You're Invited!

God doesn’t call me to judge you. God calls me to love you. ~Joel Osteen

I’ve been thinking about labels and reactions to labels. We sometimes reject the whole concept of labels, because they are often used to limit, or to divide “us” from “them.” We use them to dismiss, to separate, to stereotype, to discriminate, to judge. In the United States, we are all too painfully aware of the damaging and tragic use of labels based on race, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disability.

So is the answer to throw out all the labels? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe the problem isn’t with the label itself but with how we use it.

For example, my son James is autistic. When he was a boy, he was mainstreamed in a regular classroom. His behavior seemed odd to other children. The children who tried to talk to him or include him in play were confused by behavior they didn’t understand. They were sometimes even afraid of him. They stayed away from him.

I made a decision to give them information, to use a label and explain it. Every year, near the beginning of the year, the teacher and I would arrange for someone to come in and talk to the kids about autism. James was not present for these discussions so that the kids could freely ask questions.

Without exception, once the kids had some knowledge, they showed tremendous acceptance and compassion. They went out of their way to include James.

Towards the end of his last year at that school, the PE department put on a presentation, showcasing the skills that the kids had learned. It was all very impressive, and the parents’ applause was constant. Then it was James’s turn. He started across the stage but then hesitated. Everyone got just quiet enough for me to hear one of the kids near him encourage him. “You can do it, James.” James tucked his head and did a crooked somersault. He stood up beaming. The whole gym erupted in applause. Tears were streaming down my face.

Labels don’t have to divide us. They can invite us in. Knowing that someone is from a different country, or practices a different religion, or is of a different ethnicity can be an invitation to get to know that person. We can be curious instead of judgmental. We can be welcoming instead of fearful. We can celebrate our differences, and in doing so, we can move past all labels and find our common ground.

Enjoy this short video of a dog who sees past labels.

related posts: The Water Is for Everyone; There Is No Them

Being a Blessing

I will bless you..., and you will be a blessing. ~Genesis 12:2

When my kids were growing up, they all had chores. Even my sons had chores; autism was no excuse not to share in the responsibility for the family. Besides, as a single mom with five kids, this wasn’t just a matter of character building; it was a matter of necessity. The chores got done, but not always well, and not always with a good attitude.

One day we returned from the grocery store with a carload of groceries. I pulled into the driveway, got out of the car, and began to walk into the house. The kids opened the back of the car and started carrying bags. My daughter called to me, “Aren’t you going to help carry?”

“No,” I replied. “That’s your job.”

“What’s your job?” she retorted.

“My job is to go to work, so that we have money to buy the groceries. Your job is to carry them into the house and put them away.” She snorted her protest but said nothing else as she joined her siblings in the task.

A few days ago, this same daughter took time out of her busy work and parenting schedule to come over to my house on her own initiative and help me clean. She knew that my back was bothering me. When I tried to help, she told me to relax; she would do it all. Even so, I did the light cleaning so that we could get it done more quickly. As we worked, we chatted and enjoyed each other’s company.

When we were done, I surveyed my sparkling house and reflected on the pleasant time we spent together. I thanked her, not only for her assistance, but also for her gracious attitude. She responded matter-of-factly with a smile, “You do so much for me. I’m happy to do something for you.”

And that, of course, meant more to me than all the clean counters and vacuumed floors. She is indeed a blessing.

Life is short, and we have but little time to gladden the hearts of those who travel this way with us. Oh, be swift to love. Make haste to be kind. ~Henri-Frederic Amiel

related posts: Speaking the Blessing; The Kindness Game

Entitled to Miracles

I am entitled to miracles. ~A Course in Miracles

When my son James was growing up, he was in special education because of his autism. Every year there was a meeting to develop his IEP (Individual Education Plan). This document set out his needs and what services would be provided to meet his needs for the following year. The meeting was attended by his teachers, other service providers, a representative from the school district, and me.

I generally had a very good working relationship with everyone involved. I made sure I understood the regulations so that I could justify the services I asked for. I had a genuine and deep respect for his teachers and providers. In fact, I’m still friends with several of them. I knew that they were committed to doing their best for all the children they served. I also knew that they did not have adequate funds and resources to do all that was needed.

One year, as I was walking into the room for the IEP meeting, the speech pathologist approached me. She was frowning, and huffed at me in exasperation and with an accusatory tone, “Do you know that your son gets more services than any child in Portland Public Schools?”

I looked at her for a moment, and then replied without apology, “He doesn’t get any more than what he is entitled to by law. My job is to see that he gets no less.”

I think grace is like that. I believe that our natural state is one of joy and peace and harmony. We don’t earn it or deserve it any more than James had to earn the services he got. The law provided that he was entitled to them simply by virtue of who he was. Likewise, we are entitled, as A Course in Miracles teaches, to miracles, not because of something that singles any one of us out or makes any of us more special than others, but because we are who we are, children of the universe, fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. Each and every one of us, equally.

The Dalai Lama speaks of having this precious life. And we do. We are precious and beloved, without exception. Love is our birthright because it is what we are made of. We exist in eternal grace. We can deny it or block it, but we can’t change it. If anyone (including yourself) suggests that we are not worthy of this blessing, we can respond with calm assurance that we claim only what we are all entitled to, nothing less.

Man loves because he is Love. He seeks Joy, for he is Joy. He thirsts for God for he is composed of God and he cannot exist without Him. ~Sathya Sai Baba

related posts: Show Me the Miracles!; You Can Go Home Again

PS--Several readers have voiced some confusion in the comments about the connection I was making between my son's IEP situation and miracles or grace. I have added some further explanation of the connection I was trying to make in my responses below, especially the one to "Dangerous Linda." Please take a look if you are interested. Thank you .

