Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Hopes and Dreams


"Not every one of our desires can be immediately gratified. We’ve got to learn to wait patiently for our dreams to come through, especially on the path we’ve chosen. But while we wait, we need to prepare symbolically a place for our hopes and dreams.”

-Sarah Ban Breathnach

There is something I desire more than anything else in the world. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but I will tell you it feels not just unlikely, but impossible. Waiting patiently for this dream to come true is not easy; I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted before. I’m afraid that when the time has passed for being patient, I will find, at the end, my dream unfulfilled. And by then, I will desire it even more and the not-having will be even more painful that it would be now.


So I’m puzzling over this quote, wondering how to “prepare symbolically a place for (my) hopes and dreams.” My gut says this is important, that it’s a tangible way of having faith. Perhaps if I prepare a place for something I don’t have yet, and I allow what I do, say and how I behave to be influenced by the dream’s symbolic presence, I will be changed. Perhaps that change will make me more able to receive the reality of my hopes and dreams. Almost like a hope chest...storing up things for a life you don't have yet.


Perhaps it's like walking forward in the dark, unable to see anything, but believing that I will come to the place where there is light if I just keep walking.


What do you think about this quote?

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

something about this...



"Soul Meets Body"

I want to live where soul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel, feel what its like to be new

Cause in my head there’s a greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place
where they’re far more suited than here

And I cannot guess what we'll discover
When we turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels
But I know our filthy hands can wash one another’s
And not one speck will remain

And I do believe it’s true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
But if the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you’re the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body

And I do believe it’s true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
But if the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you’re the only song I want to hear

A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

The Wish Bucket


At about one a.m., as I was headed to bed, I found this plastic drawer in the bathroom on the floor, full of water, with this sign in front of it. My Emily did it...she is so funny. :)

I went and got a penny and I threw it in and made a wish....

If you could make a wish, what would it be?

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Home


Home.
As a child Home was a feeling, more than it was a place. I lived in 15 houses in my first 15 years.

When I was little, Home was where my parents and sisters were. It was where my bed was, where my dolls and stuffed animals were and where I played. It was a bookshelf made out of planks sitting on cinder blocks, filled with Little Golden Books and Dad's huge medical books. A heavy, varnished wood table and six crude Quaker-like chairs where we ate. It was a Raggedy Andy I threw up on and then found in the trash can. The soft light of a lamp burning in the dark early-morning living room and Daddy letting me sit beside him in the chair while he silently prayed, Bible open on his lap. A plastic wading pool that made a large yellow circle on the green backyard grass. Brown couch under which I stuffed a shock of hair I secretly cut off with my little red paper scissors when Mama wasn't looking. It was Mama's fingernails softly tickling my arms and back while Daddy read us before bed. It was horsey-rides and Jesus Loves Me, whispering to my sister in the bed next to mine until she didn't answer any more.

Now Home is people.

It's my sweet Emily with her chocolate brown eyes like my mother's, her perfectly-shaped nose, constantly-moving pretty mouth, refreshing lack of self-awareness, and long legs. It's my Raychie with her huge sweetheart eyes, curly wisps of hair around her face, propensity for cuddling, the way she gasps between phrases and her darling little bob haircut she says looks like mine. It's my Andrew Man with his chubby arms that wrap around my neck and my heart, his baby lisp when he tells me he loves me, the way he knows all the Thomas the Train engines' names and his funny little sense of humor. That's Home.

It's the friends and family that I know love me no matter what is going on in my life, who hold me together when I'm falling apart and who believe in me, even when I don't believe in myself. It's the open doors and open hearts. It's the loving arms, kind eyes and gentle advice. It's the eyes and ears that really SEE me and really HEAR me and the hearts that love me unconditionally, even in my worst moments. That's Home.

It's me, too. Strange to say that, perhaps, but let me explain. I remember in college, after I'd moved out of my parents' house and was living with various roommates, that I felt "homeless." I remember telling my then-boyfriend who I ended up marrying that I felt like I didn't have a home. I slept and ate and cleaned my apartment. But it wasn't Home. I longed for the day when I would get married and have a real Home. I was always looking forward, longing, wanting and wishing, which is what people in their early twenties DO.

