welcoming

walking into target is rarely an occasion for me. i’m typically in a hurry, ready to grab what i need and go. tonight, however, was different. rushing through the parking lot i looked up and caught the eye of a friend i hadn’t seen in quite some time. as soon as she recognized me she lit up and ran to hug me. literally. she ran. we had a really wonderful (all too brief) time of catching up on some basics and then it was (all too soon) time to say goodbye. in response to my “it is sooooo nice to see you” her husband responded, “it is so nice to be seen.” we laughed and hugged our goodbyes and went our separate ways. later, as i walked back to my car, i realized i was still smiling. it’s been a complicated season and i’m a complicated person (who isn’t) so i never know for sure how people will feel when they see me. cristi’s response to me, however, left no doubt. she lit up. she ran to me. she held my gaze and didn’t let me avoid answering her questions about me. she saw me. in so doing she, quite literally, welcomed me. all of me.

this experience is convicting to me and causes me to consider how i welcome others. in person. on the phone. via email. or text. 

brene brown says that one of the best gifts a parent can give a child is to simply light up when the child enters a room. this could apply anywhere. the best gift a partner might give could be to light up when their partner arrives home from work. or a run. or a nap. the best gift a disgruntled caller could give the customer service rep might be a lightness in their voice. a child could answer their phone in a voice that says, “i welcome your communication” when their parent calls rather than sounding as though they are barely conscious. actually listening for the answer to “how are you” might be an offering. it is, however, so painstakingly difficult to give such gifts.

welcoming others requires effort. it also requires vulnerability.

while i’m quite confident that cristi’s response to seeing me was automatic and authentic, it was also risky. i could have made a “you’re crazy” expression and postured for a quick, dismissive side hug. her husband and daughter could have teased her for her squeal and unabashed excitement. it’s vulnerable to fully welcome someone. you often have no idea what you’ll receive in return. 

what if i run to you and you turn from me? what if i greet you with the cheeriest of voices and you roll your eyes? what if i welcome you graciously and i can tell you have no interest in sharing time or space? what if i initiate and you never respond?

welcoming others without regard for what we will get in return is costly. too often we’re more concerned with how we will be seen than with how we will see those we encounter. we edit and posture and position ourselves. we weigh the possible outcomes and offer up only as much enthusiasm as is “warranted,” making sure we don’t give more than we might receive back. in all, we’re too preoccupied with our own self consciousness and how we might look to authentically welcome others.

we all love to watch others be welcomed wholeheartedly. we can’t look away from reunions at airports, banners in lawns welcoming babies or soldiers home, or bold declarations of love on youtube. last week i cried when a teen ager yelled out from the silence of a waiting crowd, “that’s my sister!” before her drum corp took the field for a very formal performance. what must it have felt like for him to yell from a hushed and full grand stand and what must it felt like for her to hear his voice? i am guessing that the last thing on either of their minds was how he looked as he yelled.

what might it take for each of us to forego our self conscious editing to welcome others boldly, meaningfully, and “loudly,” thinking not of how we will look but of how the other will feel? if you need to practice, i invite you to practice with me...i will receive your welcome and welcome you in return. fully. with running abandon.

close enough to see you sweat

objects appear differently in close proximity than they do when they are gazed at from afar.

the first time i was given the opportunity to watch a professional ballet company rehearse, i sat in the studio in awe. with no stage/audience separation and only the rehearsal piano as accompaniment, i was shocked at how loud and “clunky” toe shoes sound against a wood floor. the feats which had seemed effortless from far away took on a different look and feel when i heard the loud “clomp” of toe shoe hitting ground. the sweat soaking through the the dancer’s warm ups belied the effort with which they danced and their deep breaths were audible upon exertion. similarly, i recently attended a small studio concert of a favorite local band. i had never before heard (or even noticed) the hollow and audible breaths the cello players took as they gave themselves to the songs they played. within this tiny shared space these “from the deepest place within the player” inhales and exhales were reminiscent of those of the best yoga teachers who make their breathing audible to model for their students. while at first i was distracted, as i sat taking it in, the breath became a beautiful part of the playing and i felt sad when it was missing in the recording i listened to on the way home.

