Not that I believe my efforts can alleviate all the worlds ills. I know I'm just a piece of the puzzle, a small cog in a very big wheel, a rung on the ladder, a link in the chain. But I try. I'm a fixer by profession; helping people tape together broken pasts and disconnected relationships. I'm a fixer by avocation; renewing old furniture, making curtains and cushions for tatty looking rooms. I'm a fixer by designation, having been assigned that role within my family. Let me tell you, it is a hard role to relinquish.
As a member of the Sandwich Generation, I find myself squeezed between responsibilities to young and old.. My elderly mother, now in a senior's residence, is ill and her state of mind and her bodily health are a daily concern. My children, both girls, treat me as a best friend, and I rejoice over that, but it doesn't mean I don't worry when they are ill, or their spouses are ill or stressed, or their children suffer in some way. I want to fix it all. I want to make it better. And the raw truth is that I can't. I can't alter the fact that my mother is 86 and frail. I can't change the fact that my children and grandchildren are living in a world which is more complex socially, morally and politically than the world in which I grew up. I can't fix it.
It is a relief to write this out. To say it to myself and to say it out loud, in a sense through this blog. It holds me accountable only for letting go. And that is distinctly what I am called to do.
Recently at a retreat at Linwood House I developed a mission statement:
"To express my gifts by conceiving and giving birth to Beauty."
There's nothing in that mission statement about fixing at all! I can't tell you the peace that gives me. My shoulders come down, my neck unkrinks. I stop gritting my teeth. I can pray now.
Creator God, who out of chaos, formed dry land.
Still now our ever straining hearts and trembling hands.
Dear Brother Christ, who saved the best wine to the last,
release us to rejoice in life, let go the past.
Oh Spirit, who with Presence comforts all our ills.
Speak wisdom where our chatter ends, our knowledge fails.
Amen
Connie
3 comments:
What is it Connie that has us thinking we are fixers of all, when in fact it isn't our job at all? I can feel those tight shoulders, the stiffness in the neck and then this poignant prayer that hands the fixing back to the One who wants the job.
Your mission statement so powerfully concentrates on the releasing of beauty, of that birthing - the place of releasing not fixing.
It is such a treat to hear more of who you really are, as you unpackage that yourself and embrace it.
amen!
when our chatter ends... i like that. chatter is really not about anything is it? like chip and dale the chipmunks - chatter - wisdom is much more needed isn't it? okay, i'll try to stop the chatter.
i love that you have verbalized your mission statement. i haven't had the courage yet to do that on my blog. i'm afraid that people will think 'no you're not' or 'come on...' i know i'll be ready to own it one day publically, but right now it just seems so personal. strange.
i too love that there isn't a 'fixer' in your mission either - birthing beauty - that is grand - i think that you are perfectly suited for that mission!
I'm struck by how power a tool our mission statements are. They help us filter, realign our priorities, and relax. In remembering back to the process of producing my mission statement, I am reminded that it was something that was already in me, that I already am and it just needed some help and shaping to come together in one sentence.
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