One of the reasons we don't realize God is talking to us is because we think we are simply talking to ourselves. So how do we distinguish whether it is He or ourselves? When I call you on the phone how do you know it is I and not Sr. Grace? You say, "Because you sound like you and not Sr. Grace." It's the same way with God. He sounds like Himself.
One night I was so mad at Papa that when I got into bed I lay as far away from him as I could short of not falling off the bed outright because I didn't want my body touching his body. He was already asleep by then. As I always do before going to sleep, I began to pray. "Good night, Lord. I love You."
"Do you really love Me?" (John 21:15b)
"Yes, Lord, I do."
"Put your arms around him."
"What's that got to do with anything?
"Do you really love Me?" (John 21: 16)
"Yes, Lord, I do."
"Then put your arms around him."
"Lord, I said I love You, not him."
"Do you love Me?" (John 21:17)
"Lord, You know I do."
"Forgive him. Whatever you do to him, you do to me." ( Matthew 18:21) (Matthew 25:40)
Then I realized that I had two choices: the next time He asked if I loved Him, I could say, "No" and be done with it OR do as He asked. Since saying I didn't love Him would have been a lie, I did as He asked.
Now if that were me talking to myself, it would have sounded like this:
"Good night, Lord. I love You."
"I love you too. He doesn't love you. Teach him a lesson and don't speak to him until he behaves better. He's such a jerk."
That sounds like me, not Jesus. The same way I sound like me instead of Sr. Grace. Jesus sounds like Himself.
To be continued....
Friday, August 31, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Listening to God
The phone would ring and my daughter, Chrissy, would answer it. She'd say "Hello," and would stand there for quite a while not saying a word. Every time that happened, I knew it would be her friend, Sally. The pattern was unmistakable. I think when we call God and He picks up His phone, we launch into our prayers and He stands there like Chrissy listening to what we have to say. There is very little exchange, if any.
I grew up before Vatican II and prayer, as we knew it then, was the recitation of prayers we had memorized. Or, if we used our own words, we would talk to God. As with Sally, there was no exchange. It was one-way prayer. When I was in my forties, my spiritual director, Fr.Bob McCreary asked, after I had shared a difficulty with him, "What did Jesus say to you about that?" I did not know what Fr.Bob meant. "What do you mean, 'What did Jesus say?' I didn't know He said anything." No one had ever told me that God speaks to us in prayer. I thought that happened only with saints and mystics.
Fr. Bob then proceeded to teach me Listening Prayer just as I taught it to some of you. First, we ask our Lady to help us. Then we quiet ourselves down, taking deep breaths, and call to mind that Jesus is truly present to us. Visualize Him standing in front of you because He is. Look into His face, especially His eyes and the love there as He gently asks you, "What would you like me to do for you?" At this point you give Him the things that are at the top of your heart - those things that concern you the most: you relationships, your main difficulties, your health issues, your fears, your worries, such. When you are done giving them over to Him, you give Him what is at the bottom of your heart which would be your sin.
Your sin is whatever it is that keeps you from being closer to God. It may be something as simple as not giving Him time or attention. It could be clinging to a behavior that separates you from Him. Or just not giving Him any room in your life. After you give that to Him, find a story in the Gospels to read.
As you read this gospel, put yourself in the scene so that you become part of the story. As an example, I will share with you my first experience with this. The story Fr. Bob picked was from St. John's gospel: Chapter 21, verse 7. Fr. Bob asked, "Who are you in this story? Peter? John? Another apostle? Jesus?"
I answered immediately, "I am Peter."
Father said, "You decided that too fast. Think some more."
And I said, "I am Peter. I feel great kinship with him because we have the same tendencies. We are impulsive, rash, quick to anger, and we stick our limbs into our mouths habitually."
"Okay," Father said, "what is happening now?"
"I just jumped off the boat and I am swimming furiously towards Jesus."
"Whar are your feelings?"
"I am very excited! That's why I jumped off the boat. I want to be with Jesus the soonest possible."
"Now what's happening?"
"It is shallow enough now for me to be walking towards Jesus and as the water comes to my ankles I run towards Him."
"Has He seen you? What is He doing?"
"He is hurrying towards me."
FLASHBACK: Just before coming to see Fr. Bob, I had gone to Mass and as I stood in line to receive Communion, the prayer that popped into my head was, "Lord, help me not to be so cuckoo."
Back to the gospel scene. As I run up to Jesus, He reaches out, tousles my hair and says with great tenderness, "But you ARE cuckoo. I made you cuckoo, I love you cuckoo. Be cuckoo!"
All my life, I had wanted to be other than who I was. Now, Jesus Himself was giving me permission to be who I really am. You have no idea how liberated I felt.
Fr. Bob said, "I think you've got it!"
We then thanked our Lady for her help.
To be continued... "How do we know it is God talking to us and not us talking to ourselves?"
