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By Mama Paloma, 08/04/2012 09:42

I posted last night’s essay, rather impulsively, without waiting, at 12:30am. The first thought I had on waking this morning was this:

Redemption isn’t about receiving love, it’s about giving love.

What? The other half of my brain responded. But that’s backwards.

As I pondered it more, this idea began to make more sense to me. I reflected again on the piece I read last night about the “penal-substitution theory of atonement.” The author proposes that Jesus didn’t die to balance some kind of cosmic account. He didn’t “pay our price” because that would mean God didn’t really forgive but just transferred our balance to someone else who paid. He died because he lived out his practice. Gently, relentlessly, he spoke over and over of God’s unbelievable love and forgiveness. This was so threatening to the powers that be that he was killed. He lived his practice of love even though it killed him.

Whether you believe that accounts of Jesus are literally true or not (for the record, I don’t really know and this doesn’t bother me), the Jesus of  Biblical stories was indeed the perfect role model of love. He redeemed through his love. I consider myself a Christian (though others won’t because of that last parenthetical comment) because I endeavor to follow that example of living from love. (And am supported in this by Buddhist and Taoist teaching and meditation, especially, as they give practical direction on reigning in the ‘ego’ that so often gets in the way of that radical kind of love.)

Still, somewhere in my rational, Western mind, redemption has been sort of separate from love. Love is great and all but people need to be accountable.

This has been a major barrier in sorting things out with the-one-I-am-having-such-a-hard-time-loving. I realized that have demanded in a number of ways that he be accountable for his actions as a precondition for my continuing to show loving-kindess towards him. I can pray for his happiness and well being but I still, somewhere deep down, want him to pay.

I have been looking at the other person as being the one in need of redemption and forgiveness. He’s the one who did wrong, right?

Right?

I get heaps of support for this. Righteous anger and disappointment are reflected by all who care for my son and I. And, indeed, I want justice, I want consequences, I want him to know that he has wronged us and suffer for it.

Of course that’s right.

Except for this. As I realized this morning, all evidence to the contrary, I am actually not in a position to judge him–his motivations, intentions, or worthiness. My practice is acting and living out of love and equanimity. It’s what I aim for, continually move toward and back to.

The situation, as it stands, where I stand, is that I am the one in need of redemption. I have stepped off of my path of love and into the murky, dangerous realm of the cosmic balance sheet. I am mired in the muck, tangled up in the twining roots of trees that choke out the sun and hide all manner of creepy crawly things that bite.

I have felt stuck here for a long time.

What struck me this morning is that release from this stuckness – a practical and spiritual redemption – is readily available.

All I am required to do is to return to the path of kindness, gentleness, compassion, equanimity, and love regardless of the other’s actions.

Because, truly, that’s what Jesus did. He showed the way, loving even those who couldn’t see their worth and worthiness. Holding to the truth of the-Love-greater-than-we-can-imagine-or-understand even when it meant his execution and still not being held down by this – which is why we have Easter, right? – somehow rising up from destruction to live on eternally as The Inspiration to love.

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By Mama Paloma, 01/04/2012 22:01

It’s a feeling I know well, the weekend creeping to a close. So many things undone – laundry, housework, my son’s lunch for the morning. The week looms large.

And I just don’t have it in me.

It’s something I have been noticing for a while. This spent-ness. This fatigue that doesn’t seem to be abated by the self-care I fit in between the child and the paid work and the (very dominant) unpaid work and the halfhearted attempts to get out there and meet someone to share this crazy, wonderful life with.

I have been trying to figure out how I can live with more balance, more enjoyment, and build up some kind of reserve.

And I can’t figure it out. Time and again, my well is dry and I stare into its depths, parched and longing.

I have failed.

At least for tonight. Tonight, I am going to end the effort, head to bed, and let tomorrow come without trying to figure it all out.

Maybe it will rain.

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By Mama Paloma, 20/02/2012 22:43

I am a girl with one or three too many things on her plate. Nah, that’s not the right metaphor. It’s really more like I am a girl making her way across a sea of responsibilities, hopes and dreams, projects, parenting, dilemmas, and opportunities.

