Faith, Family, & Focaccia

A faith and culture Mommy blog, because real life gets all mixed together like that.


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Fear-Rejecting Parenting: Reflections on the Courage of an Amazing Family

I think I might have been more traumatized than the Gigglemonster when he fell and smacked his head on a hard, stone floor (notice the lump!)

I might have been more traumatized than the Gigglemonster when he fell and smacked his head on a hard, stone floor (notice the lump!)

Something they never tell you about becoming a parent is all the fear that suddenly invades your life when you take that precious, miraculous, fragile little bundle home from the hospital. Watching your heart (captured in the body of your child) grow, and discover, and slowly move away from you is both breathtakingly joyful and breathtakingly frightening.

In my experience, the fears of parenting run the whole spectrum of terrifying possibilities. I am afraid of the things that could happen to my children (be that physical pain and illness, or car accidents, or rejection by friends, or failure to achieve their dreams), and I am afraid about what they will be exposed to (from societal evils like consumerism and bigotry to the very individual dangers of evil people who might try to harm them). I worry about their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. I worry about their present and about their future. Moments of intense pride in their character and accomplishments are tempered by moments of fear when their whining, or selfishness, or timidity conjure up imaginings of how these traits might hamper them as they mature.

Added to fears for my children are the fears for my own failures as their mother: failures to protect them, failures to guide and teach them, failures to give them all that they need and deserve, and failures to back away so that they can learn independence and develop their own coping strategies when life is imperfect.

My own fears are probably holding Princess Imagination back from really learning how to swim. It's so hard to trust that she can learn to be safe in water.

My own fears are probably holding Princess Imagination back from really learning how to swim. It’s so hard to trust that she can learn to be safe in water.

I don’t mean to give the impression that motherhood is an endless labyrinth of fears and forebodings. In fact, the apprehension I feel is so powerful only because the love and joy of parenting my little ones is so intense. It is because there is so much to lose, so much indescribable happiness, that my hands occasionally shake when grasped by soft, plump little fingers. My life is incalculably better because of the two invaders who so completely upturned it with their presence and their needs.

And yet, I am unavoidably aware that my relationship to fear has undergone a qualitative shift since I became a mother. Fear now has a secret entry to my heart that was never there before. When my body gave my children entry into life, with all its dangers, it also opened a door for fear to fill the empty space where they once nestled under my heart. It’s as though the intense, physical dependence that began our relationship has reprogrammed me. I will now – I think forever – know myself as the one whose responsibility it is to protect and nurture my children. What that looks like changes as they grow, but the imperative does not slacken. A central part of my very identity is the absolute obligation to seek their well-being, and for me that includes a persistent awareness of everything that threatens it.

Perhaps that is why I was so struck by the story of Heather and Cameron Von St. James when I was introduced to it a few weeks back. Eight years ago they shared the awesome experience of bringing home their baby girl and encountering the joy of discovering all the wonderful ways their lives were now changed. That part of their story is intimately and sweetly familiar to me. The fear they faced just a few months later, however, is something I struggle to even imagine. Heather was diagnosed with Mesothelioma – a virulent form of cancer that usually results in death within 2 years of diagnosis. She was given just 15 months to live.

Fifteen months! That kind of diagnosis would be devastating to anyone, but for new parents … my parenting fears pale in comparison. Such a huge element of my fear as a mother is my immense sense of responsibility – the need to protect, and love, and guide my children in all the ways they need me. But what if I faced the near certainty that I wouldn’t be there to do any of those things? I really don’t think I can imagine what it must be to face that kind of fear.

What I can do, is to share my awe-filled respect for what Heather and Cameron did with their fears: they named them, and then they rejected them. They began a unique ceremony of inviting friends and family to join them for a backyard bonfire. In the light of that fire, a symbol of danger, they write their fears on plates and then throw them into the fire. They use the destructive power of the flames to smash their fears and reclaim their lives, and in the process they embrace each day they have with each other and with their daughter, Lily.

As it turns out, those days have been more numerous than the doctors ever imagined. It has been eight years since the lung removal surgery (the “lung leavin’ day” as they have dubbed it) that is the date for the Von St. James’ annual ceremony. Heather has been at every one.

