Reflections on the Feast of the Holy Family

I sat down in my church pew before the Feast of the Holy Family and found out that I felt so unhappy and sad inside my heart. My feelings felt really surprising to me. I love the Holy Family. This Feast Day is usually a time of such Joy and Hope for me.

I sat quietly with my feelings in front of Jesus inside the Tabernacle. I think some things came into focus. 2014 has been such a year of failure for me. My husband has asked me to stop blaming him when ever things go wrong in my life. It's humiliating to recognize that I can not fix that fault. I know that is wrong intellectually. I work on it. I still fail. I fall into that fault as easily as if I often tripped over an actual sidewalk crack outside my home.

In that moment of sitting quietly before the church service started, I recognized that I "have" to feel anger at someone else, because otherwise I fall easily into depression by blaming myself. It's like I've got the "Prosperity Doctrine" deeply stuck in my heart. I can't accept that sometimes things are just "hard." Sometimes I have suffering. I feel like any suffering that I have is because "I'm doing it wrong" and the deep shame I feel about being stupid, and wrong, and a failure. That shame spiral hurts so much that sometimes I distract myself with a litany of "things my husband did wrong." That's a deep issue and I'm not sure how to fix it on my own.

I also realize that I still feel like I failed my son by having a premature birth. In my head, I can say "This wasn't my fault." But inside I feel like a failure. I feel like I let him down. I feel like I should have fought harder to stay in the hospital when I ended up there for a bleed only 7 days before my scheduled early c-section. I was tired of the hospital. I wanted to be home. When the doctor on call said "you can go home today", I left. I didn't argue for more time or ask for an earlier c-section date. Less than 72 hours, my water broke at home. My son is totally healthy and fine now. But both my husband and I aren't over that emotional trauma yet. I feel somewhat responsible for that emotional injury. I think that if I had my waters break inside the hospital my son's birth wouldn't have been nearly that scary for us.

Then I have the failure of not being loving enough to my 2 year old. It's been nine months of her being 2 and I feel like I fail in front of her all the time. I fail to be patient. I fail to be kind. I fail to really appreciate how hard this stage in life is for her.

The Feast of the Holy Family--it's become a day of reckoning for me. It's not always comfortable for me to look at the Holy Family as a role model. There is a lot of ways that I don't line up with Mary, the Mother of God.

The Mass ended up being really, really great.  We're blessed to have a retired Seminary teacher as one of the priests assigned to our parish. Father talked about some of the real life struggles the Holy Family faced. The Holy Family was homeless. The Holy Family had to become refugees in order to avoid persecution. St. Joseph had to struggle to make a living in a deeply uncertain economy.

Father said "The cross is a central part of marriage." Family life is a struggle. It's a struggle to take care of a newborn. It's a struggle to stay patient and calm around a feisty two year old. It's hard to make ends meet in this economy right now. It's hard to educate kids--in the Faith, in school, in manners, etc.

I felt a lot of healing. I'm in good company. Mary, Joseph and Jesus struggled a lot too. While I certainly bring a lot of my own sin and brokenness to the equation, family life is always supposed to be A Noble Hard.

In the end, its an honor to take that struggle into the 21 Century. Even in the hard times, I'm really, really blessed to be on this path.

Mary, the Mother of God, pray for us!

Solitude is My Inner Jewelry Box

My husband bought me diamond earrings for a Christmas present! (Oh for the joy of a local Kay's Jewelry Store that lets all the poor fathers of six live like kings on Christmas Day!) My ear piercing holes had grown back during my last pregnancy with Johnny. Three weeks ago, I got my ears pierced at Claire's along with my two oldest daughters. We've been counting down the weeks until we get to change out our earrings for the first time. Now, I've got an even bigger reward.

My husband knows me well. I tend to lose things easily. Spending my life with curious two year olds for the past nine years has whittled my jewelry collection--which was always meager at the start--to something truly pathetic. (Of course, I still manage to mix up my meager jewelry collection with the sin of anger. I got quoted in a Mother's Day homily from a priest friend here.)

In addition to buying me diamond earrings, my husband bought me a beautiful jewelry box that he mounted on our bedroom wall. "Now your necklaces won't get all tangled!" he told me.

I love my new jewelry box! It has a Chinese wood pattern over two mirror panels. I can open it and see clearly marked spaces for necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings. Of course, being a good Catholic, I immediately put inside my favorite rosaries and my tiny relics of my bff St. Teresa of Avila. The jewelry box is mounted high enough on my wall, that if not entirely toddler proof, is more safe than if left on a bedroom desk or vanity set.

