Category: Parenting/Kids

Separation

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I hope everyone enjoyed the Advent Reflections. In case you missed any, you can always check them out under the “Advent Reflections 2015” tab or the Archive. I enjoyed writing them. I hope they inspired you to have a peaceful and thoughtful Advent.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a more traditional post. Recently, I’ve started subscribing to a styling service. It seems rather silly, to have a complete stranger “style” you – I’ve never been “styled” before and am still uncomfortable with the term. Don’t know why, just am. Anyway, in one of the shipments I received a new purse. I didn’t need a new purse, but it was such a good color and I was drawn to it. It was something I

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The new purse

would have seen in a store, went, wow, what a great purse, but never would have actually picked it for myself. (One of the reasons I’m doing this is to push myself outside of just jeans and simple t-shirts. Nothing crazy, just a bit more put together).

I’m so glad I made that decision. My current purse has become the diaper bag plus purse. There are goldfish and crumbs in every corner, it is full of clothes and diapers, toys and books, my wallet is in there somewhere and I can never find my sunglasses except, ironically, on cloudy days. When we load up with waters and snacks, I’m pretty sure it weighs as much as my 15 month old daughter. It’s just a lot.

I’m fine with that. It’s my choice not to keep my purse and diaper bag in two separate spaces. It’s easier to load up one bag rather than two. But, when I’m on my own (which isn’t often but does happen), it’s a rather ridiculous scene. I have two choices – unload all the diaper bag items, since I won’t need them when I’m at the commissary by myself or on a date with my husband. Or, I can carry them unnecessarily with me, being weighed down by my diaper bag child instead of my actual children.

Enter the new purse. I never thought of option three until it arrived and I needed to come up with a reasonable excuse to be OK the expense. Right now it is sitting empty on its hook. That’s right, completely empty, there isn’t a single thing in it. It is waiting for my next solo trip out of the house, even if it’s just to choir practice. When Sunday rolls around, I will get this beautifully empty purse down and put in it my wallet, some chapstick, and car keys. That’s it. Well, if it’s sunny then sunglasses too but the likelihood of that is slim, even in California right now.

Separate spaces. It’s a novel idea, at least for me. I’m not trying to divide my roles in life, mother – wife – woman. But it is nice to have some breathing room between them sometimes. Yes, I am always a mother even if my children aren’t present around me. But I don’t need to carry all of my “mother” stuff to every place I go. Sometimes it’s nice to focus more on the wife/woman side of things, like when I’m on a date with my husband. Now, when we go out, I can get my wallet out without asking him to hold a can of puffs or a couple board books.

I think that this separation is important, especially in marriages. Ben has deployed now a number of times and when he is gone we skype as often as we can. We have learned the hard way that if we only talk to each other when the kids are around, our marriage suffers. We aren’t able to communicate in a deep enough way when we are being interrupted by stories of the day’s activities, imaginings and sweet but distracting musings of a 3 and 4 year old. We need time to ourselves. It is a healthy thing and one that marriage counselors and experts all agree on (as far as I am aware).

I’m grateful for this purse. It’s helping me identify my desire for and the importance of me-time, marriage-time and family-time. I had no idea when I embarked on a “styling” adventure I’d find this wealth of grace at the bottom of a purse.

Surviving Monotony

Published on by Kate1 Comment

Part of parenthood is coming to terms with your child’s fascination and obsession with monotony. Anyone who has heard the question “Why?” more than 5 times in a 60 second window understands. Anyone who has had to read the same story 10 times in a single day can empathize. Anyone who has had to listen to the same music in the car for days on end feels my pain.

It’s rather incredible how kids can get the same, if not more, enjoyment out of an activity that they have just engaged in no less than 30 seconds prior. The sheer wonder and pleasure they get from that book, song or slide is baffling. But I have to admit, I’m a little jealous of it.

If I read the same book over and over, I would get bored. Hearing the same music over and over again just makes me lower the volume. Adults seem to value change much more than monotony, which is exactly the opposite of children.

Children, above all, thrive on repetition. I’m currently reading G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy (free on Kindle – nice!). It is a really interesting read. Basically, it’s about his person journey of thought to Christianity. In one section, he talks about how adults shy away from monotony. In his estimation, we falsely believe that when something is monotonous, it is dead – think of a clock, consistently ticking with no variety, no change. “People feel that if the universe was personal, it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance.”

Chesterton offers an alternate way of viewing monotony. He suggests we look at children and their love of monotony. “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.”

It’s so true! It’s exhausting , almost painful, to read Goodnight Moon after the 8th time. The words start to run together, you try to skip a page but your child knows the story too well and catches you and you start to doze by the time the quiet old lady/rabbit whispers hush.

Chesterton challenges his readers to consider someone else who perhaps enjoys monotony. For Chesterton, the world was full of wonderful miracles and as he grew, he began to wonder if perhaps these miracles were more than just happy coincidence, what if they were “repeated exercises of some will.” He says “I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.” Or, in other words, God.

What if

God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them….The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

I love this outlook. For those of you who believe in a personal, loving, creative God, this about sums it up. God creates from pure love and joy, exulting in monotony while at the same time creating each person, each tree, each flower uniquely and individually.

So yes, monotony can be grating on the nerves. Rather than letting it irritate us, we can use it as an opportunity to be grateful. We can look at the sunrise and instead of seeing something automatic, pause to revel in it’s brilliance. Instead of dreading the music on repeat, we can appreciate of gift of hearing. We can speed our way through Green Eggs and Ham, or we can let our children’s delight become our own as they shout with glee “I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM!”

Do you struggle with monotony? How can you turn something that is monotonous into an opportunity for appreciation or gratitude instead of a moment of frustration and a strong desire to escape?

Guaranteed Right Answer

Published on by KateLeave a comment

While in college, I participated in a music ministry program. We were a group of students, musically inclined, that studied the liturgy together and collaborated to select the music, coordinate the choirs, and play/sing at the Masses. We met periodically with the heads of the campus ministry music program to learn more about the liturgy, how to select appropriate music and grow together as a community.

In particular, we studied the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concillium (SC), the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Periodically, we would have quizzes on what we were learning. Our liturgy director would jokingly say, “If you don’t know the answer, just put down SC #10. It covers everything. This is the famous source and summit passage. Simply put, the liturgy is both the source from which the Church and her people draw their faith and the summit toward which all the actions of the Church are aimed. It really encompasses everything.

As I was driving home with John from Sunday school, this memory came to mind. I had asked John what he had learned about that day. He did the typical “I don’t know.” I pressed him further, asking if they had heard any stories. He said, yes, one about Jesus. I asked what Jesus was doing in the story. “Dying on the cross” was his answer.

Now, it is very possible that they did talk about the sacrifice of Jesus, but I am inclined to think that they probably did other things, based on the papers he was sent home with. Regardless, John taught me a very important lesson about our faith.

When it all is boiled down, our faith is about the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, the Paschal Mystery. Without the Paschal Mystery, we just have a nice guy who said some unique things a long time ago. The power, the compelling witness, the suffering faith of Christians everywhere, comes from the Paschal Mystery – the source. As Christians, we are called to become Christ.

jesus-753063_1920But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live [just] as he lived. (1 John 2:5-6).

The summit.

So in a way, John got it right. Regardless of what they actually talked about, it can be traced back to the source, to Jesus. And at the same time, it pointed toward our ultimate goal, union with Jesus.