A Mother's Love

It's likely you have heard of the wise King Solomon and the story about the two women who came to him with a baby, both claiming to be the mother. In an effort to settle the dispute, the king suggested that the child be cut in half and each one could have a half. One of the women agreed, but the other was appalled and said not to hurt the child, just let the other woman have him. Instantly the king knew who the real mother was; the woman who would not see her child hurt.

The king knew all about a mother's love, from his own mother. She sat next to him when he was on his throne, and she was one of his closest advisors. I imagine a king would be surrounded by a bunch of bobbleheads, eager to agree with him on everything, yet the one person who called him out when his drinking was becoming excessive was his mother. And Solomon listened to her.

The book of Proverbs in Christianity is usually credited as being written by Solomon, yet Jewish scholars attribute its beautiful 31st chapter as being the writing of Solomon's mother. The tenth verse reads, "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is above rubies..."

Lest you think the Queen Mother was some perfect person, let me tell you that her name was Bathsheba, the married woman who was bathing on the roof and caught the eye of King David. From there the story becomes a soap opera, with sex and murder and intrigue and the death of their first baby, and then Solomon was born. And then there is more grief and death and sibling rivalry. It was quite a dysfunctional family, this group that belonged to David and Bathsheba.

The story of the six days of creation in Judaism foretells the fact that David and Bathsheba would have a baby named Solomon. If you believe in fate, it was their destiny. It was going to happen. Yet because they were merely human, David and Bathsheba did what we as humans often do. They didn't just let go and allow it to happen, they twisted it all up and suffered a lot of messy pain. And brought pain to other people they loved.

Yet maybe, just maybe, that is what made Bathsheba such a wise woman in her later years. She knew what it was to make a poor choice, to mess things up, to suffer the consequences. And after David had long passed away, she was right there when her son needed her most.

The kingdom depended on Solomon, and the king depended on his mother. The power of a mother's love and influence is an amazing thing. Long after she held him in his arms, long after she stopped calling the shots in his life, long after he became the most powerful man in the world, long after he had any obligation to obey her, she still held sway in his life.

Love is the most powerful force in the world. And is there any love more powerful than a mother's love? I think not. I hope not.

Susan

School

"Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know." Pema Chodron

In my World Religions class, we just finished a unit on Hinduism. The ideas of karma and a continual cycle of birth, death, rebirth, and so on challenge my linear way of thinking. It is so unlike our Western ways, so unlike the Christianity that I am most familiar with.

I am 54 years old. Most of the time I don't think much about my age. I am blessed with excellent health. There is a lot going on in my life that keeps me very active, and requires that I continue to think in new ways. But the day I wrote the post "Where Did I Go Wrong?" I felt about 100 years old, although I have no idea what it feels like to actually be 100. A friend who saw me that day remarked how old I looked. The issue with my loved one is something that I have been dealing with one way or another my entire life. It haunts me, as the words of people who died long ago come back to me, as their faces go by. It is as if I need to learn something here that I am totally missing. The lesson is repeated over and over and over and over, but I just don't "get it." What am I missing? When will the light bulb go on over my head? When will I finally pass this course?

The lesson is a painful one, too. Very painful. You know how people who advocate corporal punishment for children say things like, "That's the only way she'll ever learn..." What is wrong with me? Can't I learn what I need to learn without having it beaten into me?

At this point I think I am not even interested in learning the lesson. I just desperately want this class to be over. I don't care about getting an "A" anymore. A "D-" would be fine, anything that is a passing grade would be fine, just so I can move on. That's my linear thinking coming into play again. I want to move ahead, move on, move forward.

But the circles keep spinning endlessly, to my immense frustration. This class never ends.

Susan

Tidy

I am very organized, except when I'm not. I like things tidy, except for this one small pile of stuff in the garage. My roommate pointed it out to me, this obvious contradiction between who I usually am and what that pile looks like.

A therapist once told me I have a very orderly mind. And she was right. I am good at compartmentalizing, which is kind of unusual for a woman. I have these little wooden cubby holes in my brain, just like the cubbies we had in elementary school. That is why I can go to my job and perform it very well, pretty much no matter what is going on in my life. It is soothing to be able to do that, to focus like a laser beam on one activity and push all the other stuff out. It serves me very well, except when it doesn't.

It takes me a long time to process things, to finally reach a decision, but once I arrive at a decision, I never look back. I am a decisive person, except when I'm not. Lately my thoughts have been a little scattered and those mental cubbies are not as organized and neat as usual. I'm cadywhampus, and I find myself thinking that I don't know what to do.

"I don't know what to do." Don't even get me started on that. I have a friend who used to say that a lot, and it was maddening to me. Now I hear the same words coming out of my mouth. So I always know what to do, except when I don't.

