New Seasons

I've had a habit over the years of singing through The Byrds' song "Turn Turn Turn" (in other words, Ecclesiastes) to think through what season of life I'm in: 

To everything (turn, turn, turn)There is a season (turn, turn, turn)And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to be born, a time to dieA time to plant, a time to reapA time to kill, a time to healA time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything (turn, turn, turn)There is a season (turn, turn, turn)And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break downA time to dance, a time to mournA time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To everything (turn, turn, turn)There is a season (turn, turn, turn)And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time of love, a time of hateA time of war, a time of peaceA time…

A Time to Cast Away Stones: Selling our Family Home

Right now, the line that grabs me is "cast away stones" and "gather stones together." Maybe because my mom announced to us that she is buying a new house! in Idaho. Which means that our family home is going to be sold. Possibly not even sold, but razed and converted to a commercial property. Fargo is growing southward, and when we first moved to this house in 1985, we were out in the country. Today, we're only a few miles from town, as opposed to several. 

The thought that there soon might not be a physical house to contain all of my childhood memories, is a little terrifying: in a way, it's like losing a limb. The memories will be there, but there may not even be an opportunity to bring my kids to the house where I grew up and show them the rooms and say, "This is where ----- happened." I had a rather haunting pregnancy dream a few weeks ago where I was visiting our house and happened to see my ghostly 8-year-old sister Meghan calling from outside the window to see if I wanted to play. It felt very Wuthering-Heights-ish. 

The other part that's hard to get used to, is wondering where our family "center" will be. In a family of eight kids, we used to talk about how we'd be all spread out over the country in our adulthood, and who would live where. We were eager to be adventurous and live big lives. Reality has shown us that being at a distance from each other is not always exciting as we once thought. What we prioritize now, in our twenties and thirties, are chances to be all together, which are few and far between. Amongst the eight of us, we traverse several states and even foreign countries - Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland, North Dakota, and Turkey. We are mainly still centered in the midwest, but what happens when the matriarch of your family is now out west? Is the center there, or does it remain what it has been? It's confusing. 

It struck me, too, that not only the physical house may be gone, but also the places around it that have many memories. The bridge where, as a 12-year-old interested in archeology, I once found a complete cow skeleton intact in the mud at the riverbed and thought I could practice my excavating skills... The church

only a quarter mile away to which we would ride our bikes, attend Saturday night Mass, and practice organ and piano. The many country roads that became familiar over bike rides and runs. The shelter belt behind the field where we created a pioneer village and discovered old stones with cryptic writing unearthed over years of farming. 

There are so many opportunities to learn how to say goodbye in life, and this is just one of them. As much as I mourn saying goodbye to our childhood home, I can see that it's good never to get too attached to any one thing, even memories. 

A Time To Plant: Having a Baby

It was a very exciting and welcome surprise to find out we were expecting only two months after our wedding! Like everything, though, I've learned that when new things are coming, my worry brain comes out in full force. The first 3 months of pregnancy were spent on Googling every possible and potential worrisome thing. As irrational as these worries turned out to be, it was something I had to find out for myself. 

Now nearly six months into pregnancy, I've finally started to relax and enjoy the ride. 

It's been a fun time of learning - and there is so much to learn - like, what things you need, what things people convince you you'll need that you actually don't need. Trying to plan for the future in pregnancy feels so much like trying to plan for marriage in engagement - you are just guessing your way along based on what veterans in the field say to you, but you really have no clue, nor can you, until it really starts. Come to think of it, being a high school graduate and talking to older adults about my college plans felt like this too - they'd ask me my plans, and I'd mumble something about "generals" that I had hardly a clue about, and they'd go along like I actually knew what I was going to do with my life. 

One of the weirdest things to get used to is realizing that I'm not my perfect self yet, the self I somehow thought I'd be before children. I have a lot of weird rough edges, wounded hurt parts that haven't been healed really, or things that I'd say are "in progress." No way do I want my poor child exposed to all that. And yet, some of the best parent role models I've known have been the ones who embraced the mess and showed their children how to do the same. There's that often re-quoted Brene Brown quote about not waiting till you have it all together to step into the arena... And I think that's wise advice that is worth trying to follow. 

