Suffocation and growth

 In March of 2011 I wrote this blog post but never shared it. 

I’m suffocating in the silence of words left unspoken, drowning in the endless depths of unshed tears. Lost in a maze inside my heart, so complex and discouraging that it is ripping me into pieces. Tearing me apart from the inside out. Taking over my senses. Taking over my mind. Consciously I have answers for everything, reasons for every interaction, every disappointment, every hurt, every injustice, every failure, but the accumulation of circumstances is overwhelming my consciousness. Destroying rational thought. I’m listening to the echoes of pain trapped inside my mind, screaming to be let free but imprisoned in a sound proof room. Pain caused by the realization that I don’t matter at all in the lives of those people that matter the most in my life.

A realization I have become very familiar with and yet seem to constantly forget. A soundtrack I’ve heard many times over the years, which has repeated itself over and over throughout my life, getting louder, more painful, more overwhelming, more crippling with each cycle. A melody I can’t seem to break free from because I can’t find the source of the music, can’t find the link, the error I am making which if corrected would protect me from feeling this pain. This loneliness. This yearning to be loved by those I love. This yearning to matter.

Someday, maybe, it will become clear. But not today. Today I sit.

Lost..

Alone...

Silent....

This was my truth for decades. Sometimes maybe I feel the echoes of it, but I don't feel this anymore and it's blowing my mind. 

Marriage: Very Rewarding Hard Work

I've been thinking a lot about marriage recently as I am aware of a number of friends and acquaintances whose marriages have broken down in recent years. It's hard to see friends struggle and not think about your own marriage and whether it could end the same way someday. 

It has gotten me thinking a lot about the way marriage is approached in our society and how often there is this need to place blame when a marriage fails, but how impossible that is (and also not conducive to unity). I've been realizing that if there is a 'failure' or a 'fault' it is the forces of disintegration in our world that are to blame. The baseline expectations we have of men verses women, the stories (or lack there of) shared in our lives about romance and married life, and the lack of education about the process of finding a partner, of getting married and of staying married. 

When I think of my own marriage, many of our expectations came from tv shows and movies or from looking at ideal relationships around us and only seeing the public faces of them. We tried to prepare ourselves by studying the Baha'i writings on marriage but no one sat down with us and talked to us about how to have a healthy, stable, reciprocal marriage, and it never occurred to us to ask (or if it did we were too shy and timid to). As a result we spent the first year of our marriage just trying to overcome our own and each other's unrealistic expectations of marriage (and our own and each other's egos). Honestly I'm not sure we've figured out what a healthy, stable, reciprocal marriage looks like. We've absolutely figured out many different ways it doesn't look :), and some things that are helpful. But marriage is not something I have really talked to many people about (in my life or in theirs). It's as if it's taboo to have conversations about the nitty, gritty, very challenging aspects of marriage and I think that taboo is a very sad thing. 

I think an open honest attitude towards marriage would change the paths of so many individuals and couples. Perhaps if our expectations were more realistic, people would be more thoughtful and purposeful in picking a partner, more aware of what characteristics might cause problems for them down the road. Also, if we were encouraged to really look closely at ourselves and reflect on our own patterns of thought and behavior, and our own past traumas, and how they affect our present lives (and how all these things might come up when inviting another person into our lives), we might be more prepared for what is to come and more compassionate with one another when issues do naturally arise. 

In my mind one of the most important aspects of a healthy marriage is both partners having a willingness to face and work through challenges. A recognition that they are in it for the long haul, that there won't ever come a time when everything is perfect and there is no friction or pain or hardship. The utopian version of marriage shown on TV creates a "goal" that is impossible and I think is responsible for many people never marrying and many marriages breaking down. 

I feel like the downfall of a marriage, whether it is instantaneous or takes place over a long period of time is when open, honest, compassionate communication breaks down (or fails to become a pattern in a couple's lives from the beginning). I've only been married for 6 years, but my parents have been married for 40 and while I know they have overcome a great deal and don't struggle as intensely as they did in the early days of their marriage, they still struggle. They still get hurt by one another, they still are working every day to stay unified and to work through things that arise that might threaten that unity. And I believe this is the truth with every healthy marriage. Marriage is very rewarding hard work. 

Mirroring and Reflecting Light

 I feel like I've been searching for my voice my entire life and I've never really found it. I've always been a mirror, searching for what everyone around me wanted me to be and trying (and often failing) to reflect that back to them. I can't remember not doing this. Ever. 

But I also have always had this longing inside me to speak, to sing, to write, to share what is inside me with anyone who it might resonate with. Somehow through writing, through singing, I find the mirror inside me used for a different purpose. Instead of reflecting other's expectations back to them, I find this uplifting, joyful, beautiful, glorious, Godly light being reflected. I created this blog and called it "Reflecting Light" and "Mirroring Truth" but I only now see how deeply those names resonate with my path and my heart and my reasons for writing. 

I don't want to be silent anymore. I want to speak. Even if no one reads my words. Even if I chose not to actually share them anywhere but here. I want to have a voice. A small space of my own. To discover who I am and what this light is that I find when I open my computer and start typing. 

Eleven Years

Today would have been 11 years in Haifa. We left the BWC on 26 March. I had served 10 years, 9 months and 23 days. 11 years ago today I flew into Haifa. A trip that certainly hadn't been what I had expected, filled with tests but also beautiful confirmations. I think my whole service could be expressed that way. I certainly didn't expect to stay more than the 2.5 years I had promised. I definitely didn't expect to leave the way I did, in the middle of a pandemic with 2.5 ays to pack and no chance to truly say good-bye and no time to think about it either. I came in 2009 young, fearful, alone, but with a deep resolve to learn and grow spiritually. And I left on 26 March 2020 with confidence and insight, strength and faith, a beautiful, strong, grounded, loving husband and two sweet, precious, joy-filled little boys. All things I never would have believed possible 11 years ago today. It's as if I went to Haifa seeing only in 2 dimensional Black and White, but I left Haifa seeing the world much more clearly in 3 dimensional color. "I once was blind, but now I see."

I'm still trying to process everything that has happened and how different our lives are now and will be when everything has settled. But right now, in this moment, I'm just grateful for the earth shaking, life changing, consciousness raising gifts that God has given me over these last 11 years.

Below is a poem I wrote at the end of our pilgrimage in March. On the 16th of March, my mom, my sister-in-law and I got to spend 4 hours at Bahji. Something I hadn't gotten to do since before Jonah was born. I didn't know it would be my last visit there, but my heart guessed.

