The Holy Ordinary

I'm a worrier a perfectionist--you can read neurotic if you'd like.  No matter how many times Chris repeated, "It's kindergarten." I spent hours agonizing over where and when to send the children to kindergarten.  I spent hours worrying that they were adjusting to moves and changes and new babies and well just about everything..I can't tell you the number of times we'd have a difficult morning and I'd go to their schools in tears, get them out of class and apologize because I didn't want them to have heard an ugly tone from me as the last words before they left.  (And usually they didn't even remember, but hey back to the neurotic).  And sometime I'll confess the extra large diaper bag story and the hammer in the glove compartment.  Suffice it to say I worried and stressed and planned and tried to control so that the children would grow up healthy and happy with wonderful memories of amazing days (and so there was less to tell their therapists later).  I tried to make every holiday, every birthday, every occasion a huge memory, a new theme smocked outfit for every occasion or holiday (including Groundhog's Day--back to the neurotic)--I loved doing it, and I'm glad I did, but it truly is the little things, the holy in the everyday ordinariness, the little moments, the relationships, the love--something I learned this weekend from SK.  She had to write a response to the question, "Where are you from?"  Below find her answer.

Sarah Katherine Doyle

I am from Louisville, from Georgia, Pittsburgh, Virginia, England.

I am from Chris and Katherine a marketing director for a vodka brand a female priest

I am from homemade bread and Big Green Egg grilling, rom banana bread, peanut butter fudge, and fish tacos.

I am from four kids and two dogs, from “our door is always open—anyone is welcome.”

I am from yes ma’ams and no sirs

I am from the Avett Brothers and Mumford and Sons, from John Prine, Bob Dylan and Todd Snyder.

I am from “dream big,” “work hard,” and “always expand your horizons.”

I am from questionable, inappropriate dinner conversations and no mental filters.

I am from Grey’s Anatomy and The Office; from A Christmas Story, The Sandlot, and Caddy Shack.

I am from Episcopalians—half the Catholic, twice the fun.

I am from Church Camp; from roasting marshmallows, walking the labyrinth, and capture the flag.

I am from “get your elbows off the table,” and “because I said so.”

I am from late nights surrounding my dad and his guitar, and from ‘Twas the Night before Christmas’ every Christmas Eve.

I am from craziness.

I am from accident-proneness and dysfunction; from occasional bickering and constant laughter.

I am from go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone, but home is always here.

May we always remember that it is the little things that make a difference in the lives of our families and everyone we meet.  

Living Out Loud

Last week I had the privilege of serving as the chaplain for All Saints Junior High Camp.  Yes privilege--it's early in the morning, the sun hasn't gotten to my head yet and it hasn't been five o'clock, so trust me I'm in my right mind.  It was an honor, a privilege and a time to learn about the beauty of living out loud.

Meet Anne--I fell in love with Anne at a soccer game in the fall of 2011 when she sat down beside me and said, "Hi, I'm Anne.  I was born prematurely and have Aspergers.  Do you have any issues?"  (Oh Sweetheart, how much time do you have?)  I need to insert right here that this blog is written with Anne's mother's permission.  I was going to write it anonymously, but I guess that would cancel out the living out loud.

This past spring my eldest son and I were talking and he said, "Mama you know All Saints would be perfect for Anne.  (He loves her too.)  Everyone is accepted, and she would love it.  You'll be the chaplain, Caroline will be a camper, and I'll be a junior counselor; do you think we can convince Mrs. Stevenson?"  I'm not sure how we did--Mrs. Stevenson knows my issues--but we did and Anne came to camp. I prayed a lot; I wanted this to be a good experience for Anne, and I didn't want her to get hurt. And I wanted to earn the trust her mother put into me.   I prayed that God would wrap loving arms around her and protect her.   I don't know what she learned, but here's what I learned from Anne.

The first evening Anne asked her counselor if she could talk to the other girls in her cabin.  She told them she was born prematurely and that because of that she sometimes had problems.  "Sometimes I say things that seem weird or out of place, and sometimes I don't quite understand what's going on," stated Anne, "I don't always understand social situations, but I want to and I'm sorry if I hurt someone's feelings because I never mean to but sometimes I do.  And another thing, I'm terrible at math."  Well, Anne I don't know about the math part, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a single girl in that cabin that hasn't felt some of the other feelings, but only you were brave enough to admit it.  (I'm also sure a few of them felt that way about math)

That's the way the week started and already I was learning from Anne.  What if we all just laid it out there, exposed our vulnerabilities, admitted we made mistakes but that for the most part we were acting with good intentions?  How could we change the world if we were just honest with ourselves and with others?