A Time to Break Down: From Full-Time Teacher to Stay-at-Home Mom

I love being a piano teacher - and have spent thirteen years building experiences and learnings and relationships to this end. Realistically, being a piano teacher is something you never really have to stop doing. It's just going to look different at different times in your life, and that's another thing that I love about it. 

But I always also really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. And being a stay-at-home mom means saying goodbye to being a full-time teacher, for now.

I find that, now being on the threshold of this new adventure, there are so many weird thoughts that intrude: 

 - "Where does one get "Mom friends?" will finding "Mom friends" ever be a comfortable thing?" It feels like the first day of school all over again... anxiety about meeting friends. 

 - "What if I am a better piano teacher than mom??"

 - "What does the typical day look like for a stay-at-home mom, anyway?" 

 - "How much will I miss getting to hear my students' funny, thoughtful insights, or being part of their lives?"

But there are things that I think back to, from being an older sibling when there was a new baby in the house, that I'm so very excited for, like: 

 - baby cuddles

 - the sweet sound of baby laughter

 - babies after they've had a bath and how excited they are to run around naked

 - watching all of the little milestones and the funny things babies and toddlers do and say

 - how the world starts to look fresh because you see it through their eyes. 

This, Too, Shall Pass

Thinking back to my single days, which I truly thought would last forever, I got used to thinking that the time I was in was always going to be "A time to wait." 

Since being married, I think of that often - think of the excruciating pain of the wait, remember how hard it could sometimes feel to watch other people receiving the things I really hoped to receive - with grace and without bitterness.

It could be hard to receive the time I was in, and to grapple with all the reasons why it had to be a waiting time - whether in or out of my control. I can look back now and see all the joys that were part of that time (many of which I was blind to), and all the things that that time taught me and gifts that it offered. 

Now in this new season, in this new time of transition - the season that I longed for so many years - I realize that there are both new joys to be found and new pains, and new things to learn. Being a mother is a true joy - it's also terrifying! Being married is every bit as awesome as I'd hoped, even more so - and it is also full of opportunities to be more vulnerable and more raw, which can be way more uncomfortable than I ever expected. 

I am learning the truth of each season having a purpose. And learning that as long or painful or joyful or scary or glorious as the season we're in may seem, it is one of many, and it will pass and become something else. It seems as though the people who have the most wisdom learn how to move with the seasons and how to receive them all with grace, so I am hoping to learn to do the same. 

"My Mom Forgot to Make Me Do My Homework:" Can we make sentences like this go away forever?

"Hi," (insert student's name). How's it going?"

"Oh, good. It's been a good week." 

"So, I see you're empty-handed today. Did you remember to bring your music books?" 

"Ugh," disdainful eye-roll, "My mom forgot to pack them." 

"So, how was your practice week this week?" 

"Well... It was really busy. I wanted to practice, but my parents forgot to remind me." 

Sometimes (not as much as I'd like) I call students out on this inadvertent attack on their parents' not getting it right by them: "You know it's not your mom's responsibility to pack your books for piano/remind you to practice, right? That's your job." 

But I get it, too. I get that it's hard to keep reminding kids to remember their stuff. Often remembering to wear appropriate clothes (including shoes) can be hard. I get that kids are often fighting their parents on practicing to begin with - they might argue that they didn't choose to go through the drudgeries of daily music practice, so why do they need to be responsible for books they didn't choose, either? 

What fills my heart with fear and dread, though, is that one day "My mom forgot to pack my books," might turn into, "My boss forgot to remind me of that deadline," or, "The University forgot to tell me I was failing," or insert-other-real-world-situation here. We complain about people who do this (usually we call them Millennials, let's be honest). 

But for every person not taking responsibility for themselves and their actions, there is someone not asking them to. One of my greatest fears is being a "sweet" teacher who doesn't have boundaries with students, and this is probably one of the hardest parts of my job. 

I heard a great podcast episode this week called "Consequences," in which parents (who are also Al Anon members) talk about what are good consequences for children and which ones aren't really effective. 

What grabbed my attention was the very common-sensical suggestion on the part of the hosts, that the best consequences for bad behavior are the natural consequences. 

