Balanced steady and anchored deep within my soul
The knowledge of my worth and hope
Wrapped safely in this place of trust
Where given freely my heart lives in peace
With each added year a new found strength
Warmed daily in arms of unconditional love
This Refuge? The one who taught me how to love
Whose words of encouragement feed my soul
First finding me in the dark, a wink, false hope
I lost the game but won his trust
Hiking through winter’s white, the Earth at peace
Down was easy, back up took all my strength
Loyalty, integrity, kindness and humor are pillars of his strength
Golf and fishing vie for his second greatest love
But it is caring, listening, helping that brings breathe to his soul
Countless others rely on his wisdom to find renewed hope
Few men command such respect and trust
While his gentle quiet voice brings great peace
At a time when the world struggles to find peace
It is here that my tether becomes my greatest strength
After 30 years with our hearts bound in love
As most long to be free it is dependence that holds my soul
The reliance on and daily need of each other is our hope
To build a foundation upon which our children now trust
Which is more valuable? Fame or wealth or faith in trust
I will forever choose what brings me true peace
A confidence rooted in this solid strength
Out of which has poured unquenchable love
That fortifies the in-penetrate-able walls of my soul
With a tangible unfailing constant hope
What is my greatest source of hope?
In what do I place my trust?
Find my daily peace?
Draw my needed strength?
Discover my worth, receive and give love?
It is this tether, the mate of my soul.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Honesty My Misguided Aim by Susan Caldwell
Recently I was trying to help my youngest daughter learn about the benefits of being honest within her relationships. She is so dear to lean in and listen while I was laying out the philosophical explanation for why being honest will keep her safe, which is my desire for her; with her desire being never wanting to disappoint or hurt anyone. Even as I was speaking these words to her, and now as I write them, I am aware that hers is a lofty goal and mine perhaps a misguided ambition to aim for and both are most certainly impossible to perfect, especially in regard to our relationships with others. Not to mention that fact that I have been unable to attain this in my own life even though honesty has long since been a mantra of mine.
Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean I always tell the truth, I wish I could but I am a coward. What it really means, and I am being honest here, is I would rather ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. That is cowardice right? Somewhere along the journey I replaced honesty for obedience. Okay, what I really mean honestly is I placed being honest above being loving. Often boasting in my ability to be honest about my rebellious heart leaves me with a false sense of righteousness…ouch.
I also see how I have used honesty many times as a way of shirking responsibility. Sure, I am quick to admit my failures. For me that is easy. What takes effort, more effort than I am usually willing to make, is to be obedient to love. “For the one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.” James 4:17
So, why do I want my daughter to live honestly in all her relationships? Because I am afraid and I enslave myself to this false hope: Honesty will save me. I am afraid that love will not be enough to keep her safe or me for that matter. I am afraid that love will not keep disappointment and hurt at bay. Maybe what I am learning, while foolishily thinking I am helping my daughter, is I have forgotten what is most true about love; the promise of Perfect love is not to cast out pain, disappointment or misunderstanding but to cast out all fear. What I am learning from her is, how to live loving those whom I am in relationship with; which may encompass honesty, but does not make honesty the goal. To live in love maybe a lofty aim, but it is now my renewed hope.
Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean I always tell the truth, I wish I could but I am a coward. What it really means, and I am being honest here, is I would rather ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. That is cowardice right? Somewhere along the journey I replaced honesty for obedience. Okay, what I really mean honestly is I placed being honest above being loving. Often boasting in my ability to be honest about my rebellious heart leaves me with a false sense of righteousness…ouch.
I also see how I have used honesty many times as a way of shirking responsibility. Sure, I am quick to admit my failures. For me that is easy. What takes effort, more effort than I am usually willing to make, is to be obedient to love. “For the one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.” James 4:17
So, why do I want my daughter to live honestly in all her relationships? Because I am afraid and I enslave myself to this false hope: Honesty will save me. I am afraid that love will not be enough to keep her safe or me for that matter. I am afraid that love will not keep disappointment and hurt at bay. Maybe what I am learning, while foolishily thinking I am helping my daughter, is I have forgotten what is most true about love; the promise of Perfect love is not to cast out pain, disappointment or misunderstanding but to cast out all fear. What I am learning from her is, how to live loving those whom I am in relationship with; which may encompass honesty, but does not make honesty the goal. To live in love maybe a lofty aim, but it is now my renewed hope.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
An Underdog Rediscovered by Susan Caldwell
I have been spending the morning thinking a lot about why I cheer for the underdog. Or most honestly, why I gloat at the loss of the over confident, arrogant self-promoting, know-it-alls, and love watching the under achiever win based on what appears their heart and guts alone. Maybe this is because all of my life I have seen myself as an underdog…
Saying something like, O how the mighty have fallen…or pride comes before a fall, sound holy and at least throughout my life have proven to be statements of truth. But, a lump seems to be forming in my throat and I find myself realizing that the line between the victory of an underdog and the loss of those who appear to be self-righteous winners is thin and very tricky to discern. My decision about who are winners and who deserve to be winners, places me smack dab in the middle of the kettle calling the pot black…
When brought face to face with the sin of judging others I crumble under the weight of self-condemnation.
Having spent a majority of my childhood and youth having my self worth and value measured by the perspective of perhaps untrustworthy people, and finding only later in life that they were wrong in their assessment of my value and worth. Most importantly because many of them lacked the belief in a God greater than themselves: One who does take lives and transforms them: One who promises to use the weaknesses of those who follow after him to his greater strength and good, who can see beyond the present moment and beyond the present capabilities of an insecure, emotionally unstable girl and know what he can and will do with those scars and weaknesses and untapped unseen potentials.
You would think that I would never speak about another person’s heart or motives or abilities, but I have and I do. And having recently found myself looking straight into a mirror; finding I have ascribed motive and call and ability to those I am walking through life with, I am convicted, ashamed and (nearly) at a loss for words.
I do not know the will of God. I do not know who he will use today to show me a bigger picture of himself and what he is able to do with the lives of people who I have judged as incompetent, wrong or, again most honestly, just not doing life the way I think they should. Whether that is raising their children with all the incredible wisdom I have/had (which, every day I am brought to my knees by, as I see what mercy and grace and blessings God has poured out on me and my children)…all the way to how I would run the country, the world, the universe.
