You feel...because....

The first time I threw a plate during an argument with Steve I knew I would eventually need help with conflict resolution. The plate was Corelle and supposedly unbreakable but six months later I was still finding the odd porcelain shard as I swept up the floor, each splinter an opportunity to reflect anew upon what good my outburst accomplished. Now - after throwing several punches, a glass angel, a wooden engagement ring box, two pieces of rotten fruit and a container of yogurt - I am finally enrolled in Communication Skills Training! But will ten hours, three sessions, and one course help me to settle my conflicts more peacefully?

The premise of the course I'm taking is that effective and peaceful communication happens when we focus on the person we're trying to communicate with and their feelings. We practice doing this at the first afternoon workshop I attend: You feel...because.... It seems simple enough.

Fittingly, the next day is the beginning of five long days of conflict at home, the presenting issue being the laundry: it's not done, when it is done it doesn't get folded, and who's job is it to do the laundry anyways?!?!

It was only after loudly proclaiming that I would never - NEVER! - touch one dirty sock of Steve's ever again that I remembered that this month I was supposed to be looking for opportunities in the moment to orient myself toward peace, rather than taking the direct route to conflict.

Sitting in the kitchen after dinner one night an opportunity presented itself. Remembering my communication skills training I realized that a way forward might be to focus less on myself and my complaints and more on Steve and his feelings. I had a road map to peace; all I had to do was follow it. Stand up, make a left, walk five paces, take Steve's hands in your own, listen. I could even use that phrase: You feel...because.... "You feel frustrated because your shirts aren't clean when you need them to be." I could say that, I thought. Imagine it! But I couldn't get the words out. You feel..., you feel..., well what about what I feel? I wanted to yell (I may have yelled). Does anyone ever think about that?

A few days later I came across this quote: "Letting bad feelings fester toward another person is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." If conflict is ultimately destructive to ourselves, what do we need to do to move towards peace?

As luck would have it, prep work for a sermon I preached earlier this month required that I read over the gospel of John and it was there that I found some insight. I was struck by the fact that Jesus in John's gospel gives only one commandment to his followers; you won't find an account of the Sermon on the Mount in John's gospel, nor will you find a list of holy do's and don'ts to follow. Jesus instead offers one simple bit of encouragement near the end of the story: love one another. Just love one another. He goes on to say that no one has greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friend.

Perhaps our capacity for peace is related to our willingness to love even when loving others doesn't get us exactly what we want. Perhaps our capacity for peace is related to our ability to love more, to love so much that we'd let a part of ourselves "die" for someone else's benefit. It's been my experience that conflicts resolve peacefully when I just get past my own stubborn insistence upon being right; when I'm willing to put my own interpretations and experiences aside in order to hear the interpretation and experience of another.

Children are so good at doing this, aren't they? Kids don't hold grudges; at least my four and six-year-old don't (I'm not the mom of teenagers, yet!). When my kids and I have a disagreement about something or if I'm crabby and having a bad day they don't give me the cold shoulder. I'm always amazed at how quickly our squabbles are forgotten with the offer of a hug or a kiss. With my kids, the will to reconnect always trumps the will to be right. Perhaps then we can say that our capacity for peace is also related to our capacity to forgive.

I'm trying to remember that, when it comes right down to it, it's not magic words or a magic phrase that help us resolve our conflicts peacefully; it's the attitude and alignment of our hearts. Perhaps the best communication skills training we could ever receive is simply to learn to love more, and to learn to forgive, instead of learning how best to make ourselves heard.

Fighting Words

I spent the month of December with eyes and ears open, on the lookout for small opportunities to grow a little more peaceful. Could I use diplomacy instead of a high-pitched yell to work out the latest power struggle between Emma and Nicholas? Could I get my Christmas shopping and chores done and not recreate my resentment at having to do so back at home? Could I balance the kids' need for attention and engagement with my need to read my book by the fire (alone)? Let's just say peace deserves another month. And so I'm at it again this January, in pursuit of the Spirit through the pursuit of peace. Of all the fruits of the Spirit, I find peace the most difficult to internalize.

