when listening really counts {October Lessons in Listening}

{My One Word for 2014 is "listen".  I'm posting every month with a new lesson or thought - you can read  the rest of my thoughts on listening here.}

The Skype call sound rings from my laptop.  Familiar, friendly voices float out of my speaker, women who are also wives and moms living overseas like me.  We have a good, challenging conversation.  There is give and take.  I ask as many questions as I answer.  I share thoughtful and sometimes even humorous anecdotes, but I'm careful not to go on too long.  I try not to interrupt, to let whoever’s talking have their whole say.  I try to convey my point of view in a sensitive way, especially if it differs from the others’.  I listen.  Intentionally.  Deeply.  Attentively.  Inside I feel calm, aware, settled.  

While we’re chatting I think to myself,This is a far cry from how I would have felt and acted in a similar situation nine months ago, before I started this experiment in listening… I would’ve pushed my own agenda, felt an overwhelming urge to talk about myself, felt awkward during any silence, uncomfortable leaving space for others to think and respond…  

After the call, I feel gratified.  Satisfied.  Encouraged.  I’m growing!  I’m really learning this listening thing!  

A little while later, it’s lunchtime.  My husband comes home from work.  He tries to tell me about his morning; I’m distracted, getting the kids fed.  He attempts to relay a telephone conversation he’s had; I “mm-hmm” without really paying attention.  After the kids run off to play and we linger over our usual mid-day cups of tea, he starts expressing some pieces of the stress he’s currently feeling; I’m checking Facebook on my phone, mind elsewhere, not paying attention.  

Finally, my usually mild-mannered hubby lets me have it.  “Boy, for someone who talks a lot and wants to be listened to, and gets mad if I even start moving away during a conversation, you sure don’t listen very well!  And I’m supposed to be the one who doesn’t talk very much!”

Ouch. 

I looked up with shocked face.  My phone went face down on the table.  Believe me, I started listening.

But it was too late.  The moment had passed.  Lunchtime over, my best friend went back to work, feeling unheard, alone, and probably unloved.  I had failed to listen, and I rued it the rest of the day.

This month I have learned another valuable lesson.  While the things I’m learning about listening might be penetrating my outer “public” layer, I still have a long way to go to allow these changes to reach my inner “home” layer - the arena where change really counts.  If the most important relationship in my life doesn’t feel listened to, if I can’t enter his world with real attention and interest, see life from his perspective, what - really - is all this “learning to listen” about? 

This is where the rubber meets the road.  Will I, can I, learn to listen to the most familiar voices in my life with fresh ears, fresh attention, fresh love?  Or will these lessons in listening remain just an external shift in how I present myself in a group, a needed self-restraint from a temptation to monologue, a healthy exercise in compassion?

It’s crunch time.  Stay tuned.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

of flying machines and grace-filled mothering

I wish I had a flying machine.

(We haven't actually seen this movie... this model came in an airplane kids' kit!)

Will and I made Yogi Bear's flying machine at “rest time” today.  I reluctantly relinquished my usual hour of lying-down-flat-in-a-dark-cool-room because he’s been begging me for several days to “make a craft”…

Ever feel like David?  “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove; I would fly away and be at rest!” (Ps. 55:6)

That refrain played over and over in my heart today.

My second son (4.5 yrs) currently idolizes screen time over every other thing in his life (including Jesus, his mom and dad, all his friends, and every toy he owns).  Practically all of his communication with me this morning consisted of complaining, whining, and begging for screen time, until I put my foot down and insisted “I can't hear you” as long as he continued to whine.  He finally forced himself to switch to a slightly less nasal tone just to get me to respond.

Oh, for the wings of a dove…

After sticking the flying machine together and taping feathers to strips of felt to make Indian headbands, I snuck into my room to lay down on my bed, but I barely got 10 horizontal minutes before Ruby woke up.  Ten whole minutes.  

Then it was up-and-at-‘em again, off to the shop, greeting the entire neighborhood en route to and from, the flurry of getting dinner, letting the dog out, putting the dog away, kids fed, bathed, toenails clipped, put to bed, phone calls made, emails typed, and… I’m still so wound up that even though I’m exhausted, I had to type the rough draft of this post before I could even start my bedtime routine.

