My Job is Not What You Think it Is

Last year, my youngest went to school. For the first time in twenty-three years, I beheld an empty house; no toddlers, no babies, no babies being expected. I lasted two days before taking a job at a high school, less time than Jesus spent in the tomb

Swearing, pompous pontificating, sloth, whatever they dish out, it's not personal, they'd do that to anyone sitting behind the desk even if the person offered daily meals, unlimited cell phone usage and free taxi service. It's cold comfort to know while my own teens who receive regular food, access to wi-fi and transporation as needed don't curse, I may have set the bar too low.

However it's easy to deal with these other teens, I haven't gained weight or gray hairs for these people. They don't require four o'clock AM vomit vigils, and unlike my own offspring, these folks don't cost me money. So it's much easier to be sympathetic, prepared, educated and understanding, authoritative but nurturing for them than for those who consider all of that gratis. It also helps that I'm only four hours a day, and rotate through several classes, and that I don't pick up after them. It leaves all the energy for the eye rolls.

Still, what I find works best at home, works best at school too. Not allowing any of that stuff to be shown to bother, and giving more attention, not less to whatever it is that matters. At home, when I say, "Clean your room." I get arguments like, "What difference will it make? The room will just get dirty again and no one will see it but me." to which saying, "Because I said so," will result in nothing happening.

At school I say, "Get on with the assignment." and hear, "What difference will it make? I'm already behind on all the work and my grade won't go up." I said, "It will make a difference to you, and it will make a difference in you." and remembered why I am a mom, and why I teach, because she cleaned the room and he did the assignment. I've been told, the job of teaching is to inform, not convince. My thought is the opposite. My role is to cajole, encourage, beg, and remind, whether Mom or teacher, about one thing: What you do affects who you are. Who you are is revealed to the world, by what you do. It's always a miracle when it happens, except I have to pretend in both circumstances, I'm not surprised.  I also do come away from those situations always thinking, "I can't believe that worked!"  

Next year, I hope to return to the classroom full time. I worry about the subdivision of my life even more. The idea of having to plan all my schedule fills me with dread and makes me wonder if I could lay claim to that third day at the very least.

At the National Catholic Register Today

Hope today your day is revealed to be as filled with miracles, big and small as it actually is.

Speak Your Heart's Desire

We'd wrapped until 12, 2 and 4 respectively.  The little ones got up at 5:45 am.

So we woke or tried to, and watched as our children reminded us of why all this happens.  My youngest said when she looked at the tree and the gifts and the lights, "I am filled with the Christmas Spirit." She meant it with fullness known only to the innocent and the graced.  Her heart sang just to know, Santa came.  We were given gifts, all of us.  I think her heart fluttered to know, everyone was remembered.

We came to mass as we always do to everything, with a rush and a push and a hunt for socks, shoes, coats and the right pair of pants for someone.  We took two cars despite having a shift go to Midnight.  Two wore jeans.  Two wore beautiful dresses.  Three wore ties.  One son looked around and said, "We don't look polished enough for Christmas mass."  I whispered back, "Those who came first were the worst dressed, those who looked the best came 12 days late."  He laughed.

Somewhere in the mass, I prayed my whole heart.  More than anything, I wanted to hear my son sing, and all my children sing.   Some of my children have beautiful voices, but for whatever reason, don't sing.  I miss their voices when we're together and they're silent. That's the thing with hearts' prayers.  God hears them. God loves them.  And sometimes, when you ask for a miracle, something you could never find in a store or online or through any other means, God rearranges the world so that the answer is yes.

My son told the priest as he shook hands, "Merry Christmas."  Rita, John and I heard it as did the priest.  It always shocks how immediately, God wants to interrupt my day and remind me, God is, and wants to be so present in my life if only I'd let Him.

That afternoon, the family orchestrated a carol for the grandparents, but before that, there was an impromptu version of Hamilton in the kitchen, and everyone was singing.  Again, the lesson echoed. "Speak your heart's desire."  For His is to be ever closer to us.  

Merry Christmas.  Speak your heart's desire and be mindful, for God has given Himself as a gift,  Now, if only we will come and receive Him.  