The warmth of the sun on my face
The birds singing in every direction
The focal point of God's grace
The circles of His unending protection

The shadows of trees showing the passage of time
The flowers swaying in the gentle breeze
A moment only Yours and mine
To remember when my heart grieves

Seeing the Light in one another

We are now in our last two months of pregnancy and last 5 months of service at the Bahá'í World Centre and I've definitely had a lot to ponder these last few months. When we leave here I will have been here 3 months shy of 11 years! That's practically a third of my life! We will have two very little boys and be moving to a city we've visited a number of times but which neither of us have ever lived in, entering a world that has been existent but also quite separate from the lives we've lead in the last 4/10.5 years (as well as all our children's lives).

How different the world has become from the one I 'left' 10 and a half years ago. How beautiful in certain ways and how devastating in others. The crumbling of the foundations of society are ever present and visible, while the rebuilding and growth are also very real but frequently have to be searched for and drawn attention to.

I've been thinking a lot recently about these three quotations by Bahá'u'lláh (the founder of the Bahá'í Faith) and what they mean to me personally in my own growth as well as to a world that is crumbling and rebuilding on a constant basis:

O MAN OF TWO VISIONS! Close one eye and open the other. Close one to the world and all that is therein, and open the other to the hallowed beauty of the Beloved. 

O SON OF THE THRONE! Thy hearing is My hearing, hear thou therewith. Thy sight is My sight, do thou see therewith, that in thine inmost soul thou mayest testify unto My exalted sanctity, and I within Myself may bear witness unto an exalted station for thee. 

O SON OF DUST! Blind thine eyes, that thou mayest behold My beauty; stop thine ears, that thou mayest hearken unto the sweet melody of My voice; empty thyself of all learning, that thou mayest partake of My knowledge; and sanctify thyself from riches, that thou mayest obtain a lasting share from the ocean of My eternal wealth. Blind thine eyes, that is, to all save My beauty; stop thine ears to all save My word; empty thyself of all learning save the knowledge of Me; that with a clear vision, a pure heart and an attentive ear thou mayest enter the court of My holiness.

A number of situations that have arisen in my day to day life recently have made me really aware how different our lives can be when we close our eyes 'to the world and all that is therein' and when we try to hear and see with the ears and eyes of the spirit. Quite funny things have brought these ideas home to me; like three very different situations that happened to me in the last few weeks over parking (of all things). 

One was a difficult interaction with someone in a parking lot over a parking spot, that lead to us both apologizing for our initial reactions and connecting in our shared understanding of one another's realities. While my own initial reaction left me feeling quite ashamed of myself (a feeling it took me days to overcome), the interaction afterwards also left me with such a beautiful and confirming feeling of having had my nobility recognized by another human being, and of meeting someone who shared my yearning to build unity and connection when contention and strife naturally arise. 

The second interaction had the opposite effect. I made a human mistake and parked in someone's private parking spot for 30 minutes in the middle of the day (having assumed since it was such a short visit it wouldn't be a problem). The people came home while I was away from the car and no matter how many times I apologized (on the phone as well as in person when the husband came down to move their car), they were quite frustrated with me for having parked there. Don't get me wrong, I've had people park in our private parking space and while I never actually was the one who talked to them (Grayden is far better at those kinds of interactions), I certainly felt a sense of righteous indignation and frustration at their actions. So it's not that I don't understand the way these people felt and reacted. I definitely do, but it was interesting to be in the other shoes with my own reasons for the choice I made, reasons that in the moment seemed reasonable but in hindsight were not very respectful of this particular family. But in contrast to the first interaction, this one left me feeling very small and shamed (again a feeling it took me days to overcome).

A few days later a taxi pulled in front of me as I was leaving our parking lot and if they had stopped just 2 feet backwards, I could have pulled out but instead they blocked me in and blocked the road. In the moment I was frustrated and expressed my frustration to the friend I was driving home, but even just a few minutes later I started thinking about the situation and realized that perhaps the driver had just one thought in his head 'pull in and let out my passenger' and me coming out of the parking lot at that moment wasn't a variable he'd taken into consideration and thus wasn't able to adjust to in time. That's reasonable. I certainly have moments like that.  

Somehow these three situations, set side by side, taught me a profound lesson about how we treat one another and also how we treat ourselves. Particularly in stressful situations or in situations where one person is clearly in the wrong. It makes me wonder why it is so much easier to focus on what we ourselves or others do wrong than it is to try to have compassion and empathy, always with the goal of building unity and connection and shared understanding.  I wonder why it is so easy to look for the bad first and ignore the possibilities that would make someone's actions understandable? To shame others for their mistakes rather than to accept their apology and trust that it is sincere. To shame ourselves for our own mistakes and hold on to them and let that shame affect our interactions with others. To, in our own minds, look at someone's actions and be angry with them, rather than to try to understand why they might have made the choices they did - or even just to trust that there must be reasons why they made those choices (reasons that aren't inherently wrong) and believe in the good in them? 

I've been learning a lot about this in my marriage and in my role as a mother recently as well. 

I was searching for some kind of article a month or so ago with ideas for responding to situations where two individuals are both hurt by the words/actions of the other and I found an article titled "Stop Trying to Fix Your Partner's Feelings" that really had a profound impact on the way I think about conflict. I definitely encourage you to read it (it's not long) as I think it is relevant in all areas of our lives. But what it really helped me understand in my interactions with my husband is how important it is to set aside judgment and defensiveness when someone else shares their feelings with us, to accept their feelings as their reality and to acknowledge that reality ("It makes complete sense that you would feel that way", "Those were very hurtful words for me to say", etc.). Through trying to do that, I've realized how important it also is to share how we are feeling rather than to lash out (saying "you know it really hurts me when..." rather than saying something like "you could have just....."). When we lash out it's hard for someone not to be put on the defensive but when we simply state the way we feel, it gives them an opportunity to empathize. It has also taught me though, to hold my breath for a minute when someone else lashes out at me, and try to acknowledge the feeling that is underneath the attack, rather than to get defensive and angry. I can't say I've mastered this in any way, but it's really changed the way I think about these kinds of conflicts. 

