"Stand up for the truth!"

Writing about my response, then Mom’s, to Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People got me to thinking about my personal experiences growing up, learning about the core doctrines of my birth faith. 

In looking back, it seems that the way they were presented by most of my minister-teachers was rather dry.  I recall getting a lot of information, a lot of detail to remember. 

Two ministers stand out in my mind as going against that grain.  One taught religion to my elementary school class, so I didn’t technically have him, but I heard him interact with my students.  The other wasn’t a minister when I had him in college, although he might as well have been (and soon was).  Both men infused their lessons with life, with energy, with color & imagination.  

A smile comes naturally whenever I remember David Holm striding into my 6^th Grade classroom, proclaiming, “Stand up for the truth!”   Did he know the connection between having children DO something, take some action, instead of just sitting passively at their desks?  His religion lessons were delivered with emotion, inflection and his strong, deep affection for the truth.

Prescott Rogers was a singular experience, shunning the lectern to stride from side to side of his college classroom, charged up with the ancient history he loved & loved to share.  It shimmered off  him.  Again – affection is the word that comes to mind.  Affection & energy & imagination.

I'm not saying that a light bulb flipped on when Dr. Covey talked about being proactive, about knowing what we want & pursuing it.  It wasn't  a startling new truth.   Instead, it was as if he took basics already in my mind & heart and added fresh liveliness.  

Self-awareness, conscience, creative imagination, independent will – those are the very things that David stirred within me, that Prescott set humming.  What Dr. Covey did was take ALL  the lessons I learned through the years & infuse them with an energy worthy of both those remarkable teachers.

May I always remember all the teachers in my life,                                                                                         building & expanding on what they gave me.

May I always feel special gratitude for the rare educators                                                                          who helped show the life force within doctrine.  

May I always off up thanks to Dr. Covey for helping me                                                                  embrace that independent will stands 4-square on our                                                                                                      self-awareness, conscience & creative imagination.  

And may I always, “Stand up for the truth!”

"Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." 

William Butler Yeats

Next Stop, Damascus

Stephen Covey claimed that being proactive – the first of his seven habits of highly effective people – was the foundation of all of them.  I thought being proactive meant doing things;  hadn’t given thought to it meaning doing the right thing at the most effective time. Hearing him talk about it opened my eyes to seeing being proactive as so much more.  

Until listening to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, i'd never thought about it in the context of taking conscious, aware control over my own life, focusing on what I’m doing at this present moment, instead of letting myself get all sorts of distracted by other things.  That includes knowing what my values are, knowing what I want to accomplish in my life in THIS moment, setting my intentions, determining my goals, and doing all in my power to achieve them, then move on to the next. 

Had never considered before that It’s impossible to know what I want to accomplish without first knowing my basic values.  Seems simple stupid, but had missed it entirely.

Before we can be proactive, we must first be awake & aware.  For me, that was difficult, even painful.  There were things I did not want to see, things I felt safest ignoring.  Slowly, slowly, it sunk in that to  be true to my own self, I had to get past that, had to discover who that self was. 

My eyes were opening to the fact that I had to be more in sync with what was really & truly important to me if I was ever to respond more effectively to events, spot opportunities, & create my own life.

This was totally new to me.  Although it seemed to come naturally to John, it was not what I’d seen mirrored by my family.  

Now that Dr. Covey had brought it up, it struck me that my family aggressively ignored what was right in front of our noses.  Be awake, aware?  Scary!  Way easier to filter out the potentially troublesome, to see only what felt safe & manageable.  At least, that was how it felt to me, the youngest.

Maybe that was one of my saving graces - being the youngest, by many years.  Being so separated by age, it was easier to get a sort of overview on my older brothers' & sister's  various approaches to life.  It makes sense to me that, from the time I could watch body language & grasp differences in vocal tones, it would have been clear which family members had weight & which did not.   

Of all the members in the family, the one with the least weight was Mom.  Maybe that’s one reason she seemed the antithesis of being proactive. 

I can imagine her friends, drop-jawed at the idea of Mom as non-active.  Kay?!  Oh, she did a lot, but it was reactive.   She was a marvel at doing something for someone else, responding to another’s needs.  Where she had on blinders was when it came to doing something that would directly benefit herself.  That, in her eyes, would be the great no-no. 

Not only did Mom not see any reason to change that aspect of her life, she didn’t think it was possible.  “I’ve always been that way,” was her explanation. 

In 1997, all that changed, when our road to DisneyWorld became her road to Damascus. 

Driving down to Florida, she had her choice of a mixture of audiotapes, including her favorite musicians, recordings of Prairie Home Companion, and some of personal dynamics coaches.  On the first leg, from Bryn Athyn to Williamsburg, we’d listened to Marianne Williamson discuss relationships.  The next day, after lunch, I flipped in Tape 1 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. 

