Striking the set in theater is the easy part—after working so hard on building it, taking it all down feels almost effortless. What took several days to construct only takes hours to demo.
That’s a pretty consistent reality across the board, isn’t it? Continue reading “So Much Harder to Rise Than Fall”
As a kid, when the dark clouds were angry and the TV crawl let us know of a tornado warning, I would quickly pack a bag to take with me to the basement and wait it out. In my anxious young mind, it made me feel better to have with me the things that I deemed I didn’t want to be without. Continue reading “Is Your Storm Bag Packed?”
On any given day, I feel like I am running on life’s treadmill. My ToDo list keeps growing, and even though I’ve been busy all day, it feels like I don’t have nearly enough (if anything) to show for it. And I fear that if I break stride, I could end up like George Jetson when Astro decided to chase the cat. (For you youngsters who don’t get that reference, click here.) Our culture encourages busy, busy—and if you’re not busy, you’re lazy. Continue reading “To Those Who Are Too Busy (aka Most Likely YOU)”
Sometimes an offhanded remark sticks like super glue. Though the person who said it probably didn’t give it much thought, the person it’s being said to does. Continue reading “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”
Last week, the small town of Fairdale, Illinois was ravaged by an EF-4 tornado. What was once a community is now reduced to what looks like Pick-Up-Stix. One reporter said that had the tornado struck a quarter mile either north or south, the town would have been spared.
All that open space, but the tornado roared right through the town.
So not fair.
Most people are born healthy while some are born sick. Some face illness later in life. Others aren’t sick a day in their lives.
Qatar is the richest country in the world, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the poorest (based on per-capita GDP). I bet whether you are born in one or the other plays a huge part in your quality of life and your future. And where you’re born really isn’t up to you now, is it?
In the much more mundane and insignificant realm, there is the story of when my over-30 softball team made it to the championship—played on a freezing November night. The opposing team brought a 200’ extension cord to power a space heater and warm up their bats. They scored three runs in the top half of the first inning before the umpire agreed that their being able to heat their bats was unfair. Those three runs were the only ones scored in the game. Championship lost. (Yes, I’m still bitter about it.)
Things happen. Bad things happen to “good” people, and good things happen to “bad” people…and vice versa. It’s a pretty simple reality—all you have to do is look around you.
Life isn’t fair.
I get frustrated when people preach that being Christian means one’s life will be easier. Pardon me, but that’s a load of crap. There is no magic get-out-of-jail-free card. Faith will help you be better able to deal with life’s injustices and challenges, but if anyone tells you that believing will make your life all sunshine and lollipops, kick them in the shin (and then turn the other cheek. Wait, I may have that a bit confused.)
Bit I digress.
Fairness is not the default of life on earth. Just ask the gazelle being chased by the cheetah.
But don’t you long for it?
My son all too often begins a sentence with, “But I was just…” and then what follows is any one of a million explanations for why he was doing something he shouldn’t. It’s as though, given an excuse, everything can be made “right” or explained away. It’s a natural instinct, but it drives me crazy. Often when I tell my son that life isn’t fair, I remind him that he needs to understand that he can’t expect it to be fair, either.
I strongly believe we have to foster that in our children—not to expect fairness, but to fight for it. While we are not entitled to it, we shouldn’t settle for life’s injustices, either. The sooner kids understand this, the sooner they can choose to be active about it and not passively wait for justice.
Thankfully, that seems to be a part of the human spirit—fighting for fairness that will innately never happen on its own, and realizing that it is an uphill battle with no apex—no final destination. Not on this earth. We will never be victors when it comes to the fairness war, but battle by battle, we can make a difference. And I don’t think we’ll ever be short of battles.
Fairdale had no chance in battling against the tornado, but they are already battling the aftermath. As we so often see, after devastation comes restoration. We humans have a tendency to rise to our best when faced with the worst, and within hours of the storm, people were helping one another in critical ways.