I couldn't have planned for a better location to begin my quest for peace. Personal growth opportunities abound where I've been for the past two weeks - in Edmonton, Alberta - visiting my family for the Christmas holidays. If peace is meeting your own needs without disrespecting the needs of others, where better to practice this than the old family home, surrounded by at least ten other people's pressing needs and expectations of what will make this Christmas memorable? Another discovery: we can't meet our needs if we don't have the tools to do so. No inner tools, no inner peace.

My cousins and I took Nicholas and Emma skating at Edmonton's Victoria Skating Oval the Sunday before Christmas. The Victoria Skating Oval is the size of a football field. There is no better place to skate, fast and furious (without running into anybody) than the Victoria Skating Oval, but neither of my kids can skate well. Last winter they got to the point where they could balance on the ice but when we arrived at the Victoria Oval it had been almost a year since they'd been on skates and we were back to square one. My cousins and I took turns skating with the kids, holding them up under their armpits. After about ten minutes Emma got her balance and could walk to one of us if we held out our arms and really encouraged her. Nicholas got to where he could take tiny steps without any help. This was fun for them for about a minute and then Nicholas wanted to know what he had to do to glide like everyone else at the skating rink.

I'm no skating instructor. I tried to remember my own skating lessons which were at least twenty-six years ago. Getting your feet into a "V" shape seemed to be important. Then I tried to think of the best way to explain the concept of pushing backward to glide forward to a five-year-old. Nicholas could not get his feet into a "V" shape and he didn't get my explanation of gliding. Things grew tense between us. He would get himself up and balanced and try to get his feet into a "V," fail, get angry, start scuffing his skates on the ice and fall.

Frustration eventually got the better of him and Nicholas had a full blown tantrum on the ice. Tears and spit and cold and snow. When he didn't lighten up, couldn't pick it up, couldn't try and try and try again I grew impatient. I could see so clearly that all this crying wasn't going to get him skating, in fact, it impeded his progress. It seemed so simple to me; stop crying, get up, try again. I can only comfort for so long before I lose all sympathy and get mean. The pen may be mightier than the sword but the words that come out of our mouth do more harm. I told him to get up because he was embarrassing me. No one else was crying. "You'll never get better if you don't practice."

Ironically I knew just how Nicholas felt. I know how discouraging it feels to realize just how much work it takes to be good at something and how overwhelming it can be trying to figure out how to get there. "You'll never get better if you don't practice," was what my piano teacher said to me. That's me sobbing in bed later that evening, my dad trying to comfort me by reading Rudyard Kipling's poem "If," me yelling at him to leave me alone, me quitting piano the next day. There's me kicking my sandcastle, in a huge fit because it doesn't look like the Taj Mahal. There's no calming me down. And there I am slamming the studio door on my ballet teacher at age fifteen. She'd asked me to show the class the latest dance she'd been teaching us. Even though I hadn't missed a class I still had no idea how do some of the steps, and couldn't remember what order they came in. I wanted to spit in her face for putting me on the spot (didn't she know that I had no clue what I was doing?). I never came back to class.

"I quit." "You'll never get better if you don't practice." Them's fighting words. The next time we went skating I brought along a couple of old chairs that were light enough to glide on ice but heavy enough to provide security and stability for a kid unsteady on his feet. I laced up Nicholas' and Emma's skates, walked them to the edge of the rink, put a chair in front of each of them and left them alone while I went back to put on my own skates. When I came back the chairs were out in the middle of the rink. Nicholas and Emma had used them initially but now they were out on their own. I couldn't believe it. The rink hadn't been cleared of snow, but there was a shovel sitting by the wooden gate that led onto the ice. Instead of clearing the snow altogether I used the shovel to make curved pathways for the kids to follow, snaky labyrinths, diagonal roadways. They skated the turns, stopped and started, glided down the long narrows. This time there was none of the agony that comes from seeing an end point without knowing how to get there. If anything the whole experience was...peaceful. And that peace didn't come because someone rescued us from us our frustrations. We were at peace because we now had the tools to get to where we wanted to go, and so off we went, skating.

