Storyteller, Brand Interpreter,
Dot-Connector
Count Up to 60
The Six-O. It is a milestone we’ve already celebrated for my husband and two of my sisters over the last few years. Some of my closest friends have already crossed this threshold and they are brilliant, vibrant, still living people. Sixty looks good based on those people. They are each living an ever-increasingly vibrant life — clearer, wiser, more generous, more purposeful. That’s the goal, isn’t it? Progress. So, turning 60 is exciting, right? Freedom rings. The mere fact that I’m saying it out loud is enormous progress and a possible indicator of the healthiest version of me. Because this adulting has been a journey, and the lessons are thrilling (especially considering I’m still alive after all those messes). Which reminds me, shouldn’t I have that 1973 Mercedes coupe by now? Never mind. That part is a blur. In fact, it’s boggling to realize that since my 50th birthday we’ve moved from Michigan to Manhattan Beach California, to Lake Oswego Oregon and now to Nashville Tennessee. (Note: we’re done moving.) I’ve moved my career around a bit too, seizing opportunities and working with so many brilliant people. Through each of those moves my kids’ lives, our marriage, our friendships were shaped in mesmerizing ways and somehow it all fit in one decade. To be honest, I imagined having at least one of my current manuscripts completed and ready to submit for rejection by now. These two books have matured a lot, though. That’s probably why they’re not finished yet; they’re still aging! And they’ve both provided a marvelous process of continued growth for my soul, whether or not they ever leave my hands. Perhaps they’ll also give my children a view of their own way-way back stories; stories of their great grandparents that create the true textures of our life today and are far too grand to let fade. Most certainly we can form a healthier narrative for ourselves by digging a little deeper into who these people were. These are the stories of our grandparents that help us see our own lives differently and can open our minds to more adventure. These lives were filled with bravery, enterprise, and risk and of course scandal. It’s enormous fun to see their footsteps through time, painting a picture that feels glamorous and romantic. But when we attach our own life to those lives, they become formative. And since pretty much everything I do from this point on is for my children, I’ll work on getting those pesky books finished. So, as we march onward, through the chaos and blessings, it’s marvelous to reflect today on the friends who’ve stuck with us, the new ones who’ve brought great fun, and mostly … family. My family is filled with possibly the widest range of thinkers and feelers in the world, and yet we love through everything. Mom taught us that. As I’ve hung out with my ancestors, I’ve forgiven them for foibles, and through that, forgiven myself. I can understand my own father and mother by knowing the deep grooves laid before they were born. I feel joyful about the opportunity ahead of me as I narrow the focus of what’s truly meaningful. I’m thrilled that the process to research these books has allowed my own journey inward – toward God and how He wants to reside within each of us. They’re all there; the demons and the power to do battle. I know just a few important things. I know I love my children more than life itself, but that letting go allows them to choose to be closer to me and to God. I’ve journeyed through the concept of marriage enough to learn that it’s way deeper and richer when we release its inherent power by seeing our own goo (and working together to clear it out). I know why we are called the bride of Christ. It’s a role we all must battle within ourselves to understand, and it’s not in a building. But that’s another post. Thanks for hanging with me. Love, suzy
Fathers & Good Byes
