courage

Being the Hero of Your Own Life

Posted on by Shari Swanson

When we think about our own personal heroes, can we see a pattern? How did they rise to the challenges presented in their day?

How are we rising to the occasions and the challenges presented in our time? Right now. Are there injustices we can speak up against? Are there places where our voices will make a difference? What are the rights and wrongs happening right now today?

I am about one-fourth of the way through Charles Dickens’s, David Copperfield. It’s astonishingly good, as are most of his books. And, like others, it calls out some of the injustices of his day—child labor, poorhouses, domestic violence, emotional cruelty, sexism, bullying and so on. With his wide audience and engaging stories, he had tremendous power and is credited for being the impetus for many social justice reforms.

However, he had his own blind spots.

One reader, Eliza Davis, wrote to him, accusing him of portraying her people, those of Jewish ancestry, in stereotypical and negative ways. She cited Fagin, from Oliver Twist, a cruel and selfish man teaching young street urchins to steal. Eliza begged him to show more complexity in his Jewish characters.

Dickens was unimpressed.

Dear Mr. Dickens, By Nancy Churnin

However, taking a page from Dickens’ own, Christmas Carol and the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge, Eliza wrote him again:

Dear Mr. Dickens, by Nancy Churnin

And this time, Dickens was moved. And changed. From then on, his Jewish characters were complex and kind, and the exchange between Eliza and Dickens is credited for having a part in reducing anti-Semitic views and laws of the day.

Eliza had the same tools at hand as Dickens himself: pen, paper, and a keen sense of justice. While she lacked his fame, she made up for it by essentially teaming with him to bring about change.

What are the injustices of our day? It can be challenging to see them, sometimes, because we’ve been so steeped in things the way they are, that they seem normal. But if we pretend we are explaining our world to an alien, for instance, we might be hard-pressed to answer some of their questions. It is in those places, those places we know to be wrong, that we can strive to be the heroes of our own lives.

Facing fear

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Standing up to fear changes a person. It helps you to put matters in perspective. Where once fear loomed over you, insurmountable, now you can honor the courage it took to move past it into unfamiliar territory.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a courageous woman. Despite her husband’s attempts to placate the South, she regularly bucked segregation and was a vocal proponent of civil rights. She was able to call out racism and force others to see it for what it was:

By 1939, ER decided to attack the hypocritical way in which the nation dealt with racial injustice. She wanted her fellow citizens to understand how their guilt in “writing and speaking about democracy and the American way without consideration of the imperfections within our system with regard to its treatment . . . of the Negro” encouraged racism. Americans, she told Ralph Bunche in an interview for Gunnar Myrdal’s American Dilemma, wanted to talk “only about the good features of American life and to hide our problems like skeletons in the closet.” Such withdrawal only fueled violent responses; Americans must therefore recognize “the real intensity of feeling” and “the amount of intimidation and terrorization” racism promotes and act against such “ridiculous” behavior.

You can’t clearly see a problem before you if you are too scared to look at it and call it out for what it is. Where are the injustices in your immediate orbit? Are there people being treated unfairly? How can you add your voice to help identify the problem and move toward healing? These problems are right here, close to home.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said:

Where after do human rights begin? In small places, close to home– so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

-“Remarks at the United Nations,” March 27, 1958

https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/quotations-eleanor-roosevelt

Fear is a crippler. It keeps you rooted in a course of action you know to be wrong. Focusing on the fear helps it to loom even larger before you. Instead, focus on the better world you are trying to help build. Spreading love and justice is exciting and uplifting. Being part of something bigger than yourself, working for a common goal, in an effort to improve people’s circumstance is rewarding.

You don’t have to see the whole path in front of you. Take, and keep taking, that next step forward.

Loving what’s mortal

Posted on by Shari Swanson

As we age, there is loss. That loss is like a presence that follows us relentlessly like a shadow. No avoiding it. No pretending. We are mortal. The people we love are mortal, perhaps imminently so. This is part of the rules of engagement. And while most of us avoid thinking too much about it, poets like Mary Oliver offer life instructions:

To live in this world, you must be able to do three things:

To love what is mortal

To hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it;

And, when the time comes, to let it go, to let it go.

I honestly don’t know which of these three rules is the hardest. Right now, they each seem nearly impossible. But having the courage to follow these instructions feels like the answer.

Her full poem is below.

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

“In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver, from American Primitive. © Back Bay Books, 1983.

A simple prayer

Posted on by Shari Swanson

People have always told stories. Plopped down on this earth with so much beyond our understanding, we struggle to make sense of things, to find cohesion and purpose, and to fit. We long for meaning outside of our circumstance and kinship beyond our borders.

Stories help. They comfort and guide us, inspire and warn, and make us feel less alone. Others feel the way you feel. And, at the root of story, is a turning away from ourselves toward something greater.

My book GERTIE, THE DARLING DUCK OF WWII, was just released. It tells the non-fiction story of a time during WWII when things were bleak, hopes worn raw, when a little duck built her nest on a high pole above a foul river. A hopeless place, really, for keeping the ducklings alive. Yet, the city of Milwaukee rallied around this little duck and saved her brood. Stories about Gertie’s struggles captured the attention of the entire world, comforted soldiers overseas, and gave everyone a glimpse of a better day. Stories about Gertie shared the front page with stories about Hitler, kamikaze pilots, and concentration camps.

