the discipline of pointing ones' nose

i’ve recently been diagnosed with presbyopia. what this means, in laypersons’ terms is, i have old eyes. the result of this diagnosis is new glasses, and not just any old glasses, but bi-focals. well, not really bi-focals but actually their fancier cousin, “progressive lenses.” fanciness aside, my first several attempts at donning my new spectacles have left me frustrated and dizzy. looking up is fine but looking down or to the side results in blurred vision and a strange feeling of nausea. i’ve contemplated returning them, considering the look on the doctor’s face as i tell him, “i take it back, i can see just fine! i don’t need these after all.” i’ve also contemplated treating them as accessories since my kids tell me they are “hipster cool” and make me appear young and “in.” all coolness aside...these things take practice.

my seven year old nephew ethan has had bi-focals for a year and is brilliantly people smart. i figured a call to him might help me. i knew that he’d have words of encouragement and advice to help me adjust to this new way of seeing. “oh, it’s easy auntie.” he said, “the top part is for seeing and the bottom part is for things like reading. things where you really have to pay attention. you just point your nose at what you’re looking at and it really helps. just point your nose. just try it.”

so...i began pointing my nose. it takes a bit of adjusting. at times i forget to turn my face to follow a sentence, viewing the words through the portion of the lens intended for distance vision. at other times i point my nose up and direct my eyes down and find that nothing at all is clear. it’s hard to stay still enough to point my nose, to really look, and to pay attention. this reminds me of the discipline of contemplation.

according to the dictionary the word contemplate means “to look thoughtfully for a long time at” or “to think profoundly and at length." it strikes me that, just as the task of adjusting to new glasses is uncomfortable and slow, the practice of contemplation requires time. truly contemplating that which matters to me doesn’t make it to my to do list frequently and, when it does, i am not practiced enough to do it easily or well. i am quickly distracted. i have one more thing to accomplish. i have another call to return or email to write. you know how it goes...

if you talk to anyone who is serious about mastering a skill you will inevitably hear the word “practice.” baseball players do it. drummers do it. lecturers and sales people and baristas do it. they rehearse. they repeat. they train. in a yoga class i attended last week the instructor commented that she practices every day. she doesn’t “do” yoga, she “practices” yoga. the same can be said of those who are intentional about their bread baking or cello playing or prayer or meditation. practice is the name of their game.

for me, practicing contemplation is alot like pointing my nose at what i’m looking at. slowing down long enough to contemplate is not natural.  the instant culture within which i live delivers information at break-neck speeds. i wake up to more options for connection than imaginable and fall asleep having had access to the wide world all day long. screens of all shapes and sizes deliver personal and impersonal news to me twenty four hours a day and offer alternatives for distraction of all kinds.

what none of this connects me with is my internal world. while pointing my nose at screens i rarely ask myself, “how shall i invest my time today?” “how shall i spend my energy?” “to whom will i attend?” “what will nourish my body, my mind, my soul?” asking these questions, and then listening quietly to discern answers, is neither easy nor automatically instinctual. it is, rather, an act of discipline and sheer will by which we learn to attend to our insides as opposed to our outer shells only.

i’m not talking about the hipster cool, navel-gazing-which-leads-to-self-absorption, type of self reflection. neither am i referring to the agonizing paralysis brought about by defeatist self flagellation. what i am talking about is a quiet, non judgemental gaze at our motivations, our behaviors, and our lives in order to truly see that which drives us. from this place we can make better conscious choices about all manner of ways we spend ourselves, our time, and our energy.

the gift of contemplation is a more centered, grounded, and known self. as trees with deep roots and strong trunks can better handle challenges from external sources so can we better handle the stresses that come our way when we have set down deep roots into our own internal worlds. we may not always like what we find as we sit quietly with ourselves. better, however, to learn this in quiet than when the same disliked traits reveal themselves in a business meeting or with our friends or family or at midnight when we ingest the drink or food that pushes us over the edge of “why in the world did i do that?” the goal is not to think ourselves to death but rather to be aware that a deeply unconscious well of motivations and drives exist and then to consider whether we want to nourish and grow them or blaze a different path altogether. judgement is not the desired result of contemplation, rather simply being with the truth is the goal. when we are with the truth of who we are we can graciously accept ourselves or, with equal grace, chose an alternative and consider how to usher in a new way of living. 

