Midwinter Musings

I find myself:

::noticing God's glory

The temperatures rose to freezing two days ago. Tonight, we are back under an official Wind Chill Warning. I like the change of seasons and I do love snow. The biting cold is something for which we aren’t really prepared, though. I’d love to get out and walk in it, but it seems ridiculous to invest in extreme cold weather gear when one lives in Virginia. I can bundle adequately for my daily round, but true expeditions in zero-degree weather, not so much. I am so grateful I bought those boots.

Stephen, on the other hand, continues to play outdoor soccer as if there’s nothing unusual about scheduling matches on days when the wind chill is 7* at game time

::listening to 

soccer practice. But of course. They were supposed to train tomorrow night. It’s going to be “too cold.” The current temperature here at the field where snow is pushed into huge piles all around? Twenty degrees, with a wind chill of 13. Warm enough, apparently.

::clothing myself in 

Coat, hat, gloves—sitting in the car, trying to type. This is rather ridiculous and I’m calculating how many actual work minutes I lose driving to Starbucks, versus how many I gain because I can take off my gloves...

::talking with my children about these books

Well, there are the snow books;-). Stephen and I are immersed in Huckleberry Finn . Nicholas is reading through the Chronicles of Narnia . Katie is reading The Long Winter  and Karoline is really enjoying The Doll Shop Downstairs. Sarah has challenged me to read every picture book on her shelf to her before summer. Game on!

::thinking and thinking

About burn out and recovery. About running oneself ragged and about self-care. About renewal and surrender. I have enough thoughts and ideas and lessons learned here to roll them all into a very practical and hopefully healing workshop. And it’s happening! I’m praying for time in the margins to write. I’m also eliminating all computer time that isn’t devoted to writing. I’ll have this workshop ready for you during Lent this year. Your prayers for wide margins in the next month are very much appreciated. 

::pondering prayerfully

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
~CS Lewis The Four Loves

 

::carefully cultivating rhythm

Snow days have a rhythm all their own. Our winter appears to have taken on the rhythm of a snow day. Fancy that.

::creating by hand

As I work to create the worskshop, I’ve definitely lost some creating-with-my-hands time. I know, however, that time with needles is critical to my own burnout prevention. It’s Super Bowl week. That means I’m missing Mike. It also means the girls can hunker down at night and watch Lark Rise to Candleford with me and Mama can knit just a little.

 ::learning lessons in

Time management. Cutting my ties to Facebook was an excellent, beautiful thing. Facebook came up recently on Jennifer Fulwiler’s Instagram feed. I chimed in (something I rarely do) and I also read there about Jen’s Facebook-free philosophy.  Yeah, what she said. I’m still posting blog links to Facebook and I’m still checking for dance and soccer updates there, but this season in my life makes any more than that just plain impossible. I only wish it hadn’t taken me so long to recognize that.

::encouraging learning 

Mary Beth is fully immersed in her first college writing course. I’m enjoying it;-). It always interesting to me to see how different teachers approach the teaching of writing. This is my fourth child to take at least two college-level composition courses. I’m getting quite an education.

::clicking around

For some reason, I haven't been able to get my Delicious sidebar feed to update since before Christmas. Here are few links worth clicking:

Five Questions Every Husband Should Ask His Wife (could probably work the other way, too)

The Questions that Will Save Your Relationships

Marriage Matters and Redefining it has Social Costs

Teaching From a State of Rest After what feels like a barrage of blogs trumpeting the "Do More! Be More! Go More!" message, Sarah is encouraging mothers to rest in Him. Good plan. Very good.

The Creative Adult is the Child Who Has Survived

::begging prayers

for Shawn and for Elizabeth DeHority and for all the people who love them. Cancer is a hideous, horrible disease and watching it devour someone you love is incredibly painful.

for all the intentions of our prayer community.

For college students, especially the ones who are lonely and feel forgotten.

::keeping house

No time on the computer, more time for laundry. And, also, I need another bookshelf. Really need it.

