Teach your children there is a spiritual being that is bigger than themselves. I once addressed the Valley Forge Chapel on Mother’s Day, understanding that not all of the cadets and their family members were Christians like me. Part of what I said was, “Another lesson that I know cadets will learn at Valley Forge is to always have God front and center in their life. But that part of learning is learning tolerance—accepting that the deity of one’s classmate may be called Allah, Shiva, Yahweh, Theos, Adonai, or Jehovah. The name’s not important. What is important is believing that with faith, you will never stumble too far before Divine Intervention will lift you back up.”
Help your children keep their eye on the future. Authors and spiritual advisers Dennis and Barbara Rainey, in their Family Life newsletter, suggest that keeping kids “mission-minded” will help them understand that they are part of a divine plan and that they have been given abilities, personalities, and qualities that will help them fulfill their life’s mission. Truly embracing this and understanding that they have a higher purpose in life “will compel them to seek after God and His calling in their lives rather than to follow the herd after the lesser gods of popularity, selfishness, etc.”
Teach kids to be their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. All kids go through a selfish stage. As parents, it is up to us to teach them to share when all they want to do is to hold on to that toy or food. Showing them that whatever we have can be shared with others who may have less than we do is a critical job for parents. And it can’t be a “Do as I say, not as I do” kind of thing. Children will learn by interacting with you. It can be through volunteering at a soup kitchen with your kids, raising money for a special cause or charity, or letting them help you make posters for a charitable event, no matter how young the children. My daughter-in-law Dawn recently had the kids on the floor with her, handing her stickers and stars to put on posters. This is how kids learn selflessness—show, don’t tell.
Faith Not Fear
Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death.
—Debbie Macomber
Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.” Without question, thanks to my parents, that process of growth defined the faith journeys that my brothers and I have been on since childhood. Growing up, we balked at the numbers of hours we had to spend in church activities, so we really didn’t always appreciate the cornucopia of spiritual tools they made available to us—Sunday school, Bible class, morning worship, vacation Bible school, choir, youth group, church revivals, helping to prepare food baskets for struggling families, and other experiences that can only be categorized as enrichment. In our home, there was not a morsel eaten or a sip taken before we gave thanks for what was before us and the hands that prepared it. Prayers on our knees at bedtime were mandatory, and a short morning prayer, thanking God for allowing us to see the morning light, was encouraged. But even though we grumbled about it, my parents instilled a spiritual foundation that grounded us in the belief that there is something bigger than the eye can see, more powerful than we can imagine, and more reliable than we can reasonably hope for.
As is quite typical, both the practice of religious faith and developing a deep trust and faith in oneself became a top priority once I had children. Whatever faith I had learned, I passed on to my kids through storytelling, prayer, church, and, most important, through my behavior in day-to-day life. By the time we moved to New York, their spiritual foundation was evident by the way they treated each other (most of the time), the way they embraced spiritual rituals, like saying grace before eating and prayers before bed, and the enthusiasm they showed hearing stories of faith and resilience. This was particularly true for Shani and Wes, but it was Wes who clung closest to this spiritual foundation as a result of the growing closeness he felt for my dad.
In Wes’s book The Work, he says: “My grandfather and the way he lived his life inspired me to be better. To never be afraid of difference or of being ‘different.’” My father was Wes’s hero. Dad was a scholar and lifelong learner. There wasn’t a room in the house that didn’t have books prominently displayed, and he was quick to go to them for reference whenever the need arose. He didn’t flaunt his own intellect; very few people knew, for example, that he had four degrees including a doctorate in adult education from Columbia University. But it was his faith and theology that really connected him to Wes. Dad was always referencing passages from the Bible when he and Wes shared quiet moments. I remember one day Wes came home from school and asked Dad, who was sitting in his favorite tattered corduroy recliner, if he had a minute. Wes then told him about one of his classmates who was being bullied by some other boys in class. Dad quoted Matthew 7:12: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” “Let me say that another way,” Dad continued, telling a story about empathy and its role in our lives. I, who was eavesdropping from the other room, had to smile because I knew he was going to tell Wes one of the stories I’d loved hearing him repeat from the pulpit in my own youth.
“There was a little boy named Billy who was diagnosed with a ruptured appendix,” he began. “After his surgery, the doctors told his parents that he would be fine and they, in turn, called the teacher. The next day she explained to the class that Billy was sick but doctors were taking care of him and he would be back soon. A week later the teacher noticed that the class was really upset. One by one the children started crying. She asked what was wrong and one student finally blurted out, ‘We hurt because we have a pain in Billy’s stomach.’ What this means, Wes,” Dad continued, “is that you need to put yourself in the place of the boy being teased. If he is pained by being teased, then so should you be. Is there something you can do to help?”
As it turned out, Wes’s birthday was coming up and I had planned a big party for him. I told him he could invite whomever he wanted, and he invited the little boy he’d told my dad about. His mother called me a week later and told me what an impact that day was making in her son’s life. While he still wasn’t the most popular kid in class, the fact that he was included gave him some credibility that he didn’t have before. Wes’s act of kindness, she said, was helping to turn around his experience at school and that made Wes a very special young man.
