From the category archives:
I’ve had this photo on my computer for a number of years (I’d credit it if I could recall where I got it).
It’s always fascinated me.
What are your thoughts?
Do you relate to her?
You can also explore more at our Solar Crash: Broken Beautiful live event.
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I can’t recall where I was, but I had to take a photo of this art exhibit.
It’s intriguing because it’s making art out of something broken.
It demonstrates the truth that all of creation is broken. At the same time, it’s completely false in how everything is broken in the same places.
Sometimes sweeping statements like everything is broken, doesn’t really help.
We’re all broken, but you’re not broken like I am broken. We don’t fall and crack in the same spots.
Even shared experiences doesn’t allow us assume we’re fractured in all the same ways.
He’s a minority, she’s gay, they’re poor… they must feel like this…
Is that really true?
If people knew how you were truly broken, hurting,and struggling, how might they treat you differently?
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Along with beauty, 
brokenness isn’t spoken of much either.
We’ll talk about it conceptually or in generalities, but the closer we get to specifics, the quicker we seem to want out of the conversation.
People with physical disabilities have always struck a strange chord with me. Their brokenness is so blatant and transparent for everyone to see.
Do they wish people addressed their obvious brokenness? Are they tired of people feeling sorry for them? Do they feel a nagging sense of being robbed of base level human attributes?
And then I see photos like this from the paralympics…
People competing and pursuing dreams despite their conditions…
Would you say they’re any less human? Are their lives any less fulfilling?
And just because they’ve overcome some challenges, it’s not like they are without their continued struggles, hurts, and failures
And then there’s moments of overwhelming beauty
These photos make you think twice the next time you say “I can’t…” don’t they?
Maybe life’s not about how you start the race, or even the massive stumbles along the way, but about what you do with it all, and how you finish.
Some things might be undeniably broken, but it doesn’t always have to be that way.
Top photo by funky64, the rest are from boston.com
Join the solarcrash facebook page for the next live event exploring being broken
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It was a bit of a rocky finish on our Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters Group Blogging Project. But here are some closing thoughts of mine.
As a father of soon-to-be two daughters, this book scared the crap out of me.
The challenge ahead is huge, particularly because our instantaneous, over-sexualized, materialistic culture seems to wage war against their sense of wholeness at every turn.
I don’t think most dads grasp just how powerful of an influence they are in the lives of their daughters. You really are heroes. You can be the most socially-awkward, boring, and lame excuse for a human being out there, and you’d still be a hero in the eyes of your daughter. At least that’s the starting point for all of us.
And even when they discover you’re just another fallen broken creature, there’s still some small space in their heart that reserves hope for the incredible man you can be.
Although I always thought I’d be the ‘good-cop’, I’m not. The book helped affirm to me that my daughters need me to be their dad, more than their best friend. This desire of “Am I worth fighting for?“, something I see even in my own wife, is built into our daughters.
They need to see the strength of our convictions even if at times it involves disciplining them. One of my favorite quotes was “When your two-year old daughter has a temper tantrum, put her in time-out and ignore her until she calms down. When she’s sixteen, do exactly the same.” (I’m still convinced I’ll be considered ‘cool’ when they’re sixteen at the moment though).
Some of the stories in the book were completely heart wrenching. You can be the best dad on the planet, and things can still happen. Our girls can break us into a million pieces and we still need to keep taking the hits, perusing, and loving. God may be love, but the reality is we’re one of they’re best tangible expressions of what love is.
It’s nice to know that every man that enters the lives of our daughters will be compared against us. It challenges me to be an even better man, and part me takes a bit of joy in my little girls crushing guys hearts because they aren’t half the man their geriatric daddy is. (at least that’s what I’m hoping for, because these girls aren’t just going to be loved, but completely adored).
I know there’s a challenging road ahead – but I so feel so utterly blessed to be a father of two girls. A final quote from the book, “A man can banter with his friends and colleagues about whether God exists. But a father looks at his daughter and knows.”
