Women Walking In Wisdom’s Footsteps™

As many of you know, I teach high school – grades 9 and 12. As they often share with me different aspects of their lives, I am increasingly flabbergasted at the amount of time children spend online. I am actually floored that their way of making friends and interacting with those friends is no longer face to face, but through mediums such as Facebook and MySpace. I am amazed that young people feel a sense of loss when they don’t have access to these sources of relationships. I’m looking back at those last three sentences as I describe how I feel about this online world in which our children engage – flabbergasted, floored, amazed…

(Actually, I shouldn’t be all that amazed. Email has become a vital method of communication in our offices and businesses as well as between our families and friends.)

Maybe I’m overreacting. After all, our daughter will be four years old this spring, and naturally she is increasingly interested in computers, particularly in viewing videos online (since her daddy and I spend a lot of time at the computer). I often think about how we’ll navigate that world with her as she begins elementary school in less than two years.

I was recently made aware of a PBS Frontline program that will air tonight entitled “Growing Up Online,” where “Frontline Investigates The Risks, Realities And Misconceptions Of Teen Life On The Internet.” And lest you think that the only concern is encountering sexual predators online, this program will also discuss “cyber-bullying” and achieving “instant ‘Internet fame’.”

Here are a few quotes from the program’s press release:

“Jessica Hunter was a shy and awkward girl who struggled to make friends at school. Then, at age 14, she reinvented herself online as ‘Autumn Edows,’ an alternative goth artist and model who posted provocative photos of herself on the Web, and fast developed a cult following. ‘I just became this whole different person,’ Jessica tells FRONTLINE. ‘I didn’t feel like myself, but I liked the fact that I didn’t feel like myself. I felt like someone completely different. I felt like I was famous.’”

“Through social networking sites, kids with eating disorders share tips about staying thin, and depressed kids can share information about the best ways to commit suicide.”

“John Halligan’s son was cyberbullied for months—first at school, then online—before he ultimately hanged himself just weeks into the start of eighth grade.”

Here is a preview video of the broadcast:

(If the video isn’t displayed, click here.)

Whether we’re parents, grandparents, teachers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, or mentors of young people, this should be of interest to all of us. What do you think? Are our children growing up too fast in this online world? What should be done about it? And do you plan to watch the program? (Note: the program will re-air several times and also appear online - according to pbs.org.)

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We live in a fast-paced society. We want things quickly. We want them now. We want to arrive at our destinations quickly. We want to lose weight quickly. I personally want those 15 pounds off RIGHT NOW!

Change can’t happen soon enough. We want to be more loving - now! We want to be more compassionate - now! We want to be more patient - now!

And what happens when it doesn’t happen - now? We are unkind to ourselves. We beat ourselves up. We say to ourselves, “This is just the way that I am. I can’t change.” And so we give up. We don’t give ourselves the space to just be. To allow God to do His work in us.

I read a poem the other day while I was walking down a hallway filled with high school kids. And after I read it, I could only say, “Wow” (one student actually thought I was talking about him - I had to quickly clarify). I think it expresses this idea that we must be patient with ourselves as we go through processes of change.

“Fire”

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

– Judy Brown

Give yourself the space…

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Well, it’s finally happening…

I met my husband, Manchild, almost 8 years ago. From the time I met him, I have seen him labor over a literary project that he started over 10 years ago.

It’s been a painstaking process for him. Who would’ve known that it would take the enormous buckets of sweat and tears flowing from his very being to write a book? Days and nights and nights and days. Lots of revisions. Not just two. Not just five. Countless revisions! And seemingly endless editing (yes, I am a wife, mother, and now editor too!).

And now it’s time. Manchild has finally completed his book, Steppin Out Of The Darkness, When Good People Become Great. It is a book unlike any I’ve ever read. As a friend of ours said to him one evening as she was reviewing the book, “This is not normal” (in a complimentary way). Below is the cover image for the book.

You can get a feel for what I’m talking about by reading what the book is about on his blog, When Least Expected™. Click the right side image below to read the back cover of Steppin’ Out Of The Darkness.

Sweetheart, I’m so very proud of you!!!

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Summer is my favorite time of the year. Being from the upper Midwest and hating the cold, I look forward to the hot weather we enjoy in the South. And while the heat remains (though not as intense), Labor Day has come and gone - which is usually the point when it’s time to think about the fall. In fact, as we were driving through our neighborhood a few days ago, I noticed leaves of color had fallen on the ground. I was a little disappointed.

Yet real disappointment is no longer (at least right now) a tool in my repetoire. This past summer was a time of renewal for me. I had to “open wide” and face myself, what I had been, what I had become. I had to come face to face with a person I didn’t particularly like all that much. And I had to face myself and say, “This is not who you are, nor is it who you want to be.”

And so, as I mentioned in a previous post, I read a book entitled When Your Past Is Hurting Your Present. That was the beginning of, and fundamental to, my change. Through my readings, I really, in my heart of hearts, realized how my reactions to circumstances was really bringing me down. I realized how not getting control over my emotions was hindering my life. I spent about a month with that book. It’s a great one. Christian-oriented, and I highly recommend it for anyone.

But what really did it for me was The Courage To Teach by Parker Palmer. Oh, such a fabulous book (and not just for teachers)! I actually purchased it when I started teaching seven years ago. I don’t recall reading it, even though I’d highlighted it almost all the way through. Yet I must not have gotten it. If I had gotten it, I wouldn’t have had the year from hell I had last year. But I read it again. Here are a few quotes that impacted me greatly:

“As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together…teaching holds a mirror to the soul.”