We’d had some interesting discussions as we listened to Marianne talk about relationships, but it never came up at dinner or later as we settled into our room. I certainly wasn’t looking for any special interest in hearing Stephen Covey, in spite of his impact on me. 

As we approached Fayetteville, Dr. Covey introduced the general idea of the 7 Habits.  Talking about paradigm shifts, he used Pasteur’s germ theory to explain how the way people viewed disease completely changed.  In an instant, people who’d ridiculed the possibility that organisms invisible to the eye could cause devastating disease completely changed their minds.  Once they saw the value, their paradigm shifted. 

Dr. Covey talked about this happens with us, when we discover something to be true & valuable.  His goal was to shift our paradigms from ones that were limiting to ones that were effective.    

As we started towards Florence, he began to talk about the first habit – Be Proactive.  

Mom was quiet, but I didn’t think much of it – guess I figured she was dozing off.  Hardly.  As Dr. Covey came to the end of a sentence, Mom touched my arm – “Please, play it again.”  

Startled, I asked her what she wanted.  “Please, would you play that last part again.”  I did.  And she asked again & again for me to replay it.  Mom must have listened to that one sentence at least four times, maybe more.

“Between stimulus & response is the moment when 

you can choose your response.”

Mom asked if we could pull off at the next exit  for a cup of coffee.  She had to talk out loud about what she had heard. 

In all of her life, Mom had never thought about changing the way she’d always responded.  Her ingrained reactions to things were as much a part of her being as the color of her hair or her height.  Until now.  Now, she realized, she could choose to do things differently, to look at them differently, to experience them differently.

Talk about a paradigm shift!

I will never forget that first conversation, her dazed amazement at a possibility she’d never considered.  There is stimulus and there is response AND there is an opportunity for us to consciously choose our response.  This was radical stuff for her!  She’d talked about free will all of her life, but she’d never experienced it in such a living way before. 

With that, Mom started her journey toward healthier self-awareness.  She was born in 1910, raised to think of women & especially wives & absolutely mothers as doing what others – particularly males – asked.  A healthy sense of self was never part of that perspective.  Until that moment.   If someone asks you for something & it is inconvenient or even detrimental for you to comply, it’s okay to say no.  What a wild idea! 

The possibility that she had an inner compass was a radical departure for a woman raised by Victorian parents.  It was the beginning of Mom’s dawning awareness that we need to know what our true values are, not just what we think they should be.  Revolutionary!  She’d never thought of using her imagination to come up with different responses to her longtime ways of dealing with things, particularly with family issues.  Mom had always known she had the freedom to act, but she had not connected that with her freedom to choose, to pick a different response from the one she & others had come to expect. 

Just as he had me years before, Stephen Covey had set Mom on the new road!

A Brahman saw the Buddha resting under a tree in meditation.

The Brahman was impressed with the Buddha's way.

He asked, "Are you a god?"

"No, Brahman, I'm not a god."

"Are you an angel?"

"No," replied the Buddha.

"You must be a spirit, then?"

"I am not a spirit," said the Buddha.

"Then, what are you?"

"I am awake."

Half Asleep

Awoke just after 4:00 a.m., my hand atop the soft fur of a sleeping kitty.  Took a minute or so to register that the slumbering cat was not the wee small short-hair I expected, but a medium long-hair with a semi-fox-like bushy tail.  Rennie was sleeping sweetly by my side, not kneading my chest at some ludicrously early morning hour or softly nipping me to drag me awake.  Other than the soft rise & fall of his breath under my hand, he wasn't moving a single lanquid muscle.

But I was just awake as if he had.

For about ten minutes, we lay there, side by side, 2-leg trying to fall back to sleep, feline effortlessly slumbering.  

Did I start massaging his fur or making some small movements?  Rennie slowly came awake, streeeetched his long beautiful body, gathered himself together & jumped to the floor. 

Leaving me there, awake, Sky sleeping on my upper legs.

As part of my brain tried to go back to sleep, another was off & running with any number of interesting wee small hour thoughts.  ~  How the opposite of democracy isn’t socialism or communism or facism or any ism, but is hierarchy. ~ Trying to remember if it’s tonight or tomorrow night that I’m slated to make gluten-free goodies for college exams (chocolate dipped & slathered strawberries, cups of naked strawberries with whipped cream, sectioned & deveined clementines).  ~ Pondering on the fact  both of my nieces live southeastern Australia & both of my nephews live in southeastern USA.