I grew up before Vatican II and prayer, as we knew it then, was the recitation of prayers we had memorized. Or, if we used our own words, we would talk to God. As with Sally, there was no exchange. It was one-way prayer. When I was in my forties, my spiritual director, Fr.Bob McCreary asked, after I had shared a difficulty with him, "What did Jesus say to you about that?" I did not know what Fr.Bob meant. "What do you mean, 'What did Jesus say?' I didn't know He said anything." No one had ever told me that God speaks to us in prayer. I thought that happened only with saints and mystics.
Fr. Bob then proceeded to teach me Listening Prayer just as I taught it to some of you. First, we ask our Lady to help us. Then we quiet ourselves down, taking deep breaths, and call to mind that Jesus is truly present to us. Visualize Him standing in front of you because He is. Look into His face, especially His eyes and the love there as He gently asks you, "What would you like me to do for you?" At this point you give Him the things that are at the top of your heart - those things that concern you the most: you relationships, your main difficulties, your health issues, your fears, your worries, such. When you are done giving them over to Him, you give Him what is at the bottom of your heart which would be your sin.
Your sin is whatever it is that keeps you from being closer to God. It may be something as simple as not giving Him time or attention. It could be clinging to a behavior that separates you from Him. Or just not giving Him any room in your life. After you give that to Him, find a story in the Gospels to read.
As you read this gospel, put yourself in the scene so that you become part of the story. As an example, I will share with you my first experience with this. The story Fr. Bob picked was from St. John's gospel: Chapter 21, verse 7. Fr. Bob asked, "Who are you in this story? Peter? John? Another apostle? Jesus?"
I answered immediately, "I am Peter."
Father said, "You decided that too fast. Think some more."
And I said, "I am Peter. I feel great kinship with him because we have the same tendencies. We are impulsive, rash, quick to anger, and we stick our limbs into our mouths habitually."
"Okay," Father said, "what is happening now?"
"I just jumped off the boat and I am swimming furiously towards Jesus."
"Whar are your feelings?"
"I am very excited! That's why I jumped off the boat. I want to be with Jesus the soonest possible."
"Now what's happening?"
"It is shallow enough now for me to be walking towards Jesus and as the water comes to my ankles I run towards Him."
"Has He seen you? What is He doing?"
"He is hurrying towards me."
FLASHBACK: Just before coming to see Fr. Bob, I had gone to Mass and as I stood in line to receive Communion, the prayer that popped into my head was, "Lord, help me not to be so cuckoo."
Back to the gospel scene. As I run up to Jesus, He reaches out, tousles my hair and says with great tenderness, "But you ARE cuckoo. I made you cuckoo, I love you cuckoo. Be cuckoo!"
All my life, I had wanted to be other than who I was. Now, Jesus Himself was giving me permission to be who I really am. You have no idea how liberated I felt.
Fr. Bob said, "I think you've got it!"
We then thanked our Lady for her help.
To be continued... "How do we know it is God talking to us and not us talking to ourselves?"
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Favorite Scriptures
The Vine and the Branches - John 15: 1-17
"For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21
"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4: 4-7
"I can do all things in Christ Who strengthens me." - Philippians 4:13
"And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riche in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19
"Let rejoicing in the Lord be your strength" Nehemiah 8:10
"And what does the Lord require of you? To act justlyand to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8
"Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10
"Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him for He shields him all day long,
AND THE ONE THE LORD LOVES RESTS BETWEEN HIS SHOULDERS." (Piggyback) - Deuteronomy 33:12
"The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." - Deuteronomy 33:27
"For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21
"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4: 4-7
"I can do all things in Christ Who strengthens me." - Philippians 4:13
"And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riche in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19
"Let rejoicing in the Lord be your strength" Nehemiah 8:10
"And what does the Lord require of you? To act justlyand to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8
"Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10
"Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him for He shields him all day long,
AND THE ONE THE LORD LOVES RESTS BETWEEN HIS SHOULDERS." (Piggyback) - Deuteronomy 33:12
"The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." - Deuteronomy 33:27
How do you stay committed when you are just sick and tired of your family? ?
For years, we tooled along with our ups and downs, coping as best we could and then one day I said to myself, “That’s it. I have no love left to love this man with.” But I hung in there because I said I would. Those were the days when one’s word was a matter of honor. I couldn’t help thinking though, “What a bleak future. Thirty, forty more years of just hanging in here!”
One morning, however, dawn broke within me. I realized that I wasn’t at the end of my capacity to love; I was on the threshold of a deeper capacity to love. It was morning in our life once more. And so we tooled merrily along again with the highs and lows of daily life until I came to that same edge. This time I thought, “This time, it’s the real end!” But I hung in
again for the same reason as before. It was a stark and bone-freezing emotional winter. But only until spring came. I finally understood that this edges were simply thresholds of an increasing capacity to love. I learned at last why Louis Evely said that “The purpose of marriage is to love all the love you are capable of.” And that takes a lifetime.
