Party Magic

Twenty-five years ago, I had insomnia.  It was the night before our wedding and I tossed and turned until my mother was summoned.  She stroked my head.  I started sobbing because I would look tired for our wedding.  She said I wouldn't, "Bridal magic." and that little phrase was sufficient for whatever demons were gnawing at my brain and preventing sleep.

Today, we've spent two months preparing for a party. It is tonight.  It is five o'clock, and I've had fitful sleep at best.  I've told myself the story but I think today's bout of non sleeping is due to thinking about all the details.   There have been other nights, when thoughts crowd out sleep. It's part of why I turned to writing, to pull out all the random elements from my brain, so the rest of it could function.   I turned off my blog to prepare for the party, so I wouldn't be haunted by the need of upkeep, instead I'm haunted by all the stuff that didn't get out.

"Sherry, Sherry, you are anxious about many things." I could hear.  I thought about the feast to come, and how I'd love to have "that moment" with every one of my guests, all the friends and family that have driven, flew, struggled and still come.   How I'd want to spend the whole evening with each of them, with only them, and how I'd want the evening to never end so I could be that present with each of them and only them and the pain of knowing the time will ebb as the tide.   That's the point of a feast, to remind us that we long for an eternal one.  So it is no wonder I pine before the party starts about how little time there is to spend here, on any given day, enjoying each others company.

I'm telling myself, I must chose the better portion, even as we work through the final stuff, present, present, present.   The very thought of being present is like a warm bath, a cool breeze, It is both. The anxieties spool away.  Yes we will still need to lay out the tables, put up the lights, make the salads and ice the drinks.  I could add to the list but it would stir up the wrong sensibilities in me.

Besides, I wrote them down already.    So what were the moments today?  Getting to hug the people who came through the door.  Watching my nieces watch Wreck-it Ralph on our bed.  Seeing my mom and her sister talking in our living room.  Having them here even if I was busy trying to figure out how to put a tent together and failing miserably. Talking under the successfully set up tents, watching my 19 year old dance with my nine year old while we tested the sound.  A thousand little moments crammed in between the weed wacking, dishwashing and cooking.  Those moments were magic.   Party magic.  I yawn.  The thinking onto the page worked.  I'm going back to bed.

So I'm going to believe today in "Party Magic" and press forward.  When I wake up, the day awaits.

Drop the Nets

Where does anyone have the time for all of this?  

I know I have ten kids but I don't see anyone who isn't overtaxed, overworked and overwhelmed by all of modern living.  I was in a restaurant yesterday (car was being fixed ergo we ate to kill time) and a older woman walked by me.  Glancing around at all the people multi-tasking through their lunch, she said knowingly glancing down at my two toddlers seated and eating their macaroni and cheese, "This whole world is stressful. It's all hard." 

How to disagree with a woman I don't know the name of when I understood the stress that could be felt permeating the place where people were supposed to be taking a break and enjoying the pleasure of eating and company.  She didn't wait for a response but I wondered if part of the edge is the expectation that we should always be using every moment productively, that we have instant messages and emails and access leaves us less patient with actual people. 

The walk back to get the car, it was hard not to notice that even walking has become a task that requires additional activity, as people talked on their phones, tapped on their machines or listened to podcasts.  We are rapidly willingly becoming Borg, always connected, always electronically monitored, always keeping score, keeping track, surrendering minutes, hours, days of our life to things that are seemingly infinite and yet limited, and invisible and yet permanent, intimate, discoverable and unloving.  Her statement kept resonating with me...what was the answer to her query.  It wasn't to my mind to be found in politics or better organization or even dutiful hard work.  The stress that she spoke of was something more like the air we now breathe.  We know it is polluted. We do not know how to stop breathing it or how to make it otherwise.

I say this because yesterday, I got to come up for air, for real air, for 16 minutes.  My son plays baseball and  has Friday practice.  It's about a mile and a half from our home so I drop him off and come back.  I left a bit early for pick up and snuck into the 24/7 adoration chapel at our neighborhood Catholic church.  For a crowded small room (16 people), it was more quiet and peaceful than a lunch time restaurant with taupe and teal coloring and Enya type music.  The presence of the Holy filled more than good food. 