God Made Time, but Man Made Haste (Irish Proverb)

I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I've really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why....
~Roger Murrah and Randy VanWarmer

I was just reminded in a book I’m reading of the story about Joshua Bell, a famous violinist, who agreed to perform incognito as a street musician in a Washington, D.C. subway station. For about forty-five minutes, he performed on his 300 year old Stradivarius, worth 3.5 million dollars, some of the greatest violin music ever composed. Only days before, patrons had paid at least $100 to hear a similar performance in Boston’s Symphony Hall.

As you can guess, most people hurried by, some dropping change in his case without breaking stride. Only seven people out of over a thousand paused to listen. I probably would have been one of the ones racing by, except when my son James was a young boy.

I lived in Paris from the time James was two until just before his fourth birthday. Before that, I lived in Bangkok, Thailand, and then in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. My years in the tropics had not prepared me for keeping a young child occupied during the cold, dark winter. James’s autism, although still undiagnosed at that point, made finding something to interest him even more challenging. I missed the ubiquitous lizards of West Africa. Chasing them around our large, walled-in yard kept James active and happy for most of his waking hours in the pleasant temperatures year round.

That first winter in Paris, I was hard pressed to find anything so engaging. But one thing captivated James – the street musicians in the Paris Metro stations. So we spent many afternoons riding the rails, following the sounds of music echoing through the tunnels until we found the source. There James would stand, enraptured by whatever music was being played, swaying with the rhythm, sometimes conducting, oblivious to the hectic hoards that otherwise might have made him anxious and agitated.

In time, we became familiar with which musicians would be at which stations. Our favorite was a group from Peru. Their Andean instruments and melodies could keep us enthralled for an hour, happy and warm underground, as bundled up crowds scurried from one train to another or up the escalators to the wintry streets above.

Were any of them famous? I have no idea. But their music haunts my memory of treasured times with James. Such beauty and joy...all for free if we just pause. So generous.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.  ~Lao Tzu

related posts: You Are Here; You Have To Be Present To Win; That Man Might Be Jesus

Joy Comes

Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.  –Psalm 30:5

Once again, I find myself nearing the end of the year...surprised. Last thing I remember, it was Thanksgiving, and now poof!  Christmas is almost here with the new year close behind. I will join others in reflecting more personally on this year, but today I want to offer one more post on what seems to me to be one of the prevalent qualities of this year.

Fear. And fear’s spawn – anger, hatred, judgment, anxiety, greed, blaming, isolation, selfishness, vengeance, stress.

We saw a year full of violence all over the world and in our own back yards, shattering not only lives but also innocence. In the United States we watched as a fiercely bitter political climate continued to polarize our country, with no end in sight even now. Nature added to the devastation with storms reflecting the human climate.

What to make of a year like this? I loved what Julie Barrett of A Clear Sign said in a comment to my last post. “I actually feel more hopeful. It feels to me as if there has been a huge shift in energy to the positive. I'm not sure why that is - it just feels that way to me.”  Me, too.

There is something so radiant and resilient about the human spirit.  Something in us, sometimes in our darkest hour, reaches for the light and transcends the fear that would keep us shackled in the pit.  We can all think of examples, some that are known only to a few, some that inspire nations and even the whole world.

I need not look further than my own family. I think back to when Dan joined our family. He was a classmate of my son James, both in a special classroom because of their autism. When Dan was 14, his parents died within a few months of each other. They were refugees from Vietnam who came to the US after the war and Dan had no other family here. And so he became part of our family.

He was a 14 year old boy with autism and limited communication skills, an only child who had known only one home, with a family who loved him and protected him from the things in the world that he didn’t understand. Then suddenly he lost everything and everyone he ever knew and loved, and was thrust into that very world. He came to a new home, filled with strangers, with new food, new language, and a dog that terrified him.

It’s more than many of us have ever had to cope with, especially at a young age, and many of us have more obvious coping resources than he had. Yet Dan was not down for long. He quickly adapted and soon his sunny nature was beaming again. Dan has a zest for life that many of us aspire to. It never bothers people when they can’t understand him. They respond to his open spirit and his eagerness to be friends. He is my hero of indomitability, a phoenix rising from the ashes of the life he was forced to leave behind.

So like Julie, I am filled with hope because I know what we are made of, we humans. I know what we can do when we move through our fear and let our lights shine. And how do we do this? By heeding the lesson this young warrior learned.

A young warrior once had to battle fear.  She did not want to, but her teacher insisted.  On the day of battle, the warrior stood on one side, feeling small.  Fear stood on the other side, looking big and wrathful.  The warrior bowed to show respect and asked fear, “How do I defeat you?”  Fear thanked her for showing respect and replied, “My weapons are that I talk fast and get in your face.  Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say.  If you don’t do what I say, I have no power.”

As we wrap up this year, let’s respectfully refuse to do what fear tells us to do. Let’s move towards the morning of the new year with an open hand reaching out, with sadness perhaps for what has been lost, and joy in our hearts for what is to come. Blessings to us all.

related posts: It Is Not So; Game Change

In a Heartbeat

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. –Elizabeth Stone

Two of my friends are in a vigil now at the bedsides of their children. Two children, both young adults, struck down suddenly by two different threats, in two different ICUs, both fighting for their lives. Two sets of parents waiting...and praying.

I am thinking about these friends. About how they were going through their normal day when in a heartbeat everything changed. About how things that were important one moment – running errands, writing a blog post, going to work, calling a friend – were not at all important one moment later.

I have a cousin who as a teen suddenly developed a serious heart condition. At the time, it appeared that a virus had attacked his heart muscle. A transplant saved his life. He grew up and married. He and his wife have a beautiful baby girl. Before she was a year old, a persistent cough quickly revealed a life threatening heart condition. Deja vu. Again, the vigil waiting for a donor. Again, a donor found. Happy ending? For one family, yes. For another family, grief. And hopefully comfort in knowing that their loss saved someone else.

