Lessons Better Learned

 We took our oldest granddaughter camping this weekend.  Spending the weekend with a 10 year old without her parents can be eye opening.  Those fears about whether or not you did a good job as a parent can find an answer in time spent with a grandchild; my daughter is raising this gem and somehow, perhaps selfishly, perhaps wrongly, it feels like at least a wee bit of it reflects on me.  Does my daughter have her questions about the kind of mother she is?  Is she getting it right despite me, or not getting it right because of me?  The legacy of motherhood nevers seems to settle into a compassionate accepting space of knowing you did the best you knew to do and all that is left is to wing it with grace through any generational fall out.

That said, I'm thinking my daughter must be doing a fine job at this motherhood thing because my granddaughter taught me a very powerful lesson today, and she doesn't even know it. 

As we were on our way back home, we had to stop and get gas; as we pulled out of the frontage road back onto the highway, all three of us saw a homeless woman standing on the island with a sign, asking for help.  I even made a eye contact with her as we kept driving on past, merging back onto the highway heading home.  A few seconds later, our granddaughter asked,  "Can we turn around and go back to help that lady?" 

Silence.  

Awkward silence. 

I was the first to respond ...  "Um, oh, sorry Lo, but that's really not possible ... we've got the trailer, there's no where to turn around on a highway and no way we can stop on the on ramp to help her being as big and awkward as we are hauling the trailer.  But I love that you thought of that, that's very kind, and if we were  ....   (even as I type this, I can't help thinking, what lame ass excuses I came up with)

That human tendency to rationalize and justify to the point of self deception is alive and well in me.

Grandpa was the next to respond.  He commented on how when anyone asks for change or something to spare, you should decline but instead, offer to get them something to eat; if they say yes, then get them what they've requested.  He shared some examples where we'd done just that and explained that buying food was better than giving money in case the money was spent on something harmful.  Our granddaughter silently listened.  She said it made sense and that was the end of it. 

Later, once home, I thought about it, and realized that our explanations, justifications, and clarifications were learning blockers, that the best learning comes from experience, and the best experience would have been doing what our granddaughter asked.  We could have pulled off at the next ramp; turned around and gone back; we could have parked the rig, and walked over to the intersection island and invited the woman to join us for a burger or something; we could have introduced her to our granddaughter, sat with her while she ate and asked her name.  Knowing my granddaughter, she would have found out her story, because she's genuinely curious like that, and my granddaughter would have seen her as a fellow image bearer, and all future homeless people she'd ever meet, she would see the same way by virtue of this experience.  Chances would be good that had she experienced the desire in her heart at that moment, which was to help a homeless person, she may not grow up to be like most adults,  inclined to justify themselves out of doing good.  

That's the lesson we could have taught her today but instead, she taught me one or two ...  that lessons are better learned when we experience them,  and that a caring, compassionate heart comes naturally as does the instinct to help, but both can get shut down when we are shut down, and we are shut down usually by the stories other people tell us about why caring and helping is inconvenient, only enables, or is risky.