closeness gives the gift of authenticity. the closer i allow you to be to me the more you know about my internal values and external traits. authenticity means letting you experience the less than perfect parts of me. it doesn’t allow me to appear as though i dance through life making only light landings or that i don’t show signs of exertion when i try hard at things. when you’re close you see me sweat. or say stupid (or inaccurate) things.  

this is, of course, too simplistic. authenticity can be lived out even when space separates the viewer and the viewed. the hearer and the heard. and so on. closeness, however, has a way of forcing the issue of what is actual. when i keep you at a distance, i feel as though i have so much greater control of that which you see. when we communicate only via channels that allow me to maintain distance i can pick and choose what i reveal. when i merely “update” you instead of sharing time and space with you, i have the luxury of things seeming the way i’d like them to seem. i can edit and place emphasis on that which i would like you to notice.

no one is more guilty of this than me. i share in a seemingly basic and automatic human drive to put one’s best foot forward. the world of social networks, of texting over talking, and of having access to a world of information and entertainment 24 hours a day has only made this drive a more viable opportunity. if we are lonely there’s little need to “expose” this to others when we can simply numb ourselves with a constant flow of youtube clips and netflix queues. when we feel insecure we can torture ourselves by trolling everyone else’s perfect lives on facebook, reinforcing our tendency to keep making space, or amass “positive feedback” by sharing an easily likable status update. when we’re angry at being let down, a text can communicate so much more “cleanly” than our voices ever could.

and yet...what are we missing out on?

in the recording studio the band can “quiet down,” or eliminate all together, the breath of the musicians and the sounds that distract from the desired impact of the recording. the seeming effortlessness of a professional ballet performance is aided by the distance between the dancers and their audience and grand musical scores which drown out the sounds of heaving and landing and breathing like an athlete.

do we really desire a relational landscape where these “edits” and altered realities are all we know of others or allow others to know of us? sure, no one “deserves” access to your internal world without having earned it. too-much-too-soon vulnerability is rarely a good idea. boundaries are important for a reason and we all need some moments of seemingly flawless spectacle to entertain us now and again. even still, i respect ballet dancers so much more since i’ve seen the state of their feet, heard the weight of their leaps land abruptly on hard ground, and seen the strain of exertion that lies only barely behind their pleasant expressions. i listen with greater interest to the music made by cellists now that i have witnessed, up close, the embodied-ness with which they play. i am grateful for these opportunities to understand more fully the reality that goes into the gifts these artists give us.

i am similarly grateful to those of you who allow closeness. mine and yours. each of us has a gift (or gifts) to give the world and only rarely is that gift one that is spot-able from a distance. more often than not it’s something much more subtle that can’t be seen from far away. frequently you might not even see it as a gift but, to me, knowing that you sweat too, that your body feels jarred when you land, and that your breath is labored when you try hard is a relief and inspiration beyond all others. so i will keep making efforts to present my authentic self rather than my distanced, staged, status conscious one and will gladly welcome yours.

presence vs fumbling for a phone

i just completed a month of senior events and graduations. final recitals. senior plays. farewell assemblies. all topped off by the graduation ceremonies themselves. i went to several this year, including that of my daughter, who chose a very unique senior year at a waldorf high school. her graduation ceremony was a thing of true beauty. each student was honored by a faculty member who spoke of them with care and grace. corsages were presented to each parent and an incredibly appointed buffet and live band reception followed. the gym was transformed to a sacred space of sorts and a reverence hung heavy about the room. unlike every other graduation i attended, there was an absolute absence of people taking photos with their phones. this was true at the senior project presentations and farewell assembly as well. as i looked around at each of these events, i blushed at finding myself the only person recording anything on a digital device.

waldorf education is built on tending to the whole person. waldorf educators commit to welcoming their students with respect and reverence and endeavor to speak to the mind, body, and spirit of each of them. in waldorf schools computers are not introduced in the classroom until high school (sometimes middle school) and families are encouraged to limit the consumption of media in all its forms. whether one loves or questions these ideals and distinctives, i am here to tell you that waldorf adults experience their children’s/student’s important moments in a way that is increasingly counter cultural. they are not fumbling for their phones. they are not recording videos. they are simply experiencing. fully. hands free (for clapping, hugging, wiping away the tears that result when one is fully present). eyes looking into eyes (instead of screens).