When my husband got out his drill and started to mount my new jewelry box to the wall, I got a feeling of the extreme care he has for me. My husband doesn't just buy me pretty, romantic gifts. He puts the thought and muscle into making sure that they are easily accessible to my life. I'm currently a sleep deprived Mama of six. "Lets not count on Abigail remembering to carefully put back her new diamond earrings after Mass every Sunday. How can I make it as easy as possible for her to use her new gift?"

It's nice to be married because sometimes I get a little taste of what it means for God to love me as his bride.

I looked at that new jewelry box and thought that it was similar to the role solitude plays in my life. So often in prayer, I get shiny new insights into God. These are my spiritual gems. Its easy to lose spiritual insights in the rough and tumble world outside my heart. Holding onto insights of Faith is harder than keeping pairs of earrings safe from the curious hands of toddlers.

A steady pattern of seeking solitude everyday serves as my metaphysical jewelry box. Inside my solitude, I can keep my necklaces untangled and my pairs of earrings well ordered and protected. I can reflect on Scripture. I can remember the times God has been faithful and loving. I have a space in time that lets me feel individually treasured and beloved.

St. Teresa of Avila, pray for me! Help me remember to seek more solitude in 2015!

My Wrestling Match With God

(The post in which I explain why I love going to the movies in times of trouble and why I'm grateful that my children spend so many hours playing video games).

I took a mental break from my awful moving experience last week and went to see the premier of Exodus, a Hollywood epic about the story of Moses. In the movie, I learned that the name "Israel" means "wrestled with God." A character in the movie comments about how strange it is that the Jewish people see themselves as a people who "wrestle with God" and see that active struggle as a positive thing. In my head, I took so much comfort from that bit of dialogue. In my life as a Christian, its an active struggle to get a blessing from God. It's not this easy mental journey where "Oh, I decide to live life for Christ" at an Easter Vigil twelve years ago. It is a daily wrestling match to get through the challenges of life, the same struggles that everyone else has, with peace and dignity and love. Loving God feels like a wrestling match on the hard days.

On Friday, 72 hours before the scheduled closing date for my home sale, my buyer back out due to a lack of financing. Lots of poor people have this happen to them. Here is where my experience is slightly odd. My buyer got fired for cause 72 hours before she was supposed to sign for a new home loan. "For cause" is a my ex-lawyer legalize term which means "for a darn good reason." My buyer lied to her employer. She lied to her bank on her mortgage application. She also said a lot of lies to us and everyone around us.

When the Truth finally showed up, I had 90% of my belongings packed in neatly labeled cardboard boxes. I had turned off the power and water to my home.

The Truth is always good. However, sometimes it feels like God's timing sucks and I end up crying about Truth's arrival in my shower.

At 5 PM Friday night, I had another house showing for a new prospective buyer. There was a stack of moving boxes in my living room. There was no light in that area of the house because my beautiful sea horse lamps for that room where still packed in our storage locker. I put my six kids and the dog in our car and started driving around town, counting down the minutes before the home showing would be over.

At 5:01, I got a ring on my cellphone. I pulled over to a safe spot in the road and shifted into park. I picked up my cellphone and called my husband back. He told me "The showing got pushed back until 5:30!'

"Are you kidding me?" I answered.

"The guy got hung up at work. What do you expect?"

"I'm in a car with six kids and a dog. Our 10 week old newborn is currently wailing in his car seat. Can you hear him? Do you know where we can go in the middle of a cold winter night with a crying newborn and a dog? No where! We're driving around town together waiting for this showing to be over already!"

I hung up the phone.

The only way I'm getting through the emotions of this move is by practicing honesty with my kids. I started speaking my feelings out loud. I said "I know what I'm supposed to to do. I'm supposed to let God handle revenge. "Vengeance is mine says the Lord." But I'm really having trouble in this moment not wanting to kill someone."

In a moment of brutal moment of humility I told my kids the truth. I felt so mad. I knew what I was feeling was not good, but I had no idea how to get myself to where God wanted me to be.

My kid spoke up from the back of the car, "Mom, it's legal to kill someone in Minecraft!"

There was this beautiful chorus of support from my four gamer children. "Yeah Mom! You should join us on the Xbox. You can hack and stab and kill as many people as you want. It's all legal and you won't go to jail!"

My kids handed me a golden key out of my resentment. I was cold. I was exhausted. I was sore and frustrated. But in the dark winter night, I could picture a time when I could get out of the car. I could take a hot shower. I could drink a glass of wine. I could go upstairs and play a video game with some of the four people I love best in the world. It was a prescription for self-soothing that seemed to take the sting out of a bad day.

