curiosity

Clare,

I appreciate your thoughts on my sons' behaviors. I agree with the praying for 25th birthday. When I was a resident we used to say, "keep them alive until 8:05"…not I say, "keep them alive until 25".
It is very true that they are incapable of seeing the big picture. My older son is starting to see how wasteful it is that his 2 best friends don't work, don't go to school, just hang around the house.
He is working 5 days a week and has a girlfriend who is more responsible, setting a good example for him. He is still procrastinating on his high school class…
don't get excited that he's turned a real corner…
but I can see glimpses of hope.

The younger one is still doing the minimum amount of work necessary to pass…
he needs to understand the reason for doing something…
not just to make a grade.

I finished reading Falling Upward by Richard Rohr. It was a fantastic book. It compares the 2 halves of life. The first half is building the container- learning to play by the rules to create stability and identity. The second half is about discovering the contents of the container, moving beyond rules because they no longer serve your purpose. It explained to me my journey to Quakerism. I knew it intuitively, but this created a clearer explanation for me. He writes a chapter on "necessary suffering" with a section called "hating family"…having to move away from family norms, expectations, garbage to move into maturity. That was helpful to me to understand the alienation I feel from most of our family.

I'm also reading Rising Strong by Brene Brown. I think I'm onto a theme here. Hitting rock bottom in order to rise up stronger.

I'll share the books if you are interested in reading them.

The cell phone question is interesting. I should talk about that in Meeting some day. I'll have to come to a better understanding of the issue before I speak though. Thanks for raising my curiosity.

Love and Light beautiful sister,
Maggie