In Which I Need to Take a Nap, but Don't Like to Admit It

After writing that title, I realized I'm not much better than Anthony!

I’ve been feeling rather depressed lately.  Really I think a big part of the problem is sleep deprivation.  The night-owl  husband often keeps me up rather late, the little girl keeps me up through the night, and the little boy has me up rather early.  I’ve discovered my family is actually one of those 60s cults that deprive their members of sleep and restrict bathroom privileges.  Help!

In seriousness, I know periods of little sleep are sometimes just an occupational hazard of early motherhood.  I am trying to do better about getting to bed earlier and not feel guilty about taking naps if I have the opportunity.  That touches on my other, more serious problem.  Feeling discouraged and guilty that I need more rest in the first place.  And I do need it, I must confess.  Every time I try to deny my body’s needs I end up crashing.  We did the mastitis thing over the weekend again.  Yuck.

You see, I do this thing where I compare myself to other mothers.  I realized in prayer this morning that I’ve been trying to compete with absolutely everyone I know.   If Jane can do X, then I feel like I should be able to do X too or I lose.   (Anne doesn’t take naps!  Emily doesn’t ask her husband to do the grocery shopping!)  There’s a poisonous pride working in me that I didn’t realize, making me feel discouraged by the very women who would give me encouragement and help.  Lest any of you reading feel awkward, by the grace of God I have been spared feeling jealous of other women's apparent superiority.  I don't hate you for being better than me, I just wonder how you manage to be so awesome.

This post might just reveal me as totally lame and insecure to boot.  I probably am.  I sure feel it!  But I think I need to blog about it because I KNOW I’m not the only one.  And also reading mom blogs can be a great way to fuel that insecurity, so a little perspective would probably be a good thing to have out in internet-land.  Generally I severely edit which parts of my life make it onto this blog.  You won’t see me posting my deepest, darkest secrets.  Mostly just fluff about some pretty thing I made or yummy thing I cooked or cute things my kids do.  If all anyone knows of me is my blog, that’s not the full story.  Same goes for everyone else.  Also in real life, we generally don’t let everyone know everything, nor should we.  The obvious conclusion is just because I’m not doing what someone else is, doesn’t really give me enough information to compare myself to her.

The whole above paragraph actually doesn’t matter, because I shouldn’t be trying to compare myself to other mothers at all!  Ryan tells me this all the time.  He’s right of course.  But it’s so natural to do it!  I want to know if I’m doing a good job.   I’ve been so conditioned through school to gauge my performance by everyone else’s.  (Class rank, grade on the curve type stuff.)  If I got a bad grade, it was softened if half the class failed, too.  Also, I got used to always being at the top of the curve and getting straight A’s.   I’m not on the Dean’s List for Mommy University.  I don’t have constant affirmation from 100% on every weekly task.  Boo-hoo.  In my head I often unconsciously translate things in to grades.  I got 7/10 things done on my list today.  C- for me.  Anthony was defiant and I completely failed at not escalating that particular situation.  F!  I also tend to take the “A” moments for granted, as just doing what’s expected.  No wonder I’m so discouraged.

I have to internalize that only one Person is “grading” me.  And He has a completely different rubric :  He asks for faithfulness, not success.  What matters is that I sincerely do my best to do His Will at every moment.  Accept my weakness, so that I can accept His strength.  What prompted me this morning was a line in Abandonment to Divine Providence that said that the thoughts that distract us in prayer reveal what we value above God, what we are not entrusting to Him.  I have to surrender my vocation to Him once again, because I simply cannot do it on my own.  I must come to rely on His grace, but first I must truly believe that His grace is sufficient for me.  This all sounds like platitudes.  But it really is true, I know it.  Maybe I could write about it better if I were actually doing it.  Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. 

Forgive me if this post is rambly and not that fabulous.  I haven't slept much lately.

Fourth of July

Then Pa began to sing.  All at once everyone was singing,

My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing....

Long may our land be bright
With Freedom's holy light.
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King!

