Category Archives: Parenting
Sometimes I Get Really Weary of Being an Amateur Human Being
Some days I feel like I haven’t got a clue as to what actually matters in the BIG scheme of things. I know that my motives are suspect, mixed at best.
Is seeking to experience the presence of God simply spiritual hedonism, for pleasure or escape from pain?
The scripture from Ecclesiastes, “All is vanity,” really does seem to sum life up lately.
Marquand’s point of no return haunts me. At seventy-five I fear there’s not enough time left to become the person God created me to be, the person able to give what those God put in their care need.
The scriptures about loving other believers are another scary challenge. The truth is I don’t like very many people, but I tell myself that being committed to their well being is love.
I have some serious up close and personal unresolved conflicts with a few of them. I’m trying to work on seeing through their eyes, so I can forgive, and I have made some progress. But true reconciliation takes both sides seeing through the other’s eyes. I still feel too vulnerable to work with them on that.
Does self knowledge only free us to not judge others, if we can first forgive and not judge ourselves?
Can we grow and get free only after learning to live with the humbling knowledge of who we aren’t? Sometimes I get really weary of being an amateur human being.
I truly know that God loves me unconditionally. But, something in me just won’t give up wanting to be a person God can love for whom they became with His grace. Then, I remind myself that we are only called to play the hand we were dealt and I cling to the hope that I have played my pair of deuces as well as I could with the grace of God.
And then I come full circle to “All is vanity.”
Maybe that’s where we need to be, so we can let go of ego and let God do His thing.
The Night Watch
Keeping night-watch
By a silent stream
Stars spilling
Like glitter
From an open hand
A lavish marquee
For choirs of katydids
Tired children sleep
By a dancing fire
Snug in cocoons
Sticky sweet
With chocolate hands
Marshmallow mouths
And memories
Earth holds its breath
As the flames leap higher
Reaching for the stars
Melting me
Into a sense of
Simple oneness
With everything
I love this sort of delightful serendipity. It’s what I tried to describe in my blog, “God Does Sweat the Small Stuff.”
Raising 5 Kids With Disabilities and Remaining Sane Blog
I coordinate activities for students who are blind, and I always try to make sure that everything is accessible for them, that is, multi-sensory and in the proper large print or Braille format. I got a little more than I bargained for last Saturday when we had a Happy New Year Party for them. Because it was AFTER the new year, I gleefully shopped for party supplies that were 75% off. (Gee…if I used the same theory and we celebrated Christmas AFTER Christmas, I would have saved a ton of money…but I digress…)
Knowing that the children love novel items, I purchased a large supply of “crackers” or “poppers”, such as in the above photo. During the party I thought they could pop them overhead, and feel the confetti rain down on them. I was mortified when the first popper was popped. It had little toys in it; a little…
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Grow, Lord Jesus, Grow
Had an interesting dream last night. I discovered that I had a new baby. At seventy-five this would not necessarily be good news. But this baby was simply awesome. He could talk and had eyes that sparkled with intelligence and love. All he seemed to need was some food, so the baby and I set off to find food for him.
When I remembered the dream today, I thought maybe the baby represented a new part of me that needed nourishing. I couldn’t figure out what in me needed nourishing, until I was looking at my Nativity Scene, debating whether to put it away. The figure of the baby Jesus resembled the infant in my dream.
I love Advent when I spend each day praying, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come” and watching for glimpses of God’s love and grace in each day. This hope and expectation suit my personality perfectly. And I am seldom disappointed. But, somehow once the joyous symbols of Christmas are put away, I often lose my focus, and allow the cold grey days of January and February to dampen my spirit and dim my vision and ability to see God in each day.
There is a difference between waiting expectantly for new life and taking responsibility for nurturing it once it comes. With the infant Jesus this is easier, because He can tell us how.
As I looked at the tiny figure in the manger, I felt a renewed sense of responsibility for nourishing Him within me. So, my prayer for after Christmas, is “Grow, Lord Jesus, grow within me. Help me find nourishment for You.”
Accidental Sex Education Field Trip
I’ve written about my adventures teaching in a four room rural parish school, but not about the adventures of the young new parish priest there. Father Joe was an enthusiastic new priest, full of energy and wonderful ideas for our school and parish. Some of which turned out well, and others, not so much.
He and our principal, an elderly dumpling-shaped, cheerful little nun, took a busload of seventh and eighth graders to tour the Huntsville Alabama Space Museum. The day went well and on the return trip Father scouted out a restaurant for his hungry students. They stopped at one that had the innocuous name The Family Restaurant on a large sign over the building. Father went in ahead to check out the food and how they were set up for a crowd. It turned out to be a busy buffet, but the manager assured Father Joe that the students could all sit at tables pulled together and if they waited just a few moments, the line at the buffet would be clear for them.
Of course, as soon as everyone got settled in, there were numerous bathroom requests. It was decided that the boys would go downstairs to the bathrooms first. Then, when they returned, the girls could go. Eventually, some of the girls began to complain when the boys never returned, so one of them was sent to check on what was holding up the boys.