As a case in point, one of the hosts mentions that his daughters would not wake up on time for school. Every day, he'd get more and more frustrated, coming to her room again and again to make sure she was up. If they missed the bus, he'd end up taking them to school late, speaking to the office, etc. 

One day, he decided not to take responsibility for his daughters' waking up on time. Instead, if they woke up late, they had to face the natural consequence (detention). He said that letting this happen was hard, but that once his daughters had gone to detention enough times, they realized they needed to ask for help. He offered to wake them up one time each day, and after that, it was up to them. This was enough to turn around the behavior. 

Being an expectant mom now, I've been hearing a lot lately about the "Mommy wars," those subtle attacks that moms wage on other moms for not being perfect in the millions of ways perfection can be attained in parenthood. Such as, "Oh, you don't make organic baby food for your baby??" etc. 

The Mommy Wars sounds like a very exciting place to be - a place where, if your kid walks out the door without their school lunch, you face the tantalizing possibility of being labeled a "Bad Parent" in other parenting hearts for not racing back to the school to deliver.

But I think there's some correlation between the Mommy Wars and moms feeling (and taking) too much responsibility for their kids. There's a constant guilt and second-guessing of getting it right, and so this whole idea of letting kids face natural consequences for their actions is quite scary... because what is, in fact, your good parenting, may likely be thought of or seen as bad parenting. 

It's hard for me to know exactly what parents face in helping set and maintain healthy boundaries with kids in terms of responsibility, because I am not living it yet. But as a teacher, I do play a role in helping kids know and keep their responsibilities, and I do feel temptations constantly to gloss over those teachable moments in order not to hurt their feelings or to keep the feel of the lesson positive, etc. 

One funny example from several years ago - a student just wasn't listening. She wanted to play! She ignored my several questions. I tried closing the lid, and she just kept playing away. She knew I wasn't going to let the lid fall on her fingers. I was trying hard to work with her as she was, but I finally realized there was no way to get her attention. 

So I stood up and grabbed my coat, and prepared to leave the room. 

She stopped immediately. "Wait. Where are you going?"

"It just seems like you're not looking for a teacher today, so I'm going to go get some coffee," I said. 

"No, I do need a teacher!" she said. 

"Okay, well, show me that you need a teacher." 

And she did. I'd love to say there weren't any difficulties after that point (there were), but things got a lot better. 

What I learned from that situation, and many like it, is that setting boundaries takes so much less emotional energy than when I let people walk all over me. I don't have to get frustrated. I can just say, "You can choose to do X, Y, or Z, and if you choose that, this is what I'll choose." I don't have to control anyone's behavior, but oftentimes the behavioral results end up better. 

I am not writing this today because I've figured out boundaries and because I know how to show students how to take responsibility. Rather, I've learned that, because I have a sort of warped sense of over-responsibility (that everything anyone does that's bad is somehow my fault) I have to keep relearning how to let my students be responsible for themselves and to recognize the real consequences behind their actions. It's hard! 

In that sense, sometimes the one thought that kicks my butt into gear with setting clearer boundaries mirrors that line in scripture, "woe to me if I do not preach it." Sometimes being sweet and nice and boundary-less is the best way to create monsters. 

Early Lessons in Marriage

One of my favorite questions to ask my newly-married friends has always been, “What is something that surprised you about getting married?” I am finding that for most of these friends (and others) turnabout is fair play, and now I’m the one getting asked, “How’s married life?” I find myself more disconcerted by the question than I would have expected… I mean, what do you say?? I’ve been internally disappointed by the lack of deep insights that have come to mind.

The transition from being a single gal to a married gal was something I guess I expected would be harder, or rockier. I thought sharing a bed would be very weird… it’s not, unless you include our 
two sweet but very skinny, bony whippets who insist on sleeping in the same bed, and often on our legs, or in the curves of our backs… But even this - it’s not all that big of an adjustment, really.  

Now that it’s been five months, little things are emerging that are talk-about-worthy, hence this 
post.  Here are some of my early lessons of married life: 

Different Temperaments - Stronger and Better

One of the things I’ve always struggled with is putting off stuff like: oil changes, routine car, tooth, doctor, and eyecare maintenance, taking care of mail and paperwork in a timely manner,  returning emails and phone calls speedily, and having conversations where I have to say “no” to somebody or something. For years, becoming better (more timely, more honest) in these areas has been my goal, and I’ve devised many ways of tackling this procrastinatory edge to my personality. 