Some of the More Things of Heaven and Earth

We live in a world that professes to love beauty, to love when people triumph over adversity, to love courage and fortitude and persistence. We celebrate it in wounded warriors, in athletes, in students that come from disadvantaged situations. When someone who has defined parameters we can see, exceeds them, even for a moment, it is a stop and recognize "there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." type of moment.  But the world seems to think, we need less of these moments, as it continues to champion the destruction of the disabled in the womb, and sanction the euthanasia of the elderly.  The world professes to love seeing people triumph over adversity, but advocates for eliminating all people who might suffer from adversity.  You can't have the victory without the struggle, but the world, out of fear, out of hopelessness, has declared, all struggling should be eliminated.

Today, my son came to me and said, "Catch" and threw me a ball. It is a simple thing. But for my son to speak is already more than I expect. For him to invite me to play with him, and to do it multiple times, showing me he knows what he wanted, and how to say it, and how to do it, well, I had my miracle for today. He even caught the ball twice. 

Some people think people like Paul should be destroyed before they're ever born, to save them from suffering through the trials of this life. Some people think giving birth to a disabled child if you know the child will be disabled, is the height of selfishness, because you could have spared them.  

The problem with this sort of thinking is it denies a reality. No matter what the tests show, every child will be dis-abled, in that there will be some things that any given child cannot do or do well. There has not yet been born a Super baby, and even those exceptionally gifted, struggle with something because all of us do. Should your child be born perfect, there will still be the flaws of the world, of teachers and bees, mean dogs and rainy days, boredom and chores he finds tedious. She might hate ballet even though she has the legs and grace and apparent talent. She might love singing, though her voice is that of a frog. Desire, talent, reason and capacity do not always line up, and no matter who one gives birth to, or how well they are raised, there will be at some point, some rawness, some keen disappointment which shakes them out of the idea that all in life must flow without effort, and without suffering. Someone will die, someone will fail, someone will not show up, someone will disappoint. It may even be themselves.

We cannot bubble wrap life and live it to the marrow at the same time. If we opt for safety in all things, we can create a fragile creature of a person, and ensure they never have a skinned knee, but that will rob them of the joy of discovering they can survive such things, and that such things in the scheme of things, are not worth worrying over. Eventually, science will allow us to eliminate all sorts of conditions, but only at the cost of all sorts of people, people like Michael J. Fox, like Beethoven, like Stevie Wonder, like anyone we've ever met who inspired us because they didn't let their disability define the whole of them, or rather, they didn't let us define them solely by their disability. They already knew they were more than their blindness or Parkinson's or deafness or whatever it was, they already knew they were whole people of infinite worth.

Paul doesn't have a magic talent like they showcase in Hollywood movies. He can't count cards like Rainman, and he isn't a musician of professional caliber. He's seven.   But none of his brothers or sisters weigh Paul's worth by what he can't do. They celebrate his presence daily, not because they're angels, but because they recognize his victories are just that, victories over what the world says about his capacity to add value to life. Paul adds salt to our family. We were a big family before him, but he has made us fuller. 

Tomorrow, he will show me another miracle. It may be when he (he's seven), wants to go outside, and brings me my gloves. It is a  gallant little gesture on his part, but the world will be saved by little acts, by little kindnesses, by little miracles. And people like Paul, specialize in those sorts of things that will save the world. 

Crazy Stupid Miracle

My son Paul is six, and while he is very social and engaging, his world remains mostly silent. Down Syndrome makes talking difficult, and being capable of making his needs met other ways, Paul opts not to bother. We've done speech, we do speech. I know sign and we have velcro pictures for him to use to make choices, but most of the time, he points and says "Ahhh." or something with some vowel sound and everyone around him uses the context to discern, "It's too hot? You're thirsty? Did you like that show?" and he lets us know when we've interpreted it correctly with a high five.

Something about his younger sister becoming potty trained and starting to read jumped me up about his language. I began researching video programs that hold out the promise of breaking into his world, making words more alluring. However I've held back. They're expensive, and the number one thing required for any communication system to work is consistency. I hear from school he's very engaging, so I want to video tape him in his school environment and see what they're doing to get more out of Paul before I plink down dollars that might undermine what already is there via the speech therapists and teacher.

But words are something I love, and I want my son to have a world open to him. Words open the world. People treat you as a person when you can tell them, I want, I need, Yes, No, in a way they don't always feel obligated when a person is silent. I tried starting a conversation with Paul when we reached a light, he looked out the window, signalling to me, "Not interested."