O God, forgive me, a sinner deeply in need of the saving grace of your Son.
There are two things I know to be true to all people. Everyone wants to be loved and cared for, and no one wants to be judged or condemned. And each time God has mercifully allowed me to walk closer to one I have harshly judged and condemned, just near enough to see their hearts, I fall to my knees immediately aware that I am the one who condemns me…I am a Pharasee…I am the soldier who mocked…I am a leader who is not worthy to follow…a mother who has (and probably until death continue to) scar my children’s hearts…a wife who does not honor her husband…a friend who betrays…a sinner who cry’s out O God please do not forsake me as quickly as I forsake those around me when they do not measure up to my expectations of how they should appear.
And they will know we are Christians by our love…who we follow…who has first loved us…and taught us to love…
I am so very grateful to those who saw me as Christ does, who loved me when I was not demonstrating behavior that matched theirs or others expectations…who remain faithful to my life today and through their love are teaching me how to love the way Christ does.
Saying something like, O how the mighty have fallen…or pride comes before a fall, sound holy and at least throughout my life have proven to be statements of truth. But, a lump seems to be forming in my throat and I find myself realizing that the line between the victory of an underdog and the loss of those who appear to be self-righteous winners is thin and very tricky to discern. My decision about who are winners and who deserve to be winners, places me smack dab in the middle of the kettle calling the pot black…
When brought face to face with the sin of judging others I crumble under the weight of self-condemnation.
Having spent a majority of my childhood and youth having my self worth and value measured by the perspective of perhaps untrustworthy people, and finding only later in life that they were wrong in their assessment of my value and worth. Most importantly because many of them lacked the belief in a God greater than themselves: One who does take lives and transforms them: One who promises to use the weaknesses of those who follow after him to his greater strength and good, who can see beyond the present moment and beyond the present capabilities of an insecure, emotionally unstable girl and know what he can and will do with those scars and weaknesses and untapped unseen potentials.
You would think that I would never speak about another person’s heart or motives or abilities, but I have and I do. And having recently found myself looking straight into a mirror; finding I have ascribed motive and call and ability to those I am walking through life with, I am convicted, ashamed and (nearly) at a loss for words.
I do not know the will of God. I do not know who he will use today to show me a bigger picture of himself and what he is able to do with the lives of people who I have judged as incompetent, wrong or, again most honestly, just not doing life the way I think they should. Whether that is raising their children with all the incredible wisdom I have/had (which, every day I am brought to my knees by, as I see what mercy and grace and blessings God has poured out on me and my children)…all the way to how I would run the country, the world, the universe.
O God, forgive me, a sinner deeply in need of the saving grace of your Son.
There are two things I know to be true to all people. Everyone wants to be loved and cared for, and no one wants to be judged or condemned. And each time God has mercifully allowed me to walk closer to one I have harshly judged and condemned, just near enough to see their hearts, I fall to my knees immediately aware that I am the one who condemns me…I am a Pharasee…I am the soldier who mocked…I am a leader who is not worthy to follow…a mother who has (and probably until death continue to) scar my children’s hearts…a wife who does not honor her husband…a friend who betrays…a sinner who cry’s out O God please do not forsake me as quickly as I forsake those around me when they do not measure up to my expectations of how they should appear.
And they will know we are Christians by our love…who we follow…who has first loved us…and taught us to love…
I am so very grateful to those who saw me as Christ does, who loved me when I was not demonstrating behavior that matched theirs or others expectations…who remain faithful to my life today and through their love are teaching me how to love the way Christ does.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Finding True Self Worth by Susan Caldwell
When I was in grade school I remember living in anxious anticipation of the “next” birthday-slumber party. The first hurdle toward victory (feeling good about oneself) was the invitation, you know, making the cut and being included in someone’s “inner” circle. In the small little world I grew up in, this was also “the” outward sign of where one belonged on the social ladder…the caste system of American middle class.
This phobia of not making a cut was only equaled in fear to the alarm I felt when found included on the list of “invites” to a party being given by one considered last on the rung.
Once the division of who’s who was established and the correct socially desirable RSVP’s made, the next hurdle came when it was time to lay your sleeping bag down. There was a statement of ones place in the pecking order here as well. Whoever slept closest to the birthday celebrant was the next most powerful person in attendance, at that moment. And the future of many a young girl’s self worth hung in the balance of how this power was used.
I have yet to determine, some 40 odd years later if there was any edifying actions that came from this adolescent cultural ritual. I know only what I experienced myself and when my daughters passed through this age in their lives I was prompted to draw this conclusion; nothing good happens at a slumber party after 10:00pm. I don’t know if it was the lack of ability to handle the indiscriminate power that was handed out undeserved and unproven, but I do know that words spoken in the dark by insecure, sugar-induced hyperactive, pre-pubescent girls can leave scars that last a lifetime.
Not that this will come as much of a surprise to anyone, but I never rose very high on the social ladder and I myself responsible for that. Well okay, maybe it would have helped if my parents had been a bit “cooler” or I had had an older brother who was a star athlete, or my older sister a beauty queen or I had been the smartest or cutest or most likely to… succeed at anything… But, the truth was and is, I was just normal, average maybe even a bit under-average; and just average does not make the top rung of (m)any ladders.
Maybe it is unrealistic to hope that we will ever be able to change this misguided childhood ritual. Looking back, whether we attained the perfect personae of slumber-party giver/goer, or we failed at ever making anyone’s invite list, I can see the opportunity was there for each of us to learn how to measure self worth. I know what I learned from it…some good things; true self-worth is not attained through popularity and some hard things; everyone has misused power and position in the attempt to find and measure self worth. There is a great freedom that does come when we stop using others as social implants with the hope to appear more than we really are and a lot of the fear that accompanied the need to know how we measure up seems to dissolve as well. I know for me, when I do succeed at treating people equally; taking no ones self worth away and giving no one more power than they have respectively earned, the need to look for ways to measure my social status or value to the community around me lessens and I find myself actually starting to feel good about myself…
This phobia of not making a cut was only equaled in fear to the alarm I felt when found included on the list of “invites” to a party being given by one considered last on the rung.