none of this is easy or automatic. just as adjusting to new glasses takes time, so does adjusting to looking within, rather than automatically turning outward to determine how and who we are. three minutes a day of pointing my nose toward my insides was challenging at first. now it is easier. if i wouldn't have begun with three minutes, however, i'd still be dizzy at each attempt now. practice is rarely easy and almost never fun. it is, however, deeply rewarding when it pays off...and it will...

regardless of how my glasses make me look or see, i am grateful that they are reminding me to be intentional about HOW i look and TO WHAT i direct my attention. i am living with greater intention, moving through the dizziness and nausea that results from an honest internal gaze and coming out on the other side more aware and settled. this is a gift of the truest form of sight.

connecting inside the lines

It was 9 p.m. and my last client had left my office. My family was in Mexico on a week long mission’s trip and a bulk of my friends were away for spring break. I was taking this week as a writing and working time, peppering these tasks with small outings alone. Tonight, for me, was going to be “Ticket and Beer Night.” Portland’s new MLS team had advertised a 3 hour window from 7-10 that evening when individual tickets would be sold and it was also the 25th birthday of my favorite, locally made beer. My plan was to head downtown to the soccer stadium, snag some seats for a few matches, then head to the pub for a pint of Ruby.

I got to the area near the stadium at 9:23. I parked and began walking, in the cold night air, to the stadium four blocks away. When I turned the corner I saw a news truck and then...the line. Only 30 minutes to closing time and the ticket windows were besieged with people. I followed the line around yet another corner and deposited myself firmly at the back of it. The couple in front of me said they’d been watching the line all evening from their apartment and that it was moving quickly. They’d only just joined as I did. The college student behind me had followed me from near my car. Several folks joined in behind us but bailed within the first thirty minutes when we moved less than five feet.

It didn’t take long before the few of us at the end of the line began talking. One gentleman walked to the front of the line for us to see if they were going to close the windows at 10 or serve all of us willing to wait. Another crossed the street to smoke so that he wouldn’t impose his smoke upon us. A woman needed to run and get cash and we held her place in line. None of us had expected a line at all, let alone one as long as this one was so none of us were prepared for the 42 degree temperature, punctuated with raindrops and wind. 

As we rubbed our hands together to stay warm we shared stories of other times we’d stood in line. The couple and the college student spoke of waiting in lines for music festivals in other parts of the country and learned that they had all lived in Iowa. The single woman debated endlessly if waiting was worth it and asked us all what we thought of so called “convenience charges” leveraged by ticketing companies for online orders. She threatened to leave the line every ten minutes, claiming the online fees weren’t so bad, but never did actually leave because, how could she? How could any of us? We were making a story and it was a good one. Five folks, together late at night, downtown, unprepared for cold, unknown to each other, and yet captively waiting. 

At first each of us looked to our phones as we stood awkwardly with others in line. We sent texts, periodically looking at our phones and mostly down at the ground. As the waiting went on, however, phones were put away. Even when messages indicators sounded, no one looked. We joked about how cold we were and took turns getting discouraged as more and more games were announced as sold out. At one point I expressed a feeling of futility at the seeming un-moving nature of the line. “You can’t do that” the young man behind me expressed, “you’ve been the encourager this whole time. You cannot turn on us!” It was true, I had been a voice of “this is so fun” and now I was encouraged by him. In being willing to notice and comment he had blessed me.

Hungry and thirsty as the clock rolled around to 11:30 we began discussing our favorite restaurants, comparing the consistencies of various vegetarian gravies in town. We joked about one of us running off to find coffee for all of us and then decided against it due to an obvious lack of bathrooms.