The second night I got to sit with Anne.  I tried really hard not to smother her, protect her, shield her but remember I've loved this girl for two years; I convinced her mother to let her for the FIRST time ever come to camp, and I suppose if I'm totally truthful, I didn't fully give her over to God as I'd promised.  Oh me of little faith.  At dinner talk of the camp dance was in full swing--it's a tradition at All Saints, and sometimes boys ask girls to be their dates--it had already started.  Anne says to me, "I don't have to worry about anyone asking me.  No one has ever been interested in me."  Can I just tell you that a piece of my heart dropped off?  I busily searched my mind trying to think of the right thing to say already planning to ask Christopher to make sure he asked her to dance at least once--I was desperately trying to control.   And then Anne said, "I think I'm okay with that.  I won't be forever but right now I'm not really sure how I feel about boys and flirting.  Sometimes I want to but sometimes I worry about it, and maybe I'm too young anyway."  There were three other girls at the tables whose mouths dropped open and I'm pretty sure they were all thinking, "me too", but not one was brave enough to say so.  Life is messy and complicated and confusing; being a teenager is messy and complicated and confusing--what if we all just admitted that?  What if we all just said, "Sometimes I feel one way about it and sometimes I feel another"  What if we didn't feel like we had to have everything all neatly packaged and answered.  What if we allowed ourselves to feel more than one feeling at a time and embraced it?  And what if we let go of trying to control everything even with the best of intentions?

That same night one of the campers dropped his or her fork and everyone started to clap.  Anne addresses the table and says, "Why is everyone clapping?"  A junior counselor answered, "I guess just to embarrass the person; it's kind of a tradition here."  Anne, "Why would you want to embarrass someone for making a mistake?"  Amen Anne--why would we and yet we do that to people all the time; point out their shortcomings publicly and I suppose it's so we don't have to look at our own.  But Anne wasn't finished with that lesson, "If the person is new this year, they may not know that's a tradition and they'll feel bad."

You're right Anne--and how many times do we "welcome" people into community but not fill them in completely?  We leave them to figure out our customs; we leave them to figure out our ways, and do we even ask them if they want to follow them?  Do we ask them what customs they'd like to share with us?  Traditions are wonderful; they help to build a community, but traditions need to be explained and taught if we're going to be an open community welcoming everyone.  And so, thank you Anne, we explained it to everyone.  (For the record, Anne was clapping with everyone else by the end of the week when someone dropped something, but thanks to Anne everyone knew it was in good fun.)

Wednesday morning Anne was late getting up; her counselor  waited for her and brought her to breakfast a few minutes late.  It was easy to do she said because the first thing Anne said in the morning was, "Hannah, I think today may be one of those days for me.  Could you just be patient with me?"  Asking for what we need?  Admitting we may not be in control?  What a novel concept!?!?!  And you know what, because Anne asked for a need to be met and because Hannah met that need with no judgement, Anne only had one of those moments not one of those days.  She bounced right back.

I promised I'd be totally honest in this blog, so I have to talk about Thursday afternoon.  This is what I was dreading, oh me of little faith yet again.  During rest time Anne was continuing to live out loud and I suppose she said something about someone's date and it hurt the girl's feelings or embarrassed her--who knows they're adolescents?  I learned about this incident because Anne went to Hannah and said, "Everyone is mad at me and I don't know what I did.  Can you help me figure it out?"    And Hannah did, and Anne said she was sorry to the other girl.  But more importantly those girls learned about taking responsibility and not walking away from a problem.  Anne addressed it head on, and guess what?  One of the girls apologized to Anne and said, "Maybe we overreacted and we shouldn't have taken sides."  I'm sure you're not amazed by this next part, Anne said to Hannah, "thank you for helping me."  What, a teenager who asks for and accepts constructive criticism and redirection and then thanks the person?!?!?!?!

The youth and staff at All Saints call me Mama Doyle and I absolutely love it.  I can't explain it (maybe Anne can help me figure out my feelings) but it means the world to me.  My heart grows every single time I hear it.  I really wanted Anne to start calling me Mama Doyle; somehow I thought that if she did then that meant she was really a part of the camp, that she was really a part of the community, and to be Anne-honest I thought it would mean she loved me and we'd established a close bond.  So everyday I waited for her to call me Mama Doyle, everyday I hoped and prayed that this would be the day,  and everyday she called me Mrs. Doyle.  On Friday someone asked her why and Anne said, "I've always known her as Mrs. Doyle and it's just more comfortable for me."  Well slap me in the face--I was making it about me, about my needs and my wants.  When I reflect on it now, I wanted to be the one who made camp a success for her and if she called me Mama Doyle at camp (secretly I was hoping she'd continue to call me that when we left camp), then that would be my proof that I was successful.  It was about me.  I wanted to be special, to feel special, to be important.  And I wonder how many times that happens to me and to others?  How many times do our wants and needs get in the way of looking at someone else and their wants and needs?  It's easy to camouflage it--to make it look like it's about someone else.  It's easy to convince ourselves and others that we're only looking out for someone or something else.  But I learned to listen to that small voice that is so incessant, to listen to that urgency--that frantic need and to figure out from where it comes.  Another lesson learned from Anne; be aware, be in touch with your motivations, and be honest with yourself.

The final afternoon I asked Anne about camp--"I loved it Mrs. Doyle.  It was fun; it was hard; it was exciting; it was scary, and I'm coming back."  Yep, tell it like it is, every thought in your mind--you CAN have all those emotions at one time--thank you Anne.  May we all have the confidence to not only live out loud but to allow others to as well.

She had a date to the dance!!!

The sheer joy of living out loud.