But today there is a curious way that I feel at Home....in my own skin. I am 33, separated from my husband, unsure of what the future holds and yet, at Home. I live in an apartment and have my children every other week, but even when they aren't here, I am Home. For the first time in my life Home is not JUST people.

There's a central, base, core....thing....that is Home. I didn't have this at 20. I am not even sure if I had it a year ago. But I do now. It's not that I'm perfectly content with everything in my life or what I see when I look in the mirror. It's not that I don't look forward to things in the future or dream about "better days." There is just an inner calm deep down when I rest in the "knowing place" inside of me. There's a warmth and a rest there. It is so difficult to describe in words but perhaps easier in a picture:

Sometimes I sit down on my bench in the middle of this garden inside of me....a kind of retreat that I can go to if I quiet myself, close my eyes and sit back into myself. I sit down on the bench, I look around and take in everything around me. I feel the breeze on my cheeks and the way it lifts my hair just a bit and pushes it around my neck. I smell the flowers around me and I can hear the sound of a nearby creek, not far away. There are birds chirping happily and a squirrel scampers by my feet, busily on his way somewhere. I look down at my hands on my lap and cross my ankles. I lift my face up and feel the sun on it, eyes closed.

And it's then, when I'm oriented inside of myself there on the bench that I can "pull back" and see myself there on the bench, from behind. I immediately see what I call "the wounded self" sitting there on the bench and I feel a deep love for her. It's as though I'm the mother and she is my child and I almost always touch her hair the way I would my daughter's and pat her head gently and fondly. Usually I sit down beside her on the bench and usually end up gathering her up in my arms. I murmur to her how beautiful, wonderful and loved she is.

It's as this other self, this "Real Self," as I call it, that I can see what is going on with my wounded self. I am able to see clearly the ways she is thinking about things in a way that is causing her pain. Sometimes I just hold her while she cries. The Real Self has wisdom that the wounded self can't see but needs. The Real Self often says exactly what the wounded self most needs to hear and there is often a healing of wounds that occurs when this happens.

That Real Self is Home. It is the place where I see things as they really are, where I know clearly what is important and what is not. It's where love, compassion and empathy, for myself and for others, comes from. It's the place my art comes from. It's the place where my writing comes from.

Like the wardrobe that connects the "real world" to Narnia, it is the passageway into a place that is connected to everyone else in the world. That garden where the bench sits isn't just inside of me; it's inside of everyone. I have my own bench there, but if I get up and walk around I find that everyone else is there, too. Sometimes I encounter their wounded selves and sometimes I encounter their real selves. I don't have a preference; I love their wounded selves just as I do my own wounded self: like a beloved child that, even in her worst moments, is still precious to me. I can see the woundedness for what it is and not confuse it with the real person they are. I know instinctively that we are one family...that we want the same things.

It is there, in that garden that is inside of me, that I feel the things that make someplace...Home. Rest. Comfort. Love. Acceptance. Peace. Connectedness. Happiness.

That's Home.

Friday, April 23, 2010

"Women & God"


I've mentioned here on the blog that May is the first month that I'm acting as Guest Editor for a wonderful e-zine, The Porpoise Diving Life.

The topic for May is "Women & God" and this issue will be released on Mother's Day. I've issued a call for submissions from any women who would like to write/create something on this topic. This could take the form of:

-an article
-a story
-a poem
-photography
-song lyrics
-art piece
-just about anything creative you can think of!

Someone who's interested in submitting something for the May issue of PDL asked me for some ideas of things to write about for the topic of "Women & God." This list is by no means exhaustive! Just some ideas that I personally would be interested in writing about and thought might get the wheels turning in your head, too....

-How you uniquely experience God as a woman.
-How you don't experience God because you're a woman.
-Your experience of patriarchy/misogyny in the church/Christianity.
-The unique way that women reflect God's image.
-The "mother" heart of God/God as woman/mother/feminine.
-The responsibility of Christians today to reverse the effect of institutionalized misogyny, both in the church and the culture
-Jesus as radical feminist
-Is it enough to androgonize God/the Bible or do we need to intentionally feminize God/the Bible?
-How much of the failure of Christianity to reflect Jesus' message of the kingdom is the direct result of the minimization of the "feminine" qualities of God?