I felt like a little ant who thought the surface of the book was its universe and as it fell off the book onto the desk it thought that was the end. As it explored the top of the desk, it realized the universe was much bigger than it thought. Then it fell off the desk and plummeted to the floor. “Surely, this is the end!” it thought. As it started to explore the room, it couldn’t believe the enormity of this new world until it ran right into the threshold at the door. As it climbed over the threshold, it
found itself in the world outside. “Oh my, the universe is vast!” For the human heart that vast universe is Love!
Love must be refreshed.
I am fully convinced that the most insidious enemy of Married Love is FATIGUE. It is insidious because it has no face of its own like Sickness, In-laws, Sex, Money, Lack of Communication but it inflitrates everything. And what two people could work out with just a little effort looms large in the wake of fatigue. When one is exhausted, one sees life and the world with jaundiced eyes through dark glasses. Nothing can be solved. All things are irritants. All guns have hair-triggers. Every situation is explosive. All landscapes are bleak. We think there is something direly wrong with our marriage when the reality is we are simply, unmitigatedly, defeatedly tired!
Wisdom eventually comes so that eventually, whenever I began to hate life, I dropped everything and took a nap. Or I would go and read something soothing. I found receptacles for negative feelings and threw them into these receptacles. Running was one. Playing the piano with vigor was another - once I played it with so much vigor in great anger that I bruised all my fingertips. I also had my angry song: Peggy Lee’s “Pass Me By” which I would sing at the top of my lungs. That was somehow pleasanter than a primal scream.
Praying is a sure-fire help - I would just bend the Lord’s ear with complaints. Better still I said to Him, “Bend down, Lord, I need to ride piggyback.” Best of all, I asked the Father to sit on His rocking chair and I would climb on His lap, lean on His chest and suck my thumb and He would rock me gently, stroke my hair and rub my back. That was infinitely better than playing demolition games with Jack’s feelings.
Jack’s favorite tactic was to leave the house and go to the woods, staying there for as long as it took him to cool down. The kids used to say, “Mom is like a geyser - she goes off every hour on the hour. Dad is a volcano. He lies quiet for a very long time but when he explodes, he lays waste the country-side.” It helped us greatly to understand each other’s pattern
Jack’s original pattern was the silent treatment, driving all his negatives into his body and then suffer from stomach problems. So I took it upon myself to provoke him deliberately into an outburst so that the negatives would be out in the universe instead of bottled up inside him making him sick. Once, he went into the bathroom to get away from me and I followed him right in. He must have thought then, “No wonder they voted her the girl they least wanted to marry.”
Our anger was a big bugaboo in our marriage for a long time. The kids and I used to laughingly say that Jack had only one negative emotion - anger.When he was tired, he got angry. When he was confused, he got angry. When he was frustrated, he got angry. When he was hurt, he got angry. When he was sad, he got angry. One negative emotion fits all.
As time passed, I mellowed. Young Jack said, “Mom, you have gotten so mellow - what happened?”
“Well, I don’t know which of these two caused it. In 1972, I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in October and had a hysterectomy in December.”
“Oh, it had to be both,” he said. “One alone couldn’t have done it.”
The trick is not to give up. The problem is that we quit before the miracle happens. It is so easy to give up, to take the path of least resistance. Just throw in the towel and make the pain stop. Why struggle? If I just put distance between the cause of my stress, my hassle, my pain and me, I can relax, breathe easy and start over. The hitch to that is that the easy way out is not necessarily the most loving way. I have been accused of a great many things but I never want to be accused of not truly loving because that would mean that I had chosen to not truly love.
My appearance, my metabolism, my basic, uncompensated-for personality, my gifts or lack thereof are what I am - things I was born with. Who I am is the sum total of the choices I make and I want to love fully - with all that I am, all of my life, no matter what. I will fail in this often for I am flawed but it will not be for lack of trying and this is what keeps me going, moment to moment.
In time, I have come to believe what Marianne Williamson says: "Relationships are assignments. The Holy Spirit knows who will make us grow the most and assigns us to each other." Jack was God¹s perfect instrument to smooth my rough edges off and vice versa. I¹m glad I came to see this. Without this insight, we might simply have broken each other into pieces instead of polishing each other into the precious stones God meant to create out of the pebbles that we were.
One morning, however, dawn broke within me. I realized that I wasn’t at the end of my capacity to love; I was on the threshold of a deeper capacity to love. It was morning in our life once more. And so we tooled merrily along again with the highs and lows of daily life until I came to that same edge. This time I thought, “This time, it’s the real end!” But I hung in
again for the same reason as before. It was a stark and bone-freezing emotional winter. But only until spring came. I finally understood that this edges were simply thresholds of an increasing capacity to love. I learned at last why Louis Evely said that “The purpose of marriage is to love all the love you are capable of.” And that takes a lifetime.
I felt like a little ant who thought the surface of the book was its universe and as it fell off the book onto the desk it thought that was the end. As it explored the top of the desk, it realized the universe was much bigger than it thought. Then it fell off the desk and plummeted to the floor. “Surely, this is the end!” it thought. As it started to explore the room, it couldn’t believe the enormity of this new world until it ran right into the threshold at the door. As it climbed over the threshold, it
found itself in the world outside. “Oh my, the universe is vast!” For the human heart that vast universe is Love!
