Halbert Sullivan and A Toast to Fathers
Last Thursday evening my Main Man and I were privileged to attend A Toast To Fathers, the annual dinner and celebration for Fathers' Support Center in St. Louis, MO. The whole experience caused me to think more about the theme of contentment I started last week, but perhaps not in the way you would imagine.

The FSC is celebrating its 15th year, serving nearly 10,000 fathers and their families (including 25,000 children) since it began in 1998. Its primary mission is to "transition non-involved fathers into active parents, deeply involved in the lives of their children."

Halbert Sullivan is the President and CEO of the FSC, but 20 years ago you never would have guessed he would be capable of such things. According to a recent article in the St. Louis Business Journal, in 1993 41-year-old Halbert woke up from a two-week-long cocaine binge and made some life-changing decisions, including checking himself into a drug rehab facility and enrolling in St. Louis Community College. In the next five years he went on to earn his bachelor's degree from Fontbonne University in 1996 and graduated at the top of his class, earning a MSW from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University.

Today, Halbert and his staff at the FSC focus on what many consider "hopeless cases," helping them become the kind of men and fathers they want to be. This includes helping a significant number of them earn a GED and gain steady employment as part of the process. Many men at the FSC have spent time in a correctional facility, making it even more difficult for them to find a job, but Halbert doesn't see them as a lost cause, perhaps because he has a similar story.

Halbert is the oldest of eight children raised in a housing project in Memphis, Tennessee by a strong mother and a sometimes absent stepfather. He started using drugs after his family moved to Rochester, New York when he was 14. Over the next 25 years he developed a serious drug habit and served three prison sentences, including two and a half years in the Attica Correctional Facility in New York. 

When Halbert decided to change his life, he had an uphill battle ahead of him. Very little would be easy. A number of barriers needed to be overcome. All the same, he earned a graduate degree and managed to land a job, which is what makes the founding of the Fathers' Support Center all the more remarkable. In 1998 Halbert left a secure job he liked as a social worker in St. Louis Public Schools to help start the FSC. According to Doris Stoehner, an FSC board member, "Halbert started without a salary, on a song and a prayer. We would go on the street corners in the projects and give out hotdogs and potato chips, trying to recruit men for the first program. It never ceases to amaze me the impact that the program--and Halbert--have made on thousands of lives in our community." (St. Louis Business Journal, April 19, 2013). 

(Photo from St. Louis Business Journal)

To learn more about the Fathers' Support Center and its programs for fathers go to http://www.fatherssupportcenter.org/, but for now I'd like to pause for a bit and consider some things about Halbert I most admire--something things I want to be true for me as well.

1) Discontentment as a Motivator for Change: First of all, Halbert was not content with things in his life that needed to change. In fact, it was a dis-ease or discontentment that motivated him to overcome some very difficult challenges including an addiction to crack cocaine, an extensive prison record, and the need for higher education at an age when most people are done going to school.

2) Content with Difficulties: Halbert did, however, appear to be content with the fact that the road would be difficult.

I can't help but think of M. Scott Peck here who said, “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

Nothing I know about Halbert suggests he ever thought, or even now thinks, that anything he is trying to accomplish in his own life or others will not come without significant effort.

3) Content with Sacrifice: From all I've seen and know of Halbert, he also appears to be content with the sacrifices he will need to make to continue his work with fathers. Raising money and support for the FSC every year is difficult. Although he has been successful in gaining significant recognition and resources, it requires effort--lots of effort. Moreover, Halbert owns two businesses of his own. I can only imagine what it takes for him to serve as President and CEO of the FSC and also manage two businesses. I just hope he takes care of his health because we need a lot more men like Halbert in this world.

What is my take-away from Halbert Sullivan? A contentment--or maybe acceptance is a better word--that changing lives and changing culture is hard work. It requires long hours and sacrifice. It will rarely be easy.