As a mother, I've been thinking a lot recently about my son's nobility. It's so easy to be frustrated when they are holding us up or when you ask them to do something and they smile and very consciously do something else or more often when you ask them not to do something and they smile and do it again and again. It's easy to feel like their actions are a reflection of your worth and they are basically spitting in your face (haha it's funny to read myself writing that outside of a situation, as clearly a not even 2 year old doesn't have the complexity of thought to act with that kind of foresight, but somehow we attribute it to them anyways in the moment). But, to remember that he is a noble being who is striving to grow towards God, striving to be a good human being, to do right, to show love. A child who is also developing and growing and learning every day and realizing he has power inside him that is separate from me. I feel like remembering this puts a whole new spin on what it means to be a mother. I'm not here to be a dictator, forcing him to do what I want him to do. My role in his life is to to help and guide and protect him as he grows and learns about both his physical and his spiritual realities 

As a friend of mine pointed out to me recently, why is it that we treat our children in ways we would never ever treat a friend or another adult? Not to say there isn't a difference between the roles in a friend to friend relationship as opposed to a child to parent relationship, but the nobility and trust and love with which we respond to the needs and wishes of a friend, could very easily translate to the way we speak and respond to our children's needs and wishes. But somehow we're so often in a hurry and seeing the negative in their actions -- "he's taking forever to walk down the stairs by himself, we really need to go faster" "he's deliberately disobeying my request, how do I teach him to obey?" "he's going to knock everything off that shelf, I better grab him and put him in a cart before he makes a mess" -- rather than focusing on their nobility and their light and their growth -- "how amazing to see him learning to walk down the stairs all by himself, we're not in such a hurry that I can't slow down and give him the space to learn this important skill", "he's realizing he has power inside him to make his own choices, how do I ask him questions in a way that helps him to feel empowered to make the choices I'm requesting of him and how do I make sure I'm requesting him to make choices that are right for him?", "he's learning about cause and effect, let's see what happens if he knocks something over, best case, he'll try to pick it up himself, worst case I can help him." 

I feel like, if we all took time to really contemplate our own assumptions about ourselves and about those we interact with on all levels - our spouses, our children, our friends, our acquaintances, even (maybe especially) strangers - and then made effort to try to focus on and see the good in ourselves and in each of these people rather than the bad, our entire outlook on life would change, as would the world. 

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A post shared by Writings of The Bahá’í Faith (@radiant_heart) on Apr 15, 2019 at 3:51pm PDT

Given that Jonah's first birthday is coming up, it kind of makes sense that I've been thinking a lot recently about Jonah's birth and the days leading up to it.

My mom arrived here on the 16th of December, his due date was the 19th. I think sometime around then I went into hibernation mode. I so desperately wanted him to come that I just couldn't face seeing people and having them ask me (totally out of love) about it. I didn't even want to leave the house, my mom was here and it was the small amount of time we'd have together before a newborn and healing became the reality of our lives, but I couldn't get myself to take her out of the house. We played a lot of cards and took a lot of naps.

I was feeling so conflicted during that time. While I was desperately trying to be detached, I wasn't succeeding at all. I desperately wanted Jonah to come naturally. I had surrounded myself with stories of how beautiful and natural birth can be. How important it is for our children to come into this world the way they were meant to, and how like 95% of women are able to have natural births (even if they don't choose to or aren't allowed to by the medical systems where they live). I was searching inside me for any possible sign I could find and around the 17th I started feeling really consistent tiny contractions (in hindsight probably Braxton Hicks contractions) over night. I got so hopeful and excited, and Grayden got so hopeful and excited. But then nothing came of it and I remember feeling like such a failure. Haha like somehow it was my fault that I'd never had a child before and didn't know what it felt like! I think I described it to a friend as feeling "really, unreasonably sensitive and overwhelmed and confused and alone and like a failure." Everything felt so raw, and it was hard not having Grayden home with me and because I'd thought there was movement and their wasn't, I no longer trusted my own instincts to tell me the truth.

In Israel they only let you go one week over your due date before they really push for you to be induced. They make you come get checked at the hospital every three days after your due date (though we totally pushed it a bit), so by our 3rd hospital check on the

Battling Fear and Self-Hatred

I've shared recently some of my thoughts on marriage, and some of my thoughts on raising children (and in a sense each other), I feel like it's maybe time to tackle myself..... I want to be honest here. I feel like it's important to share our stories with one another - especially the difficult parts, the ones that aren't shared enough, and that really help us all feel more compassion for ourselves and for one another. But it's hard. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about fear. It's something I've struggled with all my life. Mostly fear of failure - failing to live up to my own perception of other's expectations/hopes/needs of me and as a result, of losing their love and of being left alone. Annoyingly, the voice that causes this fear, isn't really a voice at all. It's not words in my head - if it were it would be so much easier to combat - it's just this quiet feeling that a situation, or often just my inner reality, is no longer safe for me to be in. It's a feeling that overwhelms my entire nervous system, and yet, because it's not in words, it often takes me a really long time to understand my own reactions (and what I was actually reacting to).

It has caused me to react in ways that I am very very not proud of, to things that in hindsight probably didn't mean what I thought they meant... Especially in my marriage. Over and over and over throughout our first year of marriage (and still in much milder forms to this day), Grayden would do or say something (or more likely in his case - not say or do something), and in my head this would imply criticism towards me. 

One that came up a lot (and still does sometimes) is that I would say something to him and he wouldn't say anything in return. Initially - depending on the nature of the conversation we were having of course - I could take it once or twice a week (now I can take it maybe once or twice a day) before it made me feel unsafe but once that voice started whispering in my ear it would tell me that he wished I would just shut up and not speak and he didn't value my voice and why would anyone value my voice anyways and I should just stop talking and live the rest of my life alone and unhappy, etc. 

Clearly that's not ever what's going on - mostly he originally just didn't have anything to say so he just wouldn't say anything back, now he tries more often to think of things.... But also, he thinks more slowly than I do (or maybe just thinks more about what he's going to say than I do), so sometimes he's struggling to figure out how to respond and his silence drags on and makes the situation feel more and more and more unsafe with every passing millisecond. That one happens frequently - especially when we're already in a difficult conversation and then he doesn't respond or takes a long time to respond to something vulnerable or upsetting I shared. 

Other times, I read criticism and failure into him sharing with me things I perceive as telling me who I am or the way I do something is wrong, or him telling me or asking me something that "shows" a lack of trust or faith in me, or a belief that I would do something that hurt him on purpose, sometimes it's even just a facial expression or an intonation that I read into as implying criticism..... In our first year of marriage, especially after I got pregnant, these things came up over and over and over again and each time they did, I lost my entire foundation. Somehow my brain would go from "normal day to day struggle" to "he doesn't love me anymore and I'm alone in this world" in such a way we would both end up with whiplash.... When that happened, it was like the entire world came crashing down around me. 

It became clear over the last two years (as these things do in marriage) that I never really learned to moderate my own emotions when it came to handling pain and hurt feelings that are caused by someone close to me. My instinct was to turn on myself, blame myself for the situation, silently feel anger and resentment towards whoever it was who had hurt me, stay away from them for as long as I could, and if I couldn't, then just to push it down, ignore the pain, apologize and pretend like everything was fine (while inside I was screaming and losing my trust in everything and everyone). I obviously couldn't do that in marriage and didn't want to, but because I barely realized I did it, and because I hadn't really been in a situation in my life where I felt it was okay to act differently, every time we had a disagreement or I got hurt by something or other that Grayden said, I fell apart. I hated everything I could possibly think of to hate about myself while at the same time being angry at Grayden for whatever it was that caused the situation. And when my hurt was met with silence, as it naturally was at times, I broke. 

