Seedlings

A Joyful Life – A Mother’s Gift to Her Daughter

“To live joyfully you must be brave. True joy is not for the fainthearted. You must decide to be happy. Joy is an act of courage. Joy will not abide until you make a conscious decision to treasure it… Gratitude is the gateway to joy” - Elaine Marshall

Sometimes an encounter with another human being can be the spark that ignites a powerful and sustaining fire in us.  Parents too often don’t realize that their most powerful influence might come many years after their child has left the nest.

A story Elaine Marshall told in her 2004 address entitled In This Life I Shall Have Joy describes how a mother’s generative words would rekindle her daughter’s soul and lead to a life transforming attitude shift.  Elaine and her mother had volunteered to work at a niece’s wedding reception.  Elaine had been busy putting pink mints on glass plates while her mother and aunt were laboring in the kitchen.  When Elaine returned to the kitchen she overheard a conversation between her mother and her aunt.  She stopped out of their sight and eavesdropped on their conversation about her.  Here is Elaine’s description of how her mother’s words, spoken at a very difficult moment in Elaine’s life, would have a powerful impact on the way Elaine would live the rest of her life:

“The organdy lace wedding apron was barely holding my soul together. I was quietly just hanging on spiritually and emotionally. It was a time in my life of little joy. My mother and her sister were talking…together nearby. I heard my aunt ask my mother, “How is Elaine?” Mom responded, “I believe she has made a decision to be happy. She has a garden and flowers in her yard. She sews and writes, and she works hard. She keeps a clean house and plays beautiful music. Her children are doing well. I think she has decided to be brave and to be happy.”

I wept a few tears as I eavesdropped on my mother’s conversation. I was lonely, tired, and grief stricken. I didn’t know if I had made a conscious decision to be happy. But hearing my mother’s hopeful description of me, I wanted it to be true. So I did decide to be happy. I decided that night to find joy in every day. It has been difficult. But I was brave. I am not so brave every day, but I do try to remember that joy is a decision that requires courage.”

Have you made a conscious decision to be happy and to live a joy-Full life? 

Have you thought about a way in which you might record and share encouraging words which will lift and sustain another?  What if Elaine had not walked in at the moment her mother was speaking those words?  Could Elaine’s mother have written something similar in a note or letter and wouldn’t that have had as powerful an impact?

"In order to know joy, you have to be there. Joy requires presence. My friends know that if I were not too stingy to buy personalized vanity license plates for my car, I would choose my favorite word. The word is vivace. Vivace is an Italian word used in music. It sounds like music. It means life, lively, quickening. It sounds alive. It reminds me to wake up, to be acute and sensitive, alert, alive. It means vitality, la joie de vivre, vibrance, vigor. It reminds me to touch the palpable gift and reality of life" - Elaine Marshall

Honoring Our Mothers – Pausing to Remember Our Mother’s Greatest Gift(s) to Us

“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being.  Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light”—Albert Schweitzer, 1952 Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Mother’s Day is Mother’s Day; not Mothers’ Day.  Notice the emphasis on the singular Mother.  It is a day to honor our Mother.  Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have carried us in the womb, labored and travailed to give us physical life.  And for those of us who were adopted, we can be twice grateful: grateful for the gift of life and for the gift of a mother’s nurturing love.

Mother’s Day is a near universal holiday.  While it isn’t celebrated on the same day of the year throughout the world, almost all cultures today have an official day to reflect on and remember the gifts which our mothers have bestowed on us.

In the Arab world Mother’s Day is celebrated on March 21^st.  An Egyptian journalist, Mustafa Amin, is credited with starting this practice in the Muslim nations.  Amin became motivated to promote the idea of a holiday to honor mothers when he heard the story of a widowed mother who devoted her whole life to raising her son.  The son became a doctor, married, and abandoned his mother without showing any gratitude.

Each of us should pause and reflect, not just on the official day set aside to commemorate our mother, but throughout the year on the many ways in which our mother has influenced our lives.  In a sermon on this Mother’s Day I heard the suggestion we try to remember the most significant gift or influence our mother gave us.

