To my children:
I address you from somewhere in the middle of my life. No longer young. Not yet old, In the middle, somewhere, in these busy busy years. This time when days are filled with plans and obligations, meetings and deadlines, ideas and possibilities and worries that keep me awake during the night. From this perspective of the middle of my life, still a work in process, I offer advice to you, my children.
From the start I must acknowledge the considerable presumption involved in offering advice. My vision is limited, shaped by my own experience and that of my generation. I remember the impatience I felt when my elders evaluated my life based on criteria formed in their generation-it just didn't apply. And you, my children, have an experience of life quite different from mine. We have gown up in vastly different worlds. Yet, I can't abandon the perspectives I've gathered in living during the times that have been mine. I hope you'll be patient with what I have to offer and look beyond what is dated in my vision for what may be true also for you.
One more thing before I get into the heavy advice: as you listen, you may begin to wonder if this really is aimed at you. You may sense that there's some other audience I've got in mind. That would be an accurate observation for this advice I'm sharing is really only a little about you. Might as well be straight about this from the start: this advice is directed more at me than at you. It's my way of trying to get at things I want to remind myself. Nevertheless, I hope that you may find something of value by eavesdropping on this advice of a dad to himself.
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First of all I want to be sure you know that you are not in this world to please me. You are not in this world to make me proud. You are not in this world to realize dreams that have come up short for me. You are in this world to discover who you are and become who you can be. Simple as that. My goal in whatever role I have in your upbringing is not to mold you into what I think you should be. My goal is to support you and be present as you pursue your journey in life.
I sometimes see children engaged in an awful struggle to please their parents-to make them finally approve. Even grown-up children do this (especially grown-up children do this). I participate in such moments when planning weddings. The weddings we do at this church often are here because of some unexpected twist in the lives of the people involved. They may have left behind the religion of their childhood. Or this is an interfaith marriage or an interracial marriage or both. Or there has been a divorce. Or the couple is gay or lesbian. As we plan the wedding, we go through agonizing contortions to please this or that relative, to put something in that will make him or her happy and maybe even a little more approving than this person has been up to now. We get involved into what amounts to a well-meaning deception, driven by the fear that our parents will discover who we really are, what we really believe or what we don't believe. I am so sorry when we feel we have to deceive people in order to earn their love.
I want you to know that you don't have to pretend to be someone you aren't to earn my approval. You don't have to earn may approval at all: you've already got it. Yes, I do have advice to offer and guidance and support and if you need someone with whom to talk, I'll be there. But the issue is not approval and it's not earning love and it's not my being proud of you. You have no idea how proud of you I already am.
1. That said, my first bit of advice: learn to listen and learn to communicate. These are the most significant of the life skills. They are more important than what you know, more important than what you can do, more important than how you look, more important than the amount of energy you have or the money that is available at your disposal. Listening and communication also are more important than how smart you are. I'll put my money on a person with average IQ but who can listen and communicate over any kid who's real smart but who has not mastered those skills.
Listening involves being open to others and accepting of others and training ourselves to hear the many languages-both verbal and non-verbal-through which people share themselves. Listening also means being aware of the messages that come to us from nature, from our surroundings, even from a room full of people we hardly know. Sensitivity to these signals will bring a wealth of information-far more than what you can generate on your own.
Listening also involves paying attention to what is coming from within. It means being aware of those hunches and feelings and intuitions that emerge from a larger self inside that seems wiser and more perceptive and even older than what we find in our conscious minds. When you have developed the ability to listen to other people and to the outside world and to yourself, then you'll be able to trust yourself-your feelings, your instincts, your hunches. There is no better guide through the uncertainties of life.
And then communication. Putting your thoughts and feelings into words and concepts that others can understand. Taking the time to talk things through and being present when another wants to do the same with you. Summoning the courage to raise issues that are threatening, uncomfortable, that my be hurtful. It seems the simplest of things we can do to sustain our relationships, yet too often we neglect what is simple.
Take the time and make the effort to communicate with the people you care about. Don't make assumptions.
