Seedlings

This is No Place for My Son -- The Story of Mother Meng

 

“The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery.  The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests”—Author Unknown

A Chinese mother watched her son play.  The three year old had observed the burial rituals taking place in the graveyard next to his home.  The boy happily spent hours building miniature tombs and grave mounds.  She whispered to herself, “This is no place to raise my son.”  So the widow and her young son moved.

Their new home was next to the village marketplace.   The young boy watched the merchants and vendors in action along the boisterous marketplace.  Soon he was hawking imaginary wares and haggling with imaginary customers using the same words he had heard in the marketplace. Again the widow muttered, “This is no place for my son.”

This time they moved next to a school house.  Here the Chinese classics were studied.  Now the lad was imitating the scholars and students he saw studying the words of Confucius and other Chinese sages.  His mother smiled and thought, “This is indeed the right place for my son to grow into manhood.”

This mother has been revered in China for more than 24 centuries.  She is known as Mother Meng and her son was Mengzi.  In the West we known him as Mencius.  The choices Mother Meng made to find the right place to raise Mencius would be felt for centuries.  For Mencius became one of the greatest Chinese sages.  He spent great energy influencing the kings and rulers of his day, but even more time and thought defining for all the qualities of the human heart and a life well lived.

There are many choices parents face in the nurture of their children and the activities of their adolescents.  These choices, when purposefully made with the child’s best interest paramount in our minds, may have profound long-term impact on the child. 

I started Kindergarten in a public school just a few minutes from my home.  Three weeks after school began my mother announced I would be going to a different school, one that was a 15 minute drive from our home.  My parents were sure the new school was the “right place” for me.  It was a small, semi-private K-12 school and I would graduate 12 years later with almost 40 students who had started in elementary school with me.  I don't know that there was anything that wrong with the first school.  I just know my mother wanted me to have the best educational experience possible.  And, she and my father were willing to pay the tuition and sacrifice their time to drive me to the new school so I could have the best teachers.  They knew, like Mother Meng, that the right learning environment could have a profound influence on their child.

Some of the parental choices which have the greatest impact are simple lessons in quiet moments.  Let me close by sharing another story from the boyhood of Mencius.  Mother Meng worked hard to support herself and her son with weaving.  One day Mencius cut out of school and came home early.  As he passed his mother weaving at a loom, Mother Meng asked,  “How are you doing at school?” Mencius replied “just so-so.”  She quickly seized a knife and cut across the threads of the loom, leaving the unfinished tapestry frayed and useless.  Shocked that his mother had just destroyed something so vital to their well-being, Mencius blurted, “What have you done?” Quietly she replied, “Neglecting your study is like my cutting the threads on the loom.  We are poor.  You need a good education to establish yourself.  If you stop your study halfway, you’ll accomplish nothing.  When you grow up, you’ll either be somebody’s servant or become a robber.  What difference is there between half-a-weaving and a boy half-educated?” 

Mother Meng’s lesson was both felt and learned. Mencius applied himself diligently thereafter.  He became a revered Confucian scholar.  By the 12^th century his book Mencius had become a classic in Chinese literature, second only to Confucius’ Analects. A mother’s work is never done and she may never know how far her example and lessons will extend.

 

“I will fight for my children on any level so they can reach their potential as human beings”—Princess Diana

 

The Boston Marathon Tragedy -- The Rest of the Story

Thanks to Rick McDonald of U.S. Advisory in Boston for providing this guest blog which tells the "rest of the story".  Rick's son, Tucker, was at the finish line yesterday.  Tucker has run the Boston Marathon before.  But yesterday he was there as a volunteer handing out water bottles.  Fortunately, Tucker wasn't injured.  But in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy Tucker's parents and brother were unable to contact him by cell phone.  As you may have heard, cell phone communication was shut down immediately after the bombs exploded for fear that there would be more detonations of bombs via cell phone.  In fact, from what Rick has told me, there were other bombs recovered and it appears there may have been as many as seven devices.

As Rick says, it is impossible to make sense out of this tragedy.  But please read the rest of the story to understand that the Boston Marathon isn't just a race.  It is perhaps one of the largest volunteer fund-raising efforts in the world.  Quite a story:

The Rest of the Story -- By Frederick "Rick" McDonald

Yesterday was another senseless act of terror inflicted not only on Boston, but to our country, by people or peoples yet unknown. 

We are all, by nature, centric to our own environment.  But as a Bostonian, let me share with you what Patriot's Day in this town means.  Patriot's Day is a state holiday.  It is a day in which the city of Boston opens up its city to the world.  Kids are out of school.  Parking is free on the streets!  The Bruins always play at home, and the Sox always have a mid day game at Fenway, 1 mile from the finish line of the Boston Marathon, so the crowd can intermingle with the tens of thousands in Copley Square.

The Marathon is, of course, one of the elite marathons in the world.  But to us, it is far, far more than that.  At 11, the elite runners take off in Hopkinton, seeking to finish 26 miles away in the city in 2 to 2 1/2 hours later.  That's one marathon.  But there is another.  Getting a "number" is a big thing.  You have to qualify, as 23,000 do.  23,000!!!  A couple of hundred runners finish in the 2 -3 hour window.  They are the elite.  They come from all over the world to run "Boston".  Then there is the "other" marathon.  The amateurs.  Where 20,000+ hope to finish in 4 or 5 hours.  4 is always the big "goal".  But to be in that throng, to be "official", you "gotta get that numbaa on yah bib".  And in Boston, that means you are running for a cause.  You see, the Boston Marathon is a huge money raising event.  You don't run Boston as an amateur without running for a cause.  Boston raises millions for causes from Breast Cancer, to Children's Hospital to a myriad of wonderful causes that bring great joy to the runners, the spectators, and to all of Boston.  Pride.  On Patriot's Day.  You don't get in this race without being a world class, elite runner, or top ranked and qualified, or unless you are sponsored by a cause, being "officially sanctioned".

