Finding Gifts And Limitations In The Same Place
It’s no secret that the experiences in our childhood have profound and lasting impacts on us. The way we are in adulthood is very connected to the nature and nurture of our first part of life. This is true of the formation of our desirable as well as undesirable characteristics. Reflection upon these formational experiences can be rich for understanding how our gifts and limitations in adulthood reflect deep-seated patterns in our lives. It can also help us see the way those gifts and limitations often come from the same place.
In September 1982 my parents and I traveled from my birthplace along the Mississippi River in St. Paul to the high desert town of Boardman along Oregon’s share of the Columbia River. My dad was studying to become a pastor and his yearlong internship had sent him west, to a small country church, landing our family in a trailer a stone’s throw from the mighty Columbia.
Our two-bedroom trailer was owned by the church and sat along Marine Drive across from an irrigated riverside park. More mobile home than trailer, it wasn’t even 500 square feet and the main window looked out to a lot where the city’s maintenance trucks were parked. The roof had tires piled on top to keep it from flying off in the wind. If you followed the Marine Drive to the west it ran straight into the Columbia River and down into the water where the historic town of Boardman lay submerged, a victim of flooding when the John Day Dam was built in the 1960s. Across the river, some of the earliest vineyards for Chateau St. Michelle Winery outlined the hills. At night my folks would watch UFOs fly in strange, silent patterns over the water.
Roy and Lori Rasmussen befriended my parents, and especially took an interest in me. Upon arriving at church each Sunday morning they would scoop me up and feed me green grapes all through the service and then send me back to my folks, bowels primed. My earliest memory in life is playing with kittens at Roy and Lori’s house. I would carry them around by the neck like sloshing carafes of orange juice, unaware of any discomfort I might be causing. Roy and Lori just laughed, and stuffed me with grapes, and loved us.
Hearing stories of Roy and Lori and the people who treated my folks so well in Oregon were a regular part of my childhood. For years we kept a quilt covered in hand prints made by the congregation as a going away gift. Pastors and their families often have a somewhat contingent existence, moving from place to place, their employment dependent on the democratic will of a small group of people. The end of a job often means uprooting everything to find work in another town, since there tends to be only one of your denomination in a place. So the kindness of newly met people and faith in your likelihood to find community in a new place is vital to keeping your sanity.
Our year in Oregon was my first exposure to this kind of welcome and it helped to form my lifelong tolerance for dramatic changes in scenery. As we moved back to St. Paul, then to a tiny North Dakota farming town, and then two more small farming towns in Minnesota, I learned to cope with and even thrive in times of significant change. This has helped me find community and comfort in places all over the U.S. and the world. I see patterns of difference and similarity and can tolerate the tension of multi-cultural encounters.
But I also feel echoes of impermanence that produce anxiety. My life since childhood has maintained its contingent nature, sometimes manifesting in restlessness and wanderlust. Being unafraid to leave is both a gift and a limit. Sometimes I am served by it and other times it probably undermines my chances at stability and longevity. But the point here is not to critique my parents or even the culture that helped create the circumstances that formed me. After all, I would have a different set of gifts and limitations had we never moved or only done so once or twice.
The point I want to make is that there is a wealth of self-knowledge to be found in understanding the gifts and limits that emerge from our early lives. These patterns show up in our work, our intimate relationships, our friendships, and even the way we think about life’s resources and opportunities. Some of these patterns will surprise us, or even scare us. Others will be sources of affirmation and courage. Whatever we see, we are wise to, in the words of Sylvia Boorstein, “look sweetly” upon our formative experiences. Self compassion as we come to know ourselves is important in our evolution as people. From there we can nurture our strengths and tend to our wounds (often with professional help).
As a community builder, I understand and applaud the desire to emphasize the assets and strengths of collectives and individuals. However, that emphasis will only be healthy if it does not obscure or deny our limitations. And any honest inquiry into our strengths will also reveal our limits. Such discovery is not a failure, but a potential source of wisdom.
Where do your limits and gifts meet? What experiences in your childhood and adolescence loom large in your mind? How might “looking sweetly” upon your gifts and limitations affect your understanding of the way you are in the world?