And then there is Easter

I have to write this post. It's a little scary though, because I have no idea where it's going. I just know it's going.

There is a place in this big world where I predictably return every year. In this place, burnout is remedied, love comes to life in the budding of flowers and the greening of trees, friendships are renewed and sunshine-starved souls welcome the spring.

Year after year, predictably, I go there. I bring my new babies for their first taste of springtime in this great, glorious world. I even go when extreme nausea and fatigue prevent me from going anywhere else. Somehow, I get myself down there.

I didn't have a new baby this year. And I didn't have a baby on the way. That was different.

And more than a little sad.

My children come with me. They propel me there, begging to be there, begging to stay. There we are. This place is us. And I love it.

But not this year. This year I returned there. And it just wasn't the same. I went through the motions. I took the pictures. I willed it to be so. But it wasn't.

This year, the flowers bloomed early. They caught me by surprise. I was exhausted when they burst into color.

Utterly and completely exhausted.

This was not burnout. At least not the garden variety. This was complete depletion.

Lent had been long. My husband was gone for most of it.

 

It began with a betrayal of trust, an awakening to the understanding that some women were not at all who I thought they were. This was a strange place to be. All through Lent it raged around me; I was oddly calm in the face of it. One friend reminded me that we melancholy types often struggle with something much later--kind of a delayed reaction. I appreciated her concern. But I wasn't worried.

I had good counsel throughout that trying time. I read good things, went almost daily to Mass, surrounded myself with good and holy people. 

Out there, in the computer world, women picked apart my life. They questioned my faithfulness to the Church. They questioned the way I am raising and educating my children. They even picked apart the story my daughter wrote for her little sisters and said all sorts of unkind things about it. That was probably the most difficult of all. Do what you want with me, but really, don't hurt my kids.

Here at home, I was too busy to spend much time dwelling on what was happening in the computer. I had children who needed me in very big ways and they were stretching me beyond what I thought possible. So many of them. So little of me. Such big issues.

In hindsight, I recognize that I did what I usually do when I am stressed, only I did it to an extreme I've never done it in the past. I tried valiantly to perfectly order my environment. It was as if I thought that if I could control every last detail in my house, somehow I could bring healing to my hurting children, and quiet to an unkind crowd, and peace to my troubled soul.

So, I slept four hours a night for all of Holy Week and invested everything I had in my home. I made sure that we did all the traditional Holy Week things we always do, despite the fact that Mike was gone and Paddy was gone and Christian and Mary Beth were both too sick to help with anything. I cooked, I cleaned, I ordered the world in my control.

I pushed and pushed and pushed myself as if I could vacuum away the hurt and bleach out the sorrow.

Easter came. The sun shone. Mike arrived home just after sunrise. All was right with the world.

Or at least is should have been that way.

But I was so tired I couldn't even function. As nature would have it, Easter Monday was our first Bluebell Day. I cried on the way there. I cried on the way home. I cried the next day, too. And the next.

It was as if, now that he was home, I recognized that it was safe to fall apart. And so I did.

It wasn't pretty. I did that melancholy thing. 

And I wondered again and again. Why do I do it? Why do I put myself out there and offer my life in this space and in nearly 17 years of family life columns? Why do let myself be in such a place of vulnerability?

I don't know.

But I do know that every time I wanted to give up, to snap the computer shut and never look back, there was a perfectly timed email from a total stranger. Someone took the time to let me know that the words that appear in this place somehow made life a little better for her.

I was glad for that.

Glad to encourage.

Glad to help.

Glad to have taken the time to care.

But mostly glad for the opportunity to share God's grace.

Because He's here.

He's here even when the hard days stretch into entire seasons.

He gives me time and words and beautiful pictures.

He gives me 10 glorious reasons to get up in the morning.

I went back to the bluebells today. I went with my best friend in the world and her youngest children and a small band of my children. I had a good, honest talk.  I understood the great gift of forever friends.

The flowers are fading--it's a stretch to even say it's still bluebell season. But the trees are a lovely leafy green that wasn't there two weeks ago and the forest floor a regal carpet of lush color.

It's a beautiful life.

Sometimes, even a beautiful life hurts.

And then, there is Easter.

Gardening Advice

Do not sow a crop of good intentions in your neighbor's garden, but cultivate your own with diligence.

~St. Francis de Sales

The Rhythm of Lent

The weather warms slightly. It’s light outside a little later in theday. The vestments turn to purple. Fast and abstinence become oft-repeated kitchen words. My children know. They know that spring is on its way and the journey to Easter has begun.

They know because this has been their experience every late winter and early spring of their lives. They know because they live the rhythm of the Church year and there is deep and personal meaning in the repetition.Please read the rest here.