Love must be refreshed.
I am fully convinced that the most insidious enemy of Married Love is FATIGUE. It is insidious because it has no face of its own like Sickness, In-laws, Sex, Money, Lack of Communication but it inflitrates everything. And what two people could work out with just a little effort looms large in the wake of fatigue. When one is exhausted, one sees life and the world with jaundiced eyes through dark glasses. Nothing can be solved. All things are irritants. All guns have hair-triggers. Every situation is explosive. All landscapes are bleak. We think there is something direly wrong with our marriage when the reality is we are simply, unmitigatedly, defeatedly tired!
Wisdom eventually comes so that eventually, whenever I began to hate life, I dropped everything and took a nap. Or I would go and read something soothing. I found receptacles for negative feelings and threw them into these receptacles. Running was one. Playing the piano with vigor was another - once I played it with so much vigor in great anger that I bruised all my fingertips. I also had my angry song: Peggy Lee’s “Pass Me By” which I would sing at the top of my lungs. That was somehow pleasanter than a primal scream.
Praying is a sure-fire help - I would just bend the Lord’s ear with complaints. Better still I said to Him, “Bend down, Lord, I need to ride piggyback.” Best of all, I asked the Father to sit on His rocking chair and I would climb on His lap, lean on His chest and suck my thumb and He would rock me gently, stroke my hair and rub my back. That was infinitely better than playing demolition games with Jack’s feelings.
Jack’s favorite tactic was to leave the house and go to the woods, staying there for as long as it took him to cool down. The kids used to say, “Mom is like a geyser - she goes off every hour on the hour. Dad is a volcano. He lies quiet for a very long time but when he explodes, he lays waste the country-side.” It helped us greatly to understand each other’s pattern
Jack’s original pattern was the silent treatment, driving all his negatives into his body and then suffer from stomach problems. So I took it upon myself to provoke him deliberately into an outburst so that the negatives would be out in the universe instead of bottled up inside him making him sick. Once, he went into the bathroom to get away from me and I followed him right in. He must have thought then, “No wonder they voted her the girl they least wanted to marry.”
Our anger was a big bugaboo in our marriage for a long time. The kids and I used to laughingly say that Jack had only one negative emotion - anger.When he was tired, he got angry. When he was confused, he got angry. When he was frustrated, he got angry. When he was hurt, he got angry. When he was sad, he got angry. One negative emotion fits all.
As time passed, I mellowed. Young Jack said, “Mom, you have gotten so mellow - what happened?”
“Well, I don’t know which of these two caused it. In 1972, I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in October and had a hysterectomy in December.”
“Oh, it had to be both,” he said. “One alone couldn’t have done it.”
The trick is not to give up. The problem is that we quit before the miracle happens. It is so easy to give up, to take the path of least resistance. Just throw in the towel and make the pain stop. Why struggle? If I just put distance between the cause of my stress, my hassle, my pain and me, I can relax, breathe easy and start over. The hitch to that is that the easy way out is not necessarily the most loving way. I have been accused of a great many things but I never want to be accused of not truly loving because that would mean that I had chosen to not truly love.
My appearance, my metabolism, my basic, uncompensated-for personality, my gifts or lack thereof are what I am - things I was born with. Who I am is the sum total of the choices I make and I want to love fully - with all that I am, all of my life, no matter what. I will fail in this often for I am flawed but it will not be for lack of trying and this is what keeps me going, moment to moment.
In time, I have come to believe what Marianne Williamson says: "Relationships are assignments. The Holy Spirit knows who will make us grow the most and assigns us to each other." Jack was God¹s perfect instrument to smooth my rough edges off and vice versa. I¹m glad I came to see this. Without this insight, we might simply have broken each other into pieces instead of polishing each other into the precious stones God meant to create out of the pebbles that we were.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Stages of Love
In the musical, "Showboat," Captain Andy tells his daughter, Magnolia, who is madly in love with her hero, Gaylord Ravenal, that yes, it is Saturday night and rejoices with her. Then he says, "Then Monday morning comes." It was his way of saying that life is also real; that at some time, however high we go, we will come down.
I once said, "If I had known marriage was this wonderful, I would have gotten married sooner," and I had married soon enough. The flip side of the coin, however, is that marriage is where we grow and many times, that engenders growing pains.
I have seen marriages that seem to flow more smoothly; where the Monday mornings are as simple as doing the laundry. And there are marriages that are more turbulent than hanging the wash. We were to discover that ours was not as simple as hanging the wash on a sunny Monday morn. The laundry I had brought into the marriage needed much work and I had brought in a lot of baggage.
What a Monday morning we awakened to! I now know that we had married at the first stage of love: "You are the most wonderful creature God ever made!" Everything about the other is totally delightful - even the way he sneezed was exquisite. Most celebrities marry at this stage which is why they divorce as soon as they hit the second stage shortly after.