I find it hard to share this, but sometimes in my despair and hopelessness and self hatred, and his inability to even see them, let alone touch them or help me deal with them, I would turn on Grayden. He would say the "wrong" thing or do the "wrong" thing and I would run away from him and hide in another room, I'd slam doors, I'd scream at him, I'd punch myself or bite myself. A couple times I punched him..... He's a strong guy so I don't think I ever left bruises, but oh how I hated myself for it....... I would tell myself over and over again that violence is never okay, to ourselves or to others (especially to others), I would recite in my head all the reasons why he probably acted as he did and all the reasons I was wrong to feel the way I did, I would then recite in my head all the horrible things I'd done or said in the conversation that were unfair and hurtful and tell myself that I was just making him hate me more and pushing him away more, and lock myself into an endless funnel of self hate. As you can imagine, this never helped the situation and often meant days before there was a resolution, and weeks if not months before there was a feeling of 'safety' again. 

Anyways, I'm not writing this blog post to shame myself. This was the reality of who I was when we got married. It's a bit of an understatement to say that marriage brings out big emotions, and in truth, I acted like a child who hadn't ever learned to handle and deal with their own big emotions. 

It's not my reality anymore, though obviously there are still echoes of it..... At some point, with the help of a counsellor, a therapist and some books I'd been reading (Raising a Secure Child and No Drama Discipline in case you're interested) it clicked in my head that shaming myself when I reacted in a way that wasn't the way I would like to react wasn't helping the problem. So I started trying to have compassion for myself and to accept myself where I was at (because I finally understood that with acceptance would come growth and I wouldn't be stuck there forever). 

And then with help we both learned better language to use to acknowledge our own and each other's pain (for example saying something like "it hurts when " rather than saying "I'm so sorry I didn't mean to, ").

So fast forward to now. Something I've found really helpful in the second book I mentioned above (NDD) is that it talks about how we all have a reactive brain and a receptive brain. How when we're feeling big emotions we feel them in our lower "reactive" brain and through training we build connections which help us to take those big emotions up to our upper "receptive" brain to be analyzed and thought through. If they just stay in the reactive brain, or if they are met there with another person's reactive brain, they can just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But if we are able to pull ourselves out of the reaction and think through things, that's when we learn to moderate our big emotions. 

It's interesting how just having an understanding of this and being able to step out of an interaction and observe our own and the other person's mental state, can make such a huge difference. To be able to say "I'm feeling really reactive right now, and I think you probably are too, can we stop for a minute and calm down?" or to be able to tell him at the end of an exhausting day when he gets home that I'm off balance and feeling reactive so please tread lightly with me. It's amazing how just simply being honest with one another about how we're feeling, can actually save us from difficult and hurtful interactions. Not something I would ever have thought about when people say how important communication is in marriage. 

I guess this is part of why I've been thinking about fear recently. It has been such a huge obstacle to open and honest (and loving) communication in our marriage. Obviously fear is a reactive state, so in a sense all we need to do, to combat fear (and everything that goes with it - in my case self-degradation) is to find tools to help us move into the upper receptive brain.  I was thinking yesterday about what qualities might combat fear. The first one that came to mind was trust. I've often felt that fear is simply a lack of trust (in God, in oneself, in others...). So it follows that trust would be something that combats fear. I think, even beyond that though, love not only combats but it actually conquers fear. To love, is to look with eyes of understanding and forgiveness, compassion and empathy and trust. When we're in a situation where someone has hurt us, reminding ourselves that the other person is noble and underneath whatever they did or said, is a soul who probably wouldn't want to inflict harm or hurt on another soul, reminding ourselves that they want to see the best in us, that they love us, and even more importantly that we want to see what is best in them and that we love them, can make such a difference in our own reactive v. receptive state. 

That's just one of the tools I've come up with for myself to help me to not be reactive in a situation I find unsafe. I'd love to hear the tools other people use to combat their own fear!

Honoring and connecting with the nobility in our children and one another

My Jonah turns eleven months old tomorrow. My little moosh is nearly a year old! I know I was told over and over before he was born and even during these eleven months, how quickly time will pass, but what I wasn't told was how different every single week of every single one of those months would be from each other. How quickly their little personalties become apparent. How quickly they learn and grow and develop!

I've found myself recently saying over and over again 'he's only been doing that for the past week or two!' At first I didn't really notice but recently I started thinking I was sounding like a broken record until I realized that each time I said it, it was about something different - "he's only been crawling for a week or two", "he's only been pulling himself up for about a week or two", "he's only just started interacting with us in the last week or so", "he just started repeating things we do and even sometimes things we say about a week ago", etc. Instead of feeling like a broken record, it made me realize how drastically their little bodies and brains are changing in such a short period of time.

Me and a few of my friends have been reading this book recently called No Drama Discipline and in the second chapter it talks about how every child's brain is changeable, changing and complex ("The Three C's"). It explains this in many contexts, but one is to help parents have patience and compassion when their children are reactive (as in when their emotions are taking control of their bodies) rather than receptive (as in when we can sit down and have a conversation with them about what happened) and to understand that not only are their brains constantly changing and extremely complex, but they are also changeable. So if we respond to their reactiveness with compassion and love and connection (rather than anger and/or lectures and/or our own reactiveness) we have the ability to help their little brains change and become more capable of dealing with those big emotions.

I definitely want to reread this book when Jonah is a bit older as it's not so relevant to him right at this exact moment but it has so many things I want to keep in mind as he grows. Anyways, I was thinking how much compassion and understanding we have for a child under the age of two or three, because their growth is so tangible! It's so easy to see that their brains are all of these 'C's.' But how sometimes, the older a child is, the more we forget that they also are still growing and building connections and that those connections are able to be changed. We also forget that those changes we wish for will manifest themselves far more quickly if we respond to their misbehavior by seeking connection, acknowledging their struggles, listening to them, and helping them understand and learn to moderate their own feelings.

In truth I think we forget that all these things are still true into adulthood. That we as human beings are extraordinarily complex, that our brains are always changing and are always changeable. Not to say we can look at the way we think, say we want to change it and snap our fingers and we're there (if only that was possible!!!). But it is possible to change our thought patterns and our actions and reactions. So often we berate ourselves for not being who we wish we were, rather than seeking connection first - finding our truth, our nobility, the beautiful people we were put on this earth to be, and then seeking to grow with that as our mold. We also forget to do this with others. To look for and find their truth, their nobility, the beautiful people they were put on this earth to be.

