8/19/2022 0 Comments Can you see me?In Genesis, the bible tells us that God created the earth and the seas. And after he'd created them, the bible tells us God saw that it was good.
The earth wasn't good because God said it was. It was good because God saw that it was. And so the Genesis story goes. God continues to create, to add to his image of earth, to include humans, and then he steps back and sees that it is all good. Every bit of it. I think God was putting in place a necessary order there. We need to see something as good before we will ever believe that it is. I was at a conference yesterday about trauma informed schools. I've attended and spoke at dozens of these meetings the last 5 years. I left believing something stronger than I believed it before I attended - something I already believed pretty strongly - and that is the heart of being trauma informed is understanding that people need to be seen before they will ever hear. God created us to have our goodness rooted in him seeing us as good. And - in you and I seeing each other that way. You will likely not be a good teacher to a child if you aren't willing to see the goodness in them first. In many cases that's especially critical because they can't begin to see it in themselves. Things that happened to them years ago or weeks ago or even just a night ago - these things have left them feeling like they are less than good. Kids who don't believe you see any good in them aren't interested in being told about math or science. Just like a Christian who doesn't believe God sees any good in them isn't interested in being told about the ten commandments. We were created to be seen first before ever being told. Babies come into the world needing to know they are seen as a first step to trusting what they are told. If you can't see me I can't hear you - is sort of how it goes. God didn't ask us to trust that we are good because he said so. He asked us to trust it because he saw so. Our kids are asking the same of us. We are all asking it, really, of one another. Can you see me? Can you see the good in me? If the answer is yes, the door has been opened to listening. If the answer is yes, you see what God sees.
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8/16/2022 0 Comments Be Curious about one anotherIf I were to say to you the word 'tree' - a soundwave would travel from my lips to your ears, where a vibration would then send a signal to your brain. Your brain then would go searching within you for some sort of reference - a memory of sorts - to make sense of this wave.
Maybe your brain finds an image of a tree you sat under as a kid. Or a tree that toppled on your favorite car in a bad storm. Maybe it would be a tree full of beautiful colors in the fall. Whatever the image, that would be how you would make sense of the soundwave I sent your way. Those images would be how you hear tree. Which may or may not be what I was picturing when I told you about a tree. Or maybe I tell you I got a divorce. And your mind scans for another image to match the vibrations of that word in your ear. Sometimes, though, the brain doesn't find images at all. Sometimes the search lands on the left side of the brain where we store words and rules and things we've heard and memorized over the years. So when I say the word divorce maybe you hear God hates divorce. Or maybe you hear people who stay married are selfless, people who divorce are selfish. Or maybe you find the old platitude that children's lives are ruined by divorce. I told you about a life altering event, yet you found a belief or a saying built on something you have never experienced - my divorce. That is how our communication with one another works. We use words - or if you're on Instagram maybe you use photos - or maybe you share a song. But how we receive any of those things isn't determined by universal definitions or meanings - they are received according to what we know about those things and what we've experienced in life. We walk around some days believing there are people around us who really need to get in line with the way of the world. When the problem isn't that people aren't in line with the world, the problem is people aren't in line with one another. We are not shaped by the way of the world, we and our world are shaped by the way we respond to one another in the world. And so much of that response is built on what we think of one another, and not what we know of one another. So often when those vibrations hit our ears, and those vibrations find those images or rules or platitudes - we stop. We stop short of wondering if my images are your images. We stop short of wondering if what I've learned is what you've learned. We stop short of wondering if your word is not the whole story, just an incomplete beginning of one. We stop short of wondering if my interpretation is your shame. We stop short of wondering if my way of seeing of seeing your word is your oppression. We stop short - oh so short sometimes - of being curious. We stop short of wondering what they really meant because our brain assures us we already know. We stop short of fully feeling their experience because our brain is begging us to feel our own experience. Being curious is an intentional act that often goes against the inner working of our brain. Curiosity is not a completely natural act, especially when it comes to how we interact with one another. But curiosity is a humane act. Because so much of what we know about the world doesn't come from the world at all - it comes from OUR world. Which often times excludes an awful lot of YOUR worlds. Be curious. Don't stop at your images. Be curious about the images around you. When you want to live a better life, it's tempting to live in the past and believe the better life was going to be found in making better decisions back then - or having better things happen to you back then.
The truth is, though, if you'd done different things in the past, if different things would have happened to you in the past, the only thing you know for sure is - life would be different. There's no way of knowing - there's no reason for believing - life would have been better. This 'better' you reference when you look to the past, it's an image of what you wish life looked like now. And looking to the past to explain the gulf between this image and reality is a way of blaming yourself and others for this constant need to wish. Well you don't have to wish. There's a great opportunity in having this image of better. There's a great opportunity in knowing what separates you from the life you have and the life you know could be better. That opportunity is found in taking steps toward better and stop looking to the past to explain why it hasn't already happened. Every moment in the past explaining why better hasn't happened yet is a more reasonable explanation for why better isn't going to happen. If you had done things different in the past - if different things would have happened to you - life would be different. It's Monday. You don't have to settle for different, you can have better. They key is to quit looking to the past for it and insist on it in your future. Yesterday, the boys and I went to see the re-release of ET. I saw plenty of movies as a kid, but ET will always feel like the first movie I ever saw.