Two other friends lost their children, one in an airplane crash, one in a fire. Another friend loved her child through years of battling leukemia. Loss that is unimaginable until experienced.

I know many parents, like myself, who have children with autism or other developmental disabilities. Our grief is chronic. It never goes away.

We all live with the possibility of heartbreak as close as our shadow all the time. How do we make peace with that? And yet, we do.

In a classic Buddhist story, a mother, crazed with grief over her son who just died, begs Buddha to use his power to bring her child back to life. Buddha promises her that he will grant her wish if she can bring him a mustard seed from a home in which no one has ever died. She frantically goes from door to door, but everyone tells her a story of loss. She cannot find even one home that has not been touched by death. By the time she returns to Buddha, she understands the truth of sorrow and life. She asks Buddha to help her bury her son and becomes his disciple.

Today I am praying for my friends and their children. And I am also marveling at the miracle of the human spirit. We embrace life knowing that it is fleeting. We sing with joy knowing that everything is impermanent. We choose to love knowing that in doing so we expose the raw tenderness of our vulnerable hearts.

The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe. –Joanna Macy

related posts: Mary was a Real Mother; In the Softness

The Finding Game

When I came back to the U.S. after living overseas for seven years, my son James was four. We stayed in a hotel while we looked for a new home. James was disoriented and upset by the move. His autism made it even more challenging for him. I wasn’t autistic, but the move was hard on me, too.

In his own wise way, James found the means to reassure us both. He started playing a game with me in the hotel room. He would hide and I would find him. Yes, this sounds like the age old game of hide and seek. But this was different. The point of this game was not to elude discovery. The point of James’s game was to be found.

I would make a big show of looking for him. “Where is James? Is he behind the door? No, he isn’t there. Is he under the bed? No, he isn’t there.” By now James was giggling and trembling with excitement.

“There he is!” I would grab him up and we would have a raucous reunion, laughing and hugging. Holding him in my lap, I would whisper in his ear, “Mama will always find you, James. Every time. You are never lost.”

He fairly glowed with delight. Then squirming down from my lap, off he raced to hide and be found again. I played the game with him every day for weeks, each day as long as he needed me to, until he was exhausted and assured that all was well.

I once was lost but now am found. –Amazing Grace

related post: Mad/Sad/Glad Game

A Problem Solver's Problem

I’m a problem solver. For most of my life, I have viewed this as one of my greatest strengths. And it is. Except when it isn’t.

If my problem is that I’m out of clean socks, then I can solve it by doing the laundry. But if my problem is that my son is autistic, then try as I might, and try as I did for years, I cannot solve it. Years of various therapies improved my son James’s life, but they did not cure what I saw as the problem of his autism.

The problem with my problem solving approach in that situation is that I saw his autism as a problem, a problem with one solution which was to make him not autistic. When I couldn’t solve the problem, I saw myself as a failure. So then I had a son who was not “okay” and I wasn’t okay, either.

I’ve come to understand that there are limits to problem solving as an approach to every challenge. As Pema Chodron says, “Problem solving is based first on thinking there is a problem and second on thinking there is a solution. The concepts of problem and solution can keep us stuck in thinking that there is ... a right way and a wrong way.”

Chodron suggests a different approach, one that focuses on “working with rather than struggling against.”

My epiphany regarding this approach came from none other than James himself, who observed one morning, “It’s great to be James!” Wow. James never saw his autism as a problem. He never saw himself as not okay.

Eschewing a right/wrong, problem solving approach to challenges requires a relinquishment of control, a willingness to keep an open mind, a tolerance for not knowing what will happen. And sometimes a humbling of the ego.

I’m still a problem solver. But I’ve learned that my problem solving skills are useful in some situations and not in others. I’m still learning to tell the difference.

Enlightenment is the ego’s ultimate disappointment. –Chogyam Trungpa

related post: Joy in the Morning

Let It Be

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
–Let It Be, the Beatles

Is there any mother whose heart has not been broken by her children? By loving them so much, by worrying about them, by losing them, by finding them again?

One mom I know has a child with leukemia. Another has a child on drugs. Another’s child died in a fire. A friend’s daughter has morphed into bridezilla. Another has a teenager who is, well, a teenager. I have two sons with autism.

What were we thinking when we had these kids? I have never regretted for a moment having them, but I have marveled sometimes that I don’t. Surely I would regret anything else in my life that had caused me such heartache. Would any of us, if we really really knew what we were getting ourselves into, have knowingly walked into this soul pain?

Amazingly, the answer, I think, is yes. Even Mary, who knew more sorrow than many mothers, would have said again to the angel who came to tell her God’s plan, “Let it be to me according to your word.”

Years ago, when I was married and thinking that it was a good time for me to have kids, a friend with two young ones of her own passed along this advice. “Don’t have kids until you can’t stand not to.” Although the time seemed optimum, the truth was that I could stand not to, and so I waited.

Some years later, single and working overseas, adding children into my life seemed ridiculous. And yet, the drumbeat of desire beat ever faster and louder until the yearning could no longer be denied. And so I adopted James, a newborn. I flew back to the US to get him. My first week as a mom was spent at the US Passport Agency getting him a passport, and then at the Thai embassy to get him a visa so I could take him on an airplane for 27 hours home to Bangkok. Not the typical entry into motherhood! The years brought four more children – one a toddler, and three teenagers.

