Quickly

Yesterday on the way home from groceries my husband recommended I stop by our church, which was having a time of Eucharistic Adoration. It was already late, and the kids were surely hungry, but at the last minute I turned the car into the church parking lot. I walked in, and I kneeled.
Potent, I thought. That's what this is.
Eucharistic adoration: A potent, powerful time with Jesus. Like concentrate.
Adore.

Pre-Dawn Tradition

It's 5:00 and the day begins. I'm tired, but I pull my body into sweats and shoes and lurch out the door, willing my legs to run fast in the icy air. It's Monday, the day of high expectations (and therefore high losses), and I know the importance of the endorphins that will fuel this day. Back inside the house the kitchen is streamlined for early morning efficiency and silence. The coffee is made; my Bible and journal beckon. I know what awaits me on Mondays: the low after the weekend high combined with an untidy house, expectant kids, and all the carefully made plans for building up their little souls and minds that I must accomplish according to the detailed timeline that I made on Sunday. So I know this time in the morning is sacred. It's essential.  I light a candle, ready to begin. 

 

And then there it is: the pitter patter pitter patter of little feet. A pint-sized voice, and down the stairs he comes. "Mommy!" His grin is 100 watt and could light the darkest room.
He exults in his morning victory at the Finding Mommy Game. He points to my carefully laid Quiet Time accessories."Candle!" He shouts. And now the baby is awake, too.

I feel that inward twinge, that frustrated cry welling up inside me. This is my time! I want to pump my fist. Maybe I should form a union.

 

But there he is, standing in front of me: the focus of my day, the end to my prayers. He is warm, radiant, and ready for my love. So together we pray. We begin what is becoming a morning ritual of mommy/boy time, each of us reading in (periodic) silence beneath the morning candle, waiting for the sun to rise and light our day.  

 

I do long for those days of hour-long Scripture times and solo prayer in the morning. But this is sacred, too. So in the meantime, I'll continue to tiptoe in the pre-dawn dark, but chances are, someone else is tiptoeing with me, too.

Vocare - To Call

This morning I piled a wriggling heap of children and coats and scarves and blankets into the car and battled the snowy roads to attend our Church’s Mother’s Group. Oh goodness what a gasping breath of life-saving air. The children, who have been cooped up in snowy weather for several days, exulted in running laps around the room, crayons dangling from their hands and crackers crunching in their mouths and under their feet, jumping, giggling, and living life with their little disciple friends. Disciples – that’s what they are: souls on a journey toward their God. We watched them play and talked about how we, their mothers, have been entrusted with their care, their formation, their way.

Entrusted: to confer a trust upon; to put into the care or protection of someone.

We let the words of John Paul II sink into our hearts:

The moral and spiritual strength of a woman is joined to her awareness that God entrusts the human being to her in a special way. Of course, God entrusts every human being to each and every other human being. But this entrusting concerns women in a special way - precisely by reason of their femininity - and this in a particular way determines their vocation.

The moral force of women, which draws strength from this awareness and this entrusting, expresses itself in a great number of figures of the Old Testament, of the time of Christ, and of later ages right up to our own day.

A woman is strong because of her awareness of this entrusting, strong because of the fact that God "entrusts the human being to her", always and in every way, even in the situations of social discrimination in which she may find herself. This awareness and this fundamental vocation speak to women of the dignity which they receive from God himself, and this makes them "strong" and strengthens their vocation.

Thus the "perfect woman" (cf. Prov 31:10) becomes an irreplaceable support and source of spiritual strength for other people, who perceive the great energies of her spirit. These "perfect women" are owed much by their families, and sometimes by whole nations.

(John Paul II - Muleris Dignitatem, on the Dignity and Vocation of Women)

Two hours later, we packed the kids, crayons, crackers, scarves, and coats and we each headed home. Fortified. We are strong not because we are ourselves, but because we have been entrusted with His power, His strength, His vocation. Vocation: from the Latin vocare -- to call. We do not choose our vocation; no, we are called. We are beckoned. And if we echo Mary’s fiat and we say yes to life and yes to mother and yes to all the love and pain and joy and tears and triumph that wrestle in our hearts as we wrestle through each day… we say yes to a life of dignity, a life infused with His grace.

