Mystery

“Keep me safe,

O God,”

I sing.

“Keep me safe;

you are my hope,

my God.”

I sing

“Keep me safe” in the shower,

while I bake muffins,

at the wheel,

why, I don’t know.

I’ve just learned the hymn

for the Triduum,

and it itches in my head

unsoothed.

I sing, though, without expectation

of protection for myself.

I don’t find Christ

in the trappings

of the traditional Church—

icons,

images,

gold-fringed red collars,

crystal toppers for candles,

a large monstrance.

Heresy, maybe, to some,

I know.

Impiety, at the very least,

that forfeits petition.

I do find Christ in people—

my husband’s killer questions,

my son’s integrity,

my daughter’s strength,

my son’s courage,

my colleague’s compassion,

a student’s struggle,

the lab tech’s kindness,

the cashier’s fatigued eyes.

No worries.  It’s all good.

But him,

your servant,

who preached your mercy

for decades,

opened people’s hearts to you

and opened his own heart to them,

why?

Why not keep him safe?

I wonder why,

my God, my God,

why have you abandoned him?

Leadership

Everyone is a leader: the four-year-old in a play group, the adolescent at school, the teacher in the classroom, the politician on the stump, the quarterback on the gridiron, the orchestra conductor with bâton poised and the section first chair, the consultant in the office.  Our actions and decisions have the power to influence others, for the better or for the worse.  In that they reflect our values and character to the world, those actions and decisions are the foundation of leadership.   

Given that all of us lead through actions, then, it is critical that those actions match the values we preach through word and deed.  So, for example, if I expect my French Immersion students to speak French at all times in class to me and to each other, I need to do the same with my French-speaking colleagues in the school, whether there are students present or not, or when I attend meetings, sessions, or conferences where French is the language of facilitation.  In the same way, the dress code in the school applies to me as much as to students.   Otherwise, I am guilty of a double standard.

My responsibility extends beyond the classroom and the school to activities outside school hours where I still wear my teacher hat and represent the profession.  Should I be participating in a teachers' hockey tournament, could I agree to a team name that masks profanity, a name like “Falcon Awesome”, for example, given the very good chance that a name with similar lewd connotations would not be allowed to designate a team in a school-sponsored context?   As an educator, whenever I expect behavior from students to which I myself do not adhere, I lose credibility.  My actions do not match my talk.  I abdicate my responsibility as a leader.

We are leaders because we are people. No matter our age, state of life, or line of work, we must strive to align our words, our practice, and our values.  Any less is not worthy of us as human beings.

To remind myself of the goal, and to express my conviction in another form, I have reposted a poem (Mis/Alignment) I wrote on the subject, added to this blog for a short time, and then removed for reasons that seem quite cowardly now.  Alignment requires discipline, mindfulness, and courage.  We can’t lead without it. 

Mis/Alignment

At a workshop for school division leaders,

the facilitators

preach

and

model

alignment.

With planned redundancy,

they emphasize that

strategies known to enhance instruction

must be the very same ones

that drive school division

practices, meetings, sessions.

They themselves walk the talk.

Participants converse,

move,

give feedback,

within a flexible structure.

Technology funnels questions

and respects privacy;

charts list demonstrated strategies

for application in the local context;

every voice can be heard that risks expression,

thanks to embedded opportunities and techniques.

For the last activity bridging to lunch on the final day,

we are lined up, one hundred strong, along three sides of the room,

having voted with our feet in answer to

“Where would you rather be?”

Our chosen spot has sealed our destiny for the next hour.

Anchored rock solid in the present,

I head for a spot in the room’s front right corner.

Here, I acknowledge the three men on my right with whom

fate?

a penchant for the moment? 

indecision? 

discomfort with change?

has partnered me for a reading and synthesis task.

One of them, a fortyish fellow on the end,

avoids eye contact.

Article and notebook in the right hand,

left hand in his pants pocket,

he floats away from our foursome,

like an untethered canoe on undulating water.

Nonchalant as the groups form, 

he rides the waves

into the crowd and a more

amenable? comfortable? known?

entourage. 

We, the rejected three,

let the elephant be,

find a space to work,

introduce ourselves,

reshape the task for our failed quartet.

All the while,  I percolate.

I want so much to believe 

a positive presupposition that

a student in similar shoes,

matched with workmates in that same teacher’s class,

and, like him,  seeking a more

amenable? comfortable? known?

entourage, 

would be allowed to slip unchallenged under the radar,

hooked up with friends rather than classmates,

no matter the ramifications for others.