Decided to get up & share my weird awakeness with the internet, as it helps calm such thoughts to write them out – and will get me closer to a sane time for the cats’ breakfast feeding.

Might as well take this time for something practical, so here is a list of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

·         Habit 1: Be Proactive

·         Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

·         Habit 3: Put First Things First

·         Habit 4: Think Win-Win

·         Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

·         Habit 6: Synergize

·         Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Pretty simple & straightforward, which I guess is their strength. 

But more on them when I’m actually fully awake, not checking to see if it’s close enough to 6:00 a.m. to justify dishing out breakfast.   (At 5:15 a.m., it’s not.) 

Cockeyed Optimist

When I first heard the term abundance mentality, my heart leapt with recognition.  I  wasn’t weird! 

Throughout my life, I’ve had this wacky idea that we are born with enough, if we just open up to it.  We’re supposed to be kind to each other & look for mutual cooperation & be as generous as possible with our time, energies & other resources (without seriously depleting our own).

That attitude has gotten me in more trouble than you may believe.

Back in my dating days, had a semi-significant other warn me that none of his friends trusted me because I was too upbeat.  Ultimately broke up with him via an audio cassette I’d made of music reminiscent of our time together – most was a mixture of blues, bagpipes, classic rock, jazz & a touch of folk, with the last bit  songs of ending & farewell.  The first song on the 90 minute cassette?  Mary Martin, singing,  “When the skies are brighter canary yellow, I forget ev'ry cloud I've ever seen, So they called me a cockeyed optimist - immature and incurably green.”

He was the first person to tell me I was too too.  Years later, working at Prudential for Pete Boericke, a fellow Swedenborgian, we were both occasionally  told, “You’re different,” noted in an “I don’t get you,” quietly uncomplimentary way. 

Point of Fact:  Human Resource departments throughout the Delaware Valley recognized that people raised and educated in my little hometown brought something different to the work world.  I’ve never been able to figure out what it was, but HR folks at Pru told me the same thing –  employees  from Bryn Athyn were more likely to go the extra mile, to bring an extra something to their job. 

Our coworkers couldn’t make heads nor tails of why Pete & I actually seemed to LIKE our work, seemed to get pleasure out of it.  Through the years, whenever anyone commented on being different, I followed Pete’s lead, waving them off with a laugh & protesting I wasn’t in the least bit different.    

And then there were the colleagues who’d say to me, “You’re too good to be true,” simply because I’d done something that required some extra thought or effort.  Like my former beau, they experienced nice as suspect.  It made people feel downright uneasy around me.

Then, at a farewell party for a departing exec (no one did special event parties like Prudential!), everything shifted. 

One of our marketing honchos brought me over to meet an Exec VP from Corporate.  She was easily the most stylish business woman I’ve ever seen, someone who looked totally professional yet different – not easy to do.  So, I was totally taken aback when she responded to our introduction with a fabulous smile, as she exclaimed, “You’re Elsa Murphy?  I’ve been longing to meet you.” 

Obviously, a Corp Exec VP wouldn’t know me, so I diplomatically said that she must be confusing me with Elizabeth Murphy.

”You’re Elsa Murphy, right?   You edit Brand Voice Bulletin,” she replied.

That was me.  I asked how she came to be familiar with the online newsletter, which was distributed regionally.

“Oh, someone makes sure I get it.  We all see it.  It’s wonderful!”

By this time, the room was spinning around me. 

In the mid 1990s, an online anything was rare within Prudential, whichever your business unit.  I’d been blessed to attend a couple internet communications conferences;  when a need came up to verify & distribute core information simply & flexibly, I created an online bulletin, using the steps I’d learned –  I kept it simple, created a non-cutsey title that reflected its use, bullet pointed the contents up front, used spare language, and documented everything.  

To me, it was a practical solution to a difficult situation, not an innovative milestone. 

She continued, “How ever did you come to do it?  And how ever did you get Prudential HealthCare to approve it?”

Again being as diplomatic as possible, I explained how by keeping it regional,  I’d circumvented needing approval from higher ups in at PHCS hq.

“But I’ve seen ones with information that don’t apply to your Central region,” she commented.

Well, that was true.  I gathered questions from around my region, but other regions could send me their own to research.  I got Corp Legal to sign off on any answers before I’d print them.  Being online, there were no limitations associated with a print publication ~and~ I could courtesy copy each of my counterparts.  If they chose to use it in part or all for their own region, that was their call. 

Can still, almost 20 years later, see the confused look on her face.

“Why did you take such a risk?” she asked.

That was an easy explanation. 

