Bring Your Kids to Church

You must keep to what you have been taught and know to be true;

remember who your teachers were, and how, ever since you were a child

you have known the holy scriptures - from these, you can learn

the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

Second Timothy, 3:14-15

The lights weren't even on yet when I walked into church an hour early for Mass.  Only one other person sat among the pews, a woman in black who is a constant presence at the end of her row, a reliable fixture in the sanctuary regardless of which service I attend.  She looked up from her rosary as I entered.  She smiled and nodded as I whispered "Good morning," and the black beads never stopped marching slowly through her fingers, her small army in the war against evil.

I sat alone in the diluted sunlight filtering through the stained glass windows depicting the life of Jesus of Nazareth.  The light seemed to move as the church darkened and glowed with each passing cloud, and when it seemed to be calling for my attention, I looked over at the window.  "Nativity" is written in plain lettering among the colorful image of the Holy Family.

In the altar space is a simple wooden crucifix standing off to one side.  Crucified, I pondered, and for everyone.  For me.  I'm surrounded by Jesus here, not only in a spiritual reality but also in an iconic, physical sense:  His life is depicted in stained glass, his suffering and death in artwork along the walls; he is baptized in bas relief, and breaks bread on the wall above the Blessed Sacrament.  There are statues and icons and paintings depicting the key moments of his life:  His birth, his death, his resurrection.  I am humbled and I feel so undeserving and small - a feeling that gives me a sense of peace and comfort.

What do you want me to do? I ask in silent prayer.  My eyes are drawn to a small but beautifully detailed painting of the Risen Christ on the ceiling above the altar.  What can I do?

It seems that when I have a question, God always has an answer.  I don't know if he simply answers me, or if the answer is already there inside me and he simply draws it to the surface.  But he answers me, just as he answers everyone when they take time to listen.  And then sometimes, he keeps answering to make sure that I don't forget.

"Bring your kids to church, Katie."

Suddenly, the empty space beside me which any other time of the week is filled by my children, my constant companions, feels even wider and colder.  Enjoying my time alone in the church to pray and listen to the choir practice suddenly feels so selfish; reserving Mass as a special time for myself - and not a time for community even with my own family before God - feels wrong.  The guilt is tangible and runs through me like a shiver.

I start to notice the families filling the pews:  A mother and father with six children in tow, children they no doubt brought to church every Sunday from infancy for their own sake regardless of how difficult it may have been; babies wrapped in blankets in heavy carriers being toted by tired mothers.  Young boys drop clumsily to their knees on the hard ground and genuflect, some faster than others.  Little girls with opaque white tights gathering in rolls around their shiny white shoes stand on the kneelers and look around the sanctuary quietly.  A baby cries somewhere behind me.  The space next to me where my own kids should be grows even wider.

The readings seem to speak in a simple way to my prayer.  "...ever since you were a child, you have known the holy scriptures."  I hardly remember a time when I sat in church as a child.  Will my children?

As I leave, I stop to shake Father Joe's hand.  He asks how my little ones are doing, and I simply say, "Wonderful." God made his point; he always does.

I used to think of Mass as a time for me, a small but spiritual vacation alone to start my week the right way.  It uplifts me, it inspires me, it ignites in me a burning passion to do the right things.  It took me until now to realize that I have been neglecting to do the right thing this whole time.  Mass isn't a time for me, it isn't a vacation.  It is a time for God, a time for communion.  One of the greatest blessings he gives us in this world is our children - they are our children and his children, and they too need to commune, to be uplifted, to be inspired.  It starts in childhood, this knowledge of the holy scriptures, and only by giving them a chance to learn will they someday gain "the wisdom that leads to salvation."

"Bring your kids to church, Katie."

It'll be hard to control two toddlers on my own (I'll be working on bringing my husband next), but I'll try.  However difficult it may be, it'll be worth it.  After all, we are "not made for comfort, but for greatness", as Pope Benedict XVI said.  Right?

"More Prayers?"