But, from deepest recesses of my being,

a word surges, defying suppression.

It pulsates in bright neon behind my eyes:

Not.  Not.  Not.

Transfiguration

I’ve sat on my interpretation of the story of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain for more than thirty years. I reflected on the transfiguration for a class on the New Testament I took long ago, while on leave after the birth of our second child.  My thoughts, germinated from the class discussion and fertilized by a presentation on spirituality and further reading, crystallized in a paper, the essence of which I share with you today.  I’m a little late—the transfiguration was last week’s Gospel, for the second Sunday of Lent—but I’ll forge ahead anyway.

A quick refresher might be in order.  Jesus takes three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John to the top of  a mountain (some say Mt. Thabor), and there, the story goes, he is transformed into “a dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleanch them.” (Living with Christ Sunday Missal 2014 – 2015: Novalis) and appears along with Elijah and Moses.  The spirit of God reminds the disciples, “This is my son, the Beloved.  Listen to him.”

My ah-ha about the transfiguration occurred shortly after I became immersed in creation-centered spirituality.  This view of our relationship with God is anchored in the Jewish scriptures and the writings of fourteenth century mystic Meister Eckhart, among others, whose work was translated and propagated by Matthew Fox, a Dominican priest, later ousted from his order by Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI).  I had the good fortune to meet Matthew Fox at a conference in the spring of 1983.  What he had to say changed my life.  

Creation-centered spirituality, according to Fox and Eckhart, has four stages.  The first celebrates life and creation (Via Positiva), the abundance in the world God has created.  The second stage requires letting go (Via Negativa), divesting oneself of all that gets in the way of our relationship with God; the more we let go, the more room we make in our hearts to be filled with the divine.  

This is the key phase, in my view, because, whatever pain letting go might entail, the pay-off is huge.  To the extent that we liberate ourselves from things or states of mind, and allow ourselves to fall into God,  we experience a breakthrough to unimagined creativity (Via Creativa) and self-actualization. 

Letting go and creativity partner up to continue their work in us in a reciprocal exchange that maximizes human potential.  The result would be a transformation (Via Transformativa) as children of God consumed with compassion and social justice.    Imagine the potential of that pathway for human beings.  As inspiration, we have a model: Jesus.

It’s the path of letting go that I would like to focus on with respect to Jesus.    When he accepts, at his Baptism, the mission he has discerned as his calling from God, Jesus flees into the desert and stays there for forty days, fasting and praying.   Already then, there is letting go of the preoccupations of everyday life, and a surfeit of food.  Later, at the end of the forty days, tempted by the devil, Jesus renounces the opportunity for a comfortable life that the devil promises him.  He abstains from relief for his hunger; he  refuses absolute power in the world; he is also strong in his trust in the power of God, and sees no need to prove that. 

These categorical instances of letting go merge with the implicit references:

·  Jesus leaves his family to preach the Good News.

·  Jesus separates from many legalistic tenets of the Jewish faith that, he says, are being transformed in the Kingdom of God, where love of neighbor is paramount.

·  Often in the midst of thousands of people, Jesus finds refuge in his inner circle of friends, as the community of Nazareth sees him as a radical presuptuous enough to proclaim himself the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies.  The people were “enraged,” the Gospels say, “filled with wrath,” or “furious,” depending on the version you read, after Jesus closed the book, and said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

·  This separation becomes more pronounced as Jesus confronts some cultural norms : 

o   the place of women, in speaking to the women at the well, and acting on behalf of the woman caught in adultery, soon to be stoned;

o   the class hierarchy, in associating with hated tax collectors and Samaritans, and healing the feared lepers.

·  Jesus gives up the stability of a home.

·  In the end, he lets go of his life for others.

Jesus is our model, then, of how to let go.

Now, what happens, I asked myself, when the four-fold path of spirituality and Jesus’ life are superimposed?.  My theory is that, as Jesus practices this letting go, he experiences the Breakthrough into unbridled creativity (witness the miracles), and becomes transformed.  Long before the revelation on the mountain,   Jesus had already let go and been filled with God more than humanity had ever known.   At the moment of the transfiguration,  Peter, James, and John have the blinders removed.  They understand for the first time that Jesus has been transformed, that he is the son of God, and they realize that they need to listen to him.