For me, Gertie’s story will always be an embodiment of Psalm 91:4, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” To me, her story feels like a message of hope in the darkest of times, a prayer and response.

At heart, most stories are a prayer—a way of reaching for something more, a hope, a yearning, a plea. Stories help connect us and give us peeks behind the curtain.

Shining light

Posted on by Shari Swanson

In all the din, what is one voice more? Why bother speaking up? No one seems to listen to each other anymore anyway.

But inside you is a well spring, and you’re fueled by truth and an honest desire to help others. Your opinion matters.

Consider these words from Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Who are you to speak up?

You are a child of God. Let God’s light shine on a dark world through your words.

Know thyself.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

For many of us, our childhoods were pretty structured or were spent pleasing others to the point where we don’t completely know what we enjoy or what brings us pleasure. One of the joys of adulthood is laying down other’s expectations and pressures and discovering who we are deep down.

Emily says it well,

Finding yourself

is not really how it works. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket.

You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. “Finding yourself” is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.

Emily McDowell

Take a minute and think about what you loved as a child before ‘the world got its hands on you’. Is there a way to return to that joy in some way today?

The importance of self reflection.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

We’ve always done it this way. Have you heard this? Said it? Maybe it’s time to look at ‘it’ with fresh eyes.

The same is true for the way we act, think, believe. Take a look. Is there anything there that is worth a reconsideration?

As we age, it’s easy to fall into ruts, easy to believe our way is the right way, easy to assume any problems are the other person’s fault.

Self-reflection, hard, soul-deep reflection, the kind of reflection that might be filled with regret and tears and epiphanies and apologies, is a good tune-up for our inner selves. Without it, there will be no progress.

Difficult people.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Do you  have any difficult people in your life? Chances are you can’t force them to be less toxic, but there are steps you can take to be less bothered by the encounter. In this article by Christine Carter, she suggests, among other things, that showing mercy to this difficult person will rebound to you:

Anne Lamott defines mercy as radical kindness bolstered by forgiveness, and it allows us to alter a communication dynamic, even when we are interacting with someone mired in anger or fear or jealousy. We do this by offering them a gift from our heart. You probably won’t be able to get rid of your negative thoughts about them, and you won’t be able to change them, but you can make an effort to be a loving person. Can you buy them a cup of coffee? Can you hold space for their suffering? Can you send a loving-kindness meditation their way?

Forgiveness takes this kindness to a whole new level. I used to think I couldn’t really forgive someone who’d hurt me until they’d asked for forgiveness, preferably in the form of a moving and remorseful apology letter.

But I’ve learned that to heal ourselves we must forgive whether or not we’re asked for forgiveness, and whether or not the person is still hurting us. When we do, we feel happier and more peaceful. This means that you might need to forgive the other person at the end of every day—or, on bad days, every hour. Forgiveness is an ongoing practice, not a one-time deal.

When we find ways to show mercy to even the person who has cost us sleep and love and even our well-being, something miraculous happens. “When we manage a flash of mercy for someone we don’t like, especially a truly awful person, including ourselves,” Anne Lamott writes, “we experience a great spiritual moment, a new point of view that can make us gasp.”

Here’s the real miracle: Our mercy boomerangs back to us. When we show radical kindness, forgiveness, and acceptance—and when we tell the truth in even the most difficult relationship—we start to show ourselves those things. We realize that we can love and forgive and accept even the most terrible aspects of our own being, even if it is only for a moment. We start to show ourselvesthe truth, and this makes us feel free.

Perhaps you can show that difficult person mercy today.

Faith is not a contest.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Faith is not a contest. It’s not praying louder or more eloquently for all to see. It’s not giving or fasting for show.

It’s an internal, deeply personal thing between you and God. It’s a dark of the night hope, and a bright green day joy. It the bulb pushing its way stubbornly through the soil with the promise of spring. It’s holding on to the values you know to be right even in the face of temptation, or expedience, or doubt.

Lent is a time for us to dig deep into our souls, to reconnect with God and each other, to remind ourselves of who and whose we are, and then live out that truth.

With whatever I have for as long as I can

Posted on by Shari Swanson

With the news this week that former President Jimmy Carter has entered home hospice care, many people have been sharing stories about his accomplishments in office—his efforts for peace, his push for environmental stewardship, and his efforts toward energy independence, among others.

But his most striking accomplishments perhaps are what he has done since he lost his re-election bid. Rather than retreat to Georgia and exit the public arena, he began building houses for the poor, and working for democracy—a principle he firmly believed in—around the world, and standing up for women’s rights, even when that stand conflicted with his religion, and working to eradicate disease and so on. He has never stopped showing up to make a difference.

In a world that has grown more cynical and jaded since his entry into the public spotlight, he continues to show us what it means to walk the walk, quietly, humbly, and without fanfare. Here, surely, is a good and faithful servant of God.