Yesterday, two of what appears to be four bombs left along the sidewalk went off at the finish line of the race, at 4:09:15.  That is the ideal "target" time for amateur runners running for joy, for love of running, for their "cause", as they sought to cross the line after enduring months and months of training for this grueling challenge.

It is difficult to express the atmosphere of the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Patriot's Day unless you have experienced it.  It is uniquely special.  It's deeply apart of being "Boston".  Two years ago, one of my sons ran it, and we were there to share in the joy, the exhaustion, the love for running for a purpose, at 4:12:00.  It was a wonderful afternoon.  Fond recollections.  This year, Tucker was an official volunteer at the finish line.  He had begun walking home 5 or 10 minutes before the first explosion.  He, like so many others, will look at this day through a totally different lens.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the families who lost loved ones and to those who lost limbs or were injured in any way, and suffer from yesterday's tragedy.  All of us lost something in the senseless tragedy where something was lost and will never quite be the same.  We will all grieve for the victims.  We will all grieve for Boston, for our country.

 

Seven Suggestions For Combating Feelings of Inadequacy -- Differentiating Between Dissatisfaction with Self and Self-Disdain

 

“Be careful not to mistake insecurity and inadequacy for humility! Humility has nothing to do with the insecure and inadequate! Just like arrogance has nothing to do with greatness!” –C. Joy Bell

 

Fears of inadequacy haunt each of us.  Sadly, we view our blunders and aborted attempts as evidence of our inadequacies.  Instead, we should embrace failure with gratitude.  Our mistakes are but opportunities to learn and grow.  

As I have struggled from time to time in my life journey with feelings of inadequacy, I have learned to appreciate the difference between what Neal A. Maxwell  described in his spiritual essay/book Notwithstanding My Weakness as “dissatisfaction with self and disdain for self.  We need the first and must shun the second.”  Here are seven of Neal Maxwell’s 14 suggestions for combating feelings of inadequacy:

 1.   We can contemplate how far we have already come in the climb along life’s journey; it is usually much farther than we acknowledge.

 2. We can accept help as well as gladly give it. We can see honest feedback as helpful tutelage.

 3. Before we assess our leadership efforts, we must take into consideration  that often our deliberate best is less effectual because of someone else’s worst.

 4.   We can write down, and act upon, more of those accumulating resolutions for self-improvement that we so often leave, unrecovered, at the edge of sleep.

 5.   As Neal Maxwell puts it, “We can admit that if we were to die today, we would be genuinely and deeply missed. Perhaps parliaments would not praise us, but no human circle is so small that it does not touch another, and another.”

 6.   We can make quiet but more honest inventories of our strengths, since, in this connection, most of us are dishonest bookkeepers and need confirming “outside auditors.” 

7.   We can recommit to moving forward.   Men finally climbed Mount Everest, not by standing at its base in consuming awe, but by shouldering their packs and by placing one foot in front of another. Feet are made to move forward—not backward!

When we adjust our mental framework around failure and inadequacy, we are putting ourselves on the pathway to significance. Nelson Mandela, in his inauguration speech, drew from these words of Marianne Williamson to encourage us to conquer our fears of inadequacy and insecurity:  “We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.  Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. 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.”

Here’s hoping you will share these seven suggestions from Neal Maxwell with others and that your presence in the world will be such that you liberate others from the shackles of inadequacy and insecurity. 

”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.”—Marianne Williamson

 

 

 

A Tale of Two Incubators

 

 

“Sibling relationships - and 80 percent of Americans have at least one - outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust”—Erica E. Goode

Brielle and Kyrie Jackson were born prematurely.  While they had spent months together in their mother’s womb, now at birth the two tiny girls were placed in separate incubators to reduce the risk of infection.  Kyrie, the larger of the two, weighed only two pounds three ounces.  She began gaining weight and strength immediately.  But Brielle struggled.  Soon her condition worsened.  As Brielle’s blood oxygen level plummeted and her heart rate soared the intensive care nurse fought to save her.  As she met with Brielle’s worried parents she offered one final suggestion to save their daughter.  “Let me just try putting Brielle in with her sister to see if that helps.” The parents consented and the nurse placed the squirming Brielle in Kyrie’s incubator.  Brielle snuggled next to her sister and stopped squirming.  Within minutes her blood oxygen levels improved and her heart rate subsided.  As Brielle dozed peacefully Kyrie wrapped her tiny arm around her smaller sister.  

This miraculous story is taken from an article by Nancy Sheehan entitled “A Sister’s Helping Hand” in the May 1996 issue of the Reader’s Digest at pages 155-56.

As I have pondered on the power of sibling relationships, for good or for ill, this story gives me great hope that no matter what our age or circumstances, if we can just maintain positive contact with our siblings, we will be strengthened and helped throughout our life journey.  May you be a Kyrie for the Brielles in your life.  And may there always be a Kyrie wrapping her/his loving arm around you.

 

“I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at”—Maya Angelou