Admittedly, I felt like the nosiest soul in the room as I struggled to quiet my nonstop distracted brain, even route prayer being deliberate, felt like an attempt to somehow change the purpose of coming, which was to be in the presence rather than to tell God anything. The sacred is what we need, which explains why the world so little values any hint of a reminder of it, quiet, stillness, fullness, community, miracles, prayer, or innocence.   Everything else fell away for a few moments, and then I snapped back into lockstep with the time and the world, my phone alarm went off but I was honestly looking to check it before it went off, because I am an undisciplined soul and worried that I was not where I needed to be.   The Martha took over and I whisked back into the parking lot and off to the pick up spot for my son.  

Could you not stay?  The spirit is willing, the flesh weak.  I did not stay.  Like a dieter who buys candy or a person on a budget who goes on a shopping binge, I know what my soul needs, I distract myself from that best choice with lots of glittering alternatives, all important, all flashing, all mattering.  I do need to fix dinner. I do need to help with homework and housework and manage all these people's schedules.   But sometimes the duty of it can be rather like a child holding her breath in hopes of getting things to work out her way.   It is time to stop trying that method of affecting the world.  There should be time for this, I should be able to give a bit more and not treat God or His presence like something to squeeze in or occasionally indulge in, like writing, waiting for inspiration to leads to less writing, so also, waiting for the Spirit to push me is akin to demanding God fix it for me, that my free will be taken out of the equation.  This need to micromanage my life and my world is something to surrender, to freely give away for an hour. 

This year's theme was and is, Be Still and Know I am Here.  I am still struggling with even the first two words.  How can one know the Sacred if one is too busy to hear/listen/see, how can one know the Holy if one is wilfully blind?  How can one Know God if God comes last on the list if He even makes the list?  

I sat there mulling over where all this thinking took me, and the humorist said, "See, this is why you don't sit down and think, because it always leads to more.  And it's true.  You can't love God and not then be tugged to do more, to seek to love more, to give more.  You either don't/won't love, or you can't not give.   Surrender Sherry.  

How does anyone have time for this?  How do we stop crowding every second with everything but the sacred?  We have to Will it.  We have to drop the nets and go. 

Better Parenting through Saint Martha, Saint Monica and the Blessed Mother

The past week, I met a lot of new people because of school starting and some social events that happened over the weekend.  The question of "How do you do it?" when people were faced with the reality of "the number"  kept popping up.  I usually give a flippant answer like, "Some days I don't." (true), or "I haven't finished yet. I'll get back to you."  But the question itself kept presenting itself which meant, it was time to try and grope at an answer to this, "How do we raise ten children?" 

For the longest time, I flailed against Saint Martha.  I tried everything but remembering, she was a beloved friend of Jesus.  When I would get anxious about managing finances, housekeeping, homework, health forms, school supplies, chores, bedtimes, you name it, I would think I was suffering from "the sins of Martha." I wanted these things done, I just wanted other people to take them on.  I didn't want to always get "the crummy jobs" that no one else wanted to do.   You know what I mean, the sink of dishes that everyone walks by EXCEPT for one person, same with the laundry, the schedule, the bills, the assignment deadlines, the paperwork (I hate hate hate hate), the bank statement, all of that crammed in my brain and I would revolt and head to the blog.

So I took a two week break to try and get everything done and while I didn't last the two weeks (10 days but hey, it was close and I didn't write on the weekend),  I did notice, I still found ways to avoid the work where possible, so it was the blog as a vehicle of my sloth, rather than the source of it.   I need to write daily. It is important to my psyche, it lets me see patterns and identify issues that if I didn't write even if only to myself, I wouldn't fully recognize.   My favorite priest pointed out to me, "Martha was still a saint." and once I allowed myself to relax about things, I found honestly, things did work out even if I didn't always see how.  It just took me being willing to look at the "crummy tasks" as signs of love and to teach my kids to occasionally pick a crummy job and do a decidedly Not crummy job doing it. 

Saint Martha and I have an understanding now.  Upon reflection, her life points out that I need not to be anxious about all these things, and also need not to fume when I am giving or guess what, I am not giving.   So first and foremost, everything is a gift or not, that is the freewill choice of raising ten kids.  I either will do it or not.  So I'm reminding myself nightly to climb the stairs and give kisses to each of those who will let me.  It's part of what should be baseline.   I shouldn't do a crummy job at the best job, and fuss over the need to do better at the crummy jobs involving things.   I can wash the dishes as part of washing their feet. I can also teach them the same.  But I can't do that if I'm humphing about getting it done. 

So the first part of the answer is "Serve with love."