“Well,” I answered, “Obviously, someone had made a massively bad decision.  Because no one at PHCS hq wanted to be blamed for it, everyone stopped making any decisions.  The different regions were getting conflicting explanations about very important marketing matters that could leave us legally liable.  As I saw it, the company was at risk & no one was putting its needs first.  So, I decided to act like I’d already been fired, which freed me to what seemed best for the business entity.”

It seemed a simple explanation to me, but the Corp Exec VP looked visibly shaken.  She was quiet for a few moments before saying, with a huge smile, “You ARE a rebel.”  

With those four words, my world changed.

She was right – it was subversive & professionally dangerous.  Still, it never occurred to me that anything I’d done was unusual.  The company was at risk & I was the only one in a position to make a difference.  It was my job.  And, yeah – it was pretty rebellious.

After that brief encounter, when people would say to me, “You’re different,” instead of going into denial, I’d lean right into their personal space, look them straight in the eye, and say, “And you have NO idea just how different I am.”  When colleagues would say, “You’re too good to be true,” I’d do the same thing, this time saying, “And part of you believes that.”

Up until then, most of my colleagues would probably have described me as a  steady performer, reliable & relatively competent, nothing brilliant.  But after I started being bold in response to their comments about being different, about my niceness, things changed.  I changed, seeing that my core optimism IS radical compared to the world’s norm & embracing it as such.

The sorry fact is that an optimistic, open person is often found suspect.  There are few things more detrimental to how a person is perceived that not having an agenda when everyone around you does.  

Genuine optimism is rooted in abundance mentality, in believing that if you do what is right & treat other people well, things will work out.  There is more than enough for everyone, we can always make the best of our situations, however dire they might be.  Consider Viktor Frankl.  

I’ve lost a lot in my life because of my attitude – family & friends & opportunities – but I’d rather lose something because of others' discomfort with me than lose my sense of who I am.  

The bottom line is that there is plenty for all, but there is only one of us. 

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we're done and we might as well be dead,
But I'm only a cockeyed optimist
And I can't get it into my head.

I hear the human race
Is fallin' on its face
And hasn't very far to go,
But ev'ry whippoorwill
Is sellin' me a bill,
And tellin' me it just ain't so.

I could say life is just a bowl of Jello
And appear more intelligent and smart,
But I'm stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can't get it out of my heart!
Not this heart...

“Find out who you are, and do it on purpose.” 
― Dolly Parton

Hit SHIFT

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People has been such a godsend, I clean forgotten it was written as a business book. Business book it may be, but Stephen Covey & his message connected immediately with a far broader audience.  

Some stats:  

• to date, it has sold over 25 million copies in 39 languages;  
• the audio book - my introduction - has sold over 15 million copies; it remains on of the all-time best selling nonfiction books of ANY sort;  
• in 2011, Time magazine named it one of "The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books."  

And easily near the top of the books that influence my life.

Stephen Covey starts with a simple premise ~ the best way to effectively achieve goals is by aligning ourselves as much or more with our core values & principles as we do with our perceived desire.  In his view, character counts most over the long run.  The simplicity & clear relevancy of his seven habits made me feel like thwacking the side of my head for being such a dunderhead. His discussion on the concept of Paradigm Shift practically had me drive to the side of a very busy interstate just to pay full attention.  I'd never thought about how my life reflected a perspective or viewpoint.  And when I heard him explain how two people can see the same thing & yet see it in two completely different ways - well, I'd believed that since I was ten, and here was someone saying, "Yes! That is true!"  

Two of the most conflicting perspectives are abundance mentality and scarcity mindset. Again, had never really thought about that, but on hearing it, let out a loud inner YES!  My Inner Unrepentent Pollyanna immediately warmed to the concept of abundance mentality, living without a net because you know you'll be safe, experiencing life as a blessing.  

The reverse - scarcity mindset - makes folks hold onto resources with a tight grip, rather than sharing.  It cripples them by being so worried possible loss that they miss any joy in the present.  

Strange but true - neither abundance mentality nor scarcity mindset have anything to do with your money or level of success, yet define our sense of prosperity or lack.    .    

Looking back at my life so far, can see that friends who believed there would be enough resources & success to pass around were the ones who felt accomplished in their lives, had a sense of prosperity. even when they didn't have immense wealth.  Sadly, I can also see how friends burdened with a scarcity mindset - who believed there's always a loser, that life is a struggle, burdened with limited resources - felt, on every level, a gnawing sense of deprivation..

The concepts of abumdance mentality and scarcity mindset have been discussed so much over the past 24 years, by so many authors, as to now seem almost trite, but the reason them seem trite is because they are right.  And are just as relevant today as they were in 1989.

So, what are these seven habits of highly successful people? 

“Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. 

It's not logical; it's psychological.”