Once the division of who’s who was established and the correct socially desirable RSVP’s made, the next hurdle came when it was time to lay your sleeping bag down. There was a statement of ones place in the pecking order here as well. Whoever slept closest to the birthday celebrant was the next most powerful person in attendance, at that moment. And the future of many a young girl’s self worth hung in the balance of how this power was used.
I have yet to determine, some 40 odd years later if there was any edifying actions that came from this adolescent cultural ritual. I know only what I experienced myself and when my daughters passed through this age in their lives I was prompted to draw this conclusion; nothing good happens at a slumber party after 10:00pm. I don’t know if it was the lack of ability to handle the indiscriminate power that was handed out undeserved and unproven, but I do know that words spoken in the dark by insecure, sugar-induced hyperactive, pre-pubescent girls can leave scars that last a lifetime.
Not that this will come as much of a surprise to anyone, but I never rose very high on the social ladder and I myself responsible for that. Well okay, maybe it would have helped if my parents had been a bit “cooler” or I had had an older brother who was a star athlete, or my older sister a beauty queen or I had been the smartest or cutest or most likely to… succeed at anything… But, the truth was and is, I was just normal, average maybe even a bit under-average; and just average does not make the top rung of (m)any ladders.
Maybe it is unrealistic to hope that we will ever be able to change this misguided childhood ritual. Looking back, whether we attained the perfect personae of slumber-party giver/goer, or we failed at ever making anyone’s invite list, I can see the opportunity was there for each of us to learn how to measure self worth. I know what I learned from it…some good things; true self-worth is not attained through popularity and some hard things; everyone has misused power and position in the attempt to find and measure self worth. There is a great freedom that does come when we stop using others as social implants with the hope to appear more than we really are and a lot of the fear that accompanied the need to know how we measure up seems to dissolve as well. I know for me, when I do succeed at treating people equally; taking no ones self worth away and giving no one more power than they have respectively earned, the need to look for ways to measure my social status or value to the community around me lessens and I find myself actually starting to feel good about myself…
Finding True Self Worth by Susan Caldwell
When I was in grade school I remember living in anxious anticipation of the “next” birthday-slumber party. The first hurdle toward victory (feeling good about oneself) was the invitation, you know, making the cut and being included in someone’s “inner” circle. In the small little world I grew up in, this was also “the” outward sign of where one belonged on the social ladder…the caste system of American middle class.
This phobia of not making a cut was only equaled in fear to the alarm I felt when found included on the list of “invites” to a party being given by one considered last on the rung.
Once the division of who’s who was established and the correct socially desirable RSVP’s made, the next hurdle came when it was time to lay your sleeping bag down. There was a statement of ones place in the pecking order here as well. Whoever slept closest to the birthday celebrant was the next most powerful person in attendance, at that moment. And the future of many a young girl’s self worth hung in the balance of how this power was used.
I have yet to determine, some 40 odd years later if there was any edifying actions that came from this adolescent cultural ritual. I know only what I experienced myself and when my daughters passed through this age in their lives I was prompted to draw this conclusion; nothing good happens at a slumber party after 10:00pm. I don’t know if it was the lack of ability to handle the indiscriminate power that was handed out undeserved and unproven, but I do know that words spoken in the dark by insecure, sugar-induced hyperactive, pre-pubescent girls can leave scars that last a lifetime.
Not that this will come as much of a surprise to anyone, but I never rose very high on the social ladder and I myself responsible for that. Well okay, maybe it would have helped if my parents had been a bit “cooler” or I had had an older brother who was a star athlete, or my older sister a beauty queen or I had been the smartest or cutest or most likely to… succeed at anything… But, the truth was and is, I was just normal, average maybe even a bit under-average; and just average does not make the top rung of (m)any ladders.
Maybe it is unrealistic to hope that we will ever be able to change this misguided childhood ritual. Looking back, whether we attained the perfect personae of slumber-party giver/goer, or we failed at ever making anyone’s invite list, I can see the opportunity was there for each of us to learn how to measure self worth. I know what I learned from it…some good things; true self-worth is not attained through popularity and some hard things; everyone has misused power and position in the attempt to find and measure self worth. There is a great freedom that does come when we stop using others as social implants with the hope to appear more than we really are and a lot of the fear that accompanied the need to know how we measure up seems to dissolve as well. I know for me, when I do succeed at treating people equally; taking no ones self worth away and giving no one more power than they have respectively earned, the need to look for ways to measure my social status or value to the community around me lessens and I find myself actually starting to feel good about myself…
This phobia of not making a cut was only equaled in fear to the alarm I felt when found included on the list of “invites” to a party being given by one considered last on the rung.
Once the division of who’s who was established and the correct socially desirable RSVP’s made, the next hurdle came when it was time to lay your sleeping bag down. There was a statement of ones place in the pecking order here as well. Whoever slept closest to the birthday celebrant was the next most powerful person in attendance, at that moment. And the future of many a young girl’s self worth hung in the balance of how this power was used.
I have yet to determine, some 40 odd years later if there was any edifying actions that came from this adolescent cultural ritual. I know only what I experienced myself and when my daughters passed through this age in their lives I was prompted to draw this conclusion; nothing good happens at a slumber party after 10:00pm. I don’t know if it was the lack of ability to handle the indiscriminate power that was handed out undeserved and unproven, but I do know that words spoken in the dark by insecure, sugar-induced hyperactive, pre-pubescent girls can leave scars that last a lifetime.
Not that this will come as much of a surprise to anyone, but I never rose very high on the social ladder and I myself responsible for that. Well okay, maybe it would have helped if my parents had been a bit “cooler” or I had had an older brother who was a star athlete, or my older sister a beauty queen or I had been the smartest or cutest or most likely to… succeed at anything… But, the truth was and is, I was just normal, average maybe even a bit under-average; and just average does not make the top rung of (m)any ladders.