The second stage is: "You have got to be the worst crumb God ever made!" That is when we discover the clay feet, the warts, the flaws, the dark side and don't want to have anything to do with any of it. No one ever wants to marry during this stage. In relationships where the love is unconditional even when we don¹t realize it, we somehow work through this dark tunnel to emerge into the third stage.
The third stage is: "You are the most wonderful crumb God ever made!" We have seen the clay feet, the warts, the flaws, the dark side and we love the Other anyway. We still want to spend the rest of our life with them. We know that the difficult side is the other side of the coin and we wish to keep the whole coin. When they announced their engagement I asked my then daughter-in-law-to-be, Bridget, "What will you do when you meet Chip¹s dark side?" Her answer was, "What I see of his good side makes me willing to live with his dark side."
I am not sure we would have moved on to the third stage had we not gone through our second stage inside marriage. I fully understand why many mariages don't take - for the majority of us, it is so very hard. Our son, Rob, was a Navy Seal and an adventure racer. He has been put in many very risky and life-endangering situations which demanded his utmost, both in body and spirit. Once, he said, "Mom, do you know what it's like when you are totally spent and you don't have an ounce of energy left to keep going and you dig deep inside you and pull out one last vestige of strength and make it and you realize you are more than you thought?²"
"Yes, I do," I said. "Marriage is like that."
Happily, there is a fourth stage to love which is exactly like the first. But this time it is based on reality instead of fantasy. We have seen the whole of our Other and can say, "Yes! You are the most wonderful creature God ever made! I know."
I once said, "If I had known marriage was this wonderful, I would have gotten married sooner," and I had married soon enough. The flip side of the coin, however, is that marriage is where we grow and many times, that engenders growing pains.
I have seen marriages that seem to flow more smoothly; where the Monday mornings are as simple as doing the laundry. And there are marriages that are more turbulent than hanging the wash. We were to discover that ours was not as simple as hanging the wash on a sunny Monday morn. The laundry I had brought into the marriage needed much work and I had brought in a lot of baggage.
What a Monday morning we awakened to! I now know that we had married at the first stage of love: "You are the most wonderful creature God ever made!" Everything about the other is totally delightful - even the way he sneezed was exquisite. Most celebrities marry at this stage which is why they divorce as soon as they hit the second stage shortly after.
The second stage is: "You have got to be the worst crumb God ever made!" That is when we discover the clay feet, the warts, the flaws, the dark side and don't want to have anything to do with any of it. No one ever wants to marry during this stage. In relationships where the love is unconditional even when we don¹t realize it, we somehow work through this dark tunnel to emerge into the third stage.
The third stage is: "You are the most wonderful crumb God ever made!" We have seen the clay feet, the warts, the flaws, the dark side and we love the Other anyway. We still want to spend the rest of our life with them. We know that the difficult side is the other side of the coin and we wish to keep the whole coin. When they announced their engagement I asked my then daughter-in-law-to-be, Bridget, "What will you do when you meet Chip¹s dark side?" Her answer was, "What I see of his good side makes me willing to live with his dark side."
I am not sure we would have moved on to the third stage had we not gone through our second stage inside marriage. I fully understand why many mariages don't take - for the majority of us, it is so very hard. Our son, Rob, was a Navy Seal and an adventure racer. He has been put in many very risky and life-endangering situations which demanded his utmost, both in body and spirit. Once, he said, "Mom, do you know what it's like when you are totally spent and you don't have an ounce of energy left to keep going and you dig deep inside you and pull out one last vestige of strength and make it and you realize you are more than you thought?²"
"Yes, I do," I said. "Marriage is like that."
Happily, there is a fourth stage to love which is exactly like the first. But this time it is based on reality instead of fantasy. We have seen the whole of our Other and can say, "Yes! You are the most wonderful creature God ever made! I know."
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Love has no scripts
Love Has No Scripts
One of the major problems, if not THE major one, all relationships have to work through is EXPECTATIONS. This seems to be a universal component, though in varying degrees. The higher the expectations, the bigger the disappointment when we discover that this person we prize so much is, alas, a simple human being. The full-blown relationships in fiction and the movies help little. Even the most sensible of us go into friendships believing that this Special Someone will love us, at least, as much as we love them. And of course, our idea of what "being loved" means anything from "He will call me/she will confide in me" to "She will understand how I feel without my saying anything/He will comfort me when I am sad without my telling him that I need him to."
The expectations will differ according to the relationship. The relationship can be husband and wife, child and parent, sibling and sibling. lover and lover, teacher and student, boss and employee, friend and friend, teammate and teammate, coach and athlete and whatever other combination life puts together. In most of these, we expect mutuality, affection, loyalty, desire to be together, understanding, patience, acceptance, sharing, honesty, respect, love, of course, willingness to help, caring, affirmation, appreciation, gratitude, warmth, mutual enjoyment, commitment, fidelity,forgiveness - the list goes on.
We expect more of some relationships than we do of others. We don't necessarily expect affection from our bosses though we sure would like it from our family members. Parents and teachers expect respect and obedience form their children and students but teammates and classmates don't from each other.