Some days, like today, the swells are high and threaten to swamp my little ship.

Because I have been working way to much and way too hard lately, have been struggling health-wise–never quite getting over that cold, and because my one resolution for 2012 was to have more down time, I had planned to take the day off, with my son whose preschool was closed for President’s Day, and putter around. His little room has been needing some attention and it seemed like a good time to do a little shopping, a little organizing, and a lot of playing.

You can tell, of course, that I don’t shop often. I had no idea that IKEA would be a mob scene at 9:30 on a Monday morning. I had thought that we would go, have a little breakfast and AJ would gleefully play in their ‘ball pit’ (his term) while I picked up a couple of things and we’d be home before noon, having done the week’s grocery shopping as well. I’d get his room organized and then do some work while he napped.

I had no idea that they serve breakfast for free on Monday mornings and, given the holiday, entire families would be lined up to snag this deal. But we hadn’t eaten and had nothing else to do so we stood in line and got our complimentary 99 cent portion of eggs and potatoes. Seriously. Several hundred people spent about a half hour in line waiting for what they likely wouldn’t choose to pay under a dollar for the rest of the time.

But I digress. Suffice it to say, we didn’t get home until 2 in the afternoon and were both fried from the over-stimulation of the crowds and florescent lighting. By this time, I was pretty stressed.

Among the extra bits on my plate this week is a photo book that was meant to be done by someone else but that needs to be final by the end of this week (to be printed for events in March) so, if it’s going to happen, I am going to do it. I am actually excited about doing it but it will require a certain amount of focus and today was meant to be a day I could do that. As our day wore on, about fifteen other things that I really need to do tomorrow also cropped up in my mind.

The swell built, each wave of anxiety topping the one before. How should I lay the book out? What if I can’t get the fonts right? When will I go through my rolodex and personally invite people to that event? When will I make sure my health insurance went through? Can’t forget to sort out the emergency contact card and extra booster seat for AJ’s new babysitter. How am I going to double my practice as I need to? I couldn’t think of what to do next or how to do it. I became short with AJ. I realized that this day off was feeling pretty out of control.

So, I changed tactics.

Shutting out the fear inspired by storm in my head, I focused on one thing. I put together the small IKEA shelf/bin thingy I had picked up for AJ’s room (only having to take apart and re-do it in two places), sorted through his toys, and put it all back together. This took the rest of the day and evening, with AJ watching that penguin surfing movie yet another time while I soldiered on. But, rather than becoming more anxious about everything else I wasn’t doing, I became more calm. Like meditation, the focus of sorting and cleaning and purging and organizing allowed the rest of my mind to clear.

After a while, I noticed little breezes of ideas flitting through here and there. By the time AJ finally went to bed, my plan of action (and there will be action!) for tomorrow was clear and in place.

And, while I can’t say that all of it will get done, what is done will be done with more grace and clarity than it would have had I not taken the afternoon to ride out my storm.

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By Mama Paloma, 14/02/2012 00:05

January 2012

So, usually, when I tell a story here, there is some conclusion to be drawn, some lesson I learned. This is not one of those stories. This is a more typical parent experience, I think…when your kid says or does something that leaves you shaking your head and you feel like you should be able to draw some lofty conclusion but all you can think is “Shit, he’s only three and already working me this way. What are the teen years going to be like? I need a drink.”  

I never intended to nurse my kid until he was four. Like most American moms these days, I had gotten the information about how nursing at least the first year has some pretty amazing health benefits. I had listened to/read about moms who are still breastfeeding their seven year olds. I thought a year or year and a half seemed good, seven a bit much. From the start, nursing came super easy for AJ and I. The day after he was born a lactation consultant came in to help me, took one look and said, “Well, he knows what he’s doing, you’re going to be fine.”

He did nurse for the first year. Exclusively. It was not the first time I felt the gaze of those who feel entitled to assess another person’s (particularly a single mom’s)  parenting. Other people would suggest different foods and try to get him to eat, even after I explained my own efforts to entice him. I could tell they thought this exclusive breastfeeding thing  was  about my need to be the most attached granola mom EVER. Eventually, he did start eating and is a ‘good eater.’