::crafting in the kitchen 

Thinking about Super Bowl food. What’s on your menu? I’d like to make it healthy. I’d also really, really like to avoid my family’s snide kale jokes. So, healthy but not obviously healthy? Who has a suggestion?

::loving the moments

of quiet in the morning. Yes, ma’am I am getting up at 5:30 in order to have more of those moments. And yes, ma’am, I’m spending them all with tea, a candle, and a Bible. And I am seriously loving it. Hasn’t quite cured the Cranky Mommy Syndrome, but we’re much improved.

::giving thanks 

for wise women who create very useful tools. Lara Casey Powersheets. I highly recommend them.

living the liturgy

Time to think about Candlemas.

::planning for the week ahead

Stephen turns 15 on Saturday. He’s my fourth boy. I love fifteen. Love it. It means thirteen and fourteen are over. Thirteen and fourteen are torture for my boys. Four down, one to go. Praise the Good Lord!

On Candlelight...

On February 2, the Church traditionally celebrates Candlemas. In honor of that lovely feast, I've posted here some gathered thoughts on candlelight throughout our day. There's still time to make some candles and they're certainly time to purchase them. Actually, it's never too late to light a little fire and I've never met a priest who is unwilling to bless them, no matter when you ask.

Candlelight in the Morning

 I set the box aside, even before the Christmas season ended. The Candlemas box. On February 2, when the Church celebrates the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, we will go to Mass and have our candles blessed*. I have been placing in that box the candles I will use in my home this year. There are some large jar candles, some smaller votive candles, two boxes of brand new advent candles, some beeswax tapers. These are the lights, the flames, that mark the hours of our days.

In the atrium, we teach the children that the flame is the light of Christ and the smoke is our prayers going up to heaven. My children love this concept! Each day, a candle illuminates the hour, warms the moment, brings us into the presence of Him who is Light. In our home, the first candle of the day is the one on the prayer table. There, next to the icons, is a large glass candle, safely up away from little hands. This is a candle that might burn all day.

I light it in the morning for my personal time with my Bible and a cup of tea. I love the way the light dances off the icons. If there are specific and pressing prayers for which I have been asked to pray, I leave it lit. These candles burn for a long time and they fill the air with scent. Both the light and the scent call to mind prayer intentions throughout my day. I've been slowly gathering these, one at a time, as I am able. I'm sure I don't have enough for the whole year, but I do have several to be blessed. I've also poured some beeswax candles of my own, to supplement the stock. I'm hopeful these will burn well, but it is certainly still experimental. 

This candle's light is central in our home. We see it as we go up and down the stairs. We see it when we come and go through the front door. And it is the first thing my children see when they come downstairs to find me in the morning. The day begins in the glow of golden light.

A good beginning, I think.

Candlelight at the Table

In addition to the prayer table candles, my basket of candles to be blessed holds lots of small pillar candles that fit in plain glass votive candle holders.

Let me back up a bit.

As Advent began this year, I was determined that even if I did nothing else, I would ensure that we sat at the table for dinner and lit those candles often enough that the first two candles burned all the way down. If the first one needed to be replaced, all the better. December can be tricky. Ball practices, Nutcracker rehearsals and holiday busy-ness converge to make the time absurdly busy. I was determined to ensure that we gathered at the table to pray and to break bread together every single day. And I did it! The candles were lit. The song was sung. The prayers were said. We sat together around the table every night. We ate and we talked and we connected.

For Christmas, the girls and I got a little giddy with tablescapes--lots of color and light the whole length of the tables. It was so pretty I wished it could be that way always. But tablescapes are really impractical. My tablecloths are washed almost daily and all those little pieces were cumbersome. Still, I wanted to bring the light of Christmas to our dinner tables throughout the year.