Expectations, of themselves, are natural offshoots when people relate to each other. Trouble begins when we write scripts for each other. You are my friend; therefore you will never say anything to hurt my feelings. You are my parent, therefore you will support every decision I make regardless of what that might be. You are my spouse, therefore you will forgive whatever I do: infidelity, abuse, neglect. You are my child, therefore you will excel in everything.
The first time I became keenly aware of scripts was when a close friend said to me, "Why did you say this instead of that?" "Why didn't you do that instead of this?" I said, "I didn't know there was a script."
Papa expected a serene, cheerful mature woman who would keep his house immaculate, cook him delicious meals like his mom did, domestic to the bone, always pleasant. Hah! He thought he could get a pussycat out of a tigress, a lily out of a dandelion. What he had gotten, in the illusions he had spun out of his fancy, was a temperamental, emotionally needy brat who didn¹t know the first thing about housekeeping or cooking, fancied herself a bluestocking, and in her own words, was "mean as hell and lazy as sin."
I, in turn, expected this romantic hero, this true-to-life Prince Charming who would sweep me off my feet every single day. After all, it was precisely this that I fell in love with. He would read me poems and keep me bedazzled with his impassioned declarations of love. Instead, I found him much quieter than I realized; he did not have the compulsive need to communicate that I did.
It is bad enough when we write scripts for each other. The really crazy part is that we do not show these scripts to the ones we wrote them for and when they do not perform according to those scripts, we get upset and hold that against them. One script, common to young friendships, goes, "You will invite me to go out with you on weekends and you may not go out with other friends. If you go out with others and not invite me, I will be very hurt."
The problem with scripts is they make us overlook a basic reality: THE OTHER PERSON IS TOTALLY FREE! There is nothing that says that if you are my friend then I have to do everything you want and vice versa. When we get angry at our friends for not doing, thinking or being what we expected them to, what we are saying is they do not have the freedom to be who they are or to think and act according to their lights. We are saying that they are there to suit our fancy, period. To do, think, say and be what WE think best. In that we case, it is we who are failing the friendship.
If you like to spend money on the gifts you give your friend, that does not oblige him/her to give you one back of the same value. You may have different budgets. For that matter your giving him/her a gift doesn't even oblige your friend to reciprocate. A gift means "no strings attached."
We extend friendship and all that entails to the other because we want to; they respond because they want to. Good friendships are built on mutual love and RESPECT; we leave each other's freedom intact. A bad friendship is an oxymoron. An ugly friendship is one that has been polluted by egos and scripts, where "love" is quite conditional and forgiveness not in the picture.
I have friends I love dearly who do not need me in their lives as much as I need them in mine. Before I understood friendship more clearly, I would feel quite hurt by that. Eventually, I understood that I had scripts for them and therefore tore them up. It is much easier to love free people than actors I haven't even given my scripts to. An even more interesting reality is this: script-writers do not like to be given scripts themselves.
One of my favorite lines is: "I love you not for who you are but for what I am when I am with you." Only scriptless friendships allow that to happen. No control, no dominance, no power-struggles, no drama, no one-upmanship, no agendas. Just clear, simple, unadulterated love.
One of the major problems, if not THE major one, all relationships have to work through is EXPECTATIONS. This seems to be a universal component, though in varying degrees. The higher the expectations, the bigger the disappointment when we discover that this person we prize so much is, alas, a simple human being. The full-blown relationships in fiction and the movies help little. Even the most sensible of us go into friendships believing that this Special Someone will love us, at least, as much as we love them. And of course, our idea of what "being loved" means anything from "He will call me/she will confide in me" to "She will understand how I feel without my saying anything/He will comfort me when I am sad without my telling him that I need him to."
The expectations will differ according to the relationship. The relationship can be husband and wife, child and parent, sibling and sibling. lover and lover, teacher and student, boss and employee, friend and friend, teammate and teammate, coach and athlete and whatever other combination life puts together. In most of these, we expect mutuality, affection, loyalty, desire to be together, understanding, patience, acceptance, sharing, honesty, respect, love, of course, willingness to help, caring, affirmation, appreciation, gratitude, warmth, mutual enjoyment, commitment, fidelity,forgiveness - the list goes on.
We expect more of some relationships than we do of others. We don't necessarily expect affection from our bosses though we sure would like it from our family members. Parents and teachers expect respect and obedience form their children and students but teammates and classmates don't from each other.
Expectations, of themselves, are natural offshoots when people relate to each other. Trouble begins when we write scripts for each other. You are my friend; therefore you will never say anything to hurt my feelings. You are my parent, therefore you will support every decision I make regardless of what that might be. You are my spouse, therefore you will forgive whatever I do: infidelity, abuse, neglect. You are my child, therefore you will excel in everything.
The first time I became keenly aware of scripts was when a close friend said to me, "Why did you say this instead of that?" "Why didn't you do that instead of this?" I said, "I didn't know there was a script."
