all the things I want to share with her

During the week between Christmas and and the new year, my husband took five boys (four of ours and one we love like he's ours) to Disney. Stephen had a tournament. The others were along for the ride. That left me "alone" with our four girls. We made a list of lots of girly things to do. Some of them happened. Some were relegated to another list some time in the future. 

The three littler girls bounced between my house and my friend Nicole's. One night a sleepover with me, one night with her, back and forth as they soaked up time with Nicole's daughter, Brynn. Sarah even managed a night where she spent half the night with Nicole and the other half with me. Once, we had a pajama party with a bunch of girlfriends of Mary Beth--the whole gang of bigs and littles together in a haze of nail polish and glitter. And the night the boys were driving home, we stayed awake until 3:00 AM watching Gilmore Girls for the first time.

But it was the quiet moments that were the most valuable to me. Nicole's gift to me was time alone in my house with my big girl. Mary Beth and I had the rare luxury of lots of uninterrupted conversations away from little ears and curious brothers. It was golden time, really; time I will treasure forever. She could ask questions and I could offer thoughtful answers. She taught me a lot in those days. 

She will be home for another 18 months or so. She's begun full-time college studies. She's working two jobs. She's active in her youth group. Her life is full and filling with all the things that will take her out into the world.  And still, there's so much left to share. I know that her leaving won't be the end of our friendship. Actually, I know that as she grows, our relationship will, too. But there is so much of my heart I still haven't spoken into hers.

So I began a project. I've bought a journaling Bible and I'm spending the next 18 months or so annotating it for her. I'm searching my favorite verses and I'm writing to her the words God has spoken to me in those places. I'm pouring my soul into the margins and hoping the Holy Spirit will take my offerings alongside His and make them into something beautiful for my girl.

When I posted a picture on Instagram, people asked for details. I ordered three different RSV versions of the Oxford Bible that I loved in college (only with margins for note taking). I even expedited shipping. Each time, it took 3 weeks or so to get the news that there are none of those Bibles to be had. Finally, I ordered this one. I'm a little sad about that because Sirach is such a beautiful book for a young woman, for any woman really. My plan is to put Sirach notes on the end pages. 

I've been using and loving these pens. I'm not drawing or clipping scrapbook art or much of anything fancy. I'm just using this Bible to make notes. Sometimes, it's just notes on the Mass reading of the day. Sometimes, I'm going back through Bible studies I've loved and transcribing notes from the margins of those books into the margins of the Bible. Sometimes, I'm lifting my notes from my journal. 

I'm not going to lie. When you have cancer at 24 and no one is really certain what the longterm effects of chemotherapy and radiation mean for different cancers in your future, and when a dear friend is dying of the cancer that is the greatest apparent risk, the thought that your daughter might navigate young womanhood without you does cross your mind from time to time. I don't want this book to be morbid and I hope that there will be many times when she sits with a baby on her lap or waiting out soccer practice and she calls to say, "You know that passage in Ephesians? I understand exactly how you felt when you wrote that." I hope we get those times.

But if we don't, she's got my heart between the pages. 

~*~*~*~

Anticipating further Bible questions, I'm reposting answers to last year's questions here,just to make things handy.

When I wrote about how I am called to serve my family and what I do to fuel myself, Lynn asked

I have decided to buy a new study Bible & have been looking at the Ignatius NT study Bible, but now am torn as the the C.S. Lewis Bible.

Do you have a preference ? How do you find the notes?

And the answer is BOTH and then some;-). Sorry, I think I might be a bit of a geek like that. I love the C S Lewis Bible. It's as if C.S. Lewis spent a lifetime journaling in his Bible and then gave it to me. On every page, there's insight from a truly great teacher. It's wonderful to be able to sit and read scripture and then see a bit of Lewis. And then, two things might happen. The first always, always happens: I crosscheck in other Bibles. The second, happens when time allows--I find the Lewis quote in the context of his books. This means that I have a bunch of other Bibles and a fairly extensive Lewis library, both of which are accessible online (though I much prefer the book method, as the computer can take me out of the contemplative mode very efficiently).