So much death. It’s a heavy time. I know several people, close friends, who said goodbye to fathers last year. The existential shift is real. I have now said goodbye to three Dads in my life. Actually, two were ‘goodbyes’ the other was more of a “wait, what?“ Or … maybe the moment of a father dying is always a ‘wait what?’. Remember that wonderful commencement speech by Harvard Dean James Ryan. “‘Wait what?’ is at the heart of all understanding,” Ryan says. When I got the phone call from my stepmother that my father had been killed in horrible car wreck, my understanding of life in the macro sense slammed into ‘wait, what’ mode. This was a shock to the system of my highly controlled life; no part of me would be the same. It’s been many years now. I still see his death as triggering an avalanche that altered the landscape of my world, because of the continuing impact of who he was to me. Good, bad, ugly and awesome. All of our Father stories are unique: the dynamic of the relationship, the condition of our own heart, our identity as sons and daughters. Yet no matter how it occurs, when fathers die, our life is permanently altered from the impact of that moment. On August 11, 2021 we said good bye to Ray Sammons, my husband’s father and my …. God Father. Not in the sense of a Catholic christening, but in the actual truth that Ray showed me what the love and faithfulness of God as Father looks like in real life. In this life. I was north of 40 years old when I met Ray, still in the throes of processing my own fathers death. At this point the legacy of Fathers in my life had been men who lead duplicitous lives. Mistresses, booze, deceit were patterns for my mother in her father and her husband. I had been shaped by that legacy. Ray Sammons was a different kind of shock to my system. I had to overcome myself to realize the genuine, godly kind of love he was offering. (There was one other man who embodied this kind of love – for another chapter.) I haven’t felt ready to write about Ray’s death yet. It’s taking time to process. This one is different; it feels holier — like an opportunity to realize a new understanding of life itself. Yes, Ray is still teaching. But today he’s singing and dancing in heaven and hanging out with his heroes. He lived a long faithful life and he loved people relentlessly. In fact, Ray emulated the ‘wait, what’ concept in the most genuine way. He truly wanted to understand how people tick. The question becomes this existence without him. How does my life reflect the difference he made? What do I do to purposefully live as though I know the things he desperately wanted me to know? I have the incredible blessing of Ray’s son as my husband — kind of it’s own ‘wait, what?’ As my generation gradually becomes the elders, we feel differently about our own lives. The dangling threads of our relationship with our fathers must find stability somehow in our own selves and our relationships with our children and our world. This is the moment when many of us encounter the real God of Life because no other truth makes sense — and our hearts recognize this truth. But there’s often muck. So we face the muck and ponder the merry, and bravely own our story of growing, always asking ‘wait, what?’.
Family, Seasons and the Challenge of Change
Under normal circumstances, moving isn’t easy. Moving upsets our comfort zones. It shakes up our orientation
The Narrative We Choose
My beautiful mother could cast a narrative of her life that’s very different than the story she actually lives out daily, and has lived for the last 50 years. She could wear righteous anger over betrayal and loss. She could carry that badge and wave it around, ever so subtly, to keep her place as a person who deserves more than she has today. But she has never chosen that narrative, even though the facts are real. Mom chooses gratitude and forgiveness and joy-filled love every day. She chooses to see the blessings. Our narrative is the lens through which we choose to tell our story. This is a powerful choice, indeed! When we realize that a narrative is constructed by our thoughts, actions, decisions, words.. the whole magilla.. we can step back and ask ourselves how have we constructed our life’s narrative. What story are we always telling? Mom’s life always tells the story of blessing, and she is outlandishly generous in sharing it. Blessings are there because she chooses to see them, and countless blessings come because they flow through her to others. We all want to be around her because she is a light and a blessing. Mom wouldn’t say this was a “constructed narrative.” But she will always say she is blessed beyond measure – and therefore it is always true. And generations are changed forever because of her choice.