Heather’s life, and her ability to be present in her daughter’s life, is miracle enough. But this amazing family has gone a step beyond by sharing their miracle with others as an inspiration for fear-rejecting parenting. They have taken a source of unimaginable fear and changed it into a chance to embrace love instead.

WOW!

I have often been comforted by the words of the apostle John (I John 4:18) that “there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear,” however I have also struggled to really experience them in my life. In all the relationships that matter most to me – those where my love is the deepest – fear seems to hold the opposite relationship to love. Especially as a mother, fear seems to grow with love, not be banished by it. But here, in this inspiring example, I think I am beginning to understand a bit more about how to claim this truth in my own life.

The Von St. James’ are not without fear. They hold their fear-smashing ceremony every year, because fear is not something that can be banished once and for all. The fact that Heather has beaten the odds does not remove all the fears that come with a cancer diagnosis as a young mother. She still has fears about the cancer coming back, about missing out on her daughter’s life. And so each year she rejects those fears – rejects their power to control her life and to tarnish each day of love that she has with her daughter.

“Perfect love casts out fear.” Casting out is a willful act – a decision. By writing a fear onto a plate and then throwing it into the fire this special family, and a growing crowd of others, make the decision to reject fear’s power to rob their love of its joy and beauty.

So, this blog post is my plate today. I am writing down my fear of failing as a mother – whether through my own imperfection or my inability to control all the evil in the world that can harm my children. It’s out of my control but that does not have to tarnish the joy of loving them. Perhaps, if I learn the discipline of regularly rejecting that fear, it will even help to liberate that love.

May today and every day be a day to throw fear into the fire and instead embrace the joy I have today.

(To learn more about Heather and Cameron’s story, or to help them raise money for Mesothelioma awareness, you can visit their webpage: http://www.mesothelioma.com/heather/lungleavinday )

Each day with them is a reason to smile!

Each day with them is a reason to smile!


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Lenten Grace: Could We Give Up Whining For Forgiveness?

Tonight Princess Imagination and I attended our church’s Ash Wednesday service. It was a quiet but powerful hour, and a wonderful chance to share a moment with my girl away from her little brother’s sweet but demanding presence. It was even more thrilling to hear her soft but eager whisper in my ear, asking to go up for her first ever anointing with ashes. Best of all to hear her clear, confident explanation of what it was all about on the car ride home.

This was an experience I never had at her young age. I grew up in the tradition-wary culture of California’s non-denominational churches, and therefore the Lenten journey has been a more recent addition to my spiritual walk. Despite the complete centrality of faith in my childhood, I had very little sense of the church calendar and the intentional focus it brings to a yearly progression through defined phases of the life of faith. Other than the carols and pageantry of Christmas, the compelling drama of Good Friday, and the jubilant celebration of Resurrection Sunday (a.k.a. Easter), the rest of the year was pretty much open. The Holy Spirit, or the Pastor’s whim (or more likely some combination of the two) was responsible for directing the particular focus of attention on any given Sunday.

It wasn’t until my adult life brought me to the East Coast and membership in mainline churches that I learned how much more structured much of the Protestant Church is in regards to congregational worship. Both the weekly liturgy of structured services, and the yearly calendar that followed set “seasons” was unfamiliar. At first I pined for the freedom and spontaneity of my familiar faith surroundings and felt stifled by the stiff order of services and the rote, repetitive formulas. How can you pray from the heart when you are just reading words written by someone else? Church felt like reading from a script, rather than worship.

But then I started to notice the way that this structure incorporated disciplines that had been very inconsistent in my church background.

Especially confession.

It’s not that the need to confess my sin had been ignored in my Christian upbringing. I was very aware that my entire salvation involved confession as a crucial element, so that I could repent, turn away from the things that separated me from God, and receive forgiveness to empower a new life. I had experienced this miracle, and understood what true confession meant. What I had missed, however, was the corporate sharing of this awareness as an integral part of worship. Confession was personal – something done in private prayer, or perhaps at an altar call. Confession was not something done by the entire community as a whole.

And that difference makes all the difference when it comes to confession of social sins.

Many readers who know me will probably be expecting me to now launch into a discussion (lecture?) about one of the many social justice issues about which I am passionate. I could certainly do that, and such a topic would probably be germane to my point. My recent repatriation process, however, has been drawing my attention to a persistent itch just under the skin of my native culture that the Lenten call to confession is begging me to scratch.

