All I can say is--heaven!!
Thank you, Kimmy, for bringing us here!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Daughter of God
In the past 2 days I have heard reference to 5 people in my family being "geniuses." That's a heck of a lot of geniuses.
Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. But I get a little unsettled, thinking, "Am I the only lame-O, non-genius in my family!??" I get this same unsettled feeling when I hear gushing reports about how people in my family are saving the world, saving the people in the world, or ending poverty/discrimination/hardship etc. in the world. It's hard for me to stay steady--how is being a housewife and a mother measuring up in any significant way?
The truth is, I am a daughter of God. I once had a book with this as its title: "I am a Daughter of God." It was about Carmelite spirituality. I stared at the title on the spine of the book for a year. The title was enough for me! I did not even read the book! I began praying, becoming in my heart what I knew I was called to me--such a daughter, myself.
What the world needs is not a book or a DVD or a global forum or a talk show or money or a concept. What the world needs is DAUGHTERS and SONS of GOD: it needs people who are so filled with joy and contentment that they shine. It needs people who have learned to readily forgive. It needs people who know how to give when they will not receive anything back. It needs people who live their lives in communion with those close to them: daily life lived out hearing, responding, sharing, serving, laughing, relaxing, working together. This can happen in any living room, in any kitchen, and with anybody whom you happen to live.
Dignity in being loved and claimed by God, FORGIVENESS, and a joyful shared life: these are the ingredients to what I consider the most blessed life on earth. I am delighted that I feel called to one day achieving this blessedness. I believe that it is more powerful than a life of making books and DVD's and money and talk shows. Those books and DVD's and money and talk shows are trying to help people embrace their dignity, forgive or overcome hardships, and live well together. They are only valuable if they are working, and they are only working if they enable people to achieve this kind of blessedness.
I know that I am not a genius and that is okay with me. The real question, what is the life well lived--what is the BEST life? It is true that I choose housewifery and motherhood and friendship over working to end suffering on earth. I hope that in so doing, I can in my own particular way be a window through which peace and love and joy flood the world.
Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. But I get a little unsettled, thinking, "Am I the only lame-O, non-genius in my family!??" I get this same unsettled feeling when I hear gushing reports about how people in my family are saving the world, saving the people in the world, or ending poverty/discrimination/hardship etc. in the world. It's hard for me to stay steady--how is being a housewife and a mother measuring up in any significant way?
The truth is, I am a daughter of God. I once had a book with this as its title: "I am a Daughter of God." It was about Carmelite spirituality. I stared at the title on the spine of the book for a year. The title was enough for me! I did not even read the book! I began praying, becoming in my heart what I knew I was called to me--such a daughter, myself.
What the world needs is not a book or a DVD or a global forum or a talk show or money or a concept. What the world needs is DAUGHTERS and SONS of GOD: it needs people who are so filled with joy and contentment that they shine. It needs people who have learned to readily forgive. It needs people who know how to give when they will not receive anything back. It needs people who live their lives in communion with those close to them: daily life lived out hearing, responding, sharing, serving, laughing, relaxing, working together. This can happen in any living room, in any kitchen, and with anybody whom you happen to live.
Dignity in being loved and claimed by God, FORGIVENESS, and a joyful shared life: these are the ingredients to what I consider the most blessed life on earth. I am delighted that I feel called to one day achieving this blessedness. I believe that it is more powerful than a life of making books and DVD's and money and talk shows. Those books and DVD's and money and talk shows are trying to help people embrace their dignity, forgive or overcome hardships, and live well together. They are only valuable if they are working, and they are only working if they enable people to achieve this kind of blessedness.
I know that I am not a genius and that is okay with me. The real question, what is the life well lived--what is the BEST life? It is true that I choose housewifery and motherhood and friendship over working to end suffering on earth. I hope that in so doing, I can in my own particular way be a window through which peace and love and joy flood the world.
Monday, June 27, 2011
favorite appoach
My favorite approach to hard people is: "Thank you God for this wonderful person! I love them, love them, love them! And, help me to pour mercy over the part of them that is not yet right." Enough prayer this way (sometimes, A LOT is needed) helps me not take the part that hurts personally. That helps me resolve my ambivalence: rather than having HALF a heart of mercy, God grants me a FULL heart.
