For Miriam

The Holiday Season is now officially upon us, and in the next several weeks we will have built-in opportunities to practice the virtue of generosity. Quick, what comes to mind? If gift-giving was your first thought, you are not alone. And there is certainly nothing wrong with exchanging presents. But an exclusively material understanding of this virtue is to miss the essence of generosity. In fact, some of the most giving and charitable people I know have very little in the way of things. Generosity is first and last a gift of the heart.

In my clinical practice, I have had the opportunity to work with many special people who were outstanding in one way or another. But one stands out as truly memorable when I think about the virtue of generosity...I'll call her Miriam. I met her soon after she was diagnosed with cancer. Miriam told me that the doctors gave her less than a year to live, and she didn’t want that to get in the way of her life. In the weeks that followed, Miriam and I talked a lot about spirituality, and how to bring meaning out of her terminal condition. She decided that the focus for the remainder of her time on earth needed to be service to others. Although she had always been involved in one charity or another, it had been on the side. Now, she wanted her volunteerism to be front and center. A local soup kitchen in need of helpers welcomed her with open arms, and in no time her grace and selflessness began to impact everyone around her. The homeless people would find out when she was going to be working so they could come by to visit with her, and the staff began calling her “mom”.

She gave tirelessly, whether ladling soup, washing dishes, encouraging diners, or counseling other volunteers about relationships. As time passed, Miriam began to grow weaker, but she insisted that she wanted to continue. So the organization arranged for her to be picked up at her apartment, and placed several recliner chairs around the facility so that she had a place to rest wherever she was in the building. I was told by several of her co-workers that Miriam never stopped smiling, never stopped asking others about their lives, and never stopped talking about how fortunate she had been in her life.

What the staff didn’t know was that Miriam was the survivor of a violent childhood and a horribly abusive marriage, and had fewer material possessions than most of the homeless people she fed and cared for. Her generosity elevated Miriam to a level of goodness, of greatness, most could never have dreamed of before meeting her.

And I have no doubt that when she did at last walk through the gates of Heaven on that bright December afternoon, nearly ten years ago now, the angels bowed in admiration.

I wish all of you a blessed Holiday Season, a season full of generosity that begins and ends in the heart.

Sharing the Rough Draft

In marriage, we are constantly having internal dialogues about our spouses and our marriage. “I think my wife is mad at me because I didn’t ask her about her day?” “I feel my husband is bored with me because I see him yawn all the time.” “I wonder if our marriage is as strong as the Jones’?” Our thoughts and our feelings give us an initial “read” on a given situation, something like a rough draft, but these assumptions are often untested. Is this absolute fact, or is it just something I think or feel to be true?

Too often this “rough draft” bounces around in our heads and hearts, but doesn’t get voiced until we’re often pretty far down the road toward a conclusion. Maybe we don’t share because we’re too busy, maybe it’s because we’re afraid of what’s really going on, and maybe we keep our internal dialogues to ourselves because we’re insecure about possibly needing anything. Whatever the reason, it’s dangerous. We’re practicing emotionally isolating behavior that slowly kills intimacy. Fears creep in, and we become increasingly likely to behave toward our spouses as if our assumptions are actual realities. And guess what, our spouses are going to be pretty confused!

Even if the assumptions we carry about our marriages or our beloveds are positive ones, we still need to be bringing our spouses into the “conversation” because anything good should be shared and celebrated.

So often therapy is about getting clients to relate to one other instead of untested, false assumptions about each other. Over time these false assumptions have been left to harden over the months and even years like concrete. Thus, it takes much work to chisel away the layers of defensiveness and get to the truth. So much pain and loneliness could have been avoided if the rough drafts had been “read” out loud, brought into the light. “I feel like you don’t care about me as much as you do the kids.” “I believe you only want to spend time with me if you think we’re going to have sex.” “You’re disappointed in me because I don’t make more money, right?” “I think you come home late because you prefer to be at work.” Say it!

Your thoughts and feelings are very important. They give you meaningful information about who you are and where you’ve been, but they are not always an accurate read on life going on around you. Your thoughts and feelings are not infallible….even when it comes to your spouse and your marriage. You may believe that because you’ve known your partner for a long time, your intuition is bound to be accurate. Maybe it is, but test it first! Share what’s in your head, share what’s in your heart…early and often. “Let me read my rough draft to you.” “How does it sound so far?” “Am I on track, or is my conclusion faulty?”

But don’t just stop at reading the rough draft of your thoughts and feelings out loud to your spouse; edit, revise, re-write! The final draft is yours, but it should include plenty of feedback from you partner.