Category: vocation

stormy parenthood

I’ve been fortunate as a parent to have never felt competent. From the very beginning I have felt completely out of my league in both knowledge and skill, to say the least of experience. God threw me a curveball from my very first days of motherhood—and I thank Him for it. It brought me to my knees, and I haven’t risen up since.

Most recently, it has been my eldest son who has caused me the most befuddlement and angst (here, I call him Bear). The poor guy is utterly surrounded by women—he’s flanked by sisters, two elder and two younger. His younger brother is only now beginning to want to play and wrestle, but the 7-year age difference will require restraint on Bear’s part for a while. He’s ten years old, and around the same age and stage with his older sisters, I was equally befuddled because they started to change. It was like human plate tectonics—the hormones, the feelings, the body—everything starts to shift and adolescent natural disasters begin to avalanche. Sure, it’s frustrating and tiring, but most of all I begin to feel helpless. I want to help them through this trying stage, but it’s as though I have to get to know them all over again.

Recently, a friend from my parish wanted to get together with some other ladies and pray aloud for each other’s children. I had low expectations going into it, afraid it would be too like long days past at Quaker camp when we would all cry around a campfire while someone played worship songs. But it was surprisingly moving and powerful to listen to a friend pray out loud for my son, and petition God’s assistance in his life and mine as a parent.

In the weeks that followed, I noticed that when Bear had a blow-up or break-down, instead of reacting, somehow I didn’t. Somehow I remained calm. Somehow I listened. Somehow I tried to figure him out in that moment and do what was best for him. I could feel the grace of God in those moments, knew the words I was speaking weren’t my own. The confrontation would end and I would find myself shaking my head, kind of in awe of what just transpired.

Nothing’s permanently fixed, of course. From experience I know that soon we’ll pass through another confusing and trying stage of behavior. Parenting is forever clinging to a lifeboat at sea, constantly feeling out the movement of the ocean, riding each wave as it comes, learning some from experience, but relying mostly on grace.

St. Joseph, give me your silence

St. Joseph is a quiet saint. For my first several years as a Catholic, his March 19 feast day passed by without my acknowledgment. This wasn’t fair or just on my part because he’d definitely been around in my life. But, like Mary, his brief appearance in Scripture and near-silence left more to the imagination than I was ready to spend on him. Other male saints—like St. John the Apostle, St. Thomas More, St. Isaac Jogues—captured my attention with their accolades and heroism. St. Joseph was just too quiet to notice.

Yet, like Mary, Joseph’s silence in Scripture, coupled with His faithful obedience to God, offer rich food for meditation. As I grow more deeply in my own vocation—where I will not live a life of big heroics like John, Thomas, or Isaac, love them as I do—my attention has turned more and more towards the Holy Family to find the heart of this interior life that spends itself physically in the home, mostly unseen.

Of St. Joseph’s silence, Pope Benedict XVI wrote it is “a silence woven of constant prayer, a prayer of blessing of the Lord, of the adoration of his holy will and of unreserved entrustment to his providence.” In one homily I heard years ago at a local parish, the priest pointed out that Joseph was so prayerful, he could listen to God in his sleep. Pope Benedict XVI also wrote, “Let us allow ourselves to be ‘filled’ with St Joseph’s silence! In a world that is often too noisy, that encourages neither recollection nor listening to God’s voice, we are in such deep need of it.”

It’s so difficult to find actual, physical silence anywhere, particularly in a home. When I had my first baby, there was so much silence that it made me uncomfortable. Whenever she was asleep, I enjoyed the first several minutes of quiet, but wasn’t sure what to do with myself after that; I was so unaccustomed to silence that it made me agitated. Now, with so much to do and so much activity in the house, I would know exactly what to do with that hour of silence.

But there is a silence of the heart that I am praying for the grace to develop, that stillness spoken of in the psalms, the stillness that Jesus asked of the disciples on the stormy sea. Ideally, one would start the day with prayer or Mass, and I used to have such high expectations—a Rosary! Liturgy of the Hours! Wake-up at 4:00 and pray on my knees! Yeah, that never happened. I have settled for a brief morning offering. It orients my heart and mind towards God in a simple, straightforward moment. Evening prayer has gone the same way: I’ve settled for a brief examination, a brief list of gratitude—and honestly, sometimes it’s just a “Glory Be” beside my bed before collapsing. 

