My Lenten Resolutions

Disciplines:

To keep the kitchen table clear and tidy.  It seems to be our dumping ground much too often, and I have noticed that how cluttered it is affects my peace of mind.  My disposition is entirely more peaceful when it is clear, and this makes me a better wife and mother.

In bed, lights out, by 10:00PM.  My bedtime has been creeping later and later, affecting my morning and energy.

Limit sweets to Sundays only.


Prayer:

It does not paralyze me, but I am a person of worry.  I worry about how I am perceived, how my family is perceived, and what the future holds.  I found it particularly complex to bring my first child into the world in the midst of the worst economic turmoil that I've witnessed in my life.  Therefore, I intend to meditate daily on the following concept:  "We are not of this world," and the phrase: "Jesus, I trust in you."  More on these thoughts later...

One hour of the Liturgy of the Hours each day, be it Matins, Vespers, Compline, whatever.  I love the Liturgy of the Hours, and I find them particularly helpful in the seasons of Advent and Lent to focus my prayer.


Charity:

I will purchase only essential household, food, and clothing items, and donate money we would otherwise spend.  I am not sure what charities yet, though I will give some to our parish and parish school.

Doing God's Work

My husband's job involves quite a bit of travel, as he works in international development for a Catholic organization.  He's fortunate to pursue a vocation he loves, and his work will, God willing, help improve the lives of some of our world's poorest.  It is good work, special work, hard work.  The travel is especially taxing, on both of us, on his fatherhood, on our marriage.  I would say it is the biggest challenge in our marriage these days, especially since the arrival of our precious Pearl.

A colleague of his once told me, I think in an attempt to make me feel better (!) about his travel: "Just remember, he's doing God's work."

Oooh, it stung.  It was a few months ago, and it stings me still, following me around on the days he is gone, nagging me, whispering in my ear.  It made me feel like I was supposed to step aside, clear the way, let this heroic knight go into battle.  It made me feel passive, and I didn't like it, that he actively helped the poor, sacrificing through hours at the airport, poor conditions, great puzzles and headaches, and I passively helped the poor by sacrificing the profound assistance of my husband, his companionship, my peace of mind when he was gone.  Yes, I do the bedtime routine alone, weary from the day, and I worry for his safety, and, like today, take the darn car in to the mechanic alone, completely  illiterate about what might be wrong with it.  Is this how I help the poor?  Is this how I do what Jesus asks us to do?  By putting my chin down and muscling through the week without my husband?  I don't know, maybe in some way.  Maybe I ought to be more humble and selfless.  I think there is something special, in fact, in making these sacrifices in a quiet way behind the scenes.  I need God to help me be more generous.

And the other obvious reaction to the above statement is this:  My husband kicks up dust and sleeps on a cot in a humid climate, makes wonderful plans, works on the "groundfloor" of development.  I, well, you know, I grind up yet another round of food for the lip-smacking Pearl.  I rinse the diaper out in the utility sink and throw yet another load into the laundry.  Let's see, I vacuum, when I get around to it.  I wipe down the counter, dust the table.  Um, oh yes, it's winter time, so I shovel, and shovel, and shovel.

I don't need the world's approval.  I'm happy to hide a bit in the walls of this house, putzing about.  But I sure do want God's approval.  And I sure do hope that what I'm doing is his work.  And I know this isn't glamourous, and I won't claim its importance, but I do hope it is GOOD.  And by being good, might it be of God.  And even if only the little Pearl is the recipient of my floundering attempts at motherhood, might my work be ENOUGH.

We cannot measure in the world's terms.  Even though his colleague claimed GOD's work, she was measuring that work in HUMAN terms.  In quantity, and in breadth of impact, in visibility, and in success.  But Blessed Mother Teresa reminds us, "You have not called me to be successful.  You have called me to be faithful."

So Lord, look kindly upon me.  Strengthen my efforts to raise my child in your light.  Bless all our work, no matter where it is, or how it is done, that it might be good.  Help me to wake tomorrow and do it again, not for anyone to notice, but for your eyes alone.  Do not let me succumb to the world's measurements, but let me store up my treasure in heaven, that when I die you might say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Christmas Still

It's a little secret we have!  While the world shifts gloomy eyes from candlelight to gray skies, and stores tear down red and green for red and pink hearts, we still revel.  We still cherish.  We still rejoice, and we do not take our gaze from the Little One who rests in Mary's arms.  We have been given the gift of many days of celebration!  Many days of quiet and peace and knowledge, no matter the madness of the world.  What a precious secret to keep.  Jesus said we are not to be of this world, and it is times like this when his truth is not a cross, but a balm.  For his graces are beyond, beyond, beyond any pleasure this world might conjure up.  Spurn the world its gloom!