I've often thought of children as seeds planted in the soil of God's love. The thing is, just because I grew to be an apple tree, doesn't mean that is the seed that God planted in my son or my husband or my close friends, or even my parents or my brother! It is not my responsibility to raise my son to be an apple tree as well. It is my responsibility to make sure that his physical needs are met (that he receives water and sun and nutrients and light, etc), that his spiritual needs are met (that he receives love and knowledge and guidance and is shown what true beauty is, etc), and that as he grows I guide his branches or leaves or petals or whatever he becomes towards the Light and I make sure first to shelter him from and then to teach him that though there will be storms and shadows, they don't need to affect his growth or his vibrancy. But nowhere in there do I get to decide what plant he will be. God decided that long before he was given to me. I am tasked with making sure that plant grows and bears fruit and continues to draw closer to the Light.

I feel like this imagery can be so helpful in looking within ourselves - for how can I compare myself to others (and find myself wanting) if I come from a different seed, if I was made to blossom and grow in a different mold? For the same reason it is also very helpful in looking at others around us. For it is easy to look at my husband or my close friends or my family and think, 'well I'm bearing this kind of fruit, they should be too' or 'we're meant to look like this or act like this or be like this' etc. Only, it's not true, I can't know what kind of seed was planted in each of those people, nor can I know the quality of the soil it was planted in or the amount of nurturing both physical and spiritual they received growing up, so as a result I can't know exactly what 'drawing towards the Light' looks like in them.

I've been teaching a preschool class over the past year (just once or twice a week for the children of a couple friends here) and this last week we were working on counting and the kids taught me a quote that they had learned in children's classes over the weekend. I feel like it, and the rest of the quote that surrounds it, is an appropriate way to end this post as it reminds us what we should be looking for in our children and in one another:

‘Abdu’l-Bahá tells us:—

To be silent concerning the faults of others, to pray for them, and to help them, through kindness, to correct their faults. To look always at the good and not at the bad. If a man has ten good qualities and one bad one, to look at the ten and forget the one; and if a man has ten bad qualities and one good one, to look at the one and forget the ten. Never to allow ourselves to speak one unkind word about another, even though that other be our enemy.

Reflections on nearly 2 years of marriage

Jonah is nearly a year old and Grayden and I have been married for nearly two years. I can't believe how quickly time has flown. I know so many people say that about family life. It's the kind of thing your parents or your friend's parents said while you were growing up and you rolled your eyes at them when they did. But wow!

I'll tackle marriage first. These last two years have turned my world upside-down in some very challenging, very difficult, very rewarding and very beautiful ways. Seriously. Challenging, difficult, rewarding and beautiful, all at the same time usually. Though the latter two often weren't as apparent at first as the first two were. The world has a way of telling a very specific story of family life. One painted in gold ink, with beautiful smiles and happily ever after written at the end. But it's not even remotely accurate. In fact, in many ways, the story that is told is actually quite harmful. Harmful because it makes people expect that story, and when not confronted with it they often fight, flee, freeze or faint (or all four at different times). None of which are helpful.

The two best things Grayden and I have ever done in our marriage was firstly to understand (and believe) that all our challenges could be fixed so long as we both made effort and were willing to work towards a solution and the second was to ask for help when we didn't have the skills yet to fix them ourselves. We each went separately to see counsellors a few times, we went to see a therapist together a few times and I went to see a therapist myself for months in our first year of marriage (while I was about 6-9 months pregnant). And I'm so so grateful that we had the strength and courage and willingness to do that. I think that willingness is what eventually built the necessary trust in our relationship that allowed us to overcome (and still work through) so many of the challenges we've faced. And I wish there was less of a stigma against seeking help! Honestly, it's one of the things I wish more people had the courage to do in their first year of marriage.

Marriage isn't the 'everything comes naturally and beautifully' perfect picture that is so often reused and recycled over and over and over in the movies. Don't get me wrong, I pray that with time, patience and effort, our marriage will be exactly that, but usually the media paints this perfect picture for the first part of marriage, the getting to know one another's characters/newly wed part. That part, just doesn't look like that for most couples. The beginning of relationships and marriage is messy and painful and challenging. You come face to face with your own ego over and over and over on a daily basis and you can't just ignore it like you could before marriage. You're forced to confront yourself and your assumptions and your actions on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. You also bring your spouse face to face with their own ego over and over and over again. And setting ego's aside, living in the same space, in the same bedroom with another human being of the opposite gender, when you've never done that before as an adult, is an eye opening, sometimes frustrating, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes confusing, sometimes shocking experience! We are all so different from one another. Our habits and attitudes are different,  the assumptions we make based on one another's behaviors are very different (and often are dead wrong). And it can be hard to put aside that feeling of 'I'm right, and you're wrong', 'my way of doing things is right and yours is really weird.' Honestly even when you know that feeling isn't true, sometimes it's just really hard to try to understand the perspective of someone who's brain functions in a very alien way from yours. Communication is just so hard early on! You've never had to communicate with anyone, not even your parents or siblings, about so many things - big things as well as little things.

Silly enough, the first thing Grayden and I ever argued about was where our pajamas should be placed when we make the bed in the morning. I'd always been taught and always seen everyone fold their pajamas and put them under their pillow (well lets face it, not everyone folds them and I wasn't a stickler about that, it was more the 'out of sight' part that was important to me). I took for granted that this was what everyone did and it had never crossed my mind that there were other ways of handling pajamas. Grayden on the other hand had always folded them and put them on the end of the bed, on top of the covers (!!!). I couldn't understand how that was okay! I mean, guests could come over and see your pajamas! How embarrassing!!! Lol, nearly 2 years later and I think it's hilarious, but at the time, it felt huge! I didn't want to criticize him or make him feel badly. I didn't feel like I had a right to ask him to change but I also didn't want them there. I think I actually held in my frustration so long that I might have blown up at him a bit when I finally told him - sort of a 'why in God's name would you do that??' explosion rather than an 'I feel a bit uncomfortable with them there' kind of sentiment.

Everything felt so BIG in that first year. I was looking for reassurance and love and understanding and compassion and was meeting him with confusion and sensitivity and uncertainty. He in turn was probably expecting similar things from me and was meeting me with similar attitudes. It's so hard to build trust and understanding when you're hoping the other person will take the first step to convince you of their love and trustworthiness! Luckily, both Grayden and I were able to communicate enough to one another to make it clear we were both trying. We kept stepping all over one another and hurting each other left and right. We kept assuming things that weren't true, based on our own backgrounds and sensitivities, and jumping to unfair conclusions based on our own shark music. But we knew that we were both trying and would keep trying until we overcame our struggles. We strongly believed in the institution of marriage and that our marriage was what God wanted for us. We knew that we would get to a place where our marriage was a fortress for wellbeing, and also even though we were caught a bit off guard by how difficult marriage was, we both had heard many times that the first year was challenging (and oh how it was!). Somehow knowing other people had clearly also faced struggles their first year (and probably most people for it to be such a common thing people said) made us feel less alone, less like we were failing somehow and more able to see it as part of the process of building a strong foundation.