I’ve gotten marginally better (if marginally better could mean 2% better) but there’s still room for much improvement. 

Within the last month, our new car started experiencing what sounded to be brake-pad erosion. For three days, each time I’d drive, I heard a concerning sound of metal-against-metal whenever I braked, and kept thinking, “I really need to do something about that,” and then I’d get to where I was going and forget all about it. 

Finally, on Wednesday night, I told John about it, and he listened to the car, and we decided that we needed to take it in. 

Thursday morning, John said, “Do you think you could take the car in today?” I thought about the day’s crazy schedule and couldn’t think of how to possibly fit in a trip to the mechanic. John let me borrow his car, and I fretted about how to fit in this trip to the mechanic for my entire commute into work. 

A few hours later, I checked in with John. He’d already brought the car in! A few hours after that, the problem was diagnosed. It was fixed the same day, and we had the car back that night. 

This little incident was a pretty powerful one for me. Had I been Single Rachel, I can easily imagine how such a problem would have gone (and it’s embarrassing). I would have put off the trip to the mechanic. I would have taken the bus to get around instead, and the car would have sat at home until I was able to get to it (it might be a month before that happened). Part of the putting off would have been fear of finding out what the repair might cost. Part of it would just be having to adjust my schedule to do something out of the ordinary, which is a challenge. Once I finally got the car in, I’d feel like doing a big victory dance for finally overcoming my inertia. 

I realized through this that being married to someone who is temperamentally different from you can be a real blessing. I will hopefully improve another 2% at the procrastination stuff, but being an essentially slow-to-warm-up type of person will probably not change. It takes a lot of energy to work myself up into action - it always has. John, on the other hand, is an action-taker, so it is more his natural bent to take care of a problem right away than to let it sit. I would say there are benefits and costs to being oriented in either of these ways - my slower way does have a positive, in that I look at an issue from several angles before coming to a conclusion, and when that conclusion is reached, it’s generally well-considered. Acting fast can have its detriments too, for the same reason - sometimes things do need more time and more information before we jump towards action. 

If we can learn how to let our spouse shine when their strengths are called for, and learn to step up when it is our own strengths that are needed, we will be a great team.

Deeper insights into selfishness

A favorite married friend’s words to me just after her marriage: “Before marriage, I thought, “You know, I think I’ve got this selfishness thing well under control.” When I got married, I started to see how selfish I really was, and it wasn’t pretty.”  

Something that has become more clear recently is that I love to be generous and giving - when the thing I am giving is also something I want. 

But there have already been plenty of times where I can sense an invitation to be generous when it’s not at all what I want… and that can be hard. 

Take the other day as an example. John struggles with pretty bad seasonal allergies. We were just settling in to sleep when he said, “Could we change the sheets? I am feeling really itchy.” 

I was falling peacefully asleep. I did not feel like getting up and stripping the bed and remaking it with new sheets. “Can we wait until tomorrow morning maybe?” 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” said John. But I could tell that he was really uncomfortable, and I started realizing that I really needed to step it up. 

So we stripped the bed and made it up, and then we were both able to sleep and all was good. 

It’s this kind of selfishness that I’m growing slowly more aware of… when something needs to be done but I really don’t feel like it… at that moment. 

In those days leading up to taking our vows, my heart and mind were strongly aligned to that idea of “dying to self.” It would be hard work, but it would be worth it! The bigger picture was in front of us, and we could see the ins and outs of the whole thing, and how we would need to persevere and do things we didn’t feel like, but all in the service of Love. 

In actual marriage, it can be surprisingly easy to lose sight of the bigger “dying to self,” in the midst of long, cold winter days. Or days when you just need more - sleep, for instance. More encouragement. More Vitamin D. It can be easy to stop marching and to start slacking, and to start telling yourself that you deserve a break, too! I don’t have any answers about how to keep stepping it up when you’re in a period of time when slogging through seems to be the only course of action. 