Stephen R. Covey

Road Work Ahead

How many of my most important moments happened due to careful planning?  The big ones, like getting my driver's license or college degree, but most of the really crucial moments in my life seemed to happen through pure serendipity.  My big-step-up  job at US HealthCare?  A colleague's casual comment.  My life-changing job at Prudential?  Bumped into Pete Boericke chucking twigs off a sidewalk.  John?  An ice storm.  

A person made a comment on the radio & suddenly I'm writing a book.  Wasn't planned, but so right.  

Even when I do carefully plan things, they inevitably produce unintended consequences.  Take this book - hadn't thought about how it would feel, returning to books I haven't thought about in years, the swell of memories reading certain passages.    

Taken totally unawares as I listened yesterday to my priceless audiotape of Stephen Covey on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  Oh, I'd expected to have some response, since it was the book that triggered my interest in personal & family dynamics, but stunned at how deeply.

It was in the early 1990s that I was introduced to Stephen Covey & his 7 Habits.  Heading up to a gal pal weekend up in the Catskills, leaving right from work, realized my music cassettes had been left at home.  I whipped into a nearby Barnes & Noble, looking for something long enough for the 4-hour drive.  There it was - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, on four cassettes.  In a rush, grabbed it without giving much thought beyond it was the right amount of time.  

Never would I have guessed how those seven habits would change my life.  

Up to then, self-help/personal dynamics books had no appeal to me.  If they were so gosh darn helpful, how come people kept buying more?  Shouldn't just a couple have been enough?  So it was with a growing sense of startled awe that I listed to Stephen Covey share his insights, even one ringing true.  

After that, I was off & running - so many different voices changing my perspective, my life.  But as enthusiastic as I was, as ardent about her reading or listening to some of them, I could not get Mom interested in what they shared.  Oh, she let me read the occasional section or play a particular bit, but more than that - no.  

Then fate stepped in.  Prudential HealthCare was purchased by Aetna.  I was suddenly about to be out of a job.  

My colleagues, most of whom had only worked for Prudential, were devastated.  After the announcement, they walked around, shell shocked.  Time after time, someone would ask me, "What are you doing when you leave Prudential?"  Being more professionally battle scarred, it didn't overwhelm me.  Looking for a way to respond that would illustrate my optimism about the future, I came upon the perfect reply.  Whenever anyone asked The Question, my face would light up as I answered, "What am I doing when I leave Prudential?  I'm going to DisneyWorld!"  

And we did.  A couple months later, on the day after Halloween, off we went, Mom & I on our ultimate road trip.  

I'd planned the trip as a special treat for Mom, who had longed to see EPCOT ever since Walt Disney announced it.  It never occurred to me that, at 87, she might be too old for such long drives, with almost a week at DisneyWorld.  

We had a blast, planning our stops along the route, with overnight stays in Williamsburg, Charleston & Jacksonville on the way down, at several country inns tucked into the Great Smoky & Blue Ridge Mountains on the way home.  

it meant the world to me that this trip be the second greatest vacation of Mom's life.  I succeeded beyond wildest dreams.  Little did I know that the road to DisneyWorld would turn out to be Mom's "road to Damascus"!  

If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme.

Set Up

Is it possible that I could have been affected at such an early age by a book?  And an advanced book, however small, at that?

Yes.  

But I was always a precocious reader.  In 7^th Grade, I read the next book that shifted my world view into something bigger  – Gone With the Wind.  What strains credibility even more is how deeply affected I was in 8^th Grade by the posthumous publication of Dag Hammerskjold’s spiritual diary, Markings, not an easy book for adults to fathom, much less a young teen.

From 1966 to 1974, I can’t remember anything moving me in anything close to the same way.  That was the year Dorothy Rhodes (now Brown) and Susie Grubb (now Andrews) introduced me to Carol Gilligan’s In A Different Voice. 

I’d like to say that reading that eye-opening book spurred me into a rush of reading.  It did not.  I still saw myself as a bit of a dim bulb.  Besides, what was the sense of bothering?  I might glean insights into my challenging life situation, but that wouldn’t change anything.

Then, 1989 arrived, and my universe shifted. 

In February, I fell in love with John Richard Murphy.  In September, dear reader, I married him.  For the first time, I had a remarkably balanced, emotionally healthy individual 4-square in my life.  My healing had begun.

In November, two short months after our wedding, I was headed directly from work for a gal pal weekend in the Catskills, near Woodstock.  Oh no! I’d left all my music cassettes at home!  Dreading a long drive with radio stations weaving in & out of range, I nipped into Barnes & Noble to pick up an audiotape.  

