Not so simple

The first time I did the "Simple Woman's Daybook" someone wrote and pointed out that my entries weren't simple. And then, someone else did that the next time. And somewhere along the way, I conceded that the name didn't fit. But I didn't change the nature of my entries; I changed the name instead. And then, predictably, someone asked why I wasn't using the "simple" name. :-)

My life is not simple. And I am not simple. My life is complex. I am responsible for the care and nurturing of ten other people. They live under my roof. I feed them and clothe them and counsel them and pray for them. I educate them (well, one of them--my husband--I don't educate, but I do explore new ideas with him). When they are sick, I nurse them back to health. Ten people. There is no way that can be simple. People are complex. All the people here are individuals. They all have individual needs and individual wants and individual personalities.

Running a household of this size is not simple--it's complex. I can try to make it simple. I can try to pin down that elusive system that forces everything to march in a perfectly orderly manner so that it all looks sleek and uncluttered as an Amish kitchen, but sooner than later I will be frustrated to learn yet again that there is no simple system that will work here. Even if each component is simple, the big picture is a complex tapestry.Life happens. In a family this size, life happens constantly and it's never simple.

Sometimes, particularly when I'm tired, I wish it were simple. But then, I usually quickly recognize that I'm wishing away the very life for which I prayed.I begged God for the fascinating, complex man who is my husband.  I begged God for every single one of these children. I begged God for the means to buy them the clothes that necessitate nearly perpetual sorting, washing, folding and putting away. I begged God for the good job my husband holds which  provides ample food that requires extensive planning, shopping, cooking and serving (and also means an erratic work schedule and frequent travel). I begged God for this house, for the things in it, which He has so graciously provided and which I must clean and maintain.  And I heard God when He begged me to educate my children at home--each one according to his individual needs and abilities. None of it is simple. Not a single bit of it.

The is my mission field, my apostolate. I am reminded of the woman who struggles to raise three small children while being a missionary in a third world country. The life seems simple enough. The house is humble; the furnishings are sparse; the meals are plain. But I am assured it's actually quite complicated. Washing clothes requires transportaton and time and the cooperation of nature. Health care can be sporadic and inadequate. Personal safety is not guaranteed. My mission is in suburban USA. My challenges, like the challenges of the foreign missionary, are often the challenges of the culture in which I find myself. But our missions are the same: to make believers of all nations, to bring the Word of God to the culture. My mission begins at home, on a cul-de-sac in Virginia, where the days are very full indeed. In a world that is increasingly complex. There is no doubt I am called to do it.

The only simple part is how I do it. I am called to do  it diligently. I am called to do it wholeheartedly. I am called to devote my entire life to working hard for the glory of God in this complex household. I am called to do it--no matter how intricate and complicated "it" is--with love. Mothers love with all their hearts, minds, and souls. It's a pure love that God wants us to give to our families. Many, many times, this love looks like plain old hard work, work that requires heroic discipline and and almost incessant busy-ness. Work that is softened by grace falling like rain, rain that sounds like music. It's not a simple tune. It's a symphony conducted by the Lord himself. And in every family the song is different, each according to the score written by the Creator.

Mother Teresa lived a life of seeming simplicity. But was it really simple? She founded an order, traveled the globe, feed millions, saved lives, dined with heads of state, worked for the kingdom of God.This was a rich and complex woman.This was a deeply spiritual woman. And, I think, what made it all seem like a simple life was her agenda. At the root of it all, all she wanted was to love. She wrote:

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

We mothers are like that. We work. We work hard. And often, our work schedules are very complicated. But we can have the peace of simplicity that emanated from the tiny nun if we work those schedules the way she did: with love, and respect, and devotion. With the simple purpose of creating something beautiful for God.

And now I'm off, to spend the day in an increasingly familiar circuit of orthopedist and physical therapist, grocery store and post office. I'll come home to cooking and cleaning and laundry and maybe a little bit of writing. I sat last night and mapped it all out--I had to in order to be sure that I did the work that is mine for the day. It all looks a bit messy on my handwritten list. It looks absolutely nothing like I thought it would at week's beginning.  And I know the list does not include all the things that I will do which will make me "Mama" to small people. Those go without saying. They are my very being. They are the simple part of me. And all the rest, all the chores, all the scheduling, those I plan as best I can. Now I give it all to Him-the simple part and the overwhelming part. I tell Him I will do the very best I can and I trust Him to show me what's important, to make His will clear, and to conduct the rich and joyful symphony that is my not-so-simple life.