I'm so grateful for my imperfectly perfect children and my imperfectly perfect spouse and my imperfectly perfect life.  Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Hearing God's Word In Times of Trouble

This is what my parish priest said in his homily last Sunday:

"We want what God wants, when and how God wants it!"

A few minutes later, during the consecration, I found myself talking to God inside my church's bathroom. I was so confused by our move, that I went to church without a baby blanket. At 10 weeks old, Baby John isn't the smoothest nurser. So rather than fuss with the whole re-latching process in front of strangers, I opted to take him and my two year old into the bathroom right at the most important moment of the Mass.

I shut the bathroom door and locked it behind me. I sank down on the floor and started to nurse John. My two year old took this moment to reassert her interest in potty training. "You're in a diaper. You don't have to use the potty right now," I explained gently. Logic goes almost no where with two year olds. So rather than continue to disagree, I found myself helping her while balancing a newborn on my chest.

It was one of those "I don't have enough hands" moments of motherhood. I surprised myself by not feeling overwhelmed or resentful. I've been praying for a reader to have a healthy baby after an infant loss. In that second, I prayed urgently that she too would have a moment within a few weeks of having "too many kids to comfortably handle during Mass."

After I got my two year old settled, I sat down again on the floor to nurse John again. I started having an imaginary conversation with God and this reader in my mind. "We want what God wants, when and how God wants it."

I figured out, inside the unromantic setting of my church bathroom, that as I grow in formation I have started to want "what God wants" in my life. However, I am still struggling with the concept of "when and how God wants it." I wanted to have another baby after Leo's loss last year. But I wanted my pregnancy to go super smoothly. I didn't want lots of trips to the hospital and an emergency preterm birth. I also wanted to sell my house and move back to Maryland. However, I want that process to happen either before or after John's birth. I also wanted it to go super smoothly without any hiccups.

In Carmelite terminology "uniformity with God's will" doesn't mean chopping off parts of ourselves. It's good for me to want a healthy baby and want to live on a calm street in a safe community. Detachment is a tricky process of giving up control over how and when God works in my life. I've got to let go of the outcome. I can only control my small part in the puzzle (pretty much simply my own attitude) and trust in God.

Those words are even hard for me to type. Of course, I want to control the outcome. As an ex-lawyer, I want to foresee problems and solve them in advance. I want to control my own life!

My parish priest reminds me that when I want what God wants, I'm only 90% there as a Christian. I still have to step back and work "when and how" he wants to work. As always, none of these concepts make any sense to me unless I think about them in the context of death. Someday, I'm going to die. I'll get cancer and the last round of chemo doesn't take. It's going to be really hard to accept that its God's will for me to leave the earth now unless I've practiced it first. The things that seem the most hard to practice detachment with--my need for shelter, my pregnancies, are exactly the situations I'm going to be most thankful facing beforehand when the big death news comes.

This week when I prayed with Scripture I got more instructions on this concept. John  12: 27-28 says "I am troubled now.  Yet what should I say? "Father, save me from this hour?" But it was for this purpose, that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name."

As a Christian woman, I've spent 40 years praying, "Father, save me from this hour!" prayers. I wanted my baby to be fine. I wanted to get out of the hospital quickly. I wanted to sell my house. I want to move out smoothly and quickly. Those "save me" prayers are fine prayers of Faith.

There is a more grown-up method of Christian prayer that I want to practice more after my 40th birthday. In times of trouble, I want to pray more of "Father, glorify your name!" That prayer is always answered, regardless of the outcome. The last thing I wanted after losing a son in a late miscarriage was to have a scary drive to the hospital with a new baby in preterm labor. Yet God's name was glorified in that moment. I had supernatural calm during my emergency surgery. There were dozens of strangers who helped us. My son is so beautiful and awesome and fun the fact that he made such a surprise entrance into the world only fits his personality.

Christian prayer is not magic. I can't sit there and say a certain type of novena and expect that the world with transform into my will. Christian prayer is a conversation with God. I'm changed by my talks with him. I'm lifted up. I'm consoled. I'm also told to "grow up and start praying my age!"

I'm so grateful to have Mass and Scripture and prayer in times of great stress. I learn so much more about my Faith in hard times, rather than in easy ones.

Me and My Carmel Vocation

This picture is of me (metaphorically) and my vocation to Carmel. My sister has spent years working in the desert in Africa with the Peace Corps. She taught me how to carry a large number of things on my head. We're both amazed at the dexterity that allows some women to easily balance 10 gallon water jugs on their head for miles.

