Twenty Years Later

Twenty years ago, on March 20, 1994, I awoke to a knock on the door early in the morning.  My Mom's brother and best friend were standing there.  They told me my Mom had been in a car accident, and flown to a bigger city for the "right kind of doctor", and something about a hurt back.  I remember thinking that she probably wouldn't be able to lift anything heavy for awhile, but not much beyond that.  When we drove to see her later that day, I found her all puffy lying in a bed with a metal halo attached to her skull, abrasions on her arms, in a room that smelled like blood and medicine, I guess.  Oddly enough, I don't remember anything about her left wrist which was completely shattered.  Worst fracture the orthopedist has seen in 10 years, as I recall.  I remember asking about how she got this mark, or that mark, and when she answered that she didn't know, she sounded like a robot and said something like "I'll be fine." 

Unlike my older sister, I don't remember being told that she'd never walk again.  Maybe that happened during the following week when I was gone on my high school spring break choir trip to Disneyworld.  I didn't want to go, but everyone felt it was best.  Mom was going to live, and beyond that, there wasn't anything I could offer by staying.  So, I went. 

For the following three months, Mom lived in the rehabilitation hospital, re-learning how to eat, brush teeth, bathe, and basically, survive.  This is the same hospital I visited, so she could see me in my junior Prom dress.  The same hospital where we slowly learned what our new life would look like.  Throughout this time, my younger brother and I lived with our aunt and uncle.  We were 16 and 14.

My mother became a quadriplegic on that fateful night, 20 years ago.  She broke her neck and left wrist.  She was 43-years-old.  It has been a long, long road.  Lots of things come with a lack of mobility.  Bed sores, incontinence, pneumonia, blood clots, digestive issues, chronic pain, total lack of privacy and self-sufficiency, and all manner of emotional and psychological adjustments besides. 

But, none of these are why I'm writing today.  Today, I am thankful for what I have gained from walking with my Mom through part of her journey.  Through it all, I was only her right-hand lady for  about four years, and a back-up beyond that.  But, I learned a lot in 4 years.  I wish that I could say that I served her well.  But, I was often bitter and unkind.  However, twenty years later, my experiences with her are still positively impacting the decisions I make. 

On Monday, I am going to embark on a new chapter in my life - pursuing hospital chaplaincy.  This begins with a 10-week internship at a local hospital, and will follow with a Master's degree in Pastoral Theology.  I could not feel more suited or more excited.  Because of my mother's accident, I took the course to become an Emergency Medical Technician during my Senior year of high school.  From there, I worked in our county's EMS service and emergency room through college and beyond.  I loved the people, I loved the work, and I loved the environment. 

As my youngest starts kindergarten next year, it is time for me to expand my stay-at-home-mom gig.  As Providence would have it, all of my personal experience, work experience, and passion about the spiritual life are coming together as a new vocation.  I am going to be a hospital chaplain. 

I'm with my Mom and all fellow Christians when I repeat Romans 8:28 from the bottom of my heart,

We know that all things work for good for those who love God - who are called according to his purpose.

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for my Mom.  Thank you for preserving her life.  Thank you for her perseverance, her forgiveness, and her continual effort to grow closer to You.  Thank you for my aunt and uncle who absorbed us into their lives, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.  Please give me the grace to imitate them, when others look to me for something they should be receiving from someone else.  Thank you for my co-workers through my EMS years, and for their model of Christianity in the workforce.  Thank you for all of the opportunities You have afforded me because of another's misfortune.  Thank you for all of the things that seem easy, because of going through something really hard.  Please purify all of the good that I do poorly today, and all of the days of my life.  Please bless my pursuit to become a hospital chaplain, if that is in fact Your Will for me.  If not, please take away my desire and replace it with Yours.  Amen       

A Case For Kids

My boys are coming home from my friend's house today.  They have been gone for 4 1/2 days.  I am eager to see them, hug them, and hear all about their adventures, but I also have thoughts like: 

1.  More noise
2.  More chaos.
3.  More mess.

I am ashamed that these thoughts precede all of the other good things about them being home, which are eternally greater in value, and exponentially greater in number:

1.  More love.
2.  More laughter. 
3.  More joy.
4.  Stories at bedtime.
5.  Seeing them sleepy-eyed in the mornings.
6.  Child-led prayer at mealtimes.
7.  Bike rides to the park.
8.  Having people to swim with in the deep end.
9.  Never have to jump on the trampoline alone.
10.  Never bored.
11.  More generosity.  Less selfishness.
12.  Having a reason for driving 45 minutes to the nearest skating rink.
13.  Unbridled enthusiasm over something seen or imagined.
14.  Always having a date for Happy Hour at Sonic.
15.  More humility.  They do not care who I think I am.