I want to fly away on Yogi Bear’s flying machine, without anyone sitting behind me - just me.  By myself.  Alone.  Without anyone else.  Alone.  Did I mention, I want to be alone?

Oh…that I could fly away, and be at rest!

Where are my wings?  I kept glaring up at heaven.

Ever have a day like that?  What did you do? 

Desperate, in the middle of the afternoon, I made Ben write down what he was thankful for, and then I did the same - a purple prophecy written in hope, since it sure isn’t evident yet…

(in case it's not clear in the photo, Ben's list - made with help - includes "cousins in NZ, a cute little sister, 2 grandmas who love me, Gpa Tim and that I have his name, and a ride in a donkey cart today")

I went out after rest time and took pictures of sunflowers, each click of the shutter a tiny burst of helium in my heart, finally lifting it up off the ground to gain a bit of altitude…

I petted the dog… For the first time in my life, I’ve discovered how therapeutic it can be to scratch the velvety fur behind a dog’s ears.  I’m amazed it’s taken me 30 years to discover this!

And now, I’m writing this blog post, looking for wings, hoping the story of this day will encourage even just one other heart out there…

The next day...

I discover that a book review for a course I’m taking is due right now, so during “rest time” I curl up with my Kindle for a hasty reading session.  The book I’ve chosen to review is a thick tome on mentoring which came highly recommended, but my initial scratches (months ago) left me worried it might be quite dry.  Hah!  Completely the opposite.  I can’t stop highlighting.  

In the middle of Chapter 2, the author is describing how a good spiritual mentor can help us discern spiritual meaning in and through the events of our daily lives. These words jump off the page:

“[Eugene] Peterson compares pastoral ministry to work on the farm with its routines of unglamorous chores, such as cleaning the barn, mucking out the stalls and pulling weeds.  Spiritual mentoring is farm work in which we meet routinely with our mentor for periodic unglamorous conversations and prayer.  Though moments of grand epiphany burst in or around us, the heart of mentoring another is the modest work of the routine.” (emphasis mine)

This girl, who’s never owned an animal larger than a hamster, has been feeding chickens, scooping dog poop and pulling up huge fistfuls of garden weeds since the beginning of summer, so the “farm work” analogy currently has a - shall we say - pungent meaning for me.

But it was the end of that paragraph which took my breath away:

“Most pastoral work takes place in obscurity,” says Peterson, “deciphering grace in the shadows, searching out meaning in a difficult text, blowing on the embers of a hard-used life.  This is hard work and not conspicuously glamorous.”

I have a confession to make.  [stage whisper]  I’m one of those people who secretly likes being “conspicuously glamorous”.  Really.  I like getting attention, looking put together, receiving credit for what I’ve accomplished...

Guess what I’m discovering.  

Motherhood is anything but glamorous.  

(Big surprise, right?)  

Motherhood is “deciphering grace in the shadows.”  

When I read that phrase, I saw why God wants me to read this book: not because I’m supposed to go out and collect unsuspecting mentorees on which to bestow my vast depths of knowledge (hah!), but because I already have three little mentorees living in my house everyday, whose souls I am (scarily) responsible for shaping.  

I mean, of course if you’re a mother, you’re a mentor, right?  Yeah, ok - it should’ve been obvious, I guess.  But for some reason, I just didn’t connect motherhood and mentoring.  I thought mentoring was something older, more experienced adults did for younger adults… (so, um, that would be me, with my three little adults-in-training…)  

I know it’s God who works in all of us to will and to act according to His good purpose, and I know He is ultimately the One forming the character of my children, but I also have a huge responsibility to partner with Him in raising my kids to be godly, mature, responsible, joy-filled adults.  After all, He did pick me to be their mother - gulp! - and here in the middle of this book on Spiritual Mentoring, I am finally getting it.   

I need to learn how to become a good mentor because I already have three precious souls under my care.  