I use the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible as often as the C S Lewis Bible. The notes are rich and reading them is fruitful. Its only shortcoming is that it's only the New Testament. I eagerly await the release of the Old Testament. In the meantime, I keep the Ignatius Catholic Bible-RSV handy. I prefer the RSV translation and this one enables me to have both Old and New Testaments and some notes for each. I noticed that Biblia.com now has the RSV Catholic translation, so there's that online option. The other Catholic online option is the USCCB has the entire version of Bible online here. Because this is the New American Bible version used in the Lectionary, I take the Lord, Hear Our Prayer scripture quotes from here. There are some notes on reading the Bible privately here at the USCCB site that might be helpful for people who are wanting to begin this practice. God willing, I look forward to coming back into this space and sharing some Bible journalling ideas with you soon.

The notes in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible are extensive and very enlightening. I also like to use the Catholic Bible Dictionary to dig deeper. The C S Lewis Bible doesn't have typical notes for exegesis; it has Lewis quotes that have been selected topically.

And, since we're talking about Bibles in the morning, my basket is also stocked with a Bible for my little ones. Typically, when Sarah Annie first awakens, she'll snuggle still and quiet onto my lap for some time while I finish my thoughts and prayers. Then, I'll read to her from The Jesus Storybook Bible. It's truly beautifully done! I highly recommend it.

This basket didn't fill at once. It's been gathered over time. It is the most treasured gathering of items in my life. This is where the day begins. It's food for the journey. It's consolation in times of grief and a steady hand when I wobble. This is where the soul work happens, the work that gives light and meaning and wisdom and joy to any other work I do. The basket has been gathered thoughtfully and at some sacrifice, but graces overflow from it, far exceeding what I ever imagined when I made those purchases.

I Didn't Win It

On Monday, something extraordinary happened. My eldest son, Michael, was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list.  Quite an honor. For Michael.

I did what most moms do these days when our children do something interesting or exceptional. I posted it to Facebook. And then, I clicked it closed and went off to call my dad. And my mom. And to text with Michael's wife. When I returned to Facebook, I saw all the happy comments of congratulations. I also saw that homeschoolers were particularly thrilled.  What sort of surprised me was the flood of congratulations for me and the steady undercurrent of "homeschooling must work." When the private notes asking for homeschooling details began, I was better able to understand why the congratulations were making me squirm a little.

Claiming that Michael's award means homeschooling works makes me a little nervous. I mean, if one of my kids messes up (and they do), does that mean homeschooling doesn't work? And I really, really squirmed under the spotlight of it all. It's his honor, his hard work, his moment in the sun. Do I think I had a role to play in it? Well, sort of. What about homeschooling? Did that play a role? Well, yes. But..

Honestly, I am giddy with relief. With this child at least, I know that I will never hear how homeschooling ruined his life and wrecked his future. Safe to say, we've dodged that bullet. His life is lovely and the future looks pretty darn bright.

This is not my award, though.

On the one hand, he is my baby and I did manage to keep him alive long enough to do big things in the world. I also did that odd, and at the time, completely counter-cultural thing of educating him at home all the way through high school, no doubt contributing to the body of knowledge and experience he brings to the job he does now.

(I also sent him a grammatical Twitter edit the day after the award was announced. Some habits die hard;-)

People want to know what the "secret to success" was. What curriculum to use? How much freedom to offer? Where to go to college?

Y'all, I have no idea!

Every child is different. We tailor every education differently. 

I wrote a book on home education. My whole heart is poured into that book. I wrote it about 14 years ago, so, clearly, "The High School Education of Michael" is not a part of it. Remember? He's under thirty. He's well under thirty; he's twenty-six. Still, in the last four days, I have considered all the pieces that played into his success. They are too numerous to list and I'm sure I will miss something important, but I share with you my in-the-shower how-in-the-world-did-THAT-happen ponderings.