Stephen Covey’s audio book of his newly published 7 Habits of Highly Effective People caught my eye.  Its chief virtue being that it looked like the right amount of time for the trip, I nabbed it, expecting only an interesting listen on a long drive. 

To this day, get chills remembering how the exact length of the audio book lasted from when I flipped on the audiotape pulling out of B&N’s parking lot to when I arrived at my destination.  

One audio book, three cassette tapes, and my life took a quantum leap forward.

Since then, there have been a lot of books & audiotapes as it slowly dawned that I was not the dunderhead I’d thought myself.  I became a voracious seeker & reader, spending hours & hours each week in our local B&N and Borders, discovering the cohorts, guides & role models I’d longed for over so many years. 

As anyone who knows me even slightly knows, I am no shrinking violet when it comes to sharing opinions, insights or "I just read something wonderful..."  For years, friends have urged me to go into life coaching, or at least write a book. 

As complimentary as such opinions are, the fact is that personal development books are highly...  personal, in some ways a lot like shoes.  A friend might admire a pair of boots I'm wearing, but it would be foolish to get her an identical pair if she wears size 5 & I wear size 8.

The books that turned my world around are ones suited to me, meeting my needs, filling the empty holes in my emotional core.  Like shoes, people have to find their own best fit.  

It's true I would make a hash of writing "how to" book.  But what joy to write about the books that shifted me into a more fully realized version of my best self, an chance to give a tip of the hat to forces that changed my life in stunning ways I could never have imagined.  So, here we are.

What a mental to & fro I had, deciding in what order to discuss just the top ten or so.  Should I use the chronological order in which I read them?  That won't work, as I don’t have a clue when that would be.  Go by publication date?  That washed out, having often read them years after their first printing.  By author?  Not right.  How about by alphabetically, by title?  That feels like a good fit (and it’s easy to figure out).

It was only after I hit on using titles alphabetically that I realized the first book  would be the one I listened to on that long-ago drive – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey.  It changed my life in 1989 & again in 1997 – but I get ahead of myself.

And so, we begin…

“Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.” 
― Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Reflections

If you went looking for me this morning, bright & early, you would have found me at Be Well Bakery, savoring an everything bagel, toasted & slathered with cream cheese, scattered with capers, capped with slices of cucumber & tomato. 

The moment was a small perfection - sitting at my small, well-lit table, sipping my café au lait, nibbling my bagel, reading my book, aware of a room filling up with friendly faces. A good start to my day.

A young couple & little child came in, walking past me, to the counter.  Back they came, coffees in hand, to sink into one of the comfy couches.  Everyone in the room seemed aware of the three, charmed by the tenderness of the caring parents’ & the delightful charm of the little one, all smiles & a tousle of golden curls.  As her parents watched, she made her way through the room, waving at this table, smiling greetings to another.  Just as she moved past me, she whipped around & rushed back to the couch, proclaiming, “I’m back!” 

It felt like the entire room melted over her innocence & utter joy of reunion.

It wasn’t the charm of her return that has stayed with me, hours after polishing off my bagel, sipping the last of my au lait, closing my book & saying my goodbyes.  What stays with me is the look on her parents’ faces at her return.  They glowed at their little one, full of love & pride & joy in her existence. 

There are a lot of important lessons those parents will teach her over the years, but none of them will be as powerful as being on the receiving end of such welcoming, embracing looks that speak volumes about belonging. 

My own family was challenged when it came to such looks.  It wasn’t the family’s style.  Especially not with me, the odd duck of the bunch.  Wait – that’s not right.  More often than not, it seemed we each felt like the odd man out.  Strange.  

All of my life, I longed to be part of a greater whole.  It feels to me that a desire for healthy relationships ~ ones that provide mutual support & appreciation, even when there's disagreement ~ makes the difference between merely existing & fully living.  Some of my sibs seemed to have more of an "every man for himself" attitude. 

Mind you, it wasn’t like the others gave each other warm, sunny looks of pride & welcome.  I doubt they did.  But unlike me, they didn’t seem to crave them.  

While a couple sibs seemed to take  pride in being averse to happiness, I was a regular Susie Sunshine, an unrepentant Pollyanna.  Small wonder they seemed to invariably experience me as fingernails on a chalkboard;  as one family member noted, my very existence irritated her so much, when I walked into the same room, she wanted to walk out!  

Am not complaining, grousing or griping.  Just noting that my life was very different from that little girl’s this morning.  There weren’t many welcoming faces, let alone role models, within my family. 

There I was, longing for connection & nurturing relationships; there was my family, seeming to feel the opposite.  What kept me stable over the years?