when i am in a crowd with these folks, it’s noticeable how truly present everyone is. it looks so different from the images i’m used to seeing. news stories clad with photos, the foregrounds of which are filled with small rectangular cell phone screens shown recording the moment in real time. flashes from the next table over as diners capture images of their meals. concert goers working harder to video the act than to actually see the stage. it feels different too. there is a quietness. a reverence. a sense that what is happening is important. so important that you don’t want to miss it. so important that experiencing it might be more meaningful than capturing it digitally.

in beauty: the invisible embrace john o’ donohue wisely states:

“traditionally, a journey was a rhythm of three forces: time, self and space. now the digital virus has truncated time and space. marooned on each instant, we have forfeited the practice of patience, the attention to emergence and delight in the eros of discovery. the self has become anxious for what the next instant might bring. this greed for destination obliterates the journey. the digital desire for the single instant schools the mind in false priority. each instant proclaims its own authority and the present image demands the complete attention of the eye. there is no sense of natural sequence where an image is allowed to emerge from its background and context when the time is right, the eye is worthy and the heart is appropriate. the mechanics of electronic imaging reverses the incarnation of real encounter. but a great journey needs plenty of time. it should not be rushed; if it is, your life becomes a kind of abstract package tour devoid of beauty and meaning. there is such a constant whirr of movement that you never know where you are. you have no time to give yourself to the present experience. when you accumulate experiences at such a tempo, everything becomes thin. consequently, you become ever more absent from your life and this fosters emptiness that haunts the heart.”

anymore it feels like our life journeys have little intentional rhythm. we don’t live rests and patterned notes. there is little difference between foreground and background, crescendos and decrescendos. instead it often feels as though we are all trying to capture as many conversations, pictures, videos, and people as possible and hold them in our pockets. rather than leaning into the moments we find ourselves in, we often escape them to share them with others who are present only digitally. we leave present circumstances to check in with our games, the news, the twitterverse, or our social networks. without fully playing the present measure, we skip forward to the next line of music.

i believe that much of this has to do with our ever dwindling ability to be still and our shrinking capacity to be authentically, vulnerably present as full selves in an uncertain world. we don’t like to be caught off guard. we don’t know how to handle the unknown. or make eye contact. or navigate an unforeseen conversational lull. boredom is our enemy and we have made the pointing out of the “awkward” a national obsession. 

i went to what was supposed to be an outdoor concert today. the band included five musicians who had traveled 7 hours to play what would normally be a packed venue. due to rain, the event had been moved indoors. when i found the new location, five minutes into the first set, i felt instantly awkward when i entered, from a door alongside the stage, a mostly empty room. only one table was occupied and it held two people. as i settled into my seat, it would have been much more comfortable to take out my phone and surf the web, check my email, or text someone than it was to sit there, face forward, eyes open, making direct contact with everyone on that stage.

i frequently go to concerts alone specifically to be anonymous. to lean into opportunities to be lost in crowds, part of experiences that are bigger than me and that are feasts for all my senses. this was exactly the opposite. i could not blend in or be lost. my presence, as well as that of each of the 7 others in the room, was remarkably obvious. it struck me, however, that if i felt uncomfortable, very likely everyone else in that room felt the same. and so, i sat and i engaged fully. i forced myself to not look away when a band member made eye contact. i didn’t lock my face to a screen (which would have been oh-so-convenient) to avoid the chit chat that i feel so terribly inept at between songs. i didn’t say, like i wanted to, that they could really just take a long break and grab a few more beers when the others left the room because i really wasn’t enough of an audience to play for. and, i think, i grew a little. or at least i didn’t reinforce the messages i tell myself that i’m a terrible chit chatter and not a worthy audience. i gave them the gift of enjoying their offering and, since i didn’t allow myself to escape to other places via my phone, i enjoyed the offering much more fully. i noticed the skill of the slide guitar player, the nuances of the lyrics, how each song made me feel, and the way the light moved across the room. 

