The Scream

Ducking my head to walk underneath the small fort we built for the little people in our lives, I dropped to the ground to see if I could add another pushup to my tally. It was raining, and the ground underneath the fort was dry. Standing up, one more pushup under my belt, I headed back out into the rain. Because I was wearing my Seahawks Super Bowl Champs hat I didn’t see the low board ahead of me and walked right into it. I hit my head. HARD. I hate hitting my head.

The next thing I knew, I was bent over, screaming at the top of my lungs. I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until I couldn’t. It’s a good thing our closest neighbors are a ways away, or they might have called the local sheriff to come investigate.

All I can say is that it felt really, really, really good to scream. It felt like a mixture of rage and fear, and a few other emotions that must have been lodged pretty deep inside for awhile.

I guess I just needed to scream.

There is a lot to be angry and fearful about right now. So many things out of our control. So many things that need to be addressed and fixed and repaired and built and changed, and most of us feel pretty powerless to do anything about it. Whenever we feel powerless, rage and fear aren’t far behind, and those emotions need to come out somewhere. For me, it was a guttural scream, bending over underneath a fort out in the pine trees.

Sometimes I guess we just need to scream. And then stand up and get back to work loving and helping the people and the world within our reach.

Mending

Yesterday my daughter spent time mending a pair of pants for her four-year-old son. Passed down from his cousin, a few years his senior, they already had history. Hours spent doing what little boys do. Rather than toss them, she carefully mended them. Artfully stitching together the old with the new, patching the hole, reinforcing the seams, and readying them for more of what this little boy will do.

What is true of a pair of pants is true of life. With time comes wear and tear, and the need for repair. Our fabric wears thin, feelings catch on sharp words, hurtful choices tear people apart.

Mending is the art of tending to what has been torn.

Mending matters.

(To learn more about the art of mending, check out Mending Matters by Katrina Rodabaugh)

With gratitude to HKK

Becoming Better

My good friend and colleague, David Berry is the V.P. of People & Culture at Municipal. David hosts the podcast, Becoming Better Men, which is about exactly what the name suggests.

Recently my husband and I listened in on David’s conversation with another good friend and colleague of mine, educator and spiritual director, Dane Anthony. Their conversation, There’s Another Way to Be Myself, was rich, insightful, and one of my favorites to date.

At the end of every conversation David asks his guest the same five questions. One in particular grabbed my attention.

What is a quality you wish you had less of?

We decided to answer that same question for ourselves.

My answer was clear and immediate.

Zero doubt about it, the quality I would like less of is defensiveness. For the record, other people in my life probably wish I had less of it too.

It’s been with me for as long as I can remember. Perhaps it grew out of being raised by a patriarchal father who wasn’t a fan of strong women, which is tough when that is what you are. It might have been a necessary coping mechanism back in the day, but not any more. It is a protective reaction, based on fear, and it isn’t pretty. Especially when you are married to a guy who absolutely is a fan of strong women, and which is in fact, one of the reasons he wanted to share life with you.

Like any longtime habit, my defensive pattern runs deep, and it doesn’t take much to set it off. However, I am discovering that there is a sliver of time in which to make a different choice. A tiny wafer of moments that creates enough room to take a breath, which creates enough space to take another one, and then another one. Those breaths allow me enough time to step away from that old reactive quality, and begin to step into a new one. One that is based on curiosity, not fear, and favors connection over protection. Sometimes my better angels don’t win, and I blast right past that tiny sliver of time. But now I know it is there, and as Dane Anthony reminds me in our monthly conversations, we can’t ever un-know what we’ve learned along our way.

I hope you will listen in on David’s conversation with Dane on Becoming Better Men. And when it’s over, maybe you will want to answer that same question for yourself.

What is a quality you wish you had less of?

If you are like me, your answer will come fairly quickly, and lead to plenty of opportunities to practice a new way of being yourself. And while practice may never make perfect, it will always make better.

(Be sure to check out Municipal for some great sports utility gear.)

Threads & Tethers

Everyone has their ways of processing the world around them and within them. One of mine is writing. The practice of putting words together on a page puts my life together a little better. It sharpens my attention, and makes more clear the lens through which I see the world.

