tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2519311780535266952024-03-05T03:15:10.367-08:00Mother. Artist. Pilgrim.Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-28297378437689986152024-01-28T12:31:00.000-08:002024-01-28T12:43:02.159-08:00Sitting in a Chair Watching Young People Do Things<p>I am at a stage of life where you sit in a chair and watch young people do things, like volleyball, basketball, soccer, presentations, plays, student Q&A panels at prospective universities. As I carry on this sedentary activity, I find myself returning in my mind again and again to a certain genre of thoughts. It’s this one room in my mind that is full of poignance and a sense of the passage of time. I sit there spectating and ruminating. There is a sweetness to it, like listening to the sweet sad songs of ruined troubadours. But I am reaching a point of saturation. I need to shake it off and maybe go do something myself. </p><p>I signed up to run in the beerlay, if that counts, where you chug a beer immediately before running a two-mile leg of an eight-mile relay. A huge group from our parish is participating. I’m on a team of four. Goodness, I hope they are as out of shape as I am. </p><p>I signed all my kids up, too. (The kids chug soda.) We came up with names for their teams: Underage Running, The Soda Creeps (David’s brainchild; he’s nine), and, my personal favorite, Pints With Pheidippides (Thank you, Classical Education.) </p><p>One evening last week, my tweenage daughter Carolina wheedled a couple of us out the door for a training run, and two others ended up following. I told them repeatedly not to wake the neighbors as the five of us spilled into the neighborhood. It was 10pm. The air was crisp, and I breathed it in with relish. The first part of the run was downhill to the bottom of the cul de sac. Carolina told me she was my coach and to not stop running on the way back up the hill. Then we walked across the front of the neighborhood where it opens onto the main road and did ten jumping jacks. Then we walked to the speed limit sign and sprinted back to our driveway. We did all that twice. Then my coach said we were going to do it twice more to make a mile. </p><p>I said, “Oh Carolina, why? It’s late. You have school tomorrow.” </p><p>She said, “Come on. Then you can brag to all your friends that you ran a mile…but don’t get vain…though I don’t think you can be vain about that.”</p><p>I did what she said, a little lamb in the hands of my eleven-year-old, cooperating, without the will, or maybe the energy, to fight it. It was easier just to run along beside her, (though I was informed it might not be considered “running” since she could walk as fast or faster, which she demonstrated.)</p><p>My thoughts went to a different place, as well. I felt the melancholy trailing out behind me, and in its place, inside my heart, was a wholesome gladness to be surrounded by such winsome young creatures rising up to take their place in the world. I had a sense as I ran behind them of the goodness of things as they are, the irrepressible goodness of nature growing up wild and abundant. I guess I just needed a different vantage point.</p>Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-11875489773835921992024-01-28T12:03:00.000-08:002024-02-17T13:13:41.831-08:00A New Place<p>I think I see that fertility lasts about the right amount of time. There is wisdom in the design. At a certain point, you are so tired you start to think, “It’s ok. It can go.” You begin to entertain the idea that this set of downy little cheeks puffing out sweet breaths on the pillow beside you is the last set. I suppose eventually you begin to writhe less at what you see looking back at you in the mirror. The softness on which they laid their heads is sweet, but its going starts to be less terrifying and heart-breaking. Because going on like this becomes less and less feasible. </p><p>I can see that someone could feel this way. I myself am still holding onto a name we might call our next baby, if he comes, (or she, in which case we’ll need a different name.) But I’m stubborn. It won’t be too much longer for me, and I’ll let go. It won’t be bad to let myself fall, drifting down into a new and unknown place, like my friend who stopped coloring her hair. “It’s not bad to be old,” she said.</p><p>I see the auburn in her hair gradually fading, fading, and I see her children and their vibrancy growing, growing. It’s odd that, sinking down as she lifts them up, she seems to grow more beautiful. I’m pretty sure she’ll end up so beautiful people will want to live in her heart. </p>Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-35678744026950370542023-09-13T20:38:00.002-07:002023-09-14T21:59:08.526-07:00A Profound Kind of Tired<p> I don’t know if I’m going to make it. It could be early onset dementia or something wrong with my thyroid or that Lyme disease I was diagnosed with finally expressing itself or the effects of 5G. I can’t think of words. I’ll be in the middle of a conversation and mid-sentence my brain will be wiped clean. It’s so frustrating! I worry my mind is going. </p><p>But then there are the hot flashes, and my hair is falling out. It’s gotten hard to keep weight off. My patience is thin. My periods are becoming irregular, and I’ve got an inexplicable UTI. </p><p>I don’t think it’s dementia. I think I’m beginning to go through what a girl goes through on the other end of the spectrum from adolescence. I became a woman, like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. Now I’m becoming…whatever a woman becomes after that. Last night, a typical night, I fell asleep with my two-year-old, whom I’m still nursing, crept sometime past midnight into my own bed only to wake up around four to clean up an accident and welcome the four-year-old culprit in beside me. I’m imbibing a perimenopausal-sleep deprivation cocktail. We snoozed together on the pillow in warm proximity.</p><p>I have eight children! I can’t believe it. They just came, one after the other at the (I found sustainable) pace of twenty-something months apart. I had my first when I was almost 29. And now here I am, having been running this marathon for seventeen years. Solid little baby flesh in my arms, at my breast, in my space, mewing, screeching, squealing, screaming, laughing, yelling, running, climbing, tumbling all around me, all this time, without a stop, and every twenty-something months, a new one came, solid and warm on my chest. Always before, when I had a two-year-old, I was expecting the next one, or already had her (or him.) Here I am with a two-year-old but not expecting. It’s possible I won’t expect a new one again. I do see my reflection in the mirror, tired breasts, soft belly, whiteness around my temples, age spots in my hairline. I see what a woman becomes when she’s done being the thing she turned into. She becomes an old woman.</p><p>I’m not ready. There is still softness in this bosom. There is still beauty on these cheeks, there beside the eyes, when I turn my face to the side. There is still some sap in the tree. I would welcome another little one with ecstatic joy. What divine largesse to be given nine. But there are grooves on my face that never disappear, and the skin is loose on my neck. I’m creeping up to bed now. Number eight is emitting sweet breaths on her pillow, and number seven has her pull-up on. I’ll try to get some sleep. The marathon is far from over, anyway.</p>Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-67489814988403209502023-09-08T07:27:00.001-07:002023-09-13T21:13:15.716-07:00SummerApril 2011:<br />
<br />