And he still wants to nurse.. He calls it ‘having babas.’ He asks for babas at night and in the morning, mostly, and when he’s upset.  Honestly, this has more to do with my general laziness than any parenting philosophy. I knew it would be work to cut him off and then I’d lose the one thing that can always calm him down.

I hoped, as with the food, he’d just get to the point of being ‘ready’ and lose interest but that wasn’t happening.. In the months leading up to his birthday yesterday, I told him that we wouldn’t be having babas after he turned four. This wasn’t an easy concept for him. One day, he was having a total meltdown. “I need babas,” he cried, “because I can’t calm down.” As he nursed, I wondered aloud about what I might do, after he turned four, to help him calm down, since he wouldn’t be having babas any more.

“Well,” he said, “when I am four, I will still have babas. When I am a big boy, like (paused to think), maybe ten or twelve, then I’ll just stop.” He made a definitive gesture when he said the word ‘stop,’ like a smoker swearing they’ll go cold turkey right after the New Year’s party.

“Oh, honey,” I replied, “the thing is, when you turn four, you are not going to have babas any more.”

“No, mommy,” he said, “because, especially for boys, if they don’t connect, they are going to have bigger problems.”

———————————————————–

February 13

So, tonight was a rough night. Actually, the past week has been rough. For several reasons, I am re-working my entire childcare setup. Addison’s birthday brought an ever-more acute awareness of his dad not being present (a topic for another day).. He has also been testing limits and getting very upset when I, say, turn off the movie. And then, there’s the babas.

When it came time for bed,  he was  sobbing about a movie-related conflict, then about not having babas to calm down,”I just want to go back and not have my birthday and stay little. I don’t want my body to grow. I want to be a baby.” I held him and talked with him and let him cry. I talked about how hard it can be when things change but how they usually end up all right.. I told him I am happy that he is growing and learning because that means that he is healthy and no matter how much he grows how he will still be my baby. I stroked his hair, rubbed his feet and talked about how things like that might help him calm down the way babas have. Finally, he began to relax. I extricated myself from his fierce little embrace, kissed his forehead, and whispered, “I love you so, so much, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, mom,” he whispered back and fell asleep.

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By Mama Paloma, 09/01/2012 22:19

This holiday season, I did something I haven’t done in five years. I took a holiday. Really. The full week between Christmas and New Years. Five days away from even my son. In that space, that time, I reflected and got clear about my intentions and hopes for the coming year. I made plans. Over the past year, I have been increasingly aware of the un-sustainability of my life. For the past five years, in every way, I have been sapped–financially, emotionally, psychologically, physically. My plans weren’t grand, but about setting up my life in subtly different ways, ensuring that well-being remains at the center of how we do things at Casa Paloma.

And I landed on January 2 back into a shitstorm. Too much work stuff landed all at once…good stuff, but more than I could possibly handle in that short week. My mom, goddess bless her, was facing some challenges and dramas of her own that demanded my support even as they strained our relationship. My plans–for serenity, for finding more ease, for increasing time with important people–were derailed from the start.

Or were they?

I felt like crap–overwhelmed, tired, sad–but decided to just show up and do what I had planned. I got up and did my 10 minutes of yoga each morning. I did our morning meditative reading. I ended each day at a set time, more or less, and sometimes (gasp!) left my laptop at the office. I played online scrabble and read a bit in one of the books I got for Christmas (which, the past few years would have sat on the shelf, gathering dust, as I waited for ‘the time’ to read it). I got more sleep than normal.

And, by Wednesday, I was already feeling better. By the weekend, I was chugging along, ready for anything and enjoying the ride. My experience shifted when I shifted in my experience.

I dropped more than a few balls. The thank you notes I dutifully helped my son prepare on Boxing Day? Unmailed. I haven’t had/taken/made the time to address and stamp them. The Christmas returns? The TV bracket that needs to be bought and installed? They are waiting. As are any number of things on the long list of To Dos.

