Monthly Archives: December 2012

motherhood, parenting, Spirituality

Critical Mass

Taking three small children to church is always a crapshoot.

Taking three small children to mass after a long night of merry-making and a morning of present-opening and candy-eating ups the ante even more.

Our three made it through the three readings from the Bible and the pastor’s homily surprisingly well.  I’ve found, however, that it’s always the second half of mass where the clapper hits the bell.

The fidgets start: the foot-thumping, kneeler-diving, seat-switching.  And that’s only the non-verbal.  Then you have the inter-sibling jibes and jokes, the giggles and snorts.  And the doctrinal observations and questions, which at any other juncture would be welcomed wholeheartedly, but not when presented in a stage whisper in the midst of a lull in the sound issuing from the PA system.  They never make noise when the organ is grinding, do they?

My five year-old came out with some good ones this Christmas mass.  When a prayer included a request for “eternal rest”, she turned to me incredulously: ‘a turtle?’  During the prayer of the faithful for the departed, I hushed her vehemently when she said what I thought was, ‘this is boring.’  Then I realized she was adding to the prayer, ‘like Grandpa Warren’, my deceased grandfather, the great-grandfather she never knew.

At what point do we as parents and parishioners expect children to behave “appropriately” at mass?  There is no magic age at which they suddenly will learn to sit still and attend – especially if they’ve been excluded from mass up until that point.  In my constant vigilance to keep her quiet, I nearly reprimanded my daughter for realizing the importance of a prayer and adding the memory of a loved one to it.

If we shut them down totally, we’ll miss gems like my two year-old last Christmas, who asked loudly enough for all those around us to hear, “Where’s Baby Jesus?”  A woman with three teenaged boys approached me afterward and commented on how nice it was to hear her little voice, to see the innocence and wonder of the young; that she knew the true meaning of the season.  At first, I laughed it off, a bit embarrassed at our disturbance, but then realized how nice it was to hear this older mother’s comment; a validation that this is how children are supposed to behave, that we need to appreciate it; and that it’s not a failing on the mother’s part to seal her child’s lips.

My favorite church faux pas by far, though, is when my eldest daughter was maybe four years old.  She proudly belted out the words to the closing hymn of mass, “All the Ends of the Earth”.  Only she didn’t know that was the refrain.  Instead, she sang, “All the ants of the earth.”  Classic.  All of us can see the power of God if only we look closely enough.  And watch for lessons all around us – even in the wee ones kicking the back of our pew as we try to pray.

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Identity

Still Flying the Flannel

Our local modern rock station, born of a university radio station since gone commercial, is currently airing “90s week” programming for “those of [us] still flying the flannel”; an extended Christmas gift, if you will.

It really is all I could ask of WBRU.

I cut my alternative teeth on their play lists.  I made tape – yes, audiocassette – recordings of their “twelve cuts above the rest” and “retro lunch” programs.  I mailed one such cassette to my now husband when he was in some far-flung locale in the Coast Guard.  I did have a few flannels and one ripped-in-all-the-right-places pair of men’s jeans I still miss from time to time.

Over the years, some of the music made my ears hurt and I found myself asking the question oft-repeated by our forebears, ‘they call this music?’  And I questioned some of their song selections for the “retro” lunch: ‘they call this retro!?’  I scoffed at the apparent naiveté of the new jockeys, these rookies who didn’t know the really classic stuff.  It never occurred to me that for them to be considered whippersnappers, I had to be moving into a new age bracket myself.

Slowly, tastes changed, a new sound came about, and I reveled in it.  There was this niggling thought in the back of my head, though.  Was this a new crop of really fabulous music – or was I old enough to have witnessed my first cycle of the old becoming new?  After all, Rainbow Brite, a color-wheel explosion of my childhood, is now available on DVD.  The Strawberry Shortcake picture that once hung above my twin bed now adorns my daughters’ space – and they know who she is!

When I was in second or third grade, I remember rocking out to Billy Idol’s version of “Mony, Mony”.  I was flabbergasted when my mother chimed in.  ‘This is an old song, you know,’ she told me with a certain triumph in her voice.  I can’t say I share in her bravado.

The very phrase, “for those of you still flying the flannel”, suggests that we’re somehow stuck in an outdated place.  Are the glorious days of my hey-day now ancient?  And am I becoming so?

It’s a bittersweet feeling.  While one never wants to be considered passé, the gut-wrenching chords of “Seether” still awaken the adolescent beast in me.  “Particle Man” still reignites images of my favorite people bouncing around to it.  And the supposed one-hit-wonders, The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones, still make me turn up the volume to an unhealthy level and groove.

The synapses are still firing and helping me remember some of the best and brightest moments of my life.  And luckily the music that inspired them has inspired a new group of whippersnappers to create like-minded and nearly as good music for a new soundtrack.

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motherhood, parenting, Spirituality

Where are all the people?

Today my daughter and I wandered into church.

