I’ve been struggling to find
joy lately. I took the Facebook app off of my phone so I could control my
exposure to…All The Things. I am staying engaged, I am in the resistance, but I
need to keep myself balanced and encouraged.
I look for big ways to make an impact.
I am in groups and I am writing letters and I am making calls. I marched in a local women’s march. I am doing what I can to be positive but it
is hard and I am often afraid.
Recently on the walk through
our neighborhood to school, I was humbled and inspired by my seven year old daughter
Portia. She might pretend she is a ninja
instead of unloading the dishwasher the fourth time I ask, but Man! She can
deliver a sermon without preaching.
One of her friends, Isabel,
was having a crummy day and it was affecting the mood of our little “walking
school bus” enough that I just started walking way ahead with a few kids to
avoid it all. I saw that Portia lingered
back with Isabel and her father, Lucas, who is one of my favorite people. I kept going, not wanting to deal with the
fray. I was annoyed and dismissive. Lucas came up to me and said “Portia is
talking about Bucket filling?” I stopped still on the sidewalk. Tears filled my eyes and I began to explain.
Not too long ago my family was in town to visit my
Dad and we attended the Unitarian Church I grew up in. The children’s moment there consisted of a
dear lady named Cathy Duncan reading the book “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?
A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids” By Carol McCloud. The author talks about how everyone had a
desire to be loved and appreciated and we carry around a ‘bucket’ of
feelings. When we make someone else feel
good, we fill their “bucket”. If we are
unkind to someone we are dipping into their bucket and taking away their good
feelings. The book said some people try
to fill their own bucket by taking from others, but it never, ever works
well. I find that many messages like
this given to children are often even better aimed at adults. We need it more!
My daughters talked about being “bucketfillers” for
weeks after they heard the story. They
looked for ways to help others, to apply the message. I talked about it with my mentor and she gave
me her copy of the book since her kids had outgrown it. We thrilled together at the power of this
positive concept. I shared the book with
my friend Karyn who leads our church’s Childrens’ Ministry and they liked the
message so much they used the entire “Be a Bucketfiller” curriculum for
weeks! Many of us got our buckets filled
by the kind words and actions of the kids learning to look for ways to fill
other people’s buckets.
So back to the sidewalk. There I was, supposedly every inch an adult,
dismissing a little kid having a hard day.
I wanted to avoid the tantrum, their sad feelings, their littleness. I
was guarding myself from it (and besides there was a parent there to deal with
her). My daughter did better. My daughter engaged her friend with love,
distracted her, told her about bucket filling.
As Portia’s kind and patient words lifted Isabel’s heart, I saw at once
how effective this is. We all started
telling Isabel nice things about herself.
We told her what we admired. We
told her what we were proud of her for.
We all begin smiling. We walked
together and started telling the other kids in our group how they mattered, how
they made us smile, how glad we were to know them.
We were all lifted up, smiling, energized and full of
joy. Filling each other’s buckets filled
our own lumpy and battered buckets. A
little child had to lead us, but she changed the course of our morning. Instead of dismissing someone’s pain, she
worked around it to fill a bucket and changed the world. Her corner of it, anyway.
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