First, the easy, tangible "curriculum" question. We cobbled together Michael's curriculum every year. We had a beautiful co-op and he learned classics like Dante at someone else's house. His favorite subject was art--again at someone else's house. Studio Art and Art History and the most formative friendships of his childhood all happened in the bright studio of my friend Kate Kampa. It's kind of extraordinary the exceptional talent and skill that has burst forth from that group of kids. They still influence each other and they celebrate one another's successes.

At home, we struggled together to make it all work. He read voraciously and was a willing consumer of all things printed. It was his passion. He liked to write and was fairly happy to comply with whatever writing assignment he was given. When he was about fourteen (the year of hell with boys), he had a memorable meltdown and declared that I was ruining his life and he couldn't get anything done at home. Let's see. Fourteen. That means the other people in the house were 10, 8, 6, 4, and 2. And I was pregnant. 

That was the year of Starbucks. We had no library in town, no real place to escape the commotion at home. So I let Michael fill his backpack and go to Starbucks to work on school things. I talked with the manager, explained the situation, and she warmly welcomed him a few hours a day. He's young, but he's old enough that this coffee shop educational venue was without a laptop or a smartphone. He got a lot done. And apparently, he absorbed a lot of cool, hipster vibes that would serve him well later.

It was kind of natural for Michael to grow up and think outside the box. He's lived his whole life outside the box. He "did high school at Starbucks," for goodness' sake! Homeschoolers are weird. But we'd like to think it's weird in an "in the world, not of the world" kind of way. 

The other thing of note in terms of "school," is that Michael was passionate about sportswriting. He inhaled it. Our primary writing textbook his last year two years of high school  was The Best American Sportswriting of the Century. (Amazon tells me I purchased it on November 23, 2005. Christmas when Michael had just turned 17. For some reason this brings tears to my eyes this morning.) He told me that one day, he would be listed among the best. Not even a decade later, there was this list. (Oh, but the pain that birthed that piece. I know we'd all gladly trade Michael's place on that list to have not lived the pain.)

Read good writing. Write good writing. We emphasized reading and writing and art. Please don't ask me about math. 

Michael developed a website. Michael has a ridiculously huge Twitter following. Michael traveled to Brazil and covered the World Cup.(And we haven't even begun to talk about the hours and hours of youth soccer.) Michael runs a non-profit foundation.

Michael learned his most important lessons at the dinner table. All I really did was cook the meal. His daily repartee on Twitter? Totally sounds like banter among my boys. His brothers are as much behind that award as I am. At least one of them is even funnier than he is. Iron sharpens iron.

His intensity? His work ethic? His inside track on the world of sports? His almost innate sense of how this all works out there? That's all his Daddy. That's being a tagalong at countless sporting events while his father worked hard. That's being a sponge in the environment of sports media since he was a toddler. That's having the best mentor in his father that a boy could hope to have. (Ahem--I'd even go so far as to say that that is the effect of having been nursed in nearly every college sports venue up and down the east coast.) We hung together. The lot of us. Every day. All the time. That's being educated by his real life.

And then, it's taking every opportunity, every learning experience, every chance and working his tail off to make something of it. That's Michael. That's quality.

But there's something far more important to note if we want to discuss home education and kids who rock the real world. If you ask Michael his proudest moment of the last year, he'd say it was this one, when he and his wife welcomed his first baby into the world. This moment is the one that says the most about Michael, about who he was, about what he learned, and about why he does what he does. His girls are his light. He's a husband. A father. A provider.

He's only just begun to answer God's call on his life.

~*~~*~

*Please note: There will likely be a lively debate today amongst my boys about which child it is whom I think is funnier than Michael.

He knows who he is;-). 

A new year, without any mistakes...

“Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” L.M. Montgomery

I love this Anne of Green Gables quote. It is nice to awaken to a new day, fresh without any mistakes yet in it. The celebration of the new year is a little like that, too. All shiny, unblemished calendar pages—nothing crossed out, nothing forgotten, nothing regrettable.