Maybe it is unrealistic to hope that we will ever be able to change this misguided childhood ritual. Looking back, whether we attained the perfect personae of slumber-party giver/goer, or we failed at ever making anyone’s invite list, I can see the opportunity was there for each of us to learn how to measure self worth. I know what I learned from it…some good things; true self-worth is not attained through popularity and some hard things; everyone has misused power and position in the attempt to find and measure self worth. There is a great freedom that does come when we stop using others as social implants with the hope to appear more than we really are and a lot of the fear that accompanied the need to know how we measure up seems to dissolve as well. I know for me, when I do succeed at treating people equally; taking no ones self worth away and giving no one more power than they have respectively earned, the need to look for ways to measure my social status or value to the community around me lessens and I find myself actually starting to feel good about myself…
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
How to see beyond myself by Susan Caldwell
How do we love one another? How do we care for and honor each other? So much of the time my friendships are based in my perceptions. How I see my issues, my heart, my ideas, my values reflected in the actions of those around me…effects how I treat and react to my friends. But the truth is, I do not know the true heart or intentions of my friends. I only know what I project or assume about them.
It is not that I don’t have the time to ask them their intentions, nor is it that I cannot risk asking. I just simply do not, cannot or have not practiced this habit. And yet, ironically I can always find time to comment with others or give my opinions about them behind their backs.
I was wondering about this the other day. Maybe I like the idea of thinking I know my friends, and staying with this pattern of interaction, I can always feel smarter and wiser. As most often my judgments of their behavior or actions are far easier to ingest, because I perceive that I already “know” what they know; making me feel very safe and confident, and even a bit superior because I do not have to grow or change, only wait for them to “catch up” to me…
I am finding the hardest thing about letting my friends have their own agendas is I may not understand or be able to control them. I may find that I have to look at myself differently too; and in that looking more closely at myself I may find flaws in my thinking, my perspective, my intentions. And them I am left at that terrible crossroad once again, will I surrender my pride and let go of my illusion of control.
All I really have today, is the hope that my friends are further along on this journey than I am, and that they will graciously keep including me in their lives, so that one day I may be a better friend to them…the kind of friend who allows growth and change and forgiveness and restoration and redemption and that the only shared hope we have is that we will not be given up on...
Perhaps I do this with Jesus as well. Maybe it is much easier to keep Jesus looking like and behaving like me with the end result being, not having to grow or change or adapt myself to new ideas or values or behavior. The older I get the scarier and more dangerous this becomes. Because the older I get the more I am finding myself set in my ways and fairly stubborn toward change and not so receptive of criticism of any kind, least of which the kind that comes from those I have already decided I “know” well and “understand” completely.
How difficult it must be for Jesus to get through to me. Maybe he feels the same way about me that I feel about my friends…with one very important difference, He really does know me, know my heart and intentions…and He does not give up on me, He keeps coming to me asking me about my heart and actions and not leaving me to my own demise.
Not that I will ever be able to emulate Jesus’ love completely; but O that I might die trying. That I might begin loving my friends, the way He loves; without biased agendas, without judgment and without the need to control; helping them feel safe and confident to take the risk of looking at life through their perspective.
“If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:1-8
It is not that I don’t have the time to ask them their intentions, nor is it that I cannot risk asking. I just simply do not, cannot or have not practiced this habit. And yet, ironically I can always find time to comment with others or give my opinions about them behind their backs.
I was wondering about this the other day. Maybe I like the idea of thinking I know my friends, and staying with this pattern of interaction, I can always feel smarter and wiser. As most often my judgments of their behavior or actions are far easier to ingest, because I perceive that I already “know” what they know; making me feel very safe and confident, and even a bit superior because I do not have to grow or change, only wait for them to “catch up” to me…
I am finding the hardest thing about letting my friends have their own agendas is I may not understand or be able to control them. I may find that I have to look at myself differently too; and in that looking more closely at myself I may find flaws in my thinking, my perspective, my intentions. And them I am left at that terrible crossroad once again, will I surrender my pride and let go of my illusion of control.
All I really have today, is the hope that my friends are further along on this journey than I am, and that they will graciously keep including me in their lives, so that one day I may be a better friend to them…the kind of friend who allows growth and change and forgiveness and restoration and redemption and that the only shared hope we have is that we will not be given up on...
Perhaps I do this with Jesus as well. Maybe it is much easier to keep Jesus looking like and behaving like me with the end result being, not having to grow or change or adapt myself to new ideas or values or behavior. The older I get the scarier and more dangerous this becomes. Because the older I get the more I am finding myself set in my ways and fairly stubborn toward change and not so receptive of criticism of any kind, least of which the kind that comes from those I have already decided I “know” well and “understand” completely.
How difficult it must be for Jesus to get through to me. Maybe he feels the same way about me that I feel about my friends…with one very important difference, He really does know me, know my heart and intentions…and He does not give up on me, He keeps coming to me asking me about my heart and actions and not leaving me to my own demise.
Not that I will ever be able to emulate Jesus’ love completely; but O that I might die trying. That I might begin loving my friends, the way He loves; without biased agendas, without judgment and without the need to control; helping them feel safe and confident to take the risk of looking at life through their perspective.
“If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:1-8
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Whose Values Will Define Us? by Susan Caldwell
“The Family is the True Society”
Pope Leo 1810-1903
There were three ideas I tried to teach my children while they were growing up. The first one being that they were loved and belonged forever to our family. Second, that all choices they made affected all who loved them. My hope in this was that they would understand they did not live in a vacuum. I wanted them to sense a responsibility to the whole of which they were a part. And the third (which I think they would say was the most defining aspect of our family) was that people affirm and encourage the values they deem most important. So, obviously, I stressed, affirmed and encouraged their belonging and love. I constantly reminded them that their actions and attitudes had a direct influence on all those who loved them and on all those who one day would be living in relationship with them: “no man is an island.”
In looking back on my own childhood I can now see how these values were forged. It was not because I always saw them held up and esteemed, rather it was at times the very lack of values given and ultimately their disappearance that made me so certain, so sure that they would not be missing from the fabric of the family I would one day raise. Sadly, as I saw the loss of these core values begin in my birth family through divorce, the private dissolutions running parallel all over the country were also unraveling the core values of America one family at a time.