Papa expected a serene, cheerful mature woman who would keep his house immaculate, cook him delicious meals like his mom did, domestic to the bone, always pleasant. Hah! He thought he could get a pussycat out of a tigress, a lily out of a dandelion. What he had gotten, in the illusions he had spun out of his fancy, was a temperamental, emotionally needy brat who didn¹t know the first thing about housekeeping or cooking, fancied herself a bluestocking, and in her own words, was "mean as hell and lazy as sin."
I, in turn, expected this romantic hero, this true-to-life Prince Charming who would sweep me off my feet every single day. After all, it was precisely this that I fell in love with. He would read me poems and keep me bedazzled with his impassioned declarations of love. Instead, I found him much quieter than I realized; he did not have the compulsive need to communicate that I did.
It is bad enough when we write scripts for each other. The really crazy part is that we do not show these scripts to the ones we wrote them for and when they do not perform according to those scripts, we get upset and hold that against them. One script, common to young friendships, goes, "You will invite me to go out with you on weekends and you may not go out with other friends. If you go out with others and not invite me, I will be very hurt."
The problem with scripts is they make us overlook a basic reality: THE OTHER PERSON IS TOTALLY FREE! There is nothing that says that if you are my friend then I have to do everything you want and vice versa. When we get angry at our friends for not doing, thinking or being what we expected them to, what we are saying is they do not have the freedom to be who they are or to think and act according to their lights. We are saying that they are there to suit our fancy, period. To do, think, say and be what WE think best. In that we case, it is we who are failing the friendship.
If you like to spend money on the gifts you give your friend, that does not oblige him/her to give you one back of the same value. You may have different budgets. For that matter your giving him/her a gift doesn't even oblige your friend to reciprocate. A gift means "no strings attached."
We extend friendship and all that entails to the other because we want to; they respond because they want to. Good friendships are built on mutual love and RESPECT; we leave each other's freedom intact. A bad friendship is an oxymoron. An ugly friendship is one that has been polluted by egos and scripts, where "love" is quite conditional and forgiveness not in the picture.
I have friends I love dearly who do not need me in their lives as much as I need them in mine. Before I understood friendship more clearly, I would feel quite hurt by that. Eventually, I understood that I had scripts for them and therefore tore them up. It is much easier to love free people than actors I haven't even given my scripts to. An even more interesting reality is this: script-writers do not like to be given scripts themselves.
One of my favorite lines is: "I love you not for who you are but for what I am when I am with you." Only scriptless friendships allow that to happen. No control, no dominance, no power-struggles, no drama, no one-upmanship, no agendas. Just clear, simple, unadulterated love.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
You Are My Friend
You are my Friend
Of all the possible relationships between human beings: lovers, spouses, parent-child, siblings, teacher-student, healer-patient etc., perhaps the sweetest and freest is that of friendship because it demands and expects the least from the other. A friend is someone we freely choose to have in our lives, not someone placed there by life or circumstances. A friend can also be someone given to us by life or circumstances: lover, spouse, parent, child, sibling, teacher, student, healer, patient, employer, employee, colleague - whom we delight in so that we are bound by heart, not by prescription.
A friend is someone whose spirit resonates with ours. Being with a friend makes our pleasure in life keener. Our friend's presence makes the moment richer and fuller. In our friend's presence, we are more; we become closer to all we can truly be: nobler, kinder, wiser, more beautiful in every sense of that word, and therefore, happier. Being with a friend is surely one of the sweetest joys in life.
Paradoxically, with a friend, we can be who we are at the moment: mean, petty, immature, unlovable and still be truly accepted and loved because our friend sees us whole. With a friend we do not have to wear masks nor shield; we can lay down our weapons for there is nothing to hide or defend ourselves from - we are safe. We can be who we truly are for that is who our friend loves - not someone we conjure up that he might accept because our friend loves us as we uniquely are.
Of all the possible relationships between us, I am glad that it is friendship. I am grateful that Life gave us to each other in this way. You make one¹s pleasure in life keener. Being with you makes the moments richer and fuller. When I am with you, I am more and I am safe. I thank you from my deepest heart for being my Friend....
Of all the possible relationships between human beings: lovers, spouses, parent-child, siblings, teacher-student, healer-patient etc., perhaps the sweetest and freest is that of friendship because it demands and expects the least from the other. A friend is someone we freely choose to have in our lives, not someone placed there by life or circumstances. A friend can also be someone given to us by life or circumstances: lover, spouse, parent, child, sibling, teacher, student, healer, patient, employer, employee, colleague - whom we delight in so that we are bound by heart, not by prescription.
A friend is someone whose spirit resonates with ours. Being with a friend makes our pleasure in life keener. Our friend's presence makes the moment richer and fuller. In our friend's presence, we are more; we become closer to all we can truly be: nobler, kinder, wiser, more beautiful in every sense of that word, and therefore, happier. Being with a friend is surely one of the sweetest joys in life.
Paradoxically, with a friend, we can be who we are at the moment: mean, petty, immature, unlovable and still be truly accepted and loved because our friend sees us whole. With a friend we do not have to wear masks nor shield; we can lay down our weapons for there is nothing to hide or defend ourselves from - we are safe. We can be who we truly are for that is who our friend loves - not someone we conjure up that he might accept because our friend loves us as we uniquely are.
