Miracles

Someone once told me that the way to find my true calling is to figure out what I "wanted to be when I grew up" at age four. At the time, I remembered fantasizing about being a firefighter, a thief, a major league pitcher, and a priest (no princesses or ballerinas for this daughter of the 60's) but there's only one way to find a four-year-old's dream career decades later - I had to ask Mama.

She grinned, as only a mother about to lob the embarrassment grenade can do. "Well, honey," she said in a strangled voice, "you, uh ... you wanted to be ... God."

Figures, I thought - oldest child, carried the world on her shoulders since her parents split for the first time right around that time, never felt in control of anything, least of all life. Of course I wanted to be all-powerful, all-seeing, and all-knowing. I didn't know then that I'd taken the responsibility by choice - I just knew I never wanted to need anyone, ever. It explained a lot about my life to that point, though - know-it-all Bunny, micromanaging Bunny, never-show-weakness-because-it's-humiliating Bunny, and (my personal favorite) heaven-forbid-I-ask-for-help-but-spend-every-waking-moment-sticking-my-big-nose-into-everyone-else's-business Bunny.

What a dope. I couldn't see the world because I was focused on myself, and my pride.

Yes, pride. Not the kind of pride you feel (momentarily) for catching the winning ball or getting an "A" on a paper - we're talking the extreme version, remember. Pride is hubris, hauteur, excessive ego. It's about thinking you're above (or even are) God. It's about believing that you are superior to others, that you never need anyone, that you're completely self-contained, self-reliant, and self-actualized.

I saved this Deadly for last not only because it's the one closest to my heart, but because in today's society it's the one that diguises itself best. Oh, we can spot a narcissist or a megalomaniac at fifty paces (most of the time, anyway) but pride is harder to see because we celebrate independence and self-confidence. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that. But the deadly pride has such a subtle, smudgey kind of boundary that when we cross it we hardly notice ... until it's too late.

It was almost too late for me once, eleven years ago. Although it's not my story to tell, I will say that I made choices for someone I loved, choices that were (I see now) as much designed to rework this person into my image of what should be as to protect and teach. In a flash of one of those ice-water-over-the-body moments, I knew with every molecule of my being that I had been playing God, with everyone around me, my whole life.

I wish I could say the changes this spurred occurred with the same speed. They didn't. For one thing, I didn't have the tools for humility (the only cure for pride). I thought that kicking myself, swapping my arrogance for guilt, was the same thing. It's not. No matter what I did, I still thought it was all about me, that I alone could reverse the tide of events that were (always) clearly out of my control.

Guess what? None of us has that kind of power, not even over those closest to us. Oh, our children or husbands or even parents might show signs of a shift, even an about-face, because they respect or fear or love (or want something from) us. But imposing my will onto theirs was ... well, weeks later, when I finally put myself into their shoes and thought about someone else doing that to me, the memory of a date gone bad surfaced, vividly. I wanted to die of shame for doing to them what that son of a ... what he had tried to do to me.

It was my first step into a world no longer bound by my own biases, my own myopic vision, my own limitations. I was free.

This is the season of miracles, of gifts given and received, and the best gift we can ever give is to remind ourselves that there is something more out there, something bigger than our puny little bodies, minds, and wills. Whether it's about practicing our faith, or simply having faith in others, we must remind ourselves continually that we are not alone, that we were not meant to be alone - we're part of a couple, a family, a community, a nation, a planet, a universe. We're not supposed to carry the world on our shoulders, but we should shoulder our part of it, if only for a moment. And the more our pride demands we try to change people to suit us instead of celebrating their uniqueness and diversity, the more we must fight - because when we lose to this Deadly we lose connections, and that means losing our humanity.

When I was four, I wanted to be God. I became a teacher, a student, a writer, a dreamer, a treasure hunter, a philosopher, a best friend, a caregiver, a daughter, a mother and a grandmother, a wife and a partner instead.

I'd say I got the better end of the deal.