List B is the substance of my vocation.  List A are merely the accidental effects of my vocation, and every vocation has some.

This week proved it is possible for a house to be cleaned and stay clean.  I will not be stuck in the hamster wheel of cleaning for the rest of my life.  Good to know!

Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest.  Proverbs 14:4, NIV Student Bible

Translation for parents:  Where there are no children, the house is clean, but from the lives and love of children come an abundant harvest.

Just as the farmer has to guide the ox for an abundant harvest, we have to guide our children for the same.  How do we do that?!  By asking the perfect question!

My friend, Janet, texted me the other day about something she was reflecting on.  Her text read, "My reflection for this afternoon:  if my love for my children is a reflection of the way God loves us...me...I wonder if I had a day with God in person, would I feel happy if he interacted with me the same way I interact with my kids?"

I told her I was "stealing" this idea (with her permission, of course), because it really is the true test of what we're doing as parents!  If we were on the receiving end of our parenting, as administered by God, how would we fare?  I love how she used the word "happy".  Would I be happy if God engaged me (or not), fed me, played with me, prayed with me, and disciplined me, the way I do these things with mine?

Dear Lord,

Thank you for keeping my children safe while they were away.  Thank you for my friend who kept them.  Thank you for Janet, and her wisdom.  Thank you for canoe trips down the Brazos River, and finding a perfect arrowhead on that sandbar.  Lord, please forgive my negative thoughts about motherhood, and all that it entails.  Thank you for time to reflect on many (but not all) of the irreplaceable gifts that my children bring into my life.  Thank you for the substance of my vocation.  Please help me to keep List B in front of me at all times, and to tuck List A away under the bed to gather dust.  You are an awesome God!  In every piece of tree that has turned into rock, fossils from animals that lived who-knows-when, and clusters of shells from an old ocean floor, I think of Your Majesty, Your Timelessness, and Your Fidelity to Your creatures.  Thank You. 

Running Away From Home

I have an incredible friend who offered to keep my boys for five days.  (No, I will not email you her contact information :)).  Today is Day 3.  I talked to them last night and 2/3 wanted to come home.  This morning I texted with a friend who I am planning to sit with during her chemo treatment this afternoon.  She is the mother of ten.  Incredibly beautiful, holy, and wise.  When I told her that I would be there unless I had to pick up my kiddos, she said, "I never talk to my kids when they are away in the evening.  Things always look brighter in the morning."  Lesson learned.

Anyway, the past two days have been incredibly quiet, extremely productive, very relaxing, and awesome, in general. However, considering my time may end shortly, I've been thinking about what I enjoy most about being "free". 

*I like waking up early and not having to be quiet, for fear of waking someone up.
*I like choosing what to do next.  Filling up the hours of the day is fun, when you're not dragging a string of little people behind you.
*I like being able to run away from home.  Somewhere other than on my street, because I don't want to be out of earshot when my kids are home. 
*I like eating lunch out of town, just because I can.

In a word, I like the ability to "Go".  I never feel more free than when I'm heading out to cover some great distance.  Over the years (and prior to children), this has been on horseback, on foot, in a canoe, on a bicycle, or in a car.  On horseback, I competed in endurance riding.  Riding 25, 50, or 100 miles in a day.  My first experience with the sport was driving a truck and trailer for a lady (in a group) who did this across the Pony Express trail.  We were gone for two months, and they rode 2,000 miles.  Prior to that, I biked across Kansas the long way (which is about 400 miles), with a guy who pushed his way in a wheelchair.  After kids, almost every summer, my husband and I drive a long way, to hike a long way, in some part this incredible country.

One day, I'd like to walk across England (an article in a magazine that gave me that idea), the Appalachian trail, or the Continental Divide. 

I've never really thought about why these things appeal to me so much, but if I had to guess, it would probably be because I like to feel free.  I find God most easily in the quiet and in His Creation.  And when I spend a prolonged period of time in the quiet and in Creation, I find Him most profoundly.  There is also something planted deep within me that tells me I am made for a journey.  And when I perceive with all of my senses that I am covering distance with my Creator, that something rings true. 

We were not created to lead drab, narrow, or constricted lives, but to live in the wide-open spaces.  We find confinement unbearable, simply because we were created in the image of God, and we have within us an unquenchable need for the absolute and the infinite.

Interior Freedom, Jacques Phillipe

However, as much as these first thoughts are noble and true, there is also part of it that rewards my selfishness - the shedding of responsibility.  The escape.  Which just goes to prove that all godly things don't have to feel bad.  They can be good for God, and me.  And they usually are.  But, it doesn't really put life (especially a very blessed one like mine) in a very nice light - to talk about it as something that needs to be escaped from.  It is not a prison, or a plantation before the Civil War. 

