Month: June 2015 (Page 2 of 2)

Let’s all be brave

June 4, 2015 / Michele Minehart

You know what’s brave?

Showing up. Sometimes that’s the bravest thing you can do.

Letting your outsides and your insides match – that’s brave. So few people live lives of integrity. (Literally, integrity comes from being fully integrated.)

So is stepping on a battlefield on behalf of people you don’t know or potentially don’t even like.

Loving your son while burying your toddler – that’s brave. Excruciatingly brave.

It’s brave to move home.

It’s brave to let your 25 year old son venture to a South American country with no plan.

Writing a blog post, saying you’re lonely – that’s brave. One of my bravest friends did that and all of a sudden I realized how safe I was with her.

Admitting to your closest friends that something isn’t right is brave.

You can be brave to avoid a drink, a party, a person.

You’re brave when you love your husband, even when you don’t feel like it. Even after he has hurt you.

It’s brave to divorce. It’s brave to stay.

But you know what’s not brave? Calling people a coward. Making a contest out of bravery. One upping and condescending. Neither of those things take guts – they simply hide the cowardice.

To believe that one person’s bravery shortchanges another is to believe there’s a quantifiable, limited amount of brave in this world. There isn’t. It’s a lie we tell ourselves as we pit ourselves against others. To do so is to live by what Brene Brown calls Scarcity Culture and it simply isn’t true.

May we each do something brave today. Celebrate it. And don’t hold it to the measuring stick of another person’s brave thing. Instead, celebrate their bravery, too. We can all do brave things.

When we win

June 3, 2015 / Michele Minehart

This season of life I’ve been so fortunate/blessed/lucky to have a number of women come into my life and let me be their friend. When I leave their presence, I’m charged. Ready. Full. While likely true about most of my friends through life, I’ve noticed these recent friends to share a similar feature: they don’t live like it’s a contest.

Don’t get me wrong, these are some strong women. Their non-compete clause isn’t one of lying down in submission. They don’t abstain from competition because they don’t feel they’re worthy of the game. They’re fiercely strong – at work, at home and in their community. They’ve climbed and excelled and know they’re worthy of inclusion*. They’re brilliant. They’re gifted. And they know it has nothing to do with me.

It’s. So. Freeing. They make friendship roomier. Welcoming.

One of my first direct interactions with one of these friends came online. We were acquaintances, with shared friends and she had read a few things I had posted, that kind of thing. In an online conversation she made a passing remark, saying “I can recognize a game changer.” It wasn’t an empty complement meant to bloat my ego – she simply wanted me to do my thing. She wants all of us to do our thing. She has the humility to know she cannot do all of the things and that life is better when we each do our thing, beautifully. Me doing my thing makes her doing her thing better. It’s not a competition of the things.

It’s this kind of humble confidence that sets me free.

Image by BhaktiCreative via CC, used with permission.

Glennon has posted before about how there’s more than enough goodness to go around. And these ladies live like it. They believe that my happiness will not shortchange their own. None of us feel as if we have perfect lives. Yet we recognize we do have good lives. That sweet spot between perfect and good is what we’re aiming for, friends. In that place, we’re each striving for better while not discounting the current good.

Because we recognize that the striving for better isn’t a contest but rather a cooperative effort, the goodness is multiplied.

One of my absolute favorite and life-giving passages in the scriptures is in Galatians 5:19-23, but I love the way Eugene Peterson writes it. In it he says:

[box] It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all of the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness, trinket gods and magic show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on… But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.[/box]

The belief that another person’s good life is an impediment to our own is a lie from the pit. It’s not the way of God’s kingdom.

Paul finishes the section by instructing us:

[box] Since this is the life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original. [/box]

May we stop striving after the good someone else has in her life and begin by accepting and loving our own. And may we bless and encourage those to continue seeking good. To do her thing as we do our thing because it’s not a competition of the things. May we live knowing that there is enough blessing to go around – nay, there is more than “we can ever ask for or imagine.” We’ll only begin to start experiencing it once we open the floodgates for others..

*Actually this isn’t true. I also cannot help but note that all of these women have a strong feminist viewpoint, thus they come at the world believing they are worthy because they are human, which changes the game. The fact that they are brilliant and gifted, I believe, stems from this basic belief in their own worth.

An early start

June 2, 2015 / Michele Minehart

This morning, the children of a friend stayed for a bit while she had an appointment. It was no trouble – indeed, it made my life easier as her oldest boy and mine became good friends in kinder, her #2 and mine also shared a class and a friendship and her last sits comfortably between the ages of my littles. Other than the general chaos of nearly doubling the number of shoes and snacks in a house, having families to do this thing called life together makes for vast improvements.

As they were playing, H Boy politely asked his friend not to do something (I cannot remember what – it was pretty insignificant, about a toy I believe). And his friend listened. What struck me by the interaction was the courage and the confidence H had to ask his friend to change a behavior. Most adults cannot effectively do this and they waffle and wain over it for a few nights beforehand.

Yet the way his friend reacted, with nearly no troubled reaction at all, gave H the valuable feedback that it’s okay to talk to his friends. He can be honest. He can be himself without a fear of rejection.

Now that we’re venturing into new territory – a new community and new school, which means new friends – I’m beyond grateful for these early friendships. My children have had the opportunity to practice the skills of making and keeping friends, treating others with love and respect, in a safe community of like-minded people. Of course, not everyone is the same, but in general, those with whom we shared classrooms and lunches and park dates had a value structure that reinforced our own.

These friends set the bar high. My hope is that my kids will enter new territory knowing they are worthy of quality friendships. Of course, this isn’t a foolproof plan. Friendships early in life, much like in adulthood, can be willy nilly. We get upset over small (and big) things. We hurt feelings, we exclude, we compete instead of complement. But the fact remains, once you taste filet mignon, you can tell the difference between that and a hamburger. That doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy a hamburger. You just know the difference between The Pine Club and Red Robin.

One of the most beautiful gifts we can give our children is the art of friendship. Part of this is by putting them beside good people who exhibit qualities of good friends. Another part of that is modeling – being a good friend to those we love. Thank you, Troy, Ohio, USA for giving me the opportunity to do both.

Image by Peter DarGatz via CC.

Month: June 2015 (Page 2 of 2)

Let’s all be brave

When we win

An early start

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