I Try. I Cry. I Try Again.

I love Facebook. I love my FBriends. They bring me laughter, tears of gratitude and tenderness, world news, quirky POVs, and vast piles of information at varying levels of believability and evidence. Most importantly, they inspire me when they share the words and images that have touched their spirits with wonder.

One of my FBriends from here in the St. Louis area just posted a little video, which you can watch at www.fungifilm.com ... and I recommend that you do.  It's a beautiful piece of art and also a cogent, compelling, spiritual case for understanding our planet and taking better care of her. The gentleman on screen said something that inspired me and launched me into some work on my Childhood Treasure of Faith.

As I listened to the bearded fungi-lover, I immediately edited his words in my mind, to, "If I die [working on it] and I'm inadequate to the task [of changing the way we treat children in America], okay, I tried. Fact is, I tried."

What he calls a "task," I see as a  Big Dream.

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A Big Dream is a lifelong quest to make the world a little better, to change it in a way that will have big and positive consequences for many. His Big Dream is planet-healing, mine is human-healing. We both were hard-wired from birth, as were you, for the capacity to dream big dreams--to birth visionary, world-changing, lifelong missions of passion, and to strive for their achievement.

And in our third year of life, when the window to develop the Childhood Treasure of Faith opened for each of us, the adults in our lives either helped us believe in our ability to change the world or they damaged that belief--a little or a lot. The latter probably not on purpose; parents usually do the best they can with what they know. Your parents either fostered hope and affirmed the power of applying energy and intellect to a cause, or they quashed aspiration with cynicism, and taught you that your personal, individual power is not capable of significant impact.

What did you learn? When your little self said you wanted to fly to the moon, grow up to be president, invent a cure for the common cold, build a talking robot, or whatever was your Big Dream as a young preschooler, what did you hear from those you loved and looked to for leadership and support? Did you hear:

• You can do anything to which you put your mind. (Yes, I am a grammarian, as was my mother!)
• That will never happen.
• What can I do to help you achieve that?
• You can't do that!
• Oh, that's a FABulous idea! You go, girl!!
• Oh, honey, you're too [NAME FORM OF LIMITATION] to do that.

Some of you heard versions of what Aibileen, in The Help, says to the little toddler of her white employer, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." Some of us did not. And yes, our parents loved us all. But some of our parents could not share hope and a sense of personal effectiveness with us because they did not have a reservoir within, from which to pour out that support for us. Parents whose Big Dreams were quashed when they were three may never have mined their Childhood Treasure of Faith and, so, have no capacity to lift up a child's hopes.

And it's never too late to learn. You can't force your parents to do the work of mining their Childhood Treasures but you can end the generational transmission of dream-quashing with your own work, no matter your age. If you want to be the wings beneath the Big Dreams of young children in your life, then foster your own capacity for Faith. The Childhood Treasure of Faith as the ability to believe in something impossible, something beyond your ability to understand. That Faith may be religious or spiritual in nature and it can encompass more. It includes belief in an impossible purpose for your life, a Big Dream to change some small corner of the world.

In this sample exercise from my web site, you can take five steps toward establishing a Big Dream for your life and writing the story of how you bring that dream into reality. At the end of the exercise, you will find samples of Stories of Faith, contributed by participants in my workshops. I hope you enjoy this work but, more importantly, I hope you start trying to achieve a Big Dream.

Give yourself permission to believe that you can do something that seems impossible ... and see how far you can go! Truly, the only limitations are the ones inside our minds.

Now you know my Big Dream: to change the way we treat children in America. I normally reject "trying," on the grounds that it is insufficient. I follow the Yoda teaching, "Try not. Do ... or do not. There is no try." In the case of a Big Dream, though, trying IS doing.

A Big Dream calls to us to keep pushing toward a goal that may take many people many lifetimes to achieve. Sometimes I march resolutely forward, taking action, making a difference. Sometimes I fall down, I cry, I experience bouts of self-doubt and feel certain that I cannot make a difference. I watch too much Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and I begin to believe that the size of our country's child maltreatment problem is too big. I think I can't make a dent in how unthinkably awful it is for so many kids.

So far, I keep getting back up and trying again.

I believed I have changed the way some people treat some children in America today. And I am not satisfied with my efforts. There is still too much unconscious, easy-to-prevent damage to children. I'm continuing to try, working toward smaller goals like finishing a book about the 7 Childhood Treasures.

And "If I die trying and I'm inadequate to the task ..., okay, I tried. Fact is, I tried."

"How many are not trying?" continued the fungi expert in the artful, planet-saving video I watched on Facebook. How many of you are not trying?

I invite you.... I urge you.... Try. Try Again. Skip the crying, whenever you can. And keep trying. Only by fostering our own Faith will we be able to foster it in others.