When I left the theater after seeing ET for the first time forty years ago, I felt something I'd never felt from a movie before. I felt drawn into the connection between Elliott and ET. There was something about the love they shared. It felt alien, for sure, but yet real enough to leave me wondering if a love like that was possible. I felt drawn into the wonder of a world that just might be bigger and holding on to more possibilities than I'd ever imagined. I went to see that movie several consecutive weekends as a teen. There's a box in an attic somewhere full of ET memorabilia I began collecting soon after. After the movie yesterday, I told Elliott that I'd given him my stuffed ET toy from that collection when he was younger. Ian said, "he still has it." We all laughed. But inside me there was something more meaningful than laughter taking place. I joked with Elliott throughout the movie - almost every time one of the characters said "Elliott" - that he was actually named after the Elliott in the movie. And that it's no coincidence that his middle name is Thomas - thereby giving him the initials ET. Elliott's names actually come from family members, but I do wonder if there was some subconscious influence going on there..... While we waited for our pizza after the movie, we talked about all of this. I was reminded that what connects one generation to the next is the stories we tell. And not the words we use to recite them, but the emotions with which we tell them. It's our emotions that connect us to our kids, and to one another. Our stories are simply the vehicle we deliver them with. Sitting there, I told them I had no idea when I was sitting in that movie 40 years ago that it would ultimately become a connection between me and my own teens decades later. I had no idea that the emotions that movie was pouring into me would ultimately be poured into them. I had no idea that 40 year old movie would bring a stuffed toy alive 40 years later. Sitting there, I could just imagine ET's heart light glowing bright in a corner of a bedroom. And there was something powerful about imagining that light glowing long after I'm gone. But it won't be a doll that carries on that light - and love. It will be a story. A story that Steven Spielberg wrote, and ET told, and I heard and passed on to my sons - next generation. We are born to be story tellers. It is our common love language. I do worry some days that we spend too much time trying to dictate stories instead of sharing in them. I do worry that we spend too much time trying to edit each other's scripts instead of being curious about the stories they already tell. Because it's our stories that share the emotions that will ultimately connect us to the next generation. Our stories, nobody else's. So share your stories. A gift you get when you hide a lot of your story in life is you get good at spotting when someone else is hiding a part of theirs. That gift becomes a hell of sorts when you spot that hiding in the eyes of one of your kids.
I've faced this in my life. First, you keep your secrets in a prison. Then your secrets turn on you - they begin to despise you - and then they take you captive. It's the cruelest twist in life; these things you do to protect yourself become the very things that try to destroy you. As a dad, I've committed to do everything I can to make sure neither of my boys ever get destroyed in that way. The problem is, it's easy to say I'm committed - it can be the hardest thing in the world to honor that commitment. Because the day comes when you have to sit down with your kid and ask for his secret. You have to ask him for this thing he thinks is protecting himself and others. You have to ask because you know the pain of otherwise. You have to ask because you made a commitment. But the hard part - the part that has always been hard for me - you know the only possible way you're getting to that secret is by offering up your own secrets. You know the only way you're getting truth is by showing truth. You know the only way you're ever going to get your kid to risk condemnation is by risking condemnation. And so we sat there on the porch. The two of us in old rusty chairs. Both of us knowing, I think, we were embarking on a conversation filled with enough discomfort to make what we were sitting in irrelevant. There's a reason we don't share the hard stuff in life; it's much harder than sharing the easy stuff. But the easy stuff doesn't threaten to hold your kid hostage all his life. So I said to him, I need to ask you something - but first I need to tell you something. And I told him a lot about how I came to be who I am today. I told him a lot about how we came to be who we are today. I told him the stuff that put me at risk of him looking at me as lowly as I have been prone to look at myself. I told him the stuff that put me at risk of having my son join the circle of judgment instead of releasing me from it. Then I saw his tears. The tears that secrets hide. At first the tears were for me and for all the captives in me being set free. They were tears that wanted to hug the captives and not condemn them. They were tears that welcomed the release from perfection that comes when you hear the imperfections of someone you love. Then the tears were his. The captives he set free. There was joy in those tears - the joy that comes with discovering this thing we fear will escape is not only allowed to escape - it's supposed to. Then we hugged. And in many ways it was a first hug. Because you become different people when you allow yourself to be real people. When you insist on it of one another. I tell you all this because so many of us are in captivity. We are and our tears are and our truths are. They are because we in many ways fear condemnation; many of us fear it because too often that fear is realized. So maybe we all just work on this with each other. Work on being braver with telling our stories and more compassionately hearing each other's stories. Because that is what sets the stage for us all imagining different stories in our lives. Stories that are about freedom and not captivity. And I can tell you - I have looked at life from both sides now - there is nothing better than a freedom story. There is nothing better than a freedom hug. The musician Miles Davis suggests that when a musician hits a wrong note, it's too early to know whether that wrong note was good or bad.
