What makes a home is very simple: love and safety.
Safety to be your whole self and to say anything, while knowing without a shadow of a doubt that you will always be unconditionally loved by the people there.
It’s true when you’re 5 and when you’re 75.
Home can be a house, apartment, tent, car, aisle in Target, and even in a phone call. It’s about the space you’re in with another person or other people.
It’s not about bricks or walls or appliances or decorations.
If you don’t have love and safety, you are in a place called a building or a dwelling or a house – you are not in a home.
If you don’t have love and safety, you are not home.
At least a thousand times in years 1-21, I heard my Dad say If you hang around with dogs, you’ll start barking like a dog. Even now at 46 years of age it sort of makes me want to roll my eyes.
I hadn’t thought about that line in years until I recently heard this gem:
You catch what you’re close to.
It’s true for children and it’s true for adults. It’s true in our personal lives and in our professional lives. It’s true with the virus the world is watching right now. It’s true spiritually, regardless of what faith you practice. It’s true with belief systems and morals – the tendency to follow the belief systems of our families in our youth. You catch what you’re close to.
Dozens of studies tell us that if we surround ourselves with people who focus on positivity, we’re more likely to find ourselves focused on the positive. If we surround ourselves with people who are committed to living with certain principles we are more likely to maintain commitment to principles. If our close friends commit crimes we are more likely to commit a crime.
So it turns out, the old southern “you can’t waller with pigs and not get dirty” and “you can’t sleep with the dogs and not get fleas” are based on some science and more than just naggy parentisms. (The latter sleeping with dogs and fleas example makes me laugh more than it should for a variety of reasons.)
Father’s Day has me thinking about the things that make my Dad my Dad, and the most important things I have learned from him. In contrast to evidence that you’re likely to hold the same belief systems as your parents, I do not think John Wayne is one of the greatest actors of all time.
However, even though we tend to vote differently, on most of the really big things we agree. And it’s his example and his words that have been a lighthouse on every day with rough seas.
One of my earliest memories of my Dad is of us kneeling in prayer. It’s so funny now to think about him in that environment, surrounded by Barbies and next to a frilly Holly Hobby canopy bed. He was showing me what is most important while also showing me that location isn’t important – we can spend time together and with God in the tiniest or the messiest of places. On a beach, in a car, in a fast food restaurant, in a parking lot, in a small apartment, in a church, on the steps at school…anywhere and everywhere my Dad has always made the most of his time with me.
More than three decades later, when Audrey was about 3 months old, we received some concerning news about the cancer she was battling. One of my favorite moments with my Dad, which is also one of the biggest moments of learning from him, happened as I rocked her to sleep in her nursery. He stood next to me, again in a place surrounded by pink little girl things, with his hand on my shoulder, praying for me as I prayed for her. I was praying test results would show Audrey was cancer-free, while he was praying that I would have joy and peace.
The job title parent doesn’t end when our children reach adulthood. That day I learned from my Dad what I had read about dozens of times but never really grasped – that peace is what guards our hearts and minds when we are struggling, that peace is how we are not alone, that peace is the path to authority and control, and that peace is the path to victory.
Peace is what my Dad has passed to me over and over and over again. In his actions. In his words. In his prayers.
You catch what you’re close to. Thanks, Dad, for Peace and peace. In my life, and in the lives of your granddaughters.
My Dad. Fierce protector of teenage daughters, and even today at almost 80, questioning his teenage granddaughter about boys.This is the look that my Dad has when he thinks I’ve lost my mind, as I tried to explain that this was a way to get us both in the picture while standing apart for social distancing.
A mother supporting protestors while supporting her child while feeding her child.
A mother, doing what she can in this moment, investing in the next generation in multiple ways.
Genesis 3:1 tells us Adam named his wife Eve “because she was the mother of all human beings.” Perhaps it’s because of my stage in life, but mother is the lens through which I process video after video and photo after photo, wanting more than anything for our nation’s children to get home safely each night and to have lives filled with peace and trust and love and opportunity.
I think it’s ultimately the mommas who will have to make it so. Who will have to have the critical conversations to make it so. Who will have to lead this nation through anger and grief to healing. Who will raise children to love one another. It’s up to the mommas, and we can’t leave such a critical task to others.
Read the full article and see all the photos from this series, here.
I have little-to-no sense of smell. Years of allergies will do that. Very few scents register for me, but among those I can always detect are garlic, an old drugstore perfume called Charlie, and honeysuckle.
Honeysuckle makes me smile wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, every single time. It’s the smell of summer. The smell of simpler times, when kids – me – pulled on the stems and licked the tiny drop of nectar.
In many ways, for millions of people, this is a very tough time. A time of sickness, anxiety, and fear. Death, unemployment, and hunger.