We were in my husband's car running errands. Two of my kids were plugged into their phones, a third on a kindle, Anna is asleep and Paul staring out at a world that flies by without understanding. The silence bothered me, so I rummaged in the CD collection and popped in the Eagle's Hotel California. I'd bought last year as part of a Christmas present, which included tickets to see them live. The Eagles hold a place in my heart, it doesn't matter the song, I hear that steel guitar and it evokes my father, the beach house, my extended family and a sort of stillness I've only known at that home on the Bolivar Peninsula; people and places I can only have here in this world in my memory. My kids know all the songs and they're singing the lyrics of Hotel California with as much gusto as I did with all my cousins around bonfires while eating frito pie and charred marshmallows.

The next song is a favorite, we sang it whenever we'd bring home a new baby, "There's a New Kid in Town." I take the lead. Until I realize someone else is singing with me. He's humming. Paul is harmonizing with Glen Frey and Don Henley. I think I'm imagining things but he goes on, his voice rising and falling, it's mostly vowels but he's singing along. "Are you singing?" I asked. He nods.

We play the song again. The magic, no, the miracle begins again. Everyone is harmonizing behind him. "Johnny come lately...the new kid in town...everybody loves him...so don't let them down." I whisper a thanks to my dad who I know is singing along with his brother, the Desperado in the risen version of our long lost beach house. I get us back to our home, the high of it still there in my heart even as my brain tries to reassert itself, get a grip. I don't want to though, I want to hold onto the strains of the song and his singing, just like the memories of my dad and the beach. It doesn't make much sense to the world, or even to me why I'd get so teary over his singing/humming of a song. It's not functional or practical, it still doesn't help him get his needs met. But it's communication. It's singing for the pure purpose of making the sound and I love it.

As miracles go, it's crazy stupid. But it's also awesome.  Thank God is all I can muster.  I'm grateful just the same, for the crazy stupid breaking through the silence of my everyday.

Forever Singing

A weekly task in this household involves a trip to the dry cleaner.  Because this chore falls to me and has for over a decade, I've come to know the people who work at the store if not on a first time basis, enough to be able to joke around.  One woman however, began sharing with me the story of her life.  She asked me to pray when her brother died.  Later, again as her father passed on and she wasn't able to attend, given that there was a whole ocean and islands between her and her family, she begged me to pray.

We know each has a lively faith though we've never talked specifics.  She always gives me a big smile.  I'm always a bit sad when my friend isn't there.  It is a touch of lightness in the midst of doing the dutiful and mundane.  She knows my name. I regret, I've yet to really wrap my brain around hers, though I've asked and sought to remember.  

Recently, she stopped me to ask if a tracheostomy hurts.  Long forgotten scars on my neck from early childhood sometimes bring up these sorts of conversations.  It turned out her mother had fallen down stairs and had one.  Given the woman's age and the extent of her injuries, the doctors urged my friend to "let her mother go."  Her eyes grew fiery recalling the words.  "But I cannot let my mother go.  I believe in God and I am praying for a miracle."  I asked for her mom's name and said I would too.  Leaving, I went about my day, folding her mom and her family into the daily rosary but not overly focusing any more than usual.  I have long known the reality, if you cannot be unreasonable with God, who can you be unreasonable with? She asked for the unreasonable.

Yesterday, I went to pick up suits for my husband.  She called me over. "Do you want to see?" she asked.  "Do you want to see my mom?" and she told me, she's sitting up some, she tries to talk even though we can't quite understand it.  She is coming home from the hospital soon, and my friend will quit her job to care for her.  "But we get together every week to eat and to pray." She put out her white i-phone.  "My mom loves to sing prayers.  This was taken two days before her fall."  She presses the button on the phone and a video of her mother plays.   Her mother has perfect makeup, she is in a white clean kitchen and she is singing.  Her face reveals a smile that parallels her daughter's, it is wide and bright, the word luminous floats through my head.  This is a heaven's choir member here on earth practicing, warming up.  "She wouldn't stop singing." my friend explained. "We'd all stopped but she just wanted to keep on singing."

A prayer in another language, recorded before it would not be heard anymore here on this Earth, so that her daughter could show what she said next.  "God is real. God is good.  God loves us. I know that.  I know that." she pointed at the phone of her mother still singing.  Five minutes of video of pure praise, pure song.