Very quickly the girl raced back breathless and saucer eyed, yelling loudly, “There are women with no shirts on down there, carrying trays back and forth across the hall that goes to the bathrooms.”
Father Joe gasped, Sister turned pale, and the manager came running over to explain that there was a topless bar downstairs. Father Joe, turned to Sister in panic, pleading, ” I can’t go down there. You’ll have to go get the boys.”
Sister set off, her small plump body quivering with righteous indignation. As she marched with head held high past the bar, she spotted her students peeking out from the bathroom. Pouncing on the closest, she pulled him out by the ear shouting fiercely, “All of you, get upstairs right now.”
As she prodded the sheepish boys hurriedly past the bar, she heard a waitress yelling excitedly, “There’s a nun out there. There’s a nun out there.”
Quickly, they shepherded their snickering troops back out to the bus stopping only at a MacDonalds for take out and a bathroom.
Knowing that word would spread like wildfire throughout the parish before Sunday services the next day, Father Joe bravely diffused parental indignation by preaching on the misuses of the word, family.
A Crawdad Named Speedy
The suspense is building as Josh and Nanu stand poised, cups ready.
It’s becoming a magical shell game in the clear rock bottomed creek.
“Where are you, crawdad?” calls Josh, as he pokes at a rock with his tennis shoe.
In a blink, the hunt turns into a race, as a crawdad dashes from under the rock.
Splashing ankle deep, Nanu yells, “There he goes! There he goes! Get him, Josh.”
But he disappears as quickly as he came. And Nanu thinks she hears him snicker.
An hour later, soaking wet, Nanu barely croaks, “Look, there he goes again.”
But, finally, Josh has placed his cup just right, as the crawdad slips out of hiding.
“Hooray!” cheers Nanu. “Now that we’ve got our bait, we’re ready to go fishing.”
But, Josh is peering fondly at the crawdad, suggesting that they give it a name.
“Oh noooo!” wails Nanu. “That’s a bad idea.” Too late. Josh is calling him Speedy.
Nanu admits it’s the perfect name and sighing agrees, “Yes, Speedy should be freed.”
As they say good-bye to Speedy, Josh cheerfully suggests that the fish will wait,
until they can buy some anonymous bait. But, Nanu is muttering under her breath,
“Just you watch out next year, Speedy.”
The Absolutely Most Important Thing for Parents and Teachers to Recognize
It’s that every child is different. They arrive different. They are motivated differently. They learn differently. They express themselves differently. Their emotional responses to everything in life can be light years apart from their siblings and even you. Their strengths and weaknesses are like day and night from one another. And whether it’s your children or your students, many or sometimes, even most, will be different from you in all these ways.
That sounds obvious, but if you watch yourself as a parent or teacher, you soon realize that we expect them to respond as we do, to be motivated by what motivates us, to come from inner viewpoints that are similar to our own. To even have the same intuitive knowledge about people or right and wrong that we do. Even your first child may seem like an alien from Mars and throw you for a loop as a parent. (That difference may inadvertently insure that they remain an only child.)
To a certain extent it is their inalienable right to be different. The reality, of course, is that to some extent as social beings, we all have to learn to accept group limits and learn to adapt as best we can in a world that does not center around us.
The most helpful tool for recognizing and understanding many of these differences that I have found, so far, is the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator. My husband and I are extreme opposites on every area of personality that this attempts to describe. (Married for fifty-four years, we consider our marriage a witness to the possibilityof world peace. Though we admit that his intense dislike of change and my devout cowardice at the thought of raising five children alone may have been significant factors.)
And our five children are mixes of every imaginable combination of our personality traits. Imagine my surprise when everything that worked so well with number one, evoked a totally opposite response from number two, etc., etc., etc.
Though as a past consultant on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I’ve done workshops on its significance in education, spirituality, marriage, and management, at seventy-five I am not up to date on the best resources. The internet has many, but the quality varies greatly. If you are interested in following up on this, use the Association for Psychological Type as a guide.
Addendum: For examples of differences in a first and second grade class see post: Important Things I Learned from First Graders When I Was Forty: June 28
Parenting
Child of Our Times
“I believe that parents should be authoritative, but not authoritarian. That children should be treated as individuals with minds of their own, but it is understood that those minds are still developing and may not be ready to handle important behavioral decisions. Why it’s important to follow rules should be explained, but when those rules are broken, clear consequences must follow.”
Reblogged from Field Notes from Fatherhood.com – a very articulate, intelligent, reasonable teacher/parent with a sense of humor writing on today’s literal lawlessness in homes and thus, in classrooms. Very worth reading. The photo alone is worth more than a thousand words.
Personally, I can’t help but think that Dr. Spock, himself, is somewhere shaking his head and saying, “People, use a little common sense!””
Connected with this through Doctor Dad’s blog: carlocmd.wordpress.com
Laughter: Carbonated Grace 