The Changing Face of Friendships

Do you remember your first friends as a child?  I have vivid memories of some of the things we did...like playing pranks to scare our little siblings!  What kind of a child would do that!

Then there are the school chums.  That's where we learn about true friends and traitors.

I've been thinking about adult friendships lately though.  Why is it that some friends are with you throughout your whole life and others seem to drop off along the way?  Nothing really negative happened to create a rift. But at some point you realize you don't have contact with them anymore.  I used to feel that if I thought of them I should make an effort to contact them and somehow try to rekindle what we once shared.  That would consume so much of my time if I actually did that.

The past several years as I've thought about people I used to spend time with and don't see anymore, I've come to realize that some friendships are just for a season.  They don't end badly.  They are just there for a certain period of time and then we move on. I've decided I'm okay with that. The time that our lives were linked through a job, neighborhood, school or church was a good thing.  But the chapter ends and new ones begin.  I can feel good about what once was and enjoy the memories.  Now we have Facebook which allows us to reconnect, but within the boundary of technology, which takes some of the guilt off those of us who feel we need to do our part to try to keep a friendship alive.

Long term, healthy friendships require a mutual commitment to invest in one another.  We have just so many hours in a day and once we've lived through more than a few decades we've rubbed elbows with a significant number of people.  Only a small number of them will become lifelong friends.  Those become precious to us!

"Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave and impossible to forget." G. Randolf

Don't lose the wonder.

Upon opening up my twitter feed this morning, I saw a tweet posted by a follower that said a fellow liberal neighbor expressed surprise seeing him outside today putting his flag out to fly in honor of July 4th.  The follower said in his mind, it was "kinda sad."  Kinda???

He said that he flies the flag because it represents America striving to reach its ideal.  I'm not exactly sure what his ideal for America is.  But I know that that piece of cloth...those stars and stripes, signify a way of life for me that was brought about by untold sacrifice and service.  The fact that I can live wherever I want in this country, attend church each week without fear, am free to speak my mind on various issues, and an array of other daily freedoms is enough that I could celebrate every morning upon opening my eyes, and not just on July 4th.

Betsy Ross, creator of the first American flag, was an upholsterer and seamstress.  Freeing our nation from the British was no easy task and she knew it having lost two husbands to the bloodshed of the Revolutionary War.   She attended church with George and Martha Washington and so it was not surprising he asked her, knowing her skill with fabric, to create the flag.  Along with Washington and two others, design ideas were exchanged which resulted in Betsy sewing our first American flag.

In 1814, another woman, Mary Pickersgill, was commissioned to make a giant flag to fly above Ft. McHenry, a signal to the British that America was not about to lie down and play dead.  It measured 30 X 42 feet and was cut & pieced by Mary and her 13 year old daughter.  That flag survived and although very tattered from the 24 hour fiery bombardment in Baltimore's harbor, it's been preserved and is on display at the Museum of American History in Washington DC.  I remember the first time I saw it in 1985.  I stood there in silence, almost unable to take in the sight of this two story sized flag. Now threadbare and void of the brilliant red and blue colors on our flags today, it was utterly majestic as it hung in this giant hall serenaded by the Star Spangled Banner.  For me it was something almost beyond comprehension.

On the evening of the 4th, I'll be in a park with hundreds of people, overshadowed by a lighted American flag while the strains of John Philip Sousa music sails through the night air.  Fireworks will light up the sky reminding me of the thousands of individuals in my country who made and continue to make this life of freedom possible for me. 

Flying my flag on July 4th helps me remember the wonder of liberty and I don't ever want to lose it.

The Value of Roots

Have you ever seen a tree that's been windblown for years?  The branches can be flattened on one side and the primary growth of the tree extends out the other side of the tree leaving it with a lopsided look.  We get a fair amount of wind here on the Central Coast of California. Over a few months, its relentless buffeting has killed a few of our newly planted shrubs in the front yard.  It has the power to carve the shape and determine the direction of growth of all kinds of vegetation.  At times, the wind takes down Monterey Pines whose roots are very shallow and give way when the soil around it becomes rain-soaked. 