It's A Wonderful Life

Being the introvert that I am, I'm always glad for the opportunity the New Year brings for a little introspection. I've never been one for big parties, big crowds or big binging on New Year's Eve. A quiet and candlelit dinner, a game or two with the kids, a bottle (or two) of Pinot Noir and I'm happy. But even if I've planned the perfect New Year's Eve I always wake up disappointed and unsatisfied on the first of January if I haven't spent a few solitary moments taking stock of where I'm at and where I've been and where I hope the New Year will take me.

Over the past few years I've compiled a bunch of questions from a bunch of different sources that I now use to help me reflect on where I've been in life and where I'd like to go. I thought I would pass these questions along in the hopes that they will help some of you in your meditations on the New Year. Answer one, a few, or all. The idea is to get some perspective on what's working and what isn't working in your life as well as to get a sense of your highest commitments and values. Perspective and awareness bring the possibility of change.

Reflections for a New Year:

Where are you at right now?

What do you love about your life right now? What makes your life great? What makes it beautiful?

What are you doing right in your relationships, in your work, in your sense of personal mission?

What do you see as your purpose in this season of your life?

What kind of a partner/family member/friend/colleague/volunteer are you?

What would you say are your highest priorities?

Are you doing things now that you could drop? What are the things you are doing that hinder you and your family's quality of life?

What difference would you like to make in people's lives?

What does it look like where you want to be?

How would you define a life with no regrets? How would you spend your time?

When do you feel most at peace? What activities brings you the most joy?

What characteristics do you value in your friends?

What are families for? What activities do you like to do as a family?

What kinds of things do you stand for?

Look at the key words or values that pop up in your answers to the questions above. Ask: What would it look like for me to practice this value in everyday life? What would my family look like if we practiced this value?

Getting to where you want to be...

What do you want to have accomplished one year from now?

Picture yourself twenty years from now. What do you want to be able to say about yourself as a parent? What do you want your children to say about you? About themselves?

How will you bring your highest priorities to life?

List concrete steps you can take now to simplify your life so that you have room for your highest priorities.

Happy New Year!

Heavenly Peace

Yesterday I got up at 5am and went for a run around two of my favourite neighbourhoods here in Edmonton.  Even though it was at least minus 20 degrees celsius and, yes, it was 5 o'clock in the morning, I was in heaven.  All sound was muted by the heavy snowfall the night before. Nobody else was out.  Snowflakes sparkled under the streetlights.  It was the first time I had felt any sense of peace in weeks.  Even better, I was back home by 6am with time to shower, dress and enjoy a hot cup of coffee before anyone else was even awake.  Now that's what I call a good start to the day.  

Wake my husband up at 5am for an early morning run and, well, hell hath no fury like Steve before noon.  His time to himself is from 10pm to midnight when the rest of us are asleep. Steve and I live naturally in two different time zones.  The only time we ever get to sleep and wake up at the same time is when I visit relatives on the West Coast and he's still in Toronto.

 

We're both willing to cut back on sleep to gain a few quiet moments to ourselves.  This is a sacrifice, but I wonder whether a sense of peace is possible without some sort of compromise on our parts.  Six days into the love and inevitable stresses and tension of a big family Christmas I've witnessed enough small conflicts to keep me thinking about a blueprint for peace.  And what I've come up with is this: Peace is meeting our own needs while respecting the needs of others.  

Both Steve and I need time to ourselves, but our kids need us constantly during their waking hours.  Whose needs win out?  Taking time for myself in the early morning means I'm as present as possible to my kids during the day.  And Steve cuts out of work earlier than most of his childless contemporaries so that we can eat dinner as a family.  

We've got to meet our own needs for whatever gives us inner peace, but peace isn't peace if it comes at someone's expense.  This has become a bit of a mantra for me this holiday season as I attempt to balance my own need for quiet, solitude and long, uninterrupted visits with family and friends and my children's need for attention and engaging activities.  

On Monday night I think I got it right.  I wanted to go for a nighttime walk to look at the stars and people's Christmas lights and I wanted Steve and the kids to come with me.  I had visions of us coming home with ruby red cheeks all aglow from the frosty walk to cuddle on the couch by the Christmas tree and read Christmas stories and drink hot chocolate.  

Nicholas and Emma wanted to watch Scooby Doo.  