Saint Monica and I have become friends since I have teenagers, because no matter what I say, sometimes I'm just not what people want to hear.  I have found a new source of anxiety that isn't related to domestic daily routine, the doubt of my words and action as well as my silence and inaction.  Too much scheduling. Too much pressure. Not enough.  Should I push? Should I pull? Should I rescue? Should I double check? Should I sign him up? Should I not?  Check. Check. Check and triple check...and then be really annoyed when I didn't check and of course if I had checked, I would have found the critical paper/error/problem that now has snowballed.

It's not that I want to worry, but having teens is always about seeing the various paths before them and hoping hoping hoping they choose wisely and figuring out all the points before now when you dropped the ball or hogged it making their choices harder to discern.   It isn't a case of false guilt or fake humility, it's a case of knowing...that should have been handled better, and still knowing what you do next will probably be over correction. 

It is hard to surrender.  It is hard to trust trust trust beyond your own ability, in the deep deeper grace that God has to give if we ask.   This will look like a mess but it will work out.   The grace is to trust enough to accept that you cannot see all ends and you're not supposed to, you're only to love and to serve and to pray.  The rest of it, is that pesky freewill.  Trust trust trust.  And then with the teens, verify, verify, verify.   Not because they're bad but because they're inexperienced and so they make choices that they do not know the consequences of as they do them.  Like my son who put red pepper flakes on his hand to sprinkle on the pizza.  When I told him that was spicy and to wash his hands, he naturally asked, "Why?" and when I said it would hurt his eyes if he touched them, he had to really work to NOT touch his own eyes...or his brothers in a moment of mischief. I followed his hands to the sink to make sure they were properly rinsed.

The second part of raising ten: wise as serpents, gentle as doves.  There's a bit of vigilance laced with mercy in that saying, but it has a spine.  It's all necessary.

Finally, we come to the Blessed Mother, where we fall down and say "How?"  or "Why?" or my personal favorite, "Help!"  My grandfather used to say, "Sooner or later you just have to fall on your knees and bawl like a baby." and he knew of what he spoke, trying to raise nine.  So Mary gets a goodly chunk of my prayer life.   It's almost a daily lament/call, like my daily chat with my own earthly mom.  I need it as part of getting through all of this with some degree of poise and humor and sanity.

And do you know what?

Mary always answers. Even more, Mary always intercedes. Mary always comforts. Mary always is there, leading us closer to her son, pulling us out of our comfort zones to a zone of peace which is much greater and richer than the pseudo serenity of control. 

The other day, I was at the park while five of mine had swimming lessons. I'd taken the youngest two with me as well to let the oldest girls have quiet time to get their homework done.  My daughter tripped on the stairs and whacked her head.  Holding her, rocking her, kissing her forehead and saying, "It will be okay. It will be okay. It will be okay." she snuggled into my arms deeper.  My words and kisses soothed the pain.

Mary is like that with us, except she is even more effective.  I could have hovered and perhaps stopped the trip, but the next time she took the steps, my daughter held onto the railing. She'd learned a touch of caution and was back at going down the slide with a fully joyful face each time after the initial bump faded.  Wisdom through suffering, even at 19 months is a part of our reality as hard as that is, but I got to comfort and that was a grace too.

So the third part was prayer. Pray. Pray. Pray. 

No one ever wants to fully recognize how intimately God answers our prayers because that would be almost outrageous, almost too much for our human fallen hearts to bear.   But I know it is true, that God answers our prayers, our deepest hearts cries, even on the stupid stuff.   What He answers is always "I love you." and designed to bring us and as many as possible back to Him, like a parent being willing to fly everyone of her children back to her home for Christmas on her own dime because she wants all of them near or it isn't as full as her heart longs to be. It's why we want to be as lavish as possible at weddings or why we want to celebrate and we're always looking to see if everyone we invited came and to make sure we invited everyone our heart could think of when something is important.  And our hearts ache when we forget or we mess up or we can't somehow make it happen.  We want that luminous feast with everyone, and we want it to go on and on and on.

On Earth, this is as close as we come, we get slivers of understanding of the infinite heart of God come through the process of serving others, and the surest way to guarantee that we have someone to serve, is to be responsible for somebody else's future in addition to our own.    So How do you raise ten kids?  The same way you raise one, two, five or 19 or however many you've received.  You raise them with love, wisdom, prayers, service and you do it...forever, even when they're grown, because part of you will always be responsible for their souls, just as they are in part for yours.