But the important stuff? It’s getting done. In three days, more or less, I got a fellowship application submitted on time and without incident, coordinated another grant meeting, presented at a weekend conference, facilitated a group, and caught up with clients. I sorted out my health insurance situation (more or less). I stopped for play and ice cream with Addison, set some boundaries with mom, (not going over well…but we’ll get through it) and spent some time reaching out to friends who have been sidelined by my work and general busyness for too long.

In one of the reflection exercises, I was asked to give this year’s “word.” The first thing that came to me was “Open.” This is my resolution, my resolve. To be open to the possibilities I don’t see. Even the possibility that my life can be more than manageable, that I may savor and enjoy and still be enough.

With that, I am off to read more of that book.

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By Mama Paloma, 10/10/2011 15:18

It’s been a while, huh? I keep coming up with things I want to write about, but can’t find the time. Right now, I have 21 minutes, in a coffee shop, before I need to go pick up my son. This weekend, I missed two key work/life events…and still made it to three.

There is just too much to do and not enough time.

Was talking with a client about this today. She’s got more to do than she possibly can and is having trouble prioritizing…and the holidays aren’t even here yet. She is hoping to preemptively set up her holidays in a way that won’t have her losing her mind.

I suggested she list everything going on/coming up.

Then divide that into three lists:

1. Have to do (feed the kids, get work done, some sleep)
2. Want to do (sustaining social activities,  down time, time with children, more sleep)
3. All the stuff that’s there for reasons other than 1. or 2. (I was invited and said yes without thinking, I feel I should, what will people think of me if I don’t?)

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By Mama Paloma, 31/08/2011 17:46

December 27 is to be my fortieth birthday. Yep, the big four-oh. This approaching anniversary has got me considering how I have lived my last forty years and how I want to live going forward.

I have also been thinking a lot about legacy–not in a morbid, what-will-I-leave-behind-when-I-die way but more in the what-will-people-remember-about-this-tomorrow way. I have been considering the wake we leave as we move from one interaction to the next. Over the next three months, as that day approaches, I am taking steps to shift some of my habits to be more in line with the legacy I’d like to leave in my wake, the ways I would prefer to experience myself and be experienced on a day-to-day basis.

I am starting with the concepts of attention and choice an the power we have in our choices about what we pay attention to.

This morning, I took a few minutes to watch today’s featured TED Talk TED.com

(If you love this as much as I do, please go to this link Julia Bacha: Pay Attention to Nonviolence and comment.)

this talk literally brought tears to my eyes. The impact of war, discrimination, and environmental exploitation on civilians is near to my heart and my work is driven by the same certainty that what is reported on in these situations will grow–violence or peace-making, disconnection or community. I wrote to Ms. Bacha immediately and hope to connect as colleagues and kindred spirits in this arena.

Closer to home, though, I was challenged by this statement (emphasis mine):

Parents can incentivize or dis-incentivize behavior simply by giving or withdrawing attention to their children. But that’s true of adults, too. In fact, the behavior of entire communities and countries can be influenced depending on where the international community chooses to focus its attention.

It reminded me of yesterday morning. I had just gotten up after a virtually sleepless night, the result of 1) a rather distressing email from an employee (Oh, why did I peek at work emails just before going to bed?) and 2) my son waking up in the night, vomiting. My entire day was shot, the second in a row to be thrown off by external forces and my own physical limitations, and I was, shall we say, a bit cranky. And depressed.

I opened my computer to try to get something done and immediately this comment by Marianne Williamson popped up on my Twitter feed.

There it was, my life’s work being applied to my life. I sat there for a moment, considering where I have been affirming the power of the problems. It’s not a short list. Finances, the situation with my son’s father, an untenable work-life imbalance, a non-functioning nonprofit Board, my health, three-year-old AJ’s tantruming (Terrible twos? Try tyrannical threes!)–all of these had drawn me into a focus on what isn’t working, where the problems are, how I am stuck and powerless and alone.

I was confronted with the fact that this experience is to a large degree a choice, a series of choices I am making every day. Ironic, really, isn’t it? My therapy practice is called Talking Possibilities and here I was, choosing to talk about, ruminate on, and prioritize my own problems over the actually quite rich possibilities that are available to me.

Home with a sick child, I spent the day being with this awareness, considering how to shift each of these areas. I started noticing my reactions to things and shifting the meaning I was making.