The time of year about which I meant to write is already over - those few weeks in Florida when the temperature outside is 70 degrees and everything is surrounded by a glow of perfection. I go around saying to myself, "This is why people live here." Now we're in the sweaty season, which will last half the year. The temperature was up to 85 starting last week, and I just stayed inside, for plenty of reasons - the baby needs to eat, I need to do the dishes. But two weeks ago, I would have spread a blanket in the shade of the ligustrum and fed the baby in his Bumbo Seat. Then I would have given him a twig or a few leaves to play with and laid back and looked at the sky while the girls chased each other round and round on the trampoline, the breeze languidly lifting the tendrils of my hair. The weather was so gracious, this could have occupied us for an hour or even two. At our old house, this idyll was called "Hammock Time” and was spent swinging between two mighty oaks in the backyard. Now the tendrils of my hair are plastered to the sides of my face with perspiration. It’s “Pool Time.” Happily, we have one, even though we had to trade in our hammock for it last year when we moved. Floridians hibernate around now. At least having a pool gives us a reason to go outside. I guess I will. All things come to an end. I walk out the door into a wall of heat. It lies on my skin like a weighted blanket hot and damp from the dryer. To tell the truth, it doesn’t really feel that bad, at first. I’m catching little hints, too, on the air of a delightful fragrance. Such sweetness! I breathe it and breathe it. Where is it coming from? Oh yes, the ligustrum is blooming. It always surprises me. What a sweet perfume can come from such unobtrusive little white flowers. <div><br /><div>Girls, get your suits on. </div></div>Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-84674215050232800892023-09-07T22:33:00.007-07:002023-09-08T07:30:03.535-07:00Hi Again<p>I found my blog. I haven’t really been here in so long. I stayed up til two in the morning last night reading every entry. I wanted more. I started reading all the drafts I have written but never posted. There are about a hundred. </p><p>Because I had been away, it was like having someone explain myself and my life to me as if I were another person, and I didn’t find that person nearly as treacherous as I did when I first wrote all these words about her and curated them so astringently, in fear of her embarrassing me. Why would I be embarrassed by her? She’s human. (“Mortal, fleshly, vulnerable, fallible, forgivable” -thesaurus.com) </p><p>The past few years, I cringed whenever I remembered all these inner thoughts hanging out here on the internet for anyone to see, but I had no time to get my mind around what I wanted to do about them. Sort of like with all the homebirth pictures in my iPhoto archives, they have just stayed hanging around in this out-of-the-way corner of the internet. I don’t expect there’s been much traffic. </p><p>I think it’s good to be circumspect about how much to reveal, and it is good to ask myself who among my relatives and friends and distant acquaintances might be accessing this blog and reading about my inner thoughts and my family. We mustn’t cast our pearls before swine, as they say.</p><p>But at the same time, I have this urge to bring my treasures out, the old with the new, and lay them before you, standing here all crumbly, exposing myself, knowing you can reject me. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-87078188429716316042023-09-06T22:11:00.002-07:002023-09-06T22:14:31.601-07:00Pantocrator2/9/2013:<br />
<br />
I love the icons up front on the <a href="http://www.iconsexplained.com/iec/lib/05279_iconostasis_stsergius.htm">iconostasis</a> at the Eastern Orthodox church. (I know I said we were becoming Catholic, but this journey keeps taking interesting turns. I'm not sure when it will be over.) To the right is Christ <a href="http://thesaurostesekklesias.blogspot.com/2011/09/iconic-icons-pantocrator.html">Pantocrator</a>, Ruler of All Things, haloed in gold and grim-visaged above his fingers crooked in blessing, more severe than you might expect Jesus to look. I admit I didn't get warm fuzzies the first time I saw him. And to the left is his mother. Called the <a href="http://orthodoxwiki.org/Theotokos">Theotokos</a>, the God-Bearer, she is not a soft, glowy, pretty young thing, yet something in her gaze surpasses mere appeal - truth, and sorrow. But it is the gold my eyes return to, again and again, the gold of their halos, the gold that surrounds them. Something weighty is there, hefty as an anchor, mooring my soul. The incense, the standing (standing as in there are no chairs, standing as in the whole time), the chant, the reverence settles deep in me like solid food, like sustenance. I didn't know I was so hungry for holiness.<br />
<br />
Orthodox people - or, let me say, Western Orthodox converts - talk a lot about who's right, about correctness in worship. Not everyone does, but you run into plenty who are dismissive of the "west" and who call Catholics <i>and </i>Protestants heretics. It's a long story that goes back to the East-West Schism of the Church, circa 1054. There are definite differences between Eastern and Western ways of thinking; I think everyone knows that. But (as the conservative Orthodox see it) has Western Christianity fallen off the mark, starting with the assertion of papal authority and devolving from there into strange additions to tradition like Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception, rebellion against that authority and then rebellion after rebellion over differing interpretations of Scripture that has left us a Church splintered into thousands of denominations? Or, as the more liberal or lenient of the Orthodox say, are the West and East like two lungs in the same body - i.e. they are different, but you need them both? Is it a matter of deciding which tradition fits us best? Or has the Orthodox Church truly guarded the fullness of the faith and it cannot be found anywhere else? If it can't be found anywhere else, there is only one answer: I want to be Orthodox. But the question is - are they overlooking something? You can be absolutely correct and still be wrong, if you don't have love. And, I'm not saying I haven't experienced love in the Orthodox Church, but there seems to be a bit of a spirit of scruple sometimes. They say it doesn't matter if your kids are lying on the floor, but then they say, just make sure they stand up for the Our Father and the Great Entrance. They say there is grace for all you don't know yet and aren't able to do yet, but your kids shouldn't be coloring in church. Do you see how there is some inconsistency here? But of course, if it's just individual people with that attitude it doesn't matter. There's only one Person we're there for. <br />
<br />
Maybe it would be good for me to risk being a little wrong and stick with a Western tradition, just because it is so easy for me to be scrupulous myself. And my faith is in God, not in my own ability to choose the "right" tradition. I certainly have experienced a lot of love in the Western tradition, in Catholicism and in the sweet Anglican church where we've been seven years.<br />
<br />
I don't know. I change from morning to night. This morning when I was taking the dog out, I was thinking, "Maybe it's just a thing you have to do by faith." It doesn't seem like it's going to be made clear to us by some supernatural intervention, like some things are. We have not gotten any kind of a sign one way or the other, and we very well might not get one. So I was thinking, holding Max's leash, that we probably needed to just choose to be Orthodox, in faith that they have preserved the fullness of the faith, and then walk it out, continue by faith. But it wasn't two hours later when I was reading part of the Catholic catechism (I've been getting the catechism by email, a little each day, to read it in one year; I haven't been reading it til today, day 122) and I felt compelled by it. My heart burned within me. Whatever we decide to do, the Catholic church can't be all wrong if they write things like that.<br />
<br />