Train up a child in the way he should go;

even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

The room was dark, lit only by the fading twilight sky peeking through the curtains.  The only sounds were the box fan swirling the cool, rainy breeze through the bedroom and two voices sharing a simple prayer of gratitude with intermittent giggles.

This has become a nightly ritual for my daughter and I.  We lay in bed together contemplating our day and all the good things that have happened, and we simply say "Thank you, God."  She's only two years old, and prayer is a completely foreign concept but one eagerly embraced by her innocent soul in its early yearnings for things of the spirit.

"Want to say our prayers?"  I would ask her.  She would turn to me and put her face close to mine, ready to recount the things that brought her joy throughout the day.  "What did we do today?  What can we be thankful for?"  It always starts that way, with a question I don't expect her to answer on her own quite yet.

Today, we took my son to a doctor appointment and, as is usually the case, he suffered his own emotional traumas.  The appointment itself was short and demanded nothing physical of him but to get his blood pressure checked and to lay down to measure his height.  Nonetheless, it was an appointment full of weeping and tears on his part.  To make the day a little brighter for everyone, my husband announced that we would be heading to the zoo to spend the day in the beautiful, warm sun.  We had pizza lunches, saw the elephants, ran from bumble bees.  It was a beautiful day.

"Did Daddy take us to the zoo today?"  I asked Evie, my voice full of wonder.  "Can we say thank you to God for Daddy?"

"Thank you God'a Daddy!" she said.  Her smile, hidden behind the pacifier she still requires at bed time, was broad and lit up her eyes.

"Can we say thank you to God for all the animals he made?"

"Thank you God'a animals!"

Evelyn may not know who or what God is exactly, but she's beginning to learn that all good things come from him.  Her family and the things we do for her.  Pizza.  Camels.  Sometimes we ask for a simple blessing at the end for our family, sometimes we just tell Jesus we love him.  She knows when to say "Amen" on her own now.

We fall into giggles and songs, tickles and kisses.  When it finally gets silent and I think she's ready to wind down and fall asleep, she strokes my cheek and with an innocent grin asks me, "More prayers?"

"What are you thankful for, sweetheart?"  I ask her with a hug.  "What makes you happy?"

"My sandbox outside!"

Thank you God for sandboxes.

Uncertainty

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything

by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests

be made known to God.  And the peace of God,

which surpasses all understanding, will guard

your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

August sat in the black molded rubber of a baby swing, his deep brown eyes searching the sky as if he intended to find the source of the breeze that moved his hair.  I stood before him, pushing him gently.  I could hear Evelyn screaming as she ran wildly over the wood chips blanketing the ground, her father chasing her slowly across the playground.  Her little legs pump like pistons, her arms move quickly back and forth urging her forward.   It was a perfect evening to burn off some energy at the park.

Gus looks at me but once, and the moment is gone as quickly as it has arrived.  I chased him as he swung away from me, kept my face close to his as I ran backward when the pendulum swung back.  I could see all five of his teeth as he smiled, our wrinkled-up eyes full of joy and laughter meeting for a second as he let out an airy giggle.  Then he resumed his stoic expression and focused on the trees behind me, or the sound of a motorcycle on the street.  He glanced casually at the figures playing tennis, and then turned his face to the ground and watched the carpet of wood chips as it seemed to move beneath him.

I imagine what the world looks like from his perspective, and I'm instantly transported to the back of a cab in an unfamiliar city on a stormy night.  It's a series of fractionated lights and shapes reflected through a maze of wind-driven, jagged lines of water, a shimmering and dazzling convoluted mess of concrete and glass.  Lightning strikes somewhere and for an instant, the world is illuminated and I can see the definitions of the skyline, but the image soon fades again from a city to a collection of buildings and signs and lamp posts.  Like a tree isn't really a tree, but a series of twigs and leaves being jostled by the unseen fingers of a soft spring breeze.

Maybe that's why he only looks at me when the lightning strikes, I think to myself.  He wants to see his mother, not a pattern of shapes.