All the same, the joy I saw on the faces of those gathered on Thursday evening--especially the men and their families who have been through the FSC program, tells me the goal is worth pursuing.

When it comes to improving the lives of children and their families, Halbert Sullivan is one of my heroes. When I consider what he has overcome to accomplish his goal and compare it to challenges I might face, I am humbled. He encourages me to keep on, keeping on. Thank you Halbert.

Contentment

I've been thinking a lot about contentment lately--what it is, the benefits it incurs, potential problems or drawbacks, and how one might obtain or secure it. I think what got me started was something I read about creativity and contentment. I can't remember the exact quote, but the gist was that a lack of resources might actually challenge and allow one to become more creative. Apparently when we're limited to solving a problem or creating a solution with what we have, we may be more likely to come up with something new or innovative than we otherwise would have. The trick is to embrace our limitations as an opportunity for new ways of thinking, rather than to spurn our lack of resources. There's something there approximating a certain kind of contentment, but I'm struggling to describe it.

I saw what I think may be a good example of this last weekend when we visited the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City. (Even if you're not the "artsy type, the Nelson Atkins has something of interest for almost anyone.)

One of the featured exhibits was by Brad Kahlhamer, a native American artist who created 122 handmade, katsina-like dolls and birds riding on a stationary powwow float to form a bridge between traditional American Indian culture and the New York contemporary art world. 

I'm not sure what I think about Kahlhamer's work, but I was impressed by the way he used what he had in his studio, e.g., bits of wood, rope, wire and paint to create an amazing number of dolls and birds. Kahlhamer was born in Tucson of American Indian parentage, adopted into a family of German-American heritage and raised in Wisconsin. He says, "The dolls [assembled in this exhibit] are about my own community or tribe. . . . They represent a coming together of disparate parts to make a unified whole."

Similarly, over the ages American women have used quilts to express themselves even when it would have appeared that survival was of greater concern. While today's quilters flock to specialty shops to buy fabric easily costing $9.00 or more per yard, in the not too distant past, women created quilts from scraps remaining from sewing for their family or from less worn portions of old clothing. Even though quilts were primarily made as practical bed coverings, I cannot help but be struck by the care taken to create beauty in a utilitarian item. Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen describe this phenomena in their book chronicling the lives of quilters in New Mexico and Texas.

The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art features quilts and their history through the eyes of the women who created or inherited them. I was particularly struck by this comment from a woman named Mary.

"You can't always change things. Sometimes you don't have no control over the ways things go. Hail ruins the crops, or fire burns you out. And then you're just given so much to work with in a life and you have to do the best you can with what you got. That's what piecing is. The materials is passed on to you or is all you can afford to buy . . . that's just what's given to you. Your fate. But the way you put them together is your business. You can put them in any order you like."

 

Today well-educated and highly trained therapists call this kind of thinking cognitive behavioral psychology. They study and train for years to help people understand what Mary knew and described so succinctly. We all have problems--some of us more than others--but it's how we think about those problems that matters the most. Somehow, in the midst of very limited resources and difficult realities, people like Mary choose to create beauty.

Frankly, I can imagine few things more difficult than living in a dugout in the middle of Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas with the nearest friend or family scores of miles away. I don't know how they did it. In fact, it makes me a little ashamed of some of the things I whine about today.

But some people appear to do their best work when things are at their worst. In talking about her parents who moved from Springfield, Missouri to west Texas, one woman said, "Mama's best quilts were her dugout quilts because that was when she really needed something pretty. . . . If she had not quilted and planned quilts through those bad times, maybe she would have been planning how to get out of that country."

I want to give these words some more thought. I'm wondering what kinds of creative projects might keep people managing, coping, accepting in difficult circumstances -- disappointments in marriage, challenging children, stressful employment, physical limitations. What is it about creativity that helps us be content when things are unlikely to change--at least in the foreseeable future? Or is it contentment with what we have, an acceptance of our limitations and scarce resources that helps us be content? I'm not sure, but I'm planning to give it more thought this week.