This wasn’t just ‘positive self-talk’–which I find too often to be a kind of denial of what is. I was able to be with my son and empathize as he experienced that uniquely awful sensation of knowing another bout of vomiting is to come. At the same time, I was able to–not enjoy, I don’t want to ever see him unwell–appreciate the opportunity to give him the experience of being attended to, comforted, and understood and to teach him about self-care and patience. I was able to take time to consider how to respond to my employee with empathy, to value the opportunity that this situation presents me–to simplify and take back valuable time of my own–and to choose not to respond right away but give myself space to attend to other priorities. I still haven’t sorted out what to do with the more emotional parts of the baby-daddy situation but did realize that I had been choosing to believe I had to figure out things that I can and should get help with. I decided to wait for good advice and not throw my energy at the situation until I was clear as to what I should do. I called a friend for a referral to a specialist in International Family Law. Finally, I turned my attention to my own physical and emotional state. I took stock. I have been really depleted for some time now and, remarkably, no one has come to rescue me from that. I realized that it is high time that I take ownership of my own well-being, that I have many options for balancing and enriching my experience of life, and decided that this needs to be my top priority for the next few weeks.

All of this from a choice. Had I chosen, even by default, to give my attention to all of the challenges I am facing on a day-to-day basis, I would have likely been immobilized and buried by noon. The choice, in a moment of abject discouragement, to give my attention to the possibilities, shifted my experience immediately and space almost magically opened up for solutions to emerge and for me to take steps toward them.

We give our power to what we pay attention to, whether we are talking about international peace-building, parenting, or peace of mind.

We live in a flash of light;
evening comes and it is night forever.
It’s only a flash and we waste it.
We waste it with our anxiety, our worries,
our concerns, our burdens.
~Anthony De Mello~

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By Mama Paloma, 03/04/2011 23:10

I have figured out my immediate goals in life. Here’s the short version:

1. Get more sleep.
2. Have more access to money.

And here’s the background.

This weekend, I had a night away with three of my favorite people. We are 2/3 of the ‘study group’ our Master’s program forced us to form back in August of 1997. Our class wasn’t required to keep up the bi-monthly group meetings (we even had to take attendance) past the first semester but our particular group just ‘gelled,’ and we still get together  on a regular, though less frequent, basis. We have supported one another through school, professional licensure exams, babies, weddings, divorces, and more babies.

We planned this trip as a sort of retreat, to do a semi-structured “Entrepreneurial Life Plan.” This part was my idea, following on a conversation about missing the structure we had created when we were studying, and the cohesion, that unification of purpose, which was created. I had some materials from the New Leader’s Council Institute I did last year, so I recommended that book to the others and we planned to have brainstorming and reflections sessions to each come up with our ELP. I was really looking forward to this. I have been grappling with how to get a grip on my life, move things forward, and also get things into a sustainable balance.

Well, we didn’t do it. In any case, not in any structured way. I, for one, am fried. Burnt out, exhausted, ready to drop it all. That day was particularly trying as I had to pick up my car from the repair shop (finally being fixed after Ms. Nutjob rear-ended us last month–literally had not had the time to take it in before) and, just as I was leaving, my mom walked in with little AJ, who had just had his first real injury at school. Made sure he was all right, and that my mom was going to take him to the doctor just to be sure (bump on the head, but there was blood, rather safe than sorry).

So, the girls and I met, somewhat later than planned, me much less relaxed and cheerful than planned, at a beautiful hotel (three of us splitting one room made this possible for me) on Friday afternoon, sat by the pool and hit the happy hour at the sushi place in the hotel where I really, really enjoyed some hot sake. We talked, caught up, went back to our room, read and talked a bit more, and crashed. I woke up nine hours later.

In case that got by you, I’ll repeat it, with appropriate emphasis.

I  woke up nine hours later.

It wasn’t the alcohol. I was not hung over. I was just not awakened throughout the night or in the early morning. Dark-out curtains on the windows let me snooze in the luxury cloud of a bed until my body was done.

It was heaven. I was transformed.

