Silence

"One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that is makes us feel so helpless.  We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others.  If we are silent, who will take control?  God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him.  Silence is intimately related to trust.

"The tongue is our most powerful weapon of manipulation.  A frantic stream of words flows from us because we are in a constant process of adjusting our public image.  We fear so deeply what we think other people see in us that we talk in order to straighten out their understanding.... Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification.

"One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let God be our justifier.  We don't need to straighten others out.  There is a story of a medieval monk who was being unjustly accused of certain offenses.  One day he looked out his window and saw a dog biting and tearing on a rug that had been hung out to dry.  As he watched, the Lord spoke to him saying, 'That is what is happening to your reputation.  But if you will trust me, I will care for you -- reputation and all.'  Perhaps more than anythign else, silence brings us to believe that God can care for us. -- 'reputation and all.'"

- From Richard Foster's chapter on "Solitude" in Celebration of Discipline

Nationals

I'm at the National Forensics League Tournament with my daughter and six other freshmen-to-be.  We're here with a few kids from our high school and two coaches.  The high schoolers have already begun competing.  This afternoon, they'll learn if they've made the first cut from around 400 competitors per event to the sixty continuing on.  Tomorrow, the middle school competition begins, and so, our fun hang-out-a-little-and-work-a-little pace will shift.  Adrenaline will begin to pump.  The drama will commence, literally, figuratively.

Today in this calm before the storm, I ruminate on my own Nationals story, one perhaps better described as a non-Nationals story.  A story I have told few people, because really it's not that interesting to anyone but me.  I am tempted tell my story to people here, because here causes me to remember, but this is not the place for telling.  Now is not my story.

Still, it's a story that has shaped me.  One that bubbles up in my consciousness from time to time accompanied not so much by sadness, regret or bitterness, but more by bewilderment.  We all have these stories, stories we seldom tell but that make us who we are.  Occasionally, we take them out, turn them over in our minds, examining the many facets, ruminating.

____________
I participated in a number of high school activities, but Debate and Forensics were my passion.  I was pretty good, so the passion was not misplaced. Though I dabbled in a variety of forensics events, Original Oratory (a ten-minute persuasive speech) was my favorite.  I did well in this event.

As a sophomore, I placed third in our region's national qualifying tournament.  The top two advance to nationals.  To have done so well at this age was impressive at the time, and it felt like a promise of great potential.  One day, I would undoubtedly be competing in Nationals.  That seemed certain.

The next year, I encountered controversy early in the season.  While preparing to write my oratory, I had flipped through several old Vital Speeches magazines seeking topic ideas and I had chosen as a springboard a speech about fear of failure.  Because the speech was from several years earlier, I was surprised to discover at one of the season's first tournaments that a competitor from another school had consulted the very same article.  In fact, she had not only consulted the magazine, she had plagiarized almost the entire speech.  (Interesting that she chose to plagiarize a speech about fear of failure.)

I told my forensics coach, but as far as I know, he did nothing.  The girl attended the school where he had just worked as an assistant coach before taking the head coaching position at my school.  I'm sure it was complicated for him.  Perhaps he did say something and the coach at her school did nothing.  Either way, she continued to compete with an unchanged speech throughout the season. 

She was a good speaker.  I was a good speaker.  Because we had the same topic, when we competed head-to-head, the person who delivered her speech first usually fared better.  We traded victories back and forth throughout the season.

At the national qualifying tournament, our duplicate speeches became problematic.  When she spoke in a round before me, she got the better score, and vice versa.  The stakes were higher now, though, so I mentioned it to my coach again.  An investigation followed.  Ultimately, she was disqualified from the tournament.

Even so, the damage was done.  I place third in the tournament.  Again.

The  next year the pressure was on.  The season proved promising.  The national qualifying tournament proved promising.

In the finals round -- the round determining who would proceed to Nationals -- one of my three judges was the coach of the competitor I had outed the previous year.

I placed fourth.

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Here I am now, at the destination I so deeply aspired to all those years ago.  I've learned it's slightly easier to qualify in high school now.  The top three rather than the top two places go to Nationals.  Had this been the case back in the day, I would have gone as a sophomore and junior.  If that had occurred, would my life be much different than today?  Would I have chosen a different college, career, path?

I am here with my daughter, who is quite good.  I say this as a mom, of course, but also as a reporter of what many other people have said.  Nevertheless, I am throwing her to the wolves tomorrow when she competes in the middle school tournament.

She will perhaps learn that though these events have judges, justice is not guaranteed.  She might also learn that what others say is true -- she is indeed a gifted young woman.  Or she might have the chance to begin to learn that she is not what she does.  That accolades and accomplishments and awards are nice, but she is so much more than these things. That there are lovely portions of her that cannot be rewarded and often are not even recognized, except by those who can truly see.  Some that only God sees.

And I, her mom, am glad I am here.  Though it dredges up past disappointments and lessons, perhaps because it does so.  I am glad to be here while she lives her own story, regardless of the outcome.  Ready with a mom-hug either way.