I Was a Better Mother Before the Internet

I haven't forgotten our habit study. The truth is, I've been thinking almost incessantly about a habit I have to change, a new rail I need to lay down, before any other habit will take hold in this house.

I got a note from a young mom the other day. She's in her mid-twenties, with four children and she's really got me thinking. I told her that I think she is a lot like me. She wants to do the very best she can with her husband, her children, and her home. She wants to let God plan her family. She wants to grow in holiness. She wants to connect with like-minded women. She wants to be alone. She's wondering if she'll ever hit her groove.

I'm wondering that about myself, too.

The biggest difference between the young mom she is and the young mom I was is that she has internet access. I didn't. I didn't get online until I was over thirty, didn't really communicate with other people online until I was thirty-two. And I think it might have been better that way. Maybe it's going to be an annual late summer ritual; I'm going to go back and think about the way things were and compare it to the way things are and try to find my own groove.

I was chatting with an old friend today about the mom I was. This is my oldest "mom" friend of all. We met in a pre-natal exercise class when we were pregnant with our first babies. We grew up together. We grew into our roles as new wives and mothers together. We knew each other inside and out. So, I began to wax sentimental with Martha and she was as practical as always.

"There were fingerpaints outside. Remember the time we let them paint with their feet on the deck and then slide into the baby pool and make the water all colored? Remember how my house always smelled of fresh-baked bread and Murphy's Oil Soap?"

"I remember," replied Martha wryly, "that you wore the finish off the floor because you were addicted to that smell."

"O.K. So maybe it wasn't perfect," I agreed, "but it was more peaceful."

"Um," she ventured, "You have eight times the children and you're going in a million different directions trying to meet the needs of absolutely every stage of child development..."

Well, yes, there's that. But still. There is something stirring restlessness in me that wasn't there years ago.

I talked to another friend, my closest friend in the world. "I think it's the internet," I ventured. "I don't think it's possible to live a recollected life and be plugged in."

"And there you go again," she said. "Everything is black or white. Plugged in or unplugged. No middle ground. Here' s the problem you're hearing with your young mom correspondent and you're seeing in yourself: you reach a point in your day when you want a bit of time alone. You're feeling needy. Instinctively, you know that time alone is how you recharge. Years ago, you might have spent that time with a book or a magazine or your Bible. You might have called a friend.  You might have sat down to write, but you would not have published instantly. You would have been writing because writing brings you peace. But now, you think you're spending time alone, but you're really connecting with all these different people in all these different places. You're getting tons of input and sensory stimulation. And then you think you're nurturing relationships, but really, it's very rare that a true friendship uses a keyboard as a medium. I just don't think people are created that way. In the end, the place you go when you're feeling depleted, the place you look for shoring up, ends up sucking the last little bit of energy from you."

She's got a good point.

My young friend wants to know how much time is okay to spend alone. And I've pondered this for quite some time. I think we need time alone. Some of us need more time than others. I don't think time spent on the computer is time alone. There is the rare e-mail friendship that involves long "letters" that might qualify as time spent shoring up. But the time spent surfing for ideas from decorating to dinner (not to mention researching educational philosophy) is not time spent alone. The time spent on message boards, blog comments, and email loops is not time alone. It's time in a crowd, sometimes a very large crowd. And it has much the same effect.

I've spent a fair amount of time in doctors' offices this week. From orthopedists to obstetricians to radiologists (and back around in circles), I noticed one thing: everyone was working. The people in scrubs, the people in lab coats, the people in office attire, no one was slinking away from her work to check her mail, contribute to an online conversation or surf for craft ideas. Mothers at home have more freedom than all those people I watched work this week. We can call the computer from its sleep mode "just for a minute" to do any or all of the above tasks and no boss is going to frown upon the habit (or worse). But a habit it becomes and a minute becomes ten or twenty and then we go from just clicking and reading and  start to write a response and suddenly the afternoon is gone. Or we don't write a response, but we arise from our chairs troubled by something we read and we hold it in our heads as we go about our daily rounds, and we wonder why we feel frazzled.

"I just want to bake bread and wash the floor," I insisted again to Martha.

"You are allergic to wheat and Christian washes the floor now, " she reminded me.

Slowly, I recognize that it's not the bread or the soap or even the paints (though I intend to do that with my little ones tomorrow). It's the quiet thoughts I carried in my head while I did those things.

