Seventeen Years

One of the things that I love about the process of writing, is the things that can be discovered no other way.  The Wonder Child poem was born out that kind of questioning frustration that I talked about in this post- that kind of questioning that often leads to a thought popping into your head that gives you a lot of insight into the answer- an answer that seems to come from God.  The last two lines of The Wonder Child
"We must learn the discipline of self-esteem
To release the power of God upon the Earth"
was exactly that kind of experience.  All of the words poured out of me onto the paper, I asked the question:
How do we chain the animal and not the soul?
How do we allow the wonder to be released and not the anger?
and had no answer, so I was quiet and waited for the answer- then the last two lines came to me.

That was in 1995- seventeen years ago.  I asked the question: What is the Discipline of Self-Esteem? How do I discover it? How do I nurture it?  I knew that self-esteem was a serious problem for me- it is for almost every person who has survived family violence.  I knew that it was important.  I knew that self-esteem was not about just feeling self-important, it was about knowing who you are in relation to God and loving yourself in the same way that God loves you- seeing yourself the way God sees you.  Almost immediately, I began teaching Children's Church at the start of Lent Cycle A.  The format was simple: Read the readings in a form that children can understand, find a story book the exemplified the readings, and get a coloring picture to back it up.  I found the coloring pictures on a website offering free art work that was only around for about as long as I did the Children's Church- and Children's Church didn't last much past Lent of that year.  But the lessons in those few weeks became the meaning of the Discipline of Self-Esteem for me.  I've been meaning to write a book about it ever since that discovery.

On the other hand, in all of this time, it never occurred to me that the Discipline of Self-Esteem had anything to do with nurturing The Wonder Child. I think that is just amazing.  Here I am asking God how to balance the needs of the Wonder Child- to allow a person to be themselves without being a monster- to keep that part of the soul alive and free- without realizing what I wrote yesterday- the lesson that I learned from Dr. Who- that the Discipline of Self-Esteem is not just about self-esteem but it is about keeping the  Wonder Child alive and free.  And that keeping the Wonder Child alive is about maintaining that connection to God and others.

My son often complains that I am 4 years old.  I haven't felt four years old in a while.  My wonder child has not been free for a long time- the closest thing that I get to it is when I discover the things that I write about in this blog- when I discover something new- when I have a new toy. But I haven't worked as much on maintaining that connection- and if we don't, then the Wonder Child cannot live.  I also think that my Sunday School lessons are important parts of the process and I will talk about them and flesh them out some more in coming posts- as well as tell you more about the things that I discover that fill me with wonder as in the Daily DOSE (discipline of self-esteem) posts I did a few years back.

If I look at the blogs that I love- I discover that most of them are founded by people who express their Wonder Child through them:
The Pioneer Woman
Thy Hand Hath Provided
The Cottage in the Oaks
 The Field Lab and
Tracy Porters's Pinterest Poetic Wanderlust Boards.

For the record, I would have included Brendan Loy's Living Room Times and my niece Opal's Blog in this list but it looks like they are not really blogging any more.

And when I look at what I do to escape (other than playing Solitaire)- all the TV shows that I am addicted to have a wonder child in them.  So nurture your wonder child and see what happens- to yourself- and your world!