Life brings experience. If we let it, experience brings change. Over time I find that my beliefs shift, my values refine and things that once seemed clearly correct don't feel right at all. Often there is an every-day moment that brings this shift into focus.
I had such a moment recently. My daughter, fresh from a year in a democratic school, started laying out rules for her new group of friends. I cringed. It wasn't the quality of the rules. Megan has always been thoughtful of others and a year of parliamentary procedure and democratic rule-making built her skill making clear, fair rules. Rather my cringe was at the concept of rules.
I began to question my self-classification as "democrat". To be clear, I"m not talking about a political party. It's the more common definition that I find myself rejecting. It's the majority rule or majority vote approach to life and governance. It's the idea that passing a rule will solve a problem, that might makes right (even if that might is in the form of votes).
I remember being my daughter's age. Back then I believed that the right rules could solve anything. I loved rules. Rules could make my world ordered, safe and predictable. My adult self knows this isn't true. Now I see rules differently.
At their best, rules are a substitute for relationship. In situations where strangers who have little in common must co-exist, rules can add efficiency and increase security. An airport, for example, couldn't function without rules. There is no time or space for building trust and care, so instead we use rules to tell us how to behave toward one another.
The problem comes when we make the substitution within the context of a community. When our neighborhoods, gathering spaces and places of worship use rules unilaterally to solve problems, or when a group of girls begins to form rules before they have even met together for the first time, rules serve a different purpose. In these cases rules divide. They categorize behavior as either right or wrong. As those behaviors are attached to people, rules become catalysts for judgement and righteousness. They are enemies of trust and care. Rules don't just substitute for relationships, they block them from forming. They tell me that I am right and you are wrong and there is no need for me to get to know you, explore your ideas and learn your viewpoint. They create a wall between us and box me into my own righteous certainty.
The alternative is trust and vulnerability. Living without rules means taking the time to listen to others' needs and finding the courage to voice my own. Listening takes time and energy so often in short supply. Sharing needs is even more costly. Sharing means traveling through uncertainty, exposing myself as needy and putting myself in your hands. It means being disappointed. It means understanding that needs don't always get met. It means embracing and sharing my own vulnerability. That, I'm learning, is the cost and the source of connection. It is only when I open myself and embrace my vulnerability and yours that we can connect. As terrifying as it is to approach that moment, it is there that we will build the foundations of joy and peace. It is there that our deepest need is fulfilled - our need to be connected to others.
Democracy and parliamentary procedure can never teach us this. They can buy us order and there is a time and a place for that. The danger is in substituting rules when understanding is possible.
I'm glad I live in a larger democracy, albeit a very flawed one. In my day to day life, however, I don't want to see lists of rules. I want to be with you, face to face and understand you. I want to place myself in your care and know that trusting is better than carrying armor. I want to pick up the piece of litter that you dropped and clean the coffee cup you left unwashed and be at peace believing that we are all just doing our best. I want to let go of "fair" and "right" and live instead in truth and resilience.
If this seems radical to you, if you think I'm setting myself up for hurt, if you think I'm crazy, come on over. I'll wager two cups of tea that when we sit down face to face we will connect and we will both be richer as a result.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Learn the Easy Way
If I could learn the easy way, I would have arrived here long ago. Sometimes I pay attention to life's little nudges, but more often I don't. Most of the the really meaningful lessons in life come as I stumble through through life's challenges.
It's holiday time again. My Facebook feed is overflowing with plastic eggs and artificial colors. Smiles amid furry costumes, new clothes, and flower-covered crosses. I added my own little piece of bragging righteousness. My simple celebration, my joyful children, my rejection of materialism. In my own way I stood up for my values amidst a flood of commercialism. That's OK, but it's only part of the story. Here, with room to reflect broadly, there is space for truth.
The truth is, I love a good holiday. I love to wrap presents and fill baskets. I love to buy joy for my sweet children. I remember my childhood holidays, the magic of a basket of eggs transformed overnight into chocolate treats and a fabulous game of hide-and-seek. Even as nostalgia rules the day, I'm sure I can make it even better for my children. I can add that great new idea from Pinterest. I can make the gifts bigger, the treats more varied. I convince myself that doing more will create more magic.
The truth is that I have bought plastic eggs and Easter dresses. I have bloated my children with sugary treats, I have made holidays ever bigger. Yes, I have come to see it as too much, but I didn't get there gently. I might have been led by the gentle observations of my mother noting how things have changed since she raised her children. It could have been a news story of how much is spent each year on Peeps. It might have been a post on the dangers of food dye or the simpler example of a friend. All of those things were around me, and while I attended to each in some way and many caused some small change, none could overcome the momentum of my enthusiasm for holiday extravagance.
