Monday, January 25, 2016

Preach to the choir

I met a prayer prophet.

At least that's what I called her, a new friend who is the mother of my son's soccer friend.

She was telling me at soccer practice how grateful she was that while having her family in town from Colombia these past few months, there had been very few misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Occasionally, disagreements had arisen, but she credited prayer in preventing them from getting overblown and causing lasting tension.

She got teary-eyed as she told me that she and her mother are spending as much of their remaining time together as possible, enjoying all they can. 

Then she confided that her mom had seriously misunderstood the meaning behind her words once. They had an argument, and my new friend told her mother to please go, pray and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance, and if after prayer she still wanted to be mad, she could be.

"Do you think I would bring you all this way to my home just to make you suffer?" she asked her mom.

The situation was soon rectified.

"I think everything works out right with prayer," my friend told me. "Just prayer, prayer, prayer in everything."

On that evening that was something I needed to hear. Honestly, I feel God gave my friend the opportunity to tell me that precisely, to be a prayer prophet for me. And it wasn't a topic I had even suggested, but it led to a message I recognized.

I pray; I throw up thoughts to God sporadically throughout the day. Thank you. Thank you! Come with your mercy. Protect my family. Bless this person, Father. Help me! Forgive me. Guide me. Hold my hand.

So my friend was preaching to the choir, really. But this choir member was struggling anew with an old problem and had become weary of praying about it, had forgotten the grace and power of prayer. 

I think preaching to the choir is too often slammed as a resounding gong that does nothing, stirs no one and imparts no aid in the fight to be better human beings.

But is the choir perfect? Is their harmony so sublime already that improvement is impossible?

Preaching to the choir is still preaching, and if done with God's help, is effective and stirring and energizing. Because sometimes the choir has fallen asleep. Or the back row is gossiping while the front row is self-righteously pretending not to listen. Sometimes every single last person in that choir is bent over their phone playing a game, wasting time and effort on distractions and cheap rewards. Sometimes the choir is sulking because they don't get to sing the hymns they like today. Or they're singing mechanically, because they have been doing it for so long, they forgot why they loved to sing and glorify in the first place.

Preaching to the choir is very necessary sometimes, I think, and I have been thinking about it a great deal lately, because I have lately had people preach to me and have been truly very grateful. May no one ever say that Hillary is past the point of accepting and welcoming and reflecting on others' preaching!

After all, we live in community to share wisdom with each other, to share joy, love and hope and to say, "Soldier on! I'm coming, too." Or the never obsolete words: "You're not alone. I've struggled. But now I'm here to help carry you forward with my encouragement."

The choir needs encouragement, too. The choir needs each other and needs a good preacher (not always the same person from moment to moment). The choir needs, every so often, one member to stand up on a dreary day and belt out Amazing Grace with such beauty and truth that everyone is fortified and renewed, 



Thursday, January 14, 2016

Resolve

I think my phone is going to leave me someday.

I turn it off for church and leave it off for days. When I finally power it on, I forget sometimes to adjust the volume from silence, so I soon misplace it and can't find it. I drop it often and don't even apologize, because I could care less. I leave it at home by its lonesome while I'm out and about. I let it die from sheer neglect and don't notice til it's too late.

Phones are just not my thing. I wish it could understand.

Sheesh. I'm cruel. But I really don't like to be disturbed. Unless it's my husband or my kids.

The way I feel about my phone is how I feel about a lot of things come January. Every January as other bright and energetic people are making resolutions, excited for the opportunities of a new year, I am stuck in the blahs, ala Bill Murray in Groundhog Day:

"Blah-ba-blah-ba-blah....there is no way this winter is EVER going to end..."

It's not that I feel that way about winter exactly. I am fortunate enough to live where spring usually begins flirting with us soon after New Year's. It's not about winter at all. Nor do I think it is entirely about post-Christmas blues or travel fatigue. I just feel the blahs about anything that doesn't involve puttering around my home doing simple tasks and enjoying simple things and doing virtually nothing innovative or exciting.