Monday, June 20, 2011
marriage retreat
Ron and I are hosting our first ever marriage retreat in our home this weekend: Fri. and Sat. I did not think it would happen; I did not push it to happen. But a friend asked about the materials we had put together that I had previously mentioned, and one thing led to another, and voila! It has fallen in our laps, and Ron and I just look at each other in amazement. How did this happen? We are both looking forward to it, nevertheless!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
An insipid "Christianity"
There are 3 pillars of Christian faith--3 aspects that I think are essential to authentic life with God. In the early Church, for example, all 3 were understood as crucial for the Christian life.
A. Acceptance into the Family of God (separation from old ways and basking in the love of God and relishing being loved)
B. Embrace of the Cross
C. Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
In our culture today, we have a watered down Christianity, where only the first is dabbled in. Most Christians who leave the Church and most people who do not enter it in the first place do so because Christians are insipid in the living out of their faith--two thirds of what should be there is missing. They are seeing vice and sin and no real living out of the Cross and no real impact by the Spirit.
Christians get tripped up and stuck. We enter into the first vestibule, the adoption into the family of God. We like that—there is much to gain. In this vestibule, we lick our worldly wounds, we find reprieve from the sins of the world, we feel loved.
But inevitably, it is time to move onto the Cross. The time comes to learn about how to suffer and not retaliate, how to be falsely accused and not defend oneself, how to be deprived, and not insist on our own way. It is time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves for not getting what we want or think we deserve. It is time to find Christ in our lack, and be with Him there. It is time to give the world a gift in our suffering, as Christ offered His life for the sins of the world. We have to learn to be glad in our sufferings and act as priests who, by the power of God, transform humiliations, torture and death into dignity, joy and life.
Most people do not ever make this step. Again, it was requisite in the 2nd century. But today, it is considered beyond us. The powers of evil have so overtaken our culture that we cannot even see that we are supposed to be living with Christ’s cross. We are just mired down in anguish, sadness or despair.
Christians leave the faith because they wonder why life is so hard for them, why God is not rescuing them or sparing them. It is time for that person to learn to embrace the POWER of the Cross in his life. It is time to move into the second vestibule, the school of Christ's Cross, and learn to transform others and bring love and new life into the world by offering up suffering for the world.
Monday, June 13, 2011
To Catch a Fairy
The girls had their ballet performance, To Catch a Fairy! They were divine. Leigh was a Lilac fairy, Clare was an Iris fairy, and Mary was the Frost fairy.
Mary was the tiniest little soloist--all the others were in their teens. She shimmered and sparkled: she was so graceful. I had to pinch myself that this is her first year of ballet.
Leigh could not find the rhythm in her dance, but she waved to the audience with a wink and a smile, and everyone laughed.
When Clare was doing her number, she got mad that a girl dancing next to her made the wrong move. Clare angrily talked to the girl and pointed where she should be! Although some people might think this was the low point of the whole show, Clare happily announced to me afterwards that she was "helpful" to the other girls, reminding them of their dances! :)
Leigh could not find the rhythm in her dance, but she waved to the audience with a wink and a smile, and everyone laughed.
When Clare was doing her number, she got mad that a girl dancing next to her made the wrong move. Clare angrily talked to the girl and pointed where she should be! Although some people might think this was the low point of the whole show, Clare happily announced to me afterwards that she was "helpful" to the other girls, reminding them of their dances! :)
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
making PEOPLE
Where did our culture go so desperately wrong? I do not understand how motherhood has become so unimportant in the eyes of most people. I hear signs of its devaluation every day. Some are putting off having children as long as they possibly can; others are fearful of having more than two; still others are looking to farm out as much of the "dirty work" as they can afford from infancy through graduation day. Contrarily, mothers who are exclusively devoted to rearing their children are looked upon as having not enough to do, not thinking enough about societal contribution, or being overly possessive of their children.
These ideas all trace back to one belief: motherhood is an unexceptional calling. This could not be further from the truth. What do I do all day long? I make people. Other people make cars, or houses, or shoes, or airplanes. Some people make money, or make laws, or make changes in laws. Some people make changes in people's health or changes in people's fitness.
