Author Archives: growthlines

The Homeless: Investing or Enabling?

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I think I should begin this blog with a warning.

  1. It will contain more questions than answers.
  2. It was prompted by a random, frustrating experience that raised questions for me.

This experience began a few weeks ago while mowing the grass at my office.  A friend stopped by so I shut the mower down for a brief visit.  As we visited, a few homeless people passed by.  These people were not total strangers to me.  They live in the downtown area of my community, spending nights in a shelter and days walking or sitting in the park.  One of the men asked if he could finish mowing my lawn for a little money.  I said “No thanks, I’ve got it covered.”  But the man persisted and said he could sure use the money.  So I agreed.  He finished what was left to do, taking the mower back to the storage shed.  I paid him, he expressed his gratitude, and left.  I felt good.  I had helped someone down on his luck.

That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?  The “haves” help the “have-nots”, paying it forward until our world is a better place.  That’s what I thought until I went to mow the next week and discovered that during the week someone had crawled through a small opening, unlocked a gate, and taken my gas can and other items out of my shed.  Obviously I don’t know that the homeless man is the culprit.  It may have been one of life’s coincidences that my things were taken shortly after he mowed.  But now instead of feeling good, I felt cheated, violated.  I found myself feeling angry about a set of circumstances that I couldn’t change.

Then I began to think about my experience in a broader way.  I thought about the increased focus on “rescuing” the homeless in our community over the last several months.  Groups of people have given time, money, clothes, food, and shelter to the increasing number of people living on the streets.  The need is clearly great and people have responded with commitment and compassion.

I just wonder if in our haste to help, we miss the opportunity to invest in people in a way that invites them to contribute to their community in the ways they can.  Are we respecting them enough to expect something of them, to hold them accountable for their presence and its impact.  Are we talking with them about what it means to be a community member in small but important ways like picking up the trash from the meal they ate while sitting on office steps or a park bench.  Are we talking with them about what it looks like to work together with us to create a community where our public places are cared for and safe.  Where our personal belongings are not seen as there for the taking.

Wouldn’t it be a shame if our desire to rescue the homeless “enabled” them to stay stuck in a position of neediness instead of gaining the self regard that comes from participating in community.  What if in our haste to “make their lives better” we fail to respect that, in spite of our best efforts, some will choose to stay on the streets, or will continue to make poor choices that affect our ability to grow and maintain a healthy community.

The following report, The Cost of Homelessness in Oklahoma City April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010, gives a thorough and insightful look at the problems and solutions related to homelessness.  Access the pdf file at www.okc.gov/planning/homelessness/homelesscosts.pdf

What’s in a name?

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The radio host was giving the latest update on the BP oil spill in the gulf.  He reviewed the numbers…of gallons of oil, dollars lost, estimates of damage, benefits owed to those affected, and the lives lost.  Then the show took an unexpected turn.  The host began to list the names of the men who died while working on the Deep Water Horizon.

He spoke about each man, painting a brief, personal portrait of his life.  He talked about wives and fiancés, children, unborn to young adults.  He told about interests and hobbies.  He gave witness to each life and the tremendous void left by each death.  I felt the weight of each loss as it spread beyond family to friends, to communities, to a nation, and to me.

I realized that in spite of the months of “late breaking news” about the BP catastrophe, I had only heard these men mentioned a handful of times since the day they died, and only as a group of 11 dead.  This was the first time I knew them individually, by name, with a life story.  I was embarrassed and ashamed by the lack of attention given to this loss.

Numbers are important.  They tell us the size of impact, whether we’re talking about the casualties of war, the rise in poverty, the dead after Katrina, or how many victims of domestic violence are housed in shelters.  Numbers tell us something must be done.  But numbers don’t speak to our heart.

Names are different than numbers.  I’ve known since April 20, 2010, that 11 workers died in the BP explosion.  But it wasn’t until I heard their names and stories that they stepped off the news page and became real.  These men who had lived, worked, loved, and died are now my loss too.

If numbers tell us something must be done, names tell us we must do something.  Names tell us that each number represents a person, a history, a story not unlike our own.  We are not separate in our moments of joy, not isolated in moments of loss. Ernest Hemingway knew it when he wrote:

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

On April 20, 2010, eleven men died while working on the Deep Water Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.  Their names are listed below.  Their loss calls us to care and to act, for their deaths are our loss too.