bringing ourselves fully to a moment requires effort and intention, especially when so many enticing distractions are available to us every moment of every day. we must, then, decide ahead of time how we want to engage in each time and space that we find ourselves in. we must plan to navigate awkward moments, pregnant pauses, uncomfortable glances (or stares). we must train our selves to be sturdy enough to stay present even when (or maybe especially when) all we want to do is capture the moment so we can “share” it with others or escape it altogether by engaging our digital universes. perhaps our desire to do so detracts from our ability to experience it ourselves. fully. with all our senses. in embodied ways. how the moment smells and feels and tastes and sounds and looks.

perhaps this kind of attending requires bringing the self to moments in new and different ways. for me this means that i experience a play differently if i dress up to attend it or a concert more fully if i force myself to keep my phone in my back pack because i’ve decided ahead of time that i am where i am to be at the concert not to tell others i am there. i attend to conversations differently when i enter them intentionally, without ringers or vibrations alerting me. i arrive to the present with a new reverence if i’ve taken time to determine these things ahead of time. if i agree with myself to be with myself and others fully in this place called my life.

john o’donohue says, “our neon times have neglected and evaded the depth kingdoms of interiority in favour of the ghost realms of cyber-space...we have unlearned the patience and attention of lingering at the thresholds where the unknown awaits us.” 

and so, i am endeavoring to live life in greater deference to the interior world.  mine and yours. i am trying to linger at the threshold of the unknown, trusting that doing so will grow me. i may not have as many photos to share or videos to show but my internal experience and the intensity of self i will have available for attending to you will be enhanced. for this, i am eternally grateful...even if i am awkward.

inconvenienced and uncomfortable

two months ago i spoke at philhaven hospital in mount greta pennsylvania. i shared the room with 40 therapists and community members who were fantastically interactive with the material i presented around technology and health. at the end of the day a truly remarkable woman approached me to share some reflections. among them was a phrase that has stuck with me in deep ways. “i tell parents that they do a huge disservice to their children when they don’t give them opportunities to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable.”

while i have encouraged parents and kids alike to maintain an ability to be bored, to require themselves to take relational risks, and to boldly attempt tasks they don’t already excel at, i’ve never been able to put these suggestions into a sentence so concise. what had taken me half of my 6 hour talk to say, this brilliant woman said in an instant.

technology has afforded us some amazing opportunities to avoid inconvenience and discomfort. gone are the days where waiting is a necessity. we can text our orders to restaurants to be picked up curbside. we download feature films to our smart phones.  we scan bar codes while shopping to compare prices at neighboring markets. we troll facebook telling ourselves we’re building a network of friends to whom we reveal our very edited lives. we avoid awkward pauses in communication by turning our attention to our devices. we auto-fill online order forms and don’t notice that all the ads that appear on our screens match up perfectly with our interests, making our devices seem to offer up all our favorites without our ever “asking.”

some of these things are wonderful. truly.

all of them are convenient. 

many of them save us from being uncomfortable.

what we’re left with, however, is the question of just how comfortable and convenienced we might chose to be if we were conscious of the choice.

my parents were fantastic road trip executers. activities were plentiful, snacks healthy and fun, and discussions lively. even having shared a small back seat, my brother and i have nothing but fond memories of our 12 hour drives between california and oregon (which contained only 2 ten minute stops). my parents also used to throw (and let my brother and i throw) really fun parties. in eighth grade they helped me move the furniture out of our family room for a party where the girls built banana splits in the boys’ mouths, we made tall human pyramids, and played twister. a few years later we turned our living room into a hawaiian beach for a date my brother dreamed up. we hosted a party every year on christmas eve that spanned the hours of midnight to 3 a.m. and, often, we loaned our house to others to throw parties when their own homes weren’t fitting for one reason or another. our house wasn’t large or fancy and we weren’t wealthy. my parents were simply resourceful and willing to be inconvenienced for a greater “good.” 