A couple years ago, I was talking to a group of soccer moms and dads on the sidelines before the match began. The talk turned to dinnertime and every single person in the group was slackjawed when I said (in answer to a direct question) that I cook dinner every night. This was a group of doctors, lawyers, corporate executives, and accountants. They told me how hard they found the whole concept of putting a meal on the table. The refrigerator was empty. The kids were coming and going. No one really knew how to cook. I admit to stammering a bit as I shared about menu planning, grocery lists, and regular dinner times. It's not brain surgery or international law. Making family dinners happen does require sound management with a generous dash of creativity. And it benefits greatly from the resolve that comes from recognizing the value. We make sure our children take showers and brush their teeth. All those parents make sure their children get to soccer practice. I choose to make sure that my family eats a real dinner every night. I think it's important. It's worth the effort.

The nitty gritty is that I make a plan every week and I more-or-less stick with it. The grocery list is keyed to the menu plan. Usually, I rotate three different weekly meal plans, changing them out seasonally or when we get bored. I cook. Most days, I start cooking dinner very early in the day, pulling several children into the process, cutting, stirring and measuring. Often, it all ends up in a Dutch oven to slowly bake or stew while we go about our day.

I shoot for the middle when scheduling dinner. It's not that often that everyone is home around the table at the same time, but usually most of us have a window when we can eat together. For those who can't be home at dinner time, I set aside individual plates, so that whenever they get home there is something nourishing waiting--something that let's them know they were remembered and they are loved. I call Mike late in the day and check his schedule. If he'll be home before 7:30, I make it work to wait for him (whatever it takes--snacks, a walk to the playground, bribery). Over the years, I've learned that my husband looks very forward to sitting at the head of that table and eating with his family. And they hang in there and wait for him; they want him there. If he absolutely cannot be home by 7:30, I feed the children and then set aside some kind of dessert from them to eat with him while he eats dinner. If he's not going to be home in time, I also set his dinner plate aside first, taking an extra moment to make it pretty. My children notice this attention to detail and I think it makes them smile. Overall, when it comes to dinner, there is a plan, a daily plan, and we work the plan.

Our dining room table is set with a tablecloth, real dishes, and --now-- candles.

The candles soften the mood, take the edge off the busy buzz of the people who gather. Lending this glow to our evening meal requires very little of me. I saved a few votive candles from our Christmas table and put them atop our cake plate. We light plain, unscented candles that don't compete with the smells of dinner. It's definitely not perfect. I'm on the hunt for a different cake plate when the budget permits. The one we have doesn't really go with either the decor or the season. It works well enough, though. The "centerpiece" is easily removed to change the tablecloth. And the effect is really quite civilized.

Candlelight invites us to sit a little longer. Candlelight casts us all in kinder glow. Candlelight makes every evening meal a little feast.

 

Candlelight at the End of the Day

As light fades and blinds are drawn, as books are read and prayers are said, the home cries out for candlelight. Those moments when we are reading bedtime stories and saying bedtime prayers and tucking children in tight might seem like the perfect time to light a candle and rest in the soft glow. But not in my house.

I have fallen asleep myself while putting little ones to sleep far too many times to risk leaving a candle burning when I am in any bed at the end of the day.

Still, I like the idea of ending the day the way we began it: in the soft light of a candle. Bathtime is a big deal in my house. It's another one of those things, like dinner time, that I always assumed other families did, but I was surprised to find it sort of exceptional. Nearly every night, the routine includes a bath for little ones--often bubbles, bath toys, a good scrubbing, hair washing, and time to play and pour. I'm in there the whole time; it's definite focused attention. And we light a candle as the routine begins.

The candle quiets things a bit and it slows the pace a the end of the day. I put the candle on the bathroom counter; the happy coincidence of this placement is that the counter stays clean. It just seems odd to me to bother to light a pretty candle in the middle of a counter littered with toothpaste tubes, lipgloss, and contact lens solution. For now, our candles are of the beeswax variety and our soap comes from Whole Foods, gathered from the table with locally made soap. Someday, when little people aren't around, I might give soapmaking a try. But for now, I'll leaving handling lye to someone else. We usually add some Epsom salts to the bath water (that is an outrageously high price; Target sells it for $4)  and I almost always add DoTerra Serenity oil. I love those scents so much and I am sure that one day when I am a very old lady, if I am fortunate enough to smell a lovely mix of lavendar and eucalyptus and vanilla, it will bring back the happiest memories of freshly bathed babies, nursing to sleep, and sweet little people who still insist on my presence as they drift off.

