee is trying to make connections....it's as if he is saying, "Okay, because you are doing all these amazing things you must have this "bloodline". Jesus doesn't just take it as a compliment and a justification for his works, he says something quite strange. He replies to this acknowledgment of his spiritual lineage with the statement "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." HUH???
That was Nicodemus' response too, "how can a man be born again when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born again? For many years I was like our friend Nicodemus....just not as courageous in my questioning. I wanted to say each time I read these passages, "Hey, I don't get this at all!' But I'd read them aloud in church or in private when they appeared as part of a scriptural selection without hesitation.
Jesus goes on to reply, "Except a man be born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye must be born again."
This is usually where the selection would end and I would be just as baffled as poor old Nicodemus was when the Master said it to him over 2,000 years ago. That was until one summer when these same citations appeared in a weekly lesson of study designed to serve as a suggested guide for that week's spiritual journey.
As I read the citations once again I started to become a tad frustrated. "What in the world was he trying to say?' "Why did the guy have to be so cryptic?" I came to the end of the selection and there, what seemed like, out of the blue, was this statement, "The wind bloweth where it listed, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit."
Wow, I thought...what strange juxtapositioning of statements from the Scriptures....born again AND the wind blowing where it listeth...then I looked up to where the citation sources are listed and dang if this wasn't actually an uninterrupted sequence of statements on the Master's part.
As I sat there pondering what relationship those two statements had to one another...both statements that had left me bewildered and baffled in the past...an almost weightless piece of seed fluff from a burst pod blew across the porch of my cabin in the Rocky Mountains where I was serving as a spiritual healer for the summer at camp for teens.
I didn't move.
Now, I am a language deconstructionist at heart....I love taking words apart and finding their roots and discovering obscure uses and applications...my tools are usually a stack of dictionaries...but this day all it took was that one seed blowing where the wind was sending it. Being BORNE of the spirit (Pneuma, wind)....
Ahah (and this message could have been only for me)....but I had my answer, my healing truth about this passage for me...in my own life. Here is what God said to me on the porch of my cabin that day:
We are not born into families with their DNA, birth orders, financial profile or ethnic proclivities...we are not born blindly (see also story of Jesus healing the man who was born blind John 9) from disaster to opportunity, from financial misstep to educational legacy, from parental mistakes and sins to "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" philosophies and academic hierarchy...we are being borne (carried, sent) by the Spirit (inspiration, revelation) and, therefore, although our path may seem tangential and circuitous...compared to someone else's....it is always governed by an omnipotent and all-knowing good God who loves us and knows exactly where we need to be at each moment in our journey...at each intersection...in order to fulfill His purpose for us.
So...can those who seem to be wandering EVER be lost. Not to an all-knowing, all-powerful, good Father-Mother God who loves us.
I eventually ended up studying at two of those universities I had my heart set on (among others I would end up attending over the course of my academic sojourning)...maybe not in the way I had planned with an itinerary in hand, ticket purchased, and a quick flight on the Concorde to Paris...but more like this...as I got in the car to drive to the airport I ran into a hippie on the side of the road who needed a ride to Nova Scotia to care for his mother, so I drove him there, then since I need to head South I drove along the coast and got waylaid in a charming village and ended up living with a woman who ran an orphanage and decided to take the children traveling throughout the country visiting churches and synagogues singing for their supper who invited me to join them when they decided to hop a schooner for Africa but got waylaid in Southern France and ended up joining a troupe of gypsies working the vineyards and juggling for pennies in Provence....eventually we made it to Paris as street performers....but hey, we got there....
Wouldn't that have been fun! So was my journey....I am here where the Wind has blown me...and I know now that I was never lost....just wandering...and I am so grateful. He always knew where I was...He had sent me there...provided me with perfect traveling companions... carried on His breath of purpose....
K
- J. R. R. Tolkien
Graduating from high school in 1972 this was as far from my motto as any truism could be. I had dreamed, planned and saved for my own version of the fast-track out of a family of 10 and into one of the top 10 universities in the nation. An academic resume I was proud of and thought would secure my successful admittance by the time I was 18 made my lofty goals appear attainable.
My trip was well-planned, the ticket purchased, and the destination clearly in sight.
Or so I thought....later that year my dad would pass on suddenly leaving a wife and 8 children without insurance, pension or homeownership. I was the oldest and suddenly my well-planned itinerary was sent fluttering into the nearby Atlantic and I was a "wanderer"....it took me a long time to realize, however, that I was not lost.