Normally, I am in bed maybe (but not usually) about seven hours a night. Anxiety has had a hand in there, pushing me to do more and interfering with my drifting off. So, I stay up getting things done and writing blogs and such until I actually drop and then am dragged into the day short hours later by my three-year-old son.  Sleep has not been a reality, so it has not been a priority. But the difference I noticed after one good night was so profound, so wonderful, I decided to start there.

So, I made a pact with myself. My bed and I will have no fewer than eight hours together every night. That’s the deal. Go to bed late? Cancel that first meeting, p,ug in the DVD and let AJ rot his brain, whatever–but I am getting those eight hours. I even set up an app on my iPod to keep tabs on this.

It’s a place to begin.

Haven’t figured out number 2. yet but am pretty sure it will come as I am more rested, clear, strong. Maybe it will even come in my dreams.

Gotta go now, I am ten minutes late and my bed is calling.

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By Mama Paloma, 21/03/2011 00:10

Funny how synchronicities happen, isn’t it? As I may have mentioned, I have been pretty cranky lately. Feeling a bit put-upon by my relative place in my relative world. Annoyed with myself for feeling so when I know my relative place in the bigger world.

I have been thinking a lot about privilege and the many ways we can be blind to it and its effects on our relationships. Most of that thinking has been of a self-righteous nature. A friend commented a couple of years ago about how ‘liberal’ white men are often the most blind to their exercises of privilege, particularly when it comes to gender. In fact, some of my ‘feminist’ male friends and acquaintances have ultimately, in practice, been the most sexist. Lately, I have been thinking about my own experiences of this and it has been pissing me off.

Then Marianne Elliot shared a piece by Julie Daley, part four in a series (of an unknown number) called So Many Silences. It seems this Julie has taken on the trifecta of  power, oppression, and silence–taken them on by voicing her experience of them with ambiguity and clarity and anger and hope. It struck a chord.

As a white woman, I know both privilege and oppression. And, yes, I know I experience both, that one does not negate the other.

How is it that those of us who have a finely tuned intellectual understanding of power and privilege–who can hold forth expertly and at length in de-constructing  ’conversations’ about the experiences of those oppressed by these systems–can in the same moment be blind to our own complicity, our own expression of our place in these systems?

Right now, I am thinking that this may, in part, be due to the “flatness” of many conversations and thinking patterns about power and politics. Let me explain what I mean.

A few months ago, I was able to attend a workshop for Narrative therapists featuring Jill Freedman and Gene Combs. Narrative therapy is known for its interest in working with people’s stories to help minimize the effects of negative identities in their lives. For example, a Narrative therapist might help a “depressive person” (identity)  find ways to minimize the effects of depression (an outside influence) on them. This particular workshop (“How are we becoming other than what we have been?”–a very Narrative-speak kind of title) was about taking this process a step further by working with the positive identities in ways that open up more options and possibilities for action. It was a great workshop, with great conversation (especially one with Charley Lang about his grandmother) but one bit of the presentation stood out to me.

In talking about the limiting effects of our positive identity conclusions, Gene gave the example of being a ‘good person.’ He said something to the effect that, when one decides (on the basis of evidence, comparison to others, whatever) that they are  ’good,’ a sort of myopia is invoked. If I do something that hurts another, I mightn’t examine it in much detail because I am ‘good’ so nothing I do could be that ‘bad.’ ‘Good’ becomes a flat description of who I am, without dimension or depth or space for movement, for what I might do.

In terms of power and oppression, this shows up all of the time in phrases like:

“I’m not racist but…”

“I know that (fill in marginalized group)s feel (fill in generalized emotion/experience.)” (When spoken by someone outside the group to someone from that group.) Aside: There’s a funny piece on how this can play out in humanitarian work if you want a break from this stuff.

“We’re all the same, really, when it comes down to it.” (Spoken by someone with relatively more money/power/hot running water to someone without one or more of these life essentials.)

Gene went on to assert that none of us are essentially ‘good,’ really, and then he spoke (I am sure of it) directly to me

“you are only as good as your next action.”

