Promptings - our story continues

It has been a long, short week for me. So much stimulation. So much to think about…Christina Baldwin’s workshop, Phyllis Tickle’s talk on the Great Emergence, a new project and training with Sweeten Life Systems, and of course, the monthly A Small Group gathering at Peaslee. I’m feeling exhausted (and strangely energized) this morning. And, as if that wasn’t enough – we’ve switched to daylight savings time. Ugh!

How long will it take me assimilate all of this? Here is a piece.

After reviewing the materials and suggested process from Christina Baldwin's Story as Leadership workshop, I wrote several more stories. She asked us to think of turning points in our lives and our stories about those events.

This reminded me of the trauma I experienced at 9 years old, when our family moved to a new community. While moving is a trauma for many of us, it was compounded by the fact I had to leave my cousin, Diane. We had lived 1 block from each other for 6 years (2/3 of our lives).

We did almost everything together. Diane and I were like twins in many ways.

We have been separated for a long time now. She has lived in Germany for almost 20 years. Her visits home have been few and far between. And, we have not always been able to connect.

Despite all of that, when we are together with family, we have these side conversations. It is like we are 9 years old again. We connect at a heart level – like immediately. I’d walk away and think, that was weird – how did we do that?

Even my sister and I have to do some warm up to get to the hard stuff, but bam! Diane would dig right in telling me her hard stuff.

We have taken such different paths – it would seem we have less and less in common AND yet, there we are having these heartfelt conversations.

Even though I have not seen or heard from Diane in almost 2 years – since her mother’s funeral – I had this strong desire to share my story with Diane of our time together as children and the pain of leaving her in 3rd grade. My intent was to say this is how I’ve experienced the trauma – how did you cope with it?

I send the email off on Saturday night. Sunday morning, there in my inbox was a reply from Diane.

“Lainie, you made me cry.” She went on to tell me that she has not contacted any of us since the funeral. She now realizes she has been hiding in Germany not dealing with her mother’s death. She then went on to tell me that she was in the midst of preparing to come to the USA for a 2 month visit. She had been dreading coming home and the feelings that will come. My email had broken something lose in her – she was now looking forward to coming home to see me and connecting with the rest of the family. She was glad I had written.

When she gets here, I will hold her hand and walk with her through the pain and memories and some laughter.

It is strange how things unfold – frequently in ways you would never imagine. For me, I think it was part of God’s plan. My part was to be obedient to the promptings.

Timing was everything in creating the opportunity for this story to unfold...

If I had not gone to the workshop in Columbus (and there are if’s before this)
If I had not been so moved by the workshop to write my stories
If I had not emailed the story to Diane
If Diane had not been flying home 2 days later….

I sent my story off to her with no expectation of recognition or reward. And yet, if I had not been obedient to the promptings…

My challenge is to maintain this current awareness of “promptings” and act upon them with wisdom.

More random chaos…

Once Upon a Time

I've just returned home from the Story as Leadership workshop led by Christina Baldwin in Columbus at Ohio State University. This has stimulated something in me - the possibility of stories could take me to a new place..

Here is the story I told at this workshop:

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved her mother very much, but she was afraid of her mother's anger. One day when she was only 3 years old, she and her mother went to visit her mother's friend. And when they got there, her mother put her in a chair and told her to sit there quietly. She told the child, "children are to be seen and not heard." And so, the little girl sat there without making a sound.

Once upon a time, there was a young woman of 26 years. She and her husband had just moved into their first house with their 2 children. The young woman decided she wanted to be involved in her children's school and get to know her new community. She attended a school PTA meeting and learned there was a need for a Brownie leader. Having been a Girl Scout for 10 years and because of all that Scouting had given to her, she decided this was an opportunity to pass on to other young girls what she had received. She decided to volunteer as the leader.

She loved being with the young girls, sharing walks in the woods, making crafts, getting to know them and their families. BUT she felt alone and had no special friend.

One day, she was attending a neighborhood meeting for the Leaders. As she sat there listening to all the conversations around her, she remained silent. Even though she was not participating in the discussions, she was thinking of all the things she might say if she were to speak. She very much wanted to share with the group her experiences in Scouting and her ideas for this new project. And still she said nothing.

Then, very softly, she heard this small voice whisper in her ear "children are to be seen and not heard...AND you are no longer a child. You are a mother of children." The young women was stunned to hear this and sat there pondering what this meant. She realized this was true.

Very slowly, and with some fear, she began to find her voice. Using her voice, she found her special friend, Joyce. As time past, she came to understand that "children are to be seen AND heard." She began to invite her children to use their voices.

That young woman was me. I am still working to know my voice and speak the words I was born to speak. This is place for me to do that. Thank you for bearing witness.

Random Chaos

random

Definition: haphazard, chance
Synonyms: accidental, adventitious, aimless, arbitrary, casual, contingent, designless, incidental, indiscriminate, irregular, objectless, odd, unconsidered, unplanned, unpremeditated

cha·os

1. A condition or place of great disorder or confusion.
2. A disorderly mass; a jumble.
3. often Chaos The disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space supposed in some cosmogonic views to have existed before the ordered universe.
4. Mathematics A dynamical system that has a sensitive dependence on its initial conditions.

Sometimes I think of my life as "random chaos". A series of events, connections, meetings, phone calls, emails, chance encounters - and yet, somehow they are all connected and provide me with answers I did not know I was seeking and learnings I need now and in the future.

I am a dynamic system that has a sensitive dependence on my initial conditions...

For many years now, (maybe it started 30 years ago?) I have been on a journey that I could not have planned and yet, looking back, I am beginning to see how these random chaotic events have brought me here. Order out of Chaos...

30 years ago, I took my first transformative workshop. It was the life skill courses at College Hill Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. They changed my life forever. I am still on that journey and it feels like things are beginning to come together. Would I have arrived at this space if I had not had that experience?

My intent with this blog is to give myself a place to bear witness to this journey as I continue to discover myself.

My blogs will not be tied together in a nice neat bow - but they are all connected to each other by beautiful fine strands of community where I have found them.