I need to learn how to “decipher grace in the shadows.”  I have this sneaking suspicion that if I can find grace in the shadows, I’ll find those wings I’ve been looking for.

photo credit

I scroll back in my Kindle to another quote earlier in the book which I highlighted in the context of adult mentoring but which takes on a new savor when applied to motherhood:

“The good mentor will help us ‘read between the lines’ for the hidden and quietly earthy messages that God will give because life is full of God.”

Yes.  To help my children read between the lines of life and unearth God’s messages for them because life is full of God. 

Or this one:

“The success or effectiveness of spiritual mentor may be directly related to the ability of mentor and mentor to move beneath the surface into the depths of treasures within the mentoree.  Anything that we bring to the surface has the potential to turn out to be silver or gold hidden in the rough, angular and random shapes of the earthly rock containers that carry these unique treasure.  The patient, sometimes tedious work of mining for the rich treasures within the seemingly worthless rocks is the work of spiritual mentoring.  These rocks are the stories of our daily lives.”

So.  Guess what?

In the midst of the tedious daily grind of dealing with bad attitudes and ungrateful hearts (often my own), dishes, laundry, farm chores, and cooking, I am mining unique treasures of gold and silver in the souls of my children.  I am helping them read between the lines of life for God’s messages.  I am “deciphering grace in the shadows.” 

Those glimpses of grace, when brought out into the light, become wings with the power to lift me up out of the mundane, into the holy. 

Does this resonate with you?  This doesn’t just apply to children, you know; we are mining for treasures with every friendship we have.  We are “deciphering grace in the shadows” in each conversation, each email, each train of thought, each journal entry, each prayer we whisper to the Holy Spirit in the depths of our hearts.  

We are all spiritual mentors for each other, and our holy work is the quietness of listening and paying attention to the “hidden and quietly earthy messages” God is every moment giving.

Because life is full of God, there is grace to decipher in the shadows.  

And that makes the shadows full of wings.

photo credit

the two (2) essential ingredients to being the perfect mom

Jesus. 

And sleep.

That’s it.  

That’s all you really need.  

That’s what one of my best friends said to me on the phone the other day.  She went on, “The minute I get a little more of either of those?  My day just seems to go so. much. better!  And if I don’t have either of those?  Let’s just say, it’s not pretty!”

I could be the perfect Mom if I just had enough Jesus, and enough sleep.  

Seriously.  

So… we could leave it there, perfect idealistic Mom-hood floating just out of reach, or we could explore together HOW to get more of those two essential ingredients?

Don’t we all want to be happy, contented, patient mothers?  

Then why is it so HARD to get enough Jesus, and enough sleep?

Well, to be honest, for me the first answer is probably: 

“Not enough self-control.”

Getting more sleep requires going to bed earlier (since the kids will be up at 7 no matter when I go to bed).    And the Internet is just so tantalizing in the evenings, especially if you’ve been soothing cranky toddlers or slogging through first-grade addition problems with a stubborn 6-year-old all day… and if you have SLOW Internet, it’s even more frustrating, because you can only watch 3 seconds of a YouTube video at a time, but those 3 seconds are so alluring you just keep wanting more… and more... until a whole hour has blinked by and you haven’t even finished watching ONE STINKIN’ VIDEO.  

Then you finally throw up your hands and say, “It’s not worth it.  I’m going to bed.”  But it’s already past 10pm, and it still takes a few minutes to get into your jammies, wash your face, brush your teeth… and you’ve been looking at screens for the last two hours, so you tell yourself you need some wind-down time in bed with a real book… which means its 11:00 before you finally turn out your light… and this happens. every. night.  (And you’re one of those people who need at least 8 hours of sleep to feel good.)

Um… yeah.  

So… late to bed means less sleep, which means it’s harder to get up before the kids, which means less time (or none at all) with Jesus in the morning… which means less awareness of His presence throughout the day… which means there’s a good chance the cycle will repeat itself that evening because you can’t hear that Still, Small Voice telling you what you really need. 

The Message version of the Bible defines “self-control” as

“Marshaling and directing your energies wisely.”  