Cheryl :)
Guest Editor 2010, The Porpoise Diving Life, www.theporpoisedivinglife.com

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Mothers...a short video

"Regardless of where they come from or what their circumstances may be, mothers everywhere share the same hopes and dreams...."


I'm for Freedom

So Emily....
“I'm not against anyone's church, religion or politics - I'm 'for' freedom. If anyone's church, religion or politics makes them feel like they have to think, act, or talk a certain way in order to be loved, accepted or protected then that's performance. Which is driven by control. Which is driven by fear. Which is driven by mistrust. There's nothing 'free' about that to me.“ ~Stacey Robbins



Saturday, April 17, 2010

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

"What the Hell?"....More Thoughts on Hell...

This one is funny (well, I think it is!) but it does include some bad words so if you take offense to that, please don't watch this! :) It's a bit tongue-in-cheek but I think still communicates some of the big problems I have with the evangelical Christian doctrine of hell. Feel free to respond. Love to hear what you think!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Introduce Yourself!


Here's me...now tell me about you!

-I can't help but write.
-I'm the eldest of five (count them, five!) girls
-I love to read.
-I don't NEED any specific thing(s) to be true anymore.
-Art has opened up parts of me I didn't know were there.
-I need to run.
-I am a "No Bullshit Zone"...what you see is what you get.
-I have a tattoo that I love and I want another.
-I really like sleeping.
-I believe that, deep down, we all want the same things.
-My kids are my heart.
-I used to be an evangelical Christian and now I'm not.
-I enjoy people-watching.
-I love watching movies.
-The future makes me feel excited.
-Most often I wear heels with my jeans.
-I'm writing my first book.
-I love vintage stuff.
-I don't believe in hell.
-I'm not wasting any more of my life worrying about others' opinion, being afraid or trying to please others.
-I love ice cream.
-I only get one life, so I'm living this one to the fullest.
-I don't like seafood. like at all.
-I won't ever stop changing, growing and moving.
-I could live on cereal.
-I'm going to love extravagantly from now on.
-There's a love with my name on it.
-I love my down comforter.
-I'm not settling for anything less than: someone "rushing" toward me as fast as I am rushing toward them...a no-hold- barred kind of love.
-I like to make stuff.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Women & God


I'm happy to say that I am going to be the Guest Editor for 2010 of the e-zine/website, The Porpoise Diving Life. Please check it out, subscribe and consider contributing! I am
accepting articles, stories, photos, art and poetry until April 20th.

The May 2010 issue of The Porpoise Diving Life will be "Women & God," a "mother" of a topic! ;) I'd love to have some discussion on this topic. Here's some jumping-off points:
-How did/do you, as a woman, experience God?

-How would the Church/culture/the world be different if women hadn't been left out of the picture until the last hundred years or so?

-How does a woman's vision of God differ from a man's and what is the potential impact of that vision permeating the Church/culture more deeply?

-Can you imagine a world that is half-influenced-by, half-driven-by, half-imagined-by the hearts and minds of women? What would that world look like?

-"The Feminine Face of God"....what does that mean to you?

Friday, April 2, 2010

Art & Motherhood


Where do “Art” and “Motherhood” intersect, or do they? Are they mutually exclusive? Does one enhance the other? Can they exist in one person’s life harmoniously?


For many of us artist-mothers, the place they intersect is guilt. Neither role – artist or mother – is ever enough in itself so we are perpetually feeling badly or negatively about what we are doing and how we are doing it at any given moment. Especially with babies and toddlers around, any time spent focused on art can feel to the mother, selfish. In a society whose history is miserably misogynistic, where women taking part in an enjoyable activity for the sake of enjoyment is downright sinful, even the most ardent feminists find the “line” between the needs of self and the needs of their children not a line at all. And depending on which side of this blurry division we settle on in any given moment, we will feel negatively about ourselves in some way.


I am an artist so I can’t speak to the feelings of women who don’t “make things for fun” but I’m told the tension between the needs of self and the needs of one’s children is similar. Whether the self’s need is to paint, read a book, embroider or take a walk, the activity means the same thing: me carving out a space for myself in my life that has nothing to do with my children. What that space looks like differs from one woman to the next. And of course there are those who genuinely enjoy their career in this way and are “fed” by it in a similar way.


