image

Here in this place of wilderness, I must constantly navigate a tremendous strain and sadness. Scarcity hangs on me like a weighted vest, pressing my entire self toward death. It takes constant, grinding effort to move forward in gentleness, kindness, and truth.

In spite of this, or because of this - in the midst of this - I find myself absolutely awash in love. All day long, I am drawn and distracted by stunning faces, lively places, vibrant plants, fascinating sounds, robust structures and heartfelt missions. Sparkles of delight flood my being, and I cannot seem to slow down, calm my heart, stop naming everything “lovely.”

Flowering plants only flower when they realize their time of dying is near. They acheive their pinnacle of beauty once they realize they, too, are mortal. Perhaps they are only mirroring what they can finally know from that place of ordinal acceptance, and they throw in their lot with all the beauty and wildness of the creation they inhabit.

Perhaps our grief invites us into the same kind of wrestling, a recognition of limits, a release of illusions. Perhaps in times of enduring trial we, too, can look up from the constant, searing pain of longing and loss, to see a halo of beauty we have never known.

Perhaps we, too, can throw our own souls into the wild, alien swirl of beauty and grace that infuses all creation.

I Feel Happy of Myself

image

Any time I feel a little proud of myself, I think of the effervescent little kid from that Schmoyoho video; just as pleased as punch about learning to ride his little bike, he gives a big, encouraging speech to everyone out there in TV Land. “I KNOW you can believe in yourself!”

Well, today I’m somewhat sure I can believe in myself, if only for a moment, or an hour. Today was not what I’d call a “good” day, despite what the Psalmist might say; we experienced a number of shrieking tantrums in the Brown House, furious glares, weeping walkaways, and the like (insert corny quip about how the kids had some emotional moments too, waka waka!) In moments, I felt like I was fostering troubled kids from another dimension. I texted family members, “Today I’m not sure I’m doing this right.” Distraught face emoji.

Reminding myself that my newly minted “children of divorce” are going through the hardest, most stressful and disorienting year of their little lives, I trudged faithfully through the day, weathering withering words and tiny flailing arms, muttered epithets. I sighed. And I made sourdough pancakes.

Saturday is laundry day at Daddy’s house, and all kids are expected to help - a fact which shocks and devastates each child no less for having participated in this cruel ritual every single week for several years. We folded and hung up and put away. We threw socks into baskets and stuffed towels into drawers. We sulked and stewed and complained. And I made crisp gnocchi with seared broccoli and lemon peel, this time with a tablespoon of fake maple syrup at the end, because I’ve run out of honey.

Finally the kids seemed to have worked out most of the angst they’d stored up for today. They played on screens. They called their friends. They ate sliced apples with a dollop of caramel (a snack which remains evergreen in our home.) And I made turkey burgers for dinner, served on sliced bread of course, as the Lord intended it, with roasted sweet potatoes and a bagged salad fresh from the hallowed shelves of our local grocer, Walton’s Mart.

By special request, I let the kids Watch Bob’s Burgers while Eating Burgers. This seemed to delight each one. We headed off to bed at a reasonable time. There may have been teeth brushed, or at least fleetingly kissed by bristles and paste. I played my guitar as the kids settled into sleep. I don’t play well, but my quiet strumming reassures them that their daddy is near.

And I made bread. Nothing delights me quite like the rare achievement of sectioning off enough of my day, of having and holding enough brain space to remember the very simple steps of my unabashedly simplified sourdough recipe. Doubly entombed in both Dutch oven and oven oven, the bread’s resurrection after 39 minutes roasting in hell can be…at once life-giving and breathtaking. And today it was - all lovely and crusty and steaming and quietly crackling in its cooling glory.

And I feel happy of myself. I have loved my kids today, as best i could, in word and work and food. I’m patting my own back, yes, and why not? No one’s going to do it for me.

Thumbs up everybody!

Thumbs up, me.

Why I Chose to Stay Faithful

image


It wasn’t hope…

…in case you are wondering. Or sentimentality. I’d fully accepted that our marriage was on its deathbed.

“You can do whatever you want,” came the assurances of well-meaning friends. “Your marriage is over; it’s just a Piece of Paper down at the courthouse.” I had heard this phrase before, but never had reason to give it any consideration until now. Suddenly, it mattered. My own marriage was the subject, and the predicate was personal.