Now, this might sound preposterous, but it’s the absolute truth – I kept some sense of balance thanks to the very first book that touched my life, a book that still defines who I am & how I live, a book I experienced before I could speak, that rang true before I could read, one I didn’t even see until I was ten years old.  The Doctrine of Use, a small, slim book by Emanuel Swedenborg.

Come on – before I could speak, before I could read? 

Absolutely.

As a baby & toddler, I took in the countless ways my parents lived their belief in being of service for the joy of it, heard their tone as they spoke about what they were doing. As a child, I saw them tackle difficult tasks with light hearts, experienced their open devotion to family, community, church & school.  When, at ten, I finally saw the actual book – a Christmas gift to my sister from adult friends – it felt like homecoming. 

What I grasped at a ludicrously early age was that each of us is formed to be of use, that we each have our own ways of expressing that use, that being of use leads to happiness.  That got me through a lot.  And that is, above all, what it means to me to "grow up Swedenborgian."  

In embracing The Doctrine of Use, from my earliest days I pulled into action characteristics which continue to stand me in good stead (several of which still drive my sibs batty) ~ a capacity to accept that I might not know what’s what; a desire for greater clarity; an ability to accept disagreement; a thirst for genuine relationship, whatever it might look like; a willingness to see what is in front of me, even if it’s difficult, even heartbreaking.  

As I write this, my mind keeps going to the film, Ordinary People.  A psychologist tells his patient, a teen who’s handled the pain of a terrible tragedy by denying it, “A little advice abut feelings, kiddo – don’t expect it always to tickle.”  Maybe I can be open for happiness because I acdept that, as the same character says later, “Feelings are scary. And sometimes they're painful. And if you can't feel pain... you won't feel anything else either.”   

What a mess I’d be today if I’d focused on what wasn’t possible, instead of  than seeking what was.

Enough dreariness!  When I think about that little tousle-haired girl this morning & her adoring, proud parents, am all smiles.  That’s the way it’s meant to be, a reciprocal reinforcing of welcome & belonging.  

Connection, affirmation, support & love – may that little girl always see that in their faces.

Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.

David Ogden Stiers 

SIBS

Disclaimer:  When I was ten years old, I saw the classic Japanese film, Roshomon.  Yes, I was just a kid & it had subtitles & the message was very sophisticated – that people can share the same situation yet each experience it very differently – but it made sense to me.  With that in mind, please note that my comments about my siblings, the people whose voices were often the strongest & most powerful in my life, are how I experienced family life. 

With the years, I’ve come to see the many blessings I’ve received through my family.  In fact, if I was to share with you all the times that my surviving siblings did or said things that wounded my feelings or left me frustrated, it would probably take about as much time as having a cup of café au lait at Be Well Bakery/Café, along with one of Maddie’s delectable cheese rolls. 

Then again, if I was to share with you all the amazing moments I experienced, all the incredible worlds that opened, all the invaluable things I learned through having them as my older brothers & sister, we’d probably be down there from the moment Adriann opens the door in the morning to when Ryan closes it in the late afternoon.  And even then, there’d probably still be things left unsaid.

There are terrific advantages being so much younger than the rest of the family – Peter is fourteen years older, Mike is ten, Mim is eight, and Ian (who died at eleven) was four.  From my cradle, crib & carriage, I experienced all of them as individuals & within our family dynamic. Maybe that's why, from an early age, I had what’s turned out to be a pretty precise bead on what the general pecking order was, whose opinion mattered most & whose the least, who you wanted to please & who you could basically ignore.  It rarely helped help me navigate our family waters very well, but it did help me make sense of things over the years.

Having much older siblings opened up opportunities which I happily took.  While most of my classmates seemed to have lives more or less centered around our small town, I was out exploring the larger world, guided by my older sibs.  I must have been in middle school when Mike set sail from New York City on the original Queen Mary.  Dad had to work & Mom couldn’t make it, but they took me out of school so Peter could take me up, along with Mim, to bid Mike him bon voyage.  What a fabulous introduction to New York City! To see one of the world’s greatest ocean liners, to walk through the grand public rooms, to soak in the history.  What an experience!  It’s impossible to describe seeing Manhattan’s docks, the huge ships waiting to take on passengers, the hustle & bustle of people getting  baggage taken on board & getting passports checked & saying their farewells to loved ones.  It was a sight, a sense that I’ve never forgotten.

Peter

Peter, not only escorted Mim & his little sis to see off Mike, a couple years later he took us to see the New York World’s fair – with a press pass!  We got to skip all the long lines & were thoroughly pampered at each pavilion’s VIP lounge.  Alas, as often happens when I am with Peter, I managed to be an embarrassment.  His excitement over taking us to the Swedish pavilion for lunch – a genuine smorgasbord – turned to mortification when I balked at filling my plate with pickled herring & smoked salmon, sticking instead to the one food I recognized: Jell-O.