 

 

Jason Anderson, 35, Bay City, TX, father of two.
Aaron Dale “Bubba” Burkeen, 37, Neshoba Co, MS, survived by his wife Rhonda and two children.
Donald Clark, 48, Newellton, LA, survived by his wife Sheila, two sons, and two daughters.
Stephen Ray Curtis, 40,  Georgetown, LA, survived by his wife and two teenage children.
Gordon Jones, 28, Baton Rouge, LA, left wife, Michelle, who was three weeks from delivery of a daughter.
Roy Wyatt Kemp, 27, survived by his wife Courtney, and two children.
Karl Keppinger, Jr., 38, Natchez, MS, veteran of Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, father of one child.
Keith Blair Manuel, 56, Gonzales, LA, father of three daughters, avid LSU fan.
Dewey Revette, 48, State Line, MS, 29 years experience drilling.
Shane Roshto, 22, Franklin Co, MS, survived by his wife, Natalie, and a toddler son.
Adam Weise, 24, Yorktown, TX, youngest of four children, started working offshore after graduating from high school.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

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“You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”

That phrase always takes me back to my grandma.  She had several “truisms”, but that one has stayed firmly planted in my head over the years.  The idea of “catching flies” may have become more concrete for me as I passed time on grandma’s farm porch in the heat of Oklahoma summers counting the flies I “caught” with the fly swatter.

As a child I think I took her advice to mean I was more apt to get what I wanted if I was nice than if I was ugly.  An important piece of information when you’re dependent on the grown ups in your life for the things you want.  At some point I began to broaden, and perhaps deepen, my understanding of what she meant.  I learned that being kind to others just made life more pleasant for everyone and left me feeling better, happier.  Those childhood memories were the seeds of understanding that there is power in respect and that power lies within us.

Consider these three things about R-E-S-P-E-C-T (thank you Aretha)

  • We decide the kind of person we will be by “recreating” ourselves daily.
  • Our power to “build” ourselves is made stronger by respecting others and our world.
  • When we disrespect, we hand our decision of who we will be to others.

Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist, was imprisoned and tortured at Auschwitz under Nazi Germany’s Third Reich.  Frankl lost his wife, both parents, and his brother in the death camps or the gas chamber.  Amazingly, he came from that experience telling us the only freedom that remains ours in any circumstance is, “the freedom to determine one’s own attitude and spiritual well-being.”  We get to decide how we will respond to life, who we will be in the happy, embarrassing, and painful moments.

The power to build ourselves comes from understanding that how we behave and what we do is about us, our choices and not what someone “made” us do. The satisfaction I felt as a child when I did “nice” things came from my decision regardless of what anyone else chose to do.  Each time we do something that moves us closer to the person we want to become our own self-respect grows.

Respect and kindness aren’t about being a doormat or avoiding confrontation.  Respect is involved when we decide not to take on responsibilities that belong to someone else, or when we choose not to carry worries that we can’t doing anything about.  Respect is present when we confront problems in appropriate ways instead of ignoring or avoiding them to keep from “rocking the boat”.

We give our power away when we let someone else choose our response.    How often have you heard someone say, “When they give me respect, I’ll give them respect.”  They might as well announce, “Today I’m going to let someone else, anyone else, decide what kind of person I will be.”  We sometimes forget that who we decide to be doesn’t depend on what anyone else says or does, but on how we behave.  Whether a person deserves our respect or not is separate from our decision to be a person that respects.  That it requires more from us to treat an undeserving person in a respectful way suggests that we reap the benefits of even greater self respect in those moments.

Random acts of kindness and the idea of “paying it forward” have become more visible in the 21st century.  We have also seen a tremendous growth in self-help books and products designed to help us discover our best selves.  What if the greatest act of self care we can choose is to treat our world and the people in it with respect?  Now that would be a win-win situation.  Do something nice for yourself today.  Offer respect to those you meet, especially those you’re not sure deserve it.

Maybe it is that simple.

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A few years ago I joined a group of women at a “thank you for your commitment and service to education” brunch at the school district superintendent’s home.  There were administrators, teachers, support staff, most with many years of service educating our children.  We enjoyed good food, good conversation, and the connection that comes with a shared purpose.

I said my “good-byes” and stood to leave.  On my way to the door one of my colleagues said, “Before you go, give us some words of wisdom.  You always have such good things to say.”  There are a dozen reasons why a sudden, unexpected request requiring a quick, verbal response turns my brain into a black hole and my mouth inoperable that I won’t go into now.  All the visiting had stopped and all eyes were on me.  I think I said something like a profound “Uh……….” which bought me a little time.  And then it came to me.  A question I had been asking myself almost daily for the past several months.  So I said:

“Nearly every day before I walk into school I ask myself, ‘I wonder what would happen if we were all just nice to each other today?'”

Everyone smiled, made a few comments, and I made my exit.  The question stayed with me.  I hear it in my head at work, at board meetings, listening to the news, observing parents and their children, and listening to political candidates.  What if it really is that simple?  As simple as being nice to each other.  How might things change if we were just nice to each other. . .