It wasn’t helplessness

Once upon a beautiful time on this lovely land, I raised a trio of dairy goats. Their daily contributions of warm, fresh, life-affirming nourishment were a joy to me. One sunny spring, one of the dams, whose unusually thin udder had earned her the moniker Tiny Tina, grew suddenly very thin. Dairy goats are rather squishy mammals, carrying their guts very low, slung from high, angular hip bones; a saggy bag of water swung from a sturdy coat hanger. But Tina’s eyelids had grown pale. Her jaw swelled; her coat roughened. By the time I understood what was happening, this peaceful, wonderful animal had a fatal case of barber pole worms. I treated the worms and tried desperately to restore Tina’s strength and vitality, but to no avail. Soon she was immobile on the barn floor, alone, shivering and murmuring to herself. Tina was dying.

I knew I could put Tina down quickly with my rusty old farm rifle, but the idea seemed so very brutal, a sudden and heartless end to a faithful partnership. After all she’d given, and now facing this undignified end, Tina deserved to find peace at her own pace.


It was hospice

I chose to care for Tina through her final days. In the brief moments between housekeeping and homeschooling, I visited Tina with blankets and gentle words, doing what I could to keep her clean and comfortable as she faded. It was hospice, as best I could manage. Understanding that she would soon die, I dug a small grave for her behind the barn. The ache in my arms and sweat on my back felt honoring to the work Tina and I had done together.

Tina died quietly two days later. I buried her just as quietly, without fanfare, steeped in solemn gratitude.

Every dying sentience deserves a dignified end. My marriage was such a being, a solemn partnership that fostered new lives and nourished growth. It broadened my horizons and showed me wisdom. As my teacher and friend lay wheezing, mortally ill, I refused to simply shoot it in the forehead, or turn my back and let it die alone, whilst I shopped for a new one. My marriage deserved my fidelity in death, just as it had in life.


It was the birth certificate

This is why I stayed faithful, why I chose care over abandonment: if my grief and feelings of disconnect could reduce my marriage to “just a Piece of Paper,” then my marriage, at it’s very core, had only ever been a piece of paper. It had only existed as a binding reality as long as I “felt” married. But the vow I had so solemnly taken, before God and my community, was “until death.” That piece of paper was a birth certificate, and I chose to sit alone with my ward, my marriage, my friend, until the bitter end.

It was an honor

I am proud of the care I gave, though it was draining, demanding, crushingly lonely at times. I stood at the edge of death, feeling its nearness, and I wept. I cried more in that year of stillness than in all my previous years of toil and effort. I was able to sit in such fidelity only with the adamant, warm, vociferous support of my family, close friends, church community, therapist and counselors. They comforted me, prayed for me, encouraged me, cried with me, checked on me, sent their notes and thoughts and love and care.


It was not alone

In that sense, I now at last realize, I was never alone in my fidelity. My entire community sat faithfully with my marriage in its final moments. My marriage died, not lonely or alone, but in the company of angels, carried in the stalwart love of a faithful people. As it should have. My marriage deserved that much.

Keep Me, God


Ok God,

Surely none of this matters, if you have your hand in it. Nothing of this will come to anything, if you have a part to play, or a story to tell.

Surely none of this depends on them, on their fidelity or ability.

Surely nothing good that has happened has been because the players were brilliant, but because you acted on my behalf. Surely their failings are not my defeats, but simply the setting for the stories I will tell.

This Body of Work and Friendship

It is my early morning practice to sit in our hot tub in the dark and do four things: Wordle, the NYT Mini Crossword, a DuoLingo Spanish lesson, and prayer, always in that order. It’s my daily liturgy. My church service for one. Today my prayer time was cut short. “Oh God,” I sighed, sinking, “I’m so tired…” My mind drifted and I began to imagine an argument between me and my wife. Just as the imaginary row began to heat up, I felt my body rise up from the steaming water, grab my towel, and begin to step out. It felt as if my body was trying to save me. “You’re too exhausted,” he said to me, “let’s get you to someplace restful.”

My childhood was not a restful place. There was little room for our tribe of seven to express emotion. Anger was seen as rebellion. Sadness was just self-pity. Frustration was probably selfishness, and so on. Learning to recognize and name my emotions was difficult for me in adulthood. It wasn’t until I approached middle age that I could honestly name my emotions. I learned them not as spiritual, intangible mists and fragrances, but as physical sensations in my body. I feel anger in my arms and legs; fear sometimes in my legs, but often in my gut; amusement makes my head feel light; joy and delight feel like sparkles trickling down through my whole body; pride adds an impression of tears behind my eyes; anxiety ripples through my stomach; anguish rests in my lower back; wonder feels like a hug. The list goes on.