It's the next note one plays that determines that. The keys on a piano aren't meant to be played one at a time. They are meant to be played together. There are sequences of individual notes that sound good or bad. There are notes played together in chords that sound good or bad. But an individual note - an individual note is not good or bad. It's just a note. It's what comes next that determines good or bad. Too often we hit the wrong note and we get stuck there. We get stuck there lamenting how wrong that note was. We get stuck there believing our song is now a disaster. And we get stuck there believing that wrong note makes us a horrible musician. But the song isn't over. Not as long as there is still a keyboard. Maybe you run a mile in a race that didn't go so well; that next mile just got all the more important. Maybe you get frustrated and yell at your kid; an apology just got all the more meaningful. Maybe you lose your job; a job is over, not your ability to start a brand new one. Maybe you've been through a divorce; a relationship ended - not life. Your life song is made up of a lot of notes. And maybe you feel like some of those notes are the wrong notes. So be it. They were wrong notes. But the song isn't over. As long as you can sit at that piano there are still notes to be played that can turn one wrong note into one beautiful song. There are still notes to be played that can turn a hundred wrong notes into one beautiful song. In the end, if we are remembered for one wrong note, it's because we gave up on finishing our song. I believe there's a beautiful song left in me; I believe there's a beautiful song left in you. Play your next note. Play your song. Do not be defined by one wrong note. Most of my life, I think I've been well-liked. And a lot of that time, I've spent wondering to some degree if the people who like me would actually like the real me.
That's a hard thing to say, but I'm saying it because I've learned over the last few years that a lot of people live with that same wondering. And for many that wondering comes with a fear; a fear of being one's true self. For many that wondering comes with a shame; the real me isn't nearly as likable as the pretend me. Being liked isn't difficult. It's actually pretty easy to figure out what the people around you like about people. Once you figure that out, you can begin managing an image that looks likable to those you want to be liked by. But if the image you're managing looks like someone everyone else likes - but someone you DON'T like - that becomes exhausting. Andy Stanley says the minute you start managing an image you stop working on you. Because image management is based on who you want people to see and not who you long to be. Who you were made to be. It's a brave answer to seek. It's one many of us are working to exhaustion to avoid. Would you like me if you knew me? Why even bother asking that - we think - when it's safer - and easier - to simply become someone I know you'll like. But trust me, the question never goes away. It never will. It's haunting, to a degree. Would you like me if you knew me? It's a most beautiful thing - to get that answer. It's life changing and life giving; I hope we will all one day have that answer for our very own. To know - and to feel - that being truly liked for who we truly are by even one, is far more meaningful than being liked by a crowd who never knew you at all. There are so many reasons we hide the real us from the world - and from ourselves. Most of them have to do with a fear of being dis-liked. Our deepest desires, after all, are rooted in being seen and liked. We long to be liked by others; we really long to like ourselves. Many days those two go hand in hand. So I understand the hiding. But I love these words from Steffany Gretzinger: Come out of hiding You're safe here with Me There's no need to cover What I already see You've got your reasons But I hold your peace You've been on lockdown And I hold the key I do think a lot of the world walks around feeling on lockdown. Longing for that peace. A peace starts with finding that safe place. A safe place that starts with a desire to be true and not a desire to be liked. And it's there that you'll discover you've been far more likable all along than you have ever really been liked. I hope you'll start this week believing it - who you are is way more likable than you might believe. I hope you'll start this week knowing - who you are is the pathway to peace. Wanting to live life knowing all the answers is wanting to live a life without faith. Because answers and explanations - they require no faith. They require no trust from us that there is an unknown answer that will one day become known - that one day will make a perfect and beautiful sense out of even our biggest struggles.