My experience is complicated, as every woman’s is. I can describe it best as a series of tensions:

- Encouraging independent play and education vs. Hands-on mothering and teaching

- Doing the art that makes me happy vs. being selfless and thinking about my children’s needs

- A desire for my girls, especially, to see me as an individual, rather than a role vs. a desire for my children to feel my presence is a “given” and something they can rely upon

- A desire to nurture myself vs. a desire to nurture my children

- Modeling a creative, spontaneous and artistic way of living vs. the supposed security of having me at their beck and call

- Connecting with other artist-mothers via the internet vs. ignoring the computer until they are in bed


I could go on. You have your own list like this: your needs on one side and your children’s on the other with a line between them that is so faint you can’t even find it. This guilt-inducing, stressful tension exists between so many of our priorities in a way we didn’t feel as childless women. It can feel as if we never do anything well. And when we do something well, it is at the cost of forfeiting something on the other side of our “line,” so we don’t even get to enjoy our successes.


My art and my business are mixed up with one another in a complicated way, as well, which further muddies the water. I very often feel guilty about the work I do when my children are awake but when I think about not doing this work, I feel as though my heart is being ripped out. On the other hand, I don’t like the feeling of half-heartedly, distractedly caring for my children. What to do?


Though I struggle with this “tension” daily, there is something that has helped me handle my feelings in a way that is kinder to me. I think we artist-mothers walk a tightrope of needs. The air on one side of the tightrope is our children’s needs; the air on the other is our own needs. We know that diving into just one will be disastrous for many reasons, so we are constantly trying to keep our balance on the tightrope, often shaking with the exertion. But just as a real tightrope-walker would do, we sway to one side now, to the other side later, constantly correcting our balance.


It has helped me to realize that the fact that I am willing to walk that tightrope at all means I am a good mother and that I am caring for myself and for my children. I could just hop right off the tightrope to one side or the other. And there would be a way that would be “easier.” I wouldn’t have to decide what to do today, how to handle this situation tomorrow or wrestle with my priorities the following day. I’d have a default mode and in many ways a script of how to go through each day.


Neither of those are acceptable to me. I can’t be content jumping one way or the other. The only hope of contentment, self-respect and success clearly lies in a balance of these two. It means my leg muscles get toned, my abdominals become stronger and I mutter expletives under my breath when I nearly fall off the tightrope altogether. But that exercise of righting myself, leaning one way and then the other, constantly, is, at the end of the day, where I want to live.


This feeling was confirmed by the amazing Mary Englebreit who spoke at a conference called “Silver Bella” that I attended a little over a year ago. A friend of mine asked Mary how she balances her work and her family. She paused, smiled meaningfully and said simply, “I don’t.” She described that tightrope well: some days you go and do work; other days you do your husband (her words!). She has grown children but intimated that the period of time with little ones at home was challenging. She is woman who must draw. Must. It is as necessary as water.


If, as an artistic mother, doing art is something that feeds my soul, helps me process the world, touches others and in general, adds to my emotional health and well-being, why is it so difficult to give myself what I need? I understand perfectly that when I am taking care of a newborn, it will do no good to invest all my resources, time and money in feeding my child, while I go hungry. Eventually I will starve, leaving the helpless child without an avenue through which to be nourished. My emotional health is just as important as my physical health. And yet…I feed myself guiltily. I give myself the nourishment I need with the sick feeling that I am taking food from my own children’s mouths.


What is a mother to do? I think recognizing, acknowledging and accepting our needs is the first step. Deep inside our knowing place we have heard, perhaps in a whisper, the truth: we must do art. As long as we silence our “knowing place” or “seat of wisdom,” or “gut,” or whatever word you choose to use, plugging our ears to the soft, gentle wisdom, we will be at odds with ourselves and with our life. Time spent nurturing our children will feel more like work and we will experience it primarily as inconvenience, as our children “taking” something from us, and as something slowly killing something inside of us. Our deep wisdom knows this is no way for children to be parented!