It’s the middle of the day that needs so much work. When life doesn’t happen the way I want it to, even simple daily tasks, I get agitated and that stillness is disrupted: if I don’t eat breakfast soon enough, if I have to clean up spilt milky cereal, if my little ones won’t occupy themselves long enough for me to help another child with division, if my toddler is screaming for food while I’m making dinner… the list is generous. If I fail to pray throughout the day—and these are little prayers, little cries and thank-you’s to God—then I grow more and more disgruntled and agitated, and instead of silence, I have a litany of complaints turning over in my head.

The Holy Family couldn’t have been without those daily annoyances. As a carpenter, Joseph must have dealt with the messy business of getting paid, jobs taking longer than anticipated, dissatisfied customers. And like every family, I’m sure they dealt with not having enough food on the table, illness, the circulating village gossip. But they weren’t somber puritans either—they were friendly, generous neighbors who partook in the feasts and festivals of the year. I’m certain they danced. Yet, in all this, they maintained peace and a still readiness before God. I hunger and pray for that.

Lenten Traditions: Food

Over the years, our family has developed Lenten traditions. Some of those have to do with food, which may sound strange since it’s Lent, but even fasting should have an element of beauty and joy to it. I’m not an adventurous cook, so I won’t make a habit of talking about me in a kitchen, but these are worth sharing:

The Redwall Cookbook

A few of our kids (and my husband) love the Redwall series by Brian Jaques, stories about rodent-monks in a medieval setting. And, lucky for us, there is a Redwall cookbook, and it’s all vegetarian. “Stones Inna Swamp” sounds a lot more delectable to kids than vegetable soup with dumplings. It always cracks me up to see them get excited about food they would otherwise roll their eyes at. There are little stories to accompany some of the recipes, and the illustrations are very well done, reminiscent of Beatrix Potter.

Red Lentil Soup

For the first several years of marriage, meals during Lenten fasting days consisted primarily of variations on bread and cheese. The first time I tried making soup, for some reason I thought I could wing it, but it was pretty bad (let’s just say I put the “lent” back into lentil soup). I went hunting for recipes and found one that has officially become a tradition: Red Lentil Soup, with manchego cheese on the side (a creamy sheep cheese from Spain, sooo goooood). For a small meal on a day of fasting, it’s satisfying.

Lenten Scones

Several years ago, when I had three children under four, I had just quit teaching and was a full-time at-home parent. I easily grew listless at home; I had no at-home hobbies, and sometimes the hours seemed to creep on by. My saving grace was a handful of friends I had in the area who, I’m fairly certain, felt similarly. We all came together for company and friendship for both ourselves and our children.

I remember one particular day in March when I needed it more than usual. March is often a difficult month in the Pacific Northwest—lots of gray skies and rain. It’s easy to get stir-crazy. Plus, it’s Lent, so you’re often left without those stand-by pick-me-ups like coffee or chocolate. A friend of mine called me up and invited me over. I remember sitting down at her table, and taking a deep breath, relieved to have my kids occupied with her kids. She set down a steaming cup of tea and a scone in front of me.

There was a story behind this scone, which she called a “Lenten scone” (and it looked very Lenten—lumpy with oats and raisins). She had received the recipe from a family friend in her hometown. Whenever she made these scones—and only during Lent—it reminded her of her home 2,000 miles away and the family whose company she sacrificed for the sake of her new family.

Perhaps the reason I like making these scones is that it reminds me of my friend—and not just that particular friend, who is still dear to me, but for that group of young women who were friends at just such a time. It reminds me of those days of early motherhood that felt Lenten in their sacrifices and self-surrender as I struggled to navigate a life that was no longer about me. I’m still figuring that out, of course, still struggling with it, but those early days were more difficult in their newness.

I make these scones for Ash Wednesday, then for every Friday during Lent. They’re definitely Lenten, but also delicious and weighty. With a side of cheese and carrot sticks, I count them as a small Lenten meal on a fasting day. If you try them out, share them with a friend to keep up the tradition! (And my family is gluten-free, so I just use 1-to-1 gluten-free flour substitution, as well as gluten-free oats. And I’ve substituted buttermilk for cashew milk which works pretty well.)