In many ways, this is a complex time for me – although not in any of the scary ways it is for others. It’s a time of work at home and school at home and not going out to do anything at home, which is outside the comfort zone of everyone sheltering in this little corner of the culdesac.
And yet, in so many more ways this is a simpler time. Walks and bike rides at night. Hanging around on the porch. Time to make dinner – meat and starch and veggie – on a week night, because my commute to home life is a short walk down the stairs.
Although it seems like forever ago now, just a few short weeks ago in the office, I told one of my colleagues to practice the pause. Don’t be so quick to respond to everything. Don’t be so quick to make a selection without considering all options. Don’t be so quick to do *something.* Sometimes it’s better to do nothing and just give everyone a minute, because if we pause we often find that we – and others – will behave or react differently than if we rush to do.
As it turns out, I needed to maybe give myself my own lecture. I think the main lesson of shelter-in-place for me is that I need to practice the pause more. I am very capable of doing that in my professional life but I’m not as good at boundaries like that in my personal life, even though the same principles apply.
I don’t have to respond to everything.
I don’t have to be the one to do everything.
I don’t have to attend all events or discussions I’m invited to.
The only timetable that’s really important is the one that’s best for me and the girls.
Maybe the lesson of this unique time is that if we just practice the pause we can once again see the path to simple. Maybe even get back on it, so we can focus all our energy on what’s really important. Family. Faith. Presence. Giving. Our purpose and our calling.
It’s very hard to see the road we’re traveling and the path we’re on when we’re going 90 miles an hour. At that speed, we see some of what’s ahead and maybe we look back and see some of what’s behind us, but we definitely miss much of the view right now. It’s when we make progress at a reasonable speed and remember to practice the pause that we can really be present for the important things. Skipping competitions. An extra long and silly grace before a Cadbury Egg. Sisters snuggled up working on math together. Friends laughing and racing bikes to the end of the street. The sweet taste of a honeysuckle stem.
A handful of realizations, some new and some just reminders, changed how the world looked on this cloudy day.
This morning I listened as a third-grade teacher made Audrey feel incredibly special in a one-on-one call, scheduled on her own time just to encourage Audrey in her reading and acknowledge her hard work and progress. Distance learning is hard, and it’s especially hard for children that don’t love school. I could hear Audrey’s smile as they talked – about guinea pig names and video updates in flip grid and synonyms – and it brought tears to my eyes and just made my heart want to burst with happiness and gratitude.
I also remembered, and it really solidified in my brain as I listened to them, that I’m not an educator. Ms. J is an educator, and I’m an emergency substitute. I’m not failing; I wasn’t designed to be an educator and I have no experience at being an educator. It takes a village of caring people of all different strengths and gifts to raise a child, and I’m just one part of that village. I am not the whole village, I cannot be the whole village, and I should not be the whole village.
In my last meeting of the day one of my colleaguesexpressed this gratitudeand even more dots connected for me: working from home is such a blessing because my children have a whole different Momma. This is true in so many ways. Of course I have time to cook more, but we also have time for daily walks or bike rides together. We work in the yard. We watch shows together. My girls are seeing a me that is less relaxed in a couple of ways, but ridiculously more relaxed overall. I can’t help but think of all my female colleagues who have children, especially little girls. Those children are all seeing for the first time how hard their moms work all day before they do all the Mom-stuff at night. What an opportunity we have in this unique time to show our children and talk to our children about realistic expectations they should have of us, and realistic expectations and boundaries they should have for their grown-up selves and their future partners.
Which brings me to this gem: As parents, our job is to walk the talk, not just walk what’s convenient. We can’t expect our children to set realistic expectations of themselves and others if we don’t teach them how to do it and show them how we do it. We can’t expect our children to work hard if the example they see in us is laziness. We can’t expect them to know what’s right if we can’t do what’s right. We can’t expect them to do what’s right if we can’t do what’s right.
I have a tendency to want to manage or fix things all by myself and then turn to God when I’m all out of information or tries or patience. I have a tendency to think I can juggle all the village responsibilities and then turn to God when I’m exhausted. I have a tendency to expect people to do the right thing because it’s the right thing, and then I turn to God when I’m exasperated and disappointed in people in whom I never should have had any faith. I pray, but I don’t always pray first. When I pray isn’t when God enters the scene – it’s when I’ve finally decided to stop and pay attention and remember He’s on the scene. It’s when I realize His presence that always was and is. That presence that is the game-changer and the peace-bringer and the cloud-clearer.
Maybe a prayer isn’t where God shows up. God’s always there. Maybe a prayer is where I show up.
It’s dark now, but only because it’s late not because it’s cloudy. The clouds cleared several hours ago, when I took a moment to show up.
P.S. Krispy Kreme now delivers. To your doorstep. In under an hour. Proving that God really does listen to all of our prayers, no matter how ridiculous they may be.
Brave, Anyway 