In many cultures, women still gather water for their families. I'm starting to think that St. Teresa's metaphor comparing prayer to a fountain of water is a practical theory for me.

I'm guilty of taking my Carmel vocation extremely lightly. I'm a recovering codependent. It's hard for me to ask my family to make time in their schedule for me to go to doctors appointments. (For years, I'd only go see the OB because I had to for the baby. When it came to myself, I spent four years feeling like it was "stealing time" to go to my regular check-up or get my eye glass prescription updated.) If it's hard for me to ask for time to go to the doctor--it's even harder to ask for time off from family life to spend time in prayer.

Prayer felt invisible. Prayer felt selfish. Going to a monthly Carmelite Meeting or spending time in Adoration--that was fine if life was easy and I had free time. Asking people to rearrange their schedules so that I could attend a full day Carmelite Retreat in Advent during a move felt almost irresponsible.

Then the bottom fell out of my world last week. I had days when I woke up that I had no idea what was going to happen, only that I was expecting more oceans of bad news. The only thing I knew for certain was that I could still do my Carmel prayers every morning. I cling to that schedule like a life raft.

Suddenly, Carmel didn't seem like a luxury. Carmel seemed like a necessity.

I need to do my Carmel prayer. I need to go to meetings. I need to do retreats because I can't handle my life without Carmel.

What I learned in Carmel at my meeting last Sunday, is that while prayer is done in solitude but its not private! I always thought my relationship with God was very private. (Of course, my current American culture screams all the time that religion is a private matter that doesn't belong in the public space). In Carmel, I'm learning something different.

We address God as our Father.

God belongs to everyone!

That means that whatever insights I have in prayer, are pretty applicable to everyone--especially my spouse and the children I have in my care. That concept still shocks me!

On Sunday I came home on fire after watching a St. Teresa of Avila movie. She's my bff. Nearly everything she says out loud is golden to me. In the movie she said the phrase "silence and work." "All speaking and all writing is nothing but confusion. What is necessary is only silence and work."

I shared my excitement about the phrase "silence and work" to my husband. I meant to talk only about myself. During this chaotic, scary time of a move, it's good for me to remember to keep my head down and practice Silence and Work.

I just got an email back from my husband talking about how much that phrase means to him, while he's at work, with six things on his plate and a dozen emails waiting in his inbox about our move.

I was shocked that what I thought was a selfish act (Going to a 4 hour Carmel Meeting on Sunday instead of packing for a move) was actually a loving, spiritually nourishing act for my spouse.

Today, I thought about all the women in the world who still walk to a well daily to gather water for their families. I realize that every time I go to prayer, I'm gathering spiritual water for my family. They might only feel it indirectly, a Mom who has a smile instead of a frown whenever the 2 year old acts out her age. Yet sometimes I find that I can give my spouse and my kids answers that I didn't even know that I knew. Those are hidden insights from prayer that St. Teresa calls "spiritual water."

I can only do that if our spiritual well is full. For me, going to Carmel, is the most effective way I can make sure that my family has lots of Spiritual Water to drink, especially in the middle of a desert of Stress like Advent and around Moving Day. I'm starting to feel like going to Carmel meeting is less about getting "me time" and more about fetching spiritual water for both myself and my whole family.

St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!

Exodus: Gods and Kings

Grab a loved one and see Exodus: Gods and Kings this opening weekend.  Exodus is an old fashioned epic about Moses that deserves to be seen on a real movie screen. An opening scene with a fierce chariot battle highlights the grander of the Egyptian Empire. All of those expansive widescreen shots underscore how ridiculously difficult it was for the Hebrew people to beat a Pharaoh.

This movie has a gritty realism that makes the familiar Bible story more intense. All the Hebrew slaves are so identically dirty that it was hard for me to pick out Moses' brother Aaron for a while. The plagues of flies, frogs, and boils are each truly gross. It's a guy's movie with lots of battle scenes and gory death shots. It also has some tender love scenes and creative ways to illustrate a man in prayer.

As someone familiar with the Bible Story, I had some moments of confusion and disagreement with the plot. For a few moments, I wondered why Moses was starting acts of guerrilla warfare with his cousin the Pharaoh instead of negotiating with the familiar refrain "Let My People Go!" However, the visual poetry of the Burning Bush scene really won over my heart. I relaxed and let the filmmakers take me on the movie journey they wanted to explore. I ended up thinking deeply about parts of the Moses story that were brand new to me.