I remember pledging my allegiance to a set of these ideals and the icon that represented them, every morning before school
“I pledge allegiance to the flag,
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands.
One nation under God,
indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
I see that as people emulate the leadership above them and their environment teaches the social norms and acceptable behaviors and attitudes, so our families and our country have also passed on their core beliefs from one generation to the next. I believe beginning in the 1960s, without understanding the consequences, a paradigm shift occurred. This happened in my family and it happened to our nation.
Core beliefs that had been upheld, valued, and aspired to, were beginning to tear apart: Love of family; pride in belonging; a belief in God (an individual responsibility to something greater than ourselves). We watched as the allegiance to each other and our set values changed into self-serving individual freedoms. What we once had covered ourselves with, the fabric that was made up of these core beliefs, was unraveling.
One value that now seems to cover the American Culture sounds something like this, “Only what I think matters. Only my voice counts.” When can a democracy based on the voice of the people not be a democracy? When it must listen to and attempt to accommodate every single voice.
While my children were in middle school, I sat as a parent liaison for a team of teachers who met weekly to discuss curriculum, classroom behavior and upcoming events. As they were preparing for the annual sex education series, I asked what the value base of the teaching was. Without hesitating a seasoned teacher told me, “Oh, there is no value, we are just giving information. We do not teach values.”
Sitting there I was left with the very sad realization, that what she said was true. Our schools had not just stopped teaching values, they are teaching no values. And no value, in the end, is a value.
A few years later in the same school community some high school seniors were caught cheating while taking an English class at a local community college. These students were considered the top in their class the honor students all heading toward a higher education in some of the country’s best universities. The school district administration and leadership were stumped by the negative response they received from parents when they asked for their support in establishing a more rigid code of conduct stating, “I will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate anyone who does.” Irate parents called to remind them of their role, by saying, “Your job is not to teach my child values.” The response they received reflected what the schools had been telling parents for years: Public education is not responsible for teaching their children values.
A new code of conduct was not established.
When image is desired above substance, there is no need to develop moral character; the code of ethics we use to measure our human conduct. With no standard by which to measure right or wrong we will lose any sense of self-esteem. When self-esteem is lost we lose our self-respect and therefore we cannot feel worthy of love.
With our inability to define right from wrong all things will begin to appear gray. With a growing tolerance toward all things, except intolerance: the questioning of any actions or motives. Our society will begin to lose its moral guidelines, robbing us of the convictions needed to defend truth and the passions with which to seek justice. If freedom becomes redefined by the idea that we do not have to be responsible to anyone for anything, we will become islands. Belonging to nothing and with no cause greater than ourselves worth sacrificing for, we then emerge as self-protecting, isolated individuals seeking only what we desire.
We now seem more interested in wrapping ourselves in values that make us look good rather than ones that are based on a higher standard that calls us into responsibility and accountability to the communities around us. And the ability to listen to those around us, who question our motives or ask us to be accountable for our actions, is quickly vanishing.
We now seem to be a nation of many fragmented parts constantly seeking an identity, yet stubbornly refusing to be connected to or belong to anything that asks us to be responsible. So we wander aimlessly, an entire country looking for a new identity.
It is only a matter of time before the Pledge of Allegiance itself is banned from our schools. Sadly the replacement pledge, openly modeled yet never recited aloud, goes something like this:
I pledge allegiance to my self
for the ideals which I choose to believe
and to the rights for which I demand
One notion under tolerance,
arrogantly individual
with purpose and unity for none.
As my birth family proved and our country may soon as well, the absence of a common good will first be replaced by individual concerns and promising in the end the demise of liberty, the dissolution of unity and the disappearance of justice for all.
Every society needs a clear, agreed upon and respected set of values; if not for the moral guidelines and solid sense of identity they bring, it is that the very presence of them guarantees the community’s survival. For me, I hope that the moral fabric I have gathered is real and strong enough to remain long after I am gone. That it represents a common good from which my children will draw from as a source of identity, as well as a beacon to help guide them throughout their life journeys. Reminding them always that they are not alone.
Pope Leo 1810-1903
There were three ideas I tried to teach my children while they were growing up. The first one being that they were loved and belonged forever to our family. Second, that all choices they made affected all who loved them. My hope in this was that they would understand they did not live in a vacuum. I wanted them to sense a responsibility to the whole of which they were a part. And the third (which I think they would say was the most defining aspect of our family) was that people affirm and encourage the values they deem most important. So, obviously, I stressed, affirmed and encouraged their belonging and love. I constantly reminded them that their actions and attitudes had a direct influence on all those who loved them and on all those who one day would be living in relationship with them: “no man is an island.”
In looking back on my own childhood I can now see how these values were forged. It was not because I always saw them held up and esteemed, rather it was at times the very lack of values given and ultimately their disappearance that made me so certain, so sure that they would not be missing from the fabric of the family I would one day raise. Sadly, as I saw the loss of these core values begin in my birth family through divorce, the private dissolutions running parallel all over the country were also unraveling the core values of America one family at a time.
I remember pledging my allegiance to a set of these ideals and the icon that represented them, every morning before school
“I pledge allegiance to the flag,
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands.
One nation under God,
indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
I see that as people emulate the leadership above them and their environment teaches the social norms and acceptable behaviors and attitudes, so our families and our country have also passed on their core beliefs from one generation to the next. I believe beginning in the 1960s, without understanding the consequences, a paradigm shift occurred. This happened in my family and it happened to our nation.
Core beliefs that had been upheld, valued, and aspired to, were beginning to tear apart: Love of family; pride in belonging; a belief in God (an individual responsibility to something greater than ourselves). We watched as the allegiance to each other and our set values changed into self-serving individual freedoms. What we once had covered ourselves with, the fabric that was made up of these core beliefs, was unraveling.
One value that now seems to cover the American Culture sounds something like this, “Only what I think matters. Only my voice counts.” When can a democracy based on the voice of the people not be a democracy? When it must listen to and attempt to accommodate every single voice.