Yes, he even cooks.

Is there is nothing my husband will not do? Seriously.

Last month after working increasingly long hours downtown, he began running home from the metro station each night instead of taking the bus. Impressive enough – but this is summertime in D.C. We’re talking 90 degree heat plus humidity, and the run is uphill the whole way.

He does this just about nightly. And each night, after cresting the final hill of his run, he is ambushed by the 3-year old and the toddler, both of whom are in thick of their “witching hour” -- the time of day most fraught with whining and tantrums. “Pick me up, daddy!” “Daddy, read me a book!” “Dady, Waaaa,” (the baby). And remarkably, inexplicably… he does. He picks up the crying baby, he reads a story (or three), he walks to a park, and he changes several diapers. “I missed you guys,” he says.

And now on the weekends there is this:

“It's arugula with roasted beets and Gorgonzola,” he says, as we sit down to dinner. Or:

“It's wasabi hamburgers.” Or:
“Swiss-chard wrapped salmon with orange-chipotle salsa.”

Excuse me? My taste buds throw a party when he decides to cook. Who knew that I loved beets?! What a fantastic revelation!

Last night it was Mexican corn timbales with some kind of creamy sauce and a hint of thyme and my goodness it was good. It turns out that not I not only married the handsome runner of my childhood dreams, I also married a patient, sacrificial father; a devoted husband….

…and a Michelin 3-star chef ("exceptional cuisine worth a special journey").

Bon appetit.

the Measure of Success

The last week the D.C. metro area was hot – like triple digit hot – with a thick, sticky humidity. As a result we were quarantined inside for days on end, and it started to wear on everybody, myself included. My toddler walked up and the hallways, swinging his arms, looking for something – anything, to pick up and play with, only to set it (or throw it) down after a few minutes. We did the art -- finger painting, watercolors, crayons, markers. We got creative – “shape hunts” in the house, homemade aquariums out of paper plates and saran wrap, stuffed animal parades, tea parties, sugar cookies that looked like little watermelons. But the cabin fever really began to set in. On Friday with about two hours before daddy came home we took a five minute trip to the grocery store…just to get out of the house and let the children roam. I felt like I was spending most of my day saying, “No, thank you!” “Put that down!” “Are you okay?” And: “Oh dear, what was that noise?”

So as I sat on the couch last Friday nursing the baby and watching the two toddlers unload the bookshelves for the millionth time, I found myself wondering if the day was a success. And in fact, were any of these days a success?

In the working world, there was a certain degree of satisfaction in creating something – a document, a database, briefing slides; or in fulfilling a task – interviewing agency officials, briefing staffers, leading or participating in team meetings. Most days there was tangible evidence that I was moving forward toward achieving a larger goal. But what was the evidence of a job well done about as I stay at home? Did I have a goal for the day? Most days, in between thinking up activities for the kids, I am frantically running from one room to the next, trying to sweep, mop, do laundry, vacuum, cook – anything to feel like I’m on top of the mess. My husband will come home from the day, and if the house is mostly assembled, the children are still alive, and there is some semblance of meal... I suppose this equals a job well done.

But once again my 3-year old reminded me what I had been missing. The other night she was counting the number of paper hearts that the children receive every time they demonstrate an act of love to one another. This is our way of making tangible our verse of the month – “love one another,” from the Gospel of John. When my daughter counted her hearts, she had eight– the most she had ever received. She looked very proud. “Wow, Mommy," she said, her eyes big. "I really loved today!”

And so, spoken from the mouths of babes, I find one definition of a successful day.

The laundry is nice, but did I lay myself down? Did I give of myself with a joyful heart? Was I patient, kind, and forgiving? And oh dear -- shouldn’t this standard always be the measure of my daily “success,” wherever I am – the workplace or the home?

God must give us children so that they can be three and so full of wisdom.

