I have to remind myself when our youngest daughter comes home from school
with a fresh from the front report about some eighth grade injustice she
experienced that day to give her story time to settle around her before I offer
any comments. It is her story, after all. I haven't been in eighth grade for a
long time. Even though I like to think I know what hasn't changed all that much
in the life of a 13-year-old, there is some truth to that claim of hers she'll
occasionally toss my way if I offer advice too soon--or too apparently dated. You
just don't get it.
True enough, I'll admit. And in the next instant, I'll recognize--appropriately, with a touch of melancholy--that I am now on the other side of that invisible but undeniable line that Louis Armstrong acknowledged in his song What a Wonderful World:
I hear babies cry,
I watch them grow,
They'll learn much more,
Than I'll ever know.
This is the toughest part of being a parent, the part that crashes down upon us suddenly during one of those exchanges with our children where we realize with crystal clarity that these once upon a time little people who looked to us for everything no longer see us as the person with all their answers. Don't get me wrong. This is as it should be. How could we have their answers when it takes a lifetime to process all of our own?
The hero's journey is about growth and survival.
It's about weathering the rites of passage life has in store for us. The
journey requires a separation from the comfortable, known world, and an
initiation into a new level of awareness, skill, and responsibility, and then a
return home. Each stage of the journey must be passed successfully if the
initiate is to become a hero. To turn back at any stage is to reject the need
to grow and mature. At stake is our willingness to pursue and fulfill a
personal destiny, that tough job that the late writer-director Harold Ramis
spoke about in his 2005 interview with Terry Gross, and which I quoted from
here a couple of weeks ago. It's tough because it is so singular, meaning, we
must face our choices--or the responsibility of the choices we make or do not
make--all alone. At the same time, our journey here is immensely universal
because we are all struggling with this experience of being human.
The March issue of The Sun features an interview with one of my favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver. I have learned a great deal from Kingsolver about the hard work of being human. She once counseled writers "to probe the tender spots of an imperfect world" when sitting down to paper and pen or keyboard and screen. This is sacred advice not only because it acknowledges the world's imperfections, but because it suggests we might make some progress toward accepting them with a little investigation and a bit of compassion. This is, after all, how the world is perfected, according to the philosopher Sri Aurobindo, by our stumbling, imperfectly lived lives. It is from Kingsolver in this most recent interview that I learn of her antidote for "bad" days, those days where she finds herself with nothing positive to say--despite her otherwise prolific nature--in the face of inexplicable events. When tenderness takes a holiday. It's a good antidote, one that I tuck into my own pages where I can reach for it as well. It's a quote attributed to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who faced his share of the world's imperfection head-on. The late reverend said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I imagine director Steve McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley had an appreciation of that arc when they accepted awards for their work on the film "12 Years A Slave" last Sunday. In deference to MLK, Jr.'s words, I say, "Amen." My own first-hand lessons have taught me that the two toughest parts of the human experience are always about granting permission and extending forgiveness. And, like all of the toughest work, it begins with a look at ourselves.
You just don't get it is the daily refrain delivered to me by my youngest. And I get that. She has a point. I will always have a new blind-spot to double-check or some old habit that needs reexamining. A perspective that adjusts like a pose that one day arrives with more ease. Change happens. Inhale. Exhale. There. It's happened again. I also know there is much my youngest doesn't yet get. She is at the threshold of her journey that will travel that long moral arc, and I offer her all the tenderness I can muster.
When I look back upon my own moral arc, like Dickens made his characters do in A Christmas Carol, I hope that I will marvel at not only the length of it, but the height of the arc as well. How high was I willing to reach? How far beyond the limitations I once set for myself was I willing to go? If we can hope for such a thing, I will hope to have learned about being gracious and tender toward my accumulated imperfections. I will hope to have learned that the stumbling fool I sometimes see all too clearly in myself was my one true teacher.
True enough, I'll admit. And in the next instant, I'll recognize--appropriately, with a touch of melancholy--that I am now on the other side of that invisible but undeniable line that Louis Armstrong acknowledged in his song What a Wonderful World:
I hear babies cry,
I watch them grow,
They'll learn much more,
Than I'll ever know.
This is the toughest part of being a parent, the part that crashes down upon us suddenly during one of those exchanges with our children where we realize with crystal clarity that these once upon a time little people who looked to us for everything no longer see us as the person with all their answers. Don't get me wrong. This is as it should be. How could we have their answers when it takes a lifetime to process all of our own?
Psychologist Joseph
Campbell is best known for his research in mythology and specifically for his
extensive body of original work regarding the hero archetype in stories and
legends. According to Campbell, many fictional stories and real-life narratives
contain elements of the hero’s journey. A
prolific author, Campbell was fascinated by the human experience. He identified
the hero's journey as having three distinct phases: Departure, Initiation
and Return. Departure marks the beginning of the journey. The hero leaves her
comfortable and familiar world and ventures into the darkness of the unknown.
During the second stage of the journey, known as Initiation, the hero is
subjected to a series of tests in which she must prove her character. Finally,
in stage three, the hero comes home. This is the point of Return. Here, the
hero brings her discovery, her wisdom, and all that she has gained from her
journey back for the benefit of all.
The March issue of The Sun features an interview with one of my favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver. I have learned a great deal from Kingsolver about the hard work of being human. She once counseled writers "to probe the tender spots of an imperfect world" when sitting down to paper and pen or keyboard and screen. This is sacred advice not only because it acknowledges the world's imperfections, but because it suggests we might make some progress toward accepting them with a little investigation and a bit of compassion. This is, after all, how the world is perfected, according to the philosopher Sri Aurobindo, by our stumbling, imperfectly lived lives. It is from Kingsolver in this most recent interview that I learn of her antidote for "bad" days, those days where she finds herself with nothing positive to say--despite her otherwise prolific nature--in the face of inexplicable events. When tenderness takes a holiday. It's a good antidote, one that I tuck into my own pages where I can reach for it as well. It's a quote attributed to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who faced his share of the world's imperfection head-on. The late reverend said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I imagine director Steve McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley had an appreciation of that arc when they accepted awards for their work on the film "12 Years A Slave" last Sunday. In deference to MLK, Jr.'s words, I say, "Amen." My own first-hand lessons have taught me that the two toughest parts of the human experience are always about granting permission and extending forgiveness. And, like all of the toughest work, it begins with a look at ourselves.
You just don't get it is the daily refrain delivered to me by my youngest. And I get that. She has a point. I will always have a new blind-spot to double-check or some old habit that needs reexamining. A perspective that adjusts like a pose that one day arrives with more ease. Change happens. Inhale. Exhale. There. It's happened again. I also know there is much my youngest doesn't yet get. She is at the threshold of her journey that will travel that long moral arc, and I offer her all the tenderness I can muster.
When I look back upon my own moral arc, like Dickens made his characters do in A Christmas Carol, I hope that I will marvel at not only the length of it, but the height of the arc as well. How high was I willing to reach? How far beyond the limitations I once set for myself was I willing to go? If we can hope for such a thing, I will hope to have learned about being gracious and tender toward my accumulated imperfections. I will hope to have learned that the stumbling fool I sometimes see all too clearly in myself was my one true teacher.
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