Stuff & Non-Sense

I am sifting through my belongings these days, filtering them with the question "Do I love this enough to pay to move it?" Since I don't know if or when I'll be moving, I am a bit indecisive on many things, but adamantly certain about others, and those are going out the door.

There is something in all of us that makes us as acquisitive as magpies. It starts early. Nearly every child has a security object of some sort: a beloved blanket, a particular stuffed animal, a favorite pacifier, a possession that reassures her that all is right with the world. Every parent has tales of sneaking the filthy object into the washing machine while the child sleeps, hoping to avoid the restless, tearful, anxiety-ridden hour that the lovey is out of his hands.

If only it could stop with that single object. The security blanket is an irrational selection, made without language or even much memory. It is a purely sensory choice. Stories abound of parents who have tried to have two or three of the object, just in case, only to have the newer, cleaner object rejected with scorn. Still, managing and housing that single object is a relatively simple task, but only the first of the many layers of stuff you will acquire with your children.

After the objects loved for their sensory value come the objects beloved for their familiarity. The endless list of favored place mats, particular tee-shirts, and oft-read bedtime stories occupy space in a parent's data base of things that make a child happy. As children grope for some small measure of control in a world that, from their point of view, is constantly expanding, familiar objects give them a place to focus, a way to re-orient themselves when things are constantly shifting.

At some point some object will become saturated with a particular memory and then become impossible to part with: a lucky talisman, a gift from a special someone, a piece of clothing worn on a particularly memorable occasion. These items multiply over the years and can accumulate to alarming proportions. I know from personal experience that every one of the hundred stuffed animals a couple of kids can accumulate over ten years has a back story. "I won that kitty at the school carnival in second grade. Amanda gave me that for my ninth birthday. Grandma brought that when I had the chicken pox." You might swear you've never laid eyes on the object before, but your child remembers each one individually.

Next comes the collection phase, where your child fixates on a particular item and accumulates as many variations of the item as possible. Coins, stamps, pens, bottle caps, baseball cards, the possibilities are endless. And there is such joy each time another piece of the collection is acquired that even after the child loses interest, neither you nor she is willing to get rid of the collection.

There is no sense to this attachment to stuff. There are a few special people who can hold it all in check, but most of us are drowning in our stuff. And all of this is layered upon the stuff we actually need - dishes and screwdrivers and shoes.

The effect of our stuff on our relationships is probably the place where faith intersects this question. We come into this world attached only to our mothers, and we leave it attached only to God. No possession can replace relationship. If we are followers of Jesus, we follow a leader who lived simply, unencumbered by the responsibilities of stuff. We follow a leader who lived a life rich with relationships: a deep attachment to God, a core group of close friends, and many, many casual yet caring encounters with people he healed and loved and taught. Does your stuff make sense in the context of your faith journey? Does your stuff block your child's view of your faith life? Does your stuff make sense, or is it nonsense? 

Daddy Sang Bass. . .

Sitcoms are filled with references to how mothers influence their children but precious little attention is given to how dads influence their kids. Yet the marks dads leave, even if they are absent, are huge. Fatherly influence is important to both boys and girls and goes way beyond genetics. Here's a very small sampling of ways that fathers influence their children:

• Preschoolers with actively involved fathers have stronger verbal skills.
• Children tend to embrace the food preferences of their fathers.
• Children with actively involved fathers display fewer behavior problems in school.
• Girls with strong relationships with their fathers do better in mathematics.
• Fathers role model what it means to be an adult to adolescent sons.
• A father's presence or absence significantly impacts a child's security.
• Fathers who attend church regularly are more likely to see their children continue in the church as adults.
• A young girl's positive relationship with her father fosters better relationships in the workplace and with authority figures in adulthood.

Sounds like a very tall order! What is an actively involved father? How do we get all these benefits for our kids? Let me propose a ridiculously simple exercise to get you started: Sing in church!

