Happy Birthday, Mommy

My mother had one calling in life - to be a mom. As an only child in her household I think my mom always dreamed of filling up a home with babies. And boy did she. Four kids. Three boys and one girl, one right after the other like little stair steps. She LOVED babies. Babies were her jam.

Once we started walking and talking back? She had to lean into her calling.

This month we're going to dissect what it means to live a life of complicated purpose. We'll even dive into the deep end of the pool and talk about our "calling". But on her birthday, I want to pay homage to a woman who pursued her calling to the bitter end even though the reality of it often startled her. She persevered.

Living a life of purpose is a mantra these days. We're encouraged to follow our bliss (Joseph Campbell). But what happens when our calling does not match our expectations of bliss? Do we search for meaning elsewhere or abandon the work that feels too hard to be sacred? My mother did not expect children to be so...dirty, messy, and expensive. She did not expect any of her children to end up addicted to alcohol and drugs. She did not expect her kids to end up having a...complicated...relationship with their father, her husband. She never in her wildest dreams wanted to live apart from her own parents or her kids. She expected a nice, neat, orderly, quiet life in Durham, NC within a few miles of her parents. What she ended up with was life in South Dakota, North Carolina (Durham, Charlotte), Georgia (Atlanta three times), Virginia (Virginia Beach, Richmond and Roanoke), Memphis, Tennessee (for such a short time she didn't even actually move there), Chicago, Illinois and New Jersey (two different locations).

Life was not what she expected but she soldiered on. When I got the call that my mom was in crisis after being given medicine that caused her to bleed internally, I left my own calling as a mother who was waiting for my own daughter to give birth and headed south to Atlanta. It took me 9 hours to reach her and it was 1 am when my GPS system guided me into the parking lot of the hospice facility where she had been taken. She was asleep and so I quietly settled in to watching her breathe.

Early the next morning she awoke, startled to be in this strange place. I reassured her. She asked me, "Have I been a good mother?" I was able to answer with all honesty, "You have been the best mother I could ever have hoped for." In her last days, my mom was afraid she had somehow failed as a mom. Was she reliving her sacred calling in her last days? Had someone hinted that she had not fulfilled her role? I will never know, but I know this: she did her absolute best at "momming".

Dr. William Willimon, who I will be talking about a lot in the coming days, expressed a sentiment about calling. He says that "calling" is not glamorous. When we live out our calling, it does not necessarily make our lives better but it does allow other people's lives to be enriched. If that's what it means to live a life of purpose, my mom was an all-star.

The Body Remembers But so Does the Soul

A month or so ago I went looking on Facebook for a young man by the name of Andy Higgins. He was on my mind; I do not know why. I found him but his page was scanty. I wondered how he was and I so wished that he had found an amazing life as an artist or inventor or solver-of-complex-problems that the rest of the world ignored. I taught him in preschool when he was four years old. He stole my heart. I've got a thing, evidently, for folks who do not conform to norms.

Andy was one of those kids. He loved art AND only used black paint. He was intensely focused which meant I had to have an eye in the back of my head when he was at the easel. If I didn't pay attention, Andy in his zone would paint his paper, then the easel and move onto the floor - he was so entranced with the idea that a good coat of black paint can turn any object into art. He was not a fan of groups or singing silly preschool songs. Together we learned he could tolerate story time so long as he was allowed to listen from underneath the piano. I think Andy tolerated a lot in his little preschool body, putting up with the rest of us who did not see the world exactly as he could.

Yesterday, at the age of 43, my beloved "little guy" passed away from a heart attack. I had not seen him since he was a kid, but he is stuck to my heart by gorilla glue. And I am so deeply, profoundly sad at his passing. I felt guilty for feeling so sad for the loss of a life I had not interacted with in over 20 years. His family suffers and that makes sense. Do I have any right to share in the sadness? My sad body, our sad bodies, are doing nothing wrong. They are remembering things lost. When sadness rolls in like a mighty tsunami, consider this mindset: to mourn what is lost we must first have appreciated its presence. And it's ok to not super spiritualize the experience of our memories or judge the validity of our response or even put a statute of limitations on how long we have to love someone to mourn them. We can just be sad.

Complicated grief, getting stuck in sad, is uncomfortable for both the sufferer and those who love them. Eventually, some day, no rush...but eventually our soul can provide us a pathway through our sadness. It does not eliminate the sadness for me, but it informs it. We're going to talk about that this month, sort of.

Which World Do You Want to Inhabit?

In her book Mindset, Carol Dweck says this:

When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world - the world of fixed traits - success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other - the world of changing qualities - it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself. In one world, failure is about having a setback. Getting a bad grade. Losing a tournament. Getting fired. Getting rejected. It means you’re not smart or talented. In the other world, failure is about not growing. Not reaching for the things you value. It means you’re not fulfilling your potential. In one world, effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you’re not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn’t need effort. In the other world effort is what makes you smart or talented. You have a choice. Mindsets are just beliefs. They’re powerful beliefs, but they’re just something in your mind, and you can change your mind.

Which world do you want to inhabit? Stop. Pause. REALLY think about this.