And by about 8 months, something changed. Trust had somehow slowly seeped into our interactions and we turned around one day and found that the other person had become our closest and best friend. I remember it really caught me off guard. I had been very afraid of giving of myself physically - don't worry, you don't need to look too deeply into that sentence! I was afraid to hug him, to hold his hands to kiss him and definitely afraid of more physical contact than that! I'm very very lucky that he was very patient with me. But I remember one day in our eighth or nineth month were all those barriers that had been there to 'protect' me (the ones that clearly weren't needed anymore), just weren't there anymore. And all of a sudden all these things I'd been afraid of and had pushed away vehemently, not only was I not afraid of anymore but I actually really wanted them. And it wasn't just physical trust, it was like a barrier I'd had up since I was a child came crashing down with the realization that it was no longer needed.... Don't get me wrong, it took a lot of work to get there, and a lot of work afterwards as well. But it has been sooooooooooo rewarding. Because not only did I overcome some pretty huge walls I'd had up inside me for a long time, but I also gained a best friend in the process. One who didn't look or talk or act like any friend I'd had before, one who maybe didn't fulfill every need I have (and in truth, I don't think it would be a healthy marriage if he did), but one who would always be there as best he could and one who I realized I loved more than anyone I'd ever known before him.

I know so many people searching for a partner, and I guess, I just wanted to say that one of the best things that you can do is to reshape the image you have of what partnership/relationships/marriage actually look like. What your image of your partner/spouse looks like in your head. And when you do find someone and you do struggle; to have patience with yourself and with them, to take the time needed to build your ability to communicate with one another and to overcome each challenge that comes your way - and there will be challenges - and yes maybe to go see a counsellor or a couples therapist if you're both willing, trust me they can be sooooo helpful! But the most important thing is to believe that with effort, and patience and faith in yourselves and in one another, you will find everything you're looking for, and so so so much more!

Presenting Perfection vs Growing and Learning

I've been thinking a lot recently about how much I miss writing. Honestly, how much I miss myself... I can't remember the last time I really did something just for me. Strangely, I'm not feeling a sense of loss or anything about that.... Motherhood has a way of removing your need to exist separate from your child -- well at least when they're not smacking you in the face repeatedly or biting you while they're eating or crying unconsolably for hours. Haha, then you may need a bit of father-enforced separation, but in general, I don't really miss the person I was before Jonah was born. I'm happy with my life the way it is, I'm not yearning for 'me' time.

But, I have found myself thinking a lot about how freeing and joy-filled I have always found sitting and writing to be. How it makes me feel like I have a 'voice' and how precious it is to know that there are a few people out there who seem to enjoy reading my thoughts and being with me in my descriptions of life and struggles. In the past this has usually taken the form of poetry. I really love writing poems. The feeling of words just flowing through me and forming themselves into some kind of painting - maybe a clear scenic painting or maybe a muddled, confused painting of random colors that could mean a number of different things but if you look close enough you'll find meaning in it. I love that feeling! But it's been a long time since I've had poetry flow out of me like water.

I'm honestly not sure why, maybe my brain just got too involved in my efforts. Maybe I stopped believing in my ability to write beautiful things. At some point I know I felt that I'd said everything I could say about my life as it was. But I always assumed that marriage and family life would stir the stagnant pool of my poetic ink. But it hasn't. I've maybe written one poem in the last year (where I used to write 30-40 in a month). I think part of it is just that I've become afraid of failure. Afraid of making a mess in an effort to create something beautiful, only to realize at the end that it's still just a mess. I forgot that for every truly beautiful poem I wrote, there may have been 4 or 5 others that I'd written which were just 'meh.'

It's funny how attached we can be to presenting perfection. Don't get me wrong, it's important to always strive in our lives, to grow and learn and change, to make effort towards bettering ourselves. In that sense, we strive for excellence, knowing we won't achieve it, but understanding that by striving towards it we may attain far more than we would if we were striving to be moderately good. I think I got too attached to the outcome and forgot how beautiful the effort can be and how much of a sense of community we can find when we share our struggles with one another.

So I figured, since I haven't shared anything in writing in a really long time, I'd start with my blog. Maybe it will encourage me to write poetry again, or maybe I'll find I actually really enjoy blogging.. I guess we'll see :). Hopefully I'll find at least a few people who want to take this journey with me!

Abandoning the Language of the Ego

Have you ever found that certain words you use to describe yourself, mostly within your own mind, are triggers for your ego? The first word I recognised as doing this and really made effort to remove from my thought patterns was the word "should". I started recognizing the guilt and self degradation that came when this word came into my head. I felt, and still feel, that it implied success and failure, right and wrong. That it's use could only lead to either self righteousness or self degradation. It felt that there was no room for growth with this word constantly going through my thoughts. Only judgement and usually failure. 

This morning I started thinking also about the word "why?" I would never before have thought of it as a trigger for my ego. I mean it's a question right? It's a word we use to search for understanding and meaning and growth in the world around us. But somehow I think I may have slowly over the last few years replaced the word "should" with the word "why" in my thoughts.

I've been struggling with myself a lot in the last few months.  I think marriage has a way of doing that to you. Every interaction has become a why question, "Why did I say that?" "Why am I hurt by this?", "Why did he do or say that?", "Why does that bug me?", "Why doesn't he get that that upsets me?", "Why did God create me this way?", "Why am I overreacting?",  etc. (in an endless stream)

I search for answers within these questions, hoping that they will assist me to let things go and move on, but instead, my answer is often "I don't know..." And because I find this to not be an acceptable answer, I usually find some possible reasons, for the "why", but my answers are almost never right.... In truth, I don't know why God made me the way He did, I don't know why I say certain things sometimes, I definitely don't know why my husband does many things or doesn't do many things and I have no clue why I get hurt and upset about certain things.

But I think maybe the answers to these questions don't actually matter as much as I think they do, and they aren't really a useful method for growth. I'm starting to realize that instead of assisting me to move on and let things go, this never-ending search for an answer to these questions actually keeps them present in my thoughts. It takes me in a continuous, never-ending loop that usually comes back to a question with an outrageous amount of judgement and blame in it "Why can't I be the person I know I should be?". The "should" and the "why" all in the same question.... Guilting ourselves doesn't seem to be the most effective tool for growth, in fact, as it draws on the ego, it is quite counter productive. 

Right now, for Baha'is all around the world, it is time for detachment from earthly attachments. A time when we fast for 19 days. While we do fast from food and drink from sunrise to sundown, we also fast from our material attachments. We search within our hearts to recognize the patterns in our lives which pull us away from God and we pray and ask God to purify us, to illumine our hearts, to assist us to draw nigh unto Him and to detach from all that does not draw us to Him. I guess my prayer for today is that He assist me to remove this word from my thoughts about myself and others. And beyond that, that He assists me to change the way I view the world. To no longer see through the eyes of success and failure, of right and wrong, but instead through the eyes of growth and change and learning and beauty. 