After the bath, little girls are bundled up into a towel, patted dry and gently laid on a warm towel on the bathroom rug for a good rubbing. Ever since Christian was a little boy in desperate need of quiet evening rituals, we have given our children evening massages. We rub them with lavender oil or homemade healing salve and we sing a song we made up all those many years ago

i rub, rub, rub you

'cause i love, love, love you

yes i do

oh, i do,

i really do!

Silly, goofy, and not at all polished, it works for us. And if we even think about skipping it, Sarah reminds us, "Need my rub, rub." She sings along. I am all too aware that our days of bubbles and rubbing are nearly at end, as most of my children have graduated to utilitarian showers all by themselves. But this ritual is so well loved, so very much a part of the rhythm of our days, I like the chances of candles, lavender oil,  and the "rub-rub song" surviving into the next generation.

 *Candlemas falls on a Sunday this year. Be sure to check with your local parish to learn when your priest will bless candles.

Towards Christian Unity

I admit that the second reading this weekend makes me cry. Every time.

Can you imagine a world of Christian faith where, "all of you agree in what you say,
and that there be no divisions among you,
but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose."?

I mean, really, I can't even imagine the pain that would have been spared in just my immediate world if that were the case! Christian unity isn't just a passing item on an agenda packed with more important things. Christian unity is a big, big deal. 

And it starts here. And wherever you are reading this. Then it spreads to coffee shops where women of different denominations can share from their hearts that God. is. good. Where they can bow their heads and pray God's blessing into the lives of one another. It spreads to soccer fields where boys begin to wonder about something special in the three that that gather to pray before every game. And the three? They share. Without asking for a membership badge or a special handshake, they just make the holy huddle a little bigger. And then a little bigger still. At the rate they're going, the whole team will be praying together before spring brings a thaw to those frozen fields.

The internet is a formidable force for bringing the comfort and consolation and hope of the Lord to all of us. It can be an incredibily powerful medium for community. There is an unfathomable resource for prayer here. We have on the 'net the privilege of praying for people and of being witness to the miracles brought forth when fervent, faith-filled people pray for one another.

Let's be that community of hope and faith for one another.

We've been doing this awhile now. I pop in here every week, share Sunday's scripture and talk a wee bit about how we can live it and pray it in our homes. And then you share your heart and tell me how we can pray for you that week. Deal?

{And please, do return and let us know how prayer is bearing fruit.} 

Reading 2

 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17

I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that all of you agree in what you say,
and that there be no divisions among you,
but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.
For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers and sisters,
by Chloe’s people, that there are rivalries among you.
I mean that each of you is saying,
“I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” 
or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”
Is Christ divided?
Was Paul crucified for you?
Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel,
and not with the wisdom of human eloquence,
so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.

 

Think

“If we look at the divisions that still exist among Christians, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, we are aware of the effort required to make this unity fully visible.”

 “Our unity is not primarily a fruit of our own consensus or of the democracy in the Church, or of our effort to get along with each other; rather, it comes from the One who creates unity in diversity… The Holy Spirit is the mover. This is why prayer is important. Pray to the Holy Spirit that he may come and create unity in the Church.” ~Pope Francis

 

Pray

Dear Lord, I am yours. Make of me a genuine instrument of peace and encouragement. Show me how you want to use me to heal divisions--in my home, in my extended family, in my neighborhood, in the world. Enable me to meet people where they are in order to walk with them to You. 

 

 

Act

Remember Pope Francis' January intention this week, and with the universal church pray that the Holy Spirit may make us one as Jesus and the Father are one—so that the world may believe. Pray ardently that "Christians of diverse denominations may walk toward the unity desired by Christ”. Even better, reach out and pray for this intention with someone of a different denomination. Then have tea together;-)!

 

 How can I pray for you this week?

 

I Love You Tree!