Piecing my thoughts,

Dr. Jennifer Baker

Looking Before Leaping--Some Things to Consider

This is Stella.

Stella will soon be 4-years-old. Stella knows presents come with birthdays so she is waiting--as patiently as any almost 4-year-old can wait--for her big day to arrive. On that special day she is hoping to receive a Dora the Explorer Talking Backpack.

Over the past several weeks she has come close to obsessing over this particular item, rejecting even the possibility of any and all contenders. On June 17 she is hoping to leap into the position of a Dora the Explorer Talking Backpack owner, a station of probable envy for many little girls.

I suspect that Stella, like all of us at one time or another, struggles a bit with the need for recognition. As a middle child, she occupies a position between two accomplished and independent (at least in her eyes) older twin sisters . . .

 . . . and one younger "baby" sister who is developing a personality all of her own.

With that kind of competition, its hard to know who you are. Some days Stella wants to use a baby spoon just like Indira. On other days she insists on a booster seat in the mini-van just like the ones her older siblings occupy. Buckled into a "big girl" booster seat in the back of my van recently, Stella exclaimed, "I just wish those girls could see me now riding in the back on one of the big seats."

Already, at a very young age, Stella is thinking about what will help her leap ahead in recognition and significance. And even though she isn't aware of it, she's already influenced by the subtle--and not so subtle--cues from her context (family, playmates and preschool) and culture (media and marketing) about what will cause her to leap ahead of others.

Sleeping, Creeping and Leaping
Over the last three weeks I've been talking a lot about the positive aspects of "sleeping, creeping and leaping" for plants and people, but before we leave this theme, I think its important to note one or two things about leaping -- what it is, what it looks like and how it might be pursued and developed.

People Choose, Plants Don't
When I talk about "leaping" for perennials, I'm referring to the blossoming and flourishing that occurs after the roots are established in fertile soil with adequate light, moisture and care. If this happens, good things naturally occur.

With people, it's different. We have a choice. We can spend many long years planning, hoping, dreaming, working and striving to achieve a perceived level of leaping that may ultimately be less than satisfying. We may laugh at Stella's preoccupation with a Dora the Explorer Talking Backpack, but many of us are often just as silly and immature. We may be just as focused on things likely to bring us limited satisfaction. New things, new experiences, new accomplishments--in and of themselves are not exactly wrong or bad, but they may be short-sighted. We can spend a lot of time and energy on things destined to bring very little joy or long-term leaping.

If our leaping or flourishing is dependent on what we have or what we are able to achieve, we place our future happiness and contentment in the hands of others. In this case, we have little chance of achieving what Dallas Willard described as "a pervasive and constant sense of well-being." If we want to spend more of our days "leaping," we will want to choose the focus of our activities wisely.

Leap Where You Live
You've probably heard the expression, "Bloom where you're planted."

I'd like to suggest we amend that saying to, "leap where you live." I've been privileged to know people with difficult circumstances who not only "bloomed," but "leapt" with joy and enthusiasm. Their day-to-day lives were marked with courage, conviction and contentment. They weren't often successful in the world's eyes. They didn't necessarily achieve great things. Their stories didn't make the evening news. They were just the kind of people you wanted to be around because of who they were and how they made you feel when you were with them. I want to be that kind of person, but it's not easy.

I'll admit it. Most of my life I've been achievement driven. I like setting goals and achieving them. I like to make lists and accomplish them. I like to be successful at the ambitions I have for myself. When I can't do these things, for one reason or another, I'm typically frustrated and irritable, (Translation--Not that much fun to be around.) Lately, I've been giving a lot of thought to how some of the items I have on my list might be for me a lot like the Dora the Explorer Talking Backpack is for Stella--just a passing objective on the way to something more. If I am to learn to "leap where I live," then it may be good to reconsider the focus and direction of that leaping.

Thoughtfully yours,

Dr. Jennifer Baker