Do Not Go Gentle

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Young tots should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though two-year-olds at the end know dark is night,
Because their words had forked some lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good boys, the last hug by, crying how bright
Their frail paints might have danced if they’d had fivemoreminutes,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild kids who caught and sang the ceiling fan in flight,
And learn, too late, they trapped themselves this way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave girls, after bath, who see with blinding sight
Bath-time was a cruel trick to end the day

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there from that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now, but my fierce tears will stay.
I will not go gentle into that good night.
I will rage against the dying of the light.

On Becoming

I was watching my two younger boys in the gray twilight hours of early morning. They had each chosen a puzzle to work—or, more accurately, the 4yo had chosen a puzzle, the 1yo had requisitioned it for himself, & the 4yo had moved to the floor with a different puzzle.

The 4yo was doing an alphabet puzzle, singing a song about the letters and their sounds as he made it up. The 1yo was standing in a chair, leaning over the table, taking a car puzzle piece & driving it along the top edge of the puzzle lid with "vrooms" & bumps. Each was so intent, so focused, they were oblivious to me there watching.

As I watched, I thought of all that raising children entails—the feeding, diapering, kissing ouches, math lessons and reading lessons...

But here they are, doing things without me, in spite of me, oblivious to me.

And I saw a new thing that mothers do: step back, give space. Let our children become.

It's so much more than a flower, but it reminds me of the process—of planting, watering, waiting for the seed that grows in the darkness. Watching the green sprouts curl upward toward the light. And for all we do with watering cans and dirt, there is a point at which you can see the Hand-of-God, the Not-You of it all, when you can see the bud break open and blossom.

More Undignified

After the birth of my last baby, I said something like, "Whew. Now to return to some level of dignity."

The L&D nurse (who was amazing, by the way) got this look on her face that I'll never forget. She started lecturing me about how dignified childbirth is, how honored she is to attend women during that time, etc. I don't remember her exact words, but the look on her face was: "THIS. THIS is dignity."

I hadn't meant to insult her, but let's face it. No matter how beautiful or spiritual the advent of new life, it's not exactly a state in which you want to interview. There are no photographs that come out of that that you'd want on a business card. My feelings afterward?

Pardon me for that.

The indignity of birth has been on my mind lately, as I look toward another labor & delivery. It's all very shocking & inappropriate, & I do wish somehow it didn't have to involve an entourage.

Besides the birth itself, there's the indignity of the number that this one represents. (It's number 6.) Culturally, I have passed from unusual to insane. When they're all clean, their clothes match, & their behavior is great, it's not too bad. I mean, people gawk, but trying to turn in the grocery store IS like waiting behind a duck crossing.

On the other hand. Well...they're NOT always on their best behavior, & sometimes they pick out crazy clothes or I overlook a hole, stain, dirty face. Oops. I usually notice all of this at once, while standing in the check-out line, the checker's goggle eyes lacking any sympathy. He's likely wondering why I brought a circus to the grocery store and not because he wants to buy tickets. *sigh*

There's indignity to motherhood. We almost never look like those Victorian pictures or Hallmark cards or even Other People's Christmas Cards. You get puked on, pooped on, assumed to be a walking tissue/burp cloth. And I don't mean at home.

So, yeah, given all that, here comes number six. Whee!

But this morning, in the middle of anticipating the "dignity" of L&D, I heard the words of David to Michal when she criticized his worship of the Lord:

"And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight." (2 Sam 6:22)

Before that, David clarifies—it was before the Lord—that he danced and played his music. It was not FOR Michal or anyone else watching.

And that's how I see this whole motherhood gig: it's an act of worship, offered to the Lord, not to the checker at the grocery store or anyone else observing—for good or ill.

To the goggle-eyed, I say: I will become even more undignified than this! But in my heart? I'm praying, Lord, help me. Because I'm not really quite as brave as David, and I’m pretty sold on being dignified.

Children are a Burden

There was a blog post circulating around FB—last month, I think—about Society's idea that children are a burden. The blogger was a mother of a large family, & point by point, she refuted this idea that children are a burden, arguing instead that they are a blessing.