2. Learn to work with others. Learn to share ideas and develop plans and make difficult decisions together. There are few greater achievements and few greater joys than working through a difficult issue with other people or with just one other person and coming out on the other side with an agreement, a course of action, an affirmation.
We in this culture glorify the irascible, independent, brilliant mind, but that's not who makes the world go around. Indeed, we already have far too many who can only do things by themselves, who follow the beat of their own drummer. With all these distant drummers marching through the world, is it any wonder that we have a hard time establishing a beat? I don't want to hear about any more eccentric geniuses-I want to know about those who cooperate with others to make a difference.
Develop friendships: that's how it starts. Even if it means producing less or achieving less or letting some project go undone. When you're at college and somebody interrupts your studying at 11:00 p.m. and wants to go out for pizza, do it. I probably shouldn't admit this but some of my best memories are of times when I have gotten so involved in a conversation or an activity with another person that I missed a class or didn't finish a book or came in late with a paper. I don't regret any of those times-I only regret that I didn't submit to such temptations more. For that's how I've learned-and what I learned on such occasions has stayed with me long after I've forgotten whatever paper it was that I should have been writing.
3. You will be faced with many decisions throughout your life-it's how you create who you will be. My advice is to find out all you can about what's involved and talk with people who may have experience to share and think through the potential costs and benefits of various courses of action. But then having done all that, put is aside and ask yourself one more question: where do I feel energy coming from? What choice gives me the most energy? Where do I feel called?
I have read many books on decision-making and ethical choices, and I have taken courses and attended seminars and it can get terribly complicated. So complicated that when I'm hit with a crucial choice, I forget it all. But really it comes down to this one thing that's taken me a long time to learn and is simple. Where do you feel the energy coming from? What excites you, brings your mind to think in new ways, causes your heart to beat a little faster?
When I made the decision to come to this church-certainly a decision with risks and unknowns-the determining factor was that I felt energy drawing me her, and I didn't have much energy left for where I was. Things were fine and very secure at my previous congregation, but I didn't want to do that anymore. The same goes for making choices about goals to pursue, activities to commit oneself to, careers, relationships-going into a marriage, getting out of a marriage: where is the energy? Where am I now called to be?
4. Be patient. Let things develop at their own pace. My worst decisions have been driven by my panicky fear that nothing will ever change, that I have to push things to make them happen. That can be true-there are times when we have to take a stand.
But I also have come to trust life's internal rhythms. When it's time, it's time. Little is to be gained by forcing an issue before it's ready. I am drawn to the image of ripening. As a banana has a time when it is still green and not very good. And then a time when it is ripe and flavorful followed by a time when it gets rotten and slimy. The key is to wait patiently for the ripening and the make your move.
Our culture doesn't train us well in patience or in listening or in letting things ripen at their own pace. We are an action-oriented people who busy our lives by dealing with problems caused by our too often ill-informed and premature decisions. My advice to you: listen, look, taste, smell, go for long walks and meditate and pray-wait until the time is right. Be patient in your life.
5. Rebellion is part of growing up. When you need to rebel, do it and please don't feel the need to keep it hidden. I'll be expecting it. I'll even get concerned if it doesn't seem to occur-it's the well-scrubbed kids that never seem to have an ornery though that worry me the most.
What I ask is that when it's you time to rebel that you pick your issues. There is so much in this world that needs to be challenged, don't waste it on things that aren't worth the battle. Like, for example, the speed limit or drug and alcohol laws or a blank wall somewhere that seems to cry for graffiti or the standards of decency and respect that I try to instill in you. Use your energy for rebellion on things that matter: the terrible dehumanization in our society, the shallowness of the life offered even to the most privileged among us, the destruction of our environment, the cheapening of our community life, the loss of faith and hope that seems rampant among so many young people. Those are things worth rebelling against and, don't worry, such rebellion can get you in just as much trouble as you want.
Some people are gifted with a rebellious spirit that never quits, but for most of us rebellion is a phase. It has a beginning and then after a while it fades and other concerns take over. So use that energy that is given to you for rebellion wisely. Use it on things that matter.