Mike 

By the time Mike cast off on the Queen Mary, he was already a seasoned sailor.  He joined the Navy as a senior, serving in the reserve until his high school graduation.  Mike had the great good luck to be assigned to the USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered air craft carrier & the largest ship in the fleet.  He was part of the Enterprise’s first crew – a “plank owner” – so Mom & Dad were invited to attend the great ship’s commissioning at Newport News.  Such exciting & proud times for our family.  But excitement turned to fear & worry when the ship broke off its shake-down cruise to be part of the Cuban Blockade.  The nation watched & waited & prayed. 

Mike’s Navy days were just the beginning of his travels.  After leaving the service – under very dramatic circumstances – he went back to Europe for an extended visit.  He came back home to work for Dad for a while, then was off to San Francisco.  Back he came to work for Dad again, before heading off to Australia’s sunny shores.  He had a glorious time Down Under.  Mike loved the people & felt right at home.

Good thing, since he met his future wife, an Australian lass, on the voyage home.  Back he came to work for Dad, he & Kerry were married, and they settled down for a time.  But the lure of Australia was too hard to resist – off they went, living near Sydney, in what turned out to be a just-right move for them both. 

Mim

In the mid 1960s, Mim was accepted for a summer workshop at Greenwich Village’s prestigious Circle in the Square Theater .  How proud we all were of her –  the selection process was highly competitive but MY sister made the cut!  Thanks to Mim, I got to experience the Village at the height of its hippie days, be right in the middle of it.  The memory that seems to link together all the others is of staying at her dorm room at Joe Weinstein Residence Hall and having her send me down, at night, from 10^th Street to 8^th to pick up a pizza with the strict orders, “Don’t smile at anyone!” 

It was Mim who made sure that I had a vinyl mini-skirt when they were all the rage, who bought me a paper dress & encouraged me to be part of the larger hip culture! 

Through Mim’s eyes, I saw San Francisco in the late 1960s, where she lived for a while with my brother, Michael, who had settled there for the time being.  I vicariously experienced the small “mountain” college she attended in north-west Georgia, her time at the University of Houston, her extended trips to Hawaii & Ireland.  Through Mim, I had a sense that there was so much out there to be experienced – if you had the courage to dare.

 Ian 

The sibling closest to me in age was Ian, who died when I was seven.  His shocking death left me with my first profound insight about life.  The minister who was delivering his memorial service had the tender wisdom to take me aside for some private time, to ask if I had any questions.  “What will Ian look like when I see him again?” I asked.  Ken Stroh had the insight to realize I was worried that he would look as he did when he died, after an accidental shooting.  He put his arm around me, drew me close and explained that when I next saw Ian, I wouldn’t recognize him at all from his appearance, because he wouldn’t look as he had on earth, our human body being only temporary, but that I would recognize him instantly from sensing his loves, which would never change.  It was a rather mature thing to say to a little child, but I got it immediate & it’s stayed with me always.  We are not our bodies, we are our loves.

It took almost fifty years for me to realize how much Ian & I had a lot in common. There I was, playing with the tiny kittens of a feral cat John & I had taken under our wing.  Jada had set up a nursery under a large gardening shed at a neighbor’s across the street.  There she sat, basking in the sun, letting me play peek-a-boo with her precious brood.  As we looked at each other, sharing a glance of mutual appreciation, it hit me like a lightning bolt - my gosh, I am a cat whisperer!  All of my life, I'd heard tales of Ian's uncanny affinity for cats, especially his beloved Parley.  All those years, and I never guessed it was a gift we shared.  Imagine - 55 years old, 48 years after Ian passed, and there I was, sitting outside a garden shed, playing with soft puffs of 4-legged fur, feeling a sense of family connection I'd never felt before.

In Retrospect

Each of my siblings has given me so much.  These are just mere snatches out of countless moments.  What I’ve learned through watching how they’ve lived, from experiencing how they interact with others, from how they approach their worldly uses – all these things illuminated what I wanted to duplicate as best I could, what I wanted to avoid as much as  possible. 

Each of my siblings helped me develop the sense of devotion to & delight in relationship as something more than simply genetics.   They helped me develop a sense of joy being helpful to others, not for what I could get out of it but for the sheer fun of doing it.  From them, I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how others feel about you, but how you feel about others. 

So many memories I could share. So many special insights gained, so many lessons learned from having them as part of my family.  It hasn’t always been easy – for any of us – but it has always been a blessing. 

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers.

It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage.

Sisterhood & brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

- Maya Angelou -