And then we put our feet on the floor. And inevitably, we mess up.

The mistakes make us humble; they drive us to our knees and they inspire fervent prayers. I’ve made such a mess of this God; please fix it. Please, please fix it.

He always does. He always offers the opportunity to begin again. He always extends forgiveness and mercy. And then, He fixes it, if only we let Him.  Often, His “fix” doesn’t look the way we thought it should be fixed. Sometimes, we are disappointed in the short-term. But always, always, God’s will is for our good. He wants only and always the best for us and for our children.

We have to get out of the way. In our pride and in our fear, we can think God needs us to make good things happen.  St. Isaac Jogues wrote, “My confidence is placed in God who does not need our help for accomplishing his designs. Our single endeavor should be to give ourselves to the work and to be faithful to him, and not to spoil his work by our shortcomings.”

When children are little, mothers can fix most of the hurts. They cultivate a habit of creating opportunities, of arranging successes, of healing hurts. It’s fairly easy, in most cases. The challenge for a mom is not to grow to complacent in the role of “she who makes it all better.”  One day, she can’t make it better. Indeed, she can spoil it by her shortcomings. It’s humbling for the mother and it’s necessary for the child, to let God be God.

As a child grows, he has to develop for himself a relationship with God--who is not a magic fairy, not the granter of wishes--but an unfailing, unchanging Savior. God is better than Mom. God loves unconditionally and He is faithful and unchanging. He always knows best and never makes mistakes.

With maturity on the part of our children (and ourselves), it becomes more and more apparent that we need God and they need God. We will never be big enough to fill that role. We’ll never be able to manage all the details, to soothe all the hurts, even to make all the right decisions. But God’s got this. And our job is to believe that for ourselves and then to show our children that it’s true.

It is four days into the new year as I write. I’ve already messed up that blank slate in ways I couldn’t have imagined when the New Year’s horns were trumpeting. I’ve begged forgiveness. I’ve been brought to my knees. I’ve learned lessons in humility. Now, there is more to learn. Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes yet in it. Can I learn to let God accomplish His designs in the life of my children?

It’s my prayer for the new year that I can.

Hush.

Do you ever wish the world would stop spinning just for a couple of days so you could catch up? Do you wish the calendar would magically clear of every outside obligation and the world would be enveloped in a quiet hush? Do you wish you could just find some time and space to be still and know God? And then to revel in all things hearth and home?

I live in the suburbs of the most intense city on earth. And that intensity spills out into every facet of life. We have intense athletic programs, intense academic programs, even intense grocery stores. This place I call home is peopled by Type-A-to-the-Extremists and they are raising more Type-A-to-the-Extremists. Sometimes the pace is so dizzying I can't breathe.

And then God intervenes.

Enough! He cries. Enough talk, enough manipulation, enough with your misguided notion of power over life and health and welfare.

Be still.

He breathes a blessing of pure white.

We are quieted.

We are awed.

We are  humbled.

We are called to prayer.

Gathering My Thoughts

Dressing room surprise. 

It's been a very long time since I've written in "real time" here. All of December's "Comfort and Joy" posts were from the archives. I thought maybe a gathering of thoughts might get the writing going.

Outside my window:  It rained all weekend. Cold, wet, dreary. How I would have rathered snow! It's been remarkably warmer than predicted this winter, so far. I'm not really sure how I feel about that. It was good to run outside yesterday. On the other hand, I could really use a post-Christmas snow day or two to get my act together.

Listening to:  Silence. I've been up pretty much all night. It's quiet.

Clothing myself in: Pajamas. A Christmas quilt. 

Talking with my children about these books:  We are going to finish reading the last of the Christmas books today. Then, we'll wrap them all back up for next year. That should keep Sarah happily busy for a long while. She's a very good wrapper. 

In my own reading: I think I'm going to accept Anne's challenge for my own reading in 2015. 