What flashed into my mind in that moment was a project I was working on when I was probably in the third or fourth grade.  It was a project for a geography lesson.  We were supposed to make a map using salt dough.  We would color the map with blue for major rivers and large lakes, mountain ranges would be shaded in browns and large forests in green.  We were encouraged to put tiny figures for cows and horses where there were ranches, tractors where there were corn and wheat farms, and a star where the state capitol was located.  As I recall I was supposed to illustrate the State of Texas.   

My mother took the recipe for salt dough which my teacher had provided and prepared a generous supply of salt dough and the cardboard on which I would construct my map of Texas.  I worked well past my bed time and had just about completed my map when something went terribly wrong.  I don’t remember today just what it was.  I think it may have been a spill of the food coloring which was used to color code the map.  In any event I suffered an emotional melt-down when I saw that my almost perfect map was going to be much less than perfect.  In my frustration I pounded on the map doing much more damage than the spill of the food coloring and burst into sobs.

My mother tried to console me and assured me that she could fix the damage I had done.  My parents put me to bed.  I don’t know how late it was but I suspect it was at least an hour or two later than my normal bed-time and we had been working on this project for three or four hours.

When I arose the next morning my mother, perhaps with some help from my father, had reconstructed the map.  She had started over and tried to redo the whole map.  The second version was much better than the first and I proudly carried it to school the next morning.  I had never reflected until this Mother’s Day on just how late my mother must have stayed up to repair the damage my temper tantrum had done.  I feel deep emotion rolling up inside me today as I contemplate how powerful an energy source at that late hour of the night a mother’s love for her child is.

What was your mother’s greatest gift to you?  What positive influence from your mother is still felt in your life today? 

As you reflect on that greatest gift, and on your mother’s love and positive emotional energy in your life, record those feelings and describe the story of your mother’s gift and influence.  You, and those who are privileged to read this story, will always be grateful you took the time to pause and reflect. It will be a legacy that can last well beyond the grave.

My mother said to me, "If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope." Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso—Pablo Picasso

Do You Know Me?

John Muir’s Search for the Family Who Saved His Life

“It is a wealthy person, indeed, who calculates riches not in gold but in friends”—Jim Stovall

In 1898 John Muir set out, in part, to fulfill a promise he had made thirty years earlier.  The principal purpose of his 1898 trip to Florida was a forest inspection trip.  But when he reached Cedar Key he saw how devastating the hurricane of 1896 had been.  He immediately inquired as to the whereabouts of the Hodgson family. 

 
Mrs. Hodgson had unselfishly nursed John Muir back to health when he contracted malaria.  Their home and property had been destroyed by the hurricane of 1896. 

John Muir was told to look for the Hodgson family in nearby Archer, Florida.  In a letter to his wife he reported, “I found the good old lady who nursed me in the garden. I asked her if she knew me. She answered no, and asked my name. I said Muir. "John Muir?" she almost screamed. "My California John Muir? My California John?" I said, "Why, yes, I promised to come back and visit you in about twenty-five years, and though a little late I've come."  John Muir spent a half day with Mrs. Hodgson and her family sharing with them the incredible story of what he had accomplished in the three decades since he had last seen them.

Is there someone who has played an important role in your life whom you haven’t seen or talked to in years?  What story would there be to tell if you surprised that individual with a visit or a call? 

John Muir didn’t need Facebook or MyLife™ to find Mrs. Hodgson.  What is your excuse for not getting started today?

