Converse conversation

I have spent a bit of time with my youngest daughter (13) in the last few weeks. There is a great charge for parents in seeing your children grow and become independent. It is not the physical independence that matters so much at the early teen stage, but the ability to think independently. This is different from the ability to act impulsively.

Anyone can do that! It is not too hard to see a course of action and then hurtle towards it. It would be easy to mistake this for ‘independence’. Indeed we even validate it with sayings like “They’ve got to learn from their mistakes.”

I never tire of saying that that is not entirely true. We don’t –necessarily- learn from our mistakes. We learn from reflecting on them, and then repeating the action in a modified way as a result of our reflection. We don’t always get this.

So it was good to have a bit of reflection with S.

“Have you made any New Year’s Resolutions?” was the topic of our conversation.

She told me that she had not made any as such, and then went on to tell me that she had been thinking about some goals. These included things like acting more independently, being more organized, more exercise….and so on. Indeed she had been thinking about quite a lot.

I have a couple of reflections myself on this conversation. One, of which I am well aware, is that it was good to have a conversation that didn’t particularly have any greater purpose than just having a chat. I wasn’t trying to make a point, as I so often do when I am talking to my children (to little or no avail…so why bother). It was good to let her speak discursively and decide how much to say and when she had said enough etc….

There should be more of it.

Then she asked me if I had made any resolutions. She wrested control of the conversation from her controlling father, not malevolently but on a mutual and firm basis…so indeed wrested is the wrong word….there should be more of it.

I am conscious that in a couple of weeks we will all (five of us) be on holiday together and it takes a while to get to this mutually accepting conversation. But it is a powerfully transforming dynamic when each day you can sit down with your family and just have an engaging conversation, in which you seek to be present with each other and not controlling (very hard in this family…maybe in all families, but really worth it)

Reflecting the world

My daily reflection time today (listen here)invites me to pay attention to the world rather than my own concerns.
This was a bit disturbing for me. I feel, sometimes, that the list of things about my personal life that I need God to pay attention to is long and complex enough without having to think about Palestine or Iraq!!
This is of course always the problem in terms of getting one's issues into perspective, we are all part of a larger whole.
I well rememeber my spiritual director saying to me "Only you could say that." After a particular time of difficulty we had been talking through various issues and I simply sighed and said "Well it's not as if I'm in Auschwitz!" He laughed, and shook me out of my self-indulgence a bit.
It's not that personal issues aren't important, most of us can only deal with the small stuff on our plate and are not going to be key players on the bigger stage.
So there is a bit of a challenge to be more expansive, to look beyond the back yard and (I suspect) that gives the back yard some proper perspective!

Trust

My morning reflection and prayers today ask me the question "What things have I been entrusted with?"
It 's not a rocket science question in many ways and I can arrive quickly at the conclusion that I have been entrusted with a great human treasure. Wife, children, family, parish, friends.
I have a lot of material resources at my finger tips, and, in whole world terms although as a priest I am not in any way wealthy, I do not really want for anything.
The meditation goes on as the scripture says...being faithful in small things you will be entrusted with big things. Have I been faithful with the small things entrusted to me?
There is a a sort of 'mixed economy' I have been quite diligent about some things and slack about others.
It is, any way, a thought to keep me going during the day. What sort of a go have I made of what has been given to me?