Compromise, consideration and a real attempt to keep the peace got us out the door.  I was willing to let them watch an episode of Scooby Doo on either end of our walk and they humoured me by putting on their snowsuits and heading out in Siberian conditions to look at the lights and the stars.  Hot chocolate and Christmas stories by the tree will have to come another night.  It wasn't exactly what I had planned, but I got what I needed and so did everyone else.  We negotiated without resorting to threats and violence - no small triumph -and fell asleep that night contented and happy, in heavenly peace.

The Year of the...System?

This whole process of "parenting with Spirit" has got me in a reflective state of mind.

For those of you who don't know what I'm doing, here is the premise: At this stage in my life I don't always have the time or discipline or energy to take on traditional practices of Christian spirituality with any consistency, so I've been trying instead to reap the benefits of such practices in a non-traditional way: making parenting my spiritual discipline. Now, you might be wondering, "Why bother with Christian spirituality at all?" Three reasons: 1) I'm a minister and I want to practice what I preach, 2) Even in an age of secularism I still feel the need to model a life of faith for my children and 3) I really do want to feel closer to God! I want to feel what the mystics of yore felt and I really do want to grow and mature and live a great life free from hang-ups and selfishness! So I've been trying to notice how many opportunities my children give me to grow in something the Bible calls the "fruit of the Spirit" (these are qualities like generosity, patience, self-control; growing in these virtues is the end goal of spiritual practice). In October I focused on growing in joy and this month I've been trying to grow in love.

Very laudable, but more often than not I take a pass on said growth opportunities, and I started to wonder: why?

I didn't need to reflect for long to figure out the answer: I'm too busy! Here's what always happens: I'm in a rush; my kids don't do what I need them to do that instant; I get angry; I realize I have an opportunity to react differently, and then I take that opportunity and shove it because I've got to get to work (gosh darn it!) or I've got to get supper on the table or gymnastics started five minutes ago or the bathroom needs cleaning before the company arrives.

And so I had to ask myself: can I really expect to practice my faith like a nun if I don't live in a cloister? Of course not! What would it take to make my home into a monastery? I think I've finally figured it out. The one thing those nuns and monks have on me is the very thing my home lacks: ORDER!

Yes, I've come to see that one of my biggest stumbling blocks to "parenting with Spirit" is the lack of any clear order to my days. I can't respond to life with any degree of spiritual maturity because I'm always reacting stressfully to crises. Nuns and monks at least have the option of serenity and calm and acts of compassion because they don't have to think about doing anything else in the moment. They set themselves up so that they don't have to do anything else. Meals? They're taken care of. Cleaning? That's done too. Their days unfurl in carefully measured increments and everything happens according to plan because they planned for it to be so.

Throw a nun into my life and I don't think she'd be serene and compassionate without her order propping her up. Not even a nun could laugh a joyful laugh if she had to send her son - as I just did - to school in the same underwear he's worn for the past three days because there is no clean laundry. Ha ha ha! I'd like to see that same nun be loving and empathetic as she comes up with an idea for supper after she's been at work all day, and there's nothing in the fridge and her two children are throwing themselves on the floor, arms and legs thrashing because they're hungry. That would be funny.

Order and consistent spiritual practice go hand in hand. Which is why I'm thinking ahead to the new year and have decreed that this coming new year will be the year of the SYSTEM. According to the Chinese astrology, it's also the year of the Tiger, who's motto is "I win." Well, I'm going to harness all that tiger energy out there to beat the chaos on the homefront - look out! Roar! I have my friend Kessa to thank for planting the idea of a "system". I really believe that if I had some sort of system for meals and groceries and laundry and lunches and cleaning that I could focus more on spiritual practice. What do you think? Do you have a "system" that works for you and that allows you more time on life's intangibles and less time in crisis? Are you thinking ahead to the new year? What will your year be about?

Make Me a Channel of Your Peace

Is there anything more dreadful for parents than our city's annual Santa Claus parade? I'm still angry at the numskull who mentioned it to my kids. Next year the rule is if you mention it, you have to take them. By yourself.