I love that definition, because it implies that self-control is not just stopping doing something (which always feels impossible to me).  Self-control can be a forward movement, channeling your energies into wise directions.  

As Kat Lee says, “Choose what you want more over what you want now.” 

For me, that means choosing to close my computer at a decent hour, even if finishing a project is what I desperately want now.  It means winding myself down into sleep early enough to give myself a full 8 hours, so I can actually get up when my alarm goes off, so I can do what I want most: begin the day sitting in Jesus’ presence, receiving a fresh Word of truth. 

Chances are, if I make those choices, everybody’s going to have a better day.  

I might even turn into Supermom overnight. (Hah!)

Along with marshaling my energy wisely, another way I want to practice self-control is to make better strategic choices instead of indulging and then beating myself up.  

Back to the YouTube videos: I think the ever-practical Kat would say, “If your Internet’s slow but you still need your fix, take a minute after breakfast to click on one or two choice videos (to let them load), and then watch them in that right-after-lunch sweet spot when the kids’ tummies are full and they’re happy to play quietly for a half-hour or so.”  (Rather than fending them off at arm’s length with steadily increasing frustration as the Internet stalls again.  And again.)

Now that would be a good strategic choice, and here’s why:  

Limited number of videos (or __insert personal craving here__)

plus maximum enjoyment time (because they’re already loaded)

= controlled indulgence,

which equals sanity and refreshment, instead of guilt and remorse.

Yes!

Marshaling and directing your energies wisely, and controlled indulgence. 

Bingo.  Self-control in a nutshell.  

That Perfect Mom crown you’ve been dreaming about?  

It’s actually within your grasp.  

(Just kidding.)  

But seriously, though.  With Jesus and sleep?  We can do anything.

**********

What keeps you from getting enough Jesus and enough sleep?  Is there something else you’re not getting enough of these days that’s sabotaging your Mom-happiness?

what listening is not {One Word: listen}

{Each month this year I'm posting on my One Word for 2014: listen.  Here's my latest epiphany, from the month of March... To read the rest of the posts in this series, click here.}

I have, happily, discovered something listening is not.

Listening is not just keeping quiet. 

For a long time, I thought to be a good listener meant I had to sit through the whole conversation and bite my tongue, and not say all of the (to me) immensely interesting things popping into my head, which is incredibly hard for me to do.  I love talking, and I’m far too fascinated by myself and my own thoughts, so for me to hold back all the nuggets of wisdom and personal anecdotes which clamor to be shared feels like torture.

But actually, to be a good listener I am allowed to speak: in fact, if I don’t say anything, the other person won’t actually feel heard!  It’s what I say, though, that’s important.  If I truly want to listen, and to have the other person feel I am listening, my responses must:

be about them, not me;

reflect back to them the feelings I am hearing.  

One of the most valuable things a good listener can do for a person is to validate their feelings.  Not just pat them on the head and say, “Yes, yes, dear, I understand”, but really and truly enter into their world and feel with them, and then let them know it.  Let them know you care deeply about how they are feeling, they aren’t crazy for feeling that way, they are a normal, red-blooded human being, and that you would feel the same way if you were in their shoes.

If I manage to convey this, the person I am listening to will feel heard, and not just heard - validated.  Loved.  Accepted.  Comforted.  Immensely relieved.  Just knowing another human being is standing with you in whatever it is you are going through is tremendously comforting.  And sometimes - most of the time, actually - just the standing-with is enough.  

Answers aren’t even needed.  

Second lessons in listening... {One Word: listen}

{This year I'm posting once a month on my One Word for 2014: listen.  To read January's post in this series, click here.}

So… this whole One Word: listen thing for 2014?  Well, January started off with a bang.  

February?  Um… not so much.

Want the truth?  Ok.  Here it is.  That still, small Voice I was so attuned to at the beginning of 2014?  I’m embarrassed to say, I effectively turned off my ears for the last half of January.  