We hear this refrain so often—CHILDREN ARE A BLESSING! But unlike other "blessings," we work to control the ahem "flow" of divine generosity to some extent. Unlike other "blessings," we have support groups to talk about these wonderful bundles of joy. Unlike other "blessings," we hire help, send to school, or hide in the bathroom from these.

I think we've stretched the word “blessing” a little.

So let me say it: children are a burden. They cost their parents time, money, sleep, sanity, and to some extent, health. They are not "blessings" in the traditional sense of the word—bits of manna to be gathered up like Mario points on a video game & then enjoyed without footnote.

There are footnotes. Like the first time you have to take care of a baby despite a Really Bad Cold. The first time you sit in the waiting room of the ER or in the NICU. The first time that Blessing stares you down with your own perfected GLARE & defies you.

I admit it: children are a burden. MY children are a burden. But WHY have we as a society become so averse to bearing burdens?

I had a philosophy class once that talked about the maturation of the soul. There was something about starting out seeing things from the perspective of the good of SELF and then you’d end up seeing things from the perspective of the good of SOCIETY. There was other stuff in between, & I wish I could tell you better, but I was toting a newborn to class, & some of it gets a little fuzzy.

My point, then—let's stop pretzeling parenting around into something that's all sunshine & kisses & tell the truth: it's hard work. It will make you sweat, cry, curse. It breaks you.

But that's not bad. Hard work & pain are not things to be Avoided At All Cost. When the end goal is worth it, we should have the strength of character to know how to make sacrifices, to back our ideals up with our blood.

Well-loved children WILL make the world a better place, WILL make their parents better people. These children ARE a good, but the goodness is not just the Child-In-the-Raw: it's the product of decades of family life, of the quiet love and sacrifice of parents, being reflected back to them through their children, of this love and sacrifice acting upon the souls of the individuals to create Human Beings, members of society, in which families reflect love and sacrifice to other families, communities to communities, nations to nations.

And that's okay. You might even call it a blessing.

Athena's Son

Athena's Son by Jeryl Schoenbeck is a brand new book by a brand new author that exemplifies one of the reasons I love the Kindle: this book is self-published by a 6th grade history teacher who knows his material and loves his students enough to produce a remarkable work of historical fiction. Thanks to the democratic revolution that e-readers have brought to the publishing industry, Mr. Schoenbeck was able to offer this book to all of us, without the obstacles that stood between readers and writers in the past.

When I assigned Athena's Son as part of our ancient history studies, it was based on nothing but the preview on Amazon. When I was able to borrow it for free through Amazon Prime, that was an added bonus. But my 11-year-old son loved it so much, he spent his own money to buy a copy "so I can come back to it again and again." Then he asked if he could write a paper.

Without any plot details, I'm sold on a book that makes my writing-phobic son volunteer a paper! When that was followed up with a personal reply from the author, offering a signed copy of the book to my son, I decided to move Athena's Son from the middle of my to-be-read pile to the top.

It's been a busy two weeks, so I'm only halfway through, but I can already tell you: this book should be required reading for everyone studying ancient history.

You know how we study the Egyptians, take a test, and then study the Greeks? Each civilization, from the Phoenicians to the Romans occupies its own space on the academic calendar, rarely crossing these artificial lines that we've constructed. As an adult, I remember being startled to discover that Cleopatra was a Greek queen, not an Egyptian, and later that the Greeks had been fascinated with the Egyptians in much the same way that the Romans were fascinated with the Greeks.

I know trading happened. But I'd never thought about encounters between these civilizations, their customs, their gods. Athena's Son vividly illustrates just that, bringing the cultures and civilizations of the ancient world together and centering them around the childhood of Archimedes, whose intelligence earns him the title, "Athena's Son."

My aspiring engineer/inventor reveled in the story of a boy who would have been a fascinating friend, and I am likewise enjoying the very palatable and provocative history lesson.

Maybe if enough of us buy a copy of Athena's Son, Mr. Schoenbeck will give us the happy privilege of reading his next book!