New to town and in search of someone/anyone in the rectory, we’d wandered in there a couple months ago.  Apparently to her three year-old mind that signaled a routine.  So today after we finally did complete that unfinished business in the rectory, she wanted to go into the church again.

I hadn’t been planning on it.  I’d finished my list of tasks and was headed to the car.  I began to say we were done and could go home – when I paused.  Why couldn’t we go into the church?  We didn’t have to rush home.  And even so, I make time to do all sorts of ultimately extraneous errands.  Why shouldn’t I stop to spend a moment in the quiet sanctuary of the church?  And at this point in time, in my life, in society, a prayer could certainly be used.

Angela and I entered the dark hush of the church, a sacred feeling sweeping over me in a way that just doesn’t happen with the hubbub of a congregation-filled Sunday.  We quietly trod towards the sanctuary, my eyes on the golden glint of the tabernacle and rosy glow of the Christ candle, Angela’s moving from side to side across the pews.

“Where are all the people?” she asked.

Years of Catholic devotion springing to life through the sense memory of approaching and genuflecting on the altar, I continued forward without answering.  After we both genuflected and crossed ourselves – she doing a surprisingly good job for a three year-old – she asked again.

“Why aren’t the people here?”

Just like my initial response to her request to go in the church, I had a quick and logical answer – it’s not Sunday, there’s no mass right now.

And then I saw this beautiful little being standing next to me, a human in miniature, not even as tall as the altar, asking her question again in her sweetly innocent voice.

“The people should be here,” I said.

“Yes, they should,” she said.

I knelt down and focused on the image of Jesus on the cross, His presence in the tabernacle, the light from the candle.  I acknowledged all that He gave us and how all we do is ask for more.  And then I asked for more.   I asked for strength to give Him my all; to turn it all over to Him.  I prayed to remember this lesson my daughter had unwittingly given me – to go to Jesus; that I should be with Him there and always.

And I suppose, somewhere, inside me, I knew this.  I chose today, a week before Christmas, the midst of a week of trials and tribulations all around me, to officially register at the parish – a task I’d been meaning to do since moving in.  Why now?  The same reason I agreed when Angela suggested we enter the church.  Something inside me needed this lesson, this reminder, this preparation of Advent that always seems to fall short other years.

And it is no small wonder that it came from a small child of God.

 

 

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Identity, Legacy, parenting

Odd is One Word for It

Last night, my husband and I watched The Odd Life of Timothy Green.  We were looking for a feel-good, fun film to offer some distraction and diversion.  Instead, it made me think.

The story is book-ended by Cindy and Jim’s overwhelming desire and relentless pursuit of parenthood.  Before they digest the heartbreaking news that they cannot conceive, they build the idea of the perfect boy – then pack their dreams away and bury them safely underground.

Watching the palpable yearning of these scenes, I realized the amazing gift of my own children.  I felt almost guilty that they came to me so easily; for getting so caught up in the drudgery of day to day that I fail to see the miracle that they are.  How blessed we are.

Then Cindy and Jim’s dreams of the perfect boy sprout out of the mud and they obtain instant parenthood.  Their joy at his arrival was a familiar feeling.  And that the universe rewarded such yearning was a gratifying feeling.  They truly wanted this child.

As the movie went on, however, their journey seemed to be less about Timothy and more about their own performance.  How did Cindy’s child measure up to her sister, Brenda’s?  How would Jim better his own father’s parenting skills?  Were they making the right choices?  Were they keeping him close enough?

The scene that haunts me most is their argument after Timothy’s game-winning goal for the opposing soccer team.  As per his demeanor throughout most of the film, Timothy is nonplussed by his social and sporting gaff.  He is happy simply to have participated and had fun.  Cindy and Jim, however, have an all-out fight about their parenting.  Did they hope for the wrong things for their child?  Are their own feelings of validation getting in the way of their parenting?

Yes.

In their pursuit of parenting excellence, Cindy and Jim lost sight of the most important thing – their child.

Is that not a struggle we all face as parents?

Do we use parenting as a vehicle for helping our children fulfill their true potential as human beings or to fulfill our own latent, unrealized dreams?  Do we get so wrapped in assessing and perfecting our own performance that we fail to see the perfectly imperfect little being we so longed for in front of us?  The yearning to have a child is a strong, very personal and intimate one and that child truly is a part of us; however, it’s also essential that we see their distinctiveness as well.  At some point, their needs and desires diverge from ours and our performance is simply a supporting role.

If I allow for a willing suspension of disbelief, I know that Timothy is a magical being sent to prepare Cindy and Jim for parenthood.  Indeed, soon after his short visit, they adopt a young girl.  But as Timothy departed from them, he said they had always been ready for parenthood.  Were they?  Were/are any of us?

Are we ready to subvert our own desires and needs for the care of this little one?  Will we be able to use our own experiences to teach him or her without projecting our own agenda?  Will we be able to train his or her growth without stunting it?

It’s not about us.  It’s not about the perfect child.  The idea of perfection is a box in which we cannot place our child.  Nor can we do it to ourselves as parents.

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