Relationships & Road Kill
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
My two oldest children are back to school, and I'm trying to establish a new routine with my at-home, three-year old. I'm suddenly remembering how hard this develomental stage is for me. I've been through it all before with Ryker and Jennifer, but even so, my youngest's demand for consistent boundaries and constant attention seems a fresh challenge. Having to repeatedly redirect behavior in a positive manner, and engage emotionally (through imaginative play, etc) flares my issues. Too often I feel like Sean is a Mack truck, and by the end of each day I've been reduced to nothing but road kill. It's an awful feeling when you realize that standing in the middle of his hell-bent highway and trying to flag down his I-can-do-whatever-I-want behavior isn't working.
It's easy to get down on myself and my mothering style. Rich has to remind me, "Cheri, you went through this with the first two kids, and you did a great job! Look at how wonderful they are. Sean will turn out great, too!" The encouragement blesses me and brings me to tears.
Even so, there are days I hear him muttering something to the effect of "Super Nanny, we need you!"
All of this difficulty has me thinking again about relationships and "connection." Yes, I provided a diatribe about this in mine and Sal's first book, Walk With Me, in a piece called The Mountains of Motherhood (a reference to The Odyssey). It's somewhat haunting to realize that here I am--four years later--still wrestling with the same issues. It guess it's just persistently true: parenting can be a circular and lonely job.
Yes, yes, I'm aware there are "mom's" groups, and such, designed to help women connect. My own formal ties to women will start up the end of September, so there's hope in sight. But isn't it strange how, in general, dis-connection is the societal norm?
Apart from formal employment, we live within the confines of four walls, and for the most part, we journey through the day without any "real" connection. Of course there are telephones and e-mail and such. But I think they provide a false sense of intimacy. Maybe in rare cases they help. But they still don't create the kind of community that's life giving and soul-sustaining. The way I see the problem: It's almost like we're all living on the moon, and we're missing gravity -- that essential ingrediant for remaining down-to-earth, rooted, joined together, connected. It's a major, major problem.
We can connect with a lot of hard work and intention--but it doesn't change the fact that gravity is missing. At times, it can be really hard to hang on. At least for me.
How interesting that "gravity," by the grace of God, only seems to appear easily when there's a crisis. Then the very nature of things is reversed, undone. A hurricane, a house fire, a health problem. . .and suddenly we find ways to come together. And those ways feel natural, not hard.
My friend Sally called me with stories about a recent storm in her area that tore through the town in such a manner that trees were uprooted, buildings destroyed, and power was disrupted. She and her neighbors did not have electricity for five long days. As a result, there was a huge generator placed in the middle of the street, and surrounding families had to come out of their homes to "plug in." Their ability to carry on with wells and septic systems and electricity in general was suddenly dependent on others. For the first time in a long time, neighbors were talking, sharing, and helping one another. And it was all because of a crisis, that somehow gave their moon-like, float-away-from-each-other tendencies, gravity.
I've been reading Rob Bell's latest book, called Sex God. (The title is a bit odd. He's referencing sex in the broad sense of the word--sexuality as the need to "connect.") In an early chapter he tells about meeting a couple at a Rolling Stones concert. When they ask him what he does for a living, and he explains he's a pastor, a whole new line of discussion opens up. They talk politics and the environment, music, family, literature. . .etc. And then the woman turns to him and asks why the world is so broken. Why people can't just get along.
Rob was intuitive enough to perceive the soul-nature of her question. On page 34 he says, "The question seemed to come from years of reflection. And it wasn't just an intellectual issue; this was something that deeply troubled her soul. She pointed to the forty thousand people seated around us in the stadium and asked, 'Why is it so hard for us to get along? Why do we have to fight with each other and sue each other and say horrible things about each other?'
"As she was saying this, I realized that what she was saying was less a series of questions and more of a lament. A grieving.
"We're disconnected from each other and we know it. It's now how things are supposed to be. Even people who would say they have no faith in God or in any sort of higher being or supreme power still have a sense that there is a way things are supposed to be. And that way involves us as humans being connected with each other."
In other words, my issues with Sean, and being a stay-at-home-mom simply expose my deepest hunger as spiritual: a longing to connect. Lack of connection truly is a grief.
Community is life-sustaining. I guess it's why I've co-written two books on friendship. And I guess it also explains why 99% of all the groups that hire me to speak request the topic of friendship (which in the beginning always baffled me). As Rob Bell puts it, "We're severed and cut off, disconnected in a thousand ways, and we know it, we feel it, we're aware of it every day. It's an ache in our bones that won't go away."
Feeling the ache in the way that I do helps me realize how any real connection that you, or I, or anybody experiences, is a miraculous gift. It's evidence that there is such a thing as relational or spiritual "gravity." It's a mysterious, hidden, feminine, protective power that holds all things together in love. I think it's called, "Spirit of God."