However, I learned from this instance to keep my eyes open, each day, for these small invitations to love more generously. They can often be small and hard to notice! I want to be more skilled in considering what John needs just as well as what I need, and I know that in doing so, we’ll have a stronger marriage and a deeper bond.

Routine Maintenance - easy to put off, invaluable to marriage

John and I came up with a great plan at our engagement retreat: to have a weekly meeting where we would discuss anything that had come up in the past week. This would be our way of working through the smaller frustrations so that they wouldn’t become bigger, and to help foster regular communication. 

The first weekend back from our honeymoon, we implemented the weekly meeting. It was great. We talked through everything - the upcoming week, things we needed to plan together, things that had come up that had bothered one of us, etc. The second week was similarly good, and the third week. We forgot to do it on the fourth week, and then we didn’t remember to meet again until the sixth week. 

A few weeks ago, I noticed that we had not been meeting weekly for the past month - it had been more like every three weeks. Something had come up the day before that had annoyed me, and I realized that the next time we met, I’d have to bring it up. I didn’t like the idea of framing our meeting around an annoyance, but not having the weekly touch-base had made this more inevitable.

We met, and resolved this thing, which was small, and we talked about how important it was to have the weekly meeting so that these little things wouldn’t build. 

Sometimes it is hard to  stay faithful to those little “maintenance”-like things. The weekly meeting is a good thing to do, like car maintenance. It’s good just to keep a regular check on where things are, before something big is allowed to build. The challenge is, that these maintenance things often aren’t urgent. They’re a good idea - actually, a great idea, and if we make time for them, they’re likely to do a tremendous amount of good. The tricky thing is the lack of urgency. So much of our days have urgent things in them, and it becomes easy to say, “Well, things are pretty good. We can put this off.” 

I hope that we will continue to remember our weekly meetings - they have been really good so far.

No more popcorn suppers - adjusting to thinking for two

As a single woman preparing for dinner, I’d often get home from work, and go right to the fridge. If I had chips and salsa, I ate chips and salsa for dinner. If I had eggs, I’d make an omelette. Or, if I was just tired out, I’d poke a couple of holes in two pieces of toast, and fry a few eggs-in-toast. Occasionally my roommates had cooked good food, and if they had, they’d usually offer some, and I’d usually accept. Sometimes, I’d just pop a bowl of popcorn and eat that. My go-tos are slightly embarrassing to list, but they were comfortable and awesome to me!

Several months into marriage, I’m used to getting a text from John if we didn’t already plan through the week’s meals: “What do you feel like for dinner?” Internally, I groan, because figuring out what to have for dinner (that is actually considered “dinner” by a consensus of people) often feels overwhelming - a meat, a vegetable, maybe a carb. Who goes to the store? Is it something we already have? And, to a not-good-cook, the mental work of figuring out if you can fake your way through it or if you need to dig out a recipe, can be considerable. 

One of the things I’ve regretfully (mostly) given up, is popcorn suppers. And it’s sad to say, but sometimes I miss them. 

The truth is, I think the death of the popcorn supper is worthwhile. I was content feeding myself on mostly insubstantial carbs, but now that I’m thinking of John, too, I realize that what I want for us is something healthier, and more grown-up. It’s’s a mature thing to plan your meals together and consider the other person. It’s valuable to learn to cook and create nourishing foods. 

But there was a night when John was doing a class, where I unashamedly spent the evening at home with my long-abandoned popcorn maker and covered my popcorn with just as much garlic butter and Parmesan cheese and Tabasco sauce as I like. 

Noting the awesomeness of your hubby

I was single for a long time, hoping to be married one day.  One thing that surprised me most about getting married in my mid-thirties, was how much I’d grown into my self-image as a single woman, and how hard to let go it really was. 

One thing that was very true of being single, even with the very best of roommates, was the responsibilities. My dirty dishes were mine to clean. That floor that seemed caked with un-filed paperwork for weeks on end? That, too, was for me to do. As well as the bills. Responsibility for keeping up with friendships, for keeping up with emotional and mental health, having an interesting intellectual life, exercising, lawn care.  Sure, it wasn’t childrearing and it was only me, but that’s just it - it was only me. 