Does this post even make any sense? Do you ever have times like this, those messy times in life? Maybe this is good for me. Maybe I need a little bit of a mess now and then,  just like my otherwise tidy existence needs that small pile of stuff out in the garage.

Susan

Me Want Cookie!

I looked throughout the display, and there wasn't one anywhere. That sugar cookie shaped like a big flower, covered with lemon frosting. I wanted one, with milk. Or half a one, to be exact because I was planning to share the other half with my friend.

The nice man asked if he could help me, and I told him what I was looking for. He explained very patiently that they were transitioning from the summer sugar cookie (the flower) to the fall sugar cookie (the pumpkin) so for about two days they would have no sugar cookies at all. He pointed to the plain square shortbread cookie and told me it was just like the sugar cookie.

It wasn't. It wasn't shaped like a flower. It didn't have lemon frosting. I smiled kindly at him and thanked him in my best grown-up voice. But my inner two-year-old was ready for a meltdown. I was angry and frustrated. My eyes were about to tear up and my throat felt hot and tight.

I left, not getting any cookie at all. Because if I couldn't have the flower sugar cookie with the lemon frosting, I didn't want any cookie. Not a shortbread. Not an M & M. Not a peanut butter. No cookie.

Such a fuss, over a cookie. But you're probably ahead of me and have already figured out I wasn't mad about the cookie. Not at all. To say I am uncomfortable feeling and showing anger is an understatement. I was in a relationship for many years where my anger added to his anger could have blown my whole world apart, and I was trying very hard to keep it together. It wasn't okay to be angry. It wasn't safe. And if I get angry, will I turn into my worst nightmare, my mother? Shrill voice, screaming and raging, cutting the people I love to pieces with my words? And if people know I am angry with them, my pride tells me I have somehow given them the upper hand. I have lots of issues surrounding anger.

My anger is justified. I am angry and frustrated with a number of things, some present day, and some things in the past that I never allowed myself to get angry over. And I finally have arrived in a safe place where it is okay for me to feel it and express it. That is such a great thing.

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a cookie is just a cookie. And sometimes it's not.

Susan

Broken

At the store where I work, we can't get through a day without hearing something fall to the floor and break. A vase, a plate, a cup. Even if it is a small crack, we still dispose of it. The risk of a customer or a worker being hurt outweighs any profit we make on the item. So I "mark it out." I go into the system, adjust it to a zero value, and we crush it in our huge compactor. Worthless. Disposed of.

For us humans, we can't get through life without some cracks, without being broken, and sometimes shattered. It might seem that these flaws diminish us, that perhaps they are even something to be ashamed of. It could be that they even make us feel worthless, and we might be ready to throw it all away.

I love this idea that something damaged becomes more beautiful. We should see ourselves and other people this way. The world would be a better place.

Susan

The Gift

Our neighbor was getting married. He and his brother and my two sons grew up together, and of course we would be going to the wedding. I thought back to the first time we had met this family when we moved into their neighborhood, and of the good times our kids had enjoyed together over the years. I purchased a gift from their wedding registry at a department store in the mall, then walked over to Papyrus for what I would need to wrap it. The paper I chose was sort of a foil, with silver and white and pink cherry blossoms. I even made a homemade bow from real fabric ribbon, with a silk flower sort of entwined around it. Bow making was something I thought I would not be good at doing, but it turned out very nicely. I think the wrap on a present is very important. Each wedding gift or birthday gift or baby gift needs a beautiful presentation. And while gift bags are convenient and they can be very beautiful, too, it does not quite match what you can do wrapping a box.

I asked the groom's mother how they preferred to receive the gifts, since everyone does not appreciate them being taken to the wedding. She said they would like them sent to their house. My younger son took the gift over a couple of days before the wedding. He wanted to spend some time with his friend, so it worked out perfectly.

When he came home, he told me how the whole family had oohed and aahed over how beautiful the gift looked, with a couple of people commenting it was too pretty to open. The gift itself was an appliance of some sort, something the couple requested on their registry, so I know it was welcome, but my son commented that the way it was wrapped was much more interesting than the gift itself.

We receive all sorts of gifts in life, some of them looking all shiny and bright and beautiful. And others, well not so much. We naturally gravitate toward the beautiful, and away from the ugly. We can become focused on the way these presents are wrapped, and not so much on the gift itself. The outward appearance can be a distraction, can't it? We do this with people. Sometimes those folks who are not so attractive or maybe a bit rough around the edges bring us the most amazing gifts, and we hesitate to accept because of the packaging.