I have begun to ask myself....what would it take for the wanderer to be lost? Something is not lost on it's own, something is lost to someone. If I had been lost I would not have been lost to myself, but to someone....to God.
That just isn't possible if my concept of God is all-knowing, always present, and omnipotent as the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy aver.
There is a time in Jesus' career when one of the rulers of the Pharisees comes to him and states that he must be a teacher come from God because of the miracles he is doing. The Pharisee is trying to make connections....it's as if he is saying, "Okay, because you are doing all these amazing things you must have this "bloodline". Jesus doesn't just take it as a compliment and a justification for his works, he says something quite strange. He replies to this acknowledgment of his spiritual lineage with the statement "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." HUH???
That was Nicodemus' response too, "how can a man be born again when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born again? For many years I was like our friend Nicodemus....just not as courageous in my questioning. I wanted to say each time I read these passages, "Hey, I don't get this at all!' But I'd read them aloud in church or in private when they appeared as part of a scriptural selection without hesitation.
Jesus goes on to reply, "Except a man be born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye must be born again."
This is usually where the selection would end and I would be just as baffled as poor old Nicodemus was when the Master said it to him over 2,000 years ago. That was until one summer when these same citations appeared in a weekly lesson of study designed to serve as a suggested guide for that week's spiritual journey.
As I read the citations once again I started to become a tad frustrated. "What in the world was he trying to say?' "Why did the guy have to be so cryptic?" I came to the end of the selection and there, what seemed like, out of the blue, was this statement, "The wind bloweth where it listed, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit."
Wow, I thought...what strange juxtapositioning of statements from the Scriptures....born again AND the wind blowing where it listeth...then I looked up to where the citation sources are listed and dang if this wasn't actually an uninterrupted sequence of statements on the Master's part.
As I sat there pondering what relationship those two statements had to one another...both statements that had left me bewildered and baffled in the past...an almost weightless piece of seed fluff from a burst pod blew across the porch of my cabin in the Rocky Mountains where I was serving as a spiritual healer for the summer at camp for teens.
I didn't move.
Now, I am a language deconstructionist at heart....I love taking words apart and finding their roots and discovering obscure uses and applications...my tools are usually a stack of dictionaries...but this day all it took was that one seed blowing where the wind was sending it. Being BORNE of the spirit (Pneuma, wind)....
Ahah (and this message could have been only for me)....but I had my answer, my healing truth about this passage for me...in my own life. Here is what God said to me on the porch of my cabin that day:
We are not born into families with their DNA, birth orders, financial profile or ethnic proclivities...we are not born blindly (see also story of Jesus healing the man who was born blind John 9) from disaster to opportunity, from financial misstep to educational legacy, from parental mistakes and sins to "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" philosophies and academic hierarchy...we are being borne (carried, sent) by the Spirit (inspiration, revelation) and, therefore, although our path may seem tangential and circuitous...compared to someone else's....it is always governed by an omnipotent and all-knowing good God who loves us and knows exactly where we need to be at each moment in our journey...at each intersection...in order to fulfill His purpose for us.
So...can those who seem to be wandering EVER be lost. Not to an all-knowing, all-powerful, good Father-Mother God who loves us.
I eventually ended up studying at two of those universities I had my heart set on (among others I would end up attending over the course of my academic sojourning)...maybe not in the way I had planned with an itinerary in hand, ticket purchased, and a quick flight on the Concorde to Paris...but more like this...as I got in the car to drive to the airport I ran into a hippie on the side of the road who needed a ride to Nova Scotia to care for his mother, so I drove him there, then since I need to head South I drove along the coast and got waylaid in a charming village and ended up living with a woman who ran an orphanage and decided to take the children traveling throughout the country visiting churches and synagogues singing for their supper who invited me to join them when they decided to hop a schooner for Africa but got waylaid in Southern France and ended up joining a troupe of gypsies working the vineyards and juggling for pennies in Provence....eventually we made it to Paris as street performers....but hey, we got there....
Wouldn't that have been fun! So was my journey....I am here where the Wind has blown me...and I know now that I was never lost....just wandering...and I am so grateful. He always knew where I was...He had sent me there...provided me with perfect traveling companions... carried on His breath of purpose....
K
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