The “young man,” we didn’t exchange names until four minutes prior to our all buying tickets and heading off into the great unknown, disclosed that he’d been in the armed forces as he recounted how he had come to live in Portland. I thanked him for his service. He thanked me for the paycheck. I paused. Having thanked many, many individuals in the past who had served our country, this was new to me. I had never been thanked in return. It endeared me to him greatly. The young man of the couple reported that he is currently working in an oncology/blood-brain barrier lab. He is applying to medical school. His partner, a young woman of around 22, works in a frozen yogurt shop and will begin graduate school in elementary education in the fall. The single woman works as a software consultant and went to high school where my uncle teaches. She may have had me as a guest lecturer at some point. Go figure. Our stories were being told step by step as we moved, and didn’t move, in line. In waiting together, we were connecting.

More waiting, more moving in place, somewhat frantically, to stay warm. Time passed. I noticed something. We were becoming a five-some. As the news anchor set himself up to report on the story for the 11:00 broadcast we responded together, as a group, that we were not particularly hip to being interviewed. Those in line ahead of us scrambled, as the rain set in, to get under the cover of the awnings and we five knew we wouldn’t all fit so none of us tried to get under. It was unconscious and yet we were functioning as a group. As we moved closer and closer to the box office window we didn’t seem to count time as obsessively as we had before. It was 1:00 a.m. but we were now connected and we knew it was ending.

We exchanged names quickly as the first of us was called to a ticket window. We expressed hope that we’d see each other at the matches. Two more were called to a window. And then, it happened. We were all dispersed and became focused on our individual purchases. 

I bought my regular tickets and then made my way to the cash only sold out/obstructed view line. There was one of my line-mates, purchasing tickets to a different sold out match. As I paid for my tickets he patiently waited and then, it happened. We, in the waiting-in-line-together-for-a-long-time-so-we-care-about-eachother sort of way, realized we’d made a connection. Having realized we were parked next to each other and walked to the line almost in unison, we walked back to our cars together. No longer bonded by the line, this gentleman was making sure that I got to my car safely. I was grateful and knew my husband would have been so as well. It was 1:10 a.m. and I was a single woman, alone downtown. He, at least 15 years younger than I, cared that I was safe. 

This experience matters to me. A lot.

Today, five days after my experience in line, I was downtown and near a restaurant that one of my line-mates had declared to have the best french fries in town. As soon as I realized this, I ducked in. I ordered. Exactly what she suggested as fabulous. I felt excited to do so, aware that I was leaning into a special bond made in the middle of the night, in the cold, between people who would, apart from this silly circumstance, never be connected. As I sat at the counter, alone, I chose to think of her and of her partner. I also held the other two of our line-mates in mind and offered prayers on their behalf. Oddly, I missed them and wished that they could be there. I wished that I had gotten their full names and contact information so that I could have shared that I’d visited the restaurant or possibly even have invited them to join me. I felt silly about this for a moment and then decided not to. Why not miss them? We had shared several hours of meaningful and fully focused attention. This is more than I share with many of my closest friends these days and that matters to me. Why not hope that I might be able to minister to them in some small way simply by taking their recommendations seriously, by letting them know that their words and thoughts matter? Why not?

We matter. We do. To ourselves. To each other. In being intentional about this we benefit. Why not lean into this? Why not?

My hope is that I will let this experience shape me. I want to cherish the moments when I encounter another. I want to let them impact me fully in whatever time we share. I want to honor them. Internally and externally. Let them matter. Fully. Maybe even get their number. So that I can invite them to share my fries.

3.2011

mother's day: not just for mothers

i’ve long thought that hallmark has hijacked our holidays. i don’t necessarily resent them. nor do i wish them ill. i believe, quite firmly actually, that people should be celebrated and that these “people celebrations” happen too infrequently. it’s just that i don’t like the pressure large corporations exert or the expectations they set. i don’t like that they set the expectation that moms should get flowers and chocolate on mothers day and dads should go fishing on father’s day. i don’t like that valentines day is only for lovers or that those who don’t fit into certain roles don’t get celebration days like those who do.  “hallmark holidays” are rarely simple and frequently painful.