"I ask of Thee by Thy Self and by him who hath fasted out of love for Thee and for Thy good-pleasure—and not out of self and desire, nor out of fear of Thy wrath—and by Thy most excellent names and august attributes, to purify Thy servants from the love of aught except Thee and to draw them nigh unto the Dawning-Place of the lights of Thy countenance and the Seat of the throne of Thy oneness.  Illumine their hearts, O my God, with the light of Thy knowledge and brighten their faces with the rays of the Daystar that shineth from the horizon of Thy Will." - Bahá’u’lláh

My Voice

I realized today that my understanding of my own voice is very deeply connected to the written word. It is how I process my life, how I find meaning and insight.

I have so many memories of people saying or implying that I shouldn't be so serious or depressing or whatever negative emotion you can think of, in my poetry and that my tests and challenges in life can't ever truly be fixed through writing. That the only way to actually handle a situation with someone is to talk to them in person, to have a 'real' 'big girl'  'in person' live' conversation. These loving, kind hearted, all-knowing voices turn over and over and over in my head telling me this in every situation I am faced with in life. They tell me that if I can't express something out loud then basically I'm weak, crippled, broken. That I should be able to and if I can't then... well... I should force myself to...... That I should overcome this weakness that is my need and yearning to share my deepest truths in writing.

Today I understood something... I understood that, in my life, the only way I feel I am allowed to have a voice is through writing. It is as if I have lived most of my life underwater, breathing through a straw, but these voices in my head have often even taken away that straw, and left me drowning, with no way of finding the surface. No way of sharing my truth. No way of breathing.

So much of my life I have suffocated in silence. Feeling as though my attachment to my metaphoric straw is a weakness I should be able to overcome. Not seeing that in fact the straw is one of my greatest strengths.

When a situation arises that I don't know how to deal with, I sit down and write about it or if I can't, then I talk it out with myself. I write and rewrite and rewrite letters or conversations with others in my head... I rewrite them until I understand the essence of the situation, why it hurt me, why I feel as I do, what really is the source. It helps me to know whether it is something that I can sift through, find the triggers, recognize and acknowledge them and then let go, whether I need to express the pain in some written form, such as a poem, which will allow me to let it go or whether it's something I really need to speak to someone about. Then if I do need to speak about it, writing it all out allows me to say what I really want/mean to say without my defensive lower-self getting involved. It allows me to express what I am unable to express aloud, and then it creates an opening to have a conversation with someone. A real 'in person' conversation if one is needed.

Writing allows me to feel as though I have a right to express my needs. To ask for help. To speak my truth. To set boundaries. It is not my crutch, it is a huge part of my voice and I desperately need to stop taking my own voice away simply because other people have different ways of sharing their own. Somehow I need to recognize in my soul that there is no 'one right way' and that the path I am walking is not 'wrong' simply because my actions often find their impulse in written form.

A Storehouse of Grief

She had often before inhaled defensiveness and anger, not her own, but rather composed of her loved one's guilt. Unsuspecting she had shared her own confusion and pain, and been met with a rain of fire and shame.  Unsure how to respond, she breathed out silent  emptiness, and held within her their rage, shame, guilt, pain; along with her own shattered trust.

Then again, she breathed in anguish, hurt, confusion  and loss, but this time the pain went deeper. She was older, she understood more and yet didn't understand at all. She couldn't comprehend the injustice of being blamed for feeling grief, her distraught heart unable to find relief. So she breathed in a good-bye she never wished to say. A good-bye she thought  was forever, to everything she had ever treasured, to her joy and her pleasure. But even in her good-bye, she wasn't allowed to cry. So she breathed out silent defeat and held within her emptiness, loss, turmoil along with her loved one's guilt.

But as she grew older, this pain built. Suffocating her will, bleeding away her energy, her light. She lost sight of the ground, no solid foundation to be found. During these years she breathed in loneliness, fear and hopelessness. She had no air to help her speak for she had long ago stopped breathing deep of the life she was given to live. She held her breath in tortured silence, believing herself to be utterly alone, but also believing she was incapable of finding her truth on her own.

As life continued to move forward, her past haunted her. It taunted her to fight for responsibilities she had never wanted. For years she carried the weight of these responsibilities still living in her silent past, harassed by the belief that emotions were not meant to be shown and life's hardships were hers to carry, forever alone. She held her breath and prayed to bear and endure on her own.

But eventually she could hold her breath no longer and she slowly began to look at the weight it had been her fate to carry. She breathed in love and gratitude for all she had gained, strength she hadn't known she contained, and a willingness to change. And she found that she could. With each breath she began to heal, breathing in all that was real, the world and its joys, its sweetness, its light, and she exhaled the loss, the sadness, the fright, and said good-bye to the night; to the storehouse of grief that had unconsciously been her plight for most of her life. 

Fight Darkness With Light

Horrible things happen. Horrible things are happening. We have free will, and I don't believe we can blame God for these things happening, neither can we knowingly say that He sent them to us so that we could learn. But when they do happen I believe He does give us a choice. We can choose to either sit back in horror and watch the decay of our society, the crumbling of an old world order or we can take action, we can see in each tragedy and horror a responsibility to make sure it never happens again, we can learn from our mistakes and search for transformation and growth in the middle of the present day's chaos. We can dedicate our lives in service to the betterment of our communities and our world and teach our children to do the same. We can collectively look at the horrible things that happen around us as motivation to raise a generation that does not repeat these same mistakes. To live a life in which our actions reflect the world we would like our children to grow up in. A life in which we strive to reflect the qualities of God, to ground our actions in compassion, to have the courage to forgive and the strength to love equally and unconditionally. 

When tragedy strikes, do we sit back in horror? Do we get angry and divisive? Do we look for someone or something to blame? Do we charge into battle guns loaded? Or do we say, I have a responsibility to make a positive difference in my community. I have a responsibility to show love to my neighbors, to believe and empower the children of my community, to fight darkness with light, to fight anger with forgiveness, to be a living embodiment of the people I wish all the children in my community could grow up to be, to strive with every ounce of my being to draw closer to God, through my actions and deeds. 

We all have a responsibility to be a positive force within our communities so that together we can build a world where we, humanity, are not the cause of each other's sorrow and suffering, but rather their joy and light. 