I have a situation in my life right now which is the biggest problem I have ever faced. It is also likely going to be the greatest gift I have ever received, and I am having trouble accepting it because of the way it looks on the outside. I have been focused completely on the superficial. This gift is in a nasty old grungy smelly brown paper bag. It looks like it belongs in the dumpster. No sparkles or glitter or flowers or bows. It looks absolutely hideous, by far the worst wrapped present I have ever seen.  Yet I know in my heart of hearts that beneath that horrible wrapping, lies the perfect gift lovingly chosen just for me.

I know that I have looked at it long enough, this ugly old thing sitting in the corner. I need to walk over and accept it, perhaps hold my breath from the stench if I need to. Touch it and embrace it and be thankful for it, then open it up and see what happens.

It will be a surprise, won't it? It will be the kind of gift where I gasp and cry because never in a million years would I have thought something that wonderful would be for me. And to think I could miss it all because of how it looks on the outside. I can't let that happen.

Time to open the present.

Susan

Where Did I Go Wrong?

Not far from my home are the Amtrak train tracks that run parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Every day the Coaster runs along those tracks. I have crossed those tracks many times on my way to school or work. I know the train must be coming, but I can't see it. The bars go down and the red lights flash, stopping traffic. I hear the whistle before I see the train. Then I see the light. I see the train. The powerful train whizzes by.

When I was a travel agent, some of my clients who were fearful flyers would choose to travel by train, thinking it was the safer option. It isn't. Statistically, train wrecks happen much more frequently than plane wrecks.

What would it be like to be sitting there in my car, and actually witness a train wreck? That has never happened to me, but this afternoon I had a sense of what it might be like. Someone I love with all my heart has a life that is turning into a train wreck, injuring not just him but many others. And I can do nothing to stop it. If I could, I would. I'm just that willing. I would do anything.

Yet I can't. So I sit by the tracks. The bar is down. The red lights flash. I hear the whistle. The train is coming. I can do nothing to stop it, and I cannot turn away.

Susan

"How to Save a Life," written by Isaac Slade and Joe King

When You Were Young

Enjoy!

Susan

"When You Were Young" written by Brandon Flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vannuci. Jr.

That's Frances with an "E"

German drug manufacturer Gruenenthal just issued what I call a half-hearted apology to the victims of its drug thalidomide. The drug was widely prescribed for morning sickness in Europe from 1957-1961 and as a result, there were more than 10,000 babies born with birth defects.

The drug was never legal for use in the United States, thanks to Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey. Kelsey was a reviewer for the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and she was not comfortable with thalidomide, and it turns out she was right.

Frances Oldham was what my grandmother would have called one smart cookie. Graduating from high school at the age of 15, she was already starting to work toward her doctorate when she was 22. One of her professors urged her to write to Dr. Geiling, a renowned researcher starting a pharmacology program at the University of Chicago, to see if she might work with him. Geiling said yes, in a letter that began "Dear Mr. Oldham." The year was 1936, and I suppose Geiling just assumed that Frances was a man, although usually Francis with an "i" is a man's name and Frances with an "e" is a woman's.

She asked her professor if he thought she should point out that she was a woman, and he said no reason to bring that to Geiling's attention, just sign the letter of reply "Frances Oldham (Miss)"

After my post yesterday about women in power behaving badly, I am very happy to move on to a more positive role model for us girls and women. She is still kicking at 98 years old, and she helped change her world. So after you've read about Suzanne Barr and Janet Napolitano, please give your attention to someone much more worthy of your time.  Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey. That's Frances with an "e."

Susan

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I have participated in some conversations where women have said that if we ruled the world, it would be a better place. That the men have messed it up so badly and for so long, that we need a chance to run the show. That it would somehow be a more wonderful place with no war and no strife. Just give us the power, and we'll show you what we can do.

Suzanne Barr has badly let us sisters down. Chief of staff to the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a friend of Janet Napolitano, Barr has just resigned after allegations of some very blatant and aggressive sexual harassment of men. She denies it all, of course, and I don't have the inside story. It just makes me very sad if it's true that she and Napolitano would create the kind of hostile environment for men that we women have been dealing with for years. It is wrong when women are the victims, and it is just as wrong when men are the victims.

Is this what we do with our power? Is this how we show gratitude to women of previous generations who sacrificed so that we can be on an even footing with men? And sexual harassment is about power, much more than it is about sex. The ones in power don't hire and advance people, because they are men. The ones in power make crude jokes and suggestive comments and even offer up sex, creating a hostile and untenable work environment. Do they think that men are not going to speak up? Do they think men are supposed to take it? I would hope the mentality is not that turn about is fair play, that because women have been victims of sexual harassment for years, it is now open season on men.

It's never funny or amusing to degrade another human being. I thought we women have been striving for respect. Well, we aren't going to get it unless we can give it.

Susan