Strong roots are essential to the life of a tree.  Even though it gets pounded repeatedly, it can emerge with new growth and resilience thanks to its root system.  So it is with us as people navigating the changes in life.  Those who have strong roots are better able to hang on in tough times when unexpected challenges, adversity or setbacks come our way. 

In a recent conversation with a young woman, I learned about her childhood and adolescence with parents who abused drugs and whose lifestyle provided no roots or guidance for the young girl.  Now in her 30's she is finally learning to put down roots.  She is aware of life's pitfalls after observing her family's sad choices and the consequences they've faced.  Those lessons now give her wisdom about her own choices and a root begins to grow when she makes healthy decisions.  Her life may be windblown at times like a bad hair day that lasts for months! But as long as she has a healthy root system, she has a better chance of survival.  The winds don't diminish her in any way, but they do test her and her root system. 

My guess is that those lopsided trees in my part of the world must have some strong root systems which have grown in the direction needed to keep the tree stable.

Life Coaches come alongside people in windy times and help them as they strengthen their root system.

Compassionate Comrades & Hot Cocoa

The setting:  The Dining Hall at Camp Bighorn in Western Montana. Rich and I were there for a week last month doing coaching and consulting with the staff.  About twenty of us were sitting in a circle one morning having a devotional on the topic of compassion.

In the midst of the discussion I leaned over to pick up the mug of hot chocolate sitting to the right of my feet and as I raised up with the mug in hand (held by the top of the mug, not the handle...big mistake!) I accidentally hit the silver rim of my chair.  The impact made me drop the mug to the floor. In the hundredths of a second that followed, I watched sugary hot cocoa spill out into the middle of the circle all over the hardwood floor. UGGGG.  That 8 or so ounces of liquid seemed to expand endlessly before the twenty sets of eyes that were on me and the mess.

What followed was a demonstration of compassion.  My husband, Rich, immediately got up to help me clean up followed by two others, Josh and Trina, who went to the nearby kitchen to get rags, and promptly began to wipe up the mess by hand.  Josh did most of the work and as I humbly worked alongside him watching his wide sweeps with a rag through the liquid chocolate puddle, I was so grateful for their compassion on me.  They didn't just feel compassion, but demonstrated it. 

I had been thinking, just prior to that incident, that it can be hard for us to be compassionate towards someone unless we've been in a place of needing it ourselves. 

Showing compassion toward another may not come easily for you if you haven't ever been in a place of want.  In Matthew 9 Jesus looked at the crowd of people and felt compassion for their current state in life. This was the focus of our devotional and I got to be the recipient of a living example of compassion that morning.  Sometimes good lessons are learned in the unsuspecting moments of life.

Someone's watching....

From the time we come into the world we learn by watching others.  Yes, we put in hours of formal education in a classroom, but think about some of the things you learned by observation.

You learned something about relationships from your family of origin.  You learned how to walk, run, and pass the baton in a relay by observing someone do it. Washing a car, baking a cake, mowing a lawn, shooting hoops or drawing a stick figure were things all learned primarily by observation.

Having just celebrated Mother's Day, it's been interesting to think about what I learned from my mom who died when I was 17.  When I was about 13, her physical mobility began to decrease from the crippling impact of Rheumatoid Arthritis.  So many of the homemaking skills I routinely use were learned before my adolescence. I realize how many things she taught simply through demonstrating them in everyday situations. As I got older she encouraged me to have hands on involvement.  Even after she had to give up some activities for health reasons, I continued to learn about life from her.

This gives me the desire to look for opportunities to learn more through observation.   And I want to be more aware of what I teach through my actions.

Photo:  istockphoto.com (Monique Rodriguez)

Cruel is never cool even if you're a grownup

I've been thinking about bullying lately, especially child and adolescent bullying.  It seems to be in the news frequently and at the forefront of school problems.