there are few people for whom mother’s day (or father’s day or valentine’s day or any of the other days promoted primarily by greeting card companies and gift retailers) isn’t conflicted. motherhood is a tricky thing. those of us who are moms realize we are flawed and every one of us was given life by a deeply human individual. the june cleavers in this world are few and far between and nowhere near as perfect as the shiny, happy television persona appeared to be.

when mother’s day approaches some people pour over card selections, trying to find a sentiment that is both honest and kind. others feel resigned to either tell their mothers lies or ignore them altogether, often reintroducing guilt and shame that have long and complex root systems in the past. many people cry, weep even, for missing mothers they have lost or for children they haven’t had. others feel insignificant, unloved, unappreciated. mothers with kids at home feel conflictedly unworthy of the gifts they are given or secretly wish for a bit more attention on this very public day. few seem settled with the day as it is. somehow hallmark never captures this side of these holidays. there aren’t ads depicting the dread that many feel or cards for women who wish for children or for those who feel left out even though they are childless by choice.

so, this weekend, what if we each took charge of our own mother’s day? rather than letting hallmark, or anyone else, set our expectations we could take time to understand our own. if we are mothers we might, then, communicate with our families about what is meaningful to us in the way of celebration without passively holding them accountable for meeting our needs. if we have mothers we might work to discover ways of honoring them without allowing ourselves to resent them (remember, we are in charge of our emotions, not them). if we are in relationship with people who may hurt on this day (such as those who may feel marginalized in our culture by, for whatever reason, not being moms or those who have lost their mothers) we might find ways of reaching out to them. not pitying or obvious ways but ways none the less.

dictionaries define motherly as “resembling, or characteristic, of a mother, especially in being caring, protective, and kind.” whether your mother by blood lived out any of these qualities consistently or not i am guessing that you can recall a time or two when she did. i’m also guessing that you can identify others who have shown care, protection, or kindness to you. how can you recognize these gifts without giving more than you can emotionally, practically, or financially afford? if you overspend in any of these areas you are likely to resent the recipient. generosity is important but only insomuch as it is tempered with reality.

the same is true for the receiver. if you are a mother, own your expectations. don’t project them out onto others. ask directly and honestly and be mature in handling the response. if you are disappointed, think, feel, and talk this through with a trusted other before unloading it onto your partner or children. little about parenting is easy. use difficulties here to learn and grow into the kind of parent who is healthy and mature.

and so i, with great intention, honor the mothers in my life. while there are plenty of cards i could buy my mom there are none for graduate school advisors turned life long mentors or important people of other stripes. so...i’ll “write” my own. i am eternally grateful to my mother for teaching me hospitality, generosity of love, and creativity. i am boundlessly thankful to nancy who, for all intents and purposes, gave birth to my intellect and therapeutic skills and nurtured the complexity that is me in ways words will never quite express. and to jo, who is teaching me a new and deeper way of love, bless you for your profoundly meaningful presence. to the many other women in my life who are caring, kind, and at times even protective of me, thank you for your “motherliness” in my life. may i share all of your influences in every one of my own mother-minded ways of being in the world.

habituated ritual

The comics, with the sound of football in the background, was Sunday. Monday meant peanut butter toast, delivered to the bathroom door, as I got ready for school. October signaled prep time for our annual pumpkin carving party and the end of April meant the wallpaper sample books would come out to make May baskets for our neighbors. Road trips meant carrot sticks and bathroom stops at fancy hotels. The first Friday of the month we served at the Union Gospel Mission, my brother and I singing while I played my tambourine (yes, I’m serious).

I am mindful of these family rituals as Easter is upon us. I grew up in a home where the Christian celebration of Holy Week was replete with cherished church services, spiritual depth, and the most elaborate egg hunt I’ve ever been privy to. My brother and dad had to make maps so they could locate any unfound eggs so they wouldn’t rot.

What are the rituals by which your rhythm is set? What do you do when you first wake up? How do you ease yourself (or not) into sleep each night? How do you mark the changing seasons? In what way do you celebrate birthdays and life transitions and death? What do you do when it’s quiet?

