The Healing Power of Gratitude

To a three-year-old, there is nothing better than bubbles in the park. My daughter, Lucy, and I were at the playground last Spring, when our friend Jenn and her son, Jackson, came through with the ultimate party-starter: a bubble wand. Jenn waved the wand and filled the air with shiny, watery globes that wobbled along in the warm breeze. Even though Lucy’s a big girl who can swim and play piano and write her numbers, seeing her shrieking and giggling and running after bubbles was a good reminder that she’s still my baby.

But then disaster struck: Jenn’s wand ran dry. As the last bubble popped, Lucy’s smile faded and her shoulders hunched. She stomped over to me and looked like she was going to cry. I asked was she okay and she somberly reported that the bubbles were gone. I gave her a consoling pat on the shoulder, but asked if she’d thanked Jenn for bringing bubbles in the first place. My daughter looked at me like I was insane and her frown deepened. I told Lucy to go thank Jenn. She moped, but walked over and said thank you.

“You’re welcome,” Jenn said, with a smile.

Lucy’s face brightened. A bit later she was running around with Jackson, giggling like the bubbles never left.

That moment taught me the healing power of gratitude. Being grateful is not about having good manners or just being nice, it’s about making yourself whole. My daughter’s sadness wasn’t simply about bubbles. The pain of her need had lead her to feel anger and alienation toward someone who had shown her kindness. Not only had she lost the bubbles, she had lost the connection. The pain wasn’t released until she recognized the kindness, which strengthened her connection and helped her release her need. After she gave thanks, she could feel close, feel loved again.

A child without gratitude is a child in torment. Always wanting, never being able to appreciate the gift of the present moment. In the same way, joy is only possible when we show gratitude to those that help us, even in small ways. Bombarded in our daily lives by guilt, shame, and fear, witnessing and testifying about the kindness and blessings we receive takes hard, heart work. But our connection to other people, to ourselves, and even to God, depends on our ability to give thanks. All of us deserve to realize how much we should be thankful for. All of us.

Innocent Poetry

There I was, one morning trying to find the perfect poem to get my students to understand what I meant when I said that their poems were innocent and that they didn't need to mash them into pulp with all of their learned judgments. And then I found this amazing piece by Linda Hogan:

Innocence

BY LINDA HOGAN

There is nothing more innocent

than the still-unformed creature I find beneath soil,

neither of us knowing what it will become

in the abundance of the planet.

It makes a living only by remaining still

in its niche.

One day it may struggle out of its tender

pearl of blind skin

with a wing or with vision

leaving behind the transparent.

I cover it again, keep laboring,

hands in earth, myself a singular body.

Watching things grow,

wondering how

a cut blade of grass knows

how to turn sharp again at the end.

This same growing must be myself,

not aware yet of what I will become

in my own fullness

inside this simple flesh.

Innocence and Revision: The Life of Aaron Rushing

I've been thinking a lot lately about a student of mine, Aaron Rushing, who was a talented writer and guitarist killed in May of last year. The anniversary of his death passed just a bit ago and I wrote something for Gawker. You should check it out. The Chicago Tribune Jazz critic Howard Reich put together a really powerful piece about his life. Below is a video that accompanied the Tribune piece.

Naming Innocence

Written before the birth of my son Benjamin:

I am the father of a yet unborn son. I see him squirming around in his mama's stomach, and I imagine that he's ready to be in this world. But there is this business of birth and this business of a name. The birth, I'm pretty much an awed witness of, but the name I can help out with. As a man, I know how powerful your name can be to the people you encounter, and how you encounter yourself. 

My name, Abdel, is actually a bit strange. Not in the way that I'm usually prepared for it to be strange, like when I met people in Minnesota and they thought my name was Ed or Bill. Confused white folks thinking I'm strange, Nothing really new there. Or strange like when I served in an Americorps program in the Baltimore public schools, and I introduced myself to a school volunteer, a black woman who could have been my grandma, and she spit my name back at me like a piece of rotten cheese. What is that, foreign? she said. (Luckily, I wasn't a girl because I've been told I would have been Assata and ended up on terrorist no-fly list.) I didn't know how strange it was until I started writing news stories about the Somali community in Minneapolis. My name actually made people smile, for maybe the first time. Abdelshakur. Abdelshakur. Abdelshakur. One day somebody took me aside and let me know how rare (strange) it was to have just Abdel as a first name. "Abdel" is something like servant, or slave, of God, and the second part would be an attribute of God. Shakur means the most thankful. My name says I am the servant of a thankful God. Sounds about right. I had kind of a fuzzy perception about the meaning of the name, but connecting with these Africans made me feel more at home in Minnesota, of all places. My parents didn't know it, but they had given me an entry point into a whole other culture. A whole other experience. A name does that.

So, naming a son is no small task. It bears a heavier burden than naming a girl. The possibilities are much greater. You can name her Amy or Diamond or Tulip or Faith or Apple or Blue Ivy. Guys are Greg or Paul or Marcus or James. If you get too creative with Black male names, you're likely going to cost them a job (or worse) somewhere down the line. Outside of professional football, I can't think of too many career fields where having a name like Barkevious Mingo wouldn't hold you back.

And that's the real issue. With this son, we want to give him entree into a world beyond just what goes on in our neighborhood or city or nation. But it's far too easy for black boys to lose their innocence. Or at least to have their innocence unrecognized and then taken from them. And really, what else do we have if we do not have our innocence? What name do you give a Black boy to give him an entry point into a world that recognizes him for who he is, not what history says he should become?

Really, I don't know that I have an answer. We decided on Benjamin, but if you need a nickname, just call him Loved.