During Christmastime I was off Facebook, email and NPPKS for over a week. The longer I stayed away, the more I wanted to run away. I didn't feel the urge to wish anyone a merry or happy or jolly anything unless it could be done in person. And I didn't feel guilty about not getting online to write, because I had written a short reflection just before Christmas. My email, I knew, was collecting junk faster than an old white guy in overalls with a farmhouse just off the highway. I really didn't want to view that mess!

It turned into an avoidance game, you see, and I was pretty sure that I was winning. I lived in a temporary blissful world where life was soothingly simple and old-fashioned. I had long conversations and laughed with family. I ate fudge and gingerbread cookies. I read. I baked. I did housework. I played games with my kids.

All without a computer.

But it couldn't last forever.

Because then I began to get worried. This pattern repeats each new year; my January malaise affects my writing. I get the blahs quite acutely there, and it's enervating. After fighting through December to carve out time for it, resenting the busyness of that month, I simply don't feel like writing come the New Year. I don't make resolutions, but even my steady goals elicit no greater reaction from me than an, Eh...bleh...maybe next month!

What's a writer to do? Stop writing? Surely, it's not good to be simply a housewife and stay-at-home mom? I always ask myself a little too earnestly (as if anyone ever could be simply anything!). Could I possibly get to all those photo projects, make elaborate meals every night, plant an expansive vegetable garden and maintain an immaculate, clutter-free house if I did?

No. I couldn't do that.

I had to get back in the saddle. And so I did.

Here I am, world!

Now I really must go find my phone.


Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Short reflections for a new year: a mother's love

"You can tell the children who are really loved. It comes full circle."

I had a teacher's aide from my youngest child's class say this to me last week as I was helping with copier pool.

It comes full circle.

Most of us love our children immensely. I think what this aide was trying to tell me was simply that you could tell the children who were shown lots of love, given their parent's time, affection and attention regularly in healthy and loving and, yes, even disciplinary ways.

I am no expert. One thing my children taught me almost immediately upon their arrival was that I needed to become a far better person than I was and that doing the loving thing often contradicted my impulses, those that gave me temporary satisfaction but made me feel guilty afterward for ignoring the quiet voice of reason and restraint, like yelling at them, for instance.

But I firmly believe that you cannot spoil a child with love. With things, yes. With a lack of gratitude for those things, yes. But not with love.

And so I would tell every new mother I could not to worry about what anyone else tells her. Hold her baby as often as she likes. Kiss that baby's sweet-smelling head a thousand and one times. Go and gather her into your arms every time she cries and as soon as you can (and can handle it).

Yes, I realize sometimes we have to lock ourselves in our rooms for a few moments every now and again, sleep-deprived and emotionally drained as we can become. Or we have to put the baby down near us and rest our heads on our hands and wonder how we will muster through the next few hours or days. Or that we must leave them with their daddy, crying or not, in order to get things done or to take a mental health break or a shower. But we bounce back with support, bringing our little ones back to our bosom where they belong.

I had many well-meaning people tell me that they thought I let my children cling too much to me when they were babies and toddlers, that I spoiled my babies by going to them each time they cried, holding them too often, and that it wouldn't hurt them to learn to be alone.

But do any of us really want to learn to be alone? Isn't that why we have family at the beginning? Isn't that why several studies have shown the adverse effects on children who do not receive attention and are not held often or at all as infants?

Yes, I was exhausted and sometimes scared by the lack of sleep as a younger mother. Yes, I did chores and cooking with babies on my hips and slept in a recliner with a baby on my chest. Yes, I nursed children every hour or two for years, and through endless nights - sometimes because they needed comfort, not milk.

I don't regret it. It cost me a great deal of time and patience and strength and sleep, but the art of mothering is sacrifice, I believe.