Purpose & Marriage
Marriage as a Brand Part 4 Ok so now we have tried to clarify the external and internal impressions of our marriages. Remember this is a longer workshop in real life, so go easy on yourselves. Let’s sum up. In Part 2 we considered what others perceive about your marriage, either through actual input or an honest discussion about how you are known as a couple. Capture that core truth. People see us as a good match, dealing with the same struggles everyone else doesPeople say we’re happy togetherPeople think we fight in public places and don’t realize how uncomfortable the rest of the crowd feels. People say we are funnier when we’re among the girls/guys than when we’re together. We believe that people think we do a good job elevating the other and protecting our spouse’s heart’s desire.We’ve had people ask us how we manage to be so happy, but actually we have lots of issues behind closed doors. As you work together to excavate this input, you can draw out your own beliefs and weigh them on a higher level. In Part 3 we considered the audience for our marriage. For this exercise, let’s agree the audience is God Himself. Only Him. If that’s difficult for you as individuals, that’s a good place to spend a bit more time. For now, let’s just fake it-til-you-make it and put GOD as the answer to that question. Now we’re ready for the discussion about purpose. What’s the purpose of your marriage? Wait, what? I realize that you got married because of all the things: It felt like God’s call on your life, it was the right person, right time, everything clicked. Everything was perfect. But what now? What is the purpose of your marriage? For this exercise, I suggest spending time individually, writing down some ideas for the impact you’d imagine your marriage having on the world. The first answers that come to you might be practical:– to set up the next generation with a model for a thriving relationship– to have a partner to live with and share life activities and responsibilities, etc., etc.– to be truly happy Parker Palmer wrote a book called Let Your Life Speak. Tim & Kathy Keller wrote a book called The Meaning of Marriage. These are excellent tools of great marriages. If we believe our marriage is an entity that requires management and nurture and strategy, we can get excited about genuine progress as we face new frontiers. Steve and I have been inspired by these concepts, particularly since we both come from failed first marriages, and I come from a long line of divorce and infidelity. Consider these two weighty concepts: 1. Let Your Life Speak– Letting your life speak to you – through prayer, meditation, honesty, dreaming– Deciding that your life is going to speak to the world by how you live it out Knowing yourself is part of the process; being fully intent on living the life for which you were created is a life-long pursuit. This pursuit is continued by joining with your spouse to create a life together. 2. The Power of Marriage– Allowing our spouse to speak truth so that we can be a healthy couple– Allowing our spouse to help us become the “someone better” through truth and love – Allowing our spouse to overturn the unhealthy verdicts on our life through love– Realizing our marriage has unique power to show us the grace of what God did for us in Jesus Christ. Jesus saw our sin and covered it. We can intentionally see what God sees in our partners and help them aim towards it.We can join with our spouse to make positive change in the world around us. I know these are complex concepts to weave together. But when you consider the purpose for your marriage, it can be this deep and powerful. We can see our marriage as a force in our life, and together, in the world. For us, this is illustrated through a piece of twine – two woven strands, weaving together. Intertwining. Twine is strong, and it’s made to do hard, important work. This is the on-going and thrilling work of our life: to understand that our marriage is on-going growth. Not a thing to make us happy, but a worthy work to learn the most important thing God truly wants us to know about how magnificently He loves us. No sacrifice we make for our spouse can equal the sacrifice Jesus made. Sometimes this is the only reminder I need as I let complaints rise up in my critical mind. Jesus was God and He washed feet. I can spend my whole life working to serve that beautifully, fueled by immeasurable gratitude. On the path of life, this is the greatest thrill. To face-down selfishness and petty comfort, and aim upward together with purpose. Relentless pursuit of growth. What’s the core purpose for your marriage: Comfort or Growth? This will manifest differently for each couple; what does your growth look like? Keller: If you understand what holiness is, you come to see that real happiness is on the far side of holiness, not the near side. Holiness gives us new desires and brings old desires into line with one another. So if we want to be happy in marriage, we will accept that marriage is designed to make us holy.
The Audiences for our Marriage
Marriage as a Brand, Part 3 When we endeavor to create something – write a book, build a business, cook dinner – we must consider, to varying degrees, our intended audience or the consumer of our creation. Most moms and dads I know would never try to cook individual meals for each member of their family, so we often have to find a way to appeal to the whole. Fan favorites. But in true creative development, our work is significantly better when we take time to imagine a very specific target audience. The more specifically we define our target, the more we elevate the work and the more successful we will surely be. If you want to cook a banquet meal for 200, you’ll likely offer something easy to make, moderately flavorful and decently satisfying for a hungry crowd. But if you’re working to create something magnificent for your spouse who loves fine cuisine, you’ll make something more interesting that perfectly appeals to their specific taste. In a business context many companies want to sell to everyone. It’s a money thing. I work with marketers to narrowly define their target and prove that with some daring specificity, their product and messaging will elevate to a higher level and appeal to more people who’d be willing to pay a premium. The return is actually higher when we narrow the target. So it begs the question in this marriage workshop experiment: who is the audience for our marriage? The quick answers are true and based on genuine love. If you have children, they’d pop to the top of the list. Your spouse, of course. Sacrificial love is the core of our commitment. It’s also interesting but probably unhealthy to consider our friends and community as the audience (even though, as we discussed in Part 2, our marriage definitely creates an impact in the world out there). Sometimes