Cocooning

What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what kind of a person you are. --C.S. Lewis

Every Monday I take my 8 year old daughter to a local indoor ice rink for summer skating lessons. Within the arena, three classes are held simultaneously. At the center of the ice, Jennifer's class learns basic skills like cross-overs and snow plow stops. To her right, a class of hockey skaters race back and forth. To her left, there is a group of wobbly, short-legged beginners.

Even though summer temps have been in the 90's, I bundle up in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. The arena benches are freezing, and because of warm air outside the building pushing against cold air inside, condensation floats about the rink like clouds. Jennifer says it makes her feel like she's skating in the sky. But, not everyone seems to love skating in the same way as she. For one little brown-eyed boy, I imagine the whole scene looks more like ghosts in a graveyard.

Every week he stands on the ice, crying at the top of his lungs, reaching for his coach with frantic flailing arms. The "tot" class offers a 1:1 teacher to child ratio, and while other instructor /student pairs are playing "Red light, green light" and toddling on the ice like little tin soldiers, this wide-eyed boy chews on his mittens and waits for mercy, refusing to move, his teacher remaining an arms-length away. For the entire class the teacher's mission seems to be patiently encouraging this child to take one tiny step. She often ends up on her knees in front of him as if praying that this sweet-faced kid would somehow stop crying and just try. He whimpers, he moans, he bursts into full-blown tears every time he falls on his butt. But nobody saves him from his 30 minutes of frozen fate. Week after week his comfort level only seems to worsen. In a class of more than 15, he looks lost and lonely.

I hug my waist, shiver, wink and wave at Jennifer when I catch her looking my way for approval of her fancy footwork. And with a heavy heart, I watch this little boy struggle. Then, last week I saw something that only added to my distress. As Jennifer and I entered the community center and took our places on foyer benches to lace up skates and add long-sleeve layers, the curly-haired boy and his mom took a seat next to us. He looked apprehensive, but at least he wasn't crying, that is until he caught sight of his rented brown-leather shoes with silver blades. Mom and "teacher" together restrained the frightened child. Mom leaned over his chest and pushed him down on the bench while he bucked, sobbed, and pleaded (in a language I could not understand, but the message was clear) not to have to go through this again. The teacher wrestled to get kicking, angry feet into slender skates, shoving and pushing and twisting herself.

From where I was standing, this woman seemed like a mother without mercy. Judgmental thoughts flooded my mind: Why is this woman so insistent her son skate when he's only three? How can she resort to physical force? How can she not respond to his mournful wailing? How can she hold him down instead of simply holding him in her arms?

Then I caught myself and willed these thoughts to stop. Was this the same self-righteousness with which others have viewed me--so sure that Rich and I are wrong, deluded, misguided, when it comes to our financial situation? Do others sit back, and watch, and think that the whole scenario offers a clear and obvious solution that we simply cannot see?

Knowing how hurt I've felt by judgmental comments and attitudes, I took a deep breath and tried to see this woman from a different point of view. Maybe her son had special needs, and doctors had recommended skating lessons to strengthen underdeveloped legs. Not likely, but a good start for me in trying to stretch my perspective. Maybe he was a boy who needed strong emotional limits because of masked behavioral issues. It was hard. Real hard to meet this mother half way (even if only in my mind.) I kept coming back to my black and white view of what I thought was happening. And maybe I was right--maybe she was plain wrong to be so persistent and somewhat punishing.

But what I really wanted to give this woman was exactly what I hope others will give to me: GRACE. Admitting that from where we each stand in life, no one can see the whole picture regarding anyone or anything. Life is messy, complicated, challenging. What we all need is love--encouragement, compassion, support. What if I had offered her a kind word instead?

Love is healing. Love changes things. Love sets us free. When we judge others, there's no room for love. Judgment is love's polar opposite--it hurts, it paralyzes, it imprisons, further perpetuating problems. It's easy to judge the poor as lazy, uneducated, unwise, bad money managers always looking for a handout, bottom-less pits that shouldn't be helped because it's a losing battle anyway, right? But as for me. . .I want to choose love. Lord, please show me the way.

"Do not judge or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Matthew 7:1

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck our of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?' You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Matthew 7:3-5

Our lives changed the year my husband Rich and I moved from our home in Chicago to a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Nine months pregnant with our second child, we packed up our lives, said goodbye to family and friends, and headed west in our rusty red Jeep so that Rich could pursue a new job opportunity. Uprooting our lives and starting over was difficult, but the hope for positive change seemed promising.

Within nine months, the awful events of 9-11 transpired, and devastating ripple effects were felt nationwide. One of the smaller felt-consequences was the loss of financing for the start-up business which had newly employed my husband. The company went under, and suddenly Rich was out of work. I was floundering. Trying to deal with a new baby, meet new friends, re-group financially, and process the newly felt losses in our life left me feeling lonely, scared, and deeply depressed.

As a person of faith, I began to wrestle with darkness. Surprisingly, narrow rays of light only began to appear when I found the courage to sit still with my pain rather than run away from it (and ultimately myself). Part of my healing process also included a Friday morning biblestudy at our church. I began to experience God's compassion and care in the face of friendship. Through the love and support of women with whom I could share my problems, pain, and ponderings I began to find hope instead of despair. At the same time, however, our financial frustrations continued. . . Rich eventually found a new job (falling back on the same work he'd been doing in Chicago), but the pay scale from Illinois to Minnesota was radically different, a marked decrease in his hourly pay.

Recovering from the financial hole that a job loss can create seemed slow going over the next couple of years, but slightly hopeful. And then, with Rich's new construction-related position we faced another setback: lay offs due to a serious slump in the housing market. After ten months of scraping by, and waiting for that "promised" call to return to work (that still has not come), Rich started his third job since our move six years ago. Once again, we feel like we are standing at the base of a mountain, hoping to climb up and out of this monetary pit. This time, though, with two seasons of unemployment behind us, it feels like we are facing twin peaks.

The details that I've left out. . .my own career path, careful budgeting to stay afloat, visits to the local food shelves to feed our family, cutting back to one car, foregoing opportunities to buy a home, scrutiny from family and friends, random acts of kindness that lifted our spirits, a changing world-view, and learning generousity in such a season of drought. . .are all pieces of my story that will appear in later posts. Hopefully, this is an adequate nutshell version of where we've been and where we're going, and why so many of my thoughts are related to money and what God's hopes might be for us in all of this.