I loved the part where Moses' wife thinks that all this talk about God's plan for him is simply a hallucination after Moses hit his head on a rock. Moses' moments of doubt and humility are clearly shown by actor Christian Bale. This Bible story happened to real people. This film highlights all the reactions of people around Moses, as well as the internal struggles he faces within.

I loved this movie because it made me think. There is a Jewish tradition called the "Midrash" where writers talk about "what could have happened in the Torah." Exodus the movie is not Exodus the book. However, the differences only highlight the amazingly awesome power contained in our Scripture.

I think this movie is best attended with friends. The conversation afterwards about "What did you like?" or "What didn't you like about it? " is lively and intense. (My daughter Hannah wanted me to post that she did not like how the parting of the Red Sea was shown in this movie. "The ocean didn't open up!  What the heck?") I love a movie that can inspire this much debate on the car ride home. I'm inspired to reread the book of Exodus with my family today. I'm more thoughtful about who Moses was and how his epic journey with God is similar to my own.

Art provokes. It's a joy to attend a movie that made me reflect more deeply about the Bible on the way out of the theater than on my way in!

Scott Hahn's Joy To The World--A Book Review

Christmas is a hard Feast Day for me to celebrate reverently. There is so much outside noise and agitation leading up to this holiday. I can't get my kids to whittle down their Christmas wish list to something below the Gross National Product of Denmark. I'm stumped by the simple download process for Christmas Cards on Shutterfly. My sugar cookies fall apart. I've lost the box where I stored our Advent wreath.

Christmas is about absorbing the Mystery of the Incarnation. Dr. Scott Hahn's new book, Joy to the World: How Christ's Coming Changed Everything (And Still Does) is a great Advent read. It's such a grace to find a calm, encouraging, and scholarly work written by a lay person, instead of a priest.

Dr. Hahn lives my life! He travels in long lines at the airport during Christmas. His daughter was not thrilled to witness the scene of the Nativity firsthand. Dr. Hahn's moments of grace around the Advent wreath are rudely shattered by his children's fights over who gets to blow out all the Advent candles first.

Joy to the World is a sympathetic read about the challenges of celebrating the mystery of Christmas within the context of modern life. Yet Dr. Hahn encourages me to peer deeper into the familiar Christmas Story. I learned enough historical facts about the paranoid King Herod to satisfy almost all of the curious questions asked by my 10 year old son. I gained new appreciation for the socially snubbed shepherds and the wandering Magi.

Dr. Hahn is at his best with a brilliant chapter on St. Joseph. Dr. Hahn reminds us that even though St. Joseph "had no biological role to play in the conception of Jesus... this does not make Joseph any less of a father." Some Christians describe St. Joseph as the foster father of Jesus in order to protect an understanding of "Mary's virginity and God's fatherhood." However, Dr. Hahn convincingly argues that "the simple fact is that an adoptive father is as much a father as a natural father is."

Joy to the World ends with the shocking statement, "Salvation arrives by way of the family--the Holy Family." This book didn't nag me about all the extra things I should do this Advent. This book encourages me to reflect on who I am this Advent.  The Church is the family of God! Christmas is our chance to reflect on all the wonderful and diverse people who helped welcome the Infant Jesus into the world.

I'm thankful to Dr. Hahn for helping me sing the hymn of Joy to the World with extra gusto this year!
Many thanks to all the bloggers who participated in the Image Books Joy to the World Blog Tour from Dec 1 to Dec 11. To read all the reviews click here. To buy your copy of Joy to the World click here.

Happy Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception!

Happy Feast Day of the United States of America! Special props to St. Bernadette for helping us to better receive this miraculous teaching.

Help for My Advent

On Saturday, I attended my Carmelite Community's first Advent Retreat. It was glorious! I joked that I got to accompany the Baby Jesus to that retreat. It was sleeting that morning.  I dressed Baby Johnny in his new Teddy Bear snow suit and tucked him into his older sister's pink and grey car seat. There were 85 Catholics at the retreat and he was the only child in attendance. All these strangers stopped in front of John's sleeping face and metaphorically drooled all over him.

I heard three beautiful lectures on my friends St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Therese of Lisieux. I also got to attend Adoration and go to Confession. Here is a brief "bonus" talk on how to keep Advent calm and holy from one of our Carmelite priests, Father Jack Lombardi.

'The four horsemen of the Advent Apocalypse are Anxiety, Busyness, Consumerism, and Complexity. We need to fight them to have a holy Advent.