It's about living completely surrendered to God, living every moment for him, remembering him moment by moment as I walk out my days, choosing to do things that please him and giving up things that don't. It's about walking my little path, this one little path that is all my own, my own path to holiness, no one else's. And it might never get any better than this - I mean, it might never look much different than this - there might never be any superhuman saintliness involved. It might just always be me crying out to God as I do right now, extremely imperfectly. But I'm ready to be part of his church again, integrated somewhere. I am tired of being in limbo. I want to communicate every Sunday - to take communion - again. I'm tired of being in between places, and I'm a little sad, to be separated from my sweet community and not settled down anywhere. I want to settle. But I guess it's going to go on a little while longer, because clarity is not yet in sight. And in the meantime, He hasn't gone anywhere. I'm still walking this path, with Him. <br />
<br />
It's something deep, deeper than my gut, that's saying, "Look, there's plenty here that shouldn't be here - self-righteousness, close-mindedness, fundamentalism - just like in every other branch of Christ's church, but look: holy halo ringing round, listen and feel how your heart is held up by the chant, by the incense, by all your senses. You don't have to reach, reach, reach with your mind up to God. Your whole being is held up to him. Holiness. It might just be what you have been missing."<br />
<br />
Shep and I start the service out, standing there bedraggled from barely getting there with our entourage. Our children are rolling on the floor at our feet; we are looking at each other growly, like, "No way are we doing this." But by the end of our time there, when we leave, we are glancing behind us with awe and longing. We don't know exactly what we think but we both agree there is something there. Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-74274816738178974652023-09-06T22:08:00.001-07:002023-09-06T22:09:14.338-07:00After the Tsunami in JapanMarch 2011<br />
<br />
The future has never been certain. I just didn't think about it much because I had a picture of it that was pretty plausible, and it was sunny. <br />
<br />
Everyday we touch eternity in little ways: a morning prayer, a transcendent smile, anything that reminds us what we see is not all there is. Some days we touch it in bigger ways - like the day a child is born, or like the day our friend's mother said to her Hospice worker, "I just want to go see Jesus now!" The worker said, "Well, he hasn't gotten your room ready quite yet." By the end of the week, he had; she was gone from here.<br />
<br />
On days like that, eternity encroaches upon us, devours our coastline. One day, eternity will be all there is, eclipsing this world entirely, when we see him coming on the clouds. “And every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all peoples will mourn because of him.”<br />
<br />I have an inkling that what is most ordinary in this life might be the most eternal, the very stuff of the kingdom of God. I have an idea that everything big and flashy, everything famous and "important" will be the things that diminish and fall away, and the little things, the hands and knees crawling over me in the morning in bed, the making of breakfasts, the simple cleaning and keeping of things, the family meals around the table - the simple, hidden, anonymous life - will be the things that grow and grow into a mountain, into a kingdom of light that fills the world. After all, where are we going to sit in the end? We will be around a table, at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Won't it be the best family table you've ever seen? We'll each have our spot and be known and welcomed to it, this time without any undercurrents of tension or old wounds or elephants in the room. All will be known and forgiven.<br />
<br />
This is what I pray for my children: that they will be so strong in their identity in Christ and his light so bright in their hearts that no matter what happens to them, nothing can even touch it. I pray over them the meanings of their names: High Tower, Wisdom, and Strong Protector. I know they have been born for just such a time as this.<br />
<br /><br />Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-73945307923042541282023-09-06T22:02:00.000-07:002023-09-06T22:02:45.529-07:00The MaidsFrom 2011:<br />
<br />
The maids lied to me. They looked right in my face and said, "I know it looks like the kitchen floor hasn't been mopped, but I think you're going to have to get some bleach in here." All week I've discovered things they did not do, dust they did not wipe, carpet they did not vacuum. There was still toothpaste in my sink and mold in my shower. But they did pick up all the girls' toys. I should have told them not to bother - they'll be all over the place again in less than a day - but I didn't think I had to. I thought that was maids' thing - they don't straighten, they just clean. And I so wanted it clean, especially as a Father's Day present for Shep. Next time, I won't leave the house.Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-20869534297383700152023-09-06T22:00:00.000-07:002023-09-06T22:00:16.557-07:00A Special Dispensation5/9/11<br />
<br />
It was seven o'clock today when I realized I hadn't finished my morning coffee. I was thinking about putting it back in the microwave (again) but thought better of it: It was seven o'clock in the evening.<br />
<br />
That's how fast the day slides by. All day I was chasing my morning coffee. <br />
<br />
I meant to clean more, too. I kept meaning to, but first the kids needed breakfast. Well, first the kids and I needed to hop in the car to go look for coupons people were throwing out (it's recycling day - but not in my neighborhood. We went a few neighborhoods over. I was channeling my dad.) Then there was breakfast, a moment to read my Bible, putting John William down for his morning nap, taking the girls swimming, lunch, afternoon naps (during which I ran to the store to practice my new couponing obsession), dinner, and bedtime. I managed to motivate myself and the kids to pick up for five minutes after lunch while Daddy put his bathing suit on. And then I did clean the kitchen after the kids were down. I finished at 10pm.<br />
<br />
At least I got myself some deodorant today. I finally couldn't scrape any more off the top of the old tube, even when I separated the product from the packaging. I thought for about a week that maybe I didn't need deodorant. But I found deodorant actually does do something for me.<br />
<br />
The cashier at the drug store flirted with me a little. When I got home and glanced in the mirror, I thought he must not have seen the drops from someone's dinner spattered on the bottom edge of my shirt. He certainly didn't smell me.<br />
<br />
Now here I am up at 12:15 in the morning because I hate going to bed. I love night. I love the stillness - those little limbs and mouths and brains usually in constant motion finally at rest, needing nothing (at least until someone has a nightmare or needs to go potty or wakes up sweaty or just wants to nurse.) Last night I stayed up til 1am organizing my coupons - which I never would have realized could be so engaging! <br />
<br />
It's a constant tension between needing sleep and needing time to myself. I walk a thin wire, usually erring on the side of fatigue and berating myself for it. (Like today when I dropped the baby face first in the pool when Shep handed him off to me - I did catch him so he didn't hit his face on the step, though, thankfully. Five minutes later he got a fat lip from crawling over a pool noodle that rolled him into a face plant on the pool deck. I have to remind myself that's what kids do - get bumps and bruises - especially boys.) <br />
<br />