The Battle Between Good & Evil

We think of the battle between good and evil as something epic, something for the comic books or history books. A great hero fights a monster to the death. A great alliance fights a great evil and barely wins. We think Tolkien and WW II.

But I think the battle is fought, lost or won, in a much quieter place, a place where glory lives only in disguise, if it lives there at all.

The bad guys of history and literature are made, not born. They start out as warm and bright-eyed as the baby I'm rocking now. Bad guys are made when the weak are not defended, when no one runs to the aid of a helpless child who is being bullied or beaten. The difference between a hero and a villain is often a single friend.

So the work you're doing now? The long talks over cocoa more than the Latin, the stories told in the dark more than the grammar—these acts do more to win the Battle than an army ever will. Raising your children is an act of fortification, and when they have grown into Defenders of the Good, your work is multiplied. Every lonely person they befriend, every child they raise, every good deed they do is a victory, a flag raised, ground taken.

The epic battle between good and evil? It's fought at the dinner table, in the locker room, offices, homes, and quiet corners of the world where one person is willing to reach out with human hands to touch the hurting.

My Jo'

Where do you turn when things are hard? Chocolate, right? Except those very wise (if fleeting) moments when we turn to Scripture.

Right after my husband started seminary, I painted three words BIG on a scrap piece of canvas and hung them in our tiny apartment: "Thy kingdom come." It summarized the Lord's prayer for me, reminded me what my focus should be during the daily struggle with laundry and a very fussy baby—especially when I found out she would be followed very quickly by a little brother.

Later, I heard a lady speak on a half-verse taken (out of context) from James. It spoke to me, and I painted it on another piece of that canvas I was slowly butchering for inspiration: "Count it all joy." That one, especially, I've spoken to myself over and over in the hard years that followed. No matter the loss, no matter the trials—count it all joy.

I've reached a point where...that's hard. It's harder to laugh away the pain and the trials. One night this week, I locked myself in the bathroom and wondered, What now? I remembered the verse—count it all joy. It had lost some of its mystery and started to sound a little insane. I thought about digging through the boxes in the garage to find my little canvas scraps of inspiration, but I was just too tired, and "counting it all joy" sounded like one more thing to do. I'd had enough to do.

But inside the house, not packed in the garage, I have a Norton Anthology of Poetry. I decided to kill another piece of canvas, but this time with a poem.

One of my favorites is T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. When I think of the line about kneeling in the place where prayer has been valid—I think of so many people—monks, poets, mothers, men—who have gone before me, who have run with the banner of faith and not let life or trials bear them down, who have held that banner for me, all these centuries behind, to still have something to look to.

I love everything by Gerard Manley Hopkins—most of all To the Windhover and  God's Grandeur. The idea of the world being smeared and bleared with man's trade and smell, that we are blind to God, and yet the Holy Spirit is brooding over us with ah! bright wings—the meter alone is filled with hope.

I turned the pages of the Norton Anthology, one at a time, two, five, ten, and one again. Slowly—like you never do in college when you have to gulp down 100 pages of reading per night. And I remembered a poem by Robert Burns that I'd discovered on St. Patrick's day two years ago, when the internet said Burns was Irish, and I believed the internet. My Scottish husband has since set me right.

It's an obscure poem about John Anderson, "my jo"—my joy. It's a poem about two old men, their youth together, their memories, friendship, and at last the final "tottering" down the hill of life, where Burns expects to be buried beside his friend. The poem has the bittersweet tang of truth and for some reason has always made me think of my husband. And I realized that despite Shakespeare's sonnets and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's beautiful turn of phrase, this is the one poem in the world I would give to my husband, if I were to choose a poem someone else wrote, and give it to my best friend, my dearest love.

So I copied Burns' poem—onto a big sheet of art paper, because as it turns out, my canvas scraps are in the garage, too—and I turned my piles of frustration and pain onto a canvas where I didn't have to find the words, just write them. And I gave my husband a love poem like only I would pick—about two old men tottering down a hill "thigether."

And once again I found the healing power of words, remembered the joy of my husband, my kids, and my life, and lay down that night in peace—to do it all again in the morning.