Look For the Helpers

Photo Credit: The Huffington Post

Yesterday I caught part of Kathie Lee and Hoda on the Today Show while on the treadmill at the gym.

I love their show, and yesterday I found their comments on the Boston tragedy to be particularly helpful.

As a new mother looking forward to welcoming my son into the world this July, I've started tuning in more to the child talk all around me.

Kathie Lee mentioned her long-standing friendship with the late Mr. Rogers, and she shared this piece of his advice:

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.'"

What a beautiful, empowering perspective for children, and for ourselves.

And it's so very true.

We cannot protect our children or ourselves from awful events out of our control, but we can teach and empower them to "always look for the helpers."

To teach them, literally, where to turn and how to find the lifelines of resiliency and hope in a sometimes dark and frightening world.

I hope to teach my son to think this way.

Chauntecleer's Monologue

image credit

What are you reading this October?

I finished The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr. last week and have been wandering around with the mental void that comes from living between the end of one book and the start of another.

 But the space has let me connect again with this favorite monologue from the book, a favorite for a hundred reasons.

If you'd like to read it, this quick context will help:

Chauntecleer is a rooster, the ring leader of the animals and of the land in the story.

He and his wife Pertelote have just discovered their three chicks dead,

and their discovery introduces the beginning of a great battle between good and evil.

I've typed out sections of the monologue below.

To read more, buy The Book of the Dun Cow here.

"You, God," Chauntecleer finally said; but his iron body did not move.  His muscles were taut wire.  Had someone touched him at that moment, he would have spun and murdered him.

If I had never had sons, how could I lose sons?  If I had never ruled a land, how could I fear to lose the land?  It is in the giving that treachery begins.  If I had never loved these animals, which the almighty God put into my keeping, I would not die thinking that they may die.

But by your will I am where I am.  By your will things are what they are.  Now by my will I demand to hear it from your own mouth: Where are my sons?  Why is Pertelote weeping underneath me in the coop?  And what am I to say to her?  Bear them, bless them, watch them; then ball them into tiny balls and stuff them in the earth!  I'll tell her.  She'll be comforted.  I'll tell her the will of God.

Chauntecleer drove hot air deep into his lungs.  He roared: "And by my will I demand to know now- it is most certainly time now to know: O God, where are you?  Why have you hidden your face from us?"

But you won't tell me.  You've dropped us in a bucket and let us be.  It wears a person out, you now.  Yeah, well.

"Oh my sons!" Chauntecleer suddenly wailed at the top of his lungs, a light flaring before it goes out: "How much I want you with me!"

And then it was that the Dun Cow came to him.

Horns strangely dangerous on one so soft stood wide away and sharp from either side of her head.  Her eyes were liquid with compassion-- deep, deep as the earth is deep.  Her brow knew his suffering and knew, besides that, worlds more.  But the goodness was that, though this wide brow knew so much, yet it bent over his pain alone and creased with it.

Nothing changed: the clouds would not be removed, nor his sons returned, nor his knowledge plenished.  But there was this.  His grief had become her grief, his sorrow her own.  And while he did not grieve one bit less for that, yet his heart made room for her, for her will and wisdom, and he bore the sorrow better.  

The Dun Cow lay down next to the rooster and spent the rest of the night with him.  She never spoke a word, and Chauntecleer did not sleep.  But for a little while they were together.

Bird by Bird

Okay, I'm in love.
Writing, and reading, and me.
I think we can grow old together.

I finished Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
Neal had to put up with me laughing so often, and asking him if "I could just read him this one little part?" even more often.

I highlighted the heck out of the thing, but I thought I'd leave you with the very last paragraph of the book.

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation.  They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.  When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored.  We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.  It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea.  You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.

I spent the afternoon alone at 3rd Coast Cafe today, writing.

Can I just say, I think I was made for this life?

And I was not alone, if you count the company of a raspberry scone and a latte.

(Note to self: I like their chocolate chip scone far better.  I should have intuited this.  When has fruit ever been better than chocolate?)

 I'm working on a small essay that's been mulling around in my head for awhile.

I have some ideas for why I'm writing it, and probably no one will care about it but me, but really I'm doing it because I believe in this.

I believe in how writing and reading connect us, decrease our feeling of being alone.  How it helps us to look down on our life from a bird's eye view and say, "Life is hard, let me count the ways.  But it's funny too.  And beautiful, and achingly familiar to all of us."

Bird by Bird, you're a rockstar.

Swirled Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars & A Life Change

I'm having a swirled pumpkin cream cheese bar with a hot mug of chai tea while I write this.
A bite, set it down. Type. A sip, set it down. Type.
Not bad for a Monday night, eh?
Yes, I made another (delicious) pumpkin and cream cheese recipe. You can find it here.
Somehow I went 26 years without understanding the value of this combination, and you can bet that I will spend the next 26 years making up for it.

In other news, yes I have a life outside of pumpkin and cream cheese.
Let me tell you about one of its greater moments recently.
I had a chance to attend a presentation by a professor from Wheaton last week.
At some point in his delivery, he shared a quote from a book written by Henri Nouwen.
Upon hearing the quote, in a simple, unobserved moment, I felt changed.
What I'm sure was just a bullet point or another minute ticking by for everyone else in the room, felt like an epiphany to me.

"Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality."
-Henri Nouwen

Somehow, upon hearing that quote, that concept, I understand my life better.
I understand better what I've studied to do, what I love to do, what people tell me I do well.
(If there's anything I learned in grad school it was that counseling is actually more about listening than talking).
I love hospitality, and I learned it by example from my Momma.
But while I love to create beauty and make people feel welcome,
I like sitting and talking far better than cooking, doing dishes, and offering tea.

I love to make people feel welcome, as they are.
To make people feel comfortable, with who they are.
To invite people, to share their story.
I love to offer a safe space, where pain can be expressed.
To provide warmth, which brings comfort.
To feed, with words fitly spoken.
So, over a pumpkin bar and chai tea tonight, I'm thinking about how I feel changed.
Though nothing about me has changed, I feel that I am.
I think that's what happens when you see something about yourself or your life a little more clearly than before.