{this moment} - A Friday ritual. Photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, visit Soulemama to leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.
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, Trish is still supplying our soap and our candles, so our candle scent matches our soap scent. 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 Trish's St. Anne or St. Therese scent, it will bring back the happiest memories of freshly bathed babies, nursing to sleep.
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 Burt's Bees lotion or Burt's Bees oil 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.
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. Basketball practices 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.
Several months 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 dinner together 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.
Preparing for Candlemas:
Candlelight at the End of the Day (tomorrow)
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, at my local grocery store (though I just noticed the Amazon price is better). I'm sure I don't have enough for the whole year, but I do have several to be blessed.
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.
Preparing for Candlemas:
The day can begin under less than ideal circumstances: a sleepless night, a wicked headache, hormonal craziness, a blood sugar low, a festering argument. Whatever the root, the result is a bad mood. And then comes the defining moment of the day: do I succumb to the bad mood or do I fight for the joy that lies just under the weight of the crosses? Do I grumble and exaggerate, even celebrate, the trials of the morning, assuring that everyone around me knows I'm suffering? Or do I force myself to focus on the eternally present joy of my Christian inheritance and put a smile on my face and persevere in cheerfulness for the sake of the people entrusted to my care? And really, for my sake too.
One thing is certain. I cannot be cheerful under my own strength. I pray for the grace. I stumble. I falter. I persevere imperfectly. But His grace is sufficient. Always sufficient.
God doesn't call us to wallow in our suffering. He doesn't want us hoist our crosses upon the shoulders of the people around us. The sleepless night is my cross. It's not my husband's cross. If I stomp around the kitchen, whining about how tired I am, I foist that cross onto someone else's shoulders. If I "fake" it, and smile instead and force myself to take even more care with breakfast, I bless someone. The thing about choosing joy, even when we don't feel joy? Usually, we end up feeling it too. It's not dishonest. It's discipline.
When we dwell on our suffering, we magnify it. When we accept it and choose to be ever-aware of the joy that comes with being God's own child and to share that joy, despite our own immediate unhappiness, we sanctify it. This month, St. Teresa of Avila reminds us that children need to see us doing virtuous deeds. There is real virtue in cheerfulness. It's infectious virtue. Children can learn cheerful obedience from their mothers.
You know the saying, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy?" That one proves true in most every household. But when Mama smiles, despite her suffering, she blesses. And she is blessed.
There is sadness in our world. There is sorrow -- real sorrow and genuine pain -- in every life. We're called to embrace our crosses. We are not called to hit other people over the head with them.
I think one of my favorite quotes in Small Steps is
From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us.
(St. Teresa of Avila)
A sour-faced saint? Can you even be sour faced and a saint?
Do my children whine? Chances are I do, too.
Do my children criticize and complain and gossip about their siblings and friends? Chances are I do, too.
Do my children bluster through every chore, griping and seeking ways to escape the drudgery? Chances are I do, too.
Do my children seem to revel in the suffering, making much ado of it and sighing frequently, ensuring that everyone around them knows how hard life is?
Is the outward expression of discontent and ungratefulness taking hold and multiplying in my home like kudzu in Alabama?
Or do the people in my home smile? Do they do the hard thing with a peaceful countenance even though they don't want to and don't enjoy it (much the same way they decline a second piece of cake even though they want more)? Do they fake happiness for a time and master their emotions, with full confidence that a genuine awareness and effusiveness of joy is right around the corner?
If they do that over and over and over again, it will become a habit of joy. And when it does, they will no longer whine; it will grate upon their own ears just to hear whining. They will no longer judge and criticize; they will encourage and celebrate the best in the people around them, without rancor or envy. They will be more peaceful, genuinely peaceful. They will embrace their crosses with full confidence that there is joy to be found in the difficult things, too. They will see that cheerful joy is their calling and step into the day, singing and dancing with St. Philip Neri:
A glad spirit attains to perfection more quickly than any other.
Did you take small steps towards joy this week? Would you share them with us, let us find you and be encouraged? I'd be so grateful and so honored to step with you.
I'm Elizabeth. I'm a happy wife and the mother of nine children. I grab grace with both hands and write to encourage myself and others to seize and nurture the joy of every day. I blog here with my daughter, Mary Beth, a wholehearted young lady on the brink of adulthood.
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