This morning I started back at the beginning of Isaiah. I've been reading it for nine months. Now that BSF is over for the summer, I'm going to start at the beginning and answer the homework questions I didn't get to during the year. Isaiah 1 and 2. I closed my eyes to meditate on it and the world started to fade away so quick. I brought myself awake again. I was listening for how these verses touched on my life today, and falling asleep was what touched on my life. I have read that fatigue is one of the biggest obstacles in growing closer to Jesus these days, and it is wise to create margin in your life so you can be well-rested. You can only function as well spiritually as you can physically. <br />
<br />
But I felt God say to me - I've granted you a special dispensation for this season of your life when there isn't much margin to begin with, a special grace to know me even in your weariness, especially in your weariness - for my strength is made perfect in it.<br />
<br />
<br />Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-64768595006021638132023-09-06T21:56:00.000-07:002023-09-06T21:57:12.256-07:00Private PartsFrom 2011:<br />
<br />
In case my children ever read this, I won't repeat our conversation verbatim. I don't want to embarrass them. But I have to say their innocence hurts it is so cute. I hope they didn't see me laughing. I don't want to dim the brightness of their unabashedness. They kept asking, "What's the girl's part again?”<br />
<br />
This week we went from saying "boy parts" and "girl parts" to "penis" and "pagina." (We'll get there.) Also, I don't want them to take it as a laughing matter. It is said that instances of sexual abuse are reduced by up to 70% when children know the correct names of their body parts. When they say, "Don't touch my penis," the miscreant who is trying to will be put on notice that we talk about these things at home.<br />
<br />
I'm surprised to find there's something holy about naming things. Hearing those words on my children's lips warns even me: This is real. This is sacred. Tread lightly.Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-18374612383202676872023-09-06T21:48:00.001-07:002023-09-06T21:49:19.364-07:00Maddie's Cubby2011<br />
<br />
One night earlier this week after we'd put the kids to bed, I got up from the couch to get my third glass of wine. I said, "One more night of being a bad mommy. I'll be better tomorrow."<br />
<br />
Kicking a pile of unfolded laundry to the other side of the sofa, Shep said, "You're not a bad mommy. You're a great mommy. You're just a bad housekeeper."<br />
<br />
I didn't even mind him saying it. Before, it would have made my lips press together into a small grim line, even though there was no rancor in it. He was smiling when he said it. I think he knew this time I would laugh. "I may be a bad housekeeper, but I'm a great mom, a great actress, and a great person."<br />
<br />
"And a great %#@!," he said.<br />
<br />
My strength is in adventures, though. Madelyn and Sophie each took a turn going with me to the theatre. It was Madelyn, though, who ended up being completely enamored of it. I made her a cubby in the bottom of the dressing room closet with Robin's yoga mat, a spare pillow that was in the cabinet, and my bathrobe for a blanket. She had her backpack filled with stuff. She is a stuff girl, like her mommy. (I've been called "bag lady" in my day.) She watched me while I put on my makeup, helped me organize my bobby pins, ate her lunch at the greenroom table, sassed the other actors, and sat on my lap on the couch for me to read her a story. Whenever I had to go onstage, she cozied herself down in her cubby and waited for me to come back. At the end of the day, I asked, as I do, what her favorite thing that day was. "Being in my cubby," she said. She was fascinated with all things theatrical. I walked her all around the set backstage and onstage, took her through the crossover hallway, where we peered down the steps to the trap room. I showed her the prop cabinet and let her handle my parasol, handbag, lorgnette. Everything to her was a magical little world. When she saw my jewelry, she said, "I want to be an actress! I want to have jewelry and beautiful dresses and makeup."<br />
<br />
That's the kind of mother I am.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-5790682359361242262019-10-24T18:22:00.000-07:002023-09-06T21:46:57.009-07:00Mother of Divine GraceI'm tied in knots. I'm obsessing again, fixated on the kids' schooling. It is not what I want it to be! I want to do Mother of Divine Grace with them. I want to sit with each one and do the necessary things and juggle the schedule and be with them all all day. I want to go to daily mass together again. I want to read to Carolina and have her narrate back what she's heard. I want to read aloud to them all. I want to teach David and Carolina concrete math. I want to explain grammar to John William in a way he will understand. I want to have him reading and narrating, reading and narrating. I want Sophie to be doing the same, and Madelyn to be reading and writing, reading and writing. I at least want someone to be doing these things with them. It doesn't have to be me. I have enjoyed being with my three little ones and having the time to change diapers in a timely fashion and feed them when they're hungry and read them picture books.<br />
<br />
But I don't want the big kids to come home after a long day with a backpack heavy as a bag of bricks on their backs, to do homework all evening and have no time to play outside or pursue their interests. They don't have time to take piano lessons or go to choir practice or play a sport, not if we are going to have dinner, pray the rosary, and get in bed at a decent hour.<br />
<br />
I would be willing to sacrifice the time, perhaps, if I felt they were getting the education I long for them to have. I have always been on a quest for this education since we started homeschooling, and I agonized about it to my husband every day for seven years, until he finally got involved and sent them to this school... this school that I found when I was searching for some kind of Catholic classical educational option up here in Greenville. <br />
<br />
My friend came to visit yesterday. She homeschools with Mother of Divine Grace. Her kids are a rare breed. They glow. They have a generosity of spirit that I have not often seen. Her boys, 15 and 13 years old, play with my 9-year-old son without a hint of reluctance. They played twelve hours of football yesterday in the front yard. Somehow she has taught them to give themselves as a gift to those around them. Somehow she has trained them to look for opportunities to offer something to others instead of focus on themselves. It's quite impressive. <br />
<br />
I look at the formation and education her children are getting, and I like what I see so much. It doesn't make me feel bad about what we are doing, but I do feel sad. She said something about sending her oldest away to college. She said she felt like a limb had been cut off, like someone had died. And she said now every moment is precious, every bickering fight, every inconvenience, every moment. It's not long enough.<br />
<br />
It makes me think I only have five more years with Madelyn at home. I want them to be good years. This is for real. I want to do it right. We've only got one chance to live these five years together as a family. What are we going to do? <br />
<br />
I want to see my kids being schooled with Mother of Divine Grace. We could go off and do it on our own. We have been doing that for seven years before this. Of course we were always in some kind of group. But we were homeschooling. It took me so long to be open to someone else setting the curriculum. Finally I decided Mother of Divine Grace does education the way I feel is the best way, and I could trust them and outsource some of the work. But now we find ourselves in this school, this Battle of Lepanto school. Tommy, the headmaster (yes, Tommy!), has the outlook we want. But the education is not there yet. <br />
<br />
