Letting Your Life Speak

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”
—Parker Palmer (Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation)

I adore my work.

Last night I got to hang out with 40 or so school-age care providers and think and play and explore with them what it means to build reflection into their programs. Because reflection—on activities, feelings, experiences, relationships, thoughts, ideas—is where most (all?) of the significant learning and growth in our lives takes place.

The afternoon before last I spent three hours with a chosen family of about 75 kids and a handful adults in North Minneapolis as they moved through their afterschool routine of journal time (reflection anyone?), academic enrichment activities, an evening meal and open play. In several weeks I will return for a second visit and then the staff and I will gather to reflect on what I saw, heard, felt, experienced and how it aligns or doesn’t with their experiences and their hopes and dreams for the program.

Today I plan to spend several hours writing and developing a book proposal.

Happy sigh.

Of course, there’s the flip side that I’m self-employed so I have no insurance benefits, no 401K plan, no sick leave, no regular pay check. And financially speaking…well, I’m going to be honest and say that youth program quality and youth development work in general is a high priority among a smaller segment of the population than I would like. And freelance writing is what it is.

But I do pretty well for myself. And Shop Guy helps out by having a Real Job. (Way to take one for the team, dude.)

Which brings me to my point…one of them anyway: A number of people close to me are in a time-space-place-phase of reflecting on where they’ve been and where they want to go next. There’s an unsettledness about that that has me thinking about my own journey. Though no one resource or person or process led me to where I am today, I’m a big fan of Parker Palmer’s work on vocation/avocation/calling because “work” for me is a spiritual act. It’s about who and how I am in the world, in my relationships, and in my soul. So although I teeter on the top rail of that fence around overquoting and oversimplifying with platitudes, I’m offering not one but TWO PP reflections anyway. Because I like them. And I’m prone to falling off and picking myself back up.

“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks—we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.”
—Parker Palmer

Church Is Against My Religion

Nora would very much like to return to “church.” I think any church would be acceptable to her as long as she had friends there. My sense is that the other draw is music, but perhaps I am underestimating the power of the spiritual pull.

While I am not prepared to again become part of any congregation of any persuasion, I have offered to facilitate her exploration.

I’ve also shared with her several spiritual gathering places in my life, this rocky point on Lake Superior being one of them.

Larsmont, Minnesota—November 2010

I think she’s beginning to understand.

Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into. —Mohandas Gandhi

Things No One Told Me

Okay, so there are a bazillion lists and books and etcetera (which from this day forward shall be a noun) out there telling me stuff nobody ever told about being a mom, being 40, being self-employed, and so on and so forth.

But the thing is not one of them is very helpful because they are not specific enough to be of actual relevance. So I’ve started my own list. It will likely be as unhelpful to anyone else as existing lists are to me. But whatever.

1. No one ever told that my son who at age four wore the same pink and white striped matching Hanna Andersson shorts and top to preschool every day for an entire summer would, upon turning thirteen, wear shorts to school in sub-zero temperatures because he didn’t have any “clean” pants.

2. No one ever told me that the tip of a child’s violin case can shatter a front door showering your ten-year-old with bits of glass, rendering her incapacitated just long enough to miss the bus.

3. No one ever told me that once you are fully and completely addicted there is an exact amount of coffee that must be consumed each day in order to maintain the sweet spot between caffeine-withdrawal headache and caffeine-overdose headache and that the formula changes each day as the addiction gains more and more control.

And there you have it. For now.

I Got Shot But I Never Died

There was a lot of Joan Baez, John Denver, Peter Paul and Mary, and other Music of the Day playing at my house growing up. But in particular Little Brother I liked to shuffle around the living room to this song. We especially appreciated having it in vinyl rather than cassette tape because there was no starting-stopping-listening-restarting-etc. involved…all we had to do was get that needle on the right ring.

Don’t judge; those were different times.

Wishing

This is what my world looks like on November 13, 2010.

Front Porch November 13, 2010

Stunning, isn’t it? Every year I attempt to enjoy this wonderous beauty for more than the first day.

It does not work.

This is what I wish I was seeing this morning.

Truffula Tree Garden, June 1, 2010

Or this.

Treasure Beach, Jamaica, March 2010

But I’m not. And wishing doesn’t change anything.

If I am to bring an end to this Dwelling on What Isn’t, I must accept that I am a Minnesotan through and through because my people are here. Perhaps someday they won’t be and my wishes will change (thanks, Proust), but for now this is my story.

So I get outside as much as I can, take my cocktail of vitamins and various and sundry other jagged little pills, and take pleasure in the joy the season brings to others, like my friend and mentor Kathleen who blogs here.

And I wait. Because the sheer joy that spring brings is almost worth it.

Misanthropic

Though I love him very, very, very dearly and like him just as much, I am a bit annoyed with my little brother because, of all things, he said the other day that I am not cool.

Me.

WTF?

Now he, my friends, is very, very, very cool. Very. In the way that the word “cool” was cool when we were kids. I am the first to admit that. He’s so cool that he doesn’t even really care that he’s cool. Not much anyway.

He’s so subversively cool in fact that he had to call me to find out from a regular person if a youth program that has been around for forever and a day is actually lame, or just seems lame to him because of his astounding coolness.

Specifically, he said (after I told him it was quite fabulous), “Well…I knew kids who went there and it seemed pretty dorky…but I’ve always been a bit of of a misanthrope.”

“Me too,” I added, even though it’s ill-advised grammar and not even totally clear to what I am referring because, O.M.G., who wouldn’t want to be something as fabulous sounding as misanthrope.

“Ah…no. You’re not.”

“Yes. I totally am!

Aren’t I?”

“Yeah…uh…no. Not at all.”

“Really? Shit. Yes I am. I really think I am.

“You’re positive, Jen. That’s a good thing.”

“No! It’s not! It’s dorky!”

And so on and so forth. You get the drift. No worries, though…I will get over this some day. When he finally bows down to my supreme awesomeness.

Sweet Surrender

Okay…it may not be the Year of Surrender, but it’s at least a good day for it: