Goals 2016: Entertainment

A dear friend of mine moved to Manhattan with her sweet family over a year ago. It was a surprise move for onlookers. A few months ago she wrote a blog post about new places & embracing the challenge of change that comes with a move.

In case you were wondering, we didn’t move to Manhattan. Just a small, dusty town where three rivers meet in Washington. We are surrounded by farm land. The thai restaurant boasts the same aged décor that it did in 1992. The thrift stores are second-rate. The school buses are first class. But whether Manhattan or our small corner of the world, people are people.

I’m slowly realizing that although we don’t have tour books written about our new hometown & that most Saturday’s I’m scratching my head (or pulling my hair out) trying to entertain my kids, this is home. This is life for us, dust bunnies & tumbleweeds & painted sunsets. I will have to put on my big-girl pants and accept invitations to coffee dates even when I’d rather stay home in my pajamas. We will have to walk the fine line of establishing family boundaries to stay within & purposely swerve outside our paint lines to meet new people. We will have to let our kids stay up past their bedtime, feed them Mac & Cheese for the third time in one month (it’s a real treat around here), & let them wear grass-stained pants to bed because time with community is more important than a ridged bedtime schedule. I will have to say YES more often than it feels comfortable. Not only in this next year or two while we settle, but forever. Yes to new friends. Yes to scary life changes. Yes to new experiences. Yes to my husband when I’d rather spend my time locked in a closet with only myself as company. Yes to my kids when I don’t feel like the energy is there. Yes to LIFE.

Guard your spare moments. They are live uncut diamonds. Discard them & their value will never be known. Improve them & they will become the brightest gems in a useful life. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

New home. New town. New jobs. We are surrounded by uncut diamonds. And it doesn’t seem to be the how I spend the moments that matters, but how I treat the moments that I remember.

Entertainment is a funny word. I’m not even sure why slapped that title on this category. The truth is that we, in this illustrious modernized iphone-ized world have “entertainment” in the common sense of the word, at our fingertips all the time. We don’t line up at the theater dressed in Sunday-best to see new hits. We (in our family) don’t often turn over large portions of our budget to local concerts or venues. Maybe it is because we feel entertained enough by what we surround ourselves with.

But am I treating those moments with reverence? Am I making memories from them? What am I telling myself when I spend an hour pre-REM scrolling my Instagram feed?  Am I feeding my eyes or feeding my soul? And maybe most important of all, am I spending my soul well?

For as much as my brain needs a shut-off switch at night, my soul needs an equally desperate fire.

The average human gets around twenty five thousand days on this Earth, and most of us in the USA will get a few more. That’s it. This life is a breath. Heaven is coming fast, and we live in the thin space where fairht and obedience have relevance. We have this one life to offer; there is no second chance, no Plan B for the good news. We get one shot at living to expand the Kingdom, fighting for fustice. We’ll stand before Jesus once, and none of our luxuries will accompany us. We’ll have one moment to say, “This is how I lived”. (Jen Hatmaker, “7”)

(Real life update: I've totally failed in this department. Alone is my comfort zone & safety net. And although I've made satisfying progress at home in spending my moments well (most days--I'm still a real person), I am still idling in the service & love & outreach & friendship categories. The good news is that we are only halfway through the year. I know myself too well.)

Goals 2016: Travel

Our 3 year old refused the Captain Wings. He’d been on a plane before. It was no big thing to him. Both he & his sister sat satisfactorily, munching on the strategically packed snacks that would both keep them occupied & help relive the pressure in their ears from take-off. They traveled beautifully, aside from the brief meltdown over a dropped toy or a dead battery. (Also, thank God for iPad’s).

I was a lucky enough to get my Captain’s Wings when I was little. And I got them over & over & over again. My family traveled. A LOT. Belgium. Mexico. England. Paris. Victoria. New York. Alaska. Minnesota. San Francisco. Austin. Maui. I knew I was lucky; my grades held up despite my missing school & my parents viewed my absences for travel as the school of Cultural Reality (we also had an awesomely supportive School District). I think they were right on so many levels. So far I’ve had a new passport for every decade of life.

But what we didn’t do enough of was exploration. We chose to travel far instead of getting to know our own home. We live in Washington State—climate & topography are possibly more variable here than any other state. We even have a rainforest. But for all the miles I’ve banked on the plane or train or car, I haven’t banked nearly enough at the campsite or the National Park or the Bed & Breakfast.

Our kids, right now, don’t know the difference. The elephant at the zoo is just as exciting as an elephant on an African safari. The new friend made at the park two blocks away is equally awesome as the nontraditional nature schooled kid in Maine. Captain Wings are no different than a sticker from the dentist office.

Their cultural inquiries are at an all-time high & the concern about their differences are at a life-time low.

I want them to learn. I want them to know that we are privileged, not because God reached down & blessed their little lives with a fairy wand, but because we happen to work hard & live with a certain zip code at a specific latitude. I want them to realize that the fact that they can recognize letters & sign a few words is more than half the population in this world. And I want them to know, we want them to know, that they are fiercely loved by a God who has bigger, dirtier, bolder plans for them than airbrushed family photos & Pinterest-worthy homes with picket-fences.

And more than telling them about the privilege of their latitude & warm bath at night, we want to show them. We want to show them the National Parks to incite an excitement for soil microbes & sunsets. We want them to see the Wonders of the World so they’ll know, without a doubt, that the Nightly News cannot tell stories big enough to deny this wonder-full world. We want them to feel the tears of the mom who cannot feed her baby (& guide them in supporting her), the splinters in the broken floor boards of the orphanage, & the pulse of a beating heart that  holds so much different & yet so much of the same. We want them to travel because the World exists, an oyster whose beauty is waiting to be seen.

Even if they don’t want the Captain’s Wings.

·      As much as our budget allows, show our kids the World. Because it exists to be seen. And cultures exists to learn from. And to be raised in a bubble of the Nightly News about Brangelina & Kanye, with streak free windows & proverbial heated tile floors is to miss out on the humanity that Jesus came to save.

·      Travel near. Travel far. To the firestation, the salmon hatchery; to San Francisco & San Paulo. This won’t happen in 2016. But foster the curiosity, the culture, the ceaseless learning that their curious minds are waiting for.

·      Learn. Be open to culture, to new. Be respectful of culture, of old.

·      Respect our internal rhythm, our personal preferences; if we find that our kids love their own beds or our zero-based budget doesn’t allow for travel, swallow it & take a trip through books instead.

·      Realize that travel doesn’t always mean away—in all its forms there are so many facets we fail to explore: travel through time with history, through creation with trips to the Pet Store or the River shore, through exploration at the Children’s Museum or Farmers Market. Realize that for as much as travel is a physical act, it should also be one that sparks an intellectual one: learning.

Goals 2016: Education

In tenth grade, a new girl showed up. Growing up in a smaller community, to see a new person either meant they had just moved to town or they were one of those people.

Turns out, she was one of them.

She’d spent the first 16 years of her life learning at home. Her skin glowed. She conversed easily. She was beautiful. And she was in AP Geometry & AP Biology & probably AP Teenagehood. She was homeschooled.

We only had one class together. And I’m sorry to admit that I didn’t get to know her. She was the first normal homeschooled peer that I’d met. She didn’t have frizzy or permed hair. She wasn’t socially awkward. She didn’t wear clothes from 1993 or long skirts. She was, well…normal.

Our kids aren’t grade school aged yet. I’m holding my breath for two more years. From what I’ve heard, school systems & their own red tape have changed a bit from the days of Fourth Grade Knighting Ceremonies & recess time that lasted almost two hours. I’m not sure if kids still knit at recess (oh…you didn’t do that?). Or play with POGS. Or exchange trading cards. I’m not sure if they learn about volcanoes & watch Gilligan’s Island during the Earth unit & build dioramas of volcanic islands & explode soda bottles with Alka-Seltzer and Mountain Dew.

I want my kids to be able to do those things. I want them to be able to be kids.

Someone much more motherly, much wiser, with so many more kids than me told me once that homeschooling is a calling. I’ve never EVER considered it my calling. But now, at the crux of preschool enrollment, at the bend of what seems to be the road to childhood, we need to make a choice for our family.

The reality is that we have time. Thankfully, we have time. The decision for enrollment is a solid year away. We still have a full year of preschool left, for heaven’s sake.

At this time, I’m both fearful and hopeful of what that year might hold.

Right now, we are the people who just moved to town. We now just need to decide if we want to belong to the other group, too.

·      Be prayerful about what lessons we teach our children.

·      Consider the harder road—the one that will yield the most & the best & the most culturally aware children who love the Lord.  Realize that the harder road looks different for everyone.

·      Make learning a priority, but commit to following their curiosity. Use goals as a suggestion instead of a structure.

·      Be structured. Be spontaneous.

Goals 2016: Education

In tenth grade, a new girl showed up. Growing up in a smaller community, to see a new person either meant they had just moved to town or they were one of those people.

Turns out, she was one of them.

She’d spent the first 16 years of her life learning at home. Her skin glowed. She conversed easily. She was beautiful. And she was in AP Geometry & AP Biology & probably AP Teenagehood. She was homeschooled.

We only had one class together. And I’m sorry to admit that I didn’t get to know her. She was the first normal homeschooled peer that I’d met. She didn’t have frizzy or permed hair. She wasn’t socially awkward. She didn’t wear clothes from 1993 or long skirts. She was, well…normal.

Our kids aren’t grade school aged yet. I’m holding my breath for two more years. From what I’ve heard, school systems & their own red tape have changed a bit from the days of Fourth Grade Knighting Ceremonies & recess time that lasted almost two hours. I’m not sure if kids still knit at recess (oh…you didn’t do that?). Or play with POGS. Or exchange trading cards. I’m not sure if they learn about volcanoes & watch Gilligan’s Island during the Earth unit & build dioramas of volcanic islands & explode soda bottles with Alka-Seltzer and Mountain Dew.

I want my kids to be able to do those things. I want them to be able to be kids.

