My Mother’s Child?

I was on my way to participate in a Theology at Work conversation to play, I assumed, the role of the token secular workingwoman. I was hovering in an anxious limbo. Feeling somewhat prepared while at the same time horribly intimidated by what I imagined would be a day of heady, intellectual, and spiritual debate. A day where I would be called upon to clearly articulate with no uncertain aplomb what it is I believe regarding the spiritual underpinnings and day-to-day manifestations of the sacred in my own company and the places we work.

And here in this reflective space, far enough along I-79 North that the passing scene had turned spring-green pastoral; I received a call from my mother.

She had an agenda to push. There she was—in her pose of Granny, the great defender of her grandchildren—sensing a gap and my vulnerability, seized to illuminate what she found to be a few inconsistencies between my  “talk and my walk” my beliefs and my actions.

She just had a quick question or four to ask—

• One: “Had I not, for years, criticized the supposed eternal, unrelenting pressure she had placed on me to indiscriminately perform in all spheres of my life?”
• Two: “Did I not claim to be burned out by 17?”
• Three: “Was I not the person, who said it was inappropriate for a mother to consistently repeat the mantra we are going to build the best sand castle on the beach while on vacation?”
• And Four, the kicker:  ”Had I not made great testament, on more occasions than anyone could count, to the fact that I would not make the same mistakes with my own kids?”

My answers were, “Yes. Yes. Yes. And, Yes.” Not entirely sure where this interrogation was heading, but I knew I was clenching my jaw and strangling the sacred out of the steering wheel.

With perfect, punchline timing she asked,

“Then why, darling, do I keep receiving photos of the boys in different poses of achievement?” (Her Mother’s Day installment had clearly arrived).

She had them up on her screen: There was my youngest all toothy grin with his piano guild medal. There he was, again, with a math competition certificate. There was the eldest, in all leggy awkwardness, almost grown up, grimacing and serious with a tennis trophy.

She went on gleefully, relentlessly. “Have you lost the plot? Are you pushing too hard?”

My first response? ­ Blame the husband!

“Well, Ma, as you know and something you without fail bring to my attention—I am the worst communicator in the entire world.” So, of course, those pictures were not from me but Chris.”

Then, I had to quickly score an additional barbed point. “Besides, your son-in-law understands that you find the achievement pictures of more interest and value than photos documenting the boys’ attempts at, say, mixing baking soda and vinegar in glass bottles.

Not my finest hour. I understand that.

Sigh….

Truth be told, my response was not only immature it may have been a bit deceitful.

For, you see, I failed to share with her the note that I received on Mother’s Day scribed by my youngest-of-bloods: “You are the most kind, enthusiastic Asian mother I know. ”

Let’s be very clear. This was not a reference to my ethnicity but rather, to the provocative book, The Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother.  A book about driven, obsessive mothering!

“Mom, I must go. I’m here. I’ll call you later.”

Had I become my mother?

That awful question pinched my ear.

I park my car, forget to put on lipstick and fumble with my business cards, and head straight into a small group discussion to take up my place at this serious conference.

Becca Chapman starts off the conversation with “you are what you celebrate.” I participate in the discussion, but the real dialogue is in my head to myself:

Is this what we have inadvertently become as a family? Do we celebrate achievement for achievement’s sake? Do we celebrate what we do and not who we are? Have my children come to understand themselves and feel valued through a list of neat achievements? Success as defined by what? Our neighborhood? Their schools? The cultural milieu?

If so, this is not walking the talk. My work is antithesis to this!  I work alongside others, helping them gain clarity and articulate who they are and where they come from and what they imagine and aspire to for their futures. This is the beginning point for all leadership development, for all organizational development, for all plans to help individuals live and work and lead in an engaged fashion. And this is difficult work. Many of us have come to understand ourselves and be valued only for what we do or bring. It is a struggle to know who we are outside of this.

Coffee break and polite chitchat interrupt internal dialogue.

Then we move into my first experience of a Lectio Divina, led by Terry Timm. We are instructed to read, then listen deeply and allow ourselves to be claimed by words or phrases from select biblical texts. We are given time for sense-making. The purpose, to discover in our daily life an underlying spiritual rhythm.

I’m not sure if I should be grateful to Terry and his earnest prayer for illumination, or thankful for the opportunity of immersion in some quiet space. But in the throws of Lectio Divina, my internal mothering conversation starts taking shape, informed by the guiding parameters of the texts we reflect on.

I learn that the Hebrew verb avad means “to work.” But it also means “to serve” and to “worship.” So the same word is used to convey getting the job done as well as what it means to assist others or to praise one’s maker. There seems no separation between the sacred and the secular in the Hebrew idea of what we do in life.

So the same spirit of character that guides how my child helps another or shows reverence to his God should, in my mind, inform how he takes up his “work”—tennis or piano or for that matter a spelling test.

And how he aligns and uses his gifts and capabilities will reveal the holy, the sacred.  That how he chooses to take up “work” is an expression of how he serves and worships.

What’s my hope and intention? That the boys learn to work and serve and worship with joy and fulfillment.  A type of passionate production, if you will.

For me, this is about how in our everyday life, in all that we do, we live as another provided text directs: “With all your heart and all your soul.”

In my mind this is not about pushing someone; it’s not about pressure nor performance. It’s about “working” passionately to fully express and live out something deep within us in all that we do. This is energizing, not exhausting. It is expansive. This is not about laboring. This is not about what we do but about who we consistently are across the facets of our life. It’s about living out and stretching, right up to the edges of who we are. The more we live into this the more successful, I believe, we shall be.

So yes, at times there may be trophies and accolades.

They are byproducts of engaged doing. But as purpose, as end, misses the point.

Work and service and worship are not about standards or expectations or rewards that stand outside of who we are. To me my mother-work is about helping my kids as each of them reveals, discloses and lives their possibilities. When they do this they honor (and not blow off or take for granted) the bounty that they have been given. There work is to take their powers and stretch and grow into the brightness of who they are.

High on this understanding inspired by my new Hebraic wisdom, I call my mom back as I drive home. I share with her this wonderful new insight that I, in fact, have not lost my way down the obsessive path, and that I am no “tiger mother,” but really should have been born a Jewish mother.

Her response, “Oh great, now you have something else to blame me for!”

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Note: a version of this article recently appeared on the blog Wise Women