I clutched and finagled little pockets of time for myself, obsessed over blog schedules no one cares about but me, compared myself incessantly to all and sundry, and dissolved into petulant tears because the whole world was unsupportive of “my” art.  I whined incessantly about not having time for myself, and resented the demands of my roles as mother and homemaker.  

In a nutshell, I succumbed to my old demons of control and insecurity.  It’s been ugly.  

Have I been listening?  Not much.  

Should I have been listening?  

Um… definitely.  

Because when I started listening again (sometime around the end of last week), I started hearing again.  

This week, thanks to some quiet, calm direction from the ever-pragmatic and focused Kat Lee, I finally managed to a) go to bed a little earlier, b) get up a little earlier, and c) quiet my thoughts enough in the mornings so my heart could tune back in to that all-wise, still, small Voice.  

And finally I heard what He’s been trying to say to me for a while…

Let.   It.   Go.    Let go of your needs, your agenda, your desires.  Give them to Me, and I’ll take care of you.  Trust Me to further your art and your dreams, and you focus on looking after the people I’ve given you to love.

(Ok, if I’m completely honest, I have to admit that I heard Someone whispering that in the inner depths of my soul, but because of my self-centeredness it sounded like someone speaking on the other side of a glass window, muffled and burbly, and all I had to do was turn my face away so I “couldn't” understand what He was saying…)

So, here’s what February's teaching me:

Lesson #1: 

When I’m consumed with myself, I can’t hear anything properly.

As long as my thoughts are filled with my agenda, my goals, my dreams, my needs, there’s no space for anyone else to say anything, especially God.  The needs of my family become a burden, and I stop serving out of love and start doing it out of duty, which quickly fills me with resentment.  

The challenge for me is to open my hands, let go of my own needs and wants, and re-surrender to God’s plan for my day.

And what I’m discovering is, once I finally lay my agenda on the altar and tune in to God’s Voice, He meets my needs!  He shows me little pockets of time to make art, or He frees me to just take a nap and stop pushing myself so hard, or He helps me be content with the art I’ve already made and dissolves the pressure I put on myself to constantly make something new.

Lesson #2:

Complaining clogs my ears.  Thanking re-opens them.  

Focusing on all the things I’m not happy about is like turning down the volume on God’s voice so I can’t hear Him or sense He’s with me.  Thanking Him for the gifts He’s giving in that moment suddenly re-opens my ears and swivels up the volume, and His voice becomes audible in my heart again.   

I’ve realized that complaining is just general flailing in the direction of the Universe, or at anyone who happens to be listening (usually my patient husband).  Thanking implies you have Someone to thank, so you’re talking to Someone, so there’s actually Someone there, and maybe that Someone has something to say back to you… 

One of the best quotes I’ve heard (I wish my fragmented Mommy brain could remember the source):

“If you are complaining, it means you are believing one of two lies: Either God is not good, or God is not loving.”   

The act of giving thanks immediately turns my eyes away from myself to God’s Presence in that moment.  And right away, I feel more peaceful.  

What keeps you from hearing God’s voice throughout your day?

In what small (or big!) ways is God already using your word for 2014 to change and grow you?

change poking through

When we moved into this house, it was a mess.  


The owners have a passion for fruit trees and were lavish in their planting: rows of pears all around the house perimeter, six huge walnuts by the back fenceline, tall leggy apricots in the side yard, cherries by the abandoned chicken coop.  The crowning glory is the small apple orchard that fills the backyard: thirty small apple trees planted in narrow rows with sturdy low-spreading branches.  

My husband, the farmer, was thrilled.  I, the musician-bookworm, was overwhelmed.  “It’ll be your thing,” I tell him, warning.  Abdicating.  What is this choking thing in me that makes me hesitant to try anything I don’t feel I can succeed at?

None of the trees had been pruned or tended in several years, and when we moved in last summer and looked out our back porch windows, all I could see was a jungle.  Where are the kids going to play? I wondered.  And then, with a sinking heart, How am I ever going to deal with all this fruit?