“…the most practical thing we can achieve in any kind of work is insight into what is happening inside us as we do it. The more familiar we are with our inner terrain, the more surefooted our teaching - and living - becomes.”

“…the self is not a scrap of turf to be defended but a capacity to be enlarged.”

“‘Be not afraid’ does not say that we should not have fears - and if it did, we could dismiss it as an impossible counsel of perfection. Instead, it says that we do not need to be our fears, quite a different proposition…I need not teach from a fearful place: I can teach from curiosity or hope or empathy or honesty…I can have fear, but I need not be fear - if I am willing to stand someplace else in my inner landscape.”

If I could sum what I learned from this book, in a nutshell, it is that I don’t have to be afraid of my fears. I don’t have to rid myself of my fears. I can recognize my fears, understand my fears, learn to identify when they rear their heads (notice I didn’t say ugly heads), and enter a different place within and come out through those other places within myself. And I can not only teach, but I can be, out of those other places. It was so liberating for me to know I don’t have to rid myself of my fears. Not only is the effort draining, but the claim that I am not afraid of whatever, someday, would not be the truth.

But if that weren’t enough, I finished the summer reading Let Your Life Speak, also by Parker Palmer. In it, he talks of listening to yourself to determine your vocation, your calling. He speaks of living the life you were intended to live. Here are a couple more quotes:

“Each of us arrives here with a nature, which means both limits and potentials. We can learn as much about our nature by running into our limits as by experiencing our potentials.”

“We will become better teachers not by trying to fill the potholes in our souls but by knowing them so well that we can avoid falling into them.”

If you are experiencing depression, this seems to be a great book, as Parker Palmer discusses his dark nights of the soul and how he emerged from them. I found the narrative of his journey to be real and authentic (like I’m supposed to judge - how crazy!).

On top of that, I also began and continue to read Stephen Covey’s books. All of these readings, sources of wisdom, have taken me to another place in my spiritual and emotional life. And I’m so grateful. I’m more peaceful. I’m more playful (ask my husband). I don’t react to circumstances and situations with the same lack of care I did before. I’m by no means where I ought to be. Yet, I see the incredible potential of my life, my calling, my relationships as being so great. And I’m experiencing some of that greatness now. Because I made a choice to open wide and say “ah-h-h-h.”

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Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.

– Parker J. Palmer

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In a comment The New Parent kindly left me in response to my last post, he stated:

“…there’s a saying I kinda remember: we spend our days worrying about the future, lamenting our pasts, ever forgetting our present. Sometimes I’ve found that the pain I remember evaporates as I allow the energy of joy into my heart. It’s not an easy time of it, but who ever said growing up was supposed to be easy (smile).”

Well, The New Parent, you’re right. It’s not easy. It’s not easy to remind myself that right smack in my present (and presence) are joys all around if I just take a second to look. And so, in addition to the comment above, I’d like to leave us with something Albert Einstein said,

That’s enough for me today…

What about you?

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I’ve been absent for a bit attempting to figure out what I’m doing and where I’m going. I am understanding that I’m allowing my past to hinder my present.

I’m reading a few books now, including Women Who Run With the Wolves. One that I picked up again (and vow that I will complete next month) is entitled When Your Past Is Hurting Your Present. In it, Sue Augustine begins her first chapter with a quote from an unknown author stating,

“It is not the experience of today that drives us mad; it is the remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday.”

I’ve been dealing with much remorse and bitterness for probably half my life, angry for being used and abused, rejected and abandoned. Interestingly, though, it’s amazing that I could go on for so many years being ignorant of the fact that I was bitter and angry. Yet, until my husband strongly suggested to me I was angry, I didn’t begin to have a clue.

Nonetheless, it’s been a long journey. I get bits and pieces of revelation as I go along. And I recently realized that I’d lost hope. I wasn’t very optimistic about the future. I didn’t really have grand expectations. I wasn’t joyfully anticipating good things to come. In fact, I was really just plodding along. And this type of living, I’ve decided, is not for me.

American author and playwright Jean Kerr once said,

“Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.“

Oh, how this resonated with me! So for those who might be experiencing feelings of hopelessness, know that it’s not over! There’s more on the other side. In fact…

‘Tis better to hope, though clouds hang low,
And keep the eyes uplifted;
For the sweet blue sky will soon peep through,
When the ominous clouds are lifted.

There never was a night without a day
Or an evening without a morning,
And the darkest hour, as the proverb goes,
Is the hour before the dawning.

Author Unknown

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To all the fathers out there, today’s your day! It is a day where your children cook you breakfast in bed, for a change. It is a day where your children reflect how wonderful and beautiful an influence you have been in their lives. It is a day when we all think about the sacrifices our fathers have made for us.

Yet, I know Father’s Day is not always a joyful time for some. For some, it is a time to try to forget, because daddy was abusive to you. It is a time to forget because daddy didn’t pay attention to you. It is a time to forget because daddy didn’t teach you how you should be treated by men. It is a time to forget because daddy abandoned you. It is a time to forget because daddy just let it all happen to you.

If this is you, I understand, at least a little bit. My father didn’t teach me the things fathers should teach their little girls. My father didn’t teach me what I should look for in boys. He didn’t teach me that I shouldn’t allow myself to be treated a certain way. When it came to relationships, I was