"Friendship was Jesus' great dream for his church. He wanted to create a fellowship of friends such as the world had never seen. This would be his greatest miracle. Then 'all men will know that you are my disicples, if you love one another' (John 13:35) --Mike Mason
It's easy to get down on myself and my mothering style. Rich has to remind me, "Cheri, you went through this with the first two kids, and you did a great job! Look at how wonderful they are. Sean will turn out great, too!" The encouragement blesses me and brings me to tears.
Even so, there are days I hear him muttering something to the effect of "Super Nanny, we need you!"
All of this difficulty has me thinking again about relationships and "connection." Yes, I provided a diatribe about this in mine and Sal's first book, Walk With Me, in a piece called The Mountains of Motherhood (a reference to The Odyssey). It's somewhat haunting to realize that here I am--four years later--still wrestling with the same issues. It guess it's just persistently true: parenting can be a circular and lonely job.
Yes, yes, I'm aware there are "mom's" groups, and such, designed to help women connect. My own formal ties to women will start up the end of September, so there's hope in sight. But isn't it strange how, in general, dis-connection is the societal norm?
Apart from formal employment, we live within the confines of four walls, and for the most part, we journey through the day without any "real" connection. Of course there are telephones and e-mail and such. But I think they provide a false sense of intimacy. Maybe in rare cases they help. But they still don't create the kind of community that's life giving and soul-sustaining. The way I see the problem: It's almost like we're all living on the moon, and we're missing gravity -- that essential ingrediant for remaining down-to-earth, rooted, joined together, connected. It's a major, major problem.
We can connect with a lot of hard work and intention--but it doesn't change the fact that gravity is missing. At times, it can be really hard to hang on. At least for me.
How interesting that "gravity," by the grace of God, only seems to appear easily when there's a crisis. Then the very nature of things is reversed, undone. A hurricane, a house fire, a health problem. . .and suddenly we find ways to come together. And those ways feel natural, not hard.
My friend Sally called me with stories about a recent storm in her area that tore through the town in such a manner that trees were uprooted, buildings destroyed, and power was disrupted. She and her neighbors did not have electricity for five long days. As a result, there was a huge generator placed in the middle of the street, and surrounding families had to come out of their homes to "plug in." Their ability to carry on with wells and septic systems and electricity in general was suddenly dependent on others. For the first time in a long time, neighbors were talking, sharing, and helping one another. And it was all because of a crisis, that somehow gave their moon-like, float-away-from-each-other tendencies, gravity.
I've been reading Rob Bell's latest book, called Sex God. (The title is a bit odd. He's referencing sex in the broad sense of the word--sexuality as the need to "connect.") In an early chapter he tells about meeting a couple at a Rolling Stones concert. When they ask him what he does for a living, and he explains he's a pastor, a whole new line of discussion opens up. They talk politics and the environment, music, family, literature. . .etc. And then the woman turns to him and asks why the world is so broken. Why people can't just get along.
Rob was intuitive enough to perceive the soul-nature of her question. On page 34 he says, "The question seemed to come from years of reflection. And it wasn't just an intellectual issue; this was something that deeply troubled her soul. She pointed to the forty thousand people seated around us in the stadium and asked, 'Why is it so hard for us to get along? Why do we have to fight with each other and sue each other and say horrible things about each other?'
"As she was saying this, I realized that what she was saying was less a series of questions and more of a lament. A grieving.
"We're disconnected from each other and we know it. It's now how things are supposed to be. Even people who would say they have no faith in God or in any sort of higher being or supreme power still have a sense that there is a way things are supposed to be. And that way involves us as humans being connected with each other."
In other words, my issues with Sean, and being a stay-at-home-mom simply expose my deepest hunger as spiritual: a longing to connect. Lack of connection truly is a grief.
Community is life-sustaining. I guess it's why I've co-written two books on friendship. And I guess it also explains why 99% of all the groups that hire me to speak request the topic of friendship (which in the beginning always baffled me). As Rob Bell puts it, "We're severed and cut off, disconnected in a thousand ways, and we know it, we feel it, we're aware of it every day. It's an ache in our bones that won't go away."
Feeling the ache in the way that I do helps me realize how any real connection that you, or I, or anybody experiences, is a miraculous gift. It's evidence that there is such a thing as relational or spiritual "gravity." It's a mysterious, hidden, feminine, protective power that holds all things together in love. I think it's called, "Spirit of God."
"Friendship was Jesus' great dream for his church. He wanted to create a fellowship of friends such as the world had never seen. This would be his greatest miracle. Then 'all men will know that you are my disicples, if you love one another' (John 13:35) --Mike Mason