“I see trees of green........ red roses too
I see ’em bloom..... for me and for you
And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue..... clouds of white
Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces.....of people going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin’.. how do you do
They’re really sayin’......I love you.”—Louis Armstrong

The Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf of Mexico

 

What John Muir Learned On His First Trip to Florida

"For nineteen years my vision was bounded by forests, but today, emerging from a multitude of tropical plants, I beheld the Gulf of Mexico stretching away unbounded, except by the sky. What dreams and speculative matter for thought arose as I stood on the strand, gazing out on the burnished, treeless plain!" - John Muir, at age 29, after traveling almost 1,000 miles by foot from Indiana and arriving at Cedar Key, Florida 

 

John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, arrived in Cedar Key, Florida in October, 1867, seven weeks after setting out from Indiana on a "thousand-mile walk to the Gulf."  From John Muir’s journal account of his adventure, which was published in 1916, two years after his death, we learn that in his time in the Gulf Hammocks, while recovering from malaria, he had an epiphany.  These words taken from his journal express his conclusion that nature was valuable for its own sake and that man’s arrogance of assuming all of nature was created to please and serve him ignores the importance of even the smallest of creatures and organisms:

“The world, we are told, was made especially for man - a presumption not supported by all the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything, living or dead, in all God's universe, which they cannot eat or render in some way what they call useful to themselves.  

But if we should ask these profound expositors of God's intentions, How about those man-eating animals - lions, tigers, alligators - which smack their lips over raw man? Or about those myriads of noxious insects that destroy labor and drink his blood? Doubtless man was intended for food and drink for all these? Oh no! Not at all!

Now, it never seems to occur to these far-seeing teachers that Nature's object in making animals and plants might possibly be first of all the happiness of each one of them, not the creation of all for the happiness of one. Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit - the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge.” John Muir, from a Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (emphasis added).

The debate between preservation and conservation rages on in our society today.  John Muir was one of the first visionaries to see the role of mankind as stewards of nature.  Have you paused to reflect what might lie beyond your “conceitful eyes and knowledge?”  Could a beginner’s mind with regard to my role in the universe and my responsibilities towards both animate and inanimate produce a breakthrough in my thinking.

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” - John Muir

 

MORE LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF RAY CHARLES

“My mom would say ‘You might not be able to do things like a person who can see.  But there are always two ways to do everything.  You just have to find the other way.” - Ray Charles

 

“He left not only the phenomenal music he sang and recorded, he left the indelible impression on people that it's all right to be yourself" - Johnny Mathis, who recorded a duet of Somewhere Over the Rainbow with Ray Charles just a little over three months’ prior to the Genius’ death

 

Ray Charles’ life was not only a testament to the unique ability each person possesses to overcome adversity and weakness but in finding the way to become the person you were meant to be. 

 

He felt it was important to share his financial success to improve the lives of others.  In 1986, Ray Charles created a private foundation dedicated to providing support in the area of hearing disorders and the empowerment of young people through education.  The vision of The Ray Charles Foundation is to instill in the youth of America that “there is no challenge too great one cannot overcome.”

 

Just a few years before his death Ray Charles gave Wilberforce University, our nation’s oldest African-American college in Ohio, $2,000,000 to fund music scholarships because “"It was what I had to do, and the reason I had to do it is too many people have been good to me."  In 2001 he donated another $1,000,000 to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

 

He then gave $3,000,000 to Albany State University.  A few years after his death his personal representative threatened to sue the college to get that money back.  

 

Mr. Charles’s children strongly opposed that move and sent a letter to the attorney for the estate stating: “Ray Charles would be outraged by your threats to rescind the gifts he made...to Albany State U.”

 

Shortly after his death tabloids reported Ray Charles died broke and was a negligent father.  This publicity so angered his children that they shared with the public a very private story about what their father had done for each of them.

 

A few days before Christmas 2002, Ray Charles called a meeting of his 12 children at a hotel in Los Angeles. Few of his children knew each other as they had 10 different mothers.  Ten of the children, ranging in age from 16 to 50 – came to this luncheon to listen as their father told them he was mortally ill and outlined what they could expect from his fortune.  What we know about this family meeting comes largely from Ray’s second oldest son, the Rev. Robert Charles, who recalled:

 

"He called and we had a sit-down lunch...We took a lot of pictures. And we had a really good time getting to know each other. There were 10 of us there because two couldn't make it. My dad talked about how they always wait until a person passes. He said, 'Why do that? I'll give it to you now so you can build on that now.' It wasn't publicized because he was a very private man."