6. Don't run away from death. Consider death as an advisor, maybe even a friend. Go for walks in graveyards, look at the tombstones, think about the people whose lives they represent. Attend memorial services or funerals, even if you didn't know the people very well. Read the obituaries in the paper. Pay particular attention to the headlines of those obituaries, where a life is summarized into a few words.
My purpose here is not to be morbid. I don't want you to fear death, and I don't want you to be obsessed with it. I do want you to understand the message death brings, which is that we are finite, that our time on this earth is limited. Therefore, we can't just let our lives go along because after a while we run out of life. We have to make choices, and those choices are difficult. They may involve giving up on some dreams, they may involve hurting people, they may bring us pain. Yet, if you are to be who you will be, you have to face those choices.
What I advise in those times when you are facing transitions and have choices to make that you include in your process a walk in a cemetery. Doesn't matter which cemetery: any will do. Walk in your chosen cemetery and chances are your thoughts will go to the fact that our time is limited, that nothing is forever, and that nobody will escape pain. Including death in our considerations has a remarkable way of clearing things up.
7. There isn't anything more important than love. Don't take it for granted. It needs to be nourished, protected, enjoyed. And if you're ever going to risk everything, do it for love. You may go through some terrible times, but at least you know that the stakes are worth it.
Here I speak from my generational bias. "All you need is love." Those of us who are boomers identify that immediately as a Beatles song. Musical commentators evaluate this particular song as a self-parody of earlier Beatles music and messages in that it employs a more simplistic musical structure and message which is underscored by the refrain of "She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah," stuck in near the end. But I don't care about such analysis because simplistic or not, I believe it. "Nothing you can do that can't be done. Nothing you can sing that can't be sung. Nothing you can make that can't be made. No one you can save that can't be saved. Nothing you can do but you can learn how to feel inside. It's easy. All you need is love."
When I experienced love at the birth of my child, there wasn't anything stronger or more important. All I truly needed then-and since-has been love.
8. The last thing I want to say is that miracles happen. Things you do not expect come along and surprise you and change everything. I've already noted the miracle of birth, the miracle of love. But finding a friend also is a miracle. Coming across a moment of beauty that gives you shivers is a miracle. Discovering something inside yourself that you did not know was there but that sprouts and grows and blooms. Sitting at the top of a Ferris wheel and liking down upon all life and unexpectedly having a vision. All these are miracles.
We are not forever stuck in life as we now find it. Miracles occur. Everything can change.
This is not to suggest that you can count on miracles to save you. If you empty your checking account, don't expect a miracle to come along and fill it up again. If you put your health at risk, you may occasionally get away with it, but don't expect consistent miracles to keep you alive. Same goes for working. Sometimes you'll get by on poor preparation, but miracles-as with luck-tend to favor the prepared mind. And I can guarantee that you won't win the lottery, whichever lottery it happened to be. So don't bet your life on that miracle.
Don't depend on miracles, but don't five up either. From time to time a miracle occurs that changes a person's life. When it happens you may not immediately recognize it for what it is for this miracle may not have been the one you've been looking for. But then you notice that something is different, and you feel more whole, and you aren't as sad as you have been and you have more energy for life. And you realize that, yes, this is a miracle for it has changed everything.
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So how do I sum up this advice-this advice deceptively packaged as wisdom to pass on to my children but really a series of reminders to myself?
Actually, summary is not difficult. It comes down to this: life is a gift, not an obligation. It is a present that we have done nothing to deserve but that is ours to develop as we will.
For you, my children, I hope you do not waste this gift that has been so wondrously given. I hope you do not waste it by squandering it. But I hope you also do not waste it by being over-conscientious, over-serious, over-fearful. I worry when I see young people already weighed down by burdens and obligations and schedules and expectations. You can't "follow your bliss" if you don't have any bliss to begin with.
Life is a gift to be shared with love and celebrated with laughter and tears. It's as simple as that. The details are up to you. It is not my job as a grown-up to mold you into what I want or what I need. My role is to offer love and support and whatever guidance you wish that you may become your won person. My joy is to affirm the person that you are.

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Last updated May 24, 2002 by clf@uua.org