The unexpected gift of getting in touch with my emotions is that it meant partnering with my body, whom I now see as a friend and guide. While my cognitive mind is at the wheel, feeling important and making logical decisions, my body is down in the engine room, checking dials and clanking wrenches, sending up urgent messages: “Hey we’re getting a hot mix of anger and compassion here! Which one do you want to go with??”

So I want to take this moment to honor my body, who is constantly trying to save my life. Whether I am dealing with a stubbed toe, a stubborn child, a slippery flagstone, a stab of loneliness, or a burst of joy, my body is there to alert and inform and care for me. I love this part of me. He is a joy to be with, and an excellent partner and friend.

Well done, body. I thank you.

Outside the Door


I have an agreement with my youngest daughter, who is 7: upon request, I will stop whatever I am doing to accompany her to the bathroom. The agreement is reciprocal, really. She will continue practicing using her words to express her needs, desires, and emotions, and in turn I will allow this continual interruption of my day.

To be clear, this interaction is not needful. My daughter can use any bathroom in the house on her own. She prefers the master bath, which is well lit and beautiful and has a heated bidet. But she simply will not go alone. Abandonment is her greatest fear, for whatever reason, so she is constantly checking in to confirm that she is still seen and heard and specifically cared for. “Do you care for me more than that silly task you’re doing? Stop that and show me!”

Sometimes I miss the cue. “Baby, you don’t need me,” I’ll remind her as I go on grading papers or washing dishes, “You can go to the bathroom by yourself.”
But we have a safeguard for that as well. A code phrase. A reminder.
“I-don’t-need-help-but-I-want-help,” she’ll mumble impatiently, mashing all the words together into a barely decipherable jumble.
I don’t need help, but I want help. It is a perfectly clear and valid expression of her desire for connection through companionship. Go with me, she begs. Of course I don’t need help - I just don’t want to feel alone.

And so, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be turning down the heat under the soup, setting aside my reading, briefly abandoning my cooling breakfast, trusting the other kids to mind their math lesson on their own for three minutes too many, pausing my thought process, setting aside the laundry, breathing a deep breath, and one again walking thirty steps to the bathroom, where I’ll sit outside the door, accomplishing nothing more than a moment of peace for the pooping child inside.

The Hope of Things Mostly Unseen

My eldest son carries a working grudge against my eldest daughter. They are 12 and 9, respectively. My son is a scientist, an analyst, a highly-informed enthusiast of military aircraft. He loves air guns and horseplay and poop jokes and has little time or patience for all the mysterious quirks of humanness. My daughter is a willow and a light, a singer, dancer, musician, writer and illustrator. Her right brain is fully alive. She loves snuggles and togetherness and running fast and climbing high, and she can burp louder than any man I know.

If I leave the two of them in any space together for any length of time - and I mean any length - I’ll return to an emotional flurry of loud protests, detailing slights and aggressions toward my daughter from her big brother. “He makes throwing-up sounds whenever I sing!” “He keeps moving his chair away from mine!” “He said I ruin everything!”

My son, on the other hand, sees himself as the true victim here. He’s the one who has to live with her! He’s the one who has to hear her singing while he’s trying to read! Why does everyone look at him like he’s the villain? Can’t they see that she’s being annoying on purpose?? He sometimes grows furious to the point of tears over this, feeling utterly unseen, ignored and misunderstood.

I think my son has difficulty accepting his sister because her way of being in the world is so…just so different from his own. So foreign. He can’t make sense of her, so he shrugs and condemns her whole person to the refuse pile. I wonder if she seems to him about as real as a Disney movie character, or the alien visitors his grandfather loves to watch on those conspiratorial pseudo-documentaries. Some people might think she’s a real person, but he’s not fooled; he’s a scientist.

Or maybe she reminds him of what he’s not - cute and silly and charming. Giving affection is easy for her, and it comes back to her just as easily. Why should her way of being human be so acceptable, so laudable, but his pragmatic standoffishness and acerbic wit draw nothing but ire and castigation?? From his point of view, the whole world is naturally tilted in his sister’s favor, leaving him in the shadows and dust.