The Santa Claus parade is like self-flagellation for parents. Had I worn a hairshirt I would have been appropriately dressed. I mean, why walk into this minefield? Why line up in a downtown wind tunnel in a crowd eight-people deep with your child on your aching shoulders for at least three hours only to see every tired marching band in North America, depressing clowns and tacky plastic floats? You're guaranteed to run out of snacks and water and your children will whine mercilessly the whole time. And when it's time to go home you'll be competing for a seat on public transit against (literally) a million other people - all with tired, crabby children in tow. Does this sound like fun?

This was my experience at the Santa Claus parade this year, only worse. I don't know if it was traffic overload or what, but the second street car we needed to catch never showed up. So there I was on a dirty downtown street corner with two exhausted and starving children who just wanted to get home as quickly as possible and I tell them that they've got to walk...twenty-three blocks.

I've noticed that ninety percent of parenting with Spirit involves setting myself up for success. When I am rested, fed and watered; when I've had some exercise, fresh air and sunshine; and when I've had a little restorative time to myself I am more able and willing to reach for the Spirit's fruit when presented with the option. So you'd think that taking my kids to the Santa Claus parade after a long morning at church and then having to walk home would set me up for failure. My kids would present me with an opportunity to grow in love, but I'd be too tired and hungry and stressed and just plain fed up to take it.

Well pop open the champagne; I feel like celebrating! I didn't let my negative feelings get the better of me! Not this time!

About ten steps into the long walk home, the "why"-ning started: why wasn't the stupid bus coming? why didn't we take the subway instead? why didn't you pack enough food? why don't we have a car like everyone else? why do we have to walk everywhere?

It was irritating. I really really wanted to swat the "why"-ner and decree that we would never - NEVER! - go to the Santa Claus parade again. "Why"-ning is so unhelpful, especially when we're all stressed out. But I managed to stop myself. Or maybe it was divine intervention. In any case I stopped and looked at the "why"-ner and hit a moment of inspiration. I dropped to my knees in the middle of the sidewalk and said, "come here and give me a hug." He was in my arms in less than a second. I said I could see that he was tired; I was tired too. I said I knew how hard it was for little legs to have to walk so far; it was hard for my legs too. I told him how much I loved him. Up until that moment my insides said push away! berate! punish! It's for his own good! I opened myself to love instead. Talk about triumph on a Napoleonic scale!

And what's more, it really worked. We had to stop for hugs two more times before the garage door was in sight, but we got through the rest of the walk without any more "why"-ning.

Perhaps in order to grow in love we need to pursue what initially seems counterintuitive; to pull close when we feel like pushing away, to speak gently when we'd rather be harsh. Perhaps we need to pray, as St. Francis did, that we may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with all our soul.

All I Need is Love

Yesterday I was at the library and came across a collection of stories by Shirley Hughes. I think I enjoy her books more than my children do. She manages to capture the realities of family life so well. I like that the houses she draws look like my house. There are clothes spilling out of drawers, toys on every surface, books left lying out, and food stuck to the floor under the table. And the mother she draws looks so frumpy in her big sweater or gritty bathrobe, wearing non-trendy glasses and sporting a haircut she can't maintain. I love it! I can relate! It is comforting to see my reality in art. But where Shirley Hughes tops all illustrators - in my opinion - is in her ability to paint love. Her scenes of family life are messy and frazzled but full of the warmth that fills a home where people are really trying to love each other - day in, day out, admist dinners and dishes and diapers.

This month I'm trying to be conscious of all the little opportunities my kids give me to grow more loving. I'm really trying to nurture this fruit of the Spirit inside of myself.

I've noticed that - for my kids - to be loving is to be present. They seem to want to simply be with me more than they want a clean house, an enriching schedule or new toys. They want to play, they want to cuddle on the couch, they want to run around the playground - and they want to do this with me. I have to admit that I need a relatively clean house in order to function and I think it's important to get out and about and learn new things, and I do need to fit in time for my job, but I'm trying to redefine what I consider to be "essential" tasks in order to free up more time to simply be present and loving with my children.

So the sticky black marks on my kitchen floor are going to have to stay there for a while and I won't get around to framing those photos I have been meaning to frame for twelve months and the summer clothes I brought up to the loft in September won't find their way into the storage cupboard anytime soon. Instead I'll be channeling Shirley Hughes and the Spirit on the playroom floor with the kids, stuff strewn everywhere, but full of love.