THE GOLDEN TURTLE (you are not your gift)

My lovely readers! How I have missed you! I have taken the month of March off from weekly blogging to adjust to a new job and to start the work on the research for my“Quit Telling Your Kids They Can’t Sing” book. I have missed getting to interact with you and hearing your responses to my ridiculous and deep thoughts. I will maintain the monthly blog approach for now but I will also start re-posting some of your favorite blogs from 2017. I will post the top ten from 2017, just for you.  If you have a favorite that you NEEEEED to see posted again right away, let me know and I will move it to the top of the pile.

Today I bring you something I have been thinking and passionately speaking publicly about for the past five years. This one goes out to my Artlifers, my students, my art cohorts and anyone who feels like they might have…a gift. This one’s for you.

I was about 13 when I (and my parents) discovered that I had a gift. I was writing and singing songs that weren’t the songs most 13 year old girls were singing. I was simultaneously receiving musical training, so my offerings were coming out in a more advanced fashion than would be expected for someone my age. It didn’t feel hard to me. It felt necessary. I was constantly writing, singing, playing and bringing something new to show to my parents. I was brought up in an extremely nurturing environment and I was encouraged and praised for what I was doing. My parents made it clear to me that this wasn’t normal for kids my age, that this was a gift.

And that, my dear artsies, is the subject I want to talk about: your gift. Let’s think about that word. In our current culture we would freely say things like “Oh, he is a really gifted artist”, or “She is so gifted with words” or even “She has such a gift of piano playing.” If we said that, we would mean that the person we were referring to was exceptionally and noticeably talented in a particular area. They stand out.  They rise above the rest. They are obviously made to naturally and excellently do this thing that for others is hard work. In this sense of it’s definition, we mean a natural ability.

I want to talk about the other half of the definition of the word “gift.” Let’s look at the word gift as an act of giving something as a present. I want to talk about your gift (your natural ability) as a gift (a present.)

As a lover of story, I think the best way for me to get my point across is to tell you one. So I bring you…The Golden Turtle.

Once, a beautiful, beloved daughter was given a gift by her father, who loved her more than he could ever say. He wanted to show her, and the whole world, how much he loved her. He wanted her to have something beautiful, something that came from him, something that would  remind her of how special and loved she was. He gave her a glistening, 18 inch long, solid gold turtle! He told her to show it to anyone she wanted to and that it was her very own. She was delighted with this beautiful, unusual gift and she couldn’t wait to show it to her friends.

Everyone who loved the girl got to see the Golden Turtle. She would bring it out to show them and they would “ooo” and “ahhh” and say how much her dad must love her to give her something so precious and unique. When she made a new friend, if they got close enough to her heart to really know her, she would show them her treasured Golden Turtle and tell them the story of her father giving it to her.

One sad day, someone said some cruel and hurtful words to our girl. They told her she was too ugly to ever be loved. They told her it was a darn good thing she had that turtle because no one else was going to love her or even like her, if she didn’t have it.  Her heart was broken at the cruel words, so broken in fact, that she just believed them. She held tight to her turtle and said to herself, “Well, I may not be beautiful or loveable, but at least I have this Golden Turtle.”

After the sad day, our girl was different. She had lost the joy of being loved by her dad because of those cruel words. She even wondered if her dad had given her that gift because he knew she was too ugly to ever be loved. Maybe he knew she would need that turtle to be liked by other people, since there was nothing else loveable about her. These were, of course, untruths. But broken hearts can’t really tell the truth from a lie. They are too busy trying not to be broken.

Joyless and desperate, our changed and broken girl now made friends a different way. She held out her Golden Turtle in front of her wherever she went as if to lure in friends with it’s sheen and wonder. In her loneliness and desperation to be loved, she would even call out to people from across a room and say, “I have this Golden Turtle! Come see it! You are going to want to be around me because this Golden Turtle is MINE!”

People did come, but the people who came were only interested in the Golden Turtle. They never really wanted to spend time with just her and they most assuredly did not love her. They only wanted to see and be around the Golden Turtle. She noticed that if she didn’t let these people see the Golden Turtle, they would leave. To keep from being alone, she kept the Golden Turtle with her all of the time now, in case it would draw people to her. She started forgetting to tell people that her father had given her the Golden Turtle and that he loved her very much.

