A New Dance

 I hardly know where to start.

As I write, I look out over 200 acres of southern Maryland corn.  Fields of teenager stalks wave from every window.

I am choosing to ignore the cobwebs, the crumbling porch, the long day ahead, for now.

Ignoring the spectacular spider silently munching on her bug breakfast is more difficult.

There are buckets o' blogs and piles of stories ahead for you as the new days unfold, always surprising.

We are all trying to hear the Maryland farm music, find our rhythm and our way.

Our family has been tapping the Texas two-step for a long time, and this new dance will take new eyes and ears, a humble heart and some sweaty practice.

Tucked Away

There are certain sights, sounds and conversations that need not be recorded to be remembered.  Incarnate snapshots seared and pierced through-and-through our spirit, not easily erased or eroded, tucked away safely in our hearts.

Bleached two-hundred year-old cypress trees.
Bracing blue spring water and a vintage rope swing.
Texas summer afternoon.
A 12-year-old boy on the cusp of becoming a man. 

Tucked away.

A ball of fire drops west.
A stunning sphere of full moon rises east over lovely Lake Travis.  

Friends sit in easy company, toes scrunching the sand.  

Smile creases and rippling laughter mirror the water.

Tucked away.

Tattoos and keep-Austin-weird at every turn.  

Austin's shivery Barton Spring nature beneath the ancient diving board.
A dare from her brothers.  

The courage of a girl-child who wants to fly.

Tucked away.

Memories tucked away in the deep ravines and fertile soil of our heart.

Athlete-of-the-Day: Family Summer Fun

The kitchen clock reads 8:29pm and my earnest, salty, ten-year old skids into the kitchen.

"Who's the Athlete-of-the-Day?" he pants.

Titus, red-faced, has just dropped-and-given-10 for another set of push-ups in order to hopefully win the daily honor.

The Athlete-of-the-Day award requires battling it out with your family to complete push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, squats, run(s), reading (exercise for the mind, people), and drinking water.  You must complete every category to be in the running at 8:30pm when the time stops.

"Most parents just mark their kid's height on the door twice a year." laughs my friend, Angela.

A notebook and sharpie are set out on the kitchen counter each morning, and each family member has from sun-up to sun-down to get in as much as they can throughout the day.

Daily log (and dinner prep)

It's amazing where you can squeeze in a little exercise.  A set of pull-ups (in a dress) no problem!  A set of squats while you're waiting at the gas pump (a little odd and you do get some stares) gets it done!

When a family member wins seven Athlete-of-the-Day honors, they are awarded with new running shoes of their choice.  Want to join us for some summer family bonding, healthy competition with good physical fruit?

Push-ups:
10 = 1 set.
Luke (16) and David do clapping power push-ups.
Pull-ups:
10 = 1 set for Luke and David.
7 = 1 set for Chase (age 12).
5 = 1 set for Kim.
3 = 1 set for Titus (age 10).
1 = 1 set  for Colvin (age 6).
Sit ups:
30 = 1 set for all
Squats:
30 = 1 set for all
Run:
1.2 miles = 1 set..
.5 mile for Colvin (age 6)
Read:
30 minutes = 1 set
Have fun!

What do our daughters need to hear? (Part 1)

What is it that our daughters need to hear?

This school year, I spent eight Thursday afternoons at various schools with the lovely Kardivas.  Kardivas is a district-wide, after-school character club for 5th and 6th grade girls.  These remarkable young women of the most tender age are already wading knee-deep in the fast moving currents of adolescence.  It is pure joy to visit them and their mentors, sponsors and parents who desire all the best for these precious, thoughtful girls.

Eight times over, I tell them my story and help them think about theirs.  What is it they especially might need to hear?

Somewhere in the hour, I show them a picture of two girls, sisters ages 10 and 12, who live on a massive trash dump in the Phillippines.  It is hot, humid and you can only imagine the squish and the stench as the sisters spend hours before and after school slopping through the refuse collecting bits of food and scrap to sell for their family.

I ask our freshly scrubbed, sheltered, and now very quiet 5th graders what they think?

"It's not right."
"It makes me want to go there and help them."

What do our daughters need to hear?  How's this for a less-than-perfect, but a starting-somewhere start?

We have all been given a unique, innate gift, maybe two.  No one has every gift (parents - please take note).  No one has no gifts.  We have not been given these abilities in order to be more successful and more attractive than the rest, but to help set things right in the world.  