Ingredients

  • 2-3 tbs. sugar (quantity of tbs. sugar = how Lenten do you want to get?)
  • 1 1/4 cup. flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • dash of salt
  • 1 cup oats
  • 1/3 cup raisins or currants
  • 4 tbs. butter
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk

Directions

  • Combine: 2-3 tbs. sugar, 1 ¼ cup flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. baking soda, dash of salt
  • Stir in 1 cup oats and 1/3 cup raisins or currants
  • Cut in 4 tbs. butter
  • Work in with a fork 1/3 cup buttermilk
  • Press onto a cutting board or counter and cut into squares, or form into a circle and cut into triangles.
  • Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 20 minutes

Christ must increase, and I must decrease… in body fat…

The other day I went to the local coffee shop to buy hot chocolates for my kids; it’d been a rough week at home, the cold weather had limited our activities, and with Lent around the corner I figured a little mini-mardi-gras pick-me-up was in order. As I stood waiting for six hot chocolates, the barista struck up a conversation. Ordering six of anything usually leads to a conversation. She wanted to know what the occasion was, and I explained that since Lent was coming soon, this was our last hot-chocolate-hurrah of the season. She seemed familiar with the idea of Lent and asked about what we do.

“Individually we all give up or do certain things,” I replied, “but as a family we give up dessert.” (And if you know our family, dessert is a major sacrifice. One eats dinner in order to have dessert.)

The barista’s face lit up. “What a great idea! Lose all that Christmas weight!”

I laughed awkwardly, and didn’t say much more. I figured a crowded coffee shop wasn’t the best place to go into the true purpose of Lent. But her response is not altogether unreasonable. In our culture, we give up food to lose weight. When I found out I was gluten-intolerant, I was surprised at how many people were interested in my gluten-free diet, said they were “trying it out”, like it was another diet fad. Besides the fact that a lot of gluten-free bread is made of starch and has very little fiber, it generally doesn’t taste good—why would someone willfully subject themselves to that? I had to explain that I was gluten-free, not by choice, but because gluten made me physically ill. Fasting, without the primary goal of losing weight, is non-comprehensible to many people.

This non-comprehension is something I’m definitely familiar with, and it’s related to why I don’t fast. I fast according to what the Church instructs, the small meals on meatless Fridays, and I find that doing this as a family increases its meaning as we all ponder our gratitude, or lack thereof, for having more than enough. But for the first several years I was Catholic, I tried to fast on top of that, fairly ambitious with new-convert zeal and enthusiasm, but I failed miserably. I got to the point where I dreaded Lent, associating it with failure and discouragement, with old wounds re-opened.

When I was a teenager, like many teenage girls, I struggled with self-image and a borderline eating disorder. When I started to pursue a career in acting, it only heightened. I remember a fellow actor during a lunch break look at my food and laugh, “Rabbit food again?” I’m from a line of sturdy-built farm women, so I had to nearly starve myself and exercise like a crazy person to achieve a slimmer side of curvy, but it was never slim enough. This lifestyle of mine, which had its roots in other issues, was wholly unhealthy not just for my body, but for my mind and spirit as well. That was a long time ago now, yet I still have a hard time disassociating those unhealthy dieting habits from fasting.

It took me a long time to learn that food is not the only thing one can fast from. It seemed like the most ascetic choice, maybe in my mind that meant holier. But if the point is to grow spiritually, I would have to choose a form of self-denial that would truly bear fruit.

In an interview about the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa spoke about how difficult it can be for young postulants to adjust to their new life in the order. Some, she said, have “more” to give up than others. For example, one postulant had been used to ice cream every night after dinner, and later admitted to Mother Teresa that it had been very difficult to give it up, even to suffer the memory of it. In my own lack of charity, I imagine that Mother Teresa, who was daily face-to-face with poverty, hunger, and death, would have heard that and scoffed. But no, Mother Teresa, in her great charity, understood the degree of sacrifice the young woman had made, instead of focusing on the thing she sacrificed.