i have encountered many other families with similarly spectacular inconvenient stories. families who continue to share one desk top computer which is housed in mom and dad’s bedroom. families who forego expensive cell phone plans in order to afford farther reaching travel destinations. families who play board games, get out their instruments for community jam sessions, and volunteer together. families who organize block parties, neighborhood parades, and who give up their own rooms to sleep on couches when they have overnight company.

i know individuals who are also willing to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable. they take sabbaths (a 24 hour period where they rest or take breaks from certain activities or objects that normally keep them from being present to their lives and/or their spiritual selves) or go without expensive coffee drinks to give money to a charity instead. individuals who mail letters for the simple desire of keeping the postal service alive. people who forgo smart phones in order to keep themselves from constantly consuming technology and people who refuse to have difficult conversations via text. even though it would be easier. especially because it would be easier.

if we are never inconvenienced, if we are never uncomfortable, we will never grow. i would imagine that it is inconvenient for a seed to need to be buried in the ground, uncomfortable to live deep in the wet (or dry) earth, and possibly painful for a sprout to break through the skin, push up through the earth and make its way to light. yet without these discomforts a seed just stays a seed. it never grows.

it is easy, in our hyper-convenienced world, to begin to feel entitled to the many eases technology presents. in doing so we under-develop the ability to strive for knowledge, to seek real wisdom (over mere advice), to wrestle to find answers to complex issues, to think critically. as our technologies “learn” us they present us with ever more personalized images, information, and offers that pander to our preferences. if we don’t name (or recognize) this process we simply begin to unconsciously consume only that information that is dished up to us based upon that which we already support, like, believe, endorse. we are neither uncomfortable nor inconvenienced and, what is worse, we don’t even realize it.

we are hard wired for connection. to others. to ourselves. to God. these connections are risky. to engage in them authentically we must get out of our comfort zones and grow into new spaces.  even if we don’t chose to live in those spaces we must at least explore them. like the seed that never reaches to the light for fear of the dirt along the way, when we keep quietly to our comfortable places we eventually die a dried up seed. when we risk the reaching, when we force ourselves into inconvenient and uncomfortable spaces, we not only grow our own flexibility and resilience but we inspire it in others.

while it’s uncomfortable to venture a conversation with someone whose first language is not our own, doing so affects both parties. we may feel silly, it may go terribly, but at least in trying, we are growing. while it’s inconvenient to limit a child’s screen time to a moderate amount and it requires us to become creative in helping them find new forms of entertainment, doing so demands a host of relational skills and investments from adult and child. these investments will pay off. while it’s risky to go phoneless for a day, letting our minds wander when we’re in line or at a restaurant or walking down the street, it might develop imagination. while we may feel silly staring into space, or initiating eye contact, or asking for directions, or offering up a compliment to someone we don’t know...all of these discomforts hold the potential of great growth. i have yet to meet a person who encountered their great personal passion or unique gift or calling by sitting in one place, speaking to no one (including themself), consuming images fed to them on a screen.

being a whole, grounded, authentic, sturdy self is rarely easy. it is often inconvenient (it’s so much safer to be cut off from our selves). it is almost always uncomfortable. it is messy. it means feeling like an idiot sometimes. and looking like one alot. it means moving the furniture out for a party and interacting on long road trips and a million other large and small actions that make us feel vulnerable. it means going to places unfamiliar (especially places that stink) and trying foods that make us wince and expressing things to others that make us feel incredibly uncomfortable. it means dancing by ourselves if there is no one to dance with. or inviting someone to join us for a meal even if it’s a simple one. or the house is dirty. or all we can afford is top ramen with hot dogs.