My children do say "hate"

Recently I was asked two questions about my parenting.  One, do you let your children say, "I hate you" to each other, and two do you make them say they're sorry.  The answers yes to the first and no to the second.  Shocking I'm sure that a mother, a priest and mother at that, would answer that way. Read on if you're not too shocked because, well it's not that simple--

I believe we all parent from so many perspectives--we parent in ways our parents did, and we parent in ways directly contradictory to our parents.  We parent from our places of confidence and we parent from our places of brokenness.  My choice with these two questions comes from all those places.

In my home growing up, we were absolutely not allowed to say "I hate you".  "We don't hate people in our family and we certainly don't say that" was how my mother explained it.  What I heard was, "we don't feel that way."  Which was very confusing to me because, frankly sometimes I did feel that way.  So I internalized those thoughts and they turned into, "if you have those feelings you are bad."  And then the "I'm sorry" part of it.  We were forced to immediately apologize if heaven forbid we did let out a negative emotion.  (Parents were exempt from this rule--another lesson I learned.)  So what I learned is that I must always say I'm sorry first maybe even before anyone knew how bad I was, and that I was responsible for everything and everyone.  What it's raining and you want it to be sunny?  I'm sorry.  You don't like your teacher, job, house, fill in the blank--I'm sorry; I'm pretty sure that somehow it's my fault and if not my fault I should still take responsibility for it--try to fix it.  You know, keep the peace, make everyone happy at all cost;--I was such a good middle child.  The fact of the matter is, the cost to me was huge.  Without going too far off subject, the result from these teachings kept me in relationships I should have ended and left me not trusting my own emotions.

So here's the long answer to the questions I was asked.  First, "let" is not exactly the word I would use.  Let indicates I have complete control over my children and anyone that has ever stepped foot in our home or been around us knows that is completely false.  I wouldn't say "let" or "allow".  What I do try to do is acknowledge their feelings; I do not deny that in that very moment they probably do feel an emotion that is so powerful that the only word they have to describe it is "hate."  And I acknowledge that there are many feelings and often they are confusing, they are intense, and they are difficult.

Our feelings and emotions are ours and ours alone.  And I firmly believe that all emotions are given to us by God.  Read the psalms--every emotion under the sun is written into that beautiful book.  Strong emotions that even if they don't use the word "hate" certainly point to the feeling.  Consider Psalm 137:9 that says, "happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" or Psalm 69:22-28 which wants God to set a trap for people, strike people down, add guilt to their guilt.  I'm fairly certain these people felt an emotion at least equivalent to the one my children feel when they say, "I hate you."  (Read also, Psalm 139:21-22; Psalm 18:37-40 just to name a few more)

What do I do?  Well I acknowledge they are feeling a very strong emotion at that moment and I separate the two (or three or four).  Strong emotions can cause us to say and do things we regret later, so separation is, in my opinion, an appropriate action.  Truth is that 99% of the time after separation the apologies come on their own with no prompting from me.  For that I feel blessed.

 But we do talk about apologies and forgiveness.  And we talk about how holding grudges really only hurts the one holding the grudge.  (these conversations are not always in the moment but have occurred over time).  We talk about the fact that we all make mistakes in things we say and do (James 3:2 "For all of us make many mistakes.  Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect.) and we talk about the power of the tongue (Proverbs 15:1, Psalm 19:14, 1 Peter 3:10, Proverbs 10:19).  We talk about how words spoken can never be taken back and they can cause as much or more damage as a physical attack.  And we talk about forgiveness.  And  I talk about how everyone else will come and go but you'll always have your siblings. I don't just talk about that, they see it.  They know that my siblings are the most important people in the world to me after Chris and the children.  They know that my sister is the first person I call with any emotion I have, and they know that sometimes we get mad at each other, but they also know that loving her is as natural as breathing.

One of the readings at our wedding was Colossians 3:12-17.  Verse 13 says, "Bear with one another and , if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven you so you also must forgive."  I remember very clearly the homily given and The Rev. Donald Fishbourne (the Fish) saying, "Not if you hurt one another but when you hurt one another."  Those words were freeing--they acknowledged that we would hurt one another so I didn't have to feel like a terrible evil person if and when I did something intentionally or unintentionally that hurt Chris, and I didn't have to panic every time I messed up that he would leave me because he would find out how horrible I was.  (Just to be honest, they were freeing but they didn't just flip a switch; in order to internalize them it took years of prayer--and therapy--and a patient, loving and forgiving husband).  These words also spoke to the power of forgiveness.  Chris and I have relied on those words many times over the years--in our house parents do say they're sorry to each other and even to the children.  We are each and every one of us human, and we are learning everyday how to be in relationship with one another and with the world.  I want our home to be a haven; a place of safety to learn how to manage our feelings and to learn how to interact with the world.  Our home is not perfect; it is loud, possibly (okay probably) inappropriate in the conversations we allow, chaotic and intense.  I'm fairly certain I'm giving the children plenty of fodder for their own therapy sessions, (at least they'll be able to label their emotions) so in the meantime, I'll continue to acknowledge their feelings and to nurture their relationships.  So far, it's going okay.

My sister

The Babies

The Big Kids

My rock