It never ceases to amaze me how people even begin to clean up after such loss, but piece by piece, they do.
I’ll never understand how life works, but I’m so glad I have constant reminders to keep battling on. And on.
Life isn’t fair. It’s…life.
It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
~Eleanor Roosevelt
If a sentence begins, “Well, at least YOU…” you can bet your sweet bippy that it is a comparison that aims to show the speaker in greater need or pain than the listener.
“Well, at least YOU know some of the people at the party. I don’t know anyone.”
“Well, at least YOU have a job to complain about. I can’t even find work.”
“Well, at least YOU have a kid who tries to get good grades. I can’t get mine to care.”
You get the idea. There are some people who always seem to need to rank higher on any “scale” of life being discussed. Kristen Wiig’s Penelope character from Saturday Night Live is the queen of “one-upping”:
Most of us are not Penelopes. (Thank God!) But I think it’s safe to say that most of us have been guilty of occasionally one-upping someone—even another’s pain. For whatever reason, we sometimes feel the need to have our own situation acknowledged as primary. Maybe it’s rooted in the frustration of feeling unheard, but…no matter what…it’s annoying. And it’s super annoying when it’s about another’s pain or loss.
Within the year after my dad died from his battle with cancer, another family suffered the loss of a husband and father in a car accident. My mother was friends with the new widow, and she offered her comfort in her time of loss. I will never forget the woman’s response. She said, “Well at least you were able to say goodbye. You knew your husband was dying, and you had that time with him. I didn’t. Mine was gone in an instant.”
You know in cartoons how sometimes a character gets hit or mowed down and then they get up and try to briskly shake off the effects? That was my mom. She eventually replied, “Yes, I did have that time to say goodbye. But I also saw him suffering for months, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
I remember sitting there and wondering what the point was of this “grief contest” that the widow created. Both women lost their spouses. One got to say goodbye. The other didn’t. One’s husband suffered at length. The other’s husband was gone in a flash. Was there a prize for greater loss?
It was unfortunate that what should have been two people coming together in pain that they each understood all too well instead became a “Oh, yeah? Well, my grief is greater” conversation.
Clearly the widow was hurting and trying to make sense of things, so we have to put the conversation in that context and give her grace, but…it really stuck with me.
Clinical psychologist Susan Silk created the “ring theory” to illustrate a simple way for people to know how to avoid saying the wrong thing to someone going through a crisis. It’s completely common sense, but we are not always led by common sense now, are we?
In a nutshell, comfort moves toward the center (the person in crisis or pain), and any kind of comparing or complaining can only be shared with someone in a larger ring.
This theory allows for the widow of my story to say whatever because of the loss she is suffering, but since my mom was in the same boat, they were pretty much together in the same ring.
It’s not rocket science to understand that you shouldn’t tell someone who just lost a job that your boss is a real d-bag, but…sometimes we do.
Or if someone is sharing with you that they feel a certain way to cut in and say, “oh, yeah, me too! For me it’s like…” but…sometimes we do.
Or if someone is going through something as horrific as the loss of a child to say that we understand that loss because we’ve lost a parent…but…sometimes we do.
We are so very human, but we need to fight the urge to chime in and one-up one another.
We all know our own struggles best. After all, we are the ones going through them. It makes sense that we would feel most intensely about them. But that’s how it is for everyone.
Very often the ideal response to someone going through a challenge or crisis is so very, very simple: Listen. Listen so well that they feel heard.
It is so simple that sometimes it feels like it’s not enough. I need to do something. I need to help them or give them advice. But it is often perfectly enough. And if it’s not, the person will probably let you know.
Listen so that they know what they are saying matters to you. That they matter to you. It’s pretty impossible to say the wrong thing listening. The whole being quiet thing really reduces your chances of doing so.
Listening is a practice that is ongoing with every person and every situation. It’s never the same twice. But it always matters.
Want to rank high at something? Be an amazing listener.
At least that’s what I heard.
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