I’ve borne many frustrating Lents, at the end of which I feel discouraged and not at all prayerful. Maybe someday I’ll be mature enough to fast prayerfully. But for us modern Americans with shame-faced first-world problems, there are lots of fruit-bearing forms of self-denial: abstaining from television, Facebook, and frivolous googl’ing; waking up early, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, daily reading the Bible; picking up after people without complaint, bearing toddler tantrums with patience, you get the idea—these are difficult (embarrassing as that is). Lent is about self-denial, but the kind of self-denial that will bear fruit; self-denial that will allow us to decrease so that Christ may increase.

daffodils mid-winter

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we just got hit with a surprise February snowstorm. My first thought was for our flower garden. Because of some previous irregularly warmer winter days and sun (which I welcomed eagerly), the daffodils had emerged from the wintry mud at the close of the Christmas season. I knew there would be a chance of frost, but never did I imagine snow and ice in February. I figured the flowers were goners.

I have planted bulbs everywhere we’ve lived (and we’ve moved quite a bit). At first, I favored tulips, with their thick, sturdy stems and bold-hued petals against the gray of late winter. It was my husband who requested daffodils. I think they had made an impression on him during his time in England; we have a photograph of a certain field of bright yellow daffodils in the midst of the gray English sky and gray, stone ruins. When we finally bought a house and felt we had settled for a while, I planted several daffodils.

Daffodils seem delicate, compared to other spring bulbs: their stems and leaves are thinner and the petals are paper-thin. Yet the bloom has a curious shape, the kind that inspires one to ponder a Creator. A sculptor could perhaps make a single one, but for thousands to grow year after year and look just as intricate each time is a marvel. And while I love the bold-colored hues of tulips and the pastels of hyacinths, the daffodil is a beacon of light in a dreary part of winter, a snapshot of nature’s beauty and grandeur.

My favorite character of daffodils is their resilience. As this recent snowfall melted, those optimistic daffodils that had sprung too soon were still there, bent over a bit by the weight of the ice. Now the tulips are quickly following suit, and I expect will bloom in a few weeks, in spite of this cold front. When the sun does peak out during this rainy season, the daffodil will lift her head and follow that light. Even though she grows in a darker time, she loves the light. Her life is brief, but radiant.

I’ve definitely been in a funk, a minor depression, the blues, you know. There’s no rational cause or real worry, and it’s not unusual for me this time of year. There are always going to be things around me, whether it’s with family, friends, church, or politics that feel like a debilitating frost over my psyche, over my heart, over my ability to love, hope, and have faith. I absorb the gray around me. These resilient flowers of mid-winter by virtue of their existence glorify their Creator. For we humans, it is an act of the will to turn our face upwards, to orient our lives towards the source of light and warmth. The hope is that we Christians will, as St. Gianna Molla said, be “living examples of the beauty and grandeur of Christianity”: noticeable, resilient, even stubbornly growing, organisms of beauty, standing out against the gray, testifying to the light.

God knows I am not good at that; I like to sit in the mud and say, “Look at all this mud. It’s gross. That sucks.” It seems to be the small things, things that are easily overlooked or forgotten, easily trampled underfoot, that remind me to look upwards. The daffodil is certainly one, a herald of hope for the spring to come.

daffodils in Oxford

the sending forth

One of my daughters, whom I call Little Bird here, is in the process of applying to a summer program. She is so excited about the possibility; it’s in an area she has a great deal of interest and will prepare her for what she would like to study. I am excited for her—even just for a chance to practice applications and interviews, which are a skill in and of themselves. Underneath the surface, I think we’re both excited about it as a step into young adulthood: she, ready for more freedom and individuality, and I, to watch her do what I’ve been preparing her for, with a healthy degree of anxiety. And like everything has been with this first child, it reminds me that we’re about to do this several more times with our subsequent children.

I sense we are at the beginning of the sending-forth. Little Bird will be in high school next fall; it feels like the tide is going out, and we’re about to watch her set out with it. I know we’ve got a few years, but I also know it’s going to go by quickly. It’s an exciting time as she begins to think about her high school years in context of what will happen afterwards—colleges, degrees, programs, travel, vocation, etc.