So it surprises me sometimes to leave a sink of dishes and get home later, only to find that John washed them, or ran that load of laundry that needed doing. How we pick up each other’s slack, and how unused to that I am. What is nice about being newly married and unused to this life, is the amount of gratefulness it is possible to feel for John, simply because he notices and takes care of me in these little ways. 

A pastor and his wife that I know well once showed me how beautiful it is to express gratitude. When one cooked, the other said, “Thank you for cooking.” When one did the dishes, the other said thank you. Long before my own marriage began, this habit of theirs impressed me because it was quite modest, but also very grace-giving. Remembering and taking the time to say thank you is a skill that can be so easy to omit, and I hope I’ll be able to continue growing in that gift over time.

The Weekly Reflection

For probably at least 10 years, I've had a regular weekly coffee shop date - with myself.

It started as a way to have "introvert time" - time to journal, read, stare into space, think bigger picture thoughts. Coffee has always been a great thought stimulant. And for me, there's something about being an anonymous other in a coffee shop that gives me the freedom to indulge in the deeper thoughts that help me to see where I am coming from and where I am going.

While daily journaling is something I very much enjoy, and that helps me process all the things that float into and out of my mind, this past year or two, I've been looking for something a little different - a way to reflect on the past week, and prepare for the coming week.

I Googled "reflection questions" many times, and found some good questions that could help me look deeper into my life, but nothing really scratched the itch that I had.

So I finally came up with a series of questions that I call my "Weekly Reflection." I've been doing this reflection every Sunday for the past 8 months, and it's been something that helps me to excavate a little bit - to see patterns, to see the meaning behind occurrences, to catch bad habits before they begin.

I'd like to share this document here in the hopes that if anyone out there who might find value or help in it, might find it. (See link below to download it):

Weekly Reflection Template

Weekday, Month Day, Year

What happened over the week?

If I were to pick out some of this week’s themes, what would they be?

Where did I sense God speaking to me this week, in big or small ways?

What did I savor over the past week?

What challenged me over the past week?

What media (books, music, movies, television, etc), affected me? And in what ways?

What things (random facts, life lessons, etc) did I learn over the past week?

What am I using as distractions, or fillers, right now? What am I trying to distract myself from, or what emptinesses am I trying to fill?

What is new in my closest relationships this week? How am I being challenged to love more, or differently?

What inspired me this week, or excited me?

What are my hopes for the coming week?

Where am I sensing invitations in my life? Where am I sensing closed doors?

Has anything started to move in a certain direction over the past length of time?

Below is a link to the document in Word format, so that you are free to do any editing or custom-work you'd like:

Weekly Reflection Template

First times, and the value of falling on your butt

Back at age 12, I decided that I wanted to start playing piano at church. Our small country parish had one church organist who played on Sundays, but if you went to church on Saturday night, there was no music. There were gaps to be filled.

I remember one conversation with our Church organist where he wrote down all the times when music was needed during the Mass, and how you knew when to come in. It was overwhelming. He told me I would figure it out. One thing he told me then: “I was terrified for probably every Sunday of my first two years playing for church. I thought there would never be a day when I wouldn’t be scared; but then, one day, I realized that the fear was gone.”

Our little country parish was thankful to have some music on Saturday nights rather than none at all, and gave me carte blanche to choose the music each week for that Saturday evening Mass. I look back very grateful that they let me cut my teeth in some very embarrassing ways, largely unbeknownst to myself at the time. We had a Clavinova

that could be pre-recorded to play some the Mass music (it was still a pretty daunting task to learn it all in a week), and sometimes I pressed the play button at a very wrong time and prompted craned necks and giggles. At one point, I was listening to a lot of Dar Williams and watching a lot of Touched by an Angel  and thought it would be a good idea to compose a song in that style about how angels were our saviors and they came in weird disguises. I still hope to this day that people were not able to understand the words to that theologically disastrous song.

This all came to mind last Sunday, when a student of mine, “C,” played her first entire Mass. When our music director approached me last year and asked me if I’d be interested in apprenticing a 13-year-old girl in learning how to play piano for Mass, I was very excited to say yes. I wanted C to have more one-on-one help than I had had, so that she could be truly confident about what she was doing.

