Skip to main content

Raise Your Words

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. 

-Robert Frost

With so much going on right now,

both big and small, macro and micro, my mind has been on a spin cycle.  Big, cultural, societal problems take up mental real estate and battle with my smaller, everyday thoughts and frustrations about parenting, in particular.  

How do I show support?

How brave will I be?

How many times do I have to tell them?

Just stop bickering!

What happened in the news today?

What happened at school today?

We have to do better.

How can I be a better mom?

I just want to cry.

I just want to scream.

Poetry that stuck.

On the screen in worship on Sunday was a poem by Rumi, a famous 13th century poet and scholar.  It really spoke to my heart and my mind, addressing my big and small worries and thoughts.  Raising my words in my parenting, in my relationships, in political discourse, in advocacy, in support, will cause so much more growth, so much more blooming, than simply raising my voice.  I hope I can rise to the occasion.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Me, too.

Click here to download Me, too doodle. And most of you, too. You may have noticed by now the viral trend on social media, in particular, Facebook, in which folks, mainly women are posting as their statuses, "Me, too."  Some elaborate on this with the following statement: If all the people who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote "Me too." as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem. And astoundingly to some is the degree to which sexual assault/harassment has affected so many of the people we know.  For me, a significant majority of my female friends and acquaintances have shared this status, some expounding with more specific details of what those experiences were and some not.  But, what surprised me was how many of us either shared in our statuses or later in comments, or maybe, like me, simply had that thought, that perhaps we shouldn't share, because what happened to us wasn't bad enough.   ...

You Do You

I am so over our competition culture. Can we all agree to be confident enough in our own life choices that we can stop overselling them to our friends and family?  And stop arguing or at least implying that our choices are superior to theirs? You do you. Click here to download You Do You doodle. And I'll do me.  We can all be happy doing what is best for us.   Home school or public school or private school.  Daisies or succulents.  Cable or Netflix/Hulu or no TVs.   Disposable diapers or cloth.  Mini-van or SUV or truck.  Color your hair or go gray.  Heels or flats.  Vegan or vegetarian or flexitarian or carnivore.  Read the book or watch the movie or both.  Coke or Pepsi or "I don't drink pop."  Pop or soda or soda pop.  Run or lift weights or dance or don't.  From scratch everything or go out to eat.  Chocolate lover or someone who obviously doesn't have tastebuds. Of course, of course...

What's Essential

I love personality quizzes.   I recently became intrigued by the  Enneagram types , have been known to investigate my  Meyer-Briggs type , and even found out my  Hogwarts house .  You might think they are bologna or worthless, and you might be right.  But, I think they are insightful, reflective, thought-provoking, convicting, and frankly, fun.   I also love spiritual gift inventories, which I participated in during an adult study at church once upon a time, and in another study, some time later, I participated in a study about defining my faith.  Those things are life-changing, eye-opening, and somehow super comforting.  To be sitting in a place where you are really understanding what and why you believe what you do is incredibly peaceful, even when some of your answers are I don't know .  Furthermore, it allows you to more easily identify when or why those beliefs change.  I recommend taking that journey if you are ...