Active participation in church means more than standing up and sitting down at the appropriate times. It means folding your hands and closing your eyes during the prayers, and encouraging your child to do the same. It means singing along with the hymns. Not all of you sing like Blake Shelton or Josh Groban. No problem. Just sing along as best you can, and you will get better. More importantly, your kids will want to sing with you. Reading along with your kids in the hymnal, whispering the meanings of words they don't know, or singing your favorite choruses in the car after church will make a big impression on them. When you don't sing along it says to them that you are not involved, and they will copy you.

What follows is a generalization that will not hold true in every family, but it is still worth thinking about. Most children spend significantly more time with their mothers than with their fathers. This makes a dad an object of greater mystery and interest than a mom who is far more available. Your kids are watching. Intently. They know what you do, and they imitate it.

My mother deliberately taught me a thousand things before I started school, including how to love my kids. My dad taught me to tie my shoes. Guess what I remember in exquisite detail? You got it! Learning to tie my shoes still ranks as a big achievement because it earned my dad's approval.

So sing to the Lord. Sing with gusto and enthusiasm, in tune or out. Sing out your wonder and awe at the amazing child entrusted to you by God Almighty. Someone is watching you.

Are We Friends?

Am I your friend's mother, or your mother's friend? Are you the daughter of my friend, or the friend of my daughter? Or are we friends in our own right?

Nothing can bring a puzzle like this to light like planning where everyone should sit at a wedding reception. My daughter did all the heavy lifting on this for her wedding - I just did the overthinking part on the sidelines. Some choices are easy - work people sit with work people, bride's family with bride's relatives, but there are always people who don't fit, exactly.  People who have independent relationships with the bride or groom and with their respective parents. Do they sit with friends of the bride and groom? Do they sit with family friends? Where do they fit in?

Maybe I was extra sensitive to these divisions because I was also doing camp where young counselors were part of my team and as the week progressed I got to know them better than I knew some of their parents.  I can now count them as friends because we have laughed and suffered together as friends do - especially when we are the "adults" in a room full of children.

This week our "sermon" was delivered by young people who had recently attended the ELCA National Youth Gathering in New Orleans. They shared some wonderful stories of their experiences but one haunting note chimed in: they did not feel part of the church before they went to the Gathering. They felt that they were not fully part of things - that church was intra-generational. The youth group did things together, and the adults did things together. They did not whine about this - in fact they celebrated the knowledge that this is not actually the case. It made me wonder though; when did people stop mentoring young people at church?

I think banishing young people to a single generation lifestyle is probably a bad idea. It robs them of mentors,  restricts their activities and conversations to a particular cognitive level, denies them the opportunity to see things from another perspective, makes nearly everything competitive, and also limits their historical perspective. On a purely utilitarian level - who will be more qualified in the job market, the one who understand her peers, or the one who understands people of multiple generations? From a faith perspective, it seems to have similar benefits: knowing people's stories helps us to understand how God works in the world and we reap the richest rewards when we hear those stories first-hand.

Engaging in real friendship with people of another generation is not a stream that trickles down from the oldest to the youngest. It is a two-way street where I gain from knowing my daughters' friends and my friends' daughters, and they gain from knowing me. While the mechanics of relationship probably differ for men and boys or across the gender divide, the benefits remain.

Blessings on your friendships! May they span many generations.

Further along the parenting journey

I thought that by now I would be much further along with my "after the kids leave" list.  I started my own private Pinterest about twenty years ago when I realized that this or that hobby would take too much time or too many resources away from my kids. I have lists of books I have been meaning to read for a decade or more. Lists of places I want to visit someday, a box full of recipes to try, pictures of quilts I would love to make, and a Netflix queue I didn't even start until shortly before my nest became empty.

Like nearly everything else I anticipated about parenting, the transition to the empty nest has been much more complicated than expected. I figured the girls would go to college, get jobs, get married and eventually there would be  grandchildren . I guess I imagined that they would call for advice from time to time, keep me up to speed on trends, and that we would gradually evolve into friends. That's not exactly how it has gone.