Where to look for guidance? Even after all these years, I think the best parenting model I’ve ever seen was a dog. My dog had seven puppies in the whelping box I had made for her in the corner of my kitchen. It wasn’t long before I recognized a pattern. When her puppies were sleeping all in a heap, she used the time to catch up on her rest, too. As they began to stir and whine for food, instead of responding to them right away, she would do a cursory check on each and then leave the box and go to her food dish. There, she would eat calmly as the yelping grew more frantic and insistent. After eating, she would drink some water and then go out in the back yard to attend to her own needs. Only then did she return to the box, and give herself over to her puppies’ mad scramble for a place at the table.

I never saw her short tempered with them until it was time to wean them. This she accomplished with little fanfare. She simply walked away from her little pack of puppies as they jumped after her trying to latch on. She sternly but gently nipped at the ones who didn’t get the message that the kitchen was closed. She didn’t stop loving them, but she let them know it was time to grow up.

I didn’t follow her model entirely. I have sometimes been a bit more like the bird I just watched outside my window as I sit here typing. A baby robin is sitting in the rhododendron and the parents keep flying up to it and feeding it. Even after the babies are out of the nest, I see the parents continuing to feed their adolescent offspring. If you have seen a baby robin, it has the perpetually frowning, disgruntled expression we would recognize on many teens’ faces. And yet the parents still spend their days catering to its hunger. There were times when I had to remind myself to be more of a dog and less of a bird.

The day to day needs of my children are no longer my responsibility. Letting go is hard. Letting it be, as the song advises, is often even harder. They have their own lives now, two of them with babies of their own. They do sit on the branches occasionally, chirping for some parental TLC, which I am happy to provide.

But the heart never heals, does it? It stays broken open and tender, vulnerable to the joy and the sorrow of loving someone that much. That’s why, in my darkest moments as a mother, when the pain seems too much to bear, I turn to Mary, a mom who understands, and I hear her whispered words of wisdom, “Let it be.”

I think I must let go. Must fear not, must be quiet so that my children can hear the Sound of Creation and dance the dance that is in them. –Russell Hoban

PS–I’m sure fathers’ hearts break just as easily, and I do not mean to exclude them. But my experience is as a mom, so I write from that place today. Nor do I mean to exclude people who do not have children. There are many ways to love, and all of them, at their deepest level, break our hearts wide open.

related posts: Mary was a Real Mother; My Plan B Family

In the Softness

Underneath the hardness there is fear
Underneath the fear there is sadness
In the sadness there is softness
In the softness is the vast blue sky
–Unknown

This poem describes my life. Lately, the last line has been floating in my spirit like a fluffy cloud on a balmy day. I wrote recently about feeling regret over how I handled my early parenting years. Even bigger than the regret is the sadness, the deep spirit sadness of ungrieved grief.

When my son James was a baby, he was so beautiful. Everything seemed possible. Over time, it was clear to everyone but me that something was different about him, something to be concerned about. But I saw only magical uniqueness. Even when he was diagnosed with autism, I failed to acknowledge or to accept the loss of my dreams. I failed to see him for, yes, the truly magically unique child he was. I denied the impact on my heart and on my life, and set out to force happy normalcy on us all. The alternative was simply more than I thought I could bear.

My heart formed a hard crust like a geode, hiding in darkness whatever feelings might dwell within. Maintaining my fantasy world required an enormous amount of energy. And it was not without a price, in lost relationships, health, and most important, in my ability to accept my son as he was. I spent the first part of his life trying to make him someone else.

One day, as I passed the partially open bathroom door, I heard James exclaim as he made faces at himself in the mirror, “It’s great to be James!” I realized then that the problem that needed to be fixed was mine, not his.

In time, my energy was exhausted and cracks began to appear in the hardness. On the outside my life looked fine. I had a lovely home, a great job, and another child. But inside I was coming apart, and what was pushing through the cracks was fear. Terror. What was I so afraid of? I think I was afraid of feeling all the feelings I had. I thought if all that grief and anger got free, I would be swallowed up in a tidal wave and swirled around in the dark water until I drowned.

But I didn’t. I survived. And when the water receded there was sadness, yes, but also joy. Life went on. And got better. Three more children came into my life, one with autism. I learned to accept all my children as they are. And to accept myself as I am. (Well, most of the time!)

With the arrival of my grandson Jaden, a brown skinned, dark eyed baby who reminds me so much of James when he was a baby, memories of James’s early years have resurfaced. And with those memories, some of the feelings have resurfaced, too. This time, however, I am not afraid. Feelings that I rejected before are now welcomed. Sadness is tenderly cradled.

In that sadness there is softness. A sweet softness. I took James out to dinner last night. Mia and Jaden came along, too. I looked from Jaden’s laughing baby face to James’s laughing grown up face, and thought of all the years, all the years of loving James so much, of hurting so much, of wanting so much. All the years of being so afraid.

I marveled at the cosmic wisdom of timing. What seemed so terrifying all those years ago seems strangely comfortable now. What I tried to hide in shame is now precious. And what I felt so angry about I am now profoundly grateful for. Of all my children, James broke my crusty heart open. Inside the dull geode shell sparkled brilliant rainbow beauty.

There will always be a raw tenderness in my heart for James, a place sensitive to touch. A place of quiet grieving. And that’s okay. The grief I denied all those years ago is now free. I breathe into the softness of it, trusting in the basic goodness of the universe, the perfection of it all, the sunny brightness of the vast blue sky.

The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe. –Joanna Macy

Related posts: Cradling Our Feelings, The Joy of Sadness

The Book I Cannot Write

The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe. –Joanna Macy

I spoke last fall at a fundraiser for an organization that serves adults with developmental disabilities. Adults like my two sons who live in one of the organization’s group homes and work at one of their sheltered work sites. I spoke about trying so hard for so many years to find a cure for my son's autism...and failing. I spoke about becoming a foster parent to James’s classmate Dan when Dan’s parents died and there was no foster family qualified to take him because of his autism. I spoke about being a single mother with two autistic teenagers, knowing that like Dan’s parents, I, too, would be gone one day, and how terrified I was about what would happen to them.