Perhaps the most surprising part of this for me, the wise parent, the father of this feuding pair, is that I truly don’t know what to do about it. Lectures, time-outs, positive reinforcement, negative consequences, hoping, waiting, hugging - none of this has swayed my son from his resolute annoyance. He’s like a housecat who believes he belongs on the kitchen counter. You can take him down, spray him with water, hiss and fume and scold, but the minute you leave the room, he’ll be back on that counter, contentedly settled on his comfortable dishtowel. He doesn’t know or care whether you want him there. In his mind, this is his place in the world.

It’s this realization that shakes me and shapes me. I am neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. My children are not, and will not be, exactly the people I teach them to be. I’ll do my best to teach them wisdom and virtues, and they will make their own choices about whether and when to employ those gifts. I am also imbued with an empathetic grace for other loving, caring parents whose kids are not doing as they’ve been taught. We’re all struggling to make sense of our own lives in front of (and sometimes through) the clear, wondering eyes of our children, while also trying to interpret their and direct the life that is in them. It is a daunting and demanding role we play, and the older these kids get, the more our frailty and ineptitude start to show through the cracks. “Jesus said, ‘Don’t tell me you love God if you can’t love your own siblings,’” I reminded my son last night.
He thought for a moment. “Do you love your own mother?” He shot back with a grin. He knew he was dipping into deep waters with that retort. My mother is estranged from all seven of her children, such is the toxicity of her way of humanness. My son’s remark hurt and offended me. Luckily I had enough sense or stupor to stay quiet and let his words echo back to him.

“Oh, um, maybe that’s not a good example,” he finally stammered with an embarrassed smile. And there I saw it: a glimmer of hope. A moment of empathy. A brief emergence from his self-immersion, just long enough to recognize the experience of another human person. This is the parent’s report card, this moment of seeing, this glimpse of life below the surface. Good things are growing down there, and so hope is sustained up here.

We are struggling, but we are not failing. Good things are growing.

I want to be a person who wears scrubs. Scrubs show that you’ve completed an important and arduous journey, or are in the midst of completing it, and you’re on your way to doing important work. Scrubs say you’re dedicated to care and study and soberly engaging life and death in their delicate, eternal balance. They say, “Nurturing is my vocation. Flourishing is my product.”

I want to appear to be doing something important. I want strangers to passively admire my dedication and service. But I am a full time, homeschooling parent. Invisible. Low. Unimportant to the culture. Even when I explain it to others - even as I experience my own gratitude for this life and for the privilege of raising my kids every single day through nearly a decade, getting to know them intimately as unique and individual humans, living out opportunities to pray for them and hear them and explain the world to them and instill virtues - I still feel some level of embarrassment. I don’t produce any tangible goods or services. I don’t have any advanced or specialized education. I create no income. Do I matter? Do I even exist without witnesses?

I see a man sitting across from me, a gray-templed man in an expensive suit and shiny shoes. I see another man, a weary man in a rumpled coat over wrinkled scrubs. The suit and shoes can go to Goodwill for all I care. It’s the distressed teal that catches my desire like a beautiful stranger. My eyes follow them without conscious directive, distracted, longing. Longing for what? Vocation? Admiration? Recognition? Perhaps longing for a rigorous path on which to study and develop my own, deeply-rooted passion for nurturing and flourishing. Perhaps this is the future of God.

The Future of God

At the heart of everything is

Spirituality

Which is impossible without

Relationships

And expressed through

Passions/Hobbies

Which I develop through

Rigorous study

And in which I will invest

Money

What if I just sat down and started writing? WHat if I didnt let anything stop me from writing, instead spewing out whatever feelings and bumbling thoughts lumber about inside me. What if I didn’t care what anyone thought of them, and only wanted them to be pure and true and honest and forthright. And well worded.

I’ve decided to start writing again because of a draining and persistent loneliness. Every day seems destined for it, drenched in it. For months now, if I plan coffee with a friend, it falls through. If I plan to go out dancing with my wife or skating, plans are invariably interrupted by a sick child or holiday outing or family birthday. And I’m ok with it! I’m always ok with it…but the loneliness mounts. Persists. Imagine your home is beautiful…but you’re always in it. Your children are lovely…but they’re always there, every hour of every day your only company. I need to speak without filters, to spout, to vent, to use strong language, and then laugh too loudly about it.