Tommy and his family are coming for lunch November 17. That is the feast of St. Anthony. I'm going to pray to St. Anthony of Padua, worker of miracles, for a crazy miracle. I'm going to ask for a hybrid school that does Mother of Divine Grace, all the way up to November 17. How do you like them apples?Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-617699452928869412019-10-19T22:24:00.001-07:002019-10-19T22:33:24.649-07:00A Thought Before BedI have so many things to say. I went to Kansas with Teresa and saw my cousins at TJ's wedding. They all have a story. There are too many to write about in the fifteen minutes I have right now before I crawl into bed. I just finished the chocolate covered strawberries for tomorrow, and it's one a.m. I'd like to tell you about Noel. He's struggling with depression. I'd mention Martha. She's a prophetess. She's wants to do whatever God puts in her to do, and sometimes she's way out there and driving her family crazy, but her heart! She is willing to die for God. <br />
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I'd mention this house. It fits us like a glove. I never thought I'd feel this way about a house. I never knew what it meant to have "a few nice things." You can't have nice things if you don't know how to take good care of them. It helped to get rid of everything I didn't really care about.</div>
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I want to tell you about the move to South Carolina and sending the kids to school for the first time after homeschooling all these years, and how I cried for the first month and felt like I had no purpose in life anymore but that now we feel called to really support this school and do something no one else is doing: commit.</div>
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But what is sticking out to me the most right now is Mary and how she followed me around while we prayed the rosary. She had those little pink sunglasses on the top of her head and her purse over her arm, and she was "nursing" her baby just like I was and pacing and jiggling just like I was, just like she always is following Mommy and "helping" Mommy, doing whatever it is I do, like I'm the model for everything she wants to be. I can tell her to take the wet clothes from the washer, put them in the dryer, and start the dryer, and at two years old, she can do it. </div>
Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-39727675647258109862019-09-05T12:02:00.000-07:002023-09-06T22:01:00.123-07:00Read, Write, Think4/18/11<br />
<br />
I think five days might do it, a retreat at the beach or just some hole in the wall by the freeway. Of course, unfortunately, by the second day missing my kids would be a physical ache. But I could really use a big chunk of solitude and silence, just to think, read, write, read, write, think, oh, and sleep.Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-27841571466928829572019-09-05T11:57:00.000-07:002023-09-06T22:01:54.722-07:00MaryFrom 2013:<br />
<br />
A great mystery - about who we are, who God is, who He wants to be to us and us to Him - is revealed in her. She is the path by which he came to us, the site of the convergence of the human and divine. If you want to know Jesus, contemplate his mother - the deep truth about God and his relationship to us is made known there. The great saints go so far as to say if you really want to bless Jesus, bless his mother. She is the very simplest, easiest path to him. There is no better way to become as a little child than under her calm, cool, protective guidance. Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-91527481442958174442019-09-05T11:55:00.000-07:002023-09-06T22:03:47.227-07:00Marginal Sleep DeprivationApril 2011<br />
<br />
Finding that balance of enough sleep. Staying up on that hump of feeling full of sleep (never stuffed - someday, maybe I'll have a chance to indulge in that again.) I used to sleep so long I would get that nightmare of not being able to move. So easy now to fall into the black hole of sleep deprivation, where my brain functions slowly, fuzzily. I find myself wasting a lot of time walking back to where I started from so that I can remember what I came for.Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-38512594446146087142019-09-04T20:16:00.000-07:002019-09-04T20:17:14.332-07:00The potential of flightFrom 2011:<br />
<br />
I'm huddled here on the edge of the picnic blanket ("huddled" just because I'm sharing it with three sprawling children) under the ligustrum, half-listening to childish chatter, marveling at a perfect specimen of florida weather, watching the flying things. It's always the flying things that bring me back to life. Sometimes at my most despairing, just seeing a butterfly lifts my heart. It's because I think He sends them to me constantly as messengers. They tell me, first of all, that He's thinking of me, and second of all, that I too will take flight because I'm meant to.<br />
<br />
After our walk, I came in and danced with my son while the girls were in the bath. He always asks me to dance when the music is on by putting his hand in mine as I hold him. And I remembered what I had on my tongue yesterday: God's very Body, and what I had in my throat: His Blood. And I know I will continue to be fed, and satisfied, as with the richest of foods, even after this beautiful flash in the pan. But I won't denigrate for its brevity the brilliance and color of its light. I won't downplay because it's it's own thing the unique, delicious taste of this feast prepared before me, in the presence of my enemies. It's real and in my heart forever. I know now God put it there, and it's beautiful with a Beauty it alone has, and mine. I won't ever do this play again with these people. I've never been good at letting go. The passage of time has a poignance that hurts me.<br />
<br />
But I know He will reveal himself to me again as he did these last two months. I see him with his wings folded there in the dark and I see their colors, black and navy and colors without names, only radiance and mystery and beauty. He's perching there. He will unfurl his glory, and I will see it.<br />
<br />Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-1560305479922512202013-10-19T08:40:00.000-07:002013-10-19T08:40:05.739-07:00Attachment It was an interesting road, becoming Catholic. I grew up an evangelical of various kinds. My mother in particular passed on to me the belief that the thing that matters most in life is to love Jesus. When I finally came around all the bends, the uncertainties, the questions and objections and preconceptions, I came into the Catholic Church - a year later than I thought I would - not with a feeling of knowledge and certainty, but with a feeling of being undone, of walking into the dark without even the reassurance that it was the Right Way, only the impression that I was being led there for some reason and I was just going to have to say "Okay" and let myself be led. At the rite of initiation called Confirmation, I nodded my head, but my eyes were a deer's in headlights. I didn't know if I could honestly say I believed everything the Catholic Church teaches. I only half heard the questions, though, what with the magnitude of the moment and having to send my second child down the aisle with my mother to throw up in the bathroom because of a stomach bug.<br />
<br />
My friend Jessica from college, the only Catholic I ever really knew who seemed to love Jesus, came to stand as my sponsor and my youngest daughter's godmother, and this when she was recently only half-alive, having nearly died - perhaps been resurrected - from a placental abruption six months earlier. It was the miraculous story of her salvation from that that spurred Shep and I on into RCIA and then on into being received into full communion with The Church. There was something about it, a sense of the holy, a real power that moved our hearts and compelled us forward. There were other signs, like Shep's peace during a rough patch in our lives. It was a truly supernatural calm. He would go and sit at Mass every day and come home serene, equanimous. I felt that as great as regular Shep was, Catholic Shep was really something special. <br />