While my children were in middle school, I sat as a parent liaison for a team of teachers who met weekly to discuss curriculum, classroom behavior and upcoming events. As they were preparing for the annual sex education series, I asked what the value base of the teaching was. Without hesitating a seasoned teacher told me, “Oh, there is no value, we are just giving information. We do not teach values.”
Sitting there I was left with the very sad realization, that what she said was true. Our schools had not just stopped teaching values, they are teaching no values. And no value, in the end, is a value.
A few years later in the same school community some high school seniors were caught cheating while taking an English class at a local community college. These students were considered the top in their class the honor students all heading toward a higher education in some of the country’s best universities. The school district administration and leadership were stumped by the negative response they received from parents when they asked for their support in establishing a more rigid code of conduct stating, “I will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate anyone who does.” Irate parents called to remind them of their role, by saying, “Your job is not to teach my child values.” The response they received reflected what the schools had been telling parents for years: Public education is not responsible for teaching their children values.
A new code of conduct was not established.
When image is desired above substance, there is no need to develop moral character; the code of ethics we use to measure our human conduct. With no standard by which to measure right or wrong we will lose any sense of self-esteem. When self-esteem is lost we lose our self-respect and therefore we cannot feel worthy of love.
With our inability to define right from wrong all things will begin to appear gray. With a growing tolerance toward all things, except intolerance: the questioning of any actions or motives. Our society will begin to lose its moral guidelines, robbing us of the convictions needed to defend truth and the passions with which to seek justice. If freedom becomes redefined by the idea that we do not have to be responsible to anyone for anything, we will become islands. Belonging to nothing and with no cause greater than ourselves worth sacrificing for, we then emerge as self-protecting, isolated individuals seeking only what we desire.
We now seem more interested in wrapping ourselves in values that make us look good rather than ones that are based on a higher standard that calls us into responsibility and accountability to the communities around us. And the ability to listen to those around us, who question our motives or ask us to be accountable for our actions, is quickly vanishing.
We now seem to be a nation of many fragmented parts constantly seeking an identity, yet stubbornly refusing to be connected to or belong to anything that asks us to be responsible. So we wander aimlessly, an entire country looking for a new identity.
It is only a matter of time before the Pledge of Allegiance itself is banned from our schools. Sadly the replacement pledge, openly modeled yet never recited aloud, goes something like this:
I pledge allegiance to my self
for the ideals which I choose to believe
and to the rights for which I demand
One notion under tolerance,
arrogantly individual
with purpose and unity for none.
As my birth family proved and our country may soon as well, the absence of a common good will first be replaced by individual concerns and promising in the end the demise of liberty, the dissolution of unity and the disappearance of justice for all.
Every society needs a clear, agreed upon and respected set of values; if not for the moral guidelines and solid sense of identity they bring, it is that the very presence of them guarantees the community’s survival. For me, I hope that the moral fabric I have gathered is real and strong enough to remain long after I am gone. That it represents a common good from which my children will draw from as a source of identity, as well as a beacon to help guide them throughout their life journeys. Reminding them always that they are not alone.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Beauty and Power by Susan Caldwell
With our whole society obsessed with beauty and power it is hard to know what to teach our children, our daughters especially. As I have tried to navigate my children through these narrow (minded) and dangerous waters I see that I too am subjected to societies measurements of beauty and the power that accompanies it. What I long for the most is to find contentment and peace with myself in the midst of the constant comparing culture of super models and instant starlet-like appearances that surround me. Maybe if I could reflect an inner peace my daughters would sub-consciencly emulate this behavior as they have my many of my less desirable traits.
Recently I heard an ex-supermodel promoting her new book entitled, “Everything About Me is Fake, So Now I am Perfect”. I have not as yet read it, but the title alone stirred within me some very emotional responses. The first one being, “man what a great title!” The next thought brought with it a nervous laugh much like the kind that follows the “one-two” punch line of an edgy comic. You know, when you say to yourself, how true, how sad and how ironic. In the search for perfection we are driven to façade.
Fake nails, fake hair, fake tan, boobs, cheeks (both ends) lips, and noses, even eye pigment; knock off brand name; purses, perfumes, clothing, shoes and sunglasses have generated billions of dollars for the merchandizing industry. We can have ourselves “made over” on the outside for just a few thousands dollars and then go to the outlet mall to purchase a Kate Spade look a like to go with our “Last Chance” bargain basement Manolo Blahnik’s. Attaining for the moment the ever-illusive image of beauty and wealth without all the costs thus completing our perfect package persona by appearing as Surely (sic) Stunning a real sharp shrewd shopper. This “need” to appear, as more than we are has not just permeated our physical beings it seeps into our very souls as well.
This led me deeper into the rabbit hole.
I remember longing for high school to be over so I could finally relax and stop worrying that the truth might be discovered. I was not all that I appeared to be. I was a fake. I could not get my inside feelings to line up with my outward appearance. Not that I didn’t try. I had the hip-hugger bellbottomed jeans, flip flops, macramé belt, long stringy straight hair and the entire outfit “topped off” with either a tie-dyed halter or a far from flattering tube-top. And at 5’3” 130 lbs, give or take a few Twinkies…O’ yeah, on the outside (I thought) I looked cool. Now if my insides would just not betray me. Because, I did not feel cool, what I remember feeling most was fear.
Gosh, if I had only known what was coming? From the college years: Was it really possible to appear happy and carefree while living in the middle of stress and chaos? Through: first jobs, dating, marriage and then children, the need to appear; competent, attractive, strong, self-confident, independent and flexible regardless of my feelings, only increased. Maybe high school was not the exception. Maybe high school was the preparation. Talk about makeovers, reinventing your self and keeping up an appearance; that wasn’t just high school that is life.
It feels like all I’ve ever been doing… to be honest is faking it.
Martha Beck in her book “Expecting Adam” writes about her alter ego “Fang”. The persona she developed at Harvard while trying to keep her insecurities at bay and her deepest fear of being discovered as a fake hidden.
Saint Francis of Assisi’s called his alter ego “brother ass”, the part of him that did not “behave” the way he wished. Thereby allowing him self the freedom to live out his hearts desires, even when his behavior didn’t always line up.