To start with we must each sit with ourselves, just as we would one of our children. Imagine, if it helps, holding yourself on your own lap, wanting to know what this dear one needs. Ask her. Listen to her. Don’t judge or qualify. Don’t interrupt her with “shoulds” and “shouldnt’s.” Give her time to speak, uninterrupted.

After you ask her what she needs, ask her what she would do if she were given permission to do so. What would she create, make, sew, paint, alter or otherwise apply herself to? What makes her heart beat faster to think about? What materials would she like to have at her fingertips? Perhaps she will tell you she needs a “place” that is all hers, in which to do her art, even if it’s a corner.


Just listen…don’t tell her what is practical, what she has time for, that the materials are too costly, or that others won’t understand. Allow her to dream aloud.


Stop there. Just sit with that artistic “you.” Again, think about her as your beloved child. If your child were to sit on your knee and tell you a fantastic dream of a beautiful playhouse, painted pink, full of child-size furniture in which she could host tea parties, you wouldn’t tell her that was stupid. If your child were to come to you with a sketch of her ideal bedroom – a bunk bed shaped like a castle, a slide coming out of it, a toy unicorn on which to ride and a specific shade of pink for the bedding, which of course would feature princesses – you would smile delightedly in the knowledge that your child has a sharp and creative mind. There would be no talk of practicality or feasibility. You would validate her imagination and love her all the more for the fabulous ideas she has.


If that dear child came to you with such beautiful, imaginative dreams, what would your response be, after the child left the room to play? You would ponder her dreams and ideas…is there a way to make this happen? You might google castle bunkbeds or pink playhouses. You would perhaps tweak the budget a bit so that even a part of your child’s dream could come true.


After all, you remember being a child like her, a dream fairly bursting out of your mind and heart. You love her. Of course you will do all you can to not just meet her needs, but to fulfill her dreams.


Give yourself this same gift. Make your own dreams and creative ideas a priority. Give yourself permission to be who you know you are inside. Your inner “knowing” will tell you that that woman, fully alive, is the best mom your children could hope for.


The other day my daughters were talking to one another about what they are going “to be when they grow up.” One said a zoo-keeper or a vet. The other said a vet or a doctor. But then she added, “Or an artist like Mama.” My eyes welled up. These beautiful little girls are watching me come alive as I create. They witness the way a pile of “stuff” becomes a piece of art that is beautiful and significant. They understand that art touches others in deep ways. They experience the real me…and they enjoy this me enough that they want to be like me. Amazing.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Religion: The DVD


















What if religion is our effort to package up God in a manner we can offer to another at arms' length...we don't have to get too close, don't have to get the weepy, hurting friend's runny mascara on our clean shirts and we don't have to love in a palpable way that makes a difference in their circumstances?


After all, we aren't loved that way by others, so why should we get messy for someone else when no one is getting messy for us? Religion was handed to us at arm's length.

Many of us received religion as a neat and tidy package we don't dare unwrap. Religion was like a DVD still in the cellophane from when we were given it we are basing our whole lives on it even though we have never opened or watched it ourselves.

Everybody we know gives and receives the same DVD in its' sealed form; we have forgotten there is something inside. Instead we talk about the DVD as if we've watched it. We repeat the little summary from the back cover, talking and acting as though we have seen it ourselves, when in fact we have not. We, along with our fellow-unopened-DVD owners, make special clubs we advertise as a place to talk about the DVD in depth. Instead, the clubs all go the same way: everyone repeating the description from the back cover in all the same ways. We forget the DVD is anything but the package it's inside of.

We all feel a vague discomfort- a feeling that there is something missing. Every once in awhile we might have a tiny flash of insight: what if we open up the DVD and actually watch it? What if, when we watch it, we find the story is different than our simple little clubs had interpreted it as being? What if, after actually watching it for ourselves, we can no longer stomach the "pat" conversation at our clubs? What then? This line of thinking is so uncomfortable, we more often than not push it from our minds.

We are too busy, too tired, too....afraid. We know deep inside that watching the DVD would change our lives, change our relationships, change how we do things. We, like the rich young ruler, are willing to buy and distribute copies of the DVD to the world, stand in front of crowds and recite the blurb on the back cover and attend every single club meeting discussing the DVD. But open it up and watch it, knowing it could potentially change everything...hell, no. That is far too scary.