What I do regret are the times when I let them cry as they were weaning, even with their papa near them. Or the battles over nap time that were less than loving. (Those I finally solved by returning to an old policy of rocking my youngster to sleep on me in that worn recliner.) I regret the times I didn't make the little or not so little sacrifices, like going to a movie and leaving my very attached toddler with grandparents he rarely saw and knowing later that he cried himself to sleep for nap time. Or weaning my little girl too early. Or not stopping nagging chores quickly to tend to my fussing babies sooner. Oh, I'll just finish loading this dishwasher; hold on, Sweetie! Wait, I just want to start this last load of laundry please! 

But I comfort myself that I did indeed pour out my love more often than not.

Love is everything. True attention and loving human touch are everything, and a mother's is incredibly special. It pays amazing dividends with every person your child knows: teachers, coaches, peers, bosses, significant others and, someday, their own children.

It comes full circle.

That is always what love does.



Wednesday, January 6, 2016

I know some other Wise Men (and Women)

Happy Three Kings' Day!



Did you know that in Puerto Rico they get this feast day off? It's a national holiday. They know the holidays to celebrate, in my opinion. I wish we Americans would catch on.

I love the Three Kings or Three Wise Men, as you may know them. It's a celebration for Gentiles; Christ is for us, too. I have nutcrackers and wooden statues and even a tapestry depicting them and their journey and gifts. And around this time of year I stuff myself with figs, dates and apricots and make exotic homemade breads spiced with saffron and cardamom for my family and sometimes camel gingerbread cookies, too.


Speaking of important gifts, last year I wished to write a Thanksgiving post and then, when that failed to happen, a New Year's Eve post thanking people for the gifts they gave me in that good old 2015 of yesteryear. Obviously the post never got written, and so here I am in 2016 making a correlation between the gifts of the Magi and the gifts others brought to me when I needed them.

On this theme I must thank my dad for writing a Three Wise Men post. He knows how much I love the Wise Men, how I make a point to mark this holiday each year, fascinated as I am by their journey and their commitment and their grace (though, honestly, I really don't know why I love them so much). I am also enthralled by Dad's journey, and it is a great treasure to me that an important part of it is now written here. But, really, I think he wrote it to cheer me up, a gift! A great gift of the Magi.

My lovely mother
And, Mama, thank you for that long talk on the phone when you let your youngest girl pour out all her fears and insecurities, patiently listened to me and then responded with encouragement and wisdom and love. You pulled me back with all your might from a mental and emotional black hole. I wish I lived closer to you, so that we could have those conversations over coffee or tea in some quaint little shop, but I'm grateful for what you have given me, and your loving and calming presence could touch anyone across thousands of miles.

And, hey, sisters! I haven't forgotten you. Vinca, Annie and Natalie, thank you. Thank you for reaching out to me over the phone and online when you found I was struggling with myself.

Readers, my sister Vinca has a very demanding job, but she still gave her time to me, investing in a long conversation where she gently but firmly corrected some harsh opinions I was harboring in my angst. My sister Annie was working two jobs last year but still made the time to come see me for a weekend and to call late one night - when she had plenty of paperwork that begged for her attention after a grueling day - to stand by me, so to speak, and make sure I was making progress in my OCdemon adventures. Natalie has two twin baby boys, but she contacted me via Facebook from across the pond and seemed to understand just exactly where I was at and how I was floundering as we messaged back and forth. Wow. I love you all immensely.

Big bro Nate in the British Museum

Natie, thanks for being my big brother and for all the great memories I carried back with me from the UK. Boy, I miss you, but that overdue visit was such a gift that I don't feel as far from you as I did before. I cannot wait to meet your sons!

Last but certainly never least, I thank my husband for standing by me throughout...everything, and for allowing me to chase wild horses in my writing, for shipping me off to London on a grand adventure for 10 days and, most importantly, for supporting me all these years at home with our children. It was a great gift to them and to me to have that time.

And thanks, kids, for all that you are.

Even when it drives me bonkers.

Because family, faith and love really are everything, the most powerful and enduring treasures we can enjoy and share.

So, now that I have given thanks at long last, let me conclude by wishing a very Happy Three Kings' Day to all of you reading. If you don't know much about this feast, well eat some chocolate cake! That's always a good plan. And may God bless you this new year.