To fight Anxiety, meditate on Philippians 4:8-- "Whatever is true... think about these things"

To fight Busyness, meditate on Psalm 46:10--"Be still and know that I am God." Physical stillness and silence in our brain, helps our minds to be still.

To fight Consumerism--meditate on St. John of the Cross' "Nada, Nada, Nada" (Nothing, nothing, nothing in Spanish).

To fight Complexity--seek simplicity

Fight the 4 horsemen of Advent with the 3 S's of Silence, Stillness, and Simplicity."

I love Carmel! Here's a photo of Father Jack. His wide smile always seems to say "You can do this!" to me whenever we meet. I love encouragement, especially in the spiritual life. He gave me brown scapular four years ago with the personal advice "Don't stop praying now!" Of course, what have I done multiple times but give up almost completely on my prayer life because my life is so crazy. Yet I constantly "Begin Again!" Persistence is a trait that needs lots of practice to be learned well.

A Special Advent Pep Talk at 4 PM Today! --Joy to the World by Dr. Scott Hahn

Dr Scott Hahn and his wife, Kimberly Hahn, will host a Livestream event at 4 PM EST/ 1 PM PST on Friday, December 5th. Viewers are invited into the Hahn home to hear a conversation between these spouses about Christmas, the Holy Family, the New Evangelization and Advent Traditions. Click here to join the party!

At 4 PM today, turn on your computer. Grab a cup of tea. Bribe the kids for their silence with chocolate and coloring books. Give yourself some mental space to reflect on the real Truth behind all the tasks on the Christmas To Do List. Gain encouragement and inspiration from one of the best Catholic scholarly couples in America! What a treat to get to eavesdrop on their Christmas thoughts this Advent!

A.D. - Official Trailer: A.D. the Series

NBC is presenting a great new miniseries about the early history of the Christian Church on Easter Sunday 2015! Below is an enthusiastic endorsement from Cardinal Donald Wuerl from the Archdiocese of Washington DC. I can't wait to check it out with my whole family!

Donald Cardinal Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington D.C.

“A.D. is a triumph! It tells the riveting story of the very beginning of the Church with reverence and excitement. This series not only captures our attention but also our hearts as we trace the steps of those who first walked in the way of Jesus. While AD dazzles the eye, it also engages the imagination. The narrative recounts how, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a small band of men and women witnesses to the Risen Lord and sets out to change the world. The mission endures today, and people everywhere can find both drama and inspiration in this telling of the story of the Church, her origins, mission and timeless challenge. AD helps us recover the wonder of the ongoing Christian adventure.”

All is Calm. All is Bright.

Happy Baptism Day!

John Francis, 8 weeks old

Counting My Blessings

My 2 year old daughter cut her hair with scissors this week. She chopped off her bangs super short. I spent a day mourning her former hairstyle and planning on pinning back her bangs with pretty sparkly barrettes for the Christmas season. The next day, I found more brown Shirley Temple curls on the floor. My daughter had found another pair of scissors the old kids had used for paper art and left in the basement. My 2 year old with the painfully slow growing and thin hair clipped off both sides of her head down to the bare skin. "Oh Abby, you cut your hair again!" I said in despair.

My 2 year old put both hands on her hips, cocked her head and proclaimed loudly "It's fine, Mom! It's fine!"

She put me in my place. It is her hair, after all. I started laughing. We were having the "What did you do with your hair teenager stand off 10 years early. I was forced to admit that the weird mullet thing she made was actually a genuine hairstyle in 1980.

 (What my 2 year old's hair looks like now--only with shorter bangs).

On this Thanksgiving Day, I'm thankful for all the ways that my six children are messy, spunky, and quirky individuals who do, think, and say things that I would never dream of doing myself. I gain more courage from their fearless example everyday. It's a privilege to hang out with them.

I'm blessed to still be in love with my husband of 13 years. Yesterday was a super hard day where our newborn woke up at 1 AM and stayed "non-sleeping" until 9 PM that night. My husband showed up at our house after work with white wine, red roses, and a newly prescribed bottle of anti-reflex medicine for the baby which he picked up from the pharmacy in a snow storm. I thought my husband's perfect trio of gifts spelled "LOVE" at age 40!

I'm blessed to be a Catholic under Pope Francis! I spent a lot of years trying to get to Jesus all on my own. I feel like being nourished by the Catholic Church is an almost effortless ride to healing, growth, and wisdom.