Her father heard about the cruel words that were said to her on the sad day and he also watched her trying to use his precious gift to get people to like her. It made him so sad to see her acting desperately and clinging so tightly to the Golden Turtle, like it was a part of her. He had never meant for that gift to be anything other than a symbol of his great love for her.  He gently pulled her aside one day, to talk to her about it.

“Darling, I love you.”

“Yes father, and have you seen my Golden Turtle lately? It still shines, it gets more valuable every day and people are coming from miles and miles just to get a look at it! I’m so busy making sure everyone gets to see it, that’s why I haven’t seen you for so long.”

“Darling, I need to tell you something. I don’t care about that Golden Turtle.”

“What? What do you mean you don’t care about it?! How can you say that? You GAVE it to me! It’s the reason people want to be with me! It’s what makes people like me! It’s the only beautiful thing I have!”

“My dear, have you forgotten that it is YOU that I love? I don’t love that turtle! Will you come here to me?”

She had her arms folded across her chest and the Golden Turtle tucked tightly inside them. She took a step toward him and caught a glimpse of his tender eyes as she did.

“You don’t need that turtle, honey. You can put it down. Will you come here to me?”

She shuffled forward a few more steps but she felt nervous to let go of the Golden Turtle since she had been holding it so tightly for so very long. She was afraid of what might happen to it if she put it down. She fussed and fumed and told him all of the reasons why she couldn’t let go of  it. He waited quietly. He waited until she had said everything she needed to say and then he asked her once again, this time with his arms wide open. “Will you put down that turtle and come here to me?”

Something deep inside her, from before the sad day, wanted more than anything to be in those arms, with nothing to hold onto but her father. She let the Golden Turtle slip out of her arms and crash to the floor. She ran the last bit of the way to her father and flung herself into his embrace.

There in his embrace, he whispered some words to her that healed up the wounds left over from the sad day. He said such sweet things to her that she wondered how she had ever believed the cruel and unkind words. He told her things about herself that only a father could know. He reminded her that the Golden Turtle was just meant to be a symbol of his love for her and a reminder of what he was like. It was never, ever the REASON that he loved her. In his embrace, she could see how she had flipped things upside down when her heart was broken. She tucked away in her heart the things he said to her on that embraced day. She knew she might need to remember them if she ever had another sad day with cruel and unkind words.  

After the embraced day, she stopped carrying around the Golden Turtle. She still has it and anyone who truly knows and loves her knows about it. But it’s never WHY they love her. In fact, her closest friends hardly ever mention it.

Gifted ones! Ones who have been given presents:  YOU ARE NOT YOUR GIFT! As absurd as it would have been for the girl from our story to introduce herself like this, “Hello, my name is Golden Turtle” it is just as absurd for us to present ourselves, in our hearts, like this, “Hi, I am Songwriting” or “Hello there, my name is Excellent Classical Guitarist.”  You are not songwriting! You are you! You are not Classical Guitarist! You are you! You are not poetry. You are not painting. You are not writing. You are not dance.

It has been one of the great struggles of my life not to use my giftings as a life raft or a giant people magnet when I am flailing for identity and wrestling with insecurity. Life is hard. Cruel words, rejection and discouragement will come. If my worth is tied to something I can produce, play, sing, imagine, paint or sculpt, then if I become unable, for any reason, to do those things, I am suddenly…worthless.

On the other hand, in an embraced state, I can learn to view myself as separate from anything I am gifted to do. Then, when I cannot do those gifty things or no one knows about my Golden Turtle or even notices that I have one, I still have worth. See the difference?

Don’t let brokenness of heart keep telling you that you ARE your gift. Life is too short to be a slave to that kind of a circus.

Shuffle toward your tender Father with your Golden Turtle tucked tight in your arms. Say everything you need to say and then let your gift fall to the floor.

Allow yourself to be loved for who you are.  Allow yourself to be loved for who you were before you showed any signs of great gifting, like when you were a newborn baby. You already carried other-worldly, intrinsic value and worth and you hadn’t even sung a note. Because you…are not your gift.