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still.  Suddenly she had a completely new thought.  The Declaration and the song came together in her mind, and she thought:  God is America's king.

She thought:  Americans won't obey any king on earth.  Americans are free.  That means they have to obey their own consciences.  No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself.  Why (she thought), when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn't anyone else who has a right to give me orders.  I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that thought.  This is what it means to be free.  It means, you have to be good.  "Our father's God, author of liberty--"  The laws of Nature and of Nature's God endow you with a right to life and liberty.  Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God's law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free.


Excerpted from Little Town on the Prarie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Domine Non Sum Dignus

"Domine non sum dignus ut interes sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo et sanabitur anima mea."  ("Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.")

The centurion's words were also part of the Gospel at the Tridentine Mass today.  I didn't get to hear the homily due to a cetain small boy needing to go potty, but just about every homily I've ever heard on this Gospel has been about humility.  Certainly the centurion's humility is amazing, especially for a pagan in a position of authority.  Also his faith, because he did not need to see Christ come to heal his servant to know that it would be done.  Of course we repeat these words at every Mass.  Today what was amazing about them to me is that even though we are so unworthy, the Lord chooses to "enter under our roof" in Holy Communion anyway.

That doesn't seem all that humble, to accept Jesus even though we know full well we aren't worthy of it.  But this is just another one of the paradoxes of our faith.  The most humble of creatures, Mary, accepted the titles Mother of God, Queen of Angels, Queen of the Universe.  Of course she's perfect, but she is still a creature.  As his mother, she had authority over God Himself!  Certainly nobody merits that.  What makes it humility is to accept the will of God--not our own will, but His.  To say "no" to God's will, even if we say in our hearts it is because we are not worthy, is really just pride in disguise.  We are putting our own will over God's.  That was Satan's sin that cast him from Heaven:  "I will not serve."  It is not humility to say, "I can't do such-and-such duty of mine because I am so weak," and then give up trying.  It would be humility to say, "I can't do such-and-such duty on my own but since you have given it to me I will trust you to give me the grace to do it."  If God wants to make me into a saint, as he surely does, then grant me the humility to say His will be done and submit myself to the painful process of purification.  True humility will always lead us to greatness.

On the Eternal Consequences of a Dirty Floor

Some days, Mondays especially, it really does seem that "A woman's work is never done." We had a really nice weekend, weather-wise and just a nice weekend at home as a family. My husband worked on digging a raised bed (Yes, in January!), Anthony ran around outside a lot, I made pot roast and apple pie for Sunday supper, and we all just relaxed a bit. And the dirt and residue from this not-much-going-on weekend is all over my kitchen floor! My kitchen must have had a wild party while we were busy watching "A Man for All Seasons." I cleaned it just on Friday. I should take photographic evidence that that floor sometimes DOES look like it! For about five minutes. But it's not just the floor. Weekend evidence is everywhere. I'm sure I'm not alone in this on Monday mornings.

My dream kitchen floor. I like the yellow shoes, too!

The world might point to Mondays for a housewife and say, "See, it's pointless. Everything you do is immediately undone." But isn't all work that way, really? My husband finishes with one set of data, and there is another waiting for him. None of us are ever truly finished working until we die. That's nothing to be depressed over; it's just the nature of things. "Ah yes, but at the end of the month, he brings home a paycheck. You're just treading water." In housework, yes absolutely. If I really were just an unpaid maid and nanny as feminism would have me believe, I would be dissatisfied. I would be happier in a job. This study seems to think that's true!

But really, I'm not a maid with no life. My work is raising souls: Anthony's and the new baby's not to mention Ryan's and my own. Housework and cooking and kissing boo-boos are all just the background for this great work of developing human beings. The work of soul-building is really the only work that does last in eternity. Every architectural wonder, every Fortune 500 company, and every Nobel Prize will one day be gone. It simply won't matter. But it will matter if I was there to teach my son not to snatch books from the little girl at the library (Sorry, Elsa!). It will matter if I discipline my spirit to uncomplainingly clean that kitchen floor yet again. I never said it was glamorous! But it is important, because all these little day-to-day things will all help make our souls into who we will be in eternity. And that's the most important thing of all.