This year I invented a new tradition called "Dessert War" at our Thanksgiving table. I made the traditional pumpkin pie. Then I picked a new dessert to see if I could beat the recipe. I picked Rosemary Chocolate Cake--inspired by the fresh rosemary I had picked up for the stuffing the night before. My 7 year old, who is the aspiring pastry chef, picked out Tie Die Cake. Even thought its from a mix, the directions to this cake look so intimidating. We picked it up on a grocery shopping trip because my 7 year old begged for it, but the box had languished on the shelf for weeks. I joked with my 7 year old that it took me until age 40 to have the courage to make this cake for the first time, especially on the busy cooking day of Thanksgiving.

Hours later my seven year old daughter hugged me and said "Mom, I can't wait to be 40!" I looked down at her in shock. I'm totally NOT feeling calm about this birthday milestone myself. Then I realized that part of my fear is that I don't really have examples in my life of women who are calm, happy, and fun at age 40. Most of the women I know personally have morphed from the stress of middle age and motherhood into someone don't want emulate.

Even though I don't have good internal examples, I am called to be that example to others. It's working! My daughter didn't inherit the same pattern I did of stressed, non-creative, snippy cooks on Thanksgiving Day. My daughter thinks that at age 40 is a fun time to make new, hard recipes in the kitchen. She can't wait to be 40 herself!

I'm so grateful to Mary, the Mother of God for shepherding me into a new ways of relating to God, myself and others. Thank you Mommy Mary! You are a great inspiration to me!

What if St. Joseph Felt Like a Failure On Christmas Day?

Here is my problem with the Christmas story. I grew up hearing the story over and over again as a kid in church, long before I'd had any experience giving birth myself. Therefore, I've gotten immune to the shocking facts of this event. Now that I've given birth to a preemie, however, my thoughts this Advent are filled with the real, human aspects of the Incarnation.

My son was born exactly seven days before a planned early c-section at 36 weeks gestation. I knew my pregnancy was high-risk.  I still had terrifying scramble to get out the door quickly that Saturday morning. We ended up lost trying to get to an unfamiliar, closer hospital.  A 911 operator and the paramedics had to help us.

After coming home from the hospital with a healthy baby and a healthy body, I felt foolish. I told myself I hadn't planned enough for this emergency birth. We should have had more numbers of neighbors stored in our cellphone. I shouldn't have lost our main cellphone during the shock of starting labor early. We should have had MapQuest print-outs of three back-up hospitals on route to our main delivery site.

The hard part about calming my emotions post-birth has been accepting that I did have a plan for the birth of my son. My doctors had a plan. Things just didn't go according to plan. There were a couple of moments of extreme panic while my husband and some paramedics got me to a new doctor who made a new plan---your kid is coming out here within the hour, Mama!

The new plan worked. The baby was fine. I was fine. It was actually easier to recover from childbirth at a smaller, quieter hospital close to home. I could feel God's thumb prints all over my son's birthday, including an unfamiliar feeling of tranquility before my emergency surgery.

At 35 weeks, I'd asked my regular OB for a prescription for Valium at my regular OB check-up appointment. My doctor of five pregnancies rocked back on his heels and said "You don't know how bad this could be for the baby."

I told him "You don't understand how much my fears have escalated since being on bed rest. I've lost every healthy way of coping with my anxiety about this surgery. I can't exercise. I can't take walks in nature. I can't go out for dinner with my friends. I can't go to my church to pray. It's not good for the baby to have medication in the womb, of course. But what happens if I'm too scared to get into the car and drive to the hospital the day of the baby's scheduled c-section?"

My OB gave me a prescription for 3 Valium tablets. My husband told me that he was glad that I asked for the anti-anxiety medication. I looked at the type-written prescription and felt like a failure. "I'm a wuss," I said out loud. "I've done this surgery 5 times before. It's always worked out perfectly. Why am I so afraid now?"

Ironically, just asking for a prescription for Valium calmed me down. I didn't even need to fulfill it. That night I went home and started googling "just how bad is Valium for an unborn baby?" I stumbled upon a website with information from all these Mormon women who suffered from anxiety after multiple c-sections. The Mormons were interested in avoiding all drugs while "not letting something external like the amount of scar tissue dictate the size of their future families!" I felt at home on this website. It was the first time I heard someone else say "the more times you do a c-section the scarier it is." The secular websites I found talking about anxiety and c-sections said "Get the good anti-anxiety drugs--fast!"

Once I had an anti-anxiety medication prescription in my hands, I felt like I had a back-up plan. After that step, I felt more safe to explore non-medicinal options to decrease my anxiety. In the morning, my OB called me at home. "I really don't want you taking that medication before surgery," he told me.