the most important truth is the one we might dismiss as obvious or too ethereal. As the one who created marriage, God is indeed our most important audience for our marriage. But here’s where that understanding gets deeper and more helpful. Imagine God more specifically for this context. Imagine Him as a brilliant, world-renown fine painter who’s created a beautiful work of art, intricate and full of meaning. He’s intentional with every stroke and he’s giving it to us to make us richer and more joyful in incomprehensible ways for the rest of our lives. It’s a piece of art precious and unique just for us. He knows there are nuances that we will each see, but when we appreciate the whole work of art, He knows it will bless us way beyond any individual brush strokes. This Artist God also created the earth and everything in it, and He is mysteriously madly in love with us. Specific. The Artist God as our devoted audience and fuel for our marriage. With this intricate and genuine target audience, our every action is more beautiful and elevated to greater meaning. Every day we have a chance to do something for our spouse that The Creator Artist would find delightful. “Yes! That’s what’s possible! More! More!”, He might say. It’s fun, as a couple to imagine delighting this Artist. With this kind of focus, the greatness of our marriage will intentionally become a joyful and powerful [generational] miracle for all those other target audiences we want to bless. It’ll happen naturally. artist credit: Leonid Afremov @ Afremov.com
Marriage as a Brand, Part2
Finding the Truth: Mining Current Perception Your marriage has the power of a great brand in culture. In Part 2, we’ll dive deeper into the idea of work-shopping our marriage as a brand entity. Fun, right? Let’s start with a quick definition. A “brand” doesn’t refer to simply the logo or creative presence of a thing. It’s the entire emotional relationship between a business, organization, influencer – literally anything – and the world in which it resides. Of course the idea of a brand is not confined to commercial businesses. Our towns and cities are active brands, with reputation and heritage and trajectory. Your family has a brand amidst your neighborhood, school and church, created by the sum total of your family’s presence, action and impact over time. This experiment is to consider our marriage as a brand – a single entity with great impact. A powerful brand has measurable value that creates significant return on investment for its stakeholders. When a brand wants to grow in a healthy way, we work to create a strategic brief. It’s an outline that captures core truths about where we are and what we need to do to reach our goals. Goals are good. In this part of the process we gather all the myriad perspectives of the brand from people who have encountered it; those who reject it, adore it, or only barely know it. We listen with open minds and a posture to learn. It’s not always easy. Very often the internal realities are not how the brand wants to be known in the world. Politics, sloppy workmanship, poor team morale, ignored customer feedback, shareholder or board pressure. To succeed, we need to excavate and bravely face down these truths. What would our community say about our marriage? What do our kids and family experience? What do our neighbors and colleagues observe? Do we speak about our spouse in positive ways that fortify not only the external reality but also change our insides? It’s true. Just like smiling can lift your own heart, speaking positive words about our spouse to them and to others actually changes us for good. Can you and your spouse face this work together? I’ll bet that you’d hear feedback that would surprise you – perhaps even inspire you. Here’s the BEST PART! One of the greatest moments in my work with clients is helping them re-connect with their original passion, the deepest calling that inspired them to launch in the first place. Or maybe it’s a new direction that is freshly inspired by the original truth, advanced and matured. This truth is always there, sometimes buried and distracted by temporary burdens or bad habits. But this work helps a brand re-discover it’s core purpose, either from its beautiful origins or toward an exciting, new pivot. If we workshop our marriage, will we willingly look at the truths of our current situation so that we can set a real course for growth; even richer joy? Because marriage is, after all, created by God not only so we can learn to truly love, but also for great cultural impact. As a divine institution, marriage has several inherent powers that we must accept and use – the power of truth, the power of love and the power of grace. As we use each power in the life of our spouse, we will help him or her grow into a person who not only reflects the character of Christ, but who also can love us and help us in the same way. The Meaning of Marriage, Tim & Kathy Keller CHALLENGE: Make a list of people you’d imagine asking for an honest reflection of your marriage, and write down what you’d think they might say. These should be people with real experience with you as a couple.Extra Credit: Ask them! (we would do this anonymously in our workshop). Describe us in six words Please rate our closeness 1-5 What do you admire about our relationship? What specific cautions would you give us if we asked for suggestions? How often do you hear us speak well of each other (Always, often, sometimes, rarely, never) PART 3: STAKEHOLDERS
Marriage as a Brand, Part 1
Even if you’re not in the business of marketing brands, (even though you probably are), you know the power of a highly influential brand. Whether it’s a celebrity or a product, you are engaging with significant brands every day – most of which have constructed their brand influence very carefully and with lots of investment and strategic planning. What if we considered our marriages as having the potential of great brand influence? Play the game of brand strategy as applied to our marriage. When we set up a process to explore and improve a brand’s strength, we need to ask some questions. How are we known, how do we wish to be known, what are we doing to create a deliberate reputation or an accidental image? Do we have the best goals in place and plans to achieve them? Then we create a strategy to improve success. Growth. How would you consider your marriage to be [even] more successful? The most interesting thing about considering our marriage as a brand is to realize the impact of the singular unit of us on the world in which we reside. Our children and grand children, colleagues, friends, neighbors. What would they say? When we can step outside ourselves and think about our marriage as a brand, we begin to see the powerful potential of the union unto itself – supernatural inner strength, facing intentionally outward.