Reduced to tears and in absolute awe, I looked at my friend, she'd lost her brother and father this year and now, her mother lay in a hospital bed requiring she surrender her job and here she was, rejoicing, Job like.  I left the dry cleaner's trying to comprehend the enormity of mercy and the miraculous, of faith and faithfulness revealed all while merely going about the ordinary.  This was a faith the size of a mountain, alive and active.

We often ask why when our lives are struck by tragedy or problems, even just inconvenience, and it is always an opportunity to fold ourselves into the cross, to reveal to the world the luminous nature of our faith, the miraculous somehow beyond this Earth joy of knowing and loving a God who suffers with us, a God who loves us despite our white hot messes, despite our foolishness, despite knowing every single sin.  To fold into the cross is to let God love us, to stop trying to hold onto everything ourselves, to stop thinking that it depends upon us, to let go and let God pour into all the broken cracked empty spaces.  All required of us, is to ask to be folded in, to participate. My friend had done this, with her brother, with her father, and now her mom.  Filled, she could not help smiling, just as her mother, could not stop singing.    

P.S. Today I'm going to drop off stuff at the cleaners, and memorize her name.

The Little Extra Miracles of Every Day

Paul is four and a half. Words still mostly elude him.  He has good and bad days at school, so I get reports that he signed sandwich and cookie and said book and more and stop and days he dumped the shelf full of toys and pinned his best friend after chasing him into the boy's bathroom. 

Home is similarly conflicted.  There are days that begin with Paul taking out the skim milk and a sippy cup and lid to bring them to me while I'm getting dressed for the day because at 5:55 a.m, he's feeling a mite thirsty.  He's also taught his younger sister to climb up on the table with him and together bang out a clarion call for attention and more importantly, food.   We've discovered Paul putting three discs in the Wii.  He's also known  to try kick off his socks and shoes as soon as he sees the bus pull up.  In short, there is a gleam of mischief in those blue eyes.  He knows what he does and also knows how to use his disability to cloak his deliberate misbehavior.  Fortunately, his siblings have learned from his father and me, Down's syndrome is not an excuse.   It is not a get out of trouble free card.  If he dumps the book shelf, he gets to put it back together. If he scatters the muffin, he gets time out and no more muffin.  If he bites his sister, he gets removed from the room.  He howls like any four year old when justice is administered.  

But with those bad days, there are the momentary miracles, when we get to see Paul.  It has become his habit, after brushing his teeth for as long as we will tolerate (man does he love his One Direction playing electric toothbrush), to climb onto our bed and watch a bit of baseball with his dad.  Yesterday, his father was explaining where exactly his ankle hurt and what tendons needed to be rubbed.  Before I could move, Paul scooted down to his father's feet and began rubbing them.  It was a gift.  It was hard to do anything other than watch as a four year old son ministered to his 46 year old father's pain. It was a great moment of a little miracle, the kind we would not recognize if not for the silence he gives us most of the time.  His silence helped us see. 

Today, he did it again.  The kids were grousing about bringing up their laundry baskets.  Paul went over and picked one up and began the slow hard process of bringing one up the stairs.  Everyone watched as he moved the basket one step at a time.  It was very hard for anyone to argue afterwards about having to do the same chore.  "And a little child shall lead them..." I thought.   But his actions this morning like the other evening again revealed a listening mind and a willing heart. His body had to work to align itself with his will and his generous spirit, but that is the struggle we all have, getting that proper orientation of the will to the heart and the mind and the body to do good, to be obedient, to try for the benefit of another. 

There is a great temptation in the world to either ostracize/demonize children with disabilities --rendering them things to be discarded or destroyed or removed from society, or to sanctify them into heaven while here, to pretend they cannot sin, to make them cherubs or angels when they are what we are, humans, whose talents, like our talents, must be developed and discovered and encouraged, and whose flaws must be addressed and admonished and acknowledged.   Paul remains very human. He makes us more so.

Today he picked a dandelion, hugged his sister as if he hadn't seen her in years and came home to spend time coloring the table before I could get him paper.  He scares me by trying to run outside and out into the world and at the same time, his zeal for exploring is a reminder to me not to stay caged up at the computer.  He will compel me to play out on the grass kicking a soccer ball, to go examine the garden and to stomp in rain puddles and take walks.  Theoretically I do this for his sake, but I am made healthier and more human for it.   Likewise he will compel his siblings to work and to bring him out, and they will be made more whole in the process of introducing everything to him.