  • in discussion and debate
  • in difference and disagreement
  • during conflict and confrontation
  • with adversaries and antagonists
  • with family, friends, and even strangers

Perhaps Plato had pondered this question when he said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

The Essential Conversation

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I love books.  My idea of a great time is going from section to section in a bookstore, the bigger the better, looking for titles and covers that spark my curiosity or speak to an interest or need.  I have been known to buy a book because a title caught my eye and I trusted the contents to be just as interesting.  “The ESSENTIAL Conversation:  What Parents and Teachers Can Learn From Each Other”, by sociologist, teacher, and parent, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot was one of my best “title” purchases.  If the title hadn’t caught me, the introduction would have sold the book.  The author wrote:

“I believe that for parents there is no more dreaded moment, no arena where they feel more exposed than at the ritual conferences that are typically scheduled twice a year–once in the fall and once in the spring–in schools. . . it is also the arena in which they [teachers] feel most uncertain, exposed, and defensive, and the place where they feel their competence and professionalism most directly challenged.”

After a quick read, the book went on a shelf until a few months ago.  As school came to a close I thought back over nine months of encounters with students, parents, and teachers.  I explored ways to make those times more helpful, more effective.  I found myself thinking of how our interactions as parents and teachers are occasionally like angry ex spouses, anxious and defensive.  We know that children often get lost and compromised in the crossfire of divorce.  I began wondering how often children are also hurt by our failure to work together as families and schools, parents and teachers.

Parents and teachers are two tremendous resources with the power to impact our children and society.  The times I have watched adults step past their anxiety and uncertainty to talk to each other in a parent/teacher conference in order to help a child succeed in school have excited me. Unfortunately we often avoid the encounter completely.   Or we approach our meeting as adversaries, becoming defensive and territorial in ways that rob us of the very thing we want, to be a part of preparing our children for a healthy, successful adulthood.

I thought of “The ESSENTIAL Conversation”, and what an appropriate, meaningful title it is.  I pulled the book off the shelf and began to read again, more thoughtfully this time.  I reviewed my own school experience trying to imagine my parent’s “conversations” with teachers.  I recalled sitting in the parent chair across from teachers as we discussed my children’s performance and progress.  I wondered if both the teachers and I were worried that we would be “blamed” for the problems and would have to give up all credit for the successes.  I took some comfort in Lawrence-Lightfoot’s thoughts:

“From my point of view there is no more complex and tender geography than the borderlands between families and schools.”

“. . . my own hard-earned wisdom as an educator and social scientist concerned about these matters did not prepare me for the depth of emotion and drama I felt in parent conferences.”   “I always suspected that other parents were experiencing some version of my anguish, but that they too were struggling alone and making it up as they went along.”

“I could also tell that teachers had their own deep concerns,  their own sense of exposure and vulnerability.  And I knew that most of them had not been adequately prepared in their professional training programs to build relationships with families as a central part of their work. . .”

We are less than one month into a new school year.  How can we take advantage of all our family/school encounters in ways that encourage our children to learn and enhance their learning environment?

Whether you are teacher, parent, or both:

  • Remember this “conversation” isn’t about you, it’s about your children.  Learn to calm your own anxiety so it doesn’t get in the way of working together.
  • Believe that sharing your observations with that other adult will allow you both to discover solutions to problems and will magnify the celebration of success.
  • Recognize each other’s efforts.  Kudos help us know we “did good” and motivate us to do more.
  • Be willing to start the conversation and to keep it going even when you disagree.  Tolerate the discomfort for growth.

For schools:

  • When you say parents are welcome at school, really mean it.
  • Encourage family involvement and look for creative ways to make that possible.

For families:

  • Be present in your child’s school experience.
  • Know their teachers and their curriculum.
  • Attend school activities.
  • Communicate with teachers in person, by phone, and in writing.

“The ESSENTIAL Conversation” considers “how the tiny drama of parent-teacher conferences is an expression of a larger cultural narrative.”  For me it is a reminder that the “tiny drama” of parent/teacher conferences isn’t so tiny after all.   You be the one that begins the conversation.

Altered Again

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I never met Jill Hollis.  In fact I had never heard of Jill Hollis.  That changed last Thursday.  I was in the car running errands, listening to bits and pieces of “The Story” with Dick Gordon.  I found myself in back story, not knowing where it began.  It became clear as the story continued that Jill Hollis had, for some time, struggled with some kind of disability and in the midst of that determined that she would not live a diminished life.

I sat in the car outside my next stop totally absorbed by the archived interview with this courageous woman.  As the story neared an end Dick informed his listeners that Jill Hollis had been diagnosed four years ago with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease.  He spoke of the blog she created as her disease progressed.  And then he was expressing his sadness and sympathy that Jill Hollis had finished her battle two days earlier, Tuesday, August 31.  I was caught totally off guard and felt a sudden sadness that I was only now discovering this woman and her story.

