Yesterday I was at a babyshower for a couple who are preparing to travel to Ethiopia to pick up the little girl who waits for them there.  As I heard the story of their itinerary in the weeks ahead: travel to the other side of the world, to remote places, meetings with birthfamily members, I realized how absolutely perfect their adoption process was for them.  They have traveled to many off the beaten path destinations around the world in their twenty years together.  They are the kind of travelers that immerse themselves in a country and culture rather than skate on the surface of a sight seeing tour.

To others, this upcoming itinerary may not be the slightest bit appealing.  But for these two parents to be, it’s as if the plan was custom designed for them to allow their gifts, resourcefulness and love to shine.  Yet, a couple of years ago they had no plan or idea of how their journey would unfold.  Following their hearts and their intuition each piece of the puzzle revealed itself.  And now they ready themselves to bring their daughter home.  What an amazing testimony to the power of TRUST.

My daughter turned five a few days ago.  And I found the adoption journal my partner and I kept during the two years that we were in the process of adoption.  In it I read stories of courage:  courage of adoptive parents staying the course through the emotional rollercoaster ride that adoption can be; courage of birthparents making the most important choice of their lives; courage of these children to come into the world and trust that these adults have their best interests at heart.

Courage–to be willing to step into the unknown, the uncertainty of the adoption process and to trust that the process, however crazy it may seem, is as it should be.  Courage–being from the heart–that is what all of us in the adoption process are embodying as we move forward day by day on this journey. 

I am curious about the potential impact on our society’s views on work as a result of the high numbers of recently laid off workers in the last nine months.  Here is a segment of the population that is thrust into a change they may or may not have expected or desired.  In either case an opportunity presents itself for radical change or transformation.  It is likely that each laid off worker will go through a transition to the next chapter of their career.  Transitions can be profoundly significant when they are embraced as something more than a rearranging of the furniture of our lives.  William Bridges in his book Transitions highlights three stages that we journey through.  Here are some brief summaries of each:

Endings: “The end is where we start from,” says T.S. Eliot.. In this phase it’s important to notice what is ending, name the losses, celebrate them, mourn their passing.  In a lay off event the less obvious although not less important loss may lie in a loss of identity or a loss of “certainty” about the future, a loss of what “normal” looks like.

The Neutral Zone:  A time of emptiness, nothing is happening, at least on the surface.  This is the time of the subterranean work, the work of the subconscious and spirit.  It is the mysterious underground preparation of winter before spring.

Beginnings:  “Genuine beginnings depend upon this kind of inner realignment rather than on external shifts, for it is when we are aligned with our deep longings that we become powerfully motivated,” says William Bridges.  The beginnings can happen all at once, or a little bit at a time.  Often we may have begun and only realize it when we are in full swing with our new life.

Each of these phases lasts a certain amount of time, and there’s no prescription on exactly how much time, this varies for each individual.  We westerners don’t like such imprecision around how much time something’s going to take.  And the next lesson is that it is best not to rush each phase—we don’t like that either.  Bridges speaks to our society’s inclination to “just get on with it” and not linger in the uncomfortable states that endings and the neutral zone can produce.  We just want to fast forward from ending to beginning and skip all the messy stuff in the middle.  After all when you cross a busy street, you don’t just stop in the middle of it and have a barbecue—you get to the other side as quickly as possible.   

Interestingly though, as a species we have a lot of early history stored in our DNA of times when transitions were honored as sacred times in an individual’s or a community’s life.  These periods of initiation were often ritualized passages from one phase of life to the next.  And the rituals set up environments most conducive to successful and fruitful transition.  Melissa Gayle West, in her book, Silver Linings, speaks of our ancestors observing an individual’s time in the “wilderness” (her term for the Neutral Zone) as a gift, for the belief was that these sacred times in an individual’s life would then yield creative gifts from which the whole community would benefit.

So what if these recent waves of laid off workers had an opportunity to reinvent themselves and create a way of working that benefits the greater society: that supports sustainable and healthy living, that reverses the impact of climate change, that brings art and music back into schools, just to name a few possible contributions.  What if their time in the wilderness of their own lives brought the greater society gifts that we and our children and grand children would benefit from?

I risk sounding insensitive to the real needs of working families right now.  I risk seeming like one of those “look at the bright side” people.  Bills need to be paid.  Unemployment insurance is not limitless for long stretches of wandering in the wilderness of our transitions.  I realize that there are basic needs to be met, that people are suffering.  Yet, I also believe that as a society, a country, as global citizens, we are crying out for change.  In fact, it’s become almost trite to say it.  But change we wanted and change has come—as our new President proclaimed.  We asked for it.  And now we have a chance to do more than rearrange the deck chairs on the creaky old ship.  We have an opportunity for true transformation and for the foundations of a world that our children dream of, to take root. 

In a way, the lay offs from recently booming business and industries are a reminder to our tribe that our society has entered a deep transition and is traveling through it’s own version of the wilderness.  President Obama quoted then General George Washington’s words in his inaugural address, referring to the “winter of our hardship.”  We are in the winter of this great transition.  We are in the fallow time after which comes Spring.  Whether we like it or not we are in our own sort of wilderness, longing for the next chapter of this world of ours and praying that it will be better.  Our laid off workers are a reminder to us that out of this transition can come great gifts if we see and embrace the opportunity for true transformation from which great invention emerge.

Nobody said change was going to be easy or straightforward or quick—that’s instant coffee.  