What would it look like if 40 girls in the 5th grade were observing others carefully, helping friends and family identify their unique gifts?  What would happen if those 40 were to make it a daily habit to speak out loud, thoughtfully and specifically, where they saw good and right in their friends?

I ask each Thursday group how they know what gifts they have been given?   They roll out a stunning, chatty parade of talents, passions and gifts:


"I'm kind"
"I'm funny"
"I'm good at music"
"I love animals"
"I'm good with babies".
"I like to write"

No one tells me her gift is being skinny or pretty. 

What do our daughters need to hear?
What do we need to remember again and again as women swimming in this culture?

 2011 AAA coaching retreat, Austin

Every inch of our hearts and our world is out of sorts and many things are not right.  As much as we live in beauty, plenty and opportunity, even here there is much to set right.  We can use our gifts to set things right at noisy lunch tables, sleepovers, classrooms, friendships, our own communities, our city and even/especially the dumps in the Phillippines.

I notice in you, dear one, that you have a very special gift(s) of______ that has been given to you, especially for this time.  It gives me and others such great joy to see you using that gift to think about others, even at great cost to you.

It makes you more beautiful than you'll ever know.

The cost.

We just wrapped up our third FREEDOM challenge in as many years.

The FREEDOM event requires a massive amount of sacrifice on everyone's part.  First, it commences the two weeks prior to Memorial day which is also the last weeks of the school year. Everyone is already on a human hamster wheel going warp speed, so there is a real cost to one's personal schedule.  "Me time" for twelve days is a shelved.

Second, this is a different kind of physical exercise altogether.  An hour or two of trekking through hilly trails with equipment, carrying real bodies on stretchers and holding a flag high while lugging rocks and sandbags, brings to bear fatigue of different dimensions.  There is a real cost to the preferred way one might like to exercise.  "My personal workout" is not an option.

That said, these are the very things that press on us most as we move through the twelve days of the challenge together.

Freedom is not free.

Our well-meaning schedules can leave us breathless and parched.  What is free about a pinched and anxious woman arriving to her numerous daily obligations with no breath-of-life for the people she encounters?

There is a very real and personal cost to enjoying true freedom.

Might the practice of daily sacrifice (even just an hour) result in richer communion with humanity and nature?  Can you carry a body on a stretcher as the day breaks pink and still be worried about your triceps or your abs?

For twelve days, we were reminded that our bodies are useful, dependable and strong.  Eyes flew open each day at the rigors required of our soldiers, past and present.

Hearts frequently fell faint at the required tasks of the day.  An underwater swim with weight?  Free climb a 40-foot rock?  Carry a sweaty body twice my size?  Run in the dark by the light of the moon? But then hearts soared and swelled with unbelieving pride when each of those daunting tasks and fears were conquered.

Could the daily practice of personal sacrifice usher in a freedom that will keep us alert and ready to serve when called?  We hope for twelve days some of our athletes discovered the joy in that discovery.

Well done troops!  

We hope you join us next year!

May God continue to bless America.

I'm not normally like this.

There is an old gospel spiritual that has been playing a loop in my head over the last week. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdcODKzrMFY)

You don't have to move that mountain
Just help me Lord to climb it.
You don't have to move that stumbling block
Just show me the way around it.

Mountains and stumbling blocks.  You can't wish them away and you can't buy them off. 

The effort required to scale an emotional or physical mountain seems so immense at the base. The path is too steep, the going so painfully slow for any real progress.  Will I ever be able to get over it?  Is there another way?

A mountain is the perfect metaphor for true athletes.  Nothing comes easy.  There is only one way to conquer.  Getting to the top demands all of you.

On the other hand, stumbling blocks are sneaky and mean.  They grab at our ankles, sling sand in our face.  Stumbling blocks sucker-punch us right when we least expect it, at the exact moment when we're picking up steam and making some headway.  After encountering a stumbling block, will we get up or will we melt in a puddle?

Someone I know has a habit of saying "...you know, I'm not normally like this..."  It makes me a little crazy.  I want to shake her and shout "This is you, today.  You are like this, now!"

I see myself in her.  The me of yesterday stands beside the me of today as I stare up at my personal mountain.  What will I do, now?  Who will I be, now?  For good or ill, mountains and stumbling blocks require us to live and act in the new now.  How we behaved and who we were in the past matters quite little.  It's useless to say "...you know, I'm not normally like this..." as you melt in a puddle without taking a step.