Jesus even promised us that a transformation like his can be ours, as well.  What do we have do to?  Let go, to the same degree that he did.  Give up everything.  What will happen when we do?  A breakthrough in creativity, and eventually,  our transformation into children of God consumed with compassion.  Jesus’ promise is clear:  “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these.” (John 14:  12 – 14)

Now, by extension, could letting go be the catalyst for the transfiguration of our entire society?  A friend of mine thinks so.  When we can bring our letting go the level of Jesus, he says, that’s when the lame will walk.   Powerful story, the transfiguration.

Genes

“Just thought I'd let you know that [your grandson’s] tooth cut through! Just noticed this morning,”   read the text from my daughter-in-law.  That was a week ago. 

So the drool was in fact the precursor of teeth, even at three months, in January, when I first proposed the idea that our grandson might be teething.  Signs of teething, at three months.  Could it be?

Well, yes.  His father was also a drool machine at three months.  He cut his first tooth at four and a half months.  Our beautiful boy was five months old on Tuesday.

 

His length and weight also eclipse the norms for his age.  By five months, his father, my son, had mushroomed to twenty-two pounds.   Could this be just coincidence?  Or rather some evidence for the critical role our genetic inheritance can play in our lives.

I’ve always believed that nurture affects our nature more than, well, nature.  The environment in which we are born and raised determines to a greater extent than our genes our propensities and physical characteristics, I have staunchly maintained. The jury seems to be out on whether nurture or nature has the greater effect; both work in combination to produce the human each one of us becomes.

Still, unexpected events give me pause.  My father-in-law, a very social and sociable man fascinated by everything in life, adored conversation.  He engaged every fibre of his being in the exchange, eyes riveted on the other person, a smile on his face.  When that person’s contribution to the conversation extended what he himself knew or had heard on the subject, his smile would widen, his head lift a tad, and turn a few degrees to the left and back again in amazement.  Almost two decades later, while talking to his grandson, our younger son, I stopped in mid-sentence.  My son’s eyes riveted on me, a smile on his face, his head lifted a tad, and he turned his head a few degrees to the left, and then back.  In fact, I was the one amazed.  My son was born five years after his grandfather’s death.  He never knew him.  Chalk up another one for nature.

Those images consume me as my son and his wife discuss their son’s physical development and his evolving tastes.  Turns out our grandson loves music from the fifties, to the point that his father has begun a playlist of his favorites on Rdio.  Now, one would surmise, he might be getting this preference from his dad, who plays bass guitar in a band.  The only thing is, the band doesn’t play fifties music.  At all.  His father just exposed his son to a variety of musical styles, and noticed a heightened response for rock and roll from the fifties.

Here’s the thing.  His grandfather, my husband, thrives on music from the fifties.  When we travel by car, he keeps the radio on the Fifties station.  (House rule:  The driver chooses the radio station.  In fact, that propensity has motivated me to assume my share of the driving, but that’s neither here nor there.)   He grooves to the songs while driving, slapping his knees and the steering wheel to the beat.  It’s happy music, he says.  A person just feels upbeat when it’s on.  Apparently, his grandson shares that opinion.

Add to that our daughter, the artist.  My husband doesn’t draw.  Neither do I.  My mother, though, had a gift.  Now, her granddaughter brings it to life.   Yes, these observations are unscientific.  But they astound me nonetheless, and, as I watch our grandson develop,  I marvel at nature and our genetic inheritance all the same. 

Service

“Can we help you?”  asks the clerk at Sandbox in the City, a ladies’ clothing boutique my hairdresser recommended to me, as she materializes between racks of brightly patterned sun dresses.

“Yes, thank you, I’m looking for a dress for my daughter’s wedding. In June,” I reply, more to the jeans, tunics, dress pants, dresses, blouses, two-piece coordinating swimwear, and jewellery that consume almost every square inch of the retail space than to the clerk’s face.

“Well, you’ve come at the right time,” she reassures me.  In a month, we’ll be sold out.  Really? I thought, struggling to find byte space for the conversation.  Wow.  And I thought I had time to spare.  “What did you have in mind?”

My head rotates back to the clerk, like a flower seeking sunlight, and I locate my smile.  “Something sleeveless, fitted, knee length, in a solid colour.  Not red.  Not black, either, I hope.”

“Why don’t you look around and see what you like, to start?”

I feel intimidated at the embarassment of riches.  This, too, is an elephant, and a small bite is in order.  I separate the hangers to get a good look at the dresses and check sizes, and  I hook a beige and black geometric design on the end of my finger.  Well, I can see what the general effect is, anyway.  Encouraged but not yet enthusiastic, I add a navy lace, a royal blue straight cut with a gold belt, and another to be unveiled at the wedding. 