Maybe the satirical title “Everything about me is fake, so now I am perfect” is a genuinely profound truth and not sadly ironic. Perhaps, it is in admitting our fake side(s) we do all move closer to obtaining “perfection”…okay maybe not perfection, but certainly more peace along the way!
Recently I heard an ex-supermodel promoting her new book entitled, “Everything About Me is Fake, So Now I am Perfect”. I have not as yet read it, but the title alone stirred within me some very emotional responses. The first one being, “man what a great title!” The next thought brought with it a nervous laugh much like the kind that follows the “one-two” punch line of an edgy comic. You know, when you say to yourself, how true, how sad and how ironic. In the search for perfection we are driven to façade.
Fake nails, fake hair, fake tan, boobs, cheeks (both ends) lips, and noses, even eye pigment; knock off brand name; purses, perfumes, clothing, shoes and sunglasses have generated billions of dollars for the merchandizing industry. We can have ourselves “made over” on the outside for just a few thousands dollars and then go to the outlet mall to purchase a Kate Spade look a like to go with our “Last Chance” bargain basement Manolo Blahnik’s. Attaining for the moment the ever-illusive image of beauty and wealth without all the costs thus completing our perfect package persona by appearing as Surely (sic) Stunning a real sharp shrewd shopper. This “need” to appear, as more than we are has not just permeated our physical beings it seeps into our very souls as well.
This led me deeper into the rabbit hole.
I remember longing for high school to be over so I could finally relax and stop worrying that the truth might be discovered. I was not all that I appeared to be. I was a fake. I could not get my inside feelings to line up with my outward appearance. Not that I didn’t try. I had the hip-hugger bellbottomed jeans, flip flops, macramé belt, long stringy straight hair and the entire outfit “topped off” with either a tie-dyed halter or a far from flattering tube-top. And at 5’3” 130 lbs, give or take a few Twinkies…O’ yeah, on the outside (I thought) I looked cool. Now if my insides would just not betray me. Because, I did not feel cool, what I remember feeling most was fear.
Gosh, if I had only known what was coming? From the college years: Was it really possible to appear happy and carefree while living in the middle of stress and chaos? Through: first jobs, dating, marriage and then children, the need to appear; competent, attractive, strong, self-confident, independent and flexible regardless of my feelings, only increased. Maybe high school was not the exception. Maybe high school was the preparation. Talk about makeovers, reinventing your self and keeping up an appearance; that wasn’t just high school that is life.
It feels like all I’ve ever been doing… to be honest is faking it.
Martha Beck in her book “Expecting Adam” writes about her alter ego “Fang”. The persona she developed at Harvard while trying to keep her insecurities at bay and her deepest fear of being discovered as a fake hidden.
Saint Francis of Assisi’s called his alter ego “brother ass”, the part of him that did not “behave” the way he wished. Thereby allowing him self the freedom to live out his hearts desires, even when his behavior didn’t always line up.
Maybe the satirical title “Everything about me is fake, so now I am perfect” is a genuinely profound truth and not sadly ironic. Perhaps, it is in admitting our fake side(s) we do all move closer to obtaining “perfection”…okay maybe not perfection, but certainly more peace along the way!
Monday, December 05, 2005
ramblings
I cried a lot today.
I cried for my broken and wounded friends who are struggling in their marriages and lives. For my friend Julie as she enters the holidays for the first time without her daughter Niki; I cried for how I could not help them before their journeys into pain began and I cried because I cannot help them get out of darkness they now find themselves in. I cried for my own children and for the pain and loss they will experience throughout their lives, for the wisdom (or lack of) I tried to impart about how life works…or better yet how life is supposed to work. I cried for the sorrow I felt for not being honest with them, for trying to manipulate them into behaving based on the idea that life will work “correctly” if they behave “correctly”. I cried for when my children find out, as I have, that behaving correctly does not save them. It will not bring them salvation and it will most probably not save them from pain or heartache or living with hurt because of the wrong actions of others or from the random hurt that can come from the dice rolls of life.
And then I wept because I still spend time here…in no man’s land. I don’t want to live here, I want to live where everything is good and everyone loves each other and no one hurts or lies or leaves. I cannot live above the pain and reality of life on Earth, even with Jesus in my heart; I still stumble with the every-day-ness of my humanity and the humanity of those around me. So how does my faith fit into this world that I cannot control or look the way I want?
I remember when I was younger I thought of life as the ocean and that each of us was attempting to swim across it, with the goal and prize being one in the same…not drowning and making it out alive on the other side. I do know some people who are natural born swimmers, their ease in the water, their strength and abilities make my feeble attempts at staying afloat look ridiculous. These are people I would go to for swimming lessons and most especially to guard my life whenever I am around large bodies of water.
I, on the other hand had/have very little aquatic aptitude…and I am truly afraid of the ocean. How terribly unfair it seemed for me, having to try and make my life work in this environment With no possible way of completing this on my own I very quickly realized I needed a life Preserver. Something or someone I could hold on to when I grew tired and unable to swim forward and most especially during the most desperate times when I was sinking fast.
For me, this is where Jesus came in…what a great solution to my problem in life. A universal answer to all of our problems: The Perfect Life Preserver.
No one, no matter how talented they are, can swim across the ocean, even the very best swimmer would need help, rest, encouragement along the way. So, Jesus for me became the great equalizer. Everyone needed help. Everyone needed Jesus to make the goal and win the prize.
So when did I start thinking that Jesus was here to make me an Olympic Gold Medallists and that if I could just believe enough in Jesus, He could make me look like I am swimming with ease at all times…most especially at the times when I was most desperate, in over my head and about to go under for the last time.
I think I started living my life this way, because I forgot the very thing that I knew instinctively from the beginning…on my own I couldn’t make life work. Jesus is not meant to be my life coach who “swims” along side me until I can make life work on my own…He is the only thing I have had to hold onto in the hope of making it through life. Or more truthfully He has been holding onto me, holding me up, keeping me from drowning…doing any and all of the swimming.