 

At that time, Ray Charles presented each child with a check for $1 million and explained that most of his financial assets would be left at his death to his charitable foundation.  When he passed away it is believed Ray Charles’ holdings were worth between $25,000,000 and $50,000,000.

 

Another son, Ray Jr., responded to the rumors that his father had died penniless with these words:  "How can you be broke when you give us $1 million and pay the taxes on it? What does that tell you? My father was second to none. He died not owing anyone anything. Everything he had belonged to him. He has 12 kids and he recognized them. He gave them $1 million in the prime or peak of their lives."

 

It really doesn’t matter how large Ray Charles’ estate was or how much he left his children.  The key to his personal and family legacy is found in the strength he exhibited in overcoming weakness and adversity and in the desire he had to give something to his children before he died that they could build on.

 

How will you tell your children about what your testamentary intentions are?  In what ways will your personal and family legacy empower your children to build upon what you have given them—both monetarily and through that family wealth that isn’t taxed, your wisdom and experiential reflections?

 

"Heaven wanted some music, and God sent for Ray Charles," - The Reverend Jesse Jackson speaking at Ray Charles’ funeral

 

"Through his darkness, he enlightened and brightened our lives." - Cecily Tyson, who along with Clint Eastwood, was present with Ray Charles at his last public appearance in April, 2004

Canaries With Grey on Their Wings

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy—Meryl Streep

 

A widow had three pet canaries. Two of the birds had perfect yellow coloring.  But the third canary was unsightly with heavy grey streaks on its wings.  As the widow’s health declined, she worried that none of her family would want to take Billie, the canary whose color was marred with the grey streaks.  There was a close friend who she trusted.  She wrote him a note in which she asked: “Will you and your family make a home for Billie? He isn’t the prettiest, but his song is the best.”

 

Often in our service to clients, and in our families, there is a grey-winged canary.  If we only look upon their outward appearance and circumstances, and don’t listen to hear the songs they carry in their heart, we may miss a wonderful opportunity to grow through a generative relationship with them. 

 

About ten years ago a partner in my former law firm suggested that there were a significant number of families in my client directory whose financial net worth didn’t meet the minimum threshold the firm had established for determining what clients we would work with.  It was made perfectly clear to me that the road to financial success lay in only serving families whose net worth had at least 8 digits with preferably the majority having a 9 or 10 digit net worth.  While I did continue to serve many families who met that minimum net worth requirement, I chose not to abandon the clients who didn’t.  As predicted I never made as much money as those partners who complied, but I was compensated for my decision with something far more valuable: many of the clients I kept became the teachers who gave me the opportunities to learn the Seven Keys to Purposeful Trusts™. 

 

To the professional advisors who read this blog:  please don’t judge your clients by the number of zeros in their balance sheet.

 

To loving parents and grandparents, and to all other individuals who desire to nurture and mentor children and emerging adults: listen for a youth’s ability to “sing” and please don’t judge them by the coloring on their wings.

 

Through imagination and love, we can visualize the uncreated worlds of potential that lie within each life that comes within our circle of influence.  The measure of our compassion and love is our ability to look beyond the blemishes and anticipate the polished finish in each—John A. Warnick

The Folded-Over and Muddy Card From Mom Story

“Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.”—Albert Schweitzer

Please consider the important message in this story that I heard recently from the proud mother of a U.S. Army infantryman who returned home from a harrowing deployment:

It had been too long since she had seen her son.  There he stood at last.  Ramrod straight, with a new medal on his crisp military uniform.

After he dropped his duffel bag in his old bedroom he followed the whiff of a homemade apple pie cooling in the kitchen and found his mom preparing lunch.  She thought it strange to see him holding a beat-up show box and asked, “What is that?”

“Oh, this is the place I safeguarded every card, note and letter I received from you, Nona, the rest of the family and my friends while I was gone.”  The mother walked over to inspect the box and found it was almost full.  Near the top was a folded-over note, caked in mud, and obviously well read.  She recognized it as a card she had bought one day while she was in the grocery store. 