* You can see chapter-by-chapter posts on the book from many other fathers in the previous 10 or so posts.
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The Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters Group Blogging Project continues.
Chapter 7 – Be the man you want her to marry – is brought to by Alfred Lam – a friend and brother that I’m indebted to in more ways than I can express.
Nevertheless, I find that reading this book generated a lot of reflection for me. I came acr0ss the chapter entitled “Be the man you want her to marry” yesterday. Basically the chapter says whether we like it or not, as fathers we become models of manhood for our daughters, and when it comes time for them to look for their mate, they instinctively look for a man that is just like their Dads. In the middle of the chapter, I found myself putting down the book and asking myself, “Will I want Taylor to marry someone like me?”
I am a deeply flawed individual. I have had more than my share of failures in life. I have plenty of “skeletons” in my closet. As I thought about that question, more and more I am not sure if I can say “yes”. In fact, I am amazed daily that Anna would stay married for close to 20 years to someone like me. For me, our marriage is a daily demonstration and experience of grace.
Then it hit me. I can’t really control what kind of man my daughter will eventually marry. I don’t know if she will end up marrying someone like me. I am not sure if I want her to end up marrying someone like me. But one thing I wish for her, and this I hope I can have some influence over: I hope she will turn out to be like the woman I married.
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The Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters Group Blogging Project continues.
Chapter 6 – Pragmatism & Grit – is brought to you by Tim Heerebout. Although Tim is a recent connection, our friendship has marks of the divine all over it. I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot more about him here as well.
Have you ever felt like the fates are conspiring just the right way to align the small coincidences of your life into a web of deeper meaning? Like the mystical forces of the universe are trying to, through seemingly unrelated circumstances, whisper a subtle yet profound message into your ear? Yeah me either. Well, except in this case. The fact that I’ve gotten the chapter on pragmatism at this point in my life seems to me to be just the right topic for me to read.
You see, in the near future my wife who is currently 19 weeks pregnant with a baby boy, 18 month old daughter, and myself will be moving into the heart of downtown Toronto. We’re really excited about that and yet, for anyone who knows me and my family, that description of who is moving to Toronto is incomplete. You see there is a very important, well loved, member of our family who we are not able to take with us and to be honest it’s ripping my heart out slowly every time I think about it.
Tele is our 6 year old purebred Siberian Husky and he is as much a part of our family as any of the rest of us. In almost every way he is the perfect dog. Melissa and I bought Tele the year after we got married to celebrate our first anniversary. We saw him in a pet store and he stole our heart – perhaps especially mine. Melissa worked as a flight attendant during the first 4 years of our marriage and so she was away a lot. Tele became my company when she saw gone. He slept at the foot of my bed at night and kept me company if I had a night alone at the house. He’s come on countless runs with me, lived in 3 different cities with us and is generally the best friend a boy…I mean man could ask for.
Despite all of my emotional attachment to Tele I know that bringing him into an urban environment and adding that as another chore for my wife to deal with is not a wise choice. My wife knows this – she knows that amongst the business of our schedules, a new baby who needs a lot of her time and a 2 year old that won’t understand why she’s not the only one who needs attention any more that trying to help walk and feed a dog will just be too much. Knowing is not enough some times though. I think one of the things we love about women is how deeply they feel. And yet, I think in the end her emotional ties to this much loved member of our family would probably lead to a less than optimal decision in this case. Women and men make such a perfect pairing for many reasons not the least of which is how they help us to feel more and how we sometimes balance a purely emotional response with our God given pragmatic minds and grit.
This situation with Tele is where the rubber has hit the road for our family when it comes to the need for a strong father to have pragmatism and grit. Tele is my boy. I love him to death – probably more than some people would think sane or healthy. But logically I just can’t see how he’ll fit into our new life in Toronto so it’s up to me, to use my pragmatic brain, and summon the internal grit to give him to another love home where we will miss him like crazy but ultimately where both he and us will be more happy for the long haul.