I spoke about sleeping easier these days knowing that they have a good life in the care of an organization that provides more than I ever could by myself. They work and go out with friends and do everything that anyone else does, with the help of caring and trained staff. I see them most every week, unless they are too busy and ask me not to come. I see that they are thriving.

I spoke about hope. I hope I have done the best I can. I hope that Dan’s mother looks down from heaven and believes that I have honored my promise to her to care for her son. I hope they are going to be all right when I’m gone.

It was a speech of joy and triumph, and immense gratitude. And yet when I spoke, my throat choked up and my eyes filled with tears. My voice quavered as I told my story, and more than once I had to pause and take a deep breath. The sadness is never very far away.

I’ve learned that denying my sadness over the years, being afraid of the enormity and intensity of my feelings, not only deadened the pain, but also deadened the joy. The first noble truth of Buddhism is that life is suffering. Our natural instinct is to avoid suffering, to run from it, to escape from it. But we can’t. The four noble truths do not offer a way out, but rather a way through. When my pain eventually broke through, when I got too soul sick to fight it anymore, I discovered that the released pain brought with it into the light the exquisite joy of life, here for us in unlimited abundance, always.

I write about James and Dan sometimes in my blog, little snippets of the story that began 24 years ago and will continue all my life, and theirs. People tell me I should write a book, that it would help other parents. Perhaps it would. But it is a book I cannot write. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because writing little pieces of the story here and there, as I do, does not ask me to leave the present to revisit those dark and deadened times for the extended periods which a book would require. Perhaps it is a story that has already been told, in ways more meaningful and eloquent than my writing skills permit. Perhaps the time for my writing that story is simply not yet. Or perhaps the time has passed. I don’t know.

But I know this. I’ve made my peace with sorrow. It doesn’t go away, but it isn’t scary anymore. I recognize it as the key to unlocking compassion. And compassion is the key to sweet, sweet happiness. Touching that raw place breaks my heart wide open, every time. And in that broken open place, is a deep, deep well, a bottomless well...of love.

Today is the last day of July, so this ends our focus on Step 7–Practice compassion. I hope that you have touched some tender places of joy as well as sadness, places that allow compassion to well up and spill over into your own lives and into the lives of those around you. Some posts this month have prompted comments and emails in which you have honored me and other readers by sharing some of your challenges, so I hope that you will be abundantly generous with compassion towards yourselves.

Namaste.

related posts: Mad/Sad/Glad Game, Game Change

Mary was a Real Mother

I know a woman whose son died in a carelessly started cabin fire when he was 12. That was twenty years ago. She told me her story after I commented on her brilliantly colored tattoo featuring a name, her son’s name, surrounded by turquoise rays of light emanating from an eagle, his favorite bird. One ray embraced a heart with a piece missing. She recently got the tattoo after all this time to honor his memory. And to let go, in a way.

As I listened to the story, I was struck by several things. First, you can talk to someone for a long time, years in this case, without having any idea about that person’s deep story. The story that matters. Second, tragedy is both personal and universal. I have grieved and still grieve over my son’s autism. Chronic grief. It is not the same as her grief which was heart-exploding catastrophic. I can’t imagine hers. She perhaps can’t imagine mine. But we share a mother’s broken heart.

I have often felt guided and protected by Kuan Yin, the Chinese goddess of mercy and compassion. But Kuan Yin is always serene, never born as a human being, never suffering as a mother. So when my heart has been torn apart with pain that seems unbearable, I turn to Mary, mother of Jesus. As a therapist once said to me, "She was a real mother." Mary is often portrayed with a radiant, sublimely loving face, a Kuan Yin face. But I don't think that is what her face really looked like much of the time.

What did her face look like when her wayward preteen disappeared, only to be found days later teaching in the temple, shrugging his shoulders at his parents’ worried consternation? Or when he refused to acknowledge her in front of the crowd, instead claiming the people around him as his family? (I remember telling my mom once that I wished the next door neighbor was my mom. She promptly told me to go see if Mrs. Beasley wanted any more children and locked me out of the house.)

What did Mary’s face look like when her son was being ridiculed and hated? Not a mother’s proudest moment. What did she answer when all the moms got together to brag about their kids and asked her, “And what does your son do?”

I’m sure none of that compared to what her face looked like as her son was arrested, tortured, and killed right in front of her. I don’t care how strong your faith is. That is not something any mother should have to endure. And yet so many have. Before yielding to God’s will, Jesus asked for the cup to pass from him. How many times did Mary pray this prayer? How many times have I?

I don’t pretend to understand the meaning of such suffering. Or of any suffering for that matter. But I know that some of my most fervent prayers have been to Mary. The mom prayers. The prayers a mother would understand.

Lately, I’ve been asking Mary to watch over my two too young daughters who are expecting babies of their own. I ask Mary to strengthen them with courage, to soften them with kindness, to inspire them with wisdom, to delight them with joy, to calm them with patience, to awaken them with compassion, to sustain them with faith. I ask the same for me.

No, I’m not Catholic, but I think that’s okay with her. After all, Mary was a real mother.

Another's Moccasins

Don’t judge someone until you walk a mile in his moccasins.

Many of us have heard some version of this Native American proverb. I recently read on someone’s blog about an incident that is familiar to most of us. Have you ever been annoyed in a store or restaurant or on a plane by a child misbehaving? What was your reaction? We might think that the child is a brat, that the mother is a bad mother, that kids these days are not taught good manners, that the civilized world is going down the toilet.

