Reasons why I've never played Risk.

Your pain is deep, and it won’t just go away … Your call is to bring that pain home. As long as your wounded part remains foreign to your adult self, your pain will injure you as well as others. Yes, you have to incorporate your pain into yourself and let it bear fruit in your heart and in the hearts of others. This is what Jesus means when he asks you to take up your cross. He encourages you to recognize and embrace your unique suffering and to trust that your way to salvation lies therein. Taking up your cross means, first of all, befriending your wounds and letting them reveal to you your own truth.

— Henri Nouwen from “The Inner Voice of Love”

I was introduced to Henri when I was 15 or 16, when my inclination for risk taking was not high. Although, in retrospect, that may have been my peak.  My parents are big planners, more-so as they age, a reality I ensure does not escape their attention.   Never argue with my parents about which pattern to follow in their grocery store or changing lanes two miles before a turn.  Outings, finances, what's for dinner, the correct order in which you wash dishes, how to organize the grocery cart, whom will text whom a reminder to bring the movie: you name it, there is a plan.  And I like plans.  I manage 20-30 cases at a time at work, and the population I serve does not generally plan well.  I get paid to plan and I teach others how to plan.  One of my favorite past times as a child was to "organize" my Mother's pantry, MUCH to her dismay, and I could never figure out why such a great effort to plan could be frustrating to anyone?  After all, is it really a problem that you can't see any canned vegetables??  Hardly.  

What I came to fall in love with was Henri's woundedness and how it resonated with my own surrounding risk taking.  He took what I already knew to be true, that risks and vulnerability (or not having a plan) can be terrifying and painful, and he modeled a journey of acknowledging what is broken.  I don't like to use the word "embrace" as it relates to pain or discomfort.  It implies that I am holding it close AND that I am functioning with said embraced pain.  In my mind, I'm am pinching my pain with the tips of two fingers, held out an an arms length, scrunching up my nose and likely looking in another direction.  I like "acknowledging" better because, yes pain, I acknowledge that I have you pinched, as far away as I can without living in complete denial, but that's all you are getting!  Not entirely functional.

One of my favorite things to teach kids and families is the value of a good struggle.  Consistently, I will choose puzzles or strategy games over luck-of-the-draw games.  (Sidebar: ThinkFun is an AWESOME brand) Sorry Candy Land, you're just a bit lame.  Always, the natural reaction is to teach the child how to solve the problem without having to struggle.  Problem solving is good, and less frustration all around, except when the child is confronted with an overwhelming task at school and tips desks over.  Say what you want about the processed food diet, I know some preschoolers with muscles.  I typically and intentionally wait for a child to become ticked off a bit before offering assistance.  And then we practice validating.  There's no learning how to cope with hard work unless you can acknowledge that its hard.  I even have kids that are only practicing trying at this point.  Even if you can't figure it out in the allotted time, your victory is that you acknowledged it was hard and didn't run out of the room screaming.  Coping skills pressure cooker!

Befriending wounds...acknowledging my own truth...incorporating my pain into myself...part of what I think is hard in attempting to give voice to what I do, the broken system I work within, saying things in a way that is honoring to poverty and mental illness and God--is that it's also a process of acknowledging what is painful in myself.  There is so much and so many we can blame these terrible things on, or is there?

If I only had a....

Brain...check.  Heart...check.  I even have the nerve most days (not to be confused with "QUITE the nerve").    In my best singing voice, if I only had control.  Today, I don't have control.  I don't have control over the lives of children whose families are fighting over custody, whose parents have been so traumatized themselves they can't remember simple homework assignments, children coaching their parents through depression, who are fighting depression themselves despite not even knowing how to ride a bike without training wheels yet.  I don't have control.
That is particularly unfortunate because I LOVE control.  My siblings can testify to that.  I was a choreographer, play director, coach, and drill instructor wrapped into one.  (sidebar: and stuff got done)  This is not as in I love my polka dot shoes or I love it when my roommate does the dishes.  Love as in I LOVE having skin to protect my bones kind of love!!  The warm, secure blanket on a chilly night kind of love!!  The clutching to my parachute, jumping out of a plane kind of love!!  Those children, those families do not have control and I can't control their lack of control and I don't know how to give them control without having control myself.
We cannot control other people.  Sometimes, many times, we cannot control ourselves.  I often find myself at a loss, like many, when terrible tragedies occur and we, collectively, turn to a policy or program or intervention or protocol to feel more in control of what has happened to us.  It is natural, it is a desirable coping skill to seek control where there is chaos, that is healthy.  However, there is a serious breakdown in my coping and our coping because despite having the heart/intentions, the brain/skills, and QUITE the nerve, I still cannot, we still cannot control many, many things.  Control/free will is the wrench that got thrown in.  I can give the options, but I cannot make the choice.
"What a beautiful mess this is, it's like we're picking up trash in dresses" Even though this specific Jason Mraz song has NOTHING to do with the topic of this blog, I LOVE this particular line as an analogy for, please forgive me for cheesyness, life.  We are a beautiful mess.  We are a beautiful mess because there is sin in the world, and that means no holds barred.  BUT God is glorified in our effort to love each other, to reflect His character.  So, no, I don't have control but I do have a beautiful dress in progress.