So for the past 9 months, we have drilled the parts of the Mass - what is called “Ordinary,” what is called “Proper,” what priests' words are the cues you need to listen for, how you craft an “intro” from the hymn

- how to improvise during the times at church when there needs to be music, but there isn’t enough time to do a whole other verse. We’ve talked about keys and key signatures, fingerings for the big chords, how to watch your cantor to give them cues or to take them. It’s a lot to learn. C has been coming to play parts of the Mass for most weeks during this time, and finally it was time for her to take the reins completely. She learned the four hymns/songs and the seven parts of Mass, and now she prepared to do it all herself.

So, when I met her last Sunday morning, and asked her how she was doing with everything, she smiled shyly and said, “I’m really nervous.”

We walked through several of the pieces, which were all prepared and sounded confident, except the opening song, which had several off notes, slow-downs and blunders. I had heard her play it a few days before much more confidently, and I had a moment of inner conflict, trying to figure out what C (and the congregation) needed most. If she started the Mass on her least confident hymn and it was a mess, would that shake her confidence for the rest? Should I offer to take over for her on this one, so that she could focus on what was already flawless? Or should I be encouraging and try to build her up beforehand, knowing that her blunders were most likely nervousness, rather than not being prepared?

What finally came to me was those embarrassing, messy and awkward “first times” that I went through, learning to play for Mass, and how my patient first congregation was so appreciative and warm toward all those goofy first steps. Had they not been so supportive and so trusting of me, when I knew nothing and had so little confidence, I’m not sure I would have developed enough confidence to keep going, and to get better. That kind 5:00 Mass group gave me a wide berth - and now I’ve been playing piano for Mass for 22 years! Please don't do the math about how old that makes me.

So, I said nothing, and decided not to take over, and decided that C needed to play this entire Mass herself, however it went, and that we would embrace however it went, together. And C played that first hymn with a lot more confidence and maybe only two slight, unnoticeable blunders, and was able to go home that day knowing that she did a great job all on her own.

C’s first time playing piano for an entire Mass reminded me of my nephew “J”’s first time paying for something with his own money.

He wanted Pokemon cards,

so he had been watching the prices at Walmart, and saving up money to buy his own pack for some time. Despite his dad’s admonishment that Pokemon cards are “just gambling for kids,” J was determined.

We went to the Walmart in town, and walked toward the Pokemon aisle. I don’t remember how much they were, but let’s say $2.88. J carefully counted up the loose change in his hand, and held the coins tightly. We talked about the fact that he would need some extra money to account for the sales tax.

We found a cashier lane, and J’s dad and siblings waited behind him with a cart of groceries. Meanwhile, J talked about how nervous he was about if he was going to get it right, and what if he hadn’t counted the coins right, and how he didn’t know what to expect. I told J that everybody has to learn how to buy things with their money sometime, and that nobody knows what they’re doing the first time, and that’s completely normal.

However, the line behind us got longer and longer,

as customers decided to check out at the same time. My brother-in-law saw how long the lines were and how many coins were in J’s hand, needing to be counted out slowly for the cashier. When J’s total was announced, he pressed a $5 bill in the cashier’s hand to hurry things along.

As we took our bags out the door, J said, “I failed. I couldn’t even get that right.”

My heart broke a little bit. “J, there was nothing about what you did that was a failure,” I said. “You knew exactly how much money you needed and you had it.”

“Yeah, but then why did Dad have to pay for me?” he said.

“He saw how long the lines were, and he was afraid of holding other people up, that’s all that was going on,” I said, but I sort of wished that we, the world at large, could have spared an extra few minutes to give J the chance to count out his money slowly and to figure it out, so that he could have left the store one more step closer to that confidence that he could do this - he could pay for things with his own money.

C and J both taught me something by these experiences.

Why are we so resistant to allowing our kids’ first times at things to be awkward, messy, slow, ridiculous, etc?

Maybe it’s our culture today - maybe it’s that sense of pressure that we feel for every moment to be ready for Snapchat or a resume.

We’re so seen, all the time. And we have so many measuring tools. The opinions of others have never been so central to the human experience. Almost everything we do is reviewable, zero to five-star-able.