Unique Rainbow Theory
In a social media environment where the curated messaging of our Instagram feed has the power to make us feel many things – motivated, inspired, discouraged, inferior – I like to remind my family of the Unique Rainbow Theory. Or URT. (It’s my theory; still working on the name.) The URT is the principle that when we see a rainbow emblazoned across the sky, it’s entirely unique to us. We are the third point in the triangle of light and sight that actually forms the rainbow. Our body’s position, where we’re standing, the angle of our gaze, is the pivot point in being able to see the rainbow at all, and by definition creates a unique perspective. So when I call everyone out to the street from inside the house to see this spectacular miracle, no one will see it quite like me. I can text my daughter and say “GO LOOK!” and from her other-side-of-town-vantage point, she might see a great rainbow in the eastern sky, but it’ll be different than my rainbow. Last week I experienced such a bright rainbow that it changed the hue in the atmosphere all around us. People were stopping their cars along Pacific Highway in my little Oregon town to gaze and photograph this full and stunning creation. As I stared at the gigantic rainbow, I knew it was mine and mine alone. Where it begins and ends, how the arch spans in front of clouds, even the specific nature of each band of color. All mine. I knew that the guy who stopped his Jeep a mile back was seeing his own version of this glorious display. Even if it’s indiscernible, it’s true. Mathematically and mysteriously it’s true. When I ponder a rainbow in this way, it feels so very personal – a love note from God just for me. He has a different love note for the guy in the Jeep. I relate this personal vantage point of our life relative to others, in the context of God’s creation. We are each knitted in the womb, wonderfully made as beautiful creatures to be in relationship with our creator and others. We each have our own vantage point and our own calling and dream. Our talents and longings and brainpower, woven into our being from the beginning, are uniquely ours to be part of this world in important ways. When we are inspired uniquely by a specific story or lesson, we are meant to hear it differently from everyone else and be inspired to act from our own sensibilities. It’s miraculous, really. We must pursue the longings we were created to pursue. Both for our whole-hearted joy and also as part of the larger community in which we live. First, though, we align our hearts with God. “Continue to draw your heart closer to God and then seek the desires of your heart.” – Steve Sammons When our hearts are on God, His Holy Spirit helps us to discern our best life path. Then, (here’s the difficult part) we need to leap, and run and step forward into those dreams and desires that bring out our talents and dreams. Unabashedly. Knowing our life isn’t made to look like anyone else’s, but that we must pursue the specific and uniquely magnificent possibilities that God created in us. Just for us to do. Our world tends to elevate trendy celebrities and styles and the masses often show up in large fan bases for popular ideas. We think we’re meant to fit into a certain bucket of thinking or lifestyle or taste. But we’re not. In fact we’re meant to be completely unique and forge new paths of love in our communities. It’s our unique calling to lean into the relationships before us and share God’s love in our own way through our own life and work. It’s uniquely our vantage point and combination of created talents and pursuits of our God-inspired heart that can come alive through the way we live our life every day. I’ve made oodles of blunders in my life and through a long obedience, I continue to seek, learn [laugh] and mature. Plus, sharing our blunders is part of our magnificent grown-up rainbow that makes for great stories. Our children are each pursuing their relationships with others and with God through their own lenses – each brilliant and unique. Our greatest prayer is that they are able to always know they are created to live a unique story, a specific view of their own unique magnificent rainbow.