And this is where social justice living can get hung up. Unmasking privilege and power are ongoing actions, not something that one does (preferably at a ostentatiously spartan retreat center with candles and long walks in nature) and then wears as a mantle. Encounter groups and participant conferences do not change systems. Daily awareness and accountability and action do that. Willingness to choose to be as uncomfortable with an oppressive system as the one who has no choice in the matter. Honesty to acknowledge that I’m not always able or willing to make that choice, or even to see that it’s there.

In part two of her series, Ms. Daley says,

There is an old, worn out relationship between me and men. In opening the door to seeing my complacency and silence, I see even more clearly how these things are fueled by my conditioned loyalty with men, especially the men in my life that hold power. The men in my life who hold power are white men. Educated men. Middle-class men. Men I love.

If you asked them, they might not feel powerful. In fact, I bet they don’t feel powerful. So many men have said they feel powerless in this culture. Yet, in relationship to me, they seem powerful. They seem to hold the power.

Wow, that resonated with my cranky side!

It’s also how I imagine I seem to non-white, non-straight, non-able-to-access-a graduate-degree-with-hardly-a-second-thought folks. This makes me uncomfortable and curious and bold.

So, I take of the mantle of the “good.” I let go of the labels “progressive” and “enlightened.”

And I resolve to act–in ways visible and not–to become that which is other than what I have already been and make my corner of the world a wee bit other than it already is.

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By Mama Paloma, 01/03/2011 13:20

At AJ’s preschool, when they want the children’s attention, the teachers will say “please put your ‘working ears’ on.” The kids then grab their ears, making twisting motions, and listen up. It’s cute and simplistic and silly.

I think we adults should do this, too.  In her recent post The Sacred Art of Listening, Krista Tippett writes about the decline of listening skill in America and its spiritual and social effects. It’s something I have become acutely aware of–the spouting of shrill platitudes and positions passing for ‘discussion’ or ‘debate,’ the willful deafness and blindness to the homeless, the disenfranchised, the lonely.

There is a Liberian saying, “take time.” It’s usually used when someone has tripped and fallen or made an error in haste. I think we could apply this Liberian principle to American listening. So often, as we rush through our days, to our points, with our agendas our ears are just not on. It doesn’t work–for us, for those we should be listening to. We so often miss the appointment, the exit on the freeway, the point.

Nowhere is this more clear to me than in parenting. We are busy. I work a lot. It’s a juggling act. Sometimes, I just want AJ to do what needs to be done. Sometimes, I get very impatient and demand his compliance. Usually, if he is not cooperating and I remember to stop and listen, I discover that he was right. My ears (or eyes) weren’t working and I was missing something important.

Recently, when I was multitasking quite effectively, AJ in the bath where I could see him as I tidied up, he called out to me, “Mama, please stop doing the dishes.” I stopped. “What would you like me to do?” I asked. “Just talk to me,” he replied.  Take. Time. Right?

He has taken to crawling in bed with me in the mornings, telling long stories. The other day, I said it was time to get up and he said, “No, mama, I want to talk to you just a tiny little bit?” Of course, my heart melted. It isn’t lost on me that three-year-old adoration of Mommy will rapidly become Elementary-age indifference and then, quite possibly, adolescent scorn (he is already an image critic–more on that another time).  I am definitely savoring this time. Still, he really can go on and on…about fire trucks and his friends and imaginary and highly repetitive adventures…but then, in the mix, will be a sparkling nugget of information about his experience. “I am going to go to Liberia, just me, for work. You have to go in Grandma’s car,” or “The fireman’s daddy came to visit him and went back to Australia he is weally weally sad because he misses him a lot,” or “Mommy (said with a monster growl), I love you so much.” Who knows what I have missed? What I have managed to hear makes me want to hear more, to be better at listening, to be more present.

So, I am practicing having my listening ears on, being available for what excites or inspires or saddens or scares him, being open to hearing what moves or saddens or scares or angers me. And I am setting an intention to keep my ears in working order as the years move on, so that I don’t miss too much of him or his point.

I wonder what would happen if we all did the same in our workplaces, our communities, our political conversations. In her piece, Krista quotes poet and professor Elizabeth Alexander, saying,

Are we not of interest to each other?