Jon-Michael says I'm pessimistic, that I'm negative.  He stays positive.  He sees the light fading on Gus' infantile social maturity, like his issues are settling beyond the horizon just a little slower than expected and his star soon will shine.  I'm standing on the other side of the world, watching an ominous glow peeking over the horizon, showing only a fraction of its full light as it inches toward morning.  The words echo in my head, told to me by the man who evaluated my son for early intervention:  Social/emotional developmental delays, communication difficulties.  They stretch like the rays of a sun, radiating from something much bigger.

I always described Gus as sensitive, shy.  Strong and silent.  Curious.  Words that are warm and heartfelt, descriptions of a personality that has revealed itself to me every day of his life.  I'm greeted now with clinical, cold phrases meant to categorize and stereotype the boy I love, determined through a short morning session of scrutinizing his every movement.  The boy who cries my tears, who reaches for me in moments of fear or discomfort.  The boy whose arms wrap around my legs as I cook dinner, whose fingers eagerly grab from me his afternoon Colby jack cheese snack.  My son who falls asleep every night in my arms as we sing hymns and rock slowly.  With or without a label intended to define my child, he will always be the same Gus who holds my heart in his capable hands.

Yae, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of developmental delays, I shall fear no diagnosis.  

To Simply Give

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not

hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs

to such as these."

Matthew 19:14

Earlier this month, my daughter Evelyn entered into a stage commonly known as the Terrible Twos.  I have seen some shifts in her personality that reflect this description, changes that can be attributed to her growing awareness of self and her ability to influence the world around her.  She is still the brilliant, humorous little girl I have always known, but she possesses now a powerful will that sometimes overwhelms her and honestly, at times, overwhelms me.  Despite her still immature and egocentric view of the universe, she never fails to teach me simple life lessons that we all sometimes forget.

I was sitting on the floor of the dining room in front of a low bookshelf, flipping through a Scandinavian cookbook I had picked up at Half Price Books trying to find some inspiration for tonight's Lenten fish dinner.  August, who will be one year old next month and is known around our house as Gus, was clinging to my arm watching with a bored sort of disinterest as I nodded approvingly at a recipe for creamy salmon soup.  A few minutes before, I had peeled an apple for Evelyn and she was quietly eating it underneath the dining room table, a place that has become a club house of sorts.

Gus' patience soon ran out and he wandered toward the living room, his sturdy legs pumping slowly in little kicks as he made his way to the door leading to the porch.  I could hear his  hands slowly slapping at the panes of glass.  The sun was shining brilliantly, but it was only a pretty mask on the face of a bitterly cold day.  

Suddenly, Evelyn crawled from her sanctuary and stood up.  She had a look of purpose on her face, and followed her little brother.  "Gus bite'a apple," she said and, without hesitation, presented to him the juicy white flesh riddled with tiny bites and teeth marks.  At this point, I was standing behind them both, careful not to interrupt the moment.

She held the apple steady as Gus turned around and took a step toward her.  With his mouth open wide, he sucked a little bit on the apple and tried to take a bite.  He tried several times until he was able to scrape a little into his mouth, and curled up his face at the tart flavor.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.  

Surely, this is a part of what Jesus meant when he said that we all should be like little children - that we should love innocently and without blinders, that we should give freely that which has been given to us.  Like a mother handing her child an apple, everything that we receive is a loving gift from God.  When we acknowledge this, we can lose that attachment to material things, that sense of possession and entitlement, and focus on the things that truly make life important:  Fostering intimate connections with the ones we love, brightening our neighbor's day, bringing a smile to the face of a stranger.  Taking care of one another, and sharing our joy.

Such a profound and simple lesson from among the youngest people.  Who better but the innocent to teach us innocence?

How I Met St. Martha

...Martha served...

John 12:2

I don't believe in coincidence.  When something comes into our life at a fortuitous time, it is because God has willed it.  He knows what we need when sometimes we don't, and through these seemingly happy accidents, he speaks to us.  This is how one of my prayers, one I say quite often, was answered.