But I’ve forgotten how to write, it seems. I used to sit for a moment and thoughts would pour out, and an hour would fly by, and then another half hour, and as time ran out I’d finish my edits and throw in some relevant (or potentially relevant) photo, and rush away to my office job, feeling refreshed. Relieved. Unjumbled. Solved.

I want rediscover my writing self, but I just keep shorcutting instead. Virtual reality gaming is my pseudo-social release. I get to talk to other adults while accomplishing a team-oriented task. The task is only shooting zombies while carrying what on any planet would be an ungodly burden of guns and ammo, and also some volume of rockets and bombs purchased from repurposed IED vending machines made from old arcade machines. And we talk. From vantage points across the globe we encourage and despair, and yell at our kids in the background DON’T YOU EAT THOSE CHIPS IT’S ALMOST DINNER TIME! And we go on shooting, faces hidden in stupid-looking VR helmets, which the more dedicated of us may have tethered to ceiling-bound extension cords above computer desks and custom gaming chairs. After the best of interactions, we laugh and thank one another for their company and camaraderie, and quietly add our favorite teammates to our personal friends list.

It isn’t enough though. Like a soft drink on a hot afternoon, it only prolongs my thirst. I long to say words, to convey ideas of importance, to hear I’m not the only one experiencing the trials common to this phase of parenting young humans. So I’m going to try writing again. Interrupted, incomplete, rusty old writing. Dust off those typing fingies, you tired, drooping, middle-aged young man!

There is life still to grasp!

Helping, Barely

Man. I just encountered a family begging on a busy street corner. It bruised my heart. Right away I was flung back to my chaotic childhood - the humiliation and helplessness of being unhoused and un-white. We nearly passed them by, my elder daughter and I, until I remembered the odd ten-dollar bill in my pocket. I made an illegal right, and a quick U-turn, rolled down the front passenger window of my luxury vehicle and offered, “I’m so sorry you’re struggling,” with my meager currency sheepishly extended.

The mother might have been 35 or 55. In a Mercedes SUV and chunky sunglasses, she’d have been just another over-tanned, long-haired Johnson County yoga mom. But her tan was honestly earned, I guessed, and her long black hair braided to preserve some sense of self-respect. “God bless you and your family,” she returned in a thick, Eastern European accent. It was the accent that really got me. I’m a minority in this country - Black people make up around 12% of the US population - but I was born here. I know the language. I know the systems, twisted though they be. I have a people. But this family was truly marginalized: without language, systems, community, or native passports. This mother, human like me, with all the pressures of motherhood, all the despising stares of strangers, bearing the humility of poverty, this mother was truly a minority, and low on options. “When you’re that poor,” I explained to my daughter, “Everything is either hard or humiliating. A lot of times, it’s both.”

I wish I could save them. Save this little family. Give them dinner, and a place to stay, and a moment to think, and employment prospects. At the same time, I always feel something’s deeply wrong in those begging family scenarios. It’s always a beautiful family, minus dad. Lovely children, wearied mother, hand-lettered sign. No men. But the men are somewhere. Doing something. My sense is these women and children are under some kind of pressure. Pimped out, in a sense. And it breaks my heart even more.

I am them. I mourn them. I fear for them. I feel as helpless to save them as to save myself. I watch their failing fortress from the towers of my own precariously perched castle. And I don’t know what to do.

Mask-Blackness

image

“What do White people have against wearing a mask??” 

My wife has been puzzling over this for some weeks now. “I really want to know,” she tells me. “What. Is. The reason!?”

Well, a huge part of the reason is that wearing a mask sends at least three very direct messages - 

First, it says, “Yes, sir.” It is quiet submission to unseen authority. White folks have long had some kind of leeway around rules (think marijuana possession, or illegal fireworks, or even traffic violations); not having that freedom feels aggressively restrictive to a good many.

Secondly, it says “I am vulnerable.” I could contract this illness at any time, from anyone, so please give me space. For many White Americans, this feeling alone is very uncomfortable, and very new. Our country is known for its fierce independence and belligerent exceptionalism. Vulnerability is not our language. It is un-American. 

Thirdly, wearing a mask recognizes “I may represent a threat to you.” I am asymptomatic, but sometimes so is this virus, so you may feel nervous around me. I understand, and I make this outward gesture to ease your fears. And you don’t get to choose to whom you make this concession. You may represent a threat to Black folks and White, filthy rich and dirty poor, bouncy high school kids and the elderly couple shuffling along in front of you. 

Yes, sir.
I am vulnerable.
I understand I may represent a threat to you. 


