Carry On, Warrior
Page 22
Glennon Doyle Melton: When I started writing online, I promised myself that I would first do no harm—that I wouldn’t add to the vitriol, meanness, and divisiveness that can sometimes be found on the Internet. To this end, I vowed not to engage with Internet bullies. I would be as brave as I could be in my truth telling and as kind as I could be in hearing other people’s truth. I would be open-minded to differences—but disengaged from the meanness. After more than five years of blogging, this has been a tough promise to keep, but I have. I have never occupied myself with a bully at Momastery and I really do believe that this is one of the reasons that our blog has been successful. We all have limited energy, and I don’t think we’re even aware of how much of it we spend justifying and defending ourselves. I don’t do that. I just do my best each day and then leave it and move on to the next right thing. I don’t waste time having imaginary arguments with imaginary people. That daily decision preserves all of my energy for love and creativity.
The Internet has become a real world where people meet and learn and love and live. And so we can’t use it as a place to let our insecurity, anger, and fear demons run wild. At Momastery one of our mantras is: If you’re not kind on the Internet, you’re not kind.
MSMD—the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that you founded from the Momastery community—has been featured by national media for transforming lives, families, and communities through revolutionary giving projects like Love Flash Mobs and Holiday Hands, in addition to your regular daily giving. What is the secret of MSMD’s success?
Glennon Doyle Melton: Monkee See — Monkee Do is the most beautiful and important thing that’s come out of Momastery. When women are filled up, we naturally overflow into our families and communities. Since we fill each other up so consistently at Momastery, it was inevitable that there would be an outpouring. MSMD is a nonprofit that seeks to support families in need through small acts of great love. Some families need to receive and some need to give, but all of us need to feel loved and empowered and connected. Mother Teresa said that the most terrible poverty in the world is loneliness—and both giving and receiving help alleviate that particular type of poverty by reminding us that we are not alone. We don’t care if you’re a giver or a receiver—we are all on equal footing at MSMD. We thank the givers for their kindness and the receivers for the courage it takes to say “I need some help today,” because that reminds us that when we are in a needing season, we’ll have a group of sisters to carry us. The endless cycle of giving and receiving at MSMD makes us feel safer to live bigger and bolder on this earth.
How do you balance work and home life?
Glennon Doyle Melton: When folks ask me how I find “balance” what they are really saying is, “I feel so much tension in my life. How do I get rid of it all and find peace?” I always say that I think we have the wrong idea about what balance is.
Balance is not the absence of tension—it’s achieved through tension. My yoga teacher taught me that balance happens when opposing forces press equally against an object. I have that kind of balance. I have marriage pressing in and kids pressing in and work pressing in, and church pressing in and friends pressing in and I think all of these powerful, worthy forces work together to keep me solid, upright, and balanced. When it feels like one is pushing too hard and I get wobbly, I just focus on strengthening the others up a bit. And I just make sure that everything causing tension is worthy of pressing on me.
I think that we women must make peace with the fact that since we care so much and serve so much and assume so many roles and great loves, we will always feel tension pressing in. But maybe we can think of that tension as holding us up instead of tearing us down. It would be a great tragedy to have nothing important pressing in at all.
Acknowledgments
Thank you, family and friends, for continuing to read my life story through all the plot twists and for being certain that it would end well. Thank you, Monkees, for helping me create my second home and for living there with me. Thank you to the Monkee See—Monkee Do Board of Directors—Allison, Amanda, Amy, Lou, and Liz—you are warriors for love. To Trena Keating, Sally Wofford-Girand, and Jill Gillett—thank you for believing and for so strongly and skillfully encouraging the rest of the world to believe too. To Amy, for your faith and sweat. And to my Scribner family, especially Whitney Frick—editor, friend, Monkee. We did it! We really did it, didn’t we?
Sister—maktub. Thank GOD.
Momastery and Monkee See—Monkee Do
Glennon Doyle Melton founded Momastery.com in 2009 as a part of her healing process. Momastery emerged from the idea that motherhood is like a monastery: it’s a sacred place, apart from the world, where a seeker can figure out what matters and catch glimpses of God. Momastery was created to be a safe haven, a gathering place for an online order of irreverent monks. It is a place to practice living bigger, bolder, and truer on this earth. Please visit www.momastery.com to learn more.
The overflow of generosity and compassion at Momastery became Monkee See—Monkee Do, where we acknowledge the needs in our communities and we do something about them. Our work—including our revolutionary “Love Flash Mobs”—exemplifies Mother Teresa’s philosophy that we can do no great things, only small things with great love. We have learned that by harnessing the power of a filled-up community, small gifts can make a tremendous impact—on givers’ hearts and on the world around us. For more information, please visit www.monkeeseemonkeedo.org.
© LITTLE MOON PHOTOGRAPHY
Glennon Doyle Melton is the founder of Momastery.com and a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. She lives in Florida with her family.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-4516-9724-7
ISBN 978-1-4516-9823-7 (ebook)
Carry On, Warrior contains essays previously published on momastery.com as well as new material.
Lyrics on page 111 from “HALLELUJAH” ©1985 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203.
Excerpt from “On Self-Respect” from SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM by Joan Didion. Copyright © 1966, 1968, renewed 1996 by Joan Didion. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, and by permission of the author.
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Glennon Doyle Melton, Carry On, Warrior