But I make people. I give my body to be the environment in which growth occurs until a living, breathing person is ready to enter the world. I do not do all the work of making this person--God, nature and my husband play their roles too. But ask any mother how exhausting and all-encompassing of a job it is to be pregnant. It is a full time job.
Then, childbirth is a lifetime accomplishment. When done prayerfully and lovingly, the mother's spirit is closer to God in those hours than perhaps any human being's ever is, except, I believe, in the event of martyrdom.
Then in the next minutes and hours, and then days and weeks and months, the mother engages in the crafting of the human being. The baby needs to sleep, and yet mothers need to help the child find sleep by rocking the baby and helping her drift off (why can't babies do this on their own?). The baby needs to eat, and yet the mother needs to provide the food. Often, she generates the food with her own body, and she administers it to the baby (why can't the baby feed herself?). Babies need their mothers to teach them order, calm, and tenderness (why do babies take on and imitate their environment?). Babies need their mothers to teach them that they are loved (why don't we come into the world with an automatic sense of self-worth?). A child's self-worth is not fully set until she is an adult. Even then, it can still be reshaped. Why are we so vulnerable to the information our parents and others give us? Why are we such wholly dependent creatures? Other animals are not. Humans are distinct in their radical vulnerability.
This vulnerability is correlated to the high calling of motherhood. A culture can de-prioritize motherhood and send messages that other jobs are more important. But the baby's vulnerability does not go away. The baby is left in a lurch, with a mother who is trying to do something "really important," and the baby's needs are just getting unfulfilled.
I believe that there are other important jobs. Providing education of all kinds, teaching skills and trades of all kinds, making good laws, helping others to become healthy, or live in a healthier society, ending wars, avoiding divorce, resolving conflicts, reversing harm to people or the earth or the waters--there are many, many important jobs. I love these jobs and others like them, and I hope that my children will select jobs that have a high value. But it just makes sense to me that motherhood is among the highest. In order to have people to teach, in order to have people to run for office, or people to serve in office, there have to be people in the first place. Making people, and helping them to be well-functioning, well-adapted, empathetic, good-hearted, disciplined and compassionate, is the prior requisite. To make good laws is important; but to make people in the first place is of higher value. Not all women are called to motherhood; goodness knows I am aware of that, and wish that people who are not called to something would not pursue it.
But I dream of a world in which those who are called to motherhood would be delighted to receive the call, and would be surrounded by others cheering them on with awe and admiration, and that the future mothers would prepare themselves with all diligence and enthusiasm for this highest of vocations.
These ideas all trace back to one belief: motherhood is an unexceptional calling. This could not be further from the truth. What do I do all day long? I make people. Other people make cars, or houses, or shoes, or airplanes. Some people make money, or make laws, or make changes in laws. Some people make changes in people's health or changes in people's fitness.
But I make people. I give my body to be the environment in which growth occurs until a living, breathing person is ready to enter the world. I do not do all the work of making this person--God, nature and my husband play their roles too. But ask any mother how exhausting and all-encompassing of a job it is to be pregnant. It is a full time job.
Then, childbirth is a lifetime accomplishment. When done prayerfully and lovingly, the mother's spirit is closer to God in those hours than perhaps any human being's ever is, except, I believe, in the event of martyrdom.
Then in the next minutes and hours, and then days and weeks and months, the mother engages in the crafting of the human being. The baby needs to sleep, and yet mothers need to help the child find sleep by rocking the baby and helping her drift off (why can't babies do this on their own?). The baby needs to eat, and yet the mother needs to provide the food. Often, she generates the food with her own body, and she administers it to the baby (why can't the baby feed herself?). Babies need their mothers to teach them order, calm, and tenderness (why do babies take on and imitate their environment?). Babies need their mothers to teach them that they are loved (why don't we come into the world with an automatic sense of self-worth?). A child's self-worth is not fully set until she is an adult. Even then, it can still be reshaped. Why are we so vulnerable to the information our parents and others give us? Why are we such wholly dependent creatures? Other animals are not. Humans are distinct in their radical vulnerability.
This vulnerability is correlated to the high calling of motherhood. A culture can de-prioritize motherhood and send messages that other jobs are more important. But the baby's vulnerability does not go away. The baby is left in a lurch, with a mother who is trying to do something "really important," and the baby's needs are just getting unfulfilled.