<br />
There was the feeling that as compelling as the Truth offered by the Eastern Orthodox Church, which we were also looking into, I didn't experience there the flood of tears that has always marked my relationship with God. I didn't experience there the humility and the love that I felt in the Catholic Church. In the end, I didn't know who was Right with a capital R. If anything, I thought the Orthodox were Right. But I felt God wanted us in the Catholic Church. And so we walked into Her arms. <br />
<br />
There was not a question for us of remaining merely Protestant. We loved our church and our heritage and the gift of a relationship with God that we had been given, but there was one thing we couldn't get outside the capital-C Church: Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist, a bold claim, shocking, audacious, but as ancient as Christianity itself, his body and blood offered with real and efficacious grace. This is the message I'm getting, straight from him with no intermediary: that he wants so badly just to meet with me, just to be with me, to be a part of me, to live inside me. No wonder people love him.<br />
<br />
Catholics have a thing about babies. Of course there is their stance on artificial contraception, but that is just an extension of their attitude toward the creation of life. There is never one baby too many with them. Each and every baby is a miracle and a mystery, a cause for celebration, hallowed ground. I think they understand life better than the rest of us, the place life springs from.<br />
<br />
Just look at how they honor Mary. Sometimes people are afraid of giving her more than her due, to not take away from her Son. But one really can't be pictured without the other. Babies don't come suspended alone in midair. They come connected, literally. I understand this part. First there's nothing. Then before you even feel it, another person is growing inside you, separate, but not separate at all. Your identities are all entangled from the start. He comes out literally attached. There is a tangible reluctance in the severing you can sense in how it is drawn out. As for you, you ache for him. You want him in your hands. All the looking in the world could never be enough looking to satisfy your awe of him. As for him, all he is is need, and all his need is need of you. He smells your breath, feels your warmth, tastes your milk, curls at your side, scans the horizon for your face and, finding it, locks on it. You are his world. You <i>are</i> him. You are what makes him know he has a shape by how your hands fit round him. He feels he is nothing without you, and he is right.<br />
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Attachment is the baseline reality of human existence; the further we stray from it, the less human we become. Surely the Creator of humanity would be the most human of all. Just think of him, emptying himself of his omnipotence to become a tiny cell dividing in the dark, a baby, the Shaper coming to delineate his self by the shape of his mother's hands around him, the Breather of Life feeling the warm halo of his breath as he breathes against her, the Word of God hearing his coos resounding off her body. </div>
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There really is no limit to the sacredness, the holiness of a child, is there? From the moment a child is conceived, it is a hallowed ground, the site of the supernatural impeding on the natural. I think we all know that, but detachment has been our atmosphere for so long, we have become calloused to it. We all need to be re-parented, attachment parented by God and by Our Mother, the Church, humble little Queen Mary, and I feel that's where I find myself. I am not sure of myself. I don't know if she's Right with a capital R, though I have more and more faith in that possibility. All I know is while I'm here walking in the dark, she's holding my hand. She's doing the one thing I will resist more than any other - mothering me. I don't know anything but that, but I know I need it. I don't need anything more.</div>
Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-88158974475153915112013-10-16T13:59:00.001-07:002013-12-11T12:53:22.172-08:00Measuring DownI'll be 36 November 1. Four years and I'll be 40. Oh gee, I don't think I want to write that down again, maybe ever. There's a girl at church with smooth cheeks, sweet and young, like a little chipmunk. I can't help envying her, or at least feeling a little pang when I see her. She's just 30, and she has five. This is the count I'm always doing: "She has eight! How old is she? I'm way behind!" or "She has two, and she's my age. Whew! I'm ahead." I'm counting children.<br />
<br />
I always wanted a big family. Even when I was onstage, under the lights, speaking into that great Silence I do love so much, I assumed I would have a big family. Of course I would. I also assumed, I guess, that I could put it off a little while and still have it - maybe a little presumptuously, because I never sat down and did the math. I'm doing the math now, constantly. And I realize I didn't take the track of someone who has a big family. Families with eight or ten or more children are started sometime in one's early twenties. That's usually how it works. I took the track you just do because that's how it's done. I didn't think about it. I didn't totally have peace about it in my heart, but in my brain I didn't think about it. I took the track of the cookie-cutter two-, three-, or even four-child family. You get married and spend a little time just the two of you, together. You spend some time in your career, going places. Then sooner or later you settle down and have some kids, two, three, perhaps maybe four. <br />
<br />
As much as I count, though, and measure, and don't measure up, it's not the number I am counting. It's a quantity of a different kind. My mind goes over and over, like one's tongue over a dental fault, those one-two-three-four-more years when I said No to Life. My mind goes over their shape, over and over it. What was I thinking? I remember people asking us, "When are you going to have kids?" And I didn't even think about it. I was a kid myself, in my eyes. I was young. I said, "I just love what I do so much. I don't know, sometime we will!" I was young. I didn't know what a transcendent elixir I was pouring out on the ground. But we all do that - one could say youth is wasted on the young. But if I had it now, would I treat it with any more care? No, it must be poured out, would that it could be as a libation.<br />
<br />
I heard a woman interviewed who had had one-two-three.......eight abortions, and no children when she finally wanted them. She said, "What was I thinking? I wasn't thinking. They told me it would be alright, this is what you do, this is what is done. You can have children later, when the time is right." But then when she wanted to, she wasn't able to have any children anymore. Those were her children, her eight children, and they're lying in the ground, or much more likely in the garbage dump, by her own hand. What can she do with the grief of that? She can sing a song for them. She can make a grave for them. She can name them. She can pray to them and ask their forgiveness and ask their blessing and presence in her life. They can be her angels, because they already were, and what they want most, more than anything, is for Mama to be a child like them, so she can come in from the cold and be loved.<br />
<br />
