Is that a perfect pumpkin? I came across a pumpkin, gourd and sunflower patch down the road from cousin's house on my last visit. In the last few blog entries, I touched on the kudzu, the mountain cabin and the sunflowers all from the same picture taking expedition. This pumpkin was found snuggled in at the feet of those giant sunflowers along the foothills of Eastern Tennessee What a lovely place this is to explore and to be able to move to.
The days since my resignation have been filled with giant gulps of relief and introspection while at Destin Beach, Florida, with my daughter and her friend. Another adventure to add to our list and while I consider it thus, I am not too sure my daughter does. She is caught in an age of legally being an adult yet adult decision-making and behavior come a long at a slower pace through experiential knowledge. I gathered several times over the days together, that they felt I was being, well, not what they thought I should be, or doing what they wanted me to, necessarily.
The nickle of judgement has two sides to it and part of grace and maturity is realizing you also can be held to those standards you are imposing on someone else and may not come up to that invisible standard you are holding them to. Maturity is standing back, realizing that you are not walking in that person's shoes so being critical or judgemental could be held off and not spoken at all. Not getting your way and not being vocal about it can be the best thing to do at the moment.
Loving, in a family or relationship often means that you overlook that stuff and just move on. For several days, I have struggled with telling her that I was offended that neither one of them had the courtesy to thank me for the trip. The details of what it took to get them there would be irrelevant to an eighteen-year-old because it did not generate from her so therefore it is not important.
This does not excuse the lack of courtesy nor condone it. I have chosen to wait to talk about it when I am with her in person and the door opens for her to receive the information to the point of thinking about it. It is easy for someone to dismiss an uncomfortable moment when they are not looking at you, but when you are face to face, it is much harder.
This courtesy-kindness thing is something I taught my children all through their youth. This is not something new. When they did something hurtful to each other I would make my son and my daughter face each other, look the other person in the eye and say "I am sorry".
A flash "SORRY!" over the shoulder on the run would not do. They had to say what they were sorry for that hurt the other person, to their face. Over time, my hope was that this would install a sense of right and wrong that when confronted with wrong-doing, they would then have an automated but responsible action associated to hurting someone.
As an adult, we can also think about our delivery system.
This courtesy-kindness thing is something I taught my children all through their youth. This is not something new. When they did something hurtful to each other I would make my son and my daughter face each other, look the other person in the eye and say "I am sorry".
A flash "SORRY!" over the shoulder on the run would not do. They had to say what they were sorry for that hurt the other person, to their face. Over time, my hope was that this would install a sense of right and wrong that when confronted with wrong-doing, they would then have an automated but responsible action associated to hurting someone.
As an adult, we can also think about our delivery system.
I have a prairie sister (we were raised in neighboring counties but met in an entirely different state) who is most wonderful about delivering these kinds of messages very subtly and kindly. She can get the point across without the person who is to receive The Message feeling poorly about themselves. They just recognize it was them who needed a little view of that woman in their own mirror. She says things in a way that you get the greater message without the person themselves being torn down in the process.
Now that is a gift of grace and one that has stuck with me and one that I see that I can apply to myself. Demanding appreciation; how child-like is that? You didn't bother to thank me and that wasn't nice! sounds just as immature in my own ears as not hearing it at all. Rather, waiting for a moment that has no anger and no condescension attached to it is much better.
Converying an attitude of Now you know we have these teaching moments that you don't like is also defeating. As a manager, I did not do what was done unto me in that fashion. It smacks of supremacy, not meekness, in teaching.
Converying an attitude of Now you know we have these teaching moments that you don't like is also defeating. As a manager, I did not do what was done unto me in that fashion. It smacks of supremacy, not meekness, in teaching.
If the moment never comes for me to say it, well, life has a way of teaching us things that our mothers told us anway. You know the old saying; The older I get, the smarter my mother becomes, is a truth.
She taught me how to write thank-notes, how to love a lot of different kinds of people, how to be adventuresome, how to save money, how to enjoy spending some of it and giving a lot of it away so that it all comes back to you in a harvest of goodness.
When I saw that pumpkin, I saw more than a token of Fall, I saw blessings in a big orange container.
May we have grace for others ready to serve to them rather than always from them, especially when they don't deserve it...because we do not deserve it either, but we are oh-so-thankful when it comes our way!