The line between rituals and habits is a fine one. I like to think that rituals are chosen, created out of intention and planning. Habits, on the other hand, are fallen into. They are often counter to ones’ real choosing. There are healthy habits, of course, but these seem to me to be more ritual. More chosen. More work than habits ever are. It may be arbitrary, but it’s my way of thinking.

Every day provides new opportunities for habits or rituals. For automatic behavior or well made choices. Going to synagogue on Friday night, 7-11 after a workout, or having an egg hunt on Easter can be habit or ritual. So can checking out your reflection in every window you pass or getting out your cell phone (or, what I believe would be more aptly called your “pocket computer”) every time you’re bored or idle.

Last night my family was in the car together. As soon as I put the key in the ignition every one of my family members got their phones out and were interacting with them. They were sharing about what they were seeing on their screens but even still I felt stirred. We weren’t talking about ourselves or asking about the other. Our heads were down. I realized, “this is a habit.” 

When my children were little cell phones were just coming on the scene. I noticed how my car time with my kids changed as I became increasingly reliant upon that time to return calls. I realized that we weren’t discussing the landscape as much any more and we were rarely singing together. As this dawned upon me I made a conscious choice to not be on my cell phone when in the car with my children. This was not an easy vow to keep. Sometimes, when I was exhausted of interacting with them or we were frustrated with each other for one reason or another, all I wanted to do was bury myself in a conversation with someone else. At other times I wanted to make my silent promise known in order to play the martyr card (“I’m keeping myself from doing something I really want to do so that I can be available to you...you’d better praise me and honor me for that!!!!” Oh how sad I am to admit how often that temptation hit.). Sometimes I just broke my commitment and called away. I was far from wholly virtuous or perfect. Overall, however, I feel glad that we shared many discussion-filled drives and plenty of “I’m so frustrated with you I could scream” seething and silent rides as well. We learned to tell each other when we didn’t want to talk and learned to look up and about. Our ritual was that car rides were for togetherness, spotting things, and sometimes for playing games.

Rituals are important to our souls for so many reasons. They tell us what to expect and let us know we can trust ourselves to do some things that help us mark time. They can pave the way for growth and development and depth of experiences. Habits that are evolved into, on the other hand, often act to keep us in one place and bar us from intentional action.

So many of our rituals, these days, are wound around technology. We locate charging stations to plug into every night before bed. We check Facebook. We buy apps and use them until the newest version comes out. We get home from being away and walk straight to our computer. We rely on our phone to keep us from being bored in line or allow us an escape path when a conversation gets long or when we just want to be alone in a crowd. Away from technology we chose our food and our friends and our activities out of habit more than intention and can go long periods of time without ever forcing ourselves to be uncomfortable. Whole lives maybe.

What if we attended to our rituals? What if we looked up and looked boredom square in the face? The same with silence, wait time, and opportunities to delay? What would happen if we assessed our habits and sought to replace one or two with intentional choices that might connect or inspire or stretch us? What if we squirm? What if there are awkward silences? What if we stop looking in the window, or mirror, or reflective surface and attended to others instead? What if we fight the urge to take our phone out just one time a day? What if the ritual became asking ourselves, “How can my actions lead to a greater respect for myself and other?” What if?

dadalookit!

This morning I watched longingly as a mom and her two young children sauntered past my window. They were walking slowly and looking up at the trees. I could imagine the dialogue between them. “Mom, look, there’s a nest.” “Oh...you’re right. Good eye!” “Mom, look, there’s a bird.” “Oh, gosh, you are so observant.” “Mom, look. Mom, look. Mom, look.”

Every child has their own way of asking to be watched. My own nephew’s phrase of choice goes something like, “Dadalookit.” “Mamalookit.” It isn’t four distinct words, “Daddy/Mommy look at this.” It’s more of a singular sound and it is distinctly his. Before he spoke, the sound was a movement and he would gently, but firmly, put a hand on each side of our faces and direct our gaze to whatever it was he wanted us to see. He, like every one of us, wants to be watched. 