Monotony, stress, exhaustion, etc... are only some of the accidental effects of any given vocation.  What you need to get hold of, and examine, and pray about, and give thanks to God for, and not allow to go to waste is the substance.  It is the vocation itself about which you must be sure:  when you have got the cause right...You will begin to see a pattern about your life.  It will not be a muddle of dreary duties that are mercifully interrupted every now and then by pleasures:  it will be a related whole; it will have unity.

The greatest pleasures in life are not those that are superimposed - any more than they are those that represent escapes.  The greatest and most lasting pleasures are those that emerge out of life itself.  They are these that come in virtue of the vocation, not in spite of it.  The taste of the fruit is not the sugar you put on it...As a rule, it is not that the fruit is bitter, but that we have a wrong idea of sweetness.

Holiness for Housewives (and other working women), Dom Hubert Van Zeller

*Note:  A vocation is a strong inclination to follow a particular course of action; a divine call to God's service or to the Christian life.

Back to unity and reality...I have three kids who have zero interest in riding their bikes beyond the park that's only two blocks away.  So, how do I create unity between these critical parts of who I am to them and what I want/need for me? 

For now, I will work it out in little ways.  Take the dog to Lick Creek park and "disappear" for a couple of hours.  Go swimming at the local pool until I can't pause long enough on the end to catch my breath.  Drive an hour to the National Forest and hike until I'm ready to stop.  Canoe the Brazos.  And of course, continually take my kids with me, as far as they're willing and able to go.

Which reminds me -  I am at home.  Alone.  And the day is stretched out before me.  Catch you later.

Dear Heavenly Father and Author of All That is Good,

Thank you for time to reflect on all of the good things You have given.  Thank you for the phone call while I was writing this that said "All is well. Everyone wants to stay."  Thank you for being available to me every second, of every minute of my lifetime.  Thank you for the wisdom of mothers who have raised ten children or any one child, well.  Thank you for a husband who I love to soak up the time with.  Thank you for the beauty and wonder of Your Creation, and the way it draws us to You.  Thank you for all of the opportunities in my life to set out on a journey.  Thank you for the journey I'm on now, and for those to come.  Please forgive my selfishness and help me always to recognize the substance of the work You have blessed me with.  Please bless all parents!  Especially those who are at home with little ones, who take two naps a day.  Please bless those on the other end of life who are dying from loneliness - The ones who would give anything to spend a day with a child.  Especially, Ms. Eva.  Thank you for this day, and all days.  Thank you for a home to be comfortable in. A home that I'm happy to leave and even happier to come home to.  I love You.  Amen.

 
     

Home - The Place Where One Learns To Love, Or Not

"For most people, the family is the place where one learns to love, or not...We most likely do not learn to love from our school, or from our place of employment, or from our interactions with the government.  Now we might, when we are older, learn a lot about love from our friends or a romantic love.  But at crucial developmental periods prior to adulthood, if we do not come to understand the contents of attentive, secure, sacrificial love from our family, we will likely be impaired in ways difficult, if not impossible, to transcend in the matter of giving and receiving love."  ~Helen Alvare, "The Family and the Values of Human Life"

What kind of environment did you grow up in?  Do you recognize the environment described above, one of attentive, secure, and sacrificial love?  If not, have you (or do you) get stuck playing the "What if?" game?  What if my parents didn't divorce when I was four?  What if my Mom didn't marry a guy who introduced me to life in the country and bought me my first horse?  What if my Dad didn't marry a woman who has prayed for me and guided me spiritually since the moment I met her?  What if my mom didn't have that car accident and become a quadriplegic when I was 16?  What if?  What if?  What if?! 

"An environment is needed for the flourishing of every kind of life...Much more is required; a living environment, circumstances that will allow the person who wishes to live to breathe, grow, and nourish himself. If the environment disappears, so does the life..." ~Fr. Bernard Bro

If we are (at least in part) products of our environment,  how different would you be today if your environment was different, for better or worse?  We can't really know for sure, but we can remember this when we see someone who has done something we would never do.  "If the environment disappears, so does the life..."

Have you noticed that those who were deprived of a loving environment quickly attribute their lack of development, negative attributes, or lack of virtue to it?  They inherently know they didn't receive what was crucial for their development.  And yet, those who were well-loved and provided for, are able to flourish and excel without needing to examine why.  They just know that nothing is holding them back. 

What kind of environment do you create for those around you?  Something like Heaven or closer to Hell? 