More times than not, when my son James was growing up, I was the mother with the misbehaving child. James was a beautiful little boy (everyone said so!). When you looked at him, you could not tell that he was autistic. But his behavior often left something to be desired. He would not look you in the eye. He liked to make animal noises. He had a low tolerance for certain stimuli, such as an amplified voice, crowds, being touched. He did not like a change in plans, or a disappointed expectation. Of course, many kids and even adults share some of these traits. But for James, something he did not like could cause a total meltdown, with screaming and crying. Once his anxiety began to escalate, it was very difficult to avoid a tantrum, and once triggered, the tantrum wrecked the rest of the day.

Taking him anywhere was always stressful. I had to think about where we were going and what might happen there. I had to be careful about what I told him, so that I didn’t set up an expectation that might get disappointed. I was his minesweeper, going before him to discover and avoid places and scenarios that I knew would cause an explosion.

Trying to engage in normal activities, like going to the grocery store, often left me drained and in despair. More times than I can remember, as James began to whine and ramp up, I could see eyes darting my way, lips pursing, eyebrows frowning, heads shaking. I wanted to scream, “He’s autistic! I’m doing the best I can. I just need to get something for dinner.”

Once I took him to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal. After he ate, he wanted to play in the plastic ball pit. He got in and started jumping around. He was having a great time. Then a little girl got in, too. James was ignoring her, but he was making his animal sounds and the little girl got nervous. (Who could blame her?) I was trying to coax James back to the entrance to leave, but he was at the far side. The little girl’s dad looked quizzically at James and then began to scowl. “Your son should not be in there if you can’t control him.” I went home and cried.

I am not denying that there are bratty kids out there, or bad moms. And I’m not denying that James had his bratty moments, or that I had my bad mom moments (more than I care to remember). My point is that we don’t always know what is going on in someone else’s life. Perhaps the mother who appears to be ignoring her misbehaving child is overwhelmed. Perhaps the child has OCD or autism or something else that affects her behavior.

Rushing to judgment blocks our ability to feel and express compassion. When I was in a position to explain what was going on with James, I found people to be universally kind and supportive. Now that James is grown, his disability is immediately apparent and people are quick to be friendly. When we have information, we often put our best foot forward. When we don’t have information, perhaps we could put that same foot in the other person’s moccasin.

Cradling Our Feelings

Hush little baby, don’t you cry
Mama’s gonna sing you a lullaby

When I moved to the Northwest, my son had just turned four. I knew something was not right, but I didn’t have a word for it yet. After lots of diagnostic testing, I had a word. Autism.

Suddenly I was in a new world, a world I did not want to be in. A world I didn’t know how to navigate. A world I only wanted to escape from.

There were lots of people to meet that I never would have crossed paths with. Experts. Parents. Doctors. Teachers. Specialists. Support groups. I was flooded with way too much information. I couldn’t begin to sort it out. I was numb. No time for feelings. I had to function. I was alone with a son I loved who had a problem. I had to fix the problem. That is what I knew how to do and I did it very well. Fix problems. Find a solution. Make everything all right.

Someone said I should talk to Sherry, a mom/expert. Sort of the mother superior for all the novitiate moms. I took James to her house. She was so friendly. I thought she was so happy because she knew how to make this all go away. She was going to share the secret cure with me. She had this great big smile on her face as she exclaimed, “I love autism!” Wow, I thought, will I ever love autism? I was pretty sure I wouldn’t.

We sat at her kitchen table while James played with her son. She was so perky as she laid out the future, my future, and told me what I needed to do. I stared out the window, wanting to be anywhere but there, like the guy in the commercial for Southwest Airline when the narrator asks, “Want to get away?” At one point she was talking about another family. She sighed, shaking her head, and confided that they had not even grieved yet. Grief. Now there was a concept I had not thought of. She seemed to think that it was important. I filed that away for another day, another year, another decade.

Feelings can be so scary. Grief, anger, shame, sadness. Sometimes they are too scary to even name. But acknowledging our feelings can help us accept them. Labeling them brings them into the light. Tara Brach describes the following example in her book Radical Acceptance. An elderly Buddhist teacher named Jacob continued to teach even though he had mid-stage Alzheimer’s. He sat down to teach a large group one time and suddenly couldn’t remember why he was there. He began to panic. His training kicked in and he started labeling out loud what was happening – afraid, confused, shaking, lost.... Gradually, he relaxed and he labeled that, too. Relaxed, safe, okay, calm. The students were moved to tears by this deep teaching. By simply labeling, he stayed grounded and didn’t get sucked into his agitation.

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us to cradle our feelings, all our feelings, like a baby. If you are agitated or overwhelmed by whatever you are feeling, you can label it like Jacob did. Then hold it gently in your arms and rock it like a baby. You can even rock your fear to sleep. (I just had this image of Rosemary, in Rosemary’s Baby, cradling her demon-spawn child. Love is that powerful.) Cradling our feelings helps us contain them, tolerate them, soothe them, embrace them.

Eventually, I did stop fighting my grief and fear and sadness. I yielded. And the pain was not so great. I learned that living with the fear of feelings was much, much worse that living with the feelings themselves.

In a classic Buddhist story, a mother, crazed with grief over her son who just died, begs Buddha to use his power to bring her child back to life. Buddha promises her that he will grant her wish if she can bring him a mustard seed from a home in which no one has ever died. She frantically goes from door to door, but everyone tells her a story of loss. She cannot find even one home that has not been touched by death. By the time she returns to Buddha, she understands the truth of sorrow and life. She asks Buddha to help her bury her son and becomes his disciple.