Mothers were made to nurture. We nurture babies. We nurture little girls who look to us as examples of what they are to become. We nurture restless teenaged boys. We nurture young adults who are boldly going forth in the world. We nurture a love with a man who is called away from us and into the world in order to provide for our basic needs. Mostly, we nurture relationships. And real relationships require thoughtful time and attention. They can't be a click away. They require the investment of energy and understanding. They require prudence and forgiveness and genuine charity. It is true that in our lifetimes we might find one or two of those friendships online. But that is all. Just one or two. And those friendships will more than likely grow and flower over much time and many long, thoughtful letters and many more phone conversations. They will not remain confined to the screen and the keyboard. 

Most of our genuine friendships, most of the contacts that will fill us rather than deplete us, are the ones we nurture face to face and the ones where we are nurtured in return. They'll be the friends who watch your first baby when you go to the hospital to give birth to the second. They'll be the friends who sit in stunned silence at playgroup while the doctor on the phone tells you that you must arrange for a CT scan immediately. And they'll be there when your hair is falling out and you need a second opinion on a wig. They'll help you move and set up housekeeping in your new house. They'll be the extra set of hands you need the first time you attempt to nurse both your baby and your toddler following an unexpected C-section.They'll understand how fragile you are in the months after your first child leaves for college and they will be kind, very very kind, when the whole world seems like a hostile place.

I can't tell my young correspondent how much time to spend online. I can't even seem to set those hard, fast parameters for myself, but I can offer this: make sure the time you spend is really nurturing you. Make sure it's making you a better wife, a better mother, a better Christian. Your time is so precious and your time alone is so scarce. Make it count. Make it matter.

Comments are closed on this one. I'm enjoying the quiet;-)

More thoughts on how this looks for me here: Time Online, Revisited.

Pruning Roses and Souls

Last year, I planted roses. I planted two varieties, six bushes in all. Three of the bushes were white roses called John Paul II. The other three were Our Lady of Guadalupe roses — beautiful pink roses that bloomed abundantly until the first week in December. 
I had been warned by experienced gardeners that growing roses was tricky business. But I found otherwise. Michael dug some holes, we stuck the bushes in, filled them up and watered occasionally. We were rewarded by bouquet after bouquet of fresh-cut, sweet smelling roses for over six months. I admit that I thought I’d stumbled upon the perfect rose bushes.
I wasn’t sure what to do with them last winter, so I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t sure what to do with them in the spring and I was so sick with all-day-long morning sickness I didn’t care. The roses came back and all through May, they bloomed generously. Yep. I had this rose thing all figured out.
And then June came. The leaves started to turn yellow with black spots. Holes appeared in the leaves. Blooms yellowed on the vine before they fully opened. The bushes looked like they were dying very, very quickly. I asked for rose advice and it came back to me with authority — prune them way back, remove every trace of the diseased leaves and branches, clear the debris from the ground, treat the remaining plant and then wait for it to come back, healthier than ever. I was heartsick at the thought.
I set out with Mary Beth early one morning to do the deed. We donned gardening gloves and wielded pruning shears. She began to cut one leaf at a time. I told her to cut the whole branch. She cut off the tip. I told her to go lower and cut the whole branch. She winced. So did I. She questioned the wisdom of removing so much of the plant. I told her that the experts claimed that it was necessary to save the plant. And so, together, almost silently, we cut all six bushes back to nearly bare branches.
When were almost finished, I commented to her, “You know, God does this. He is the master gardener and He most certainly does prune. There are times in our lives we will feel stripped as bare as these bushes. Remember this morning. Remember how hard it was to cut it all away. Remember how much we want to save these flowers.”
She nodded solemnly. She thought I was nuts. One day, she will remember.
We set about in life with such good intentions. We fill our lives with relationships and our calendars with events. We get involved and seek friendships. Most of us seek also to give and to serve. We look for opportunities for our children to learn and to grow. We think we’ve found the perfect plan. For a while, it all blooms so beautifully. Our happy combination of activities bears abundant, sweet-smelling blossoms. We are quite sure it’s all God’s will for us.
And then the black spots start to creep up. Sometimes, it’s a slow process. Sometimes, we wake up one morning and find the whole bush covered with blackened, holey leaves. If we allow it, God begins to prune. Often, the pruning is painful, very painful. The only way to bear the pain of the pruning is to keep our eyes on the face of the Gardener. He has a plan. It’s a plan to save us, a plan to allow us to bloom abundantly. But first, He must strip us bare. 
And there we stand in the summer sun, naked in our seemingly barren state. Very little green remains, no blooms can be seen. We need to begin again, confident that the Gardener will provide all we need to grow and flourish. We trust in the One who said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:1-5).