*Merry Christmas from 2020
We’ve enjoyed receiving the picture cards from our friends around the country, counting blessings and finding the joy of this ______ year. This impossible, unprecedented, ridiculous, frustrating, agonizing, surprising, miraculous year. For the first time in decades, I haven’t had the mental ability to create one of our epic family collage storytelling cards for 2020. Literally it turned into a 54-page photo book. The image on this post, however remains my favorite single image of the year. Jack leaping into the icy waters of Crater Lake in complete and utter freedom, trust and thrill. How do we face a holiday season with all we’ve been through? Remember the moment in the Grinch story that always makes our throat clog? When they all circle-up and sing “heart-to-heart and hand-in-hand,” even though the selfish Grinch has stolen all the stuff? In the sweetest way, that’s how this Christmas feels. We realize, maybe desperately, that our hope is in something intangible and real. Our joy must come from a deeper place. Amidst so many things that hurt, our family feels this blessing and we pray you do too. We are desperately grateful for the closeness of family — goofballs as we are. Remember January 2020? Back then, it felt extra-important to set goals and cast vision and dream big. A new decade! So we made a specific list, all centered around optimism, enthusiastic goals for family, vocation, work, health. Three of our children are magnificently married; all six are pursuing their best dreams and building powerful relationships in their lives. That’s the important big picture, right? Yes, of course. How could we have imagined that we’d face the layered hardships of a pandemic while also facing our cultural demons, one major family health crisis, job loss and a few wildfires too? We’ve learned this year how to hold tight to the love between us. We’ve learned how to discuss as intellectuals and how to honor another’s priorities different from our own. We’ve sought the core of our faith and marveled at how God works in and through each of us in specific, unique ways. We’ve changed physically too. We’ve learned that masks are normal, and we politely cut wide berths on the hiking trail. My husband has two new titanium knees and that fact alone would have been enough for the year’s big news story. If only. Our grand daughters Ruby and Luna have transformed like time-lapse blossoming sunflowers. Also exciting is that their wise parents decided to relocate to the Pacific Northwest to be closer; one of the only positive things accelerated by Covid-19. Riley graduated Corban U, and as quickly as she could, transferred her PA studies and her life to her happy place. She’s back in Manhattan Beach, and thriving. Jack is 15 and he spent the summer finding joy with close friends and building not only his music talents but an impressive mini-production studio. Plus he’s grown at least a foot. Everyone’s hair is longer. (And it looks good!) We’ve played more games together, completed more puzzles and hiked more waterfalls than we might have without the pandemic. And together leaped off real and metaphorical cliffs. We drew in close. Many of us have discovered we are happier and healthier without the scrolling time on social media. Ask around; once we got past the hilarity of the early, innocent mask and quarantine jokes, the damage to our psyche from the endless feed felt all too real. I’ve been hustling start-ups all year supporting big ideas for great work. It’s felt difficult and frustrating, and – surprise – the actual opportunity is to write the book I’ve been promising myself for a decade. My great husband Steve has been on the the team that shepherds a University through this gauntlet of survival, and on a critical mission. He is a constant miracle to us. Our marriage has learned to be sweeter and kinder; a certain refuge and source of strength. Church has become something different than arriving on Sunday to a building as a matter of routine and good rhythm. Church has become being present for neighbors and finding the meaning of a community of people who share our desire to grow… and need our help. So looking back on the images of the year, it’s nothing short of remarkable. 2020 will be the big asterisk on every story for generations to come. Our prayer is to have your asterisk not only say that it was odd because of tragic circumstances, but because it was a year of stunning growth in shaping our understanding in ways that will serve us forever. Well done you. You’re here and you are stronger now. For 2021, Perhaps it’s best just to say we accept any challenge. Ready for anything, together.