Connections ezine of unschooling and mindful parenting

With my birthday approaching, I find myself in constant self-examination these days. I have been feeling like I am not able to celebrate mySelf on my birthday without first reviewing myself and my life.

In Lemony Snicket’s 12th book in the Series of Unfortunate Events (The Penultimate Peril), there is a beautiful passage that brings tears to my eyes every time I read it (or hear it on audio book). At one point in the book, the orphans become troubled because many of their deeds, done in pursuit of noble purposes, end up causing terrible destruction in spite of their best intentions. Their ally, Dewey Denouement, reassures the children, telling them that they are "noble enough....That's all we can ask for in this world." The narrator goes on to state:

Dewey Denouement was wrong. He was not wrong when he said the Baudelaires were noble enough, although I suppose many people might argue about such a thing....Dewey was wrong when he said that being noble enough is all we can ask for in this world, because we can ask for much more than that. We can ask for a second helping of pound cake, even though someone has made it clear that we will not get any....we can ask for a special camera that will allow us to take photographs even in the dark...for an extra sugar cube in our coffees...for all the soldiers in the world to lay down their weapons and join us in a rousing chorus of "Cry Me a River" if that happens to be our favorite song. But we can also ask for something we are much more likely to get, and that is to find a person or two, somewhere in our travels, who will tell us that we are noble enough, whether it is true or not. We can ask for someone who will say, "You are noble enough," and remind us of our good qualities when we have forgotten them, or cast them into doubt.

This is the question that I am asking myself these days: Am I noble enough?

I have photos in my bedroom of me when I was a little girl. When I was going through a time of painful healing, I would look at those photos, close my eyes, and send that little girl my mothering love. I would imagine holding her close, rocking her, telling her that everything was all right. I let her know that I understood...I let her know that all was well. It helped my heart immensely.

But now that I am at a different stage in my journey, I look at those photos and I feel a different energy. Thankfully, I remember more than the pain now. I remember being that little and that young and yet during the most upsetting times in my often-confused and misunderstood life, I remember thinking that one day I would rise above it all. I felt, even in those most lonely of moments, that I was meant for greatness.

But greatness does not come easy, as we have to cast away all previous definitions of greatness that were put in our minds from other people, from typical society, and we have to define it for ourselves within our own hearts.

And we have to do the real work that is required in our lives to find and examine and remove all of the barriers that exist in our minds, those that are preventing us from achieving our greatness—no matter what our definitions are. God knows I spent many years doing all I could to make sure that I wouldn't have to live up to greatness. I sabotaged it and myself whenever I could to make sure no one else would expect greatness from me, so that I wouldn’t have to expect it from myself.

It didn’t work. My small voice within still was loud enough where I could hear her saying, “You’re not fooling me. You’re not stupid. You’re not destructive. You are Glorious. You are Greatness. You are Love.”

I have spent years working through the issues that have kept me from being the fullest expression of Who I Am. I have learned to pay attention to the paths that are right in front of me that will help me to walk in the direction of that greatness. They've probably always been there, but I was too blind to see them, too scared to travel them.

Now when I go to bed at night, I check in on mySelf. I check in with My Divine. I ask her, "How did I do today?"

And I answer mySelf, "I believe I did really well today..." I will go over everything…those things that I feel particularly good about, and those things about which I do not. I will go over my shortcomings, talk to mySelf about how to live tomorrow without re-visiting them…and as I close my eyes, I have the love of my children and my husband in my heart. When I finally fall asleep at the end of a day, I do feel noble enough.

What I know to be True is that it doesn't matter how many other people tell you that you are noble enough. You have to first know it within yourSelf.

There was a time when I thought that if I had a wonderful husband who loved me, then I would be noble enough. There was a time when I thought that if I had wonderful children who loved me, then I would be noble enough. I thought that if I helped enough people on their unschooling journeys, became well-known in those circles, then I would be noble enough. I thought that if I were to achieve my dream of having my own children’s library program, then I would be noble enough.
I was always searching, wanting to get to the next place, the next requirement I had set for myself, before I could decide that I was noble enough.

But I did all that.

I am all that.

That's not what makes me Noble Enough.

Beyond checking with mySelf every night to see how I have done this day, I have to know, myself, that I Am.

I Am Noble Enough.

In this moment.

Just because I Am.

Because what of those moments when I fall short? Am I only noble enough when I am doing noble deeds that others approve of? What of those moments when my own fears not only surface, but strike those I love most in the world, hurting them? Am I not noble enough then?
Yes. I have to be. Perhaps noble people still manage less-than-noble deeds occasionally.

The truth, to me, is that in being Noble Enough there is forgiveness. There is learning. There is the path of growing as a human being here on this earth.

Yes, there IS the doing and the dreams and the giving and the receiving and the loving and the being loved.

But most of all, there just is.

There is my being Noble Enough just because I Am. And because every day when I wake up, I strive to do better than yesterday, and I strive to truly learn how to love mySelf better, therefore being able to truly love those around me better.

Yes, sometimes we do forget that we ARE noble enough. And in those times, it is nothing short of a miracle when we can be surrounded by those who help us to remember what and Who We Are at the core of our existence.

But if we don’t know it to be True deep down in our souls, then it just doesn’t matter. A million people could be telling you that you are noble enough, but if you don’t know it yourSelf, then it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

By knowing at all times—in the glorious and in the less than glorious times—that I am, indeed, noble enough, I can see how to rise above it all and continue to walk in the direction of the most noble path. It is SO much easier to do when you know for sure that you are noble enough. And it is easier to see that others are also noble enough, even when they do less-than-noble deeds.

Walking in the direction of the next right thing is not easy to do when you are feeling shameful or guilty or treacherous. These are places in which one can get stuck all too easily. One cannot Shine when stuck in shame.

We are all meant to Shine in our own Greatness.

Knowing I am noble enough allows me to forgive myself. It allows me to see the paths of learning and growing that I have traveled as a part of my life. It allows me to continue on the path of nurturing my spirit. In doing so, I can continue to become more and more of the fullest expression of Me that I can be. I have learned. I have grown. I may move forward, but only if I continue to carry with me the Truth that yes, I Am Noble Enough.

As Book the 13th in the Series of Unfortunate Events comes to an end, the oldest of the Baudelaire orphans, Violet, says, “We want to be noble, but we've had to be treacherous.” The youngest sibling, a toddler whose ability to speak gradually improves throughout the series of books, states a Truth previously spoken by their friend, Dewey Denouemont…a truth that they need to hear right at this moment, because they, themselves, have forgotten it. The toddler, Sunny, in her abbreviated manner of speaking, says, “Noble Enough.”

One does not have to be entirely noble. One need only make a sincere attempt at nobility.

I’m ready now.

Happy Birthday to Me.

Anne Ohman wrote her original pre-birthday ponderings in 2005, before her 43rd birthday and sent it to her friends and family. She is the noble enough unschooling Mom to her two noble enough always-unschooled sons, Jake (16) and Sam (12), and wife to her noble enough man, Dave. Anne loves children’s literature and not only is she blessed to be able to fulfill that passion with her own children, but she also followed that passion to create her own children’s library program.

Anne would like to thank Dawn Emerman for having typed out the passage from The Penultimate Peril in her blog so that Anne could just google it, copy it and paste it.