While They Were Sleeping

The Gift of Compassion

admin — Fri, 11 May 2012 04:28:30 +0000

I wrote once, years ago now, about an article in America Magazine called “A Fiery Gift,” in which the author argued that there are important spiritual insights to be gained from a natural birthing experience. Essentially, she claimed (and I agree) that the pattern of birthing occurs often is our spiritual lives, and having the experience of physically birthing a child gives us a context against which to compare the movements we make toward growth in our souls.

In our Engaging Spirituality group we have discussed the different kinds of deaths we face – of ideas, dreams, plans, youth, etc., but birth has been largely left out until tonight. But one of our group members, during centering prayer, came to a very similar conclusion to the author of that article.

Which got me thinking. We try so hard to avoid suffering, or anything messy, really. So much of life is messy! Especially some of the best parts – birthing, making love, making mud pies. And women’s bodies are messy, so we try to control them and clean them up. Heaven forbid we be too smelly, or hairy, or anyone find out we have our period. But like with birthing, when we push this all away, what are we missing? The whole world works on beautiful, simple cycles of birth and death. It is the Pascal Mystery – life, death, resurrection. And our bodies do it every month, if only we allow them. We complain about the discomfort of PMS or cramps, or crying for no apparent reason. But what if God has really just given us a gift of tears that we aren’t humble enough to accept? What if the “no reason” that sets us off at “that time of the month” is really the greatest reason of all – compassion, true suffering-with, for all those unnamed sufferers in our world? Our ES group has been learning about the importance of holding the world in all its suffering in our hearts and lifting it up in prayer. It sounds like a daunting task, but what if God created women – mothers all of us, biologically or not – to do just this caring, comforting, weeping at the foot of the cross, and to do it naturally, easily, every month?

I have to admit, I am more stable emotionally when I am pregnant or nursing than when I am am cycling. And as I move back towards those constantly changing hormones, I feel the mood swings and sudden onset of tears acutely. But I am grateful for the insight this prayer group, these readings, and these fellow sojourners in faith have gifted me with. So that maybe, instead of cursing my body for being so inconvenient, I can now learn to welcome and bless God’s gift of tears as the opportunity for a deepening compassion.

Homeschooling digest 3/18/2012

christina — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:53:45 +0000

Friday Lucy helped me make strawberry jam – our best batch yet. She was very excited about making it so we didn’t have to buy it any more.
Saturday the girls helped me weed a bed at Nana and Papa’s and scatter seeds for the polyculture. That meant lessons on mulch, different kinds of seeds, weeds, manure, and lizards. We went to Mass and to Mimi’s for a St. Patrick’s day dinner.
Sunday was our day off for the first time in a couple of weeks. The girls got to go swimming and played outside with the neighbor kids. Lucy is just like Craig – she wants to invite everyone she meets to dinner immediately. Lucy also helped clean up some shelves I found on the side of the road and both girls helped cut strawberries for “fruit nachos”.
Today (Monday) we read the first story in House at Pooh Corner and Lucy had ballet. We tried to Skype with a friend in Seattle, but it didn’t work right. But we did get a geography lesson on where New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Seattle are.

Homeschooling update 3/16/2012

christina — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:31:20 +0000

Busy weeks…
Last Saturday we all went fishing with SJV. The girls each caught several fish and Samantha won a pink fishing pole for catching the most of any girl. The girls all got to play with worms, and Clare tried to eat one.
Sunday I took Lucy and Samantha to a chamber music concert that the St. Michael’s band put on. Lucy liked it, but Samantha doesn’t want to go back.
Ballet Monday and Tuesday.
Wednesday Craig and his dad took apart the washing machine.
Thursday we visited the farmer’s market and Whole Foods.
Today we went to Lowe’s and Target. Tomorrow we’re going to plant one of Papa’s vegetable beds.

Are we awake?