I'll be the first to admit there are many days I want to skip faith and get right to the answers. But - in many ways - that means skipping God and getting right to me. It means abandoning God's desire for trust to meet my need for answers. Skipping faith means when it comes to this life, what you see is what you get. And faith - as hard as it is some days - is far more hopeful than my understandings and my timelines. And the truth is - it's not blind faith or hope - because today I live out answers and revelations to so many of yesterday's struggles. Today I live out miracles I didn't have the capacity to see or understand years ago. Decades ago. So I don't wait on answers wondering if the answers will ever come. I know they will. I don't wait on answers wondering if beauty can really be made of ashes. It already has. I don't even wait on answers hating that I don't have the answers. It's waiting that I hate. I'm not good at it. Many of us aren't. And we live in a world that seems to have a core mission to take the waiting out of everything. As if the greatest curse we all face is the inability to have what we want when we want it - the great curse of waiting. But God has never struggled with waiting. Because God knows the only peaceful way for us to navigate waiting is faith. And on the other side of that peace is the miraculous. God knows it's in that peaceful journey from waiting to the miraculous that love grows. So he lets us wait. Whether we do so peacefully or not is up to us. But it could very well be the difference between living a life that feels cursed, and living a life that feels loved. In the earliest seconds of our life, the first indication we get that we are loved is someone hears our voice. Anyone who has had a baby or has been around a baby knows that when they start crying, they will keep crying - until someone shows up.
Because they come into the world needing to be heard? Because they come into the world needing to feel loved? And is there any difference between being heard and being loved? Babies grow older. They become adults. Love can start to take on different meanings; it can look different than being heard. It can look like material gifts. It can look like sex. It can look like provided for and taken care of. It can look like peace and contentment. But if a relationship has much that looks and sounds like love, but voices aren't being heard, is their love? Do we long to hear a baby's first cry out of the womb, but then somewhere along the way grow weary of hearing voices? Does love become something more complicated than crying out and listening? There is a growing body of research that speaks to the negative health consequences of loneliness. I wonder if at the heart of that are the broken-hearted who no longer feel heard. Or loved. What happens to a baby when we answer their cry? They feel soothed and safe and seen and secure. That is what happens on the other side of a baby feeling heard. Does anything different happen on the other side of a child or a teen or and adult feeling heard? And does anything else in life other than being heard make us truly feel soothed and safe and seen and secure? Does anything else in life make us feel more loved than being heard makes us feel? It's catching up to us in so many ways: unprecedented levels of isolation and addictions and suicides. So many complex problems - many of them rooted - I believe - in one common neglect - our ears; our attention. We do consider it neglect if a caregiver doesn't show up for a baby's cry. We don't often see it that way if we don't show up for each other's cries. Because we think a baby outgrows the need to be heard? And is it possible that implies they outgrow the need to feel loved? Maybe that all sounds sad and depressing, but to me there's a lot of hope in my words. If we'll pay attention. To each other. Burt Bacharach wrote these lyrics nearly 60 years ago: What the world needs now is love sweet love It's the only thing that there's just too little of What the world needs now is love sweet love No not just for some but for everyone I do believe more of us than not are interested in solving the "too little love" problem. Only, I think we complicate it. We need to look to the babies. Ask the question - what makes them feel loved? I don't think that answer ever changes. Nothing ever makes us feel more loved than being heard. And so maybe what the world needs now is more listening sweet listening. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. Do loving things for one another, but don't skip the most loving thing of all. Don't skip making sure people feel heard. It is one of the crueler facts of life. Unhealthy habits are easier to form than healthy ones.
That's because habits are formed when we do something frequently. If I sit down and play the piano for an hour today, that doesn't help me build a habit near as much as sitting down to play the piano fifteen minutes every single day for the next ten days. Habits are the natural consequence of doing something frequently. I think we'd all agree what's easy to do - what is comfortable to do - is much easier to do frequently than what's hard to do. It's easier to scroll social media than play the piano for fifteen minutes. Yet, what's easy to do - what is comfortable to do - is rarely the healthiest thing to do. I believe life is calling each and every one of us to a healthy place. I always picture a giant river flowing to that place - a river we're all meant to jump in and swim to that place together in. But there are millions of smaller and seemingly more inviting streams surrounding that river that lead us in the opposite direction. We keep jumping in those streams, and being swept further and further away from that river, all the while knowing - all the while something inside us nagging - we are supposed to be in that river! The streams are tricky. They often present themselves as a shortcut. They'll convince you you'll get to float more than you have to swim, they'll convince you the current will cut hours off of your journey, they'll convince you you're the smart one for finding the stream. But the healthy life isn't about shortcuts. The healthy life longs to swim, not float. The healthy life isn't looking for a shortcut life, it's looking for a best life. And the smart life, well that's the life that figures out life is hard. It requires a constant push - from you. If you're looking for the easy life, you're going to spend your life in streams and not in the river. Here's the good news. All habits are formed the exact same way. Doing something frequently. Doing something hard frequently builds a habit just as quickly as doing something easy frequently. It's just harder to do something hard frequently. It requires a push. It requires us to constantly push ourselves away from the stream and go to the river. We all know our streams. We all know the grip they have on us. Just know the river can have that same kind of grip on us. If we'll just jump in it. When you get to the edge of one of your streams today - tell yourself "push" - and then push away from that stream. And push toward that river. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
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