Last spring I stopped writing on a daily basis, except for the occasional burst of creative energy or the expression of moral outrage. The absence of this practice has been noticeable. At least to me.

Writing acts as both a thread and a tether. It weaves together the callings of my heart with the steps of my feet, and keeps me in close connection to who and what matter most. Without this practice in place things begin to unravel, and there is a growing sense of being unhitched to that which keeps me grounded.

If ever we were in need of a thread and a tether it is now. Now is not the time to be at loose ends with ourselves.

Which means, there is only one choice to be made. At least for me.

Start writing again. And so I am.

What are your ways of processing the world?

What acts as both your thread and your tether?

Whatever it is, if you have set it down, now might be the time to pick it back up.

Sometimes It's A Real Slog

Heading uphill yesterday at the beginning of what we’ve come to call “our” logging road, it was hard from the get-go. We have been hiking this same 1.7 miles straight uphill since March, and it’s never been piece-of-cake easy. Which is a good thing because that means we are continuing to increase our stamina and strength, so that we can keep going strong for as long as possible.

But yesterday, it was rough. There was snow on the road making it harder to get a good purchase. I could feel myself start to panic a little, and for the first time I actually wondered if I could make it to the top. Focusing on how hard it was, I lost sight of the fact that I could stop if I needed to. And when ready, keep going.

This is really hard. I said to my husband.

We stopped so that I could catch my breath. Gradually calm replaced panic, and we set off again, this time at a slightly slower but still steady pace, our footsteps falling together on the road. It was still hard, but somehow the hard wasn’t as hard, when I remembered that we simply needed to keep going. And if we did, we would make it to the top.

This is a real slog today, Tom said. (Thank God! It wasn’t just me.)

We broke out of the trees just as the sun was cresting the top of the ridge across the valley. The brilliant blue sky, white snow, and dark green trees all added up to a spectacular morning. And if we hadn’t kept going, if we had stopped because it was hard, we would have missed it.

Two deer appeared on the hillside, and then two more, all of them slowly climbing the steep, snow covered slope. Disappearing behind some trees, and then appearing again, it was like a game of hide-and-seek. One minute they were there, and then they were gone. And if we hadn’t kept going, if we had stopped because it was hard, we would have missed it.

This feels a lot like life right now, I said.

This year has been nothing if not an uphill grind. A grind that’s likely to continue for some time to come, and It will be hard. Somedays it will be a real slog. There will be days when we might panic a little, not sure if we can make it. We will need to stop and catch our breath so that we can remember that we simply need to keep going. And if we do, we will make it to the top, even catching glimpses of beauty along the way.

It never got easy yesterday. But the view from the top was worth every step. And if we hadn’t kept going, if we had stopped because it was hard, we would have missed it.

Stop and catch your breath when you need to, and then, keep going.

Bouncing Off Ideas

What is your idea of marriage?

This is a question posed by a good friend of mine when he is providing pre-marital counseling to a couple. Each person has the opportunity to share their answer out loud with the other. In other words, they take the opportunity to bounce their ideas off of one another before actually getting married.

It’s a brilliant question to ask, and an equally brilliant practice to hone .

Because the truth of the matter is, marriage isn’t just two people coming together. It is also the joining of two ideas about what marriage means. What marriage looks like. Which is all well and good until we encounter something where our ideas don’t match up. Which is where the rubber meets the relationship road.

My hunch is that the healthiest, most resilient marriages, or relationships of any sort for that matter, aren’t those where both people see everything the same way all the time. Rather, over time, they have honed the skills to uncover how they each see things, and then use what they discover to better navigate the road ahead.

After 26 years together, my husband and I are still honing these skills.

We had talked about getting our Christmas tree today. Which for us means tromping out onto our property to find a tree that will have to be cut down eventually anyway because it is in our view corridor.

So.

In my mind, we were going to bundle up, take our time, meander here and there, find the tree, cut it down, drag it back to the house, and set it up. Twinkle lights, a few ornaments, candles on the mantle, and a Christmas movie in the background.

Which was all well and good until Tom came downstairs ready to get out there, cut it down, drag it back to the house, and get back up to his office as quickly as possible. Because we hadn’t bounced our ideas off of each other, we found them butting up against each other instead. Thankfully, we stuck it out as we’ve learned to do, talking it through from both of our angles, and combining my idea with his idea to come up with our idea.

