Parent-Child Rebalance: Out of chaos, order

[NOTE: This is a re-post of a May 11, 2010 entry to my former blog on Open Salon.]

The first person to post on the forum associated with my new book, Creative License: Summer Sermons on Torah and Living in Community, is my daughter.  As she commented on "Chaos," a view of B'reishit and t'shuvah (return),  I realized that there is nothing like being told by one's (adult) child that she is proud of you ... to make you feel you've accomplished something and to make you feel just a little old (like the roles have reversed). This, in large part, is how we find our order in chaos: by emerging from the chaotic nature of raising children, of clashing personalities, to the loving symmetry of taking pride in each other and each in oneself.