It’s the itch of unforgiveness, especially the self-righteous disdain for small offenses that we love to rehash.

This might not seem like the kind of hefty spiritual stain that the season of Lent calls us to lay down, but for that very reason, that very insidious, seemingly petty quality, it has grabbed my attention as something that desperately needs an act of corporate confession.

Perhaps I should offer a brief explanation of what I am talking about. A little more than a month ago a random stranger in the grocery store made a snide comment about my son. We were standing behind the woman in the check-out line and my normally happy Gigglemonster was throwing an impressive tantrum over my refusal to buy him a toy car that he had seen and suddenly needed to have. She looked back at his screaming, flailing little ball of frustration and then commented to her companion (loudly enough for both my son and I to hear her), “Well he sure is spoiled!”

The judgment made me more than a little angry, but I had enough on my hands trying to calmly deal with the tantrum and I was just self-controlled enough to not want to set a bad example for my kiddos, so I didn’t snap back with any of the many derisive and/or defensive replies that sprang into my brain. I dealt with my son, made our purchases, and got us safely home.

And then I vented on Facebook… in detail… letting the affirming community of the internet know just how great my put-downs could have been by displaying them in all their snarky glory for the optional cost of a “like.”

I got a lot of likes, and it was very gratifying. Friends affirmed my rejection of the stranger’s critique, and praised my parenting skills, and shared similar stories of public meltdowns, and sympathized about the unholy judgment of ignorant strangers. My wonderful cousin even linked to a very funny blog post by a parent-blogger who rehashed an encounter in a supermarket with a similar judging stranger. I appreciated the link because it reinforced my satisfying sense of self-righteous offense toward the inconsiderate stranger. It felt so very good to join together and verbally lambast the people who insult hard-working parents. We’re doing our best, and it’s the hardest job in the world, and if you feel you have the right to demean me or my child for trying to figure out a problem that just isn’t solvable, then you should be prepared for the vitriolic consequences.

Right?

And then a sweet and gracious friend made a simple comment that gently brought me face to face with the poison of my relished anger: “You have to imagine it’s really just her own insecurities rising to the surface.  You never know what she’s going through.”

And there it is. We never do know what the other is going through, do we? I’d felt quite comfortable, up on my high horse, scorning this stranger’s inconsideration for what I and my son were going through. But I had never considered her position. I’d never wanted to. I much preferred to brew my anger at her words into a tempting tea to offer to my friends. What is more, the act of sharing the cup with them had increased rather than slacked my thirst for unforgiving sniping. Shared anger is so much more fulfilling. Or, at least, it fills the mind and leaves very little room for grace.

And while my example highlights my own culpability in this trend, I am very aware of how much my own reactions reflect the culture around me. American culture is not unique in this regard, certainly, but as a recent re-entrant to these United States, it has struck me how very imbedded this reflex is in our national psyche. So much of our daily conversation, and talk radio, and reality TV is consumed by the compelling magnet of stories about what has been done to us, with precious little talk about forgiveness.

And this is why my Lenten reflections have me thinking about the need for a societal confession: a confession of how we like to relish wrongs in the public sphere. It is an understandable instinct, and one I clearly share. But wouldn’t it be miraculous if we could give this up for lent? If we could glory instead in stories of forgiveness? If our social dialogue could be about extending grace to the other, and maybe even finding out what they are going through, instead of jumping straight to condemnation of its result?

The sermon at tonight’s service highlighted Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and his work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa. As an example of forgiveness and its power, it is hard to think of a more compelling story. The wrongs addressed by the Commission are heinous (murders, tortures, bombings, to name a few), and the kind of forgiveness offered is truly breathtaking, including not just amnesty for wrongs but a goal of reconciliation between victims and perpetrators. It makes my little reflections about not harboring a record of wrongs all seem small and insignificant.

But if that’s true, if relished grievances are nothing in comparison by what has been done by a society that truly understood the need for forgiveness, then maybe it’s not too much to ask of our society, or at least our church, during lent.

So there is my Lenten challenge: give up anger over petty wrongs; practice communal efforts at forgiveness. Let’s see how much grace can abound in 40 days.

Who’s with me?