Who's On Your Team?

So, there's a football game today! Which got me thinking about teamwork and our message from church a couple of weeks ago. And love, and family. Bear with me, they all mesh, I promise. It's what I do. 

Being part of a team is definitely a bonus when you're trying to win. In any area of your life- parenting, your job, friendships- having a strong, cohesive team can be the deciding factor in how you feel when you get up to face the day. Despite setbacks and minor losses (and we ALL have them), knowing you're not going it alone can help lend strength, tenacity, and problem-solving creativity.

When you think about the bigger picture of life, this is especially true! You want to be surrounded by people who:

• have a shared vision of "winning" or what the end game might look like
• elevate you and challenge you to be your best self
• compliment your weak areas
• are reliable and someone you can count on
• are a fan of you! 

Let's get real, these people may or may not be your family. For me, my team consists of the people I choose to surround myself with. If I consider you family, you better believe there is a fierce love and loyalty there! 

In Of Mess and Moxie, author Jen Hatmaker refers to love as a way of listening to another person's story, perspective, pain, or experience without judgement. Love is a way of breaking down barriers and truly making another feel welcomed. 

If, as the author claims, "isolation concentrates every struggle", then a handy solution would be found in true teamwork. Think about your worst day at work, or a regrettable parenting memory. Were your burdens eased at all by venting to a trusted co-worker, calling a close momma friend, or the arrival of your co-parent? Even just sharing our struggles with someone close to us can lift stress and help us find solutions we'd otherwise be unable to see on our own. 

Humans weren't made to exist in a vacuum. If you look around, you'll find you probably already belong to several "teams", some you may or may not consider family. And the even better news is that, as social creatures, we have the ability to seek new connections, or teams, or repair ones that need strengthening. Love can do that, too. 

One of my longest-playing teams is that of my college girlfriends. I think we're closing in on 25 years now! This is definitely a team-family-tribe that I cherish, and we all rely on in various ways. I have a great team at work, and other teams I'm working to build as a single mom. My kids and I even make a team (some days)- ha! 

I challenge you to think of all the teams you play on, your role, and how well the team characteristics fit. Is there room for improvement? Is there a need in your life that could be better met by a new team? 

Book Review: The Hour I First Believed (2008) by Wally Lamb

I know I just did a book review last week, but conveniently, when Mama Kat listed her writing workshops for this week, doing a book review was one of them!

Visit her at Mama's Losin' It.

I will admit off the bat that I am a fan of Lamb’s. If you follow Oprah’s book-reading advice, you may already be, too. The Hour I First Believed is an ambitious, tragic, hopeful story that uses our recent national crises to remind us that humans can endure much and still retain their will to make things better for themselves and others.

Caelum Quirk is our non-hero. Instead of a leading man, we get a guy who is humanly flawed (as are all the characters) and instantly recognizable as your neighbor, your co-worker, your uncle. He and his wife Maureen navigate the waters of life after a shooting at the school where they both work. You guessed it, Columbine. Other segments of the book touch on Hurricane Katrina and 9/11, giving us a backdrop of national fear and sorrow upon which to play the personal tragedies (and there are many) of the Quirks.

The sweeping themes of drug addiction, anger, prison reform, chaos theory, personal ancestry, and traumatic stress are guided by what Lamb calls “ancient myth”. We see several symbols repeated throughout the book, including candles, mazes and praying mantises. This helps the flow of the book and also aids the reader in connecting the past and present (it’s a long book- over 700 pages).

The Quirks are joined by numerous memorable characters who guide them to see beauty, help them solve mysteries, and add excitement to the monotony of a life put on hold by heartbreak and disaster. The book ends not with joy, but with at least hope. Caelum is the one who begins to believe- in what? The reader can decide some things for herself, but Lamb convinces us that we all can survive the unthinkable, many times over, even, and still rise to love, to teach, to comfort, to give.

This is a moving story filled with interesting historical insight and characters with which the reader identifies, flaws and all. Read it.

Next review: Mommies Who Drink by Brett Paesel