I really miss being their primary debrief-er. Sometimes I find out about things weeks or even months after they happen. This implies there are things I never find out about at all. They aren't being secretive - there's just so much life going on that it can't all fit into phone calls and e-mails. And, there are no buffers either. When something goes wrong, there isn't the day-to-day interaction to rub off the sharp edges. I have to find my way out of these bruised places by myself. I understand all too well now why, as a young woman, I always felt that I left my mom wanting more. She did want more. I do too.

The hardest part has been the intensity of the feelings that accompany each of their milestones. The joy, pride, excitement, and amazement overwhelm my attempts at detaching. I realize that I still want my eyes to be the ones they search for in the crowd, my arms to be the first to go around them, my ears the receptacle of all the backstage details of whatever event is underway. Now they have husbands and in-laws and friends I don't know. I have not been displaced; I am still their mom, and will always be, but my role has changed, probably not for the last time.

Eventually my heart will catch up to my brain but it's not there yet. In the meantime I listen for what God wants me to do next, and keep one ear tuned to my "baby monitor" in case I should be called upon for something that only a mother can do.

Summer Lovin'

Spring and summer collided yesterday, with a hot, rainy, sunny, breezy, something-for-everyone kind of day. I, a decidedly indoor kind of person, was out in it as my church hosted a block party. And the crazy-wonderful weather only enhanced the event. There we were - people from the neighborhood, people from the church, people from all over the world - gathered to listen to music played by our house band, a Liberian band, an Indonesian band, and a one-man-band from Puerto Rico. Kids were playing soccer on a nearby patch of grass. Sausages were cooking on the grill. It was a nice way to kick off summer.

East met "west" last weekend as I became acquainted with the family and friends of my almost-son-in-law in Maryland. I haven't spent much time on the East coast and was charmed by our nation's capital and the people I met there. I was struck by how lush everything was; not what I expected at all, and a wonderful respite from the Texas drought. Everyone involved loved the bride or groom, which, like the music at the block party, drew us together. It was a really nice way to kick off their new family.

At Vacation Bible School last week, kids from our church, our neighborhood, and their friends and cousins from all over the place gathered to learn about the Sower and the Seed. It seems the Sower is busy - planting everywhere. Not just where there is a guarantee of success, but everywhere. Some seeds struggle in rocky shallow soil, with barely any roots, but still stretching upward. Other seeds grow in spite of thorny, clinging and clawing weeds that try to hold them back, while others are carried off by birds to eventually grow in soil that may be rocky or thorny or nourishing. Some seeds land in good soil and produce in abundance.

It seems that, in the end, we all had the same beginning. Some of us were blessed to be born into families that are good soil, rich in nutrients, with sunlight and water plentiful. Some of us are born into families where the soil is rocky, where the stuff we need to grow is hard to come by, yet somehow, against the odds, we rise toward the sun. Others of us have to fight from the first day as weeds of mental illness, addiction,  or ignorance work against us as we try to grow. A few of us were carried away from our original patch of earth by war, or adoption, or a dream of a better life to unknown soil. Yet all of us were planted by the same hand. Isn't knowing that a nice way to kick off some new relationships? 

Imitation is. . .

I saw it again yesterday: a mom who imitated her child so perfectly that it made me laugh. A child who has a parent who loves them enough to mimic them is a blessed child.  Uninvolved parents can't do this - parents who are totally fascinated with their children and immersed in their role of parent can.  It's really lovely to see.

Children, on the other hand, always imitate their parents. That is grace, pure and simple.  Children adore their parents whether the parents deserve it or not.  Watch any group of children and you will see their parents emerge.  Most preschool teachers will tell you they are rarely surprised when meeting a child's parents - they can already recognize them by their mannerisms.

True love between a parent and a child may be the closest vision of God's love that we will ever see.  Adoring parents watch every move their child makes, and interpret, and re-interpret the meaning behind it. This week a mother pointed to her small child and said "he always rubs his head when he's worried".  The child, barely old enough to comprehend "worried." was indeed, at that moment, worried.  Children can be equally perceptive of their parents.  "My Mommy doesn't feel good.  She's got those lines between her eyes" was an unsolicited observation by a very sharp five-year-old.  And, sure enough, they soon excused themselves, Mommy citing an impending migraine. 