The image on the front of the card had reminded her of the fun-loving boy she had seen grown up so fast.  The message was a theme of parental pride and she had penned her own words of encouragement to her then 19 year old, reminding him of the challenges he had faced and overcome to get to his enlistment in the Army.

She reached for the folded-over card, held it up smiling at him, and said: “Yeah, I see how much you thought of my card,” pointing to the caked mud.

“Mom,” he replied, “you will never know how much that card meant to me.  I remember when we were instructed we were going to be moving out and facing the enemy.  I didn’t know if or when I’d return to our barracks.  I pulled that card out, folded it over so it would fit in my  pocket, right next to my heart. “  Tears welled up in his eyes as he recalled the stress of those days, rocket-interrupted sleep, and the constant stream of bullets screaming over his head.  Amidst such pressure, and with comrades in arms falling in the fury of their firefights, he battled fear and doubt.

“It was tough,” he continued.  “I felt myself slipping into depression.  At night when I couldn’t sleep and wondered how I would go on, I would reach into that pocket of my combat jacket and pull out your card, unfold it and read your message.  Those words of pride and encouragement were what would lift me out of my funk….unfortunately, we often were sleeping in mud along the delta and that is where I picked up all that reddish brown mud.”

So in this touching story of a mother’s thoughtfulness and words of encouragement, we learn to never underestimate the power of a card or note.  Just a few days before I heard this mother share the story of her son’s shoe box and that folded-over, mud-caked card, I received an email from an attorney friend in Florida.  She sent me a link to her new web site where the tagline is “Changing Lives One Card at a Time.”  Go visit the Card Divas at   www.sendoutcards.com/carddivas and discover how easy it is to create the habit of sending a card every day or begin to experience the joy of writing a note or letter to encourage your loved ones and those friends who have made such a powerful impact in your life.

“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out…and is rekindled by a spark from another person.  Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”—Albert Schweitzer

The "I Won The Child Lottery" Journal Practice

Appreciation provides children with a sense of real security, a feeling of personal confidence, the assurance that someone understands and cares.  Everyone, not just children, would like to have these feelings.  So appreciation and encouragement are just as powerful an influence on adults as they are on children.

"Talents and creative gifts are squelched and stifled without encouragement and appreciation. Children can be made to feel as nothing, and go nowhere and learn little, and young people never fulfill their possibilities, except for encouragement and praise and appreciation."

—Richard L. Evans

I hope you have taken the time to reflect and preserve, in writing or digital recording, the “I Won the Child Lottery” Exercise which I wrote about in my December 22nd blog (click to view).  If you have now is the time for me to encourage you to consider sharing the positive essence of that reflection, if not your entire writing or recording, with the child you were reflecting on during the exercise.  I have had several clients thank me for encouraging them to do just that because it led to a powerfully positive interaction with a person they cared deeply about.

If your child is too young to fully appreciate your “I Won the Child Lottery” Exercise, please consider this suggestion.  Imagine keeping a journal of these reflections.  On your child’s birthday every year you would pause to reflect on the positive experiences of the prior twelve months.  You would chronicle those important growth events in your child’s life and record the feelings of love and parental pride you have felt.  Imagine the power that these expressions of appreciation and love will have on your child in later years when they receive this journal and when they return to feel its power thereafter.  

The practice of a “I Won the Child Lottery” journal would not only forever link your hearts together with the powerful bonds of generativity and positive emotion but its influence could also be felt by the descendants of your child.  I remember a grandmother telling me about such a journal that she had kept: one for each of her children.  When her grandchildren would come to visit, the first thing they would ask to do wasn’t to run into the backyard and play with fun stuff their grandfather had put together, but rather it was to sit down with grandma and to go through the journal she had compiled for their parent.  They never got tired of hearing the things that had been written about their parent and took particular interest in hearing what was written when he or she was their age.