I watched the movie, “Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” a few nights ago.  It is the true story of a San Francisco man, living off of the generosity of his neighbors, searching for meaning and purpose for his life.  He’s a street musician of sorts, although seems to have missed his calling there.  And he ends up becoming an observer of the parrots on Telegraph Hill near his home (a run down cottage that he “borrows” for many years).  His observations turn systematic and he begins to document the behavior of the flock of parrotts and names each of the birds (there are about 45 in all and the flock is growing).  He is attached to the birds, cares for them in a respectful, dignified way–always allowing them their freedom to choose the wild.  There are some poignant scenes towards the end as the audience sees how he communicates with the birds, how he sends his good byes when it’s time for him to leave.  Without intending to show us how one communicates with animals, he shows us how.  Just as without intending to find his life purpose, he does by simply paying attention to his surroundings, becoming curious and engaged with his environment.  He becomes an expert and advocate for the parrots in an urban environment preoccupied with “more pressing” issues.

The story reminds me of how we often work hard to “get it right,” to find our calling, to find our purpose.  And most of the time the answers are in front of us, around us–if only we take the time to notice.

This week I got to see and hear Mary Oliver read from her work at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.  It’s amazing to go to a huge concert hall and to look back, around, and up and to see every seat filled with audience members coming to feast on the beauty of words.  It was a huge treat for me, after all these years of admiring her from afar, to actually be in the same room with and listen to Mary Oliver read from her work.  She’s lovely.  Fiesty, sharp, witty, warm and profoundly deep, at 73.  She walked on stage with a pair of black jeans and a black pull over sweater.  And she read from her work and regaled us with her presence for an hour and a half.

The message I took from this evening’s reading of her poems was the importance of paying attention.  Like in her poem, Summer Day, when shes says, “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is, but I do know how to pay attention.”  Paying attention, easy to say, difficult to do in our world of abundant distractions.  Yet, paying attention is the source of Mary Oliver’s poetry, the source for her soul.  She sits still and watches swans for days until she understands their transcendent message which she pens into a poem.

How do we practice paying attention in our everyday lives–how the coffee smells in the morning, the first sounds when we awake, the sound of the car’s motor on the way to work, the trees, buildings, fields we pass, the sound of a friend’s soul in the tone of her voice.  What new things would we know if we stayed present in the here and now, rather than be distracted by the cacaphony of modern life?  It’s a practice.  What new decisions would I make?  How might my life be different?

I’ve begun the new year reading a book by Lynne Twist, entitled, The Soul Of Money.  It was one of those books that I got two recommendations for in the same day in completely unrelated conversations.  So, I knew I needed to look into it.  I have not been disappointed.  Ms. Twist weaves in her decades of experiences as a leading fundraiser for The Hunger Project with her experiences traveling all over the world, visiting indigenous South American cultures and participating in the Beijing Women’s Conference.  From these experiences she creates a tapestry of universal truths about money and its role in our lives.  Her book is provocative, inspiring, and challenges us to fundementally shift our view of money in our lives and in our world.  I’ll be writing more about this book in future posts.  For now if you are interested in checking out the book, here’s a link.

 At a recent fiftieth birthday party for a friend, one of the guests shared this photograph of our planet as seen from Saturn.  It gave me pause.  We are so puny, so tiny in the universe.  Our planet looks like a station in the outback, remote, out of reach.  And if our planet is that small, then we humans are infinitely smaller in the universe.  Hard for us earthlings to imagine how insignificant we are in size when compared to the size of the universe.  We take ourselves so seriously most of the time. 

The perspective this photograph offers humbles me.  Yet, I affirm that our existence does matter.  It matters how we live each of our nanosecond long lives.  It  matters that we give it our best shot, that we leave our miniscule area of this universe a bit better than we found it.  That we clean up after ourselves. 

It’s when I listen to the evening news on the radio that I keep this image of the earth viewed from Saturn in my mind.  It helps me put all that information in perspective: the political scandals, the heads of state traveling here and there, the stock market going up or down.  In the end what really matters? 

If I were standing on the rings of Saturn, I would look at this blue planet called earth and I wouldn’t hear all the noise, I would only see its blue hue offering me hope, curiousity, and goodwill–an invitation.  I would wonder if there was life on this planet and how this life interacted.  Were they kind to their young, were they loving or were they violent, were they respectful to the planet that nurtured them with life?  This is what I would wonder.  How about you?  What matters then?

For a better look at this photo go to this New York Times article.

This evening my family and I were at a meeting of the Transracial Adoption group that we get together with from time to time.  The group had planned to watch a film created by the Mavin Foundation called “chasing daybreak.”   We huddled in a room to watch the film– all of us adoptive parents (or parents to be) of multiracial kids and/or part of multiracial families.  I found myself oddly choked up as the documentary began.  I looked around the room at all our white faces, eagerly wanting to learn about what it means to live “mixed race” in our society.  It is the immensity of our love for our children that brings us white adults together to explore and learn about this new world.  We sit in anticipation hoping that we will hear good news too, that what we hear of the challenges won’t be so overwhelming that we won’t feel able to be supportive and understanding when things get rough.   Our children of mixed races from the ages of 6 months to 6 years play just outside of the room where we watch the film.  We could hear their giggles and squeals–their joy. We hope that we will have what it takes to be able to celebrate and to cry with them as they (and we) pioneer a new way of being in this still very broken world.