Summer Reading

Every summer, I return to a handful of familiar books and revel in the reunion. These are the standbys, the sure things, the books that remind me of what I really want from my home life, particularly from my home education adventure.

I re-read Educating the Wholehearted Child and sing with the joy Sally Clarkson exudes. I remember that the important things in a child's education are not at all difficult to provide. I first read this book about eleven years ago. There were far fewer choices on the home education landscape back then and most of them replicated school at home. Sally spoke sense to me. She gave voice to what I knew to be true and she offered me the wisdom of her experience. Sally weaves a real books education into a real--and very  rich--family-centered life of faith. Hers is a grace-based approach to children. I have this book memorized in parts but I still like to return to it every summer and remind myself what matters most.

I also read Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum. I'm fairly certain that the book on my shelf is my third copy. The first was given to me by my friend Margaret when Christian was an infant. It was a true original run--copied on a copy machine and stapled down the middle. Laura Berquist had sent a few of these out into the world when this was a fresh idea in home education. Still, Laura's children at the time were much further along the educational path than mine and Margaret clearly knew what she was doing with hers. I had much to learn from them and learn I did. Now, fifteen years later, we can all clearly see that Laura's plan and Mother of Divine Grace programs have been very successful over time. I know lots of kids who have been educated Laura Berquist-style and have gone on to do very well in college and beyond.  She's proven herself to be well worth a fresh reading every summer.

Last summer, I added Donna Simmons' Waldorf Curriculum Overview for Homeschoolers to the list. I found this book to be refreshingly inspiring and very encouraging. Donna's warm wisdom reminds me to keep art and beauty, the rhythm of the days and the seasons, the natural wonder of the child, at the forefront when I plan and ponder. There's something about Waldorf that always slows me down, softens my breathing, and helps me remember that some of my children are still very young and very much in need of gentle rhythms.

Usually, I also pick through my Original Homeschooling Series. This set of six volumes of Charlotte Mason's writings is dog-eared and well-loved. It's highlighted, post-it noted and sometimes committed to memory. Charlotte Mason's wisdom is unparalleled in the world of education, particularly home education. I don't re-read the whole series; I just find my notes throughout.

This summer, though, I am going to focus on Charlotte Mason a bit more narrowly. The good folks at Simply Charlotte Mason have made available some e-books which are beautifully edited. It's as if they took my ratty paperback volumes, found every quote I consider worthy of re-reading, and organized them perfectly. I began with one titled Education Is.. It matters not that my own book has a chapter with the same subtitles; this book focuses it all for me anew. (And besides, I'm not much on re-reading my own book--I know what it says:-).

From there, I'm moving on to Laying Down the Rails: a Charlotte Mason Habits Handbook. THIS is the perfect summer book! This is a beautiful reminder of all those virtues we wish to instill in our children before they leave home. My only problem is that I want to work on all of them right now, and have those tracks well-laid by summer's end. The book is mostly Charlotte Mason quotes and it begs conversation with like-minded moms.

We can do conversation! My thought is to begin a summertime book study. We can read the free ebook first and then move on to Laying Down the Rails.. Then, I'd love to see us move on to Hours in the Out-of-Doors in the early autumn.

Charlotte Mason was a wise woman. She saw the whole child and understood that the family, the atmosphere, the developmental stage of the child, and the unique call of every Christian all work together to educate a child. She doesn't neglect any of these factors. She is no-nonsense in her insistence that parents do their duty to teach their children well. It's all so very sensible.

So, download away at Simply Charlotte Mason. I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts about a Charlotte Mason Education. We can inspire each other to raise and educate happy, healthy, holy children for the glory of God!

While I appreciate the beauty, the materials and some of the methods of Waldorf education, I am not a follower of Rudolf Steiner, his educational philosophy, or his religion. I am a practicing Catholic who is very clear in teaching the faith to her children. Please see this post for any further explanation of incorporating methods or materials that might also appear in Waldorf schools into your home. Take inspiration from what is good and what in in harmony with the true faith and leave the rest. If you can't discern, then leave it all alone.

Flowers in the Morning

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day. ~ Anne Morrow Lindgergh