Category: General Learning

A week ago my daughter became engaged to be married. It was a well-crafted plan by her fiancee, who she has known for four years, dated for two, and even lived apart from for two. It took place at a beautiful space, with picnic prepared and setting sun upon them. Her fiancee had asked me in advance for permission. I told him that permission was not mine to give, but that I very much appreciated the gesture of respect. He showed me the ring. We enjoyed dinner together. Some of it serious. Some of it playful.

Imagine that, my little girl now turning into another phase of adult life. It’s a transition that reshapes family. I become a Father In-law. My daughter becomes a wife, connected into a broader system of brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, parents, and friends. The structure that shapes her life will change. She will now journey with a primary partner. I’m happy for her. I’m happy for them.

What doesn’t transition, however, and that has become clear to me, is some of her overarching life purpose. I’ve shared with her that her job, if you will, is to live into the “fullest version of herself” that she can. That was true before engagement. It was true when she was 12. It will be true when she hits her 30s, 40s, and beyond. My commitment that I shared with her was that I would always support her in the conversation that is “how are you doing with living into the fullest version of self?” It just means now that she lives this full version of self in the context of a particular companion and family that will evolve around her. Her self evolving and family evolving will simultaneously impact one another.

Transitions change things. But they don’t change everything. Purpose can remain through changing arenas. I find it helpful to remember this, as I think of my own transitions, as I think of the teams that I get to work with. The ability to remember that purpose and adapt to what will always be changing arenas is a rather good skill. And it hits home, with this transition of my newly engaged daughter.

Last night I had dinner with one of my oldest friends, Margaret Wheatley. Oldest as in, we go back many years now. Oldest as in, we’ve been through a lot of life together. A lot of cups of tea to share our respective journeys. The joys, the “I wonder ifs,” the tears of a few challenges, and the laughter of realizing how our human brains can so easily cling to a story.

Last night was all of that, this time, a beautiful summer night, up near Sundance, Utah.

Meg shared a poem with me by East Indian writer and activist, Arundhati Roy. It is one that I love and find myself wanting to sit with. It has a stilling and animating quality to it. Meg is using it in her remaining work of “warriorship,” to take people on very deep journeys into serving in the complexities of this world with deep commitment to inner state change.

.

The only dream worth having

is to dream that you will live while you are alive,
and die only when you are dead.
To love, to be loved.
To never forget your own insignificance.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence
and vulgar disparity of the life around you.
To seek join the saddest places.
To pursue the beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or
complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all to watch.
To try and understand.
To never look away.
And never, never to forget.

Arundhati Roy

 

 

I quite like these words from a friend. They speak to a fundamental purpose of being together. Sometimes, together in the form of a couple. Sometimes, in the form of a team or community.

Witnessing is doing. Witnessing a life into its natural unfolding and growth is privilege.

“The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen  by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

Here’s an 8-minute video from Felt Soul Media.

It is about a man and his dog. About companionship. About illness — cancer. About aging.

I found it, grounding this morning. It is beautifully made.