When I feel a distressing feeling now, I rock it tenderly and sing it lullabies. I think about all the other people in the world who feel this feeling. I know that whatever I feel has been felt before, and is being felt this very moment, by millions of people. I reach out to them, filled with compassion for us all. Our hearts are one. And in that oneness I find peace.

Mad/Sad/Glad Game

My son has autism. People with autism have difficulty with feelings. They don't pick up cues about what other people are feeling. They sometimes don't know what they are feeling themselves.

When my son was a little boy, we would play the mad/sad/glad game. He would say mad or sad or glad. Then I would act out the feeling. If he said sad, I would make a very sad face and act like I was crying. I would say, "Oh, I feel so sad." Then he would name another feeling and I would act it out with all the exaggerated drama I could muster. Then we would switch – I would name the feeling and he would act it out. We only used those three. It was simple and he liked words that rhymed. He loved the game and we would play it over and over. I hoped that he would learn about his own feelings. I hoped that he would develop empathy for other people.

I look back at those years and I realize that as I was trying so hard to help him understand feelings, I was denying mine. I felt so desperate. So alone. So terrified. Inadequate. Overwhelmed. Devastated. Ashamed. And angry. But I didn't acknowledge any of these feelings. They were so big and so dark and so scary. It was like having demons locked in your basement. I kept them at bay by trying to "fix" my son. How ironic. And futile. On both counts. My son is still autistic and the demons broke out long ago. I made my peace with them and they moved on, although they sometimes come for tea. And I think I still hear a few little ones scurrying around in the dark corners of the basement.

revised from archives

As It Is

“Expectations destroy our peace of mind, don’t they? They’re future disappointments planned out in advance.” –from A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George

I remember when someone first mentioned the word autism in assessing my son. A few days later, as I was still trying to take that in, terrified about what it meant for my son and what it meant for me, feeling disoriented and desperate and in denial, a friend’s mother asked me, “So how do you feel about the fact that James won’t be going to Harvard?”

All these years later, I still marvel at her insensitivity. But that is not the point here. The point is that I did have expectations, perhaps not of Harvard, but of what life would be like for my son, what life would be like for me as his mother.
I did not relinquish those expectations without a fight. I fought for years. I fought for the hopes and dreams and fantasies I was so attached to that I couldn’t imagine what life would be like if I gave them up. I fought so hard to get away from what was real, that I caused a lot of unnecessary pain – to myself, to James, and to others.

On the outside, I was being a good advocate for James. I tried every possible therapy, took advantage of every special ed service, consulted with an array of experts, and read a library full of books. But on the inside I was simply trying to escape, to escape the pain of loving my child so fiercely and so helplessly. I was trying to make reality something other than what it was. In retrospect, I think my denial and my efforts to control something I couldn’t control caused me more suffering that the autism itself.

Expectations are not really bad. We do hope for things and anticipate things. We make goals and we strive to attain them. We expect certain outcomes to result from certain efforts. And when our expectations are disappointed, we are sad.

But then sometimes we increase and prolong our suffering because of our attachment to our expectations, our unwillingness to acknowledge that things did not turn out the way we wanted, our quickness to blame someone or something, our refusal to grieve and move on.

This year, I had expectations. I had plans and hopes and dreams and fantasies, all of which brought me considerable delight in anticipation. And then, in the blink of an eye, things changed. But this time I was better prepared. My first reaction was to remind myself that I didn’t know if this new direction was good or bad. My second reaction was to realize that it was neither. It simply was.

It is as it is
And as it is
Is as it should be

I went up to my cabin last weekend. I wrote a list of all my expectations that are now not going to happen. I described them in all the glowing perfection that only fantasies can have. And then I placed the paper in the fire and blessed them as they went up in smoke. I let them go. And turned to face a new beginning.

So when you feel all the endings coming ... begin looking for all the beginnings. –Ann Voskamp

Joy in the Morning

[This is my first guest post on someone else's blog. The post begins here. To read the rest, click on the link.]

Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30:5

I wept a lot when my son was growing up. From the moment I heard the word autism, I set out to fix him, to use my love, my intelligence, my resources, my will, my faith to make him well.

I tried every therapy that came along. And I prayed every kind of prayer. I bargained, I visualized, I begged, I focused, I believed, trusting that if I could just summon a mustard seed of faith, he would be healed. His continued autism signified failure. I was a failure as a mother and as a person of faith.

Then one morning when James was a teenager,... [read the rest of this post at Fireflies and Hummingbirds]

Giving Ourselves Permission

I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. –The Dalai Lama

We all want to be happy. Realizing that at least 40% of our happiness is based on our habitual thoughts, words, and actions, we might set out to change our habits to enhance our happiness and deepen our joy. But maybe we seem to make little progress. We feel frustrated and wonder why our efforts don’t produce results.

If someone asks you if you want to be happy, you would probably say of course. But sometimes we hold shadow beliefs that block our happiness. We may not even be aware of these beliefs.

Take me, for example. I was not a very happy person for much of my life. Not that I didn’t have happy times. I did. But I did not have a foundation of deep, abiding joy. I had a foundation of anxiety and fear. I believed that I had to stay vigilant. I believed that if I relaxed my guard, terrible things would happen to the people and things I felt responsible for. I felt so weighed down by crushing responsibility, much of which I later understood was not even mine.

When I was a little girl, my mother had debilitating headaches and sometimes fainted. Often I was the only one home with her. I would have to get the smelling salts and try to revive her. I was afraid that one day I would not be able to revive her and she would die. When I would come home from school, I would come into the house and call for her, terrified that she had died when I was not there to take care of her.

Then, when I became a mother, I felt responsible for my son’s autism. (I was otherwise a fairly rational adult.) My failure to find a cure for him was a personal failure that caused more soul anguish than I have words to describe (The Book I Cannot Write).