Someone much more motherly, much wiser, with so many more kids than me told me once that homeschooling is a calling. I’ve never EVER considered it my calling. But now, at the crux of preschool enrollment, at the bend of what seems to be the road to childhood, we need to make a choice for our family.

The reality is that we have time. Thankfully, we have time. The decision for enrollment is a solid year away. We still have a full year of preschool left, for heaven’s sake.

At this time, I’m both fearful and hopeful of what that year might hold.

Right now, we are the people who just moved to town. We now just need to decide if we want to belong to the other group, too.

·      Be prayerful about what lessons we teach our children.

·      Consider the harder road—the one that will yield the most & the best & the most culturally aware children who love the Lord.  Realize that the harder road looks different for everyone.

·      Make learning a priority, but commit to following their curiosity. Use goals as a suggestion instead of a structure.

·      Be structured.

Be spontaneous.

Goals 2016: Work

I’m lucky enough to love my job. Sure, there are politics—red tape, entitlement, insurance muck to slosh through. But most days, I leave the office genuinely thankful that I’m able to do this.

I have big dreams for my patients. B.I.G. (hopefully ending better than the one & only Notorious). But I also have a family that I adore. The truth is that the smiles may come from my patients, but the substance comes from my family.

My age is a touchy subject in my line of work. I feel it my responsibility to seem mature, knowledgeable. But then again, certifications, letters-after-my-name, & ALL THE SCHOOL LOANS kind of prove those things. I get asked a lot. Apparently some think that I graduated from high school at age 11.

When the question is asked, though, I reassure them that I am old enough to have completed my training. The truth is that I want to throw my hands up & prompt a pop quiz about the first line antibiotic for pneumonia or the molecular pathology of diabetes. I am more comfortable there, in the land of blissful academia. I am more comfortable where someone asks the question and, if I did the work, I know the answer. I’ll write you an essay, draw you a picture, or make you the best goddamned color-coded notecard you’ve ever seen. I’ll even use sparkly gel pens if you ask.

But ask me to hold your hand & sit in awkward silence because you just found out your marriage is broken or your father has cancer or your grandmother is suffering? That is the hard part for me.

I realized, not too long after starting work in the “real world”, the post-residency world where neurosurgeon’s call you by your first name & medical students cower in fear of your evaluation, that I was bad at the in-between. I love this job because I get to solve problems; I struggle when I have to sit through them with you.

The hard truth for me is that both aspects are part of my job—the solving & the sitting. The former is the science. The latter is the art.

I’m slowly learning the brush strokes, the color-mixing, the medium to work on. I’m slowly learning the hand-hold to console, to lean into the emotion instead of pushing it away.

And perhaps the most important part of what I am learning is to leave work at work. To close the office door & shut the laptop to just be done. The science is easy to leave, the sentiment drags behind like muddied footprints on a clean floor.

They say our visual memory is like a rolodex of cards—ready to be accessed, spun, at any time. Every so-often a smell, a look, a sense will trigger a memory of a patient or experience. Most are pleasant & evoke feelings of bravery & peace. Some are not, though; some are bitter & course, grating away at the joy that hangs just overhead.

We’ve discovered the difficulty in the constant grating recently. My husband switched jobs, which is what prompted our move. New field, new perspective, new hope.

We are taught that our jobs matter almost as much as our lives in this country. And as an unfortunate consequence, the lowly janitor (who is really not so lowly at all) feels like his life is worth nothing because of his title.

In Mrs. Hays fourth grade class, as part of our Medieval Social Studies unit, we held a royal knighting ceremony. Our parents made food & set out crockpots & snack trays on top of the paper tablecloths we handcrafted. We made a crown, a scepter, & a long purple cape. And, when the time came, the knight of our school walked in, ready to be given what was royally due. Our Janitor got royal treatment that day. He already knew each of us by name--& from thenceforth we got to call him “Sir”. He was a knight in shining (paper) armor, after all.

The symbolism was lost on me in fourth grade. It now brings me to tears.

So the last will be first, and the first will be last. (Matthew 20:16)

The irony does not escape me that my mind is most comfortable in the pretentious world of academia & my heart is brought to tears at the very thought of it.

As much as hand-holding & sitting through it is part of my job, as much as the diagnostics & the competency is part of my job, learning who I am holds an equal place of priority. Who I am to my patients. Who I am for the unacknowledged important. Who I am with my family.

Sparkly gel pens, pharmacology, & ambitious dreams aside, work for me needs to be something in which I can recognize the value of people & help make them better. It is also a tool with which I can teach my kids about the world. So that they can make it better, too.

•  Work for the JOY learning brings & the people it touches.
• Be present at work. Be present at home.
• Dream, plan, create—but savor these years of youth & the beauty of your children at this age.
• Stop working—in every sense of the word—when it is time. Stop working to seek approval. Stop working toward worldly updates on Facebook or the Nightly News. Stop looking for eye-candy; stop searching the outside world for self-worth.  
• Work because I can and because I love it, but remember why God gave me that work to begin with. Don’t let the red tape become the Red Sea, partible only by miraculous intervention.

(See parts ONE, TWO, & THREE)