I can’t personally relate to the examples the author gives in this chapter – images of broken homes needing mending and such. I can however relate to her overall theme. One friend said to me regarding our choice to give Tele away “you’ve got much larger cojones than me to give up man’s best friend”. I don’t claim that to be actually true but men – your families, your daughters, need you to have the grit and pragmatism, the cojones if you will, to make tough decisions and ground them when necessary. I really appreciate the author for affirming this often demeaned part of a man’s role in his house. I am fully in support of equal rights and yet I also realize there are some roles best suited to one gender or the other. I think this is one area that MUST be stepped into by Fathers. I think if you take time to read the pages of this chapter you will feel encouraged and empowered to do so. I can’t think of a better end to 30 minutes worth of reading.
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The Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters Group Blogging Project continues.
Chapter 4 – Teach her humility – is brought to you by someone on the other side of the planet that I feel I have an awful lot in common with (including a twitter bio with plenty of bling) – Futurist, catalyst, change agent, writer, web designer, and human potential maven Sam Radford.
Or not.
Regardless, this IS a really important subject and whilst it isn’t probably what you’d expect to find in a book on raising daughters, I am convinced that in many ways this is one of – if not the – most important things we can try and encourage within our daughters.
The author, Meg Meeker, does a good job of quickly clarifying what humility is and isn’t, as so many of us don’t think of humility as a positive trait at all. I remember teaching on humility in South Africa with black teenagers only to discover at the end of the session that the only association they had with the word humility was humiliation. Knowing what true humility is actually all about is vital.
Here’s how Meeker defined it: “Humility means having a proper perspective on ourselves, of seeing ourselves as we really are. It also means knowing that every person has equal worth.”
Starting out with that explanation would have definitely saved me a wasted session out in South Africa.
The challenge as I see it when it comes to humility is in how we teach this to our daughters. Telling them what it is, what it means, and why it’s important isn’t going to cut it. How do we make sure that humility goes beyond being just a subject our daughters give mental assent to and becomes a truly embedded life value?
Meeker addresses this early on by simply stating that, “humility doesn’t make sense unless it is modelled”. So if we want our daughters to live with humility, with a proper perspective on themselves, we need to live a life of humility that neither over or understates who we are and that values every human being.
So, this isn’t a one off conversation with our daughters. This is about how we live as fathers every minute of every day. If we live self-centred and self-absorbed lives, then that’s what our daughters will soak up.
I loved the story Meeker told about a father taking his daughter away for a trip to serve in the Dominican Republic, not just because of the specific elements she described about their interactions on that trip, but because it raises the important subject of serving others. What better way to model a life that isn’t all about us than to practically serve others?
As a family we all went out to serve for three weeks in a township on the edge of Johannesburg this summer just gone. Pretty much everyone thought we were crazy to embark on a venture like that when our daughter, Eloise, was only 6 months old. But we want those kinds of adventures to be part of our family life.
Now, of course, I know Eloise won’t have any recollection of that trip, but it was important for us as parents to say right from the outset that we’re going to make our lives about more than just us as a family. We want our daughter to grow up being part of something bigger than just us. And that, I think, is a big part of having a healthy perspective on life.
Humility is so important to successfully engaging with life at all its different stages. And, in particular, it is vital to forging healthy relationships. “Your daughter was created to live in an intricate web of relationships. Humility keeps her inside that web. Self-centredness and pride pluck her out of it.”
It is our job as fathers to help prepare our daughters to be ready for and engage with every different stage of life. And relationships are at the heart of every one of these stages. If we can successfully model and embed a true sense of humility in our daughters we are actually preparing our daughters for success and happiness.
So, here’s to living a life of humility – and hoping and praying that our daughters ‘catch’ that way of life.
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Exploring the intersections of Leadership, Creativity, Church, and Culture