Sweet Mama! You, with the baby in your arms and the husband working long hours and the Christmas tree still standing forlorn in the corner. I dug this up from the archives  for you, because I know that feeling and, well, I love you!

2007

The "Honey-Do List" in this house is quite long. In the interest of preserving marital bliss, I won't share it with you here. Let's just say that "Honey" started a new job just before the baby arrived and he's been working and traveling enough for two men ever since. That is the segue to revealing that (drumroll, please): The Foss Family Christmas Tree still stands proudly in my family room on this seventh day of February!

There was a time in the life of my marriage when I would have actually written that "Honey Do" list and I would have oh-so-carelessly left it lying around. Or, I would have invited his mother to dinner, knowing that he wouldn't want her to see the tree in the corner. Or, I would have pouted and moped and complained about (1)the fact that he was gone and/or (2)the fact that the tree is annoying my sense of order. Neither #1 or #2 does me or anybody else much good.  It's wasted energy and does nothing to contribute to the atmosphere around here. His mother isn't coming to dinner any time soon. And the last thing the poor, overworked man needs is another list of things to do.

There was later time in my life when I would have taken it down myself. But I have since learned that some jobs are better left to big, strong men (and I have the scars to prove it).  Now, I have a couple of big strong, young men in my house.And both of them offered to take down the tree. But I know my Honey--he wants the tree in the box just so (and rightfully, I might add--trees last longer when they are handled with care and they are far easier to assemble when put away properly). And I know my young men--better not to let them touch the tree. Family harmony next advent is worth far more than freeing up space in that corner of the family room.

So, it stands in my family room, ornaments long since put away. And it reminds me every day of just how hard my husband is working to feed and clothe and shelter and educate this very large family.  It stands there and very early in the morning when it's still dark and no one is looking, I turn on the lights and I say prayer for the man who wishes he were home more.  I ask God to show us how He'd have us live, which choices He'd have us make. And I thank God for the Honey who chose that tree and who provided for it and for the house where it stands.

So, it only seemed natural on one very cold winter evening, when Honey was still at work long after dinner was done, to turn to those beautiful children and ask them to help me make that tree everything it was meant to be.

We took the pink paper hearts on which we'd written all the things and people we love and rested them firmly on the "God" doily and we hung them on the Daddy Valentine Tree! Martha Stewart, you can have your efficiency calendar that tells us all when to take down the Christmas tree. Mine just became the Tree of Love in this house full of life!

These are my neighbors...

Small girl, up way too early, shattering the quiet I expected before dawn. I remind myself that you are not the intrusion; you are the reason that I've carved this time to fill my tank with Jesus. 

Some people can jump out of bed in the morning, swallow a handful of vitamins with a cup of coffee, scrape the ice off their windshields, commute in crazy traffic, and take on the world. 

Not me. 

I'm weak-kneed at the prospect of spending the day with six children. I jump when the phone rings and I recognize the ringtone as one belonging to a "child" living away. I am overwhelmed by mundane things like laundry mountains and soccer schedules and how to roast a chicken.

I spend my early morning drinking deep of Him because I'm going to need it.

This work at home--this holy,  holy work? It's not something we do to pass the time while we wait for Him to call us to something more, something greater. This is the more. These children in our midst, the ones that sleep horizontally in the middle of our beds, the ones that sit in the minivan as we drive to dance class, the ones who really need to tell us all about it at 10 PM, they are the holy calling.

They are the "neighbors," living right here among us. 

We are called to go and make believers of all nations. We are called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. We are called to holiness. Holiness. Even in our own homes. Even when no one is watching, but our children. Especially when no one is watching but our children. 

.

.

C. S. Lewis offers this. I have taken the liberty to substitute "child" where he wrote "neighbour." I suppose we could substitute "husband" as well. 

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his [child]. The load, or weight, or burden of my [child's] glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the back of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of the overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your child is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian [child], he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ ver latitat--the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. ~from The Weight of Glory

This is not a stop on the way to doing great things for God. This is the place where great things get done every day.