The truth strips away my righteousness and forces me to confess that it was not my values or my convictions that changed the celebration at my house. It was the challenge. We live with the challenge of histamine-intolerance. My children can't eat wheat, dairy or eggs. Easter brunch is a minefield for us. The candy aisle offers nothing but temptation. Community egg hunts offer no treasures. I've taught my children too well that cheap plastic toys do little but stuff the landfills. How then, is a mother to create Easter magic? It is a challenge that opens the door to learning.
I don't like this learning space. I'm much happier "doing my best" in this crazy, busy world, often relying on commercial substitutes for the ideals I dream of. I prefer drifting off to sleep knowing that come morning my children will wake to the expected joys and I will be rewarded with the expected smiles. I'm not brave enough to venture far into the unknown when I have the option of the comfortable norm.
This Easter I am blessed not to have that option. This Easter one idea after another was foiled and in the end celebrations were pretty small. Pennies were hidden instead of eggs. Candy was homemade and poorly formed. Baskets never found their way out of the attic and rain interrupted our planned bout of spring planting. I feared my children would simply "outgrow" Easter at far too young an age.
They didn't. It turns out the magic of Easter isn't measured by the size of the basket. The joyful power of novelty is greater than that of fulfilled expectations. The satisfaction in solving a puzzle is greater than the reward of eating a chocolate bunny. And the candy? Well, if I'd bought Reese's eggs, my children would have found it much harder to share out the bits - chocolate for the chocolate-lover and peanut butter for her brother.
Once again, my children and life's challenges have taught me lessons that I couldn't learn the easy way and I am grateful.
It's holiday time again. My Facebook feed is overflowing with plastic eggs and artificial colors. Smiles amid furry costumes, new clothes, and flower-covered crosses. I added my own little piece of bragging righteousness. My simple celebration, my joyful children, my rejection of materialism. In my own way I stood up for my values amidst a flood of commercialism. That's OK, but it's only part of the story. Here, with room to reflect broadly, there is space for truth.
The truth is, I love a good holiday. I love to wrap presents and fill baskets. I love to buy joy for my sweet children. I remember my childhood holidays, the magic of a basket of eggs transformed overnight into chocolate treats and a fabulous game of hide-and-seek. Even as nostalgia rules the day, I'm sure I can make it even better for my children. I can add that great new idea from Pinterest. I can make the gifts bigger, the treats more varied. I convince myself that doing more will create more magic.
The truth is that I have bought plastic eggs and Easter dresses. I have bloated my children with sugary treats, I have made holidays ever bigger. Yes, I have come to see it as too much, but I didn't get there gently. I might have been led by the gentle observations of my mother noting how things have changed since she raised her children. It could have been a news story of how much is spent each year on Peeps. It might have been a post on the dangers of food dye or the simpler example of a friend. All of those things were around me, and while I attended to each in some way and many caused some small change, none could overcome the momentum of my enthusiasm for holiday extravagance.
The truth strips away my righteousness and forces me to confess that it was not my values or my convictions that changed the celebration at my house. It was the challenge. We live with the challenge of histamine-intolerance. My children can't eat wheat, dairy or eggs. Easter brunch is a minefield for us. The candy aisle offers nothing but temptation. Community egg hunts offer no treasures. I've taught my children too well that cheap plastic toys do little but stuff the landfills. How then, is a mother to create Easter magic? It is a challenge that opens the door to learning.
I don't like this learning space. I'm much happier "doing my best" in this crazy, busy world, often relying on commercial substitutes for the ideals I dream of. I prefer drifting off to sleep knowing that come morning my children will wake to the expected joys and I will be rewarded with the expected smiles. I'm not brave enough to venture far into the unknown when I have the option of the comfortable norm.
This Easter I am blessed not to have that option. This Easter one idea after another was foiled and in the end celebrations were pretty small. Pennies were hidden instead of eggs. Candy was homemade and poorly formed. Baskets never found their way out of the attic and rain interrupted our planned bout of spring planting. I feared my children would simply "outgrow" Easter at far too young an age.
They didn't. It turns out the magic of Easter isn't measured by the size of the basket. The joyful power of novelty is greater than that of fulfilled expectations. The satisfaction in solving a puzzle is greater than the reward of eating a chocolate bunny. And the candy? Well, if I'd bought Reese's eggs, my children would have found it much harder to share out the bits - chocolate for the chocolate-lover and peanut butter for her brother.
Once again, my children and life's challenges have taught me lessons that I couldn't learn the easy way and I am grateful.
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