Kindness

Devout people are, as a class,the least kind of all classes. This is a scandalous thing to say; but the scandal of the fact is so much greater than the scandal of acknowledging it, that I will brave this last, for the sake of a greater good. Religious people are an unkindly lot. Poor human nature cannot do everything; and kindness is too often left uncultivated, because men do not sufficiently understand its value. Men may be charitable, yet not kind; merciful, yet not kind; self-denying, yet not kind. If they would add a little common kindness to their uncommon graces, they would convert ten where they now only abate the prejudices of one. There is a sort of spiritual selfishness in devotion, which is rather to be regretted than condemned. I should not like to think it is unavoidable. Certainly its interfering with kindness is not unavoidable. It is only a little difficult, and calls for watchfulness. Kindness, as a grace, is certainly not sufficiently cultivated, while the self-gravitating, self-contemplating, self- inspecting parts of the spiritual life are cultivated too exclusively. Rightly considered, kindness is the grand cause of God in the world. Where it is natural, it must forthwith be supernaturalized. Where it is not natural, it must be supernaturally planted. What is our life? It is a mission to go into every corner it can reach, and reconquer for God's beatitude His unhappy world back to Him. It is a devotion of ourselves to the bliss of the Divine Life by the beautiful apostolate of kindness.

~Fr. Faber Spiritual Conferences.

Through her Eyes: Christmas Gift

The days from the Solstice to Christmas Eve were among the darkest and coldest of my life. Tears were shed, apologies said. Hard won peace felt fragile. I stumbled into Christmas Eve morning in a typical melancholy fashion. I set about making the customary magic happen, all while feeling like an utter failure at just about everything that mattered. It was not a pretty place to be.

Our plan was to accompany Mike to Midnight Mass at the Basilica. Karoline had chattered all day about the "big church."  Earlier this season, we had received a letter from our pastor encouraging us, among other things, to attend Mass at noon on Christmas Day in order to make Christ the center of the Christmas celebration. We've opted for Midnight Mass for several years now and one of the great blessings of that is that it brings the reason for the feast into sharp focus. We are Midnight Mass people. Karoline and Katie talked all day about going to the "big church."

I was exhausted. Sarah Annie has some wicked virus that sounds suspiciously like bronchitis. We're sharing it. My throat is sore. I've slept and eaten very little since that dark settled at the week's beginning. We hosted brunch for 18 people Thursday morning. I caught a quick nap putting Sarah to sleep. At dinner, just an hour before the pilgrimage was to begin, Mike said again that he could just take a few children with him (they'd be just fine while he worked) and I could stay home with the little ones.  Michael, looking green around the gills, contemplated staying home as well. Maybe this just wasn't the year to do this big midnight thing.

I waffled. Katie cried. She wanted to go and she wanted me with her. Karoline announced she was going. We went. It is an hour's drive to the church. Mike needed to be there 2 1/2 hours early. Mass was two hours. Then it's an hour home in the wee hours of Christmas morning. This trek is a huge commitment. On the way there, I discussed strategy with Christian. We decided that I'd take the little girls and visit all the small chapels before Mass began, then I'd duck out with Sarah Anne and not even attempt to sit through Mass. He'd keep Karoline under his watchful care. Michael would take care of Katie. Paddy would be in charge of the little boys. I would spend Mass sitting quietly with my baby in the lower church. They would be together upstairs in the pew.

From the minute we arrived, Karoline was stuck to me like tenacious tinsel on tree. We went to the large nativity, where just an hour earlier, her Daddy had climbed inside and tenderly moved Joseph (to get  a better shot--but still it touched me somehow that he was worried about Joseph). Been a rough week--doesn't take much to make me cry. At the sight of baby Jesus, Karoline's eyes grew wide. She dropped to her knees.

"Hi, Baby Jesus! It's me. Thank you for all the children in our family. Thank you for making Sarah Annie my little sister. I love you!"

And she was up, leaving the strangers who witnessed the moment with me to wipe their eyes.

It's Christmas.

I decided to try to stay in the upper church for Mass. Karoline wanted to be with me and I wanted her to see the beauty that is Christmas Eve with the Papal Nuncio. She was awed and both little ones were hushed for the candlelit procession. She knew the hymns and sang along. Paddy made sure she didn't catch her hair on fire with the candles. It was a bit stressful. Then the lights came up. And she and Sarah Annie chattered away while they took all the donation envelopes for the rack on the pew and "organized" them. We made it to the Kyrie. And then we walked that very long aisle from our reserved seats in front  to the back of the church. Karoline wasn't leaving me for anything. Now I had them both.

We made our way to the crypt church. I knew I'd hear the music and know when to go back upstairs for communion. Slowly, I walked Karoline around the church, stopping at each mosaic to tell her about the saint depicted there. She spent a long time at the nativity, patting the nearby sheep and begging to touch baby Jesus. We saw St. Elizabeth. And St. Anne holding the Blessed Mother with a book to read. We stopped to say a prayer with St. Joseph. Then, we were at the center of the back of the church. "Jesus is here too, Karoline," I whispered, "really here in the Tabernacle."

"In the gold box?" she asked.

I nodded.

She dropped to her knees. I stood in awed amazement.

Thank you Jesus, for Sarah Annie. And especially thank you for giving me to my mommy. I love you, Jesus! Bye bye.

She was off to look at the next mosaic. I was rooted to the spot right there in front of that Tabernacle where the Baby and the King had just touched the tenderest part of my heart and healed the wounds He knew were there.

Yes, thank you Jesus. I love you, too