There is a book entitled The Blessing which describes the angst one of the co-authors had as he raced to his father’s hospital bed in hopes of hearing some last words before his father expired.  Sadly, as I recall, he didn’t get there in time and the failure to hear a “blessing” from his father was the lament which fueled the book project.  May we start immediately to “practice” sharing such positive and affirming statements on a frequent basis so that none of us will leave an unuttered word of appreciation or encouragement at our death.

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone"—Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Reality of Virtual Friendships

I recently read in a friend’s blog of the tragedy that occurred when a pioneer of blogging died and her websites were allowed to die with her, even though her friends offered to pay the costs associated with keeping those sites up.  Their gesture was an effort to create a perpetual memorial to her creativity and the impact of her writing.

There is a lesson in this death of a blog.  The blogger who wants her virtual writings to continue to be available should consider what steps should be taken upon her death to preserve that legacy and then leave binding instructions in her estate planning documents.

As I reflected on the reality of virtual friendships, I was reminded of a beautiful example of how impactful true friendships can be.  Whether it is a virtual friend or someone you physically see, consider pausing long enough to express your appreciation to your friend in words like “I shall come again, for I like myself when I’m near you” as told by Elizabeth Mauske:

On her frequent trips on foot to Temuco, an elderly Araucanian Indian woman always would stop for a drink and eat cookies or cake with many an appreciative giggle.  My mother spoke only the Araucanian greeting “Mai-Mai” and the old woman spoke no Spanish.  My sisters and I tried to memorize the singsong phrase she always spoke as she rose to leave.

When we repeated her words to the missionaries, we learned they were a compliment which we have never forgotten:

“I shall come again, for I like myself when I’m near you”—paraphrased from Elizabeth Mauske

Winning the Child Lottery

In Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture he described how, as a parent of three young children, he felt had won the Child Lottery.  If you are a parent, or a grandparent, have you reflected on how “lucky” you are to have child(ren) or grandchild(ren) in your life?

 

How easy it is for us to take for granted the marvelous opportunity it is to have a child.  With that privilege, however, comes a great responsibility—parenthood.  

I wish that in every newborn education class the last segment of the curriculum would teach the importance of what I call “the soft side of parenting skills.”  Changing diapers, putting your child in a car seat, and getting the temperature of baby food just right are all part of the “hard side” of parenting.  Recognizing the uniqueness and potential of their child, expressing love and appreciation in healthy daily doses, and giving your child the appropriate space to make wise choices and learn from the pain of their mistakes—these are all part of the more difficult “soft side of parenting.”

Looking back in the rearview mirror of life, I find myself wishing I could have braked more often in my rush down the freeway of my professional life to pause and reflect on how lucky I was as a parent.  Today, I try to make sure I find time for such reflections.  And as I have now discovered the exhilarating scenic byway of life we call grandparenthood I find great joy in pulling over in view areas where I can reflect on the wonder of my grandsons (I have seven of them with a hope there might yet be a granddaughter). 

Carve out twenty to thirty minutes soon.  Reward yourself by finding a comfortable chair or that inspiring spot in nature where your soul can soar.  Bring along a writing tablet, or if it is easier a digital recorder.  There is a power in capturing through the written or recorded word the vividness of the positive emotions which will flow from these reflections. 

Decide who you want to center your reflection around.  Is it your child or grandchild?  Or if you don’t have children of your own, is it a niece, nephew or some other young person with whom you have established a relationship and who is so anxious for your positive companionship. 

Then study the reflective questions below.  Find the questions which are most appropriate given the age of the child or perhaps a recent event of special significance or joy.   Pause to consider how this child will be touched in such a positive way by these expressions of your love, admiration, joy, confidence, and pride.   Write or dictate the feelings and memories which bubble up as you reflect on:

What special moments of joy has this child brought into my life?

What are the unique talents or attributes which makes this young person so exceptional?

If someone asked me why I feel like I won the Child Lottery, what would I say?

If I were given “cosmic permission” to assimilate one of the features, gifts, or special skills I see in this child, what would it be and why?

When you witnessed this child achieve a milestone in their life path, or overcome a difficult challenge, what did you feel and what hope or wonder did that leave you with in terms of what amazing things he or she may accomplish later in life?