You know, already, then, that I did find a dress, that the clerk’s enthusiasm for the diverse looks I modelled fuelled my enjoyment of the process, so much that I even tried on the red shift and the bright yellow long-sleeved number she suggested.

I try the winner on again at the end of the process, just to be sure.  While the purchase goes through, she recommends earrings, and tells me where to go for shoes, and who to see there. 

She was competent, that’s for sure. Many people can be competent.  How many, however, can manage a distracted customer at the end of the day, half an hour before closing, with that customer’s satisfaction rather than a sale at heart, and the ability to convince me that there’s nothing else she would rather have been doing at that moment.  I leave the store surprised that I have something to wear for the wedding, relieved that the pressure is off, and  grateful for an exceptional service experience.

The prize for not just exceptional service but an unparalleled service experience goes to the receptionist of the imaging department of a hospital I visited recently.  Negativity infected the waiting room.  People used their time to grumble about the wait, to remind the young woman managing the area about the length of their wait.  Not to her face, of course.  They didn’t go to the counter and inquire about their turn in a calm voice, smile on their face, confident that all the employees were doing their best to expedite the service.  Instead, they conversed among themselves, strangers joined in a solidarity of the dissatisfied, connected in their irritation, their words just loud enough to be heard throughout the room.

Rather than ignore those complaints and continue about her business, the receptionist addressed them in the same upbeat, joyful tone she used to interact with her colleagues and patients who presented at the window.  How long have you been waiting, sir?  Let me just check for you.  You know, it will only be a few more minutes.   Her decision to maintain a pleasant disposition immunized her from the negative contagion.  In fact, she herself could vaccinate against pessimism anyone entering the room inclined to benefit from her tonic.  Through her command of both her own attitude and the skills necessary for effective service, she innoculated me as well.

The onus is not only on the service provider, however.  To be fair, as a customer or client, I do have some responsibilities of my own.  I want to smile, be positive and patient, wear my pleasant face and minimize the gestures.  That strategy pays off most of the time in better service.    Only when it doesn’t can I give myself permission to invoke retaliatory measures, as long as those measures don’t involve rudness.  For the boutiques where the salespeople can’t be bothered to say hello when I walk in, especially if they’re not  with a customer,  for example, I make a point of not finding anything I like, an apt consequence, I tell myself, for someone who neither does a job nor provides a service.

Congratulations and thank you to the clerk who sold me my dress and the receptionist at the hospital.  Through the joy and pride you take in the service you provide, you make life better for the people you touch each day.  You also remind us what great service looks like, and give us a model to emulate.

Tante

“Hi, Yvette, it’s your cousin Gisèle calling.”

I knew, right then, what her message was.

“Tante Yvette has passed away, hasn’t she?”

“Mom passed away peacefully this evening.”

”Oh, Gisèle, I’m so sorry!”  That was all I could say.  I couldn’t even focus on the rest of my cousin’s message.  I had to ask her to repeat her request several times, to make sense of it, so it could pierce through the images of the aunt with whom I shared a name.

Tante Yvette:

·  the matchmaker, in cahoots with her husband, Henri, introduced my parents almost sixty-five years ago.  My mother, Évéline, took the bus from the city for a weekend visit to the small town where her sister and her brother-in-law lived.   The story was that Oncle Henri didn’t want to venture out alone twenty miles in a torrential July rain storm on soaked clay roads to pick her up, though, so he asked his friend, Hervé, to accompany him.  Hervé and Évéline were married the following January.

·  the hospitable aunt, welcoming me, the shy university student, into her family for Sunday dinner.

·  the proud mother, radiating joy in  her children’s accomplishments.

·  the grieving widow, rebuilding her life after Oncle Henri’s untimely passing.

·  the efficient professional, providing bilingual secretarial services first at the university, and later, in government.

·  the storyteller, trading anecdotes with me over red wine, steelhead trout, and chocolate lava cake in a quaint bistro.

·  the hostess, eyes alight after an afternoon chitchat with my father, when I picked him up after work to take him home.  

Tante Yvette, at 88, is the last of her family, another in the line of indomitable women I am privileged and proud to call my ancestors.  Strong, resilient, unbowed, all of them.   She and my mother, their mother and their sisters, have taught me well.  Now, the torch has passed to me.