These admissions are very uncomfortable for White Americans at large. But they have always been the words of Black Americans. This is the script you’ve had us reading every day for centuries. Hands on the wheel, 10 and 2, “Yes sir.” Head down, defenseless posture, “I am vulnerable.” No sudden moves, hands out of pockets, don’t draw attention to yourself, “I understand I may represent a threat to you…I make these outward gestures to ease your fears…” Our skin is our outward marker of threat and vulnerability, and we can never take it off. 

But in a historic and unprecedented flip of the tables, White Americans suddenly find themselves wearing their own outward marker of threat and vulnerability - and they are required to wear it in public and not take it off. If you remove the mask, every place of business (and every customer, security guard, and police officer) has the right to confront you. My sister refers to this strange new condition as “mask-Blackness.” White Americans are being forced to experience what has traditionally only been a Black American experience. 

So I understand why many of our White folks are rebelling against this mandated messaging, this loss of autonomy and free expression, this identity being forced on them by their own elected officials. 

Black Americans have been fighting this very battle for generations.

The one great difference, of course, is that after the pandemic…we’ll still be Black.

image

Finally Seeing Me

image

Here’s a story I’m grateful to have, even if I’m not quite sure why…

When I was a kid, I heard this scripture: ‘…whoever hears these words and does not heed them, he is like a man who sees his reflection in a mirror and, turning away, immediately forgets his own face.’ Inwardly I panicked a little. Was that scripture about me? I NEVER knew what I looked like. Every glance in the mirror was a surprise. Every glance! Like I had some sort of auto-face-blindness. I only knew how I felt, and how I felt was not at all how I looked. Whatever this facial dysphoria was, it lasted from my youth until last year, when I turned forty. 

When I turned forty, I dreaded up my hair. I bought new glasses. My pores enlarged. My laugh lines deepened. My rule of life revealed itself. And wouldn’t you know it, I started to recognize the man in the mirror. 

I’m grateful to have had a full year to contemplate this change. It’s been wonderful to look in the mirror and think, “Yeah, that’s…absolutely right!” Not at all perfect. Never flawless. But it’s true me. The real JB. Forty year old me feels like the me I was always going to be; the foreordained me. Everything after this moment is existential encore.

I’m grateful for a life that includes gratitude for something as simple as recognizing my own face in a mirror. I don’t look very often (just once today, by accident), but when I do, it’s like seeing an old friend. Like God’s own intention. Even when I’m dirty. When I haven’t changed my shirt in a couple of days. Even when there’s a duck feather stuck to my head and my hair is standing up like a unicorn horn. 

It’s absolutely right, and I love it.

These Are The Days. Apparently.

Sometimes - mostly - I think it’s great and wonderful and lucky that raising these four hilarious, curious, unfiltered, self-centered little humans is my primary occupation; other times - when I’m trying to think a thought, or write a note, or plan an idea, or finish a meal, or close my eyes - I think it really sucks. 

Better to Be Disappointed

“Daddy! He’s got the thing I want and I asked him for it and he said noooo!” 

It’s a familiar cry around our house. Happened again at the breakfast table this morning. “He. Won’t. LISTEN TO ME!!” My nine-year-old fumed. “I told him I wanted a turn and he just walked away!” 

Again this evening, my 7 year old kicked apart a puzzle he’d made, so his sister would stop trying to help us assemble it. “I don’t want her touching it!” he complained, eyes sorrowful. 

It’s so easy, so tempting to use force to evade discontent. We kick, we push, we yell. We create wars. When pain looms near, I want to argue, to demand understanding, to defend space for myself. “Why the hell aren’t you on my side of this??” 

But a new idea is percolating here in the Brown house. “Look at my face, and listen,” I told them each in their time. “It’s better to be disappointed than to be mean.”

Honestly it’s just my elementary rephrasing of a very old idea - that we can learn to sit still in times of tension. That is to say, when life grows unavoidably uncomfortable, or frightening, or strained, we can choose to…sit still. Rather than fight or flee the inevitable, we can choose to grow familiar. Rather than rage against the intractable, we can allow the tension of life to do its good work in us. 

Disappointed can become your stoic teacher, if you choose to be teachable. It can teach you real gratitude in times of fullness, and true empathy for those in need. Don’t be so afraid of good ol’ disappointed. Just feel it. Know it. Find that it is survivable, that joy still rises in the aftermath.