"Be thou a summoner to love, and be thou kind to all the human race. Love thou the children of men and share in their sorrows. Be thou of those who foster peace. Offer thy friendship, be worthy of trust. Be thou a balm to every sore, be thou a medicine for every ill. Bind thou the souls together... Rest thou not for a moment, seek thou to draw no easeful breath. Thus mayest thou become a sign and symbol of God’s love, and a banner of His grace." - 'Abdu'l-Baha

Lights Across the Water

When I was a little girl, there was a highway my family used to drive on in our city. It could take you from downtown all the way out to the valley (a drive that took all of about 25 minutes). My family lived right in the middle of this road, neither in the valley, nor downtown. I remember as a kid feeling like the peace keeper, the middle-man. Whenever we would take this highway downtown at night, I would stare out my window in awe. My brother always made me sit on the seat on the left hand side of the car. I didn't think it was fair, because it meant no matter which direction we went I always had to stare at oncoming traffic and he always got the beautiful view of mountains and water and glaciers and sky. But whenever we drove downtown at night, I didn't mind having to sit in the left hand seat so much. There was a set of lakes on the way that made it feel as though the highway was floating on water. On my brothers side was the Gastineau Channel, and on my side was Twin Lakes (which was exactly what the name of the area implies). What fascinated me most though wasn't so much the lakes but the lights. You see, where I grew up, the city was basically built on the edge of the mountains, and right next to these lakes was a particularly steep mountain with houses and streets climbing up its side. Whenever we would drive downtown at night, the lights from these houses would reflect in the lakes below, and their elegance would mystify me. I would imagine vast, endless cities existing right below the surface. Like in Star Wars, people just going about their daily lives completely unaware of the people living in the world above them, who in turn were completely unaware of their existence.

Growing up in Alaska, there were no horizon lines. If I ever saw lights at night across a great distance, they were unquestioningly across a body of water like the Twin Lakes. So, when my family moved to Tucson, Arizona when I was 15 years old,  mountains and enclosed spaces were all that I knew. As my dad and I drove from Phoenix to Tucson, I remember seeing lights farther off in the distance than I had ever seen before. While I consciously knew that there couldn't be water between them and me, as we were basically in the middle of a desert, my brain couldn't comprehend what could possibly exist in that vast space if not water. How could land simply spread out like that? I often think back on that feeling of mental comprehension, but instinctive confusion when I am faced with new or confusing situations. I remember the comprehension which came over time as I gained experience seeing vast open areas of space. I still look back at my initial reactions and laugh at my own innocence while appreciating the beauty of it as well.

This memory has taught me an important lesson in life. I have learned that it is one of the most freeing feelings to recognize that your understanding, your vision, your comprehension are limited by your own life experience, by your own assumptions of reality, and to be able to set that aside and move forward into the future, without fear, but rather with trust and excitement to gain new perspectives is truly a gift. Over and over I have faced new experiences, new places, new cultures, new jobs, where I didn't know what to expect, where I couldn't possibly comprehend what was up ahead.

Right now I am facing the same thing. Come June I will be moving to Russia to assist with the expansion of the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program there. Russia seems like such a foreign word to me, let alone an actual place. And yet, I now marvel at my own reaction to being asked to go. I wasn't afraid at all. I didn't question whether it was the right choice or not, I knew with every ounce of my being that God had looked within my heart, weighed my deepest dream, and handed me the perfect opportunity to fulfill that dream. I think I've learned to look at an open horizon line in the dark and say, "Okay well, perhaps all I see are lights and I don't know what exists between them and me, but I will surely find out and gain a broader understanding of the world in the process."

I can't wait to feel the magic of seeing mountains and snow and lights reflected in water again. Oh how I've missed the beauty and mystery of living in the north.

Meatballs

So I have to tell you a story. When I was little, I was extremely stubborn and really picky (haha go figure). My parents had it made trying to get me to even try a bite of pretty much anything that was new and looked even remotely strange. So you can probably picture the scene the first time my parents introduced me to meatballs and asked me to take one single bite of one. I flat out refused. It looked like dog poop to me and even though I was only 3 or 4 I figured I could out wait them if it came to a stand off. I was wrong. The rest of my family finished their food and my mom and brother went off to do other things. My dad sat at the table staring at me. He would wait all night if he had to, but I was going to try a single bite of that meatball and that was the end of the story. I have no idea how long I tested my dad's patience. To me it definitely felt like I sat there for 2 or 3 hours (considering I was like 3 it was probably more like 10 or 15 minutes). Finally when I felt I'd made my point and I could tell my dad wasn't going to yield and let me leave the table in peace, I took the tiniest bite you can possibly imagine of that disgusting looking brown thing on my plate. Then, before even really allowing myself to taste it, I made the most horrible face I could muster and ran as fast as I possibly could to the garbage can and spit it out. My dad sighed and let me go. It wasn't until about 10 years later that I finally admitted to him that I had actually deeply enjoyed the taste of that first bite of meatball, but that at 3 I had my pride and wasn't going to tell him that. Since then in my family any time that someone is adamantly against something and then completely changes their mind about it, this story is often referenced in jest.

Pure Light in Human Form

A child is pure light in human form. They are innocence, love, trust and purity. We should all be more like children. Peaceful, content, honest to a fault, genuine and sincere. How different the world would be if we were each allowed to keep and treasure our childhood hearts. The innocent joys and imaginative pleasures which were our reality as children could develop into radiance and appreciation, imagination and detachment from earthly things if only we would let them. Instead we fill children's lives with things, with toys, movies and games, with ideas, prejudices, assumptions and attachments. We draw their attention from the pleasures and joys which remind them of God's glory. We fill their heads with earthly and material responsibilities losing sight of their greatest responsibility of all, their responsibility to dedicate themselves in service to others, in service to God. We look at our own inhibitions and hope that the next generation can overcome them and become better and more than what we see ourselves as. But in this single seeming act of selflessness is the essence of our struggle and the downfall of our goal. For a child will become what you are, not what you hope them to be. Unless we as teachers, parents, adults are continually striving to become better people, to become the people we want our children to be, they will never be able to fulfill our hopes for them. For a child cannot learn something the person teaching them does not understand. So if you wish your child to be a better person then you yourself must show them what it looks like to continually be striving to be a better person, to be in a mode of learning. You must show them what it looks like to trust in God and be willing to change your own assumptions of reality. Be a living example for them of what personal growth and service to humanity looks like, for only then will we truly empower a generation capable of transforming our world.

A Dream

I think I've only ever had one dream. I've focused on various aspects of it throughout my life, but it has always been there. It is a dream that I believe in, one I have faith will happen and always have. Sometimes I've yearned and begged and prayed and wished that it would happen sooner, but I have never not believed that it would happen someday. My dream involves little fingers and toes and giggles, it involves love filled, trusting, unhindered fingers entangled in mine, an embrace that surrounds me, protects me from the world, envelops my entire being, a friendship with absolutely no ends, no walls, no barriers, deeper than any I have ever felt, so deep that I don't know where I end and he begins. A love which will move mountains, grounded in Faith, manifested in service, multiplied and increased in the smiles and laughter of the beautiful souls we will have the bounty of bringing into this world. This is my dream. A dream I know will someday become my reality.