My "Perfect" Life - part 13

No superstition in me! Part 13 of My "Perfect" Life and I celebrate rather than fear or dread. An attitude toward a situation helps to determine the outcome.... I like the often dreaded number13. My birth date is the 13th of the month and from the first time it was suggested that 13 was a 'bad' number, I chose to relish '13' rather than to fear it. "Otherwise I would never have been born!" I rationalized when I was a child.

My mom was superstitious. Mirrors should not be broken. Luck - good or bad - could be had. I wonder how she felt about my being born on the 13th? Although I don't recall her ever commenting, she must have hated the fact I was born on the13th of the month, because that would have been consistent with her other superstitious fears.

It's funny, but until this moment, I never thought about how her attitude toward me might have been effected by my birth date and her superstitions. Maybe from the outset she was a little bit 'fearful'.

When I was young, my mother said I was 'her' child... as opposed to my sister who was, I surmised, my father's child. My father named my sister, my mother named me. And I guess from the outset, my mother determined to lavish more expectation upon my sister and less control over me. I don't know how my sister felt about the 'arrangement' but certainly I would have benefited from more discipline and less indulgence from my mother. Once in much later years, she admitted she felt guilty for returning to work when I was four (before I started school), and so tried to compensate for the rest of my growing-up years. Parents, it isn't a good idea to soothe your own conscience by spoiling your child. As the old adage says, 'two wrongs don't make a right'.

I'll tell a story revealing the lack of consequence in my life that influenced my teen years.

I was 14. I had been late getting home one evening and my mother grounded me for a week. I had never been grounded before. On day six however, when there was a school dance which, according to the rules of begin grounded, I would have to miss, I pleaded to attend. I am sure I was 'hard work' - persistent, whining, generally irritating and spoiled. My mother relented and let me go. What a pity: just when the opportunity to learn approached, when a real desire would not satisfied and I might have had some real thinking time about how my behaviour or attitude toward my mother needed to change, she didn't have the strength to resist my pleas and lifted the ban on extra curricular. As far as I can recall, being grounded had no real consequence. Perhaps she felt tortured by my pleas or by her guilt at creating an 'unbearable consequence' for me in the first place. She never grounded me again, I do know that. And from that time onward, I was consistently disrespectful of time. By age 18, I had no regard for curfew - other than to 'feel guilty' if I didn't get home on time. There were a few evenings when I was late enough to have kept her up. Once I recall being jolted at the fact she was waiting up, sitting in her wing chair in the living room, very cross that I was home after 1am. I had the audacity to be angry at her, and had no shame or consideration for her feelings at all.

Whose fault was that? Now, as a parent myself, I'd say it was the parent's for not teaching the child in the first place, about respect for rules and the person who makes them. Of course I don't blame my mother, because she tried her best to navigate parenthood and my tempestuous and inconsiderate behaviour. As an adult, I alone am responsible for my attitudes and behaviour. It's just unfortunate that I didn't share with her the fact that I learned - eventually - how to appreciate her.

As I reflect on this, of course I have regret for my lack of consideration. While this is only one aspect of my complex relationship with my mother, it is an important one. I loved my mother dearly, and I'm certain she loved me. But neither of us seemed to know enough about love to know how to show it.

Parenthood and growing up are difficult. Building relationship is no easy task. Love helps, fear damages, guilt is useless. That is the perspective I have now. If there is any wisdom in this reflection, I hope it may inspire other parents and off-spring. If there is a life-inspiring comment I can close with it is this:

'Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will depart from it.' This is a wise adage from Ecclesiastes in the Bible. It has proven to be true time and again.

Are there moments that you remember from your past that seemed to influence dynamics in your family?

Best wishes for your relationships this week.

What's Most Valuable to Me

My most treasured possessions aren't possessions at all but people - my husband and my son. I rank only God above them for it is through Him that I 'live and move and have my being.'

Hubby and Son

What motivates me is a desire to see every person actualized to be the person he or she was created to be. That is probably because it was such hard work for me to figure me out. I include those closest to me but also those whom I've never met.

My personal aim is to contribute to the beauty that is already on the earth. I can't sculpt or paint. I can sing a 'mean' song but unless it is recorded seriously - i.e. professionally - my existence and contribution to the world as a singer has too narrow an audience to make any impact. So I write. Some projects are long-standing - novels or personal growth books. But some are quick quips and responses to the messages of others.

I've discovered there is much beauty in the Social Network - though there is much that is ugly also. I dwell on the beauty - of strangers reaching out to strangers - not out of lust or personal gain but simply to make a connection and to prove that life, the earth and its people are able to care without personal gain.

I've developed a quip of an acrostic: SOAR = See Over All Repression. I believe if we elevate our perspective we can see above and beyond what is in the now and make an impact for change in our personal lives. Who knows! Maybe as we live and promote SOAR others will be led to copy. (The second hand market for wisdom and advice really ought to be tapped more thoroughly.) Anyway, whether we see the perspective as flight or as walking on water, as we practice, we overcome the oppression that has tried to stifle us. It is a miracle-in-the-making that we are able to become free of all that emotional, psychological baggage, and be who we were meant to be all along. Millions of people wrestle with feelings of low self-esteem. But we have already got the means for sanity, and that is through Jesus. My way through the morass has been prayer, God's Word and the help of the Holy Spirit, the comforter. I write, I read, I pray, I wait.

Then I post pictures to represent the journey I've completed.

I post pics of seagulls in particular. I watch seagulls in flight. I had a chat with one today and he seemed to 'get' what I had to say. He paused, tilted his head, before flying away to another busy opportunity to eat. For me the seagull represents the freedom to which we all aspire and the perseverance we need to survive.

I have found that when I dwell on the positive, and see all things as under the sovereignty of God, then I have peace in spite of chaos and discomfort. And to share insight or point of view from that optimistic perspective is really the best I can offer others. As time unfolds and a cause to a problem rises to the surface, what better way to deal with it than through prayer and conversation with trusted friends.

My aim is to SOAR in everything and if I can enrich others through this then my work is a success.
Come Holy Spirit, lead me into all truth and enable me to see far above my circumstances in order to see clearly and to make the best of this situation.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Sometimes we feel like tiny specks but from our elevated viewpoint we are made wise.