This need to be vigilant permeated so much of my life I didn’t even see it. I didn’t really understand that I had a choice about these beliefs. I just thought that this was how the world worked. My wake up call came in the form of a health crisis which brought home to me the imperative need to change my life (Resolution or Revolution). And so I set about to do that.

As part of that process, I finally saw that much of my world view was based on beliefs that I could change, that I wanted to change. Einstein said that the most important choice we can make is to decide whether the universe is friendly or hostile. For much of my life I saw the universe as hostile. I wanted to make a different choice, but I couldn’t just snap my fingers and change my beliefs. These beliefs were the basis of deeply ingrained habits. I realized that to change these habits, I needed to address the underlying beliefs. I needed to believe that terrible things would not happen if I relaxed my vigilance. Or rather, I needed to believe that terrible things, which do in fact happen sometimes, did not happen because I relaxed my vigilance. I needed to give myself permission to be happy.

Giving ourselves permission to be happy is what Step 1 is all about. Do you have shadow beliefs? They could take many forms, as I described in Getting Our Happiness Bearings. Some people believe they don’t deserve happiness, or that it is unfair to be happy when others are not. Some people might think that being happy is frivolous or unsophisticated. When you think about joy, do you feel any subtle resistance? Any discomfort? Any anxiety? Can you identify any beliefs underlying these feelings?

If so, then consider what it would take to change these beliefs. Your shadow beliefs might not be as lifelong and deeply rooted as mine were, so perhaps being aware of them and substituting other beliefs will not be so challenging. Whatever your shadow beliefs are, what we are looking for is substitute beliefs.

For example, because my shadow beliefs involved a sense of danger, I substituted the belief “I am safe.” Whenever I would catch myself feeling anxious about relaxing my guard, I would tell myself “I am safe.” Eventually, I truly believed it, and I began to experience the universe as a friendly place.

If you can identify a shadow belief that is blocking your happiness, what would the counter belief be? If you will make an effort to consciously substitute the counter belief (even if you don’t really believe it yet), eventually the counter belief will take root and grow.

Giving ourselves permission to be happy will free us from self-sabotage of our efforts to develop joyful habits.

Related post: Fun is Good!

Our Treasurest Place

My two autistic sons live in a group home for adults with developmental disabilities. It is a modest home by anyone’s standards, funded primarily by the clients’ government benefits. They do not have lives of privilege or abundance in material things.

I was taking them home recently after a family dinner. As I pulled into their driveway, James said wistfully, “This is the treasurest place on earth.” When I asked him what he meant, he paused and nodded thoughtfully, “I have everything I want.”

In the aftermath of the crazed scramble for a retirement/severance package (see last post), I have been reflecting on James’s words this week. One might not expect profound wisdom from the mouth of a young adult with autism, which just proves that we need to be open to truth from any source.

Notice that James didn’t say he has everything he needs, which would certainly be true. He went further to say that he has everything he wants. How many of us can say that? How many of us do say it?

Make no mistake, James does want things. A new DVD, a hamburger and fries with root beer, a trip to the library. So what did he mean? I think he meant that he has everything he wants in order to be happy. I think he recognized that his happiness was complete whether he has certain “things” or not. His statement was one of utter contentment and appreciation.

May we all live in our treasurest place and have everything we want.

He who knows enough is enough will always have enough. –Tao Te Ching

The Book I Cannot Write

I spoke last week at a fundraiser for an organization that serves adults with developmental disabilities. Adults like my two sons who live in one of the organization’s group homes and work at one of their sheltered work sites. I spoke about trying so hard for so many years to find a cure for my autistic son...and failing. I spoke about becoming a foster parent to James’s classmate Dan when Dan’s parents died and there was no foster family qualified to take him because of his autism. I spoke about being a single mother with two autistic teenagers, knowing that like Dan’s parents, I, too, would be gone one day, and how terrified I was about what would happen to them.

I spoke about sleeping easier these days knowing that they have a good life in the care of an organization that provides more than I ever could by myself. They work and go out with friends and do everything that anyone else does, with the help of caring and trained staff. I see them most every week, unless they are too busy and ask me not to come. I see that they are thriving.

I spoke about hope. I hope I have done the best I can. I hope that Dan’s mother looks down from heaven and believes that I have honored my promise to her to care for her son.

It was a speech of joy and triumph, and immense gratitude. And yet when I spoke, my throat choked up and my eyes filled with tears. My voice quivered as I told my story. The sadness is never very far away.

I write about James and Dan sometimes, little snippets of the story that began 23 years ago and will continue all my life, and theirs. People tell me I should write a book, that it would help other parents. Perhaps it would. I don’t know. But it is a book I cannot write.

I’ve learned that denying my feelings over the years, being afraid of the enormity and intensity of them, not only deadened the pain, but also deadened the joy. The first noble truth of Buddhism is that life is suffering. Our natural instinct is to avoid suffering, to run from it, to escape from it. But we can’t. The four noble truths do not offer a way out, but rather a way through. When my pain eventually broke through, when I got too soul sick to fight it anymore, I discovered that the released pain brought with it into the light the exquisite joy of life, here for us in unlimited abundance, always.

I’ve made my peace with sorrow. It doesn’t go away, but it isn’t scary anymore. I recognize it as the key to unlocking compassion. And compassion is the key to sweet, sweet happiness.

I can’t write the book I’m asked to write, about raising my sons. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because writing little pieces of the story here and there, as I do, does not ask me to leave the present to revisit those dark and deadened times for the extended periods which a book would require. Perhaps it is a story that has already been told, in ways more meaningful and eloquent than my writing skills permit. Perhaps the time for my writing that story is simply not yet. Or perhaps the time has passed. I guess I’ll find out. So be it.

Related posts Mad/Sad/Glad Game, Game Change