The last few years have been a real wake up call for me. I’ve had to think and consider: how could people I respect, love and admire have such different perspectives on the world in which we live? I have friends all over the place politically, theologically, and economically. It’s been so good and hard and required so much effort to stretch myself, to make a choice to value the MINDSET of others. And the more I practice this, the more sensitive I become to when it is not practiced. Here’s an example. Last week I got my hair cut (yippee vaccines and businesses that practice rigid protocols for Covid-19)! Because of the distancing and limitations on numbers of folks in the salon it was easy to hear what another client was sharing with her stylist. She was talking about all those pastors who were so lazy as to not figure out how to open up their churches on Sunday morning, including her own. It turns out, I’m her pastor. She waxed on about how the least the church could have done was open up for parking lot worship. After all, she lamented, the church near her house did that - why couldn’t hers? She had a mindset, and I totally appreciated hearing it. Here’s why.

When we came to a screeching halt a year ago, we started scrambling. Someone volunteered to help create a nice outside space where small groups could gather. I had always wanted one of those spaces pre-pandemic so I was ALL IN. Unfortunately, the office condominium association was not. Nor were they keen on parking lot church. Because, you see, unlike a church who owns their parking lot, we have to get permission for such things and permission is not easily granted. I think it would be fair to say that without a MINDSET shift, it would be easy to get annoyed at listening to someone who you love call you lazy.

But I’ve been practicing the SHIFT. And what I actually learned was this: Teresa, sometimes you expect people to be mind readers. It never occurred to me that someone might think I was lazy or that I would not go to any lengths to keep our community together. What a great shift for me to realize that this is not true. In the future, I hope I will remember to be more open about our limitations, instead of assuming I am protecting people from the annoying details of being a pastor in the middle of a pandemic.

What is Holding You Back?

Diego Schwartzman is an Argentinian tennis player who looks like a guy a betting man would bet against. He’s 28 years old, 5’ 7” and weighs 141 pounds. Imagine him going up against some of the hulking tennis players of our time. He became a pro in 2010. In 2021 he won his first ATP tour title in Buenos Aires, his home turf.

Watch Schwartzman play and even if you’re distracted with a big bowl of popcorn and scrolling through your text messages, it’s easy to spot: the biggest thing about this guy is his heart. He believes.

Post match, his defeated opponent, a fellow Argentinian by the name of Francisco Cerundolo said, “He is very inspiring.”

Yes. Yes. Yes.

It is inspiring to watch heart win. Schwartzman lost this same tournament in the finals two years ago. He spoke on Sunday about how sad he was to lose on the only court where family and friends ever get a chance to see him play. But this year? He won.

This can only happen with someone who is more interested in growing than they are in feeding their ego. He came back; he tried again. This time he won but both times he gave it his all. It just turns out that after two more years of growing, this time the win happened to go on his stat sheet.

I’m NOT saying that if we try harder we will eventually win. In fact, when it comes to matters of faith I am pretty sure that is absolutely not promised us. But what I am saying is that it is very inspiring to see a guy with a big heart keep going after his dream.

What dream are you holding back on pursuing? Why? What would a growth mindset tell you to consider?

Embracing a Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck also has provided a list of practical ways to embrace a growth mindset. Here are some of them:

* Embrace challenges. They build the resilience muscle and loosen the grip of fear of failure!

* Persevere, especially when failure is not only an option but a legitimate possibility. Here’s a weird thing about perseverance. I find that resistance to change and a fear of failure often gets inflamed right before a breakthrough of some kind. Today, when I experience discouragement I try to remember to get curious: what if something really amazing is about to happen?

* Talents and abilities can be developed. Isn’t that awesome? I am amazed that my daughter who majored in finance can transfer her skills and learn new ones in the field of IT. My son the pastor has developed a talent for photography and a skill at website design. My son the artist has increased his range of artistry and added “lead singer” to his already impressive musical repertoire. My husband has developed this uncanny ability to read my anxiety before I notice it and take action to support me before I have a meltdown. This involves a lot of supporting on his part. Once, when we were newly- weds I called him the most selfish person I ever met. Which wasn’t true, strictly speaking, but I have to say that today he is the most unselfish human being I will ever know. And me? I’m not without my own growth points. Today I figured out how to share a screen on zoom without having to get technical support from anyone. I know. Impressive, right?

* Find inspiration in others' success. Instead of feeling threatened, think more about what is true. Success is not a scarce resource. When someone else succeeds, we can celebrate that and remember that if they can, we can.

* Process errors with a desire to correct them without getting caught up in perfectionism. If you need support in this, google famous failures. Notice how many errors they make. Or watch sports on television. I watch a lot of tennis. Even the best and most athletic frame their shots or miss the service box.

* Accept feedback as a way to learn. Let me add here that Carol used the word “criticism” in place of feedback. I’m not a fan of criticism, but I do appreciate feedback. That said, sometimes even the most harsh and cruel criticism can be instructive - I just think it carries with it so much pain and suffering that I’m not sure that it is worth what we have to go through to get to the grain of truth from critical people. There’s a difference and I think we all recognize it when we experience it.

* Embrace new experiences with a desire and commitment to mastering new skills.

* Collaborate and innovate with people who challenge us to grow. I have some folks in my mind that do that for me on a regular basis - it really is such a great thing, to have others inspire our own commitment to growth.