The Stillness of Growth

Staying home full time for the last three weeks has provided an excellent opportunity for me to better understand the areas I am most in need of improvement. For example, this week has revealed that I kill plants. No matter how hard I try, it seems I cannot apply the appropriate proportions of water, sun, and soil long enough to move from seedling to flower or to sustain a flower already in bloom. This is especially distressing because my husband comes from a long family line of farmers – people who make things grow for a living. And yet here I am, unable for the life of me to keep a single zucchini plant alive. It’s not for lack of interest -- if I could only will it to happen, I would have beautiful flowering vines on my deck, hanging blossoms on my front porch, and a garden full of fresh produce – from which I would feed my family from a hand-made apron in a kitchen that would consistently smell like fresh homemade bread. This is the vision of my domesticated self. Instead, I lose one blossom after another, and with them my dreams of home-made salsa and fresh basil pesto.

My husband likes to remind me that to keep a plant alive I have to water it… and not just once but every day. Ah. And sometimes what it needs is not more water or more sun, but shade. And not all plants can use the same fertilizer or the same soil….Goodness, I think. It all starts to become very complicated. But here is the key: Do I want to try?

Apparently I have not wanted to try enough, and herein the weakness is revealed. I love the idea of many things – but the follow through is often lacking. True confessions: my “homemade stocking” for my now-three-year-old daughter’s first Christmas still has a snowman with only half a head. And despite the money I spent on oil paints to create homemade art for our walls – we still have only one tiny landscape that I hide tucked away in the bookshelf. But my failure at the art of gardening has been particularly hard. What is it that I lack? Perhaps the ability to be still, to be patient, to continue to persevere day in and day out even as I wait for something so small like a seed to finally take root…and grow.

The Gospel reading last week was about Mary and Martha. Mary “chose what was better:” she sat at Jesus’ feet while Martha was busy with many things. Our parish priest reminded us that, like Mary, we too need to sit at Jesus’ feet; we too need to be still. Are we too busy to pray? Then, he said, we are too busy. And like watering a plant, it is so easy to put off something like being still for another 5 minutes because I have so much to do, until each 5 minutes turns into an hour, and then an afternoon, and then another day...until I wonder, why does my spiritual well feel dry? My relationship with Jesus is not formulaic. I cannot repeat a mealtime and bedtime prayer and expect to flourish. Sometimes what I need is fertilizer – soaking in His presence. Sometimes what I need is the water from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I need the Word of Life. What this takes is time.

Today I am going to take the kids to a local garden, a "gardener's delight with 20 different themed gardens." No, I'm not going to wallow in self-pity at the garden I will never have, and I'm going to resist my typical burst of short-lived enthusiasm to take on a new project. Instead, perhaps today I will just listen. Maybe I'll bring my Bible and share a passage with the kids. I'll try to be still. Perhaps today, as I sit in the stillness surrounded by quietly growing seeds (and my not-so-quiet, but still-growing children), I will begin to learn a lesson. I might not see immediate results, but in time, these seeds will grow.

UPDATE:
We didn't make it to the gardens yesterday. The near-100-degree temperature with near 100-percent humidity came with public warnings to keep infants and the elderly indoors. This was enough to deter us from any outside excursions. The best-laid plans.... However, I did find some quiet time: between laundry loads and during naps, I hunkered down in the cool, dark basement. I closed my eyes to block out the visible chaos, and, for at least 15 minutes in the silence, I listened.
Baby steps.

And baby makes...

Five!
That's two adults, three kids -- and no, not a typo. When we learned last year that we would be welcoming another baby, it was a joyful -- although intangible -- event. Really? We were going to be a family of 5 with three kids just about under the age of 3? I felt like looking around me -- surely, Lord, you saved this task for someone far holier than me....

The two lines, the positive doctors tests, and my growing queasiness confirmed the new life, but I just couldn't imagine our young family expanding. I watched my two kids growing -- their days full of laughing, playing, bargaining, and spending respectively longer times in time out, and I would wonder -- where in this situation will the baby be? He was very present in my ever-expanding belly, but even in the days, hours, and minutes leading up to his birth, we were still amazed to think -- what will he look like? How big will he be? Which of his older two siblings will he most resemble? He was alive, with kicks, a heartbeat (like a gallop, according to the nurses), -- but still invisible. And from the beeping on the hospital monitor, to the waiting in the labor and delivery room for the contractions to grow closer together... it seemed that all we would do regarding this baby was wait, wait, and wait. And wonder.

And then -- in a matter of seconds, he came. And in that instant, just like with his sister and brother, I coudn't imagine life without out him.

Welcome Caleb Xavier, we're so, so blessed you're here....