A couple of weeks ago, I was wandering aimlessly around my house.  I knew that I had to clean it before my mom came into town to visit, but I didn't know where to start.  The kitchen was a horrifying foe:  Stacks of dishes jutted  from the sink like the craggy, snow-capped peaks of a mighty mountain; garbage peeked over the edge of the pail, its lid held up by two tightly-wrapped diapers atop the heap like unblinking eyes.  Overwhelmed, I turned my attention to the dining room where a daunting pile of papers, old cards and magazines shared space atop the table with rolls of screen intended for the porch.  The wood floor bore the artistic endeavors of my toddler daughter, jagged waxy lines of dull crayon darting between dried drops of juice that spilled as she carried her tilted cup.  The living room was an overwhelming collage of toys strewn about the floor, discarded snacks crunched into the rug, and piles of laundry yet to be folded taking up residence on the couch.

"Dear Lord," I'd say as I'd shift my sleeping infant from one shoulder to the next, aware that putting him down would invoke his tired, screaming wrath, "help me be a better housewife.  Help me figure out how to juggle all my duties."  With perfect timing, my daughter would run up to me and shake her sippy cup, sending drops of sticky juice flying through the air.  "Please."

It's a silly prayer, really.   However, I like to think that many women in my situation suffer from the same lack of motivation, that mothers everywhere would choose to neglect their housework before they would neglect their children.  A pile of dirty laundry in the basement, after all, won't cry out in despair at your lack of attention like a toddler whose nap was cut short by a noisy motorcycle outside.

I did what little I could do before collapsing into a heap on the floor and reading the same book to my daughter for the third time that day.  My mom showed up to my messy home, yet again.  The look of disgust on her face is as hard for me to ignore as it is for her to hide, but I understand her point of view.  An unkempt home is embarrassing for both the owner and the visitor, no doubt.

I told her quite simply, "Get me out of here."

We packed the kids up and headed to the mall.  We went to the food court, to some various stores.  Before we left, we ended up at Ann Taylor, a store of which I'm not particularly fond.  My mother, on the other hand, thinks she likes it but every time we go in, she never finds anything she likes.  I, however, did find something that day on our way out.

"What are you doing?  Just leave it," my mom said impatiently as I stooped to the floor to pick up a tiny charm that lay face down.  It was the size of a fingernail with a small cross stamped into the cheap metal.  I turned it over and saw a tiny but colorful image of a saint.  I put it in my pocket with the excuse that I like to make jewelry from things I find.  It's not entirely untrue, after all.

I forgot about that little saint until that night when I pulled her from my pocket and put her on a window sill.  I had no idea who she was, standing atop a dragon and holding before her a torch.  I'll find out later, I told myself.  It kept escaping me, however, and I never did search for her.

Until two days ago.

I was reading "My Life With the Saints," by James Martin, SJ, and was feeling inspired by his journey with those amazing Christians we call the saints whose lives reflect the spiritual ideal of humanity (read a beautiful description of sanctity here).  He didn't reach for them; they reached for him.  They called him from such mundane things as magazines and movie posters, and when he responded to their call, they inspired him and prayed for him and motivated him.

It dawned on me that I was in the midst of one of those very mundane moments myself, one of those happy accidents that are not accidents after all.  I put the book down and found that little charm, and I did a quick search on Google to find this saint with the torch.

St. Martha, Patron Saint of Housewives.  My heart skipped a beat.  I was ready to listen.

We read in scripture how Martha opens her home to Jesus and serves him readily, but we also learn how this woman of deep faith becomes too distracted and worried with what she feels is her solemn duty to provide excellent hospitality.  Jesus gently tells her that only one thing is truly needed, and that is to listen to him.  When Lazarus, her brother, dies, we see the depth of her belief as she leaves her place of mourning and approaches Jesus for his assistance, laying before him her straight-forward and unblemished faith.  Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

We also see the beauty and simplicity of her character.  Her sister, Mary, causes quite a stir when she anoints Jesus with precious oil and washes his feet with her hair; her brother shockingly wakes from his grave.  Martha doesn't find herself bathed in the spotlight, however.  Martha simply serves.

It is easy in this age of constant distraction to relate to Martha - often times, we find ourselves so mired in mundane duties that we neglect the one important task of sitting at the feet of Jesus.  Martha found that balance, and she can help us find similar balance in our days.