Only God knows the economy we are operating in. I feel like I took part in those deaths, not those eight in particular, but in the great worldwide fear and hatred of Life, Life, that great unbridled, primordial Force, exuberant in its abundance, flowering forth with abandon, erupting, covering everything - everything! - even our ugliness and our pettiness and our selfish desire for all the petty little comforts of our civilization and to be left alone so we can "enjoy" them, even our unlovely despair in the midst of them - everything - with its pretty little flowers. I'm sorry I said No. I'm sorry I was so afraid. I don't think I could have done any better. I was not then the person I am now, not that I'm a spotless lily. I'm just not so wounded. I don't have that bottomless pit I had then, nor that sorrow I had gagged and tied and thrown down into it. I'm shored up. When love goes in, it doesn't always go leaking right on out of me like it did. Not that I wouldn't have been a fit mother. If we had had a baby, it would have worked out. It would have been precious. It would have been wonderful. Who would he or she have been?<br />
<br />
It's just that I didn't know any better. I always - always - did the very best I knew to do. God knows I did. Even when I floundered around in waters I was not meant to be in, I didn't swim in there because I meant to do wrong. I just didn't know better. I did the best I could. I think this must be where God's grace comes in. The grace is that when I wake up tomorrow morning, I will see around me, four soft, young faces, smooth, like little fawns. There is no reason, no merit why I should have this blessing, these four Lives, clamoring, tugging, kissing, smothering, covering everything with their sweet little posies. <br />
<br />Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-45171401080038729202013-02-28T19:04:00.000-08:002013-02-28T19:04:58.466-08:00CarolinaOh Baby of my heart, blue-eyed, dimpled wonder,<br />
I can't get enough of you.<br />
I want to drink you in and<br />
Feed on you in the center of my being,<br />
Because I don't have enough time,<br />
Even with you in the pouch<br />
Swinging with the motion<br />
Of all the many, many other things I'm doing.<br />
I am bonded to you,<br />
You are a part of me.<br />
If you were missing, it would be as if an arm were gone.<br />
You are a part of my every day in a deeper place than consciousness.<br />
But I want to be conscious of you.<br />
I take you out,<br />
Look, look, look at you,<br />
Kiss, kiss, kiss you,<br />
Make you laugh - show those dimples -<br />
(I'm the only one who can,<br />
So far.)<br />
I drink you in,<br />
Breathe you in,<br />
Freeze this moment in my mind,<br />
Even as it passes,<br />
Through my hands,<br />
Not like sand, like water.<br />
Gone.<br />
But you remain -<br />
Thank you!<br />
You wonder,<br />
You miracle,<br />
You piece of heaven,<br />
Nothing matches baby laughter,<br />
Nothing.<br />
I trust this joy you bring me<br />
Is a part of me forever<br />
And so are you.<br />
Come from me,<br />
Let go from me,<br />
Borne from me<br />
To your purpose<br />
And on, and on,<br />
You go, and you will go.<br />
But you are joined to me forever<br />
There will never come a time when I am not<br />
Your mommy,<br />
The one who bore you.<br />
I trust the God who made<br />
Time<br />
And you<br />
And me<br />
And Us together.<br />
He made a day to have 24 hours,<br />
8 consigned to unconsciousness.<br />
And he made you and me and Us together.<br />
I trust that even though my brain is fuzzy<br />
From flying along in a thousand directions,<br />
Your essence is getting in,<br />
Sticking, staying.<br />
I cherish these precious moments that pass so quickly,<br />
And still I am glad when you are sleeping<br />
On your belly in your bed<br />
And I can sit with Daddy on the sofa<br />
And let my fuzzy brain float on a river of mindlessness.<br />
I need that time too,<br />
God knows.<br />
God knows.<br />
<br />Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-92035821601877838932013-02-28T18:46:00.001-08:002013-02-28T18:46:37.870-08:00MadelynI have a little girl<br />
<br />
Lovely as the woods<br />
Over clearings growing.<br />
Very dark she is, her<br />
Eyes are pools of darkness.<br />
<br />
You wonder what she's thinking,<br />
Or what depths are stirring,<br />
Under lashes long and blinking.Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-18383796668314185952012-11-11T14:54:00.000-08:002013-02-10T12:34:02.714-08:00Carolina GraceYes, there is a moment or two after childbirth when you might think, "That was horrific," or something like that. But it's funny how even just 24 hours later, you're thinking, "That was
awesome! I did that! Let's do it again!" Somehow your memory can soften all the edges, when you think of how much noise you made, and how much you cursed, and cried, and pounded the floor with your fist. You just remember the mighty feat accomplished. Looking at my little Carolina Grace softens the edges of everything. She's named for my mom Carol. Since she came into the world a week ago, I've gotten a new full-time job - besides my other two or three full-time jobs of mother, sometime housekeeper, cook, chauffeur, etc etc - of sitting in one place staring at her face. Very important work, that. And by the way, if you ever saw my other girls as babies, you've seen what I'm staring at - black hair like M's and her dark complexion and eyes, dimples like S and the wide cheeks and pointed chin straight out of a Maurice Sendak illustration: Carolina Grace.<br />
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She's the most popular person in the family right now, by far. And my heart is the fullest. I have four children! I have <i>four children. </i>One night this week, I put her down for a minute in M's arms when I was tucking them all into bed, and I ran downstairs to get something - maybe J's paci or his "buppy" or a drink of water for S - and while I was down there, I said to Shep, "All four of my children are in the room together upstairs" and the thought of that delightful package of strange beings - four human persons not one of whom existed six years ago - made my heart contract with awe. When there were three children up there, it felt like we were a family. The fourth child feels like something we as a family are doing together that we're really excited together about. I really can't imagine a more blessed time of life than the one we're in. Of course, when you check back with me in about five weeks and I've had as many showers as weeks and I can't find one freaking thing or even put a sentence together because my brain is a lump of mush, my tone of voice might be less glowing. But through the haze - o! sweet chaos of infancy - I still won't be able to deny that this crazy, full (full, full, full to overflowing - with all things), loud, jostling time is blessed, blessed, flash-in-the-pan, heart-wrenchingly, laughing-and-crying-at-the-same-time blessed.<br />
<br />
<br />Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-37663198185062277512012-02-07T12:42:00.000-08:002012-04-23T12:40:53.114-07:00Why I Am Becoming a CatholicOn May 19, I am going to participate for the first time in the sacrament of Reconciliation - Confession - and that evening, I am going to go forward, not with my arms crossed across my chest for a blessing, but with my open hands held out to receive Communion. I have a holy anticipation of this moment. I feel like I am engaged to be married again, anticipating my wedding day. I want to go shopping and take care to buy for that day a dress that I love.<br />
<br />
Why am I becoming Catholic? Some of you who read this might think, Good! She's joining us! Some might worry that I'm being led astray from dependance on the free grace of God into "works salvation." Some might remember with loathing experiences they have had or impressions they have gained of what they see as a tyrannical, intolerant, overbearing organization. And of course some might not even care. (But then why are they reading this?)<br />
<br />
I can't answer every objection people have to the Catholic church. Many of the common objections have certainly arisen in my own mind. But through reading I have done and through experiencing the Church for myself, they have each faded away and become inconsequential in light of the glory displayed there on that altar. It does not come with fireworks and spectacle. If you aren't looking for it, I don't think you'll even see it. But then suddenly when you are, when you do, there it is, right in plain sight, and it's always been there. I mean, He has always been there, in that homely little wafer and wine, His real presence. And I long to take him in. I hungrily and worshipfully anticipate that day.<br />