Nothing goes to waste in this culture.  Letting fruit drop off trees and rot on the ground because it’s too high to reach easily (or because you just don’t have the energy) is frowned upon.  There’s always the option of opening the gate wide and letting the neighbors in to pick (which I still might do), but all my overwhelmed-ness hadn’t counted on one thing: the rest that pruning brings.

Last fall, James cheerfully went out and bought a chain saw.  Every day when he came home from work, he went out to the backyard and I heard the engine revving its masculine roar while I cooked dinner.  He lopped off heaps of branches, whole tops of trees, even whole trees in some instances where they were half dead or just too crowded.  Our neighbors happily dragged away mountains of branches to feed their cavernous, ravenous bread ovens, leaving us with…. Space.  Open sky.  Lopped off trunks pointing stumpily in all directions.  Breathing room.

Part of me was happy about the tidying of the jungle; part of me grieved the amputations.  The part of me that wants to be a competent local housewife was thrilled to realize that ferocious pruning meant a much smaller fruit harvest this year… less for me to deal with!  

And then yesterday I made a startling discovery: if a tree is alive, it never stops growing.  (It sounds so basic when I put it like that, but I just haven’t grown up aware of nature, and each discovery is astounding.)  Right through the thick, scaly bark of those lopped limbs, some as thick around as my calf, the trees are pushing out new life.  I had no idea trees do this.  Tiny green shoots struggle to emerge, their frailty emphasized by the girth of their home limbs.  How in the world are they strong enough to get through those barriers? I wonder.

Just now, while I was peeling potatoes, I asked God if there’s anything he wants me to learn from this picture of new life.  Immediately, this thought began moving through my mind: “No matter how ingrained you think your habits are, or how neglected an area of your life may feel, or how discouraged you might feel that you’re not seeing growth, with my life in you, change is always possible.  I AM the growth-Author.  But - sometimes it might take some vigorous pruning to make way for new things.”

A mundane example popped into my head: I have never been a good flosser (of teeth).  My whole life, every six months at the dutiful and much-dreaded dentist visit, the hygenist would ask me that innocent and terrible question, “So, are you flossing?”  And I would always fudge and answer, “Weeeeelll… not every day (meaning, never)...”  So last year, my last year of my “twenties”, I decided to put “flossing” on Ann Voskamp’s daily “Do It for 100” form, along with “reading a verse with Will” and “get up before the kids to have devotions”.  And guess what?  I can count on one hand (ONE HAND!) the number of nights I missed flossing last year.  And my gums are pink and healthy and thanking me for it!  It took me 30 years to get around to making a new habit, and a whole year to hammer it in, but now I can’t imagine going to bed without flossing and if I forget, it feels weird.  

Change is possible.

At a deeper level, I can feel new growth emerging quietly in my soul this spring.  As tiny and frail as those green shoots, it’s poking through nonetheless - the result of epiphanies from Transformed Into Fire and a new, quiet awareness of resting in God’s presence and receiving his love.  It’s not every day yet that I create the space and time for intentional communion, but it’s oftener than before.  I’m starting to feel my soul (not my body, mind you) longing to get up half an hour earlier, and sit outside under some of those breathtaking trees to listen and absorb God’s presence.  

Maybe this will be the year of finally letting go of busyness and performance - with some vigorous pruning? - and allowing new green fronds of awareness to quietly lengthen into bloom.  

Pieces of India, and March Challenge Check-in (belated)

(Due to internet issues my Week One check-in is a few days late... thankful for grace!)

March Challenge Check-In, Week One:

Lights out by 9:30pm: 5/7 evenings (blame the other two on too many great blogs! And lack of self-control… working on that one)

Up by 6am: 5/7 mornings (blame the other two on sick kids and wet beds)

Journaled: 6/7 mornings

Exercised: 5/7 mornings (definitely used my 5 minute plan a few times!)

Worshiped: every day (a couple mornings I just put worship music on during breakfast and sang with the boys)

Getting there slowly… I feel so encouraged just having a goal and a plan in place, and I already feel more rested and more at peace in my spirit.

And as a reward for my labors last week in James’ absence, here are the “pieces of India” he brought back for me...food for our love, and food for my beauty-loving soul.