Bullying has been around for generations.  We've probably all been the victim of some name-calling, maybe some pushing and shoving and even painful alienation by a family member or a group of peers.  It leaves life-long scars.  Severe bullying can have major consequences, physically, emotionally and financially on the victim and their family. 

Bullying in the workplace is now a serious issue.  There are company anti-bully laws.  There are serial bullies.  There are bully survivor support groups.  Bullying has found its way to the court system with frequent lawsuits alleging harassment and bullying.

I keep wondering if children learn bullying by watching adults.  I think they do.  Think about it.  As adults do we often in the presence of others, see individuals make degrading, rude or negative comments about another person?  Sometimes the victim is present. Other times they are not.  It is still bullying.

And the second part of that, and maybe the most impacting, is the response or should I say, lack of response by those who witness the comment or behavior.  There are few who are willing to step out from the group and say something or do something contrary to the bullying.  This is the role that kids seem to observe and adopt....silence, inaction.  There is no demonstration to stand up for the person being victimized.  This gives the bully full-reign and empowers them to continue the harassment.

Unfortunately, kids get to watch this at home, on the playground and as they grow older, in the workplace, on television and in the political arena.  Late night talk show hosts, in the name of humor, shred family members or make light of serious personal matters of very public figures. Audiences laugh. It's very easy to get caught up in the cycle.  Our leaders bully one another and others remain silent afraid that a defense of someone in the other party or opposing group may bring on criticism or cost them their comrades or followers. 

People who bully send out a message about themselves.  They fear the exposure of their insecurities and inadequacies or a drop in their popularity.  In their desperation, they become predators upon a variety of people....those who are well-liked, respected, high achievers, hot tempered, kind, handicapped, ill and those who are quiet and passive.

How can we as individuals live daily in a way to lessen someone's power to bully, even if it's on a small scale?  How can we respond to bullying in a way that will demonstrate that we don't buy the argument that putting someone down somehow increases our standing in society?

What should move us to action is human dignity, not just toward victims, but also the dignity of each of us.  We ourselves lose dignity by remaining passive and silent.

The times...they are a-changing!

"The future has a way of arriving unannounced. " George Will

"Baby Boomers" were the subject of Tom Brokaw's latest TV documentary which aired on March 4th.  While the program focused more on the "notorious" of the Boomer generation (Woodstock, etc.) while skimming over what life was like for those of us in the background, it did bring up some precarious predicaments for boomers today and in the future.  The projections for Boomers are quite thought-provoking.

The statistics show that a great percentage of Baby Boomers have spent most of what we earned.  Saving from our paychecks and making deposits into 401K plans were a low priority so nest eggs tend to be less than adequate for the costs that lie ahead of us.   We have an appetite for excess.  The Boomer middle class tended to live like the upper class....upscale homes, luxury cars, and multiple credit cards.  This lifestyle seems to have caught up with us.  Today more than 4 million Baby Boomers are currently unemployed.  The reality of a more than dismal economy is here.  In the workplace we now compete for jobs with "techno kids" 35 years younger than we are.

Where does this leave Boomers?  We're going to once again, change the world.  We drive the economy, and because we are aging in great numbers, facing a costly medical care crisis and experiencing a downturn in income, our decisions will impact the world.  We are being forced to be creative in how we live.  Boomers are learning to exist on less.  We are downsizing, embracing the minimalism of our parents, (not necessarily by choice, but by necessity,) and grappling with what's really important in life.  For many boomers, the memories of being raised very simply in a small home and sharing one bathroom with parents and siblings, doesn't seem as bad as once thought before the foreclosure sign went up or the pink slip got handed out at work.

We're starting to see Boomer trends change and I for one am rather curious to see how our resourceful generation will handle the certain challenges that lie ahead of us. 

What kinds of Boomer trends do you see emerging?  I'd like to hear from you.

photo:  http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-silhouettes-of-the-people-cars-rimagefree3728398-resi821680