Of all the possible relationships between us, I am glad that it is friendship. I am grateful that Life gave us to each other in this way. You make one¹s pleasure in life keener. Being with you makes the moments richer and fuller. When I am with you, I am more and I am safe. I thank you from my deepest heart for being my Friend....
Sunday, August 5, 2007
How to custom-design a husband
Take a sheet of paper and write down 10 of your strengths. Beside that, list 10 of your weaknesses. Beneath your strengths, write 10 of your hopes and dreams. Beside them, list 10 fears. Under all that, ennumerate 10 values: what you consider both essential and/or importantfor a good life.
For example:
STRENGTHS
Intelligence
Good looks
Creativity
Friendliness
Sense of Humor
Spontaneity
Spirituality
Enthusiastic
Risk-taker
Leadership
WEAKNESSES
Laziness
Vanity
Moodiness
Intensiy
Silliness
Disorganization
Unreal
Loud
Impulsive
Bossiness
HOPES AND DREAMS
Graduate School
Travel
Success in career
Good marriage
Four chidren
Staying fit
Keep my friendships
Prosperity
Make the world better
Strong family life
FEARS
Failure
Rejection
Bad breaks
Divorce
Infertility
Poor health
Loneliness
Dire Poverty
Becoming bitter
Losing loved ones
VALUES
Faith in God
Love of Family
Good, strong relationships
Peace/Harmony/Mercy
Joy, Excitement/Fun
Service to Others/Justice
Wisdom
Making a difference
Good health
Now take another sheet of paper and write down 10 strengths you would like your husband to possess. You may have the same strengths like he can be intelligent and good-looking too. But include qualities that would address your weaknesses. For example, since you are moody, it would be nice if he were even-keeled. Since you are disorganized, it would help if he were organized. His strengths should also address your fears. Like patience and fidelity would make divorce unlikely. Good healthy habits would make it less likely for you to be a widow.
Under Weaknesses, list weaknesses in him that you are willing to live with: He has no sense of style. He can't dance. He's not very handy. He forgets special dates. He snores. Stuff like that. I can't imagine your listing addiction, abusiveness, can't hold a job, uncommunicative, dishonesty.
Finally, your hopes and dreams, and values should match because if they don't then you'll spend your life together at cross-purposes. You want to travel; he wants to stay at home. You want children; he doesn't like kids. You get the picture.
When you are done with his profile, take a third piece of paper and write a prayer: "Lord, please send me a man who will love me as much as I will love him....and weave in the rest of his qualties. Make sure that this prayer will reflect a mutuality in your relationship instead of being simply a list of requests containing only what you want this man will do for you. Marriage is very much a two-way street.
Good luck with this and if you are so inclined, do share your prayer for a husband with us.
For example:
STRENGTHS
Intelligence
Good looks
Creativity
Friendliness
Sense of Humor
Spontaneity
Spirituality
Enthusiastic
Risk-taker
Leadership
WEAKNESSES
Laziness
Vanity
Moodiness
Intensiy
Silliness
Disorganization
Unreal
Loud
Impulsive
Bossiness
HOPES AND DREAMS
Graduate School
Travel
Success in career
Good marriage
Four chidren
Staying fit
Keep my friendships
Prosperity
Make the world better
Strong family life
FEARS
Failure
Rejection
Bad breaks
Divorce
Infertility
Poor health
Loneliness
Dire Poverty
Becoming bitter
Losing loved ones
VALUES
Faith in God
Love of Family
Good, strong relationships
Peace/Harmony/Mercy
Joy, Excitement/Fun
Service to Others/Justice
Wisdom
Making a difference
Good health
Now take another sheet of paper and write down 10 strengths you would like your husband to possess. You may have the same strengths like he can be intelligent and good-looking too. But include qualities that would address your weaknesses. For example, since you are moody, it would be nice if he were even-keeled. Since you are disorganized, it would help if he were organized. His strengths should also address your fears. Like patience and fidelity would make divorce unlikely. Good healthy habits would make it less likely for you to be a widow.
Under Weaknesses, list weaknesses in him that you are willing to live with: He has no sense of style. He can't dance. He's not very handy. He forgets special dates. He snores. Stuff like that. I can't imagine your listing addiction, abusiveness, can't hold a job, uncommunicative, dishonesty.
Finally, your hopes and dreams, and values should match because if they don't then you'll spend your life together at cross-purposes. You want to travel; he wants to stay at home. You want children; he doesn't like kids. You get the picture.
When you are done with his profile, take a third piece of paper and write a prayer: "Lord, please send me a man who will love me as much as I will love him....and weave in the rest of his qualties. Make sure that this prayer will reflect a mutuality in your relationship instead of being simply a list of requests containing only what you want this man will do for you. Marriage is very much a two-way street.
Good luck with this and if you are so inclined, do share your prayer for a husband with us.
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