This is how God wanted to motivate me.  He wanted St. Martha and I to meet, and all it took was stopping for two seconds to pick up a shiny little object on the floor of a store I usually never go in.  There are no coincidences, only conversations.

I prayed for St. Martha's intercession last night, to help me organize my thoughts and start to serve in my own household better.  Wouldn't you know that today I had a burst of motivation and somehow managed to figure out ways to accomplish all my own mundane tasks without feeling like I was neglecting the needs of my children.  Two happy children, several loads of laundry, and dinner ready for my husband when he came home from work.

St. Martha's faith truly can inspire miracles.

Us, and Them.

And [Peter] said to them, "You yourselves know how unlawful

it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or visit him;

and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man

unholy or unclean."

Acts 10:28

It was with a heavy heart that I picked my daughter up and carried her back home as she stared up an empty driveway, her little hand slowly waving a lonely good-bye to the children she had been chasing, two young boys who had long disappeared into a backyard.  

Evelyn was so excited when she recognized them from a previous encounter a few days before when she was on a walk with her dad.  They were playing in the front yard of a house situated comfortably at the end of two streets; the solitary house on its own tiny dead end, facing a T-intersection with the street on which we live.  From the sidewalk in front of our house, facing east, their house is right there staring back at us.  The boys had been playing with paper airplanes, and asked if she was allowed to play with them, too.  They ran around the modest lawn, laughing as the wind caught the homemade toys and tossed them haphazardly about.  She is a social creature, and was comfortable in her natural element - playing with other children and reveling in the connection she could share with people closer to her age of seventeen months.

She stood in front of our house this evening and watched them as they left their porch and slowly walked along their yard.  When she saw them, she started waving a frantic "Hello," and her little legs began pumping furiously, taking quick but tiny steps.  They watched nervously as we approached, then turned to walk up a driveway.  The older of the boys tossed a few words over his shoulder as they disappeared.

"My mom said we can't."

Of course, Evelyn tried to follow them up the driveway, steeling herself against my hand on her shoulder as I held her back.  She didn't understand what they had said, of course.  But I did.

They are Orthodox Jews, and we are not.  

I felt a stab in my heart as I witnessed innocent children become victims of adult intolerance, a concept that we are clearly not born with but that must be taught and learned.  Evie pulled against my hand, broke free and ran up the driveway after the boys who just a day before had no preconceived notions of my daughter, who laughed and played and desired her friendship until the harsh hand of jaded years stamped into their tender minds the idea of "Us" and "Them."  As I picked her up and carried her away, I felt only mild relief knowing that she was too young to learn that lesson today.

We are created wonderfully and fearfully in the image of our Father, and yet we each are unique individuals much more complex than the cultural groups in which we find ourselves.  We are not a number, but a name; not a skin color, but all one human flesh.  We are not the personification of the ideologies we espouse or the religions in which we put our faith, but are intellectual beings capable of agreeance or dissent, capable of our own thoughts.

Our dignity and humanity is stripped from us when we are sorted into "Us" and "Them."  It is the path of least resistance, the easiest to tread:  To simply accept that it might be in our nature to classify each other instead of recognizing that it is and fighting it.  It is safer to look upon someone as a stereotype than to open ourselves to the possibility that each individual is deeper than our shallow understanding can fathom.

I can only imagine what it was the boys' mother told them about my daughter, how she justified an ingrained intolerance to her children and to herself.  I also imagine what the world would be like if we all had to explain to a child why we do not tolerate them.  The simplicity involved in an explanation like that might make us realize how ridiculous it is to completely disregard someone because of petty differences.

As I walked back up the path to our front door, I heard my neighbor's voice through the hedges that separate our properties.  "I think I hear Evie over there!" she said to her son, who was out front playing T-ball.  I set Evelyn down on the sidewalk and gave her a little push, and she ran excitedly to their yard where she was welcomed.  Eventually, both of our families were convened in the front yard, eight in all, talking, laughing and watching kids being kids.