Dear Infant Jesus, abide with us.  Rest in our hearts.  Do not let us flee from you.  Do not let the world pull us from our worship.  Keep our gaze.

Into the Chaos

God's hand dipped into the chaos.  God's hand dipped into the chaos.  God's hand dipped into the chaos.

God's fingers laced through the nothing and gave shape to mountains and poured water on the earth and traced rivers through the land.

God's hand dipped into the chaos.

God chose a girl from the millions and gave her a pure soul and set her on the earth and sent an angel.  She said yes.

And in the middle of the darkest night of the year, God's Son slipped into the chaos from the body of the girl into the waiting hands of the trembling Joseph.  God's Son wrapped in thinnest cloth against the world's night, God's Son warmed by the breath of beasts.  God's Son, so small, sent to fight the world's chaos.

I am here, on my knees, imperfect as I am.  Lord, dip your hand into this chaos.  Dip your hand into this chaos.  Dip your hand into this chaos.  Lace through my wanderings and give shape to knowing and pour truth in my heart and trace virtue on my soul.  Come, Son, into the waiting hands of this trembling me.  I will wrap you up in my thinnest gifts and warm you with my best spirit.  Come, transform me.

The Work of the House

I won't resent it.  I just can't resent it.  Another trip to the sink with dirty dishes, another wiping of the counter, another load in the laundry.  I won't resent it!  These small acts are inevitable, and if I resent them now, it will make for a miserable lifetime of the same!

I am setting myself a challenge.  Instead of, "I have to do the laundry," I will now say to myself, "I GET to do the laundry."  I get to do the dishes.  I get to vacuum the rug.  Is it not a privilege to spend my days with my daughter, supported by my husband who is blessed to have a steady job in this tipsy economy?  Is it not a privilege to watch her grow, to teach her to speak, to one day help her walk and then someday guide her through her homework?  Is it not a privilege to have dear white dishes to wash and clothes to launder, a rug to vacuum and pretty trinkets to dust?  Is it not a privilege to prepare our dinner and feast together?  Yes, yes.  Join me, won't you, in this thanksgiving?  A quiet, joyful way to spend our Advent.

Guadalupe

I always thought Our Lady of Guadalupe was beautiful.  But it wasn't until I spent two years teaching our nation's poorest of the poor that I learned to love her.

A dear friend from college gave me a lovely statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a gift for my classroom.  She was very pretty, but very Anglo!  So, my mom and I delicately darkened her skin with a paintbrush and a little tea.  It did the trick.  And made her more beautiful.

I set her on the counter that ran along the windows, in my direct view as I stood at the blackboard.  And there, as I sweat in the desert heat, and as my heart broke for these little ones, she became my mother.  How good it was to look upon her during moments of angst, or peace, and see her, her face brown like these children.  So long ago, she had appeared to such a little man, and so, she loved to be near all of us.

Though they were rascally and quite normal nine-year-olds, my children also had depth of heart unlike most.  Having witnessed the world's gravity beyond anything I've seen, watching death, removing the boots of drunk and passed out fathers, crying for their imprisoned mothers, attending funerals for young tragedies, losing the language of their ancestors...  It was all so much to bear.  And so, if you stood in our little classroom and watched carefully, you would have seen it: Alonzo took a detour on his way back from the pencil sharpener to graze his fingers on her feet.  Larissa leaned in softly and whispered in her ear.  Alyssa ran her hands along her veil.  And a befuddled teacher implored her with her eyes, "Please, dear Lady, pray for us."

The Lord has taken so much away from them.  The Lord took much away from me during those days.  We had mornings when we might all have broken in two.  We spent days feeling empty and short of breath, close to tears and to quitting.

But there she was, Our Lady, ready to give us the Lord's greatest gift.  Full of grace, and full of the Son, she stood with tenderness in her eyes.  Do you hear her?  She sings her Magnificat.  The Lord lifts the lowly, gives food to the hungry!  And just as St. Juan Diego beheld her, his cheeks flushed, his pants dusty, we kneel before her catching our breath in amazement.  She appears to the littlest ones to give the greatest of gifts.  Carried in her womb, the Light of the World is waiting to enter our hearts.


I am miles and months away from those children now.  I pray for them and ache for them and always will.  But I entrust them to Our Lady's care, and pray that in their dreams and in their prayers, they are still tracing the lines of her face with their fingers and whispering in her ear.

The Morning

One of the best things about this little house is the windows.  On the south side of the house, windows line the wall, from the kitchen sink, to two large ones in the dining room, to the full-length windows on the door of the screened-in porch.  The kitchen is on the southeast side of the house, which means it gets every bit of the morning sun.  The living room is on the southwest, so it soaks up the warmth at the end of the day.  Truly, it is the perfect orientation and keeps my days bright.