And this is the landscape in which we are raising our kids - to be judged and reviewed and critiqued. We are preparing them for review and we know that we will also come under scrutiny. We ache for that like button, and we see our vulnerable kids putting their necks out there and can’t bear that they might not get the likes.

With C, I was afraid that if she blundered her way through the opening song, I would be judged - for not drawing the line, for not preparing her well.

With J, maybe my brother-in-law was afraid of ticking off the other waiters-in-line. Maybe he thought J would be less embarrassed if he just took care of it. Or maybe he thought that we just couldn’t afford J the time to have his first time, that day.

And I think the other reason we resist a bad first time, is that we’re afraid of what our kids’ take-away message will be. Maybe it will be, “I worked really hard, and I failed. I never want to try again.”

Maybe we don’t realize the beauty of the first time experience.

If you’re an adult, you can look back and remember hundreds of first times. The first time you drove a car, rode a bike, went to school, got up in front of an audience.

I remember the queasy nervousness that just wouldn’t calm down. I remember, at age 12, riding in the car to my first day of swimming lessons, telling myself, “First times always feel like this. But then they always end up okay. So this first time is going to end up okay, too, probably.”

What I didn’t realize until walking through first times with my younger students, is how beautiful a first time is. It’s beautiful, because you’re suddenly in a place where you have to face your vulnerabilities. In the first time, you are uniquely aware in your nerves, in your heart pounding, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Someone, at some point, told me that humility isn’t self-deprecation. Humility is knowing the truth about yourself. In the first time experience, we cannot be arrogant, or think we are in control. We know we are not in control - and thus we see ourselves honestly, as we really are. We grapple with all the inner demons in those moments before hitting the stage, or the bike, or the “on” switch. We tell the “You can’t do it” voice, “I’m doing it, regardless of what you say.”

And the power of the first time, is that you have conquered the demon “Can’t” by doing the thing you have never done. This alone, whether you fall on your butt or do okay or do great, is a huge accomplishment.

You also learn to stand up for you, in the smallest, least self-important view of yourself you can have.

And if you fall on your butt, you still walk away with the knowledge that you tried it, and if you tried it this time, you can at least give it a try another time too.

Maybe we remember our hurts and pains, and are afraid to let our children receive the hurts and pains we did.

The first rejection. The first broken heart. The moment you humiliated yourself by singing a hokey Dar-Williams-esque song at Mass. These are moments that you can still look back and cringe that they ever happened.

Well, fellow adults - we need to remember to also dwell on the aftermath of these pains. How we persisted beyond them. How we put our hearts out there again, and how we learned to embrace the vulnerable, and how it ended up good. How the laughter and derision of our classmates taught us to be more creative, and helped us learn to laugh at ourselves. How we learned to stand up for ourselves and thus became attractively confident. And these growths need to be at the forefront of our minds when we parent and teach kids.

We need to remember that, despite the strongest of urges to shield kids from the hurts and pains, that it is the hurts and pains that often are gifts - gifts that break our skin, but enable us to grow new, more durable and stronger skin.

Lastly - do I model “falling on my butt” to my kids?

Kids, not just to the parents out there, but our kids meaning our students, our young neighbors, or nieces and nephews. Do we continue to show them how to embrace walking into the world not knowing what you're doing?

I see hundreds of parents behind cameras, documenting their kids’ first times… We know that our first dance recital, piano lessons, etc. were good for us, and know they'll be good for our kids too. But sometimes I think we check our own first times once we have kids. We figure that we’re adults now, and so we’re there to support and teach them to do first times, and we’re done.

As a teacher, how many times am I myself walking out to that vulnerable “first time” of the stage? Do I remember that my example is the number one teacher of my students?

As a parent, am I showing through my own humble failures, how to embrace them, and even to be delighted by my human frailty?

One of my favorite memories of my dad is the time we walked through Cabela’s, and he, looking at some cute little jumpers that said “Daddy’s little deer” for my baby sister, accidentally collapsed and entire rack of clothes on the ground.

My fourteen-year-old self was mortified and looking around in the hopes that no one had noticed.

My dad very quietly and unconcernedly picked up every last one of those jumpers and put the rack back up.

By that one small thing, my dad modeled to me how you respond when you fall on your butt.