<br />
At Mass, I feel I am leaning my exhausted head on my mother's breast. I have heard of the Church being our Holy Mother - in fact, that image is what first stirred in me to draw me toward her. I was filled with a yearning to run into her arms.<br />
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To me, the Church is a pearl of great price, perhaps at times caked with the grime of history and hearsay, perhaps encrusted by up to even a mile of dirt. But under it, there it is still, shining and glowing, and I want it. A lot of the dirt, though, is, I think, an illusion. Someone once said that there are millions who hate what they think is the Catholic Church but not a hundred who hate what it actually is. The only way to really know it is to "come inside."<br />
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That's what I'm going to do.Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-55331630689798445762011-12-10T11:42:00.001-08:002013-01-31T12:57:52.157-08:00Advent Reflection (In the Driveway)The girls played in the yard in their bathing suits again today. They took turns with the garden hose, "washing" Daddy's car - and each other - while I sat in the shade on the driveway with a shirtless baby on my lap who was trying to read my book instead of me, and me admiring the gummy-with-leftover-pancake-syrup creases in his neck.<br />
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This time of year, we Floridians reap the rewards of enduring the long hot summer. Outside, it's balmy. It's perfect. Buffered by distance, noises float to you over the air - lawnmowers, traffic, a yapping dog - that almost sound like music. You can watch the edges of the shade shifting in the breeze and with a great happy calm in your heart, drift right off to sleep...if you aren't supervising children.<br />
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As soon as my baby pattered off to chase his sisters, I picked up my book again, <span style="font-style: italic;">Jesus of Nazareth </span>by Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI<span style="font-style: italic;">.) </span>It's a rich text; I can only read a little at a time. "Now is the time of joy," he writes. Why is this the time of joy? Because the Kingdom of God has been proclaimed to us. What is the Kingdom of God? It is God's kingship, the active reality of his reign over nature and history. It is in the midst of us. It is the very person of Christ. I leaned back and thought about this, while the yellow palm clusters waved against the sky.<br />
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It is extraordinary - the hiddeness of God's Dominion. "Surely you are a God who hides himself," the psalmist says. Like a seed, he has planted his Kingdom in our midst; it takes root in darkness and sprouts secretly. The story of mankind from God's perspective is the growth of this seed. The events of our history books are immaterial; they record the rise and fall of worldly kingdoms. God's record is of the fact of his kingship in our world. His is an entire domain that can only be seen by those who desire to enter it - and the story of this domain is the whole point of the history of man, a point that is completely missed in the glare of worldly power. We can impugn God, I suppose, for making himself invisible, but by doing so, he has ensured that the only way to him is by the mechanism of Love. (Ratzinger, p. 37) By those who seek him, he can be found. But there is no one who is not free to seek something else instead.<br />
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Sitting in the driveway, I thought for the first time that I might be in this Kingdom now, by faith, through His body and blood, and that perhaps it is beside the point whether I live or die, whether America rises or falls, or in what way I suffer. Because suffering, dying, living, America rising, America falling, we his people are already under the rule of another reality. Our swords have been beaten into plowshares. The wolf and lamb are lying down together. On all this holy mountain, there is no harming or destroying. This is not yet a thing that you can touch with your hands. But it is real. As the Holy Father says, this means that no matter what terrible things may happen to us, there is nothing terrible that can happen to us. On a day like today, it wasn't even hard for me to believe it.Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251931178053526695.post-1042164493765958152011-12-03T14:24:00.000-08:002013-01-31T12:58:07.431-08:00Circle of LightIt's that time of year - twinkle lights are up, Christmas music's on - when children get excited. I always did - not just for the gifts I'd get but those I'd give: bought or (more likely) made - usually, in our case, all through the night from Christmas Eve to Christmas morning. But I think even more I anticipated the Occasion, the Family Event of the year when I knew by our particular rituals, more than at any other time, that I belonged to a clan.<br />
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It's the time of year, though, too, that grown-ups can get the blues. I find that I usually do, a little. It's lonely to not be a child at Christmas. Now I'm the one creating the customs, and it can even make me shudder: on the one side I see my new little family around our own little hearth, on the other side Night, and between the two just Shep and me, rubbing sticks together to make a circle of light. There's no illusion here.<br />
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This year, though, it occurs to me, maybe it's not inappropriate to feel a little grieved. We await, after all, a haunting mystery brought forth in the dark of the year: a baby born to die. It takes your breath away - the generosity, the humility, the love, the grim necessity (since we'd be doomed without it) - and it makes your heart thud, to anticipate Beauty himself, defaced.<br />
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What's more, even as we prepare to commemorate that the Light has come, here we are still waiting in the dark, for the Light to come again, at last, for good. We're standing brave against the night. So maybe it's not too outrageous to mourn a little, to feel a little pathos now, even if it flies in the face of jingle bells and snowmen and reindeer and santa clauses. Those are the only illusions, really - just the jingles of the merchandise. Christmas is about what's real.<br />
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Advent is the beginning of the church calendar, and it makes sense to me for the year to begin this way, with the first rumblings of war: God made flesh, dropped down into the territory of his one ancient enemy. In the end, he'll emerge victorious, but not before that darkest dark day of shaking earth, blackened sun, bloody moon. After that he'll break out, and there's not a sad thought then on Resurrection Day, only triumph and the groundswell of spring. But here we are at the beginning, in cold silence in the dark of the year. It seems you can't understand any part of this plot-line apart from the whole: it all leads up to Easter. Right now, you have a tiny, tender baby, peerless in perfection. It gives you goose-bumps and joy and hope and awe, and longing and grief and wonder and suspense. Not the trivial spiel of a commercial Christmas, it's better, wrought with all emotions, the Story Unsurpassed. Embracing this, I don't feel so melancholy. I begin to take great satisfaction in rubbing these sticks together. I find they do make quite a glow.Mimihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17853285669478438146noreply@blogger.com2