All About Athlete hopes to develop athletes who say "...you know, I'm not normally like this..." as they set their face to a new challenge and put their shoulder to the plow.

Most of life is spent looking up at obstacles, often with a black eye or bloody nose.  It is hard work and heart work to stand at the bottom of today's personal mountain and start climbing, yet again.  We shouldn't be surprised when we stumble, when we fall, when we are tired!

As much as we wish we could fly, or be carried to the top, there is only one way to get there.

One deliberate step at a time.

A letter to Megan

Megan is the lithe and truly beautiful teenage daughter of my friend, Patti.  She is navigating the thrilling, fast-flowing waters of a new high school with poise, but teenager terrain is no walk in the park, as we all can well remember!  


Hi Megan,

I've been keeping up with you via your mom on all our crazy runs, swims and bike rides of late.  She is really proud of the way you are handling all these new seasons in your life.  I am too.   


It's hard to see now, but unfamiliar and unsettled times are the best teachers and coaches in our lives.  Getting nudged out of the nest forces our wobbly wings to work!  For example, when I was about your age, I moved from Zimbabwe (Africa) to a suburb of Chicago.  Talk about needing to flap my wings hard! 

I grew up in a sweet, farming town in a warm culture and a sunny climate.  Despite a civil war for a good part of my youth, my parents made sure my childhood was happy and carefree.  I went to community schools and loved friends, family and country.  Then my parents announced, sadly, that our family was moving to the U.S.A.

Dropped into a huge public school bustling with smart, hip, well-dressed and savvy young people, it dawned on me that I was the farthest thing from hip or savvy and my wings grew very tired from all the flapping.  


The Illinois weather was overcast, windy, and frigid most of the year.  The bone-chilling winter temps matched my desolate spirit and I was out of my natural and preferred element in every imaginable way.  Misery with no company.

While I survived academically, my fashion sense and ability to appear attractive according to local standards was really....um...not developed.  Pining and homesick, I recall lots of tears soaking the pillow each night.  Aching for the way things used to be, I struggled that year to find the silver lining anywhere.  I felt out of sorts, like I had lost myself.  I missed me. 

Your mom knows I love a good story, and my favorite is one you probably know well.


In the beginning, God made Adam and Eve with exquisite care and placed them in a stunning garden.  Their job?  Care for God's handiwork, tend it, and enjoy it all. The awesome thing about God is that he doesn't do things once and then quit.  His very nature is to continually create new life and new beauty.  It's in his DNA.

God, even today, carefully and lovingly makes (and remakes) you and me and places us in our own part of his amazing world.  He also gives us unique and special gifts so we can tend to our garden really well.   Some of these gifts we are born with, and some are developed through the experiences and people we encounter in our various gardens. 

Just like Adam and Eve, where we find ourselves at various points in life is not random.  The family we are born into, the partners we marry, the friendships we make, the children we may have....all of these new situations and scenery has been especially created for us by our Maker.  We are placed in them to be good caretakers of all he wishes to accomplish in the world through us.  It's called "showing his glory".

So, God saw fit to take me out of my beautiful and beloved Africa garden and thrust me squarely into the cold, hard dirt of a dreary Chicago "garden".  It sure didn't feel like a garden, but that difficult year helped shape and define how I am today.  

Because I was once the complete outsider, I have developed great compassion and empathy for the outsider, or the uncomfortable one, in every group.  Since I remember well the knot in my stomach as I walked to the lunch table alone, it's now important to me that others always feel warmly welcomed, waved over, and included.   Most importantly, I discovered that everyone has a story if you are willing and patient to hear it.  It was a hard year, but I know now that God used that time to shape me for a useful life of service to him.

Megan, God has given you a new garden.  Look around and see where you can tend to it, care for it.  Who needs a friend, a defender, a smile, or a listening ear?  You may not know who, or what, God is preparing for you this year, but he is undoubtably doing so each day.  He has lovingly placed you in this new dirt.  He plans to grow you and for you to bear much fruit and has planted you exactly where he wants you.


PS.  I only tell you this next part of the story because I think it's funny and ironic, not because it's the main point of my letter to you.   My senior year, I was the unlikely and very surprised homecoming queen.  Crowned in my polyester volleyball jersey and stinky knee-pads at the school assembly, I wasn't the typical HQ choice to be sure.  While it was nice and made my dear mom cry, it's just the teeniest, weeniest part of my bigger story.  I have a million other moments that surpass that one...I'm sure your mom will hear about them on one of our early runs, soon!