"It seems that each one of us creates either heaven or hell on earth for those around us, by what we say and do, by what is in our hearts.  We have the power to bring division and pain, or to bring peace and joy." ~Susan Conroy

The environment we create in our homes is largely unseen by others, and it is all-too-easy to buy into the lie that "there are no achievements where there is no recognition."  "The private world is the world of intimate relationships without which we cannot live fully human or happy lives; it is the realm where the individual is cherished and the memories that give us a sense of self and connection are most readily built." ~Endow study guide

Environment.  Not trees and carbon footprints and global warming.  Your environment.  Think about your space, your home, your life.  Are you creating the environment you intend to create?  Do you like being in the environment you've created?  If you don't, don't worry, because you are the solution!  You can begin changing it as soon as you decide.  Pick one thing and go with it.  Be specific!! 

Being more loving, more kind, less selfish, etc. are nice, but vague!  What does that look like?  Are you going to say more nice things or abstain from saying a few mean things?  Wash the dishes without complaining?  Do one thing at a time?  Spend more time in prayer?  When?  Get up earlier?  Go out (joyfully) when you'd rather stay home, or stay home (joyfully) when you'd rather go out?  Play Legos instead of check email?  The sky is the limit, but keep your feet on the ground and stick with specifics!

Aside from participating in the miraculous creation of another human being, your environment is the most important thing you will ever create.  It is not always easy to see, but it is something that is always felt.

Dear Heavenly Father and Creator of all that is Good,  Thank you for parents who created an environment where learning to love was easy.  Thank you for allowing us to participate in Creation - Creation of bodies and souls, and creation of the environment where we live.  Lord, we lift up those who were left wanting in their childhood, and pray that you send them people who can show them Your love.  Please convict us of the importance of what we are doing in our homes, that which few people ever see.  Help us to reject the notion that what we are doing has no value.  Please fill our hearts with Your love, so that it may spill over onto those with whom our encounters are many and close. Help us to create an environment where love reigns and self serves.  Amen.

The Influence of a Single Soul

If you tried to "read the eternal thought which God the Creator and Father had in your regard" (to paraphrase George Weigel), what would that look like for you?  Which parts of your life are closest to what you think He envisions for you, and which parts are the farthest away?  What can you change, today, to inch closer?

If everyone has something to do for God, as Pope John Paul II tells us, what is your "something to do"?  Who are the people you see and interact with in your daily life?  Have you considered that it is likely you are affecting them (hopefully in a positive way), with your mere presence?

The influence exercised by a person is something subtle, penetrating; its strength cannot be measured.  What powerful preaching there can be in simple contact with a soul!  One single soul can change the whole moral atmosphere surrounding it by its solitary light.  ~Elizabeth Leseur

We can lead people (and be led by them) to Christ without any awareness on our part.  According to St. Augustine, this kind of "leading" was a huge part of his conversion.  Regarding Bishop Ambrose, he writes, "To him I was led by you (God) without my knowledge, so that by him I might be led to you (God) in full knowledge."

We can lead each other through our personal encounters and through prayer.  Thomas Merton relays his experience of being delivered from eternal condemnation through the efforts of an unknown soul:  "...my soul was rotten with the corruption of my sins...What is more, there was nothing I could do for myself.  There was absolutely no means, no natural means for getting me out of that state.  Only God could help me.  Who prayed for me?  One day I shall know.  But, in the economy of God's love, it is through the prayers of other men that those graces were given.  It was through the prayers of someone who loved God that I was, one day, to be delivered out of that hell where I was already confined without knowing it."

We are called to offer sacrifices for ourselves and others, so we can all grow in holiness; our pursuit of God's will.  We can do this in an infinite number of ways, but here are just a few ideas (as discussed in class earlier today) to get the ball rolling:
1.  Praying for our enemies (or anyone who just annoys us and all of those in between)
2.  Being wrongly accused for something without blowing up like a fanatical monster
3.  Taking care of parents and/or young children
4.  Doing things that we can't do well (Hold on pride, this one's going to hurt!)
5.  Doing anything else that you get no (zero, none, zilch) satisfaction out of, whatsoever, for the love of God and your neigbor (everybody you know, but yourself).

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for leading us to yourself through others who have no idea they are doing so.  Thank you, also, for a turn at the lead.  What an incredible gift to assist another in their journey to You!  It is mind-boggling that this awesome "activity for eternity" is so well-hidden!  Amazing to think that one person can be leading, while another is being led, and yet, neither one knows a thing about it!  This must be another component of your mercy.  We could very well be filled up with ourselves if we knew our own influence.  Thank you for your wisdom in not allowing that to happen, because we need room for You!  As Mother Teresa told us, "Even God Himself cannot fill what is already full."  Thank you, Lord, for the emptiness that we must carry in this life, for that is Your home, until we get to the place You have prepared for us.  Amen."