christina — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:33:35 +0000

I fear it may be time for this blog to head off in a different direction. This should be a good thing, since it might encourage me to get back to writing. We’ll see.
My eyes are being opened and my heart is being broken, and I need space to work through some of this. I’m hoping this space will fill some part of this need.
Craig and I have been participating in a group through church called Engaging Spirituality. The program seeks to deepen participants’ faith through a group process focused on prayer and social justice.It has been challenging, to say the leastparents , and we are discovering just how much growing we still have to do.
Craig’s parents have been kind enough to watch the girls through all these meetings. As I was driving to their house to drop the little ones off, I witnessed this scene.
We were at a red light, waiting to make a left turn. To the side of the oncoming traffic, also stopped for the light, a man was walking up and down with a sign. I couldn’t read the sign, since his back was to me, but I’ve seen this man, and his friend who was sitting on the bus bench, before, so I know the sign said something to the effect of, “hungry”, “please help”, “anything helps”, etc. You know the signs as well as I do.
In the far lane from the man, a police car was stopped for the light. I noticed the blue lights flashing, and the officer flinging his door open and stepping quickly out of the car. He called to the man with the sign, and waved him toward him. Between the two rows of cars, there was a conversation which I couldn’t see much of because of the cars between me and the two men.
I don’t know what was said. Maybe the officer warned the other man to be careful in the traffic. But I doubt it. The officer looked irate. There was violence in his movement. When they were done talking, the man slunk over to the bench, sign gone or put away. The officer stormed back to his car, ripped the door open, and got back in.
Our light changed.
The whole scene might have taken a minute. I was shaken by what I witnessed. Craig checked when we got home – there is no law against pan-handling which applies to that part of the city. What could the officer have said to this man? Maybe he knows him well, has picked him up in the past for something. I don’t know. But what I saw, what my heart and my gut saw, was ugly.
These men are already down. What good does it do for this officer to get out and further embarass and belittle them in the middle of stopped traffic? There was no kindness or concern for the plight of fellow human being visible in the officer’s body language. There wasn’t even pity. There was contempt, self-righteousness, anger, disgust, and, as I realized laying awake in bed tonight, violence. I do not feel safer for the action this officer took. I feel embarassed. My initial thoughts were, “How could we?” and “God help us!” Where is our compassion as a society? Why do we insist on alienating and hurting our most vunerable?
And I drove away.

Homeschooling Journal 1/31/2012

christina — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:35:11 +0000

Samantha had ballet, and she danced the whole class and looked like she was having a great time. Girls and Craig visited Nana and Papa. Lucy likes to play with the calculator. Veggie Tales puzzle.

Homeschooling Journal 1/30/2012

christina — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:33:21 +0000

Lucy had ballet, and she is doing very well for a beginner. A little awkward, but she’s getting the hang of it. She’s tying her shoes with no trouble now.
“Hail Mary” copywork for Lucy, working on lower case letters. She is refusing to try to make them so far, wants to stay with all caps.
Clare can go backwards down the stairs, which is a relief. She’s taking a few steps on her own now.
Samantha is all about the pretend play. We had “tea” this morning.

Homeschooling Journal 1/28/2012

christina — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:28:24 +0000

Farmer’s market
Grocery store
Evening Mass

Homeschooling Journal 1/25/2012

christina — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:26:33 +0000

Lucy can tie her tap shoes! They’re not quite tight enough usually, but she’s doing it without help already. That puts me to shame. I couldn’t tie my shoes in kindergarten.
We went to daily Mass at SJV and survived it. I’m hoping to make that a Wednesday tradition.
Clare stood up without anything – stood on her hands and feet, put her bottom up in the air, and then straightened right up!
What a busy week!

Homeschooling Journal 1/24/2012

christina — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:58:38 +0000

Samantha started ballet today. (Lucy started yesterday – walked right in and did very well. The teacher called her “a very smart little girl”.) Samantha was more shy. Lucy did her whole class for her, while Sam sat with me and Clare. She finally got up to put on dress-up clothes, and then did the last 5 or 10 minutes of dancing. Hopefully next week will be better.
Clare figured out how to go down stairs backwards on her stomach today. Finally!
Lucy worked on how to tie her tap shoes.
We baked a “war cake” (as in using ingredients left when there are rations). I called it an “anti-war” cake, instead.
Have been reading The Weight of the Mass often.
Nightly prayer is going well (Craig added guitar tonight) and morning prayer is going pretty well.

New things

christina — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:39:37 +0000

We have had a lot going on, so I thought it was past time for an update. We moved,finally, just before New Year’s. So we’re in an apartment in Baton Rouge and friends of ours are renting the house in Marrero. Not as good as sellng, but much better than living in two different cities. We have not gotten a washing machine yet, though, so we’re still imposing on Craig’s parent’s hospitality for that. The girls are starting ballet. Lucy’s first class was lastnightand Samantha starts later this morning. Lucy really enjoyed it and did very well, I thought. We’ll see how Samantha does. She im not as eager to follow directions as Lucy is.
Clare has been busy. She signed her first word at dinner yesterday, “more”. She wants to eat everything. She is also making a lot of progress standing on her own – and she likes to throw her head back and wave her arms around and roar, “Look at me!” And she wants to help put her clothes on, so she spends half the day trying toput different things on her head – socks, hats, hair ties, blankets, you get the idea. And she’awake now, so I guess I’m done.