I believe that there are other important jobs. Providing education of all kinds, teaching skills and trades of all kinds, making good laws, helping others to become healthy, or live in a healthier society, ending wars, avoiding divorce, resolving conflicts, reversing harm to people or the earth or the waters--there are many, many important jobs. I love these jobs and others like them, and I hope that my children will select jobs that have a high value. But it just makes sense to me that motherhood is among the highest. In order to have people to teach, in order to have people to run for office, or people to serve in office, there have to be people in the first place. Making people, and helping them to be well-functioning, well-adapted, empathetic, good-hearted, disciplined and compassionate, is the prior requisite. To make good laws is important; but to make people in the first place is of higher value. Not all women are called to motherhood; goodness knows I am aware of that, and wish that people who are not called to something would not pursue it.
But I dream of a world in which those who are called to motherhood would be delighted to receive the call, and would be surrounded by others cheering them on with awe and admiration, and that the future mothers would prepare themselves with all diligence and enthusiasm for this highest of vocations.
Friday, June 3, 2011
lessons learned
I was putting Annie down for a nap. We have a routine, but it was off. So I was trying to get back on track. She was fussing. Then screaming and writhing and fighting. I knew that if I could get through this episode in our normal pattern, then the next time would be that much easier. But it was painful. I could have just put her in her crib and let her cry it out. I could have taken her back downstairs and just lived without a nap. But I held her while she fought me. I spoke softly and rocked her and patter her back, while she screamed and scratched. Half an hour later, she fell asleep. As she drifted off, I watched her. She let me rock her, and she seemed to enjoy the caresses and tenderness.
Having a baby is the best spiritual training I have had. Better than books or adult examples or homilies, remaining tender to someone who is fighting you with all her might is a spiritual challenge. In the moment, it feels impossible. It also feels like the whole Gospel packed into one half hour. Giving what you do not have, giving gently and tenderly when being tortured with screaming and kicking, giving out of pure love for the one who is hurting you, and then love winning in the end--what more is there to say?
Having a baby is the best spiritual training I have had. Better than books or adult examples or homilies, remaining tender to someone who is fighting you with all her might is a spiritual challenge. In the moment, it feels impossible. It also feels like the whole Gospel packed into one half hour. Giving what you do not have, giving gently and tenderly when being tortured with screaming and kicking, giving out of pure love for the one who is hurting you, and then love winning in the end--what more is there to say?
Thursday, June 2, 2011
summer time together
Today I was reminded why I homeschool.
Jake asked to watch A Wrinkle in Time. I told him he needs to read the book first. He came back with the book on tape and said, "Would this count?" I happily consented. So he put it on in the kitchen. I was doing laundry. The girls wanted to hear. So Annie crawled around and played silently while we all listened to Madeleine L'Angle tell us the story. I am not sure why everyone was so cooperative. We have tried books on tape for years with only partial success. But today, everyone--even Annie--cooperated for an hour or more! We will hopefully get through it in a couple of days.
The rest of the day, we cleaned, organized, and just spent time together. For a summer day, and school out of session, you can still feel the homeschooling effects. There is just a different lifestyle. I am supremely aware of the video-watching/Cheeto-eating culture that is constantly knocking on our door. We have so far kept our door locked. The pay off? Quality time in the most authentic sense. It is wonderful for me to see us all relate to one another all day long. And love it.
Jake asked to watch A Wrinkle in Time. I told him he needs to read the book first. He came back with the book on tape and said, "Would this count?" I happily consented. So he put it on in the kitchen. I was doing laundry. The girls wanted to hear. So Annie crawled around and played silently while we all listened to Madeleine L'Angle tell us the story. I am not sure why everyone was so cooperative. We have tried books on tape for years with only partial success. But today, everyone--even Annie--cooperated for an hour or more! We will hopefully get through it in a couple of days.
The rest of the day, we cleaned, organized, and just spent time together. For a summer day, and school out of session, you can still feel the homeschooling effects. There is just a different lifestyle. I am supremely aware of the video-watching/Cheeto-eating culture that is constantly knocking on our door. We have so far kept our door locked. The pay off? Quality time in the most authentic sense. It is wonderful for me to see us all relate to one another all day long. And love it.
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