Self-portrait

We are all such complicated beings that if each of us were to create a new self-portrait each day for a month, what we would create might very well change dramatically from day to day.

One self-portraits I would make would look a little something like this:

Look closely.

A Money Making Opportunity!

When I was thirteen, my dad charged my brother and me with a daunting task: to clear our new home's horse pasture of thistles.  For each thistle bloom we collected, he offered us both a penny.

Bored and greedy, we accepted the challenge.

We clipped 900 thistle blooms that summer morning.  900.  And so, we each earned nine dollars for our efforts.

For years, I thought we had really pulled one over on Dad.  I figured he had figured we'd only collect about a hundred or so.  Boy was he fooled, I thought.

Then just a couple of years ago, it occurred to me that for a mere eighteen dollars, he managed both to occupy his bored children for a morning and to clear his pasture of thistles.

Well played, Dad.  Well played.

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(Thanks to my creative friend, Jennifer at http://apoemlife.blogspot.com for the lovely thistle photo!)

Ebb

"We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.  We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb.  We are afraid it will never return.  We insist on permanence, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.  The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now."  – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea.

I've been wanting to write about this quote for some time now.  I'd even planned to photograph a shoreline at low-tide during a late April trip to Florida with girlfriends.  Alas, my photography skills are sorely lacking, in part because I seldom get around to actually taking the pictures.

Interestingly, this quote appeared to me again as today's Celtic Daily Prayer reading.  This week, I am lamenting a new ebb.  Lamenting.  And trying to celebrate.  Relationships so rich and true  -->– such a high tide experience --> – naturally must ebb.  The sadness of the ebb highlights the absolute goodness of the flow.  The ebb aches because it should.  It was worth it.  

I've been here before, in the aftermath of rich experiences, wanting to cling to the memories and relationships.  Some relationships will continue, flourish, ebb and flow.  Some will not.  Over the years, I think I've learned to hold these relationships loosely, to give people space to engage or to drift away.  The holding loosely is unsettling, but the ongoing relationships are all the better for it.

Meanwhile, the ocean shore even now at low-tide, is still beautiful, uncertain, full.  Life continues in all its mundane routine and mustachioed-robin goodness, in its ebbs and flows.  Laundry to fold, toilets to clean, meals to plan.  Lego creations to admire, teenage dramas to hear, friends to laugh with.  Despite the lamenting, I am trying to be present here because here is good.  And because one day I will look back on this time which feels so much like an ebb and I will lament its passing as well.

For my brother

Oklahoma Land Run Song  -- to be sung to one's brother on April 22 each year, preferably with great enthusiasm, suppressed chuckles and lots of ironic vibrato.

It was April 22
In the Spring of '89
There were settlers by the thousand
They were gathered on the line
And they came from all directions
There were wagons by the score
To stake a claim out on the plain
Is what they waited for

To run, run run run
Oklahoma run
Fifty thousand people
Awaiting for the gun 

For land land land land
Oklahoma land
They came out here to the wild frontier
Across the Cimarron
To run....

There were near two thousand acres
Not enough to go around
If he had no transportation
A man's luck soon ran down

_______________
And that's all I can remember.  Usually I've cracked myself up by now.

Squeal

My daughter called me a pig last night.

But it's not as bad as it sounds.  

She unrolled the print of Michael Sowa's "Kholer's Pig" she'd found tucked away in a dark basement corner.
 

"Mom, you are this pig," she said.  "You've been pushed off the dock.  But you're going to land in that water and it's going to be really refreshing." 

She's right.  A lake lush with trees, reeds and lily pads.  Humidity softening the horizon.  It's gotta feel great in the water.  That pig's no fool.


Leave it God to use my love of whimsy, plus my tendency to procrastinate (never did get around to framing the print for my office), plus my teenage daughter's wise insight to speak a recurring theme to me.

Freedom.

I wrote about freedom here, but I'm feeling it more and more these days.  Maybe it's the early spring with new flowers emerging by the minute and grass so green it makes the heart ache.  Windows open, verdant evening air, coats left in closets.  The sheer pleasantness of it all.

Hope springs.  Possibilities sprout.  Enthusiasm flourishes.

My husband and I have mostly tried to buffer our kids from the recent painful events.  We've shared a few details with them, but not a lot.  They know we've been disappointed and sad, and they too have experienced transition pains.  But we've tried to shelter them from the brunt of it all.  We don't need them to carry the load for us, or even with us. 

Still, they're rooting for me.  Sweet, kind, encouraging comments.     Like calling me a pig.


It's true.  I am that pig.  I recognize the initial shock, fear, panic of the jump.  The increasing exuberance of flying through the air, weightless, worry-free for the moment.  The anticipation of entering the water, slightly anxious while also hoping to make a big glorious splash.  

Yes, the water is indeed refreshing.

And if you listen closely, you might just hear me suppressing a squeal.