Paul's little extra does not limit his open heart or generous spirit, but his condition keeps the rest of us from placing an over emphasis on efficiency, by making us listen to the wonder of the world, of living at a slower pace than the world prescribes. 

Yes Beloved

As a child, one night in 1974 in the middle of winter in Beaumont, Texas, as part of a YMCA Father Daughter Indian Princess group, we closed the meeting with a prayer for snow.  My father worried on the ride home and talked about how sometimes the answer to our prayers was "No." because it NEVER snows in southeast Texas.  However, the next morning, it snowed.  It covered the ground, it closed the schools, it was thick enough for our neighbors to make a decent sized snowman even if he was speckled with leaves and pine needles and their yard lay bare and brown as a result. That night the weatherman on the news said he couldn't believe it.    

In 1984, after graduating from high school, I stood at the railing of our family's beach house and in a half whine, half prayer aloud wondered to God if I would ever meet someone who would love me just for me.  I saw my future husband the first day I was dropped off at college, and began dating him on the third day. 

A few years later, a college friend was battling cancer. She asked us to pray for a miracle.  Amongst those witnessing her suffering from afar, a debate emerged. The discussion focused on "Should we be encouraging false hope by asking for a miracle?"  "Should we be limiting our prayer?"  Talk got a bit tense, if only because none of us wanted our friend to die.  Her family told us that a miracle had happened, in that she was able to say goodbye to all of her family, to those she loved, rather than drift out without that one last beautiful smile.


But the argument stuck in my head, "If you can't be unreasonable with God, who can you be unreasonable with?  Who to ask for a miracle but God?" And recalling the potency of God's responses to my high school summer prayer, to snow and countless other occasions, it was hard not to feel awe. Even though the outside world would say, there was no miracle or the answer was "No." because she died, even though the logical and sometimes cynical part of me tried to argue the point, I couldn't shake the deep knowledge in my heart that the answer to all our prayers is always, "Yes beloved." and that this was a "Yes beloved" even if it took time for us to discern how.

More recently, in 2001, I remember taking assessment of my adult world and praying, asking God to help me find friends; not casual people I liked saying "Hi" to in passing, but real solid friends.  That year, I met one of my first long term friends in Maryland.  We talk. We spend time laughing as we trip over each other discussing common loves like books, food, education, Catholicism, our kids and our kid's school and dissecting and debating Washington politics and seeking hard truth.   She was and is part of the beginning of an answer to that prayer.  She is also a reminder to me to be unafraid to speak my heart's desire; to do otherwise, is to lie to myself and God and others.  Four other women who are dear in my life have been what I would call immediate responses to subsequent prayers to God for a broader community, for friends. All of them have been like mana in the desert.

Miracles happen daily, small discreet ones that we blip over in the midst of trying to get through all that needs to be done in a day and dramatic gorgeous ones that ought to be proclaimed for the outrageous acts of love and courtship of our souls that they are.  These gifts from God, be they a much needed job, a healing of a relationship, a solving of a problem, or an unexpected pleasure are just that, gifts given freely by God.  They are given to us not as proof, not as a show, not as a means to win the lottery of life, but because we are fallen and we are broken.  Some days, we need that lavish outrageous extravagant generosity of God to shine through and pour over us and coat the world like snow or a lifetime beloved spouse or a friend.   When sin and despair and suffering threaten to rob our daily life of joy, love, beauty and truth, miracles are God's love rendered in an unmistakable worldly visible manner.  And I think of my friend's goodbye smile, of the endless patience of my husband, and of all the steely friends I treasure.  

Jesus tells us to ask and we shall receive; our children ask us for countless things on any given day because they remain secure in the knowledge we love them. They ask for drinks, for food, to go out to a park, to go to a movie, they ask, ask, ask, ask and they are not ashamed of asking.  And all our answers, yes, no or maybe, if we are parenting correctly, if we are not asleep at the switch, are a "yes beloved." even if we deny them the actual requests.  They do not cease asking, being children, and perhaps that is God's means to remind us that neither should we. 