Lessons learned at my dad’s knee were exactly the kind of character-building tools I had dreamed my kids would get when we moved in with my parents, the same kinds of lessons that I had valued so highly growing up. To Dad, spirituality was about building a community of people who walked the path of kindness, achievement, and dedication to contributing to a better world. Dad didn’t believe, nor did he teach, blind allegiance to religious dogma. It was always faith, coupled with an intellectual and realistic assessment of a situation that informs a decision as you take that leap of faith to make a difference in your life and, ultimately, the world.
Wes made that first commitment to service when he talked to me about joining Valley Forge’s Early Commissioning Program in its college. A moment of fear gripped me. It would mean that he would be obligated to join the service upon graduation from college; paintballs and blanks would be replaced by real bullets in hostile situations. But it was something he was passionate about. That is how, in May 1998, with his favorite teacher, Colonel Mike Murnane, and I on either side of his dress green service uniform, we affixed the official officer pins of the United States Army to his shoulder straps. Wes then took his Oath of Enlistment: “I, Wes Moore, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.” Wes was officially in the US Army and could one day be in the line of fire with real bullets and bombs.
That possibility became a reality seven years late
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After finishing Oxford, Wes began a banking career in London in 2005. But then his friend and mentor, Deputy First Brigade Commander of the 82nd Airborne Major Michael Fenzel, called and said, “Wes, so, we have some fights going on. Are you ever going to jump in and help?” Wes was making lots of money and living the good life of a young American at Deutsche Bank, so he had to seriously consider trading that life for an uncertain and dangerous one in Afghanistan. Major Fenzel didn’t sugarcoat what he was asking Wes to do: “You will see combat and be surrounded by people who want nothing more than to kill you and your soldiers. It will be tough, uncomfortable, and dangerous.” Wes’s first thought was Man, does Mike know how to make a pitch attractive! But then he asked himself, Is there something I can do to help?
This would be Wes’s first combat deployment since he’d received his commission as a second lieutenant at Valley Forge. Because of his paratrooper training and other qualifiers during the time he was a full-time student, he had advanced to the rank of first lieutenant when Major Fenzel called. Wes and I had many transcontinental conversations during his decision period as he weighed the pros and cons and the what-ifs and the what-fors. While the lioness in me wanted to say, Hell no, you won’t go, and hold him close and out of any line of fire, I listened intently to his lists and rationales, and I could clearly see which side was winning. Wes was never one to take the easy route. His passion to make the lives of others better, sometimes over his own comfort, was one of his core values. Another was a deep and abiding belief that once a decision is made, based on all available facts that have been thoroughly informed by his values, faith will guide the journey.
A few days before his deployment, my parents presented Wes with a worn, vinyl-bonded Bible. On the inside page, yellow with age and written with all the love and precision of an eighty-seven-year-old man, were the words: “Have Faith, Not Fear, love always Papa Jim and Mama Win.” That Bible was one of my dad’s first acquisitions as a twenty-seven-year-old newly ordained minister, about the same age that Wes was then. When my dad handed his inscribed Bible to his firstborn grandson, my dread of saying goodbye to my son resurfaced. But as I considered those words in the Bible—Have Faith, Not Fear—I knew my dad was sending a message not only to Wes but to all of us, particularly me, the first in our family to send a child off to war. In a sense, it was a warning that my faith would be seriously tested over the next year, but fear must never overtake it. I needed to have faith that Wes had the strength he would need as he journeyed into war. The Bible became Wes’s prized possession and constant companion from Kabul to the mountain ranges of Kandahar and the plateaued regions of Khost. He tucked it inside his Kevlar vest whenever he left for combat, and although the Good Book was not a shield against the bullets, the words within were a source of inspiration for the task my son was doing. When not engaged in armed conflict, Wes’s specific assignment was to organize and conduct reconciliation meetings between Afghan insurgents and government representatives. When the stakes were this high, Wes told me he held that Bible close to his heart, figuratively and literally. It would guide him as he made decisions that impacted that side of the world.
Have there been instances when he’s feared he’s made the wrong decision or he had no power over one? Of course. One that was particularly poignant, and that I know he labored over, was when it was clear my dad was in his last days of a two-year-long battle with cancer. At that point, Wes had been in Afghanistan about eight months. I called the American Red Cross to explain the situation, and it immediately notified Wes’s unit. When Wes called, I knew his only thought was to jump on the next flight to try and reach his grandfather while he was still here and could hear him: to hold his hand as he had done so many times while growing up; to tell him how much he meant to him, how much he had learned from him, how much he appreciated his stepping in as a surrogate dad. By then, Dad couldn’t speak, and Wes asked that we put the phone to my father’s ear. As I watched a single tear fall from my father’s eye, I imagined that Wes was able to say all the things he would have said in person. Three days later, Dad was gone and Wes was on his way home, along with the Bible tucked in his bag.