Maybe this is why He spent so much time here on Earth talking to and about the poorest of the poor, the weakest, the last, the lowliest, the most desperate…those who needed a Savior the most. This is who I am too. This is who I will always be. When I forget this I forget who Jesus is and who I am not. I forget to act like someone who is grateful and thankful and humble. I start acting like someone who demands equality on all levels…no more honestly, who demands to have a better life than all those around me. I start believing I am more than I really am and therefore I deserve everything I have and more…and then I start going under…and I find myself crying out again, Jesus help me.
When my youngest daughter was in high school our other children had for the most part left home. We were attending church together one Sunday. Having the opportunity to listen to a pastor from Pakistan speak about his ministry there. His enthusiasm for what he had witnessed was at times difficult for me to enjoy, as I spent most of the morning filtering his words through my mid-aged cynical heart. My daughter on the other hand seemed to be listening to all he said in peaceful calm giving her undivided attention. After the service I asked her what she thought of all that was said. Wondering if my “teaching” her to be cautious and careful as to what she allowed to be “taken” in by…
We attend a church where there has been much pain and heartache throughout the years. Death, sadness brokenness and many unanswered questions. When the gentle man (and he was gentle) spoke of all the miracles he was seeing, all the healings, all the lives being changed and people believing…it was hard not to wonder, is it just that we don’t believe enough? Or is this a hoax?
My daughter quietly and gently said,
“Mom, I think faith is like sight and taste. No one really knows what something tastes like to another person. We just assume all things taste the same to everyone. Or that the color blue looks like the same to you as it does to me. What if we just call what we see blue…thereby everything we see as “that” color is defined as blue…even if what you are seeing is really red…you will call it blue because that is what someone called it. So, what if experiencing God was the same way? He may taste and look different to everyone, but He is the same God.”
I cried for my broken and wounded friends who are struggling in their marriages and lives. For my friend Julie as she enters the holidays for the first time without her daughter Niki; I cried for how I could not help them before their journeys into pain began and I cried because I cannot help them get out of darkness they now find themselves in. I cried for my own children and for the pain and loss they will experience throughout their lives, for the wisdom (or lack of) I tried to impart about how life works…or better yet how life is supposed to work. I cried for the sorrow I felt for not being honest with them, for trying to manipulate them into behaving based on the idea that life will work “correctly” if they behave “correctly”. I cried for when my children find out, as I have, that behaving correctly does not save them. It will not bring them salvation and it will most probably not save them from pain or heartache or living with hurt because of the wrong actions of others or from the random hurt that can come from the dice rolls of life.
And then I wept because I still spend time here…in no man’s land. I don’t want to live here, I want to live where everything is good and everyone loves each other and no one hurts or lies or leaves. I cannot live above the pain and reality of life on Earth, even with Jesus in my heart; I still stumble with the every-day-ness of my humanity and the humanity of those around me. So how does my faith fit into this world that I cannot control or look the way I want?
I remember when I was younger I thought of life as the ocean and that each of us was attempting to swim across it, with the goal and prize being one in the same…not drowning and making it out alive on the other side. I do know some people who are natural born swimmers, their ease in the water, their strength and abilities make my feeble attempts at staying afloat look ridiculous. These are people I would go to for swimming lessons and most especially to guard my life whenever I am around large bodies of water.
I, on the other hand had/have very little aquatic aptitude…and I am truly afraid of the ocean. How terribly unfair it seemed for me, having to try and make my life work in this environment With no possible way of completing this on my own I very quickly realized I needed a life Preserver. Something or someone I could hold on to when I grew tired and unable to swim forward and most especially during the most desperate times when I was sinking fast.
For me, this is where Jesus came in…what a great solution to my problem in life. A universal answer to all of our problems: The Perfect Life Preserver.
No one, no matter how talented they are, can swim across the ocean, even the very best swimmer would need help, rest, encouragement along the way. So, Jesus for me became the great equalizer. Everyone needed help. Everyone needed Jesus to make the goal and win the prize.
So when did I start thinking that Jesus was here to make me an Olympic Gold Medallists and that if I could just believe enough in Jesus, He could make me look like I am swimming with ease at all times…most especially at the times when I was most desperate, in over my head and about to go under for the last time.
I think I started living my life this way, because I forgot the very thing that I knew instinctively from the beginning…on my own I couldn’t make life work. Jesus is not meant to be my life coach who “swims” along side me until I can make life work on my own…He is the only thing I have had to hold onto in the hope of making it through life. Or more truthfully He has been holding onto me, holding me up, keeping me from drowning…doing any and all of the swimming.
Maybe this is why He spent so much time here on Earth talking to and about the poorest of the poor, the weakest, the last, the lowliest, the most desperate…those who needed a Savior the most. This is who I am too. This is who I will always be. When I forget this I forget who Jesus is and who I am not. I forget to act like someone who is grateful and thankful and humble. I start acting like someone who demands equality on all levels…no more honestly, who demands to have a better life than all those around me. I start believing I am more than I really am and therefore I deserve everything I have and more…and then I start going under…and I find myself crying out again, Jesus help me.
When my youngest daughter was in high school our other children had for the most part left home. We were attending church together one Sunday. Having the opportunity to listen to a pastor from Pakistan speak about his ministry there. His enthusiasm for what he had witnessed was at times difficult for me to enjoy, as I spent most of the morning filtering his words through my mid-aged cynical heart. My daughter on the other hand seemed to be listening to all he said in peaceful calm giving her undivided attention. After the service I asked her what she thought of all that was said. Wondering if my “teaching” her to be cautious and careful as to what she allowed to be “taken” in by…
We attend a church where there has been much pain and heartache throughout the years. Death, sadness brokenness and many unanswered questions. When the gentle man (and he was gentle) spoke of all the miracles he was seeing, all the healings, all the lives being changed and people believing…it was hard not to wonder, is it just that we don’t believe enough? Or is this a hoax?
My daughter quietly and gently said,
“Mom, I think faith is like sight and taste. No one really knows what something tastes like to another person. We just assume all things taste the same to everyone. Or that the color blue looks like the same to you as it does to me. What if we just call what we see blue…thereby everything we see as “that” color is defined as blue…even if what you are seeing is really red…you will call it blue because that is what someone called it. So, what if experiencing God was the same way? He may taste and look different to everyone, but He is the same God.”
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