Maria Goretti

Four years ago today my husband asked me to marry him. Today is also the feast of St. Maria Goretti. I'd always prayed to her for purity in our dating days; I remember my high school youth minister giving us a "Prayer Before a Date" card that asked for her intercession. But today what struck me about her martyrdom was not that she died to protect her purity, but that she would not submit to being raped out of love for her attacker! She said, "No, Alessandro, you will go to hell." Even as he was stabbing her, she was thinking of the good of his soul. That is a saint. (A more complete bio can be found here. Also check out Alessandro's page!)

St. Maria Goretti showed extraordinary Christian love for the man who she knew would kill her, and sacrificed everything in trying to keep him from committing a mortal sin. As a wife and mother, I have a great responsibility for the souls of my husband and son, but so often I am lazy and not willing to sacrifice even twenty minutes for prayer for them. St. Maria, help me.

Of Worms and the Rapture

Yesterday was the day we began planting our summer veggies. After weeks and weeks of rain and muck, it's finally time. I got a good workout turning over about 350 square feet of pure clay again. But there was a very important difference in the soil this time, versus when we first dug up the grass in March: Worms! Each spadeful of dirt had at least three or four of them. Amazing what a difference a truckload of compost makes to the earthworm population. As I kept digging them up I felt like an intruder to their peaceful existences, or like some horrible Godzilla monster causing 9.8 level earthquakes with every stroke of the spade that sent them screaming (if worms could scream) back down into a safer level of subsoil. But just before they realized the Worm Apocalypse had come upon them, I could see these actually quite fascinating creatures going about their usual business. That business being digesting and reproducing. It made me think of "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" before the Flood. This Bible passage has often been quoted in reference to the May 21 Rapture prophecy Matthew 24:36f):

 

But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone. And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.  For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark, And they knew not till the flood came, and took them all away; so also shall the coming of the Son of man be. Then two shall be in the field: one shall be taken, and one shall be left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill: one shall be taken, and one shall be left.

Usually that would be the end of it, since it sufficiently answers Rev. Camping. But the rest of the chapter is just as worth reading:

Watch ye therefore, because ye know not what hour your Lord will come. But know this ye, that if the goodman of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would certainly watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Wherefore be you also ready, because at what hour you know not the Son of man will come.

Who, thinkest thou, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath appointed over his family, to give them meat in season. Blessed is that servant, whom when his lord shall come he shall find so doing. Amen I say to you, he shall place him over all his goods. But if that evil servant shall say in his heart: My lord is long a coming: And shall begin to strike his fellow servants, and shall eat and drink with drunkards: The lord of that servant shall come in a day that he hopeth not, and at an hour that he knoweth not: And shall separate him, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Even though this false prophecy has been widely regarded as a bad move, one positive that can be taken from it is that the people who believed it prepared for the Judgment by repenting of their sins and commending themselves and their families to God's mercy. They might not have otherwise done that. Even if their hope for that particular day was misplaced, fact is there will be a Judgment and we all have to be prepared for it. The temptation for those who don't believe it is to laugh at those who do. We all need to pray for those people though, especially those who spent their life savings spreading this message or quitting a job or some other drastic measures that they will now have to live with. The temptation to despair will probably be great for these souls. There's nothing funny about that. As for the rest of us, are we ready to meet God? Are we doing the work God has given us diligently? Is there something we have been over-indulging in ourselves? are we at the very least in a state of grace? Be you also ready.

Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!

One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns!

It's a curious tradition, beginning the most solemn, most severely penitential day of the year with sweet rolls. Like the cross itself, it is a paradox, but not a difficult one. The sweetness of the bun is a little foretaste of the Resurrection; Good Friday will always lead to Easter Sunday. The suffering we experience through our fasting and penance can itself be sweet. Finally, today we have been given the sweetest of gifts, our Savior offering Himself for our sin, that we may have eternal life.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world!