It’s like a curtain has been pulled back, only slightly, not enough to see details, but enough to see that there’s a lot behind that curtain, a lot of life where her dad and I won’t be with her. This is as it should be. But with that comes so many unknowns. When I was a teenager, I saw how my parents, who had grown up in the wild and free ‘60’s, looked at the world I was growing into with confusion. And now I am looking at the world my children are growing into with a similar feeling. I can’t possibly prepare them for everything that will come their way. My job has been—and is—to give them the resources so they know how and where to look for the answers, God help me.

This is where it gets real. She’s about to embark on the part of her life that she will actually remember. Her years with me under this roof will be a blur in a decade or so, though it will always be her foundation. I am suddenly standing still—looking ahead, and looking behind—reflective about the past and prayerful about the future; I am aware that there have been victories and failures as I have reared this child, this firstborn who taught me how to be a mother. I am aware of the grace that is paramount in parenting, and the knowledge that she has always been God’s girl first. I am keenly aware that she was born for such a time as this, and goes nowhere alone.

baby Jesus in the mess

We bought a Nativity set that little hands could touch without us worrying about pieces breaking. We like to keep it up through the Feast of the Presentation, February 2. What I love about the Fontanini set is that it’s resin so it has not broken (yet), and it’s quite extensive, so we’ve been adding to it through the years, acquiring a new little piece each Christmas season.

Our first several children were very traditional in their arrangements, and would come by and rearrange the last child’s set-up (which led to a few scuffles). But our youngest (I call him Buck here) has been a bit more creative, even adding a John Deere tractor. Since the new year, I’ve been finding it like this:

Yes, baby Jesus is at the bottom of a scrum. And during evening prayer, he will often go re-arrange it, lining them all up, or putting a cat in the manger with Jesus.

It reminded me of why I am writing this blog. We all want our families and homes to look like the first photo: all put together in the right place, peaceful, holy. But we all know the reality of Jesus’ birth, that he was born in the stinky muck of a stable. And we don’t do our friends (or our ourselves) any favors to pretend. Sometimes, and maybe even more often than not, our homes look like the bottom photo, jumbled together, one hot mess. But Jesus is there, in the midst. His presence in the mess is what makes our homes holy.

the January blues

It was a relief to leave the hospital after having a baby (except the first time, I was mostly shocked that those professionals were sending me home with a new human). I was anxious to get through the transition of having a new baby, which I could only really start in our own home. But there was also a sense of dread as I anticipated the sleepless nights, aching body and breasts. And there’s the actual, clinical sense of dread that accompanies anxiety and depression, the onset of which I always felt as I crossed the threshold from the sliding doors of the hospital into the parking lot. I didn’t want to go back, but I didn’t really want to go forward.

The same kind of feeling, though not as strong and over-powering, comes over me in January. Christ has been born, the shepherds and wise men have dispersed, now the gifts are safely in the care of a little family fleeing for their lives into Egypt. It’s as though my heart is with the Holy Family as they transition from the stable, only they have something real to dread (which they probably didn’t, because they were, you know, holy, and totally trusted in God’s providence). My sense of dread isn’t for something real, like a madman hunting me down (like, Herod); it can probably be explained away with chemical mis-firings in the brain, hormones, or whatever. A piece of it is probably the shorter days, less light and a lot less sun. Maybe it’s the let-down of an exciting Christmas season—joy and stress jumbled together in my mom-brain.

And so the new year looms before me, a stranger: another adventure to live, joys to experience, sorrows to bear, laughter to hear, tears to shed, piles of laundry, loads of dishes, meals to cook, new shoes and coats to buy as those humans keep growing. There are people who are blessed with optimism and are able to look ahead at a strange new world with energy and excitement; I’m just one of those other kinds of people who looks ahead and thinks to herself, Steady the buffs, old girl. I think it’s something like, Hey, didn’t we just wrap up 2018? as though there should be an interim period of nothing-year where time stands still and no one has to do laundry.

In the meantime, regular exercise (or, irregular also has to work) getting a few precious quiet moments to think, the Sacraments, some great reads, old and new tunes, as well as a healthy diet (plus chocolate) all help with the chemical mis-firings and anxiety levels. And putting the year in perspective. (Also, it doesn’t hurt to chase a capsule of Vitamin D with a shot of whiskey.)