Jill Hollis hovered in my thoughts for the rest of the day.  As soon as I could I went in search of her blog.  I wanted to hear her words, have a sense of her journey, and remember her.  The blog home page loaded.  The title:  Altered.  She had captured her experience in a single, clear, complete word.  I read her thoughts and her family’s in the days leading up to and following her death.  I found courage, fear, determination, growth, humanity, all expressed with unedited honesty as ALS continued to alter her.

Jill’s blog title has stayed with me, surfacing for another look from time to time.  Altered.  Aren’t we all “altered” by living?  We come here so innocent and in a very short time begin to lose that innocence to experience.  Don’t we all, like Jill, have the chance to decide we will live fully and undiminished in the face of loss and limitation.

Sally Jesse Raphael, the talk show host of 25 years ago, welcomed a mother and her 9 year son on her show.  Both had been severely burned and disfigured in a gas explosion in their home a few years before.  The son had had multiple surgeries with more to come to remove scarring and rebuild his face.  An audience member asked the mother how she had helped her son cope with the stares, comments, and questions that often came when they were in public.  The mom responded, “I’ve told him everyone has scars.  We just wear ours on the outside.”  What an insightful mom!  And she’s right.  We do all have our scars, left by the life decisions and experiences that have altered us.  Being altered scars, but it also allows us to discover our own strength and resilience.  And then, we are altered again.

I don’t know Jill Hollis, but her story has altered me.  My thoughts and prayers are with her family during their unspeakable loss as Jill has been altered again to a journey without ALS.  Thank you Jill.

The Car Connection

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There is no denying that we are a mobile society. We value our independence and the freedom to come and go as we please. For many, myself included, all it takes is to be without our own transportation for a day to leave us feeling the frantic need to GO SOMEWHERE. The American love affair with cars cannot be denied, but I wonder if we sometimes miss the greatest byproduct of that connection. Our cars are more than a way to get from here to there. Yes, your car gets you places, but it also gives you time alone and time with others. In fact, thinking of our cars as “relationship labs” or “communication capsules” gives us the chance to savor, struggle with, and ultimately grow from the wonderful, and sometimes heartbreaking experiences that take place.

Some of my earliest “car connection” memories are of riding in my grandad’s pickup, bumping across pastures as he tended to ranching chores. He would talk to me about what grass to sow next year for grazing, which steers were doing well, future improvements he wanted to make. As he talked, he asked me what I thought about his plans, and I believed he really wanted, maybe even needed my input. Those moments sent me toward adolescence knowing someone thought I had something to contribute and valued what I had to say.

It’s hard to keep track of all the “teachable moments” I’ve been given because I was in a car, going somewhere, alone or with someone. There have been quiet, secure moments with family or friends and painfully silent moments of differences and disagreement. There have been tears from laughing when my children said something funny and tears from hurting with them when they hurt. There have been serious, life changing conversations and lighthearted moments of silliness. I have used time in the car to prepare myself at the beginning of the day or debrief at its end. Over the years I have even suggested that clients schedule car time when it became clear that some of their most effective communication took place in the car closed off from outside distractions.

How do you use your car time? Are you learning how life looks to your children and their friends as you drive them to school or other activities? Do you listen to books on tape to stretch your mind or to enjoy a good story? Has your car been the sanctuary where you prayed for strength to go on or gave encouragement to someone who needed it? Have you learned to be as comfortable in the quiet, being with yourself or with others to the rhythm of the tires and the engine as you are with talking and laughing to the backdrop of the radio? Do you ever turn off the A/C or heat, rolling down the windows to remember the feel of the air and the sounds as you drive?

Take a walk through your own car moments, both good and bad. Think about how you have used those moments to become who you are. A second glance may give a deeper meaning to some moments and the chance to put a healthier spin on others. Looking back at yourself as a part of someone else’s moment may reassure you that you brought your best self to that encounter. Or you may end up staring your worst self in the face and deciding to do something different the next time. Whatever you discover, I hope you will be reminded that time in the car is not a pause or dead space in our living, but a big part of what connects us to ourselves and each other. The impact of those moments outlives us. Those moments with my grandad are still with me and now I get to be the “Nena” that gives those gifts to my own grandchildren.

So, start you engines and experience the connection!

Why Blog?

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People blog for a lot of different reasons.  They blog to make us laugh, cry, heal, listen, and change. They blog to question, to rant, and maybe even to annoy.  I am blogging to think.  Actually, I’m blogging to think out loud.  Something happens when we speak our thoughts or put them on paper. In that moment we have the opportunity to hear ourselves more clearly, maybe even differently, and to know ourselves better.   Thinking out loud also creates the possibility of thinking out loud together.  As we respond to each other’s observations, stories, hopes, and concerns, we weave a rich cloth of human connection that has the power to extend our reach and to enrich our souls.

Now for my thoughts, and perhaps a conversation about resilience, relationship, and hope.