When I look now at that Bible and the shaky inscription, I am reminded of my intense fear when I heard the proposal of now General Mike Fenzel. But because of faith, I was able to put aside my anxiety and fear and instead support Wes’s decision to join the fight. Because I decided not to become a barrier of tears or anger at his decision, I now see what God’s plan was all along. Wes, now a captain following a battlefield promotion, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his troops, in the battlefield and in rooms where the United States was trying to build bridges of reconciliation between the rebels and the government. He learned how to lead his troops with strength and compassion. He set clear objectives and devised strategies to achieve them. These are all qualities he now employs as the CEO of New York’s largest foundation devoted to eliminating poverty—the Robin Hood Foundation.
This was the real fight he was being prepared for and was meant to have.
LESSON FROM A LIONESS: Faith is a tool. Make it a family rule.
As single moms, sometimes our must-do lists seem endless. But one thing that must never fall off is providing the spiritual tools of survival to our children. Finding faith is a process that takes time to cultivate, if the end result will withstand the inevitable challenges life brings. It doesn’t necessarily mean spending every waking moment in a house of worship. But it does mean setting an example by living a life according to the teachings of your faith. Again, faith does not have to be religious; it is about something bigger than yourself that you can point toward, trust, and rely on to help you make choices for a life oriented toward good. Without faith, Wes would never have left the life of a young international banker in London. Without faith, he wouldn’t have taken up the gauntlet to join the fight. Without faith, Wes wouldn’t have believed his mission was not just to fight, but to build the hope of better futures for people halfway around the world. Without faith, I would not have slept a moment during the time he was deployed.
Because I instilled faith as an essential and non-negotiable element in our family’s toolbox, my children have been able to access it throughout their lives. As I experienced when their dad died, faith doesn’t always give us the outcome we hope and pray for, but it does provide the calming belief that there is a purpose and a plan and things always work out the way they are supposed to.
Blind Faith
Faith is seeing light with your heart when all your eyes see is darkness.
—Anonymous
The fall of 2009 marked almost two years since I had—in the words of educator Johnnetta Cole—“re-wired” from my position at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and formed my own media consulting firm. I was leisurely enjoying my newfound morning routine—savoring my first cup of coffee, catching up on Facebook’s overnight posts, and listening to the morning headlines on cable news. While I was casually dressed and enjoying the comforts of my own home, as a retired person might, I was wired up, ready to work with the clientele I had acquired since starting my own business. At about 8:30 AM, the phone rang and I saw it was my youngest child Shani’s cell phone number. It was 5:30 AM in Los Angeles, unusually early for her to call, but to hear her voice, no matter the time, was a day’s bright spot. I answered with a huge “Hi,” but the moment she replied, I knew something was wrong.
She began by saying that she didn’t want to worry me but two days before she had woken and realized that she couldn’t see out of her left eye. At first she’d thought it might have something to do with the contacts she had fallen asleep with, but removing them made no difference. She was working for a downtown law firm then so she had called in, explained what was happening, and said that she would be in after going to the hospital. There the doctor gave her a single corticosteroid treatment and told her to see an ophthalmologist. After that she’d gone to work and put in a full day. She’d asked her husband, Jamaar, not to
let any of us know, because she was sure her sight would return.
It did not. On day three, as her dawn was breaking, Shani finally called me. As calmly as she could, she recalled the events of the past two days. I tried not to sound panicked. My heart, however, was beating at warp speed. She needed to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist and my instincts—or maybe it was my distrust of doctors, which I developed after what had happened to her dad—told me she needed a specialist she could trust. As I put down the receiver, up went the first of my many, many prayers over the next few months. “God, please don’t let this be something that will take Shani from us or that will fundamentally change her from the active, athletic, gregarious woman she’s become. Help me help her as best as I can.”
I so wished at that moment I had a partner to lean on, to strategize with, to hold my hand, to reassure me that everything would be okay. I knew this was not something I would or could keep to myself or handle on my own, so barring a husband, I gathered the best action corps I knew—Nikki and Wes—to help figure out our next steps. Within the hour, a plan was in place: Nikki had set up what we still call our family conference line; Wes, who at the time was a Johns Hopkins board member, called fellow board member Howard Mandel, MD, a prominent gynecologist and obstetrician in Los Angeles and one of Wes’s mentors, who immediately contacted a friend and one of the most renowned ophthalmologists in Los Angeles. Within thirty minutes Shani had a name, a cell phone number, and an appointment for the next day. We pledged to hold a weekly family call for the foreseeable future.
Rather than make an exact diagnosis, the ophthalmologist ordered tests to (hopefully) rule some things out. While waiting for the results, which would take about a week, Shani decided to go ahead with a previously scheduled business trip to Chicago. During our next family call, I told her that I would meet her there. I had to be in her presence, see her myself, better sense her mood, hold her tight. She arrived in Chicago first and went to the hotel. When I arrived and she opened the hotel room door, I searched her face, especially her eyes, to see if I saw any difference. I saw none. Instead, she greeted me the way she has always greeted me: “Mamacita!” We hugged longer than usual. She was trying so hard to keep the atmosphere upbeat for my sake that I did my best to reciprocate. But when I went to the bathroom and thought about how scared she must feel inside, I broke down. I didn’t know she was doing exactly the same thing on the other side of the door.
The Power of Presence Page 10