Tom headed back up to his office, and I bundled up and headed outside for a good long walk with Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle, looking over a few of our tree options along the way.

The same thing happens to all of us all the time. We have an idea about something. About what whatever it is looks like. And the other person, our partner, parent, friend, relative, co-worker, teammate, neighbor, manager, service provider, teammate, has an idea too. Which is all well and good until we discover that our ideas don’t match up.

So.

What is your idea of fill-in-the-blank?

Now, go bounce your idea off of whomever it is about whatever it is. And invite them to do the same.

(Shout out to Dane Anthony for the brilliant question and equally brilliant practice.)

Photo by Rodolfo Clix from Pexels

Having Its Way With Us

I love December. The way the sun stays low in the sky, the temperatures fall and darkness descends early, and the reminder that the year isn’t over yet. Yes, a new year looms over the horizon, but this one isn’t done with us yet.

This year, perhaps more than any other, we’ve discovered so much about ourselves. The good, the bad, and even—or especially—the ugly. These final days of the year are ones in which to take stock and decide what to do with what we’ve been given. And, when the time comes to turn the page on a new year, know what to bring with us, and what to leave behind.

The year 2020 has been one for the books, and there are still 31 days for this year to have its way with us. May we end this last chapter well.

Mox-Nix

When faced with two options, my sister often replies, “Mox Nix”. It comes from the German es macht nichts, and originated with American soldiers stationed in Germany after WWII. The gist of the term is that it really doesn’t matter, or it isn’t that important.

I’ve always loved the term, and how the words feel rolling off my tongue.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that there are things that matter, and things that don’t. We’ve also learned, or perhaps, remembered, how little is under our control, and we don’t like that. We’d rather have our hands firmly at the helm thank you, and when we can’t, we get scared, grab for control wherever we can get it, and pick battles that don’t matter with the people that do. .

We want what we want, and we want it now. But there is little joy in such victories, and while we may get what we want, rarely do we get what we need.

Mox Nix can help with that.

Whose Business Is It?

The day I created #ThePostcardProject, I felt excited and hopeful. Energized, I got to work bringing what felt like an inspired idea to life.

The day I decided to launch #ThePostcardProject, I started to feel silly and uncertain, anxious and afraid, self-conscious and small.

What if nobody thought it was a good idea?

What if no one else got on board, and I was the only one to actually do it?

What if #ThePostcardProject never got any traction? Never went anywhere? Never got noticed?

The more I marinated in those familiar feelings that show up whenever it’s time to actually put something I’ve created into the world, the more stymied I became. It was just about then that God leaned in close and whispered, “That’s none of your business Molly.” In other words, all I had to do was get about my business.

Byron Katie reminds us that there are only three kinds of business in the world—my business, your business, and God’s business. Bringing an idea to life and sharing it with the world is my business. What anyone else does with that idea is their business. And where it goes from here, is God’s business.

We never know what will happen when we offer something to the world. That’s none our business. Offering what we have to share is.

Do you have an idea waiting to come to life?

Then please, get about your business.

#ThePostcardProject

On November 6th, I posted a blog titled Dear Us.

I wrote it as a way of passing the time as the election results were still coming in. I knew that regardless of the outcome, there is serious work to be done if we are to redeem our democracy. And yes, it is work to be done by our elected officials, but if there is any hope of success, it is work that must be done by all of us.

In that blog I imagined sending a handwritten postcard to every member of Congress, calling on them to stop blaming those across the proverbial aisle and start working together for the common good. Because that is what I want them to do. I believe the majority of Americans want them to do that too.

Walking down our road the next morning my husband said, “Mol, we should do it. We should handwrite postcards to all 535 members of Congress. I also think you should do something with this idea.”

And with those words, #ThePostcardProject was born.

The idea is to get as many people as possible, from all across the country and the political spectrum to send a clear message to Congress. Stop blaming each other and start working together to build a country that works for all of us. Period.

Today I am inviting you to not only join me in my efforts, but to invite as many others as you can to join in as well. Ask friends. Ask family. Ask neighbors and co-workers, teachers and students, athletic teams and faith communities. Ask any and everyone you can.

The time to come together as a country is now, and #ThePostcardProject is one way to start.

Will you join me?