The mornings feel particularly sweet, especially when my husband is home and relaxed on a Saturday morning, cups of coffee, Pearl playing at our feet.  And now, she babbles away up in her morning "nap," content just to be quiet for awhile, sleeping or not.  So I sit on the red couch, taking a moment to write.

O Morning Star, Dayspring.  You change everything with your presence.  In the dreary winter, we rejoice to see hints of you sifting through the clouds to smile upon us.  Great Light, visit our homes and our hearts, to bind us together in joy and wonder.  We watch the turning of the earth as it settles in closer and closer to the shortest day, only to pivot in that single moment to bring back the light.  Stay with us, Lord, make us watchful.  Make us ready.

The Tiny Babe

I am longing, aching, even in my bones, for You.  The dark closes in tightly, and I gasp for air.  You see, I have a child.  She's spirited and lovely, but she is still so small.  I listen, and I hear what they say.  Where will we be in twenty years?  Decimated by hunger, poverty-stricken, blown to bits?  She does not know these things, but I do.  I carry on my shoulders the fear and the guilt of generations who have failed.  I, too, have failed so many times, sharp-tongued, brazen, imploding, envious, spiteful.

We try and try again, but we end up maybe not in the same place every time but in one just as confounding as the last.

I have learned the heavy lessons of parenthood, anxious that she be healthy and happy and holy.  I lock my door against the terrors of the night and listen to the creaks of the old house with sharp attention.  In my early postpartum days her cry made me weep, not for her or for myself, but for the million innocents whose cries go unanswered, whose hunger is unattended, who cry alone.  I cringe to know that despite the deepest of joys which I know through her, I also know new sadness.  She has, I suppose, made me more human this way.

More human, yes.

And in the night, like the psalmist, I strum my heartstrings and lift my voice to the heavens:  Do you hear me?  Do you see this world?  Do you see how we strike out against one another?  Do you see how tiny she is?  Do you see how human we are?

Yes, yes, I see.  More than seeing, I know.  I dressed myself in your skin, and put your blood in my veins.  Don't you remember?  I, too, was small, so small the angels could scarce see me from the heavens.  I had a mother who feared for me, and a father who swept me away to safety.  I learned pain and grace, the deepest joys and newest sadness.  I abandoned the heavens that you may never again say, "You do not understand."  So abandon yourself to me.


Like a fist unfurling, release the fears of what may come.  Pray for her, but do not worry.  For peace, peace the world cannot I give, I am bringing.  The old world is passing away, you see, for I am making a new heaven and a new earth.  I have come among you, and I alone will satisfy.


Human we are, both You and I.  But God You are, You alone.  Emmanuel, come.

Sweeter Still, a foray into a new world

It could all be a bust, you know.

I've started plenty of projects in the past, only to abandon them.  Knitted mittens without a thumb, a sleep sack for my baby with unfinished seams, even the doll quilt when I was ten.  It's pieced, but never quilted or hemmed.  I am not proud of these things.  I have a penchant for creativity, getting jazzed up by the ideas and mired in the work.  When it gets hard, or tiresome, or boring, I stop.

So, it could all be a bust, this "blog."

Blog.  This is my blog.

I feel silly and self-conscious, wanting to pull up the thesaurus on Word for security.  As though dozens were reading, when I'm quite sure I'm typing out into the void, one little hashmark on the internet superhighway.  There is too much to see, it's all too fast, I am too little.

But little is good, and quiet is good, and simple is good.  I strive for all three.  Tonight, in the Midwest, we are blanketed in perfect, fluffy snow that is too sweet to stick together and perfect for snow fairies and angels.  Our first snow of the season, here on the Feast of St. Nicholas.  My husband is traveling again, but tonight it feels different.  I miss him, but it's ok that he's gone.  Our firstborn, she sleeps in the next room over, the one with the yellow walls, where the attic eaves meet and the brick of the chimney climbs the wall, where I can hear her squeaks and sighs.  (She is nine-months-old, and in blogland, she is named Pearl.)  She has been sleeping through the night for a couple of months now, blessedly, and I have felt that I am coming back to life in the last few weeks.  So, though my husband is gone, I do not pout in the darkness, or begrudge tonight's bedtime routine with my daughter.  I did my motherly duty with deep and silent joy, nursing her to dreamland in the nook of her room, hating to lay her down there in her crib, wanting to hold her all night long.  I cleaned up the dishes and emptied her bath.  I waited for the dark with a small smile, eager to dress in flannels under the duvet in our attic bedroom, cozy despite the chill.  You see, I have been waiting for this.  For a little, quiet, simple night to write.  I have missed it.

So yes, the snow is sweet out there tonight, as we hunker down in Jesus' sweet Advent, and in my heart, things feel sweeter still.