Most of us fear asking God because of what God's response might mean for us or require from us; or wait to ask until we think the time is right, or we've built up sufficient lag time from our last petition of God, as if we can somehow balance the scales of when we ask and keep God from crashing into our lives too intimately.  Sometimes we play mental games with ourselves about God, opting not to ask for ourselves because we know there is so much more than what we have here that matters; this is vanity.  We don't want to ask because we sin and we are sinners and we fear being otherwise.  Inviting God into your life so intimately is hard.  It cannot not mean something profound, to be willing to ask.  Asking will by it's very nature, asking must invite healing and forgiveness and the opportunity to be closer in communion with God.  Jesus heals all ten lepers, not just the one who returns to give thanks.  He says "Yes beloved." to all ten.  All ten souls have the chance to return and none lose the  healing that took place for not returning to say, "Thank you, thank God." 

The truth is, we need to ask more than we need not to; a humble innocent heart asks, a penitent heart asks, a loving heart asks, a fearful heart asks, a hopeful heart asks.  God considers who we are here no matter where here is, infinitely valuable, infinitely of importance, and He answers every prayer from every heart; "Yes beloved."

Spahn, Sain and Pray for Rain*

I know why weather forecasters are almost always wrong.

It isn't the doppler radar.  It isn't because they aren't able to analyze patterns of high and low pressure.  It isn't global warming and it isn't because everyone talks about such things but no one can do anything about it. 

Predicting the weather is the simple correlation between the sport schedule of the plurality of children in a given geographic area, and the level of devotion of the parents overtaxed by their kids extra curricular activities. In short, Prayer.  

Back in the fall, my daughters played softball and I overheard many a folk sigh as they glanced at the blocked up weekends.  "What can we do?" one of them said.  "Pray for rain." I joked.  That weekend, it poured.   The next week, things looked worse.  "Should we pray again?" one of the moms asked.
"Yes!" was the emphatic response. A deluge ensued.

Things got out of hand when people began hoping to get out of practices.  It became one of the wettest autumns on record.  Games got cancelled on account of hail, lightning and cold misty black skies that seemed conjure themselves at the crack of a bat.  Practice was called once when a rainstorm literally had parked itself right over all the fields for play.  Everywhere else was cloudy but no precipitation. 

I bring all this up because today was supposed to be two basketball games and a dance.  We were expecting a light dusting and got 4-6 inches.  Not my fault.  I didn't ask but given the number of things on my schedule for next week, expect blizzard conditions. 

*Slogan for the Boston Braves in 1948 given the strength of their pitching line up.  If facing a double header, the best hope for the opposition was "Spahn, Sain and pray for rain."  Tip of the hat to my husband for the title and the trivia.  

The Triumph is Not Mine

Every Thursday, Family& Faith Live celebrates the little victories that make life something beyond survival, that indicate the times when we come close to following Blessed Mother Teresa's mantra of doing the little things with great love.

Searching for something to say, I thought of my daughter being moved up in reading groups. I thought of my oldest son volunteering to take the bus in the morning so as to take the stress off of me this week when their dad is on a business trip. I thought of the financial aid woman who called me to let me know they were missing a paper I'd sent and to please send a new one, rather than simply discard my application for being incomplete.

Then there was the miracle of my youngest son, Paul. He has Down Syndrome as many of you know, and we just evaluated him for the upcoming year. Sometimes it seems to me as if he's listening in on the objectives and goals the teachers set for him. This week, he transferred a spoon from left to right. He also helped feed himself. He is pulling up in his crib. These were all things we were to be working on, and he has started without us.

My husband's cousin has been battling cancer for many years. She has suffered from the treatment greatly. Two days ago, she started bleeding internally. The ulcers in her intestine had ruptured. Prayers are still needed for her continuing recovery but the initial scare has passed.

So this week, there were miracles, big and small, even as there were failures and tragedies, big and small: a bad grade on a paper, fights and fits of temper, the devastation of Haiti, the madness that is politics, the tears of another mother as she struggled with her daughter's clinging at school, and fears of a friend over how out of control her life feels at the moment.

But I look at this past week, and how it has been. The Triumph was not mine; but I was blessed to witness them.

Have a Triumph to Share? Put it on your Blog, then link to Family & Faith Live, Small Successes Thursday. http://www.faithandfamilylive.com/blog/small/