Thinking and thinking: About this post on blogging. It summarizes many (most?) of the things I've been thinking myself. Tsh writes from a huge platform and she has kept her readers engaged. I lost many of my readers last year. My audience has shrunk. Still, principles are principles. Like Tsh, I still believe in longer pieces. I like to read them, and quite frankly, the freedom to write them is what drew me to blogging in the first place. I could explore a topic beyond the 500 words of my column. The Pinterest number staggered me. I can't image posting any where  27 times every day. I usually forget about Pinterest. According to the experts, Pinterest drives blog readers. Hmmm... I believe, as well, in remaining true to oneself. Like Tsh, I love Instagram. I love it more than Facebook and much more than Twitter. If Instagram had clickable links, it would be nearly perfect. If Tsh has a comments problem at her blog, I have them more. I know comments here don't work reliably. I have no idea what to do about that. I do engage in conversation on Facebook, so be sure to like the blog page there. Maybe that's a solution to the combox issues here. Still, I'd rather chat here. It's prettier.

I look at the way blogging has changed in the last five years and I hyperventilate. Thanks for visiting my quiet, old-fashioned corner. When I had a full-time job, I was desperate to be a mother at home. All I wanted was to come home to my baby and invest in my family. I've worked in some form or fashion from home ever since then, but never have I felt that pull between my work and my family until the last year of blogging. I don't want a full-time job. I'm a mother at home, antiquated as that has become.

I am very aware that my children are becoming adults and that they are my first readers. I don't care if the rest of the world reads my words. I care very much if my kids do. There can't be a disconnect. It needs to be honest. Always honest. If I'm going to write about wholehearted mothering, I need to be that wholehearted mother. Sometimes, that means I publish nothing but re-runs for a whole month. Thanks for understanding.

Pondering:

"My confidence is placed in God who does not need our help for accomplishing his designs. Our single endeavor should be to give ourselves to the work and to be faithful to him, and not to spoil his work by our shortcomings." St. Isaac Jogues.

More on this one on Wednesday. Also, more #morningrun posts soon. Thanks for all your kinds words about those little thoughts. 

Carefully Cultivating Rhythm: I'm ready for the rhythm of the winter to settle upon us. Christmas was wonderful. The transition from Christmas was not. Let's move on.

Creating By Hand:  Christmas pajamas. Yep. Those were abandoned in favor of following a certain someone on the path to a national championship. So, they will be January pajamas. Also, there are four quilts to make. Three for the girls' new bunkbed and one that was promised to Mary Beth two years ago. I really miss my sewing machine and I'm committed to bringing it to life this month.

Learning lessons In: Humility. Oh my. Nothing like really messing up to drive one to one's knees.

Encouraging learning in: True confessions would require me to divulge that it's 6 AM on Monday morning. I haven't written a single lesson plan. We're going to wing it. 

Begging prayers: I am wearing my new favorite pair of Elizabeth DeHority socks. I’m praying so hard for her. Every minute is a struggle and she’s fighting valiantly to meet the struggle with love and grace.

Keeping house: Christmas is still up. My girls won't let me touch anything until after January 6. That's OK with me for now.

Crafting in the kitchen: I cooked a lot last month. It was pointed out that I love people by feeding them. This is true. It is also true that, while I'm certainly not finished loving people, I'm a little tired of cooking.

To be fit and happy: I went for a run yesterday and my legs felt like lead. Not really sure what that is about except that I haven't been as careful with diet and I've gotten not enough sleep. I'm going to sleep more, eat better, and hopefully run further and faster.

Giving thanks: For a very healthy and happy December.

Loving the moments: The waning moments of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 will forever be etched in my memory as some of the happiest this house has held. I'm very grateful.

Living the Liturgy: I admit it. I'm preparing to offer a Lenten version of Restore. So, in my brain, I've jumped a little past the coming brief period of Ordinary Time. I'm feeling rather penitential anyway, so that works out well.

Planning for the week ahead: Going to take it slow, one foot in front of another. Back into our ordinary days.

About the photos: These are from late last November. I never got a chance to share them here. it's still Christmas, right? Photo credit: Michael, Kristin, and Christian Foss.