We give this same DVD to our children. We teach our impressionable children to memorize the blurb on the back of the DVD. We at least imply, and sometimes overtly teach, that if our children and/or other DVD-less acquaintances do not take the DVD we offer them and attend the discussion clubs, they will quite possibly go to hell. They are made to understand that if that happens, they are in danger of losing not only God's approval, but perhaps even our love.

When our children reach an age where they begin to think independently, they of course begin to doubt the "magical powers" of the DVD we touted: the rest of the world is watching all sorts of interesting DVDs, talking about them and don't live with the fear and numbed-out brains our children inherited from us. Why should they risk opening and watching the DVD for themselves; they already know the basic plot by rote, thank you very much, and they're frankly not impressed. Everywhere they look people are living their lives and watching fascinating DVDs.

And even if they had the gumption to open and watch the DVD we gave them, they'd likely meet disapproval from us, as well as from our clubs, anyway. So why bother? It's much easier, more attractive and less of a bother to dump our DVD entirely and just subscribe to Netflix like everyone else in the world. Who cares what the movies the world watches are about; at least they WATCH them!!

What if God never intended for the DVD to be left unwrapped or for silly, shallow discussion groups to be formed around what someone else decided to say ABOUT the movie? What if God always intended that we watch the damn movie and let IT change US? What if he always meant for us to live in the truth the movie so beautifully pictures? What if there is no need for clubs? After all, why talk about watching it with other people, when we could be WATCHING it with other people?

Perhaps God created the movie TO change us as we watch it. If so, we shouldn't be standing arm's length from people, telling them ABOUT the movie and expecting them to be changed because they know what it's about. What if it's a movie only appreciated, only understood and only life-changing because the individual watches it themselves?

Perhaps watching the DVD yourself rather than basing your life on someone's tidy little summary would mean that the movie relates differently, personally and specifically to each individual. What if God made this movie specifically for each person, knowing exactly what that person needed to hear, see and feel? To give someone my interpretation or tell them about my experience is only helpful if the have already experienced it and been impacted by it in the way that is specific to them. If they already know the movie, they would enjoy hearing how it impacted me, what was personal to me and the individualized message I uncovered in it.

Perhaps the main difference between reading the description on the back cover and actually watching it myself is, quite simply, love. I can be told I am loved every day and twice on Sundays but until I am loved in a palpable, personal, wipe-your-snot-on-my-new-sweater-while-I-listen-to-you kind of way, others' statements of love are worth nothing to me; in fact their emptiness eventually hurts so much, I numb out to it. And yet, am I doing anything different when it comes to my interactions with others?

To be handed the DVD while the person offering it sits and watches the DVD-less person's child cry because she's hungry is insensitive and even hateful. And you better believe that when that person shouts, "goodbye!" over the deafening cries of that hungry child, the DVD-less person will be throwing their DVD, unopened, into the next rubbish bin. Ifshe is given a DVD about African salamanders, while the cries of her child and her own tears rolling down her cheeks are ignored, the giver is worse than those that walked right by her, pretending they don't see her plight. In her world of pain, she has no use for DVDs...doesn't matter whether they are about salamanders or love. Same thing in her reality. The tidy giver doesn't see her; he or she doesn't care. They just want to go back to their happy little club and tell all their buddies how many DVDs they distributed this week.

"She wasn't very receptive," he or she will tell their friends, when asked about what the person they offered the DVD to did and said when given the DVD. These friends shake their carefully-coiffed heads sadly.

"We'll just pray that she looks at it. That's all God asks of us, after all," they say. "We've planted the seed..."

How despicable is it to distribute a DVD about love in an unloving way. We might as well replace the real cover with a new one that is entitled, "Fuck You." At least that cover is honest about what the giver really thinks and feel toward the person who doesn't own the DVD. I know for a fact that the such a person would rather they just ignored her. But instead we shout over the sounds of her cries what will happen to her if she continues to refuse what we are offering.

What if we just toss the DVD altogether? Or maybe we watch the DVD ourselves and then put it away. What if we meet one another, DVD-less, and simply offer the compassion, support, acceptance and love we all want? Who needs to watch a DVD about something when they can experience it themselves? I enjoy a good love story, but I'd much rather experience one than watch a movie about it.