(if you are the woman who coined the phrase, “inconvenienced and uncomfortable,” thank you! please write to me and tell me your name so that i can ask your permission to spread your amazing phrase and give you all the appropriate credit you deserve.)

mirror, mirror on the wall

it used to be that a face was just a face. eyes looked. expressions communicated. ears heard. mouths spoke and tasted and kissed. cheeks flushed after running or when embarrassment took over.

before the advent of the printing press we were able to see only those faces immediately before us. things changed as photographs became publishable and, later, projectable. suddenly we were exposed to a vast number of faces while at the same time having our own faces seen by greater numbers. the promulgation of faces on page and screen were then able to be used to influence mood, tone, and behavior. which brings us to today.

today i hear more and more about our faces as tools. computer scientists at nyu’s movement lab have spent the last three years developing technology that scans facial behaviors of fans in sports stadiums, google glass puts computers on our faces, and neuromarketers study faces in order to sell more product. this makes me sad. and a bit dumbfounded. it seems that we’re elevating the phrase, “taking it at face value” to a whole new level.

based on new camera software that scans facial expressions to identify and predict fan and consumer behaviors, we are all about to be watched alot more than we have been.  the computer scientist behind the nyu software has a contract with one pro-sports organization to roll out this summer. his cameras will scan not only for where fans are looking when, but also for how well what they are looking at is being received. by aggregating this data he’ll be able to communicate to the stadium stake holders which jumbotron ads are watched, which are well (or poorly) received, which players get the crowd emoting, which half time acts cause everyone to lose focus, and more. similar software has existed for a decade (or more) in the neuromarketing world where advertisers study facial responses in order to determine which advertising images hold attention (eye contact) and which diminish it. google glass, expected out within the year, has fans everywhere guessing that the device may include head movement and eye blinking as options to control some of its functions.

if we don’t stop and think critically, these advances just seem cool. how amazing is it that we can predict when a fan will buy a beer at a soccer game simply based upon where she is looking on field and on screen? how handy is it that she can have that beer within ready grasp at the precise moment she wants it? is it not unbelievable that we could take photos, video, and watch news and facebook highlights all while simply looking into our glasses? how convenient is it for the products we like to be projected, seemingly effortlessly, onto our screens as we read and surf and update? how fortuitous that devices (and the apps that run them) know us so well and cater to us so effectively that we are barely required to think.

while cool, these so called “advances” also give me reason for pause. while others are pausing to consider (and be concerned about) the effect all this facial recognition and camera software might have on privacy, i am more deeply concerned with the way in which it might impact our sense of self in the world. if i have “taught” sellers to market to my tastes and preferences and they have responded by making those preferences more easily available, i will be less likely to take a risk with what i try, my tastes will remain unchallenged, and i will become more complacent and uninspired. similarly, when my way of being in the world is unconsciously and seemlessly reinforced, what motivation do i have to believe that i am not the center of the entire world (as opposed to just my own)? why will i notice, affirm, or respect the preferences of my neighbor when i have my own proclivities catered to without my ever being truly, consciously aware of this? will i believe that what is on my screen is what is on everyone else’s (because “i am the world”)? taken further, if i can record images and audio from our encounters without your ever being aware that i am doing so, or be checking facebook while we converse, our face to face interactions become less organic and about you and more potentially pregnant and about me.

at root, it seems that all the “conveniences” that these technologies and software provide have the potential to deeply impact the human experiences of transparency, healthy spontaneity/risk taking, humility, and internal sturdiness. living in a time of self promotion makes it difficult enough to develop a hearty sense of self as it is. add to that a digital experience/world presenting us with a never ending flow of images, ads, and offerings all birthed from algorithms and preference charts generated by our own clicks and expressions. in so many ways we have little reason to think of anyone or anything else any more. the self that results from this intense personal focus is one that is over-developed on the outside (preferences, wishes, etc) and under-developed in the way of deep personal character and integrity. this is a self that has taught the world what it likes on the outside (to eat, to wear, to watch, to buy, to receive)  but has not spent enough time in quiet contemplation to know what it needs to thrive internally (a knowing of ones limits, abilities, feelings, and values; an ability to be quiet and bored; and a flexibility about relationships with self and others).

so why might it be important that a beer not be available at the soccer match the minute i want one? because if it isn’t, perhaps i’ll be forced to have a new experience with a new taste and a new level of awareness. perhaps i’ll sit tight longer and gain a deeper sense of attention to the game. or maybe i’ll be stretched in some other, small way that will connect me more deeply with a world that isn’t made up of my own self generated preferences. a world that isn’t all about me.