We all do things every day to either attract or defend against the notice of others. We accomplish, we please, we shock, we comply, we dress, and we perform. In our own unique ways what we’re really saying is, “Worldlookit, here I am, notice me, validate me, tell me I matter.”

In a world where every coffee date, small group get together, and even chance meeting is blogged, photo texted, and tweeted we have more ways than ever to be seen. The new narcissism emerging from this trend is noticeable. So are the ways in which our efforts to be seen are causing commensurate feelings of loneliness, failure, and lack in those that are doing the looking. And, really, isn’t that all of us? When logging into Facebook gives us opportunity to know what parties we were excluded from, our fear of rejection is fueled. When watching the walls of “friends” serves to clarify the lack of action on our own, we feel the fool. When comparing the photos of our thinner (at least from that angle), richer (in objects, wealth, friends, or beauty), and more accomplished (at least in our own minds) friends to our own, the disparity between their “more” and our “less” takes us down.

To be fair, there are positives to the way in which our technology connects us. We are more aware of the day to day lives of a broader range of friends. We can get the word out about timely events and occurrences and have access to friends far away. We can organize ourselves to support important causes and needs and communicate with the world in important new ways. These are gifts. 

There is something strangely powerful, however, about broadcasting our lives and being seen for what we do that is not always about gifting. There is a heady sense of thrill when a post (or tweet or text) elicits a long string of responses or when a photo gets forwarded (and forwarded and forwarded and forwarded...) or when people publicly admire something we’ve done. When we say “Worldlookit” and it looks, we light up. 

The problem is, we light up...for a moment. Then someone else’s “Worldlookit” distracts the gaze of our community and we are left look-less. Or lonely. Or envious. Or hungry for the attention we were enjoying. Little of this is conscious and even less is chosen.

As water will fill our empty bellies and make us feel full, so will the look from others make us feel attended to. That’s important. Read it again. As water will fill our empty bellies and make us feel full, so will the look from others make us feel attended to. Truthfully, however, being attended to merely by being seen is yet a drop in the bucket of what we most deeply long for.

We long, I believe, to be known. To be seen “through” in some ways. While it terrifies us, we want what is real about ourselves to be met by others. The external things we do and ways we present ourselves are little more than symbolic Facebook walls which we use to either accurately or deceptively communicate about what is inside of us.

How many times have you posted a status update that reads, “Sitting at Starbucks feeling lonely and regretting the fight I picked with my friend” or posted a photo of yourself from an angle that is less than flattering? How many times have you received a tweet that says “I am insecure and could really use some genuine affirmation”? Instead of these honest reflections we tailor our disclosures hiding within them an often unconscious desire to be seen instead of known.

I am far from inexperienced here. My own flip-flopping tendencies to both desire and be uncomfortable with the attention of others leads to paralysis in the face of social media. I avoid my personal Facebook wall for two reasons: 1) the reality that telling the world what I’m up to in any particular moment doesn’t feel very different than a narcissistic entitlement to direct the spotlight to myself and 2) the possibility of how I’ll feel when others more accomplished, more celebrated, and more-in-every-way-than-me post status’ that push my “less than” buttons. Even though I know that walls provide only a small and uni-dimensional view of my “friends,” I still fall prey to the opportunity to compare and evaluate that it breeds. I know how to ask to be truly known and yet I still, at times, settle into a desire to be seen instead. It’s so much tidier and focused, you see, if I control what you see of me. 

My mind knows, however, that “Worldlookit” becomes so much more powerful and rich when it is converted to “You who I know to be safe and caring and care-full, please know me.” My mind knows but my automatic and culture shaped behaviors still get the best of me. It is hard to push past the easier need to be seen to the harder work of asking and inviting to be known.

And so, I repeat, again and again: Being seen is satisfying. Being known is meaningful. Being seen is stimulating. Being known is risky. Being seen often feels safe and within the range of my control. I can hide from, avoid, and divert being seen. Being known, however, involves an openness that is opposite of hiding, avoiding, and diversion. It feels vulnerable and terribly out of control and exposed and wonderful and deep and frightening and wonderful and fearful and free and messy and substantive and inconvenient and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and...