We've all seen a brother torture his sister by aping every move she makes: "Mom, he's copying me" immediately echoed, usually in unflattering squeaky tones by, "Mom, he's copying me."  And whether it's brother/sister, brother/brother, sister/sister imitation - it's a connection born of relationship, a natural expression of sincere affection.  With my girls, I noticed that I could always tell when one of them made a new friend because suddenly, a new catch phrase, attitude or habit would invade our home, with no apparent source.  Some of these imitations were short-lived; others moved in and became part of the family. 

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it is also one of the truest indicators of love. We can imitate those we love because we watch them with great intensity, and we spend as much time as possible together. We are fully immersed in the relationship.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Familiar words.  If I look to God with the eyes of a child and, in total adoration, imitate what I see, how will I look?  Will I, like the preschool children described above, adopt enough God mannerisms that you will learn to recognize God from watching me? Which God mannerisms will your child pick up from watching you?

Being a parent is a large calling. Don't be afraid; you're never alone in this. The Parent of us all is available as a model. You just have to imitate. 

A Cup of Water

May and June seem to be the peak seasons of hospitality. As I write this at least a dozen people I know are getting ready to host parties for graduations, weddings, Memorial Day cookouts, or friends and family coming for a visit now that summer has arrived. About a hundred more, like me, are buying gifts, making side dishes or packing suitcases in preparation for being guests.

Many years ago, on a visit to an infamous mansion where a murder had occurred, I learned that the pineapple is the universal symbol of hospitality. Later, on visits to many other famous and infamous mansions, plantations and castles this theme was repeated. Other journeys led me to St. Benedict who included the practice of hospitality in his Rule for his followers. "Let everyone that comes be received as Christ" is one of the most familiar and oft-quoted phrases of the Rule. Hospitality for Benedictines means that everyone who comes — the poor, the traveler, the curious, those not of our religion or social standing or education — should be received with genuine acceptance.

Perhaps the most common practice of hospitality is the phrase "can I get you something to drink?" When I lived in Minnesota and other cold places this meant the coffee was on. Here in Texas the most offered drink is iced tea. Whatever the drink, the intention is clear. When someone says to me "can I get you something to drink" they are really saying "you are welcome here and I care about your well-being."

So what is the mark of true hospitality? I think it's a simple cup of water. There is nothing more vital to human life than water. Isn't this is so like God - to freely supply what we need for the welcoming of others? Supplying what we need to enter into relationship? I will freely give a cup of water to someone I would be reluctant to invite to my table. Yet, in the giving of the water I am affirming that person's value and my concern for my neighbor's well-being . Jesus said "when I was thirsty you gave me water" and his followers responded "when did we see you thirsty and give you water?" He replies "whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me". What a lovely, simple way to love God and neighbor - when they are thirsty, give them a drink.

If you live, as I do, in a city with homeless people who stand at busy intersections with signs asking for food, work, money or rides, you may really struggle with hospitality. The homeless make you feel helpless, inadequate, sad, and guilty. You often wish they would go away. It's hard to explain their presence to your children who still have the natural hospitality most kids possess. Maybe we should start with water. Put a case of water bottles in the trunk of the car and keep a couple inside to hand out the window. It's a decent, kind, helpful, and hospitable thing to do.

We all get thirsty. We're all human. We all need the water, and the welcome.

Water into Wine

I went to a very lovely wedding over the weekend. . . it was a joyous occasion and I was so glad to be able to share in that joy. As the best man and maid of honor offered toasts to the newlyweds, I got to thinking about Jesus attending the wedding at Cana and turning water into wine. My stream of consciousness went something like this:

I wonder who was getting married at that famous wedding? How was Jesus connected to the bride or the groom? Did he bring a gift or was the wine his present? I can't turn water into wine but I can turn it into ice or steam. Can Jesus turn water into wine as easily as I boil water? Will he do it for as many different reasons as I boil water? Silly rambling thoughts . . .