I surprised my doctor by agreeing with him. I told him "The anesthesiologist on call is going to have enough worries with me without stressing that I took a drug not administered by him. I'm also personally stressed out about how my baby is going to do on his APAR score without adding Valium to the mix. I'm going to try my best to not ask for anti-anxiety meds until the baby is delivered. After his birth, I'm giving myself permission to ask for the strong stuff. That's my goal. I think I can do it. I'm only going to fulfill your prescription the morning before surgery if I truly can't get into my car because of bad pre-surgery panic attacks."

Eight days later, instead of imagining a bad situation, I was living it. Once I was in the hospital, I surprised myself by thinking "I don't need the Valium!" I didn't need it. I could cope with the situation in front of myself without fear.

Last night, my husband and I had a big talk about St. Joseph and his feelings on the first Christmas Day. My husband told me "St. Joseph got to protect and provide for his wife and his newborn son. Yet he didn't get to protect and provide for them in the way he wanted too!" 

I don't know what St. Joseph and Mary, the Mother of God had planned for the birth of Jesus Christ. Yet they were holy people. They were parents. They had some kind of plan for the birth of Jesus that didn't involve getting caught by surprise on a road in an unfamiliar town. Maybe St. Joseph had reserved affordable rooms on the far side of Bethleham. Maybe, Mary thought she had weeks longer before giving birth and could make it back safely to Nazareth. St. Joseph was a carpenter. Most likely back in Nazareth, there was a beautiful wooden crib St. Joseph built in preparation for Jesus' birth.

As normal human parents, St. Joseph and Mary, the Mother of God, probably made a solid preparations before the birth of Jesus Christ. Yet God's plan for Jesus' birth was different. Labor started at an unexpected time. Being without sin, I hope that Mary the Mother of God received extra special graces of Faith, Love and Hope during that moment. We know that her Virgin Birth was something unique. Sometimes its hard to feel close to Our Lady. Yet on Christmas Eve, she started to give birth while smelling like mud and dust and donkey fur.

St. Joseph was one of us. He's just a normal human being. He had to scramble to find his pregnant wife and an unborn child shelter and privacy at their moment of greatest vulnerability. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but it's kind of comforting for me to imagine St. Joseph feeling like a bit of a failure as a Father on Christmas Day. Finding a cave filled with sheep, probably didn't rate as a four star success worthy of Our Lord and Our Lady.

I'm not sure why it was so critical for Jesus Christ to be born in a stable on Christmas Day. Maybe it was symbolic. Maybe it was crucial for Mother and Baby to have privacy during the birth. We know there was a large target on Mary's back during her birth from Scripture. God's ways are not our ways.

Christmas celebrates the miracle of the Incarnation! God came to earth to be a human being! God didn't even pick to be born to St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother at their "best" moment. He could have come after they were married, and stable, and had a cute new house in Nazarath all set up. If Mary's pregnancy had to come before her marriage to St. Joseph, at least God could have timed the birth so it didn't happen on the road in Bethlehem while all the inns were filled.

Childbirth is messy and inconvenient and often a surprise. It's shocking to consider that God's son shared in all that imperfect humanness. This Advent is going to be extra messy and uncertain for me. I encouraged to think that even without the comforting routine of sugar cookie baking, Christmas card mailing and gift buying--my uncertain, make-shift housing arrangements --with a new baby--actually put me in closer touch with the authentic Holy Family experience.

Loneliness Is Good If It Leads To Solitude

A few days ago, my blogger friend Leila wrote an "I'm Sorry" letter to all of us Moms of Large Families who live outside the glorious enclave that is the Phoenix Diocese. I've suffered from "support envy" in the past. As an adult convert to the Catholic faith, I'm extra dependent upon the emotional support of my church family. My family and graduate school friends started with the "You are totally crazy!" comments as soon as I got pregnant with child number two. (Number 2, people!)

For a few years, I hung out with a calm, supportive group of young Catholic families in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia (a southern suburb of Washington, DC). We moved to the area with a 2 1/2 year old and a 1 year old. I felt so much love and support in my new unfamiliar role as a young Mother.

Then we lost our car. (Oh, the joys of poverty). I made a few multi-hour trips on the subway to attend my regular Mothers Rosary Group in Arlington, Va. Pretty soon those trips became impractical. I found myself alone in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC. The Catholic faith was the same, but the community felt totally different. My former rosary group was filled with military families and families involved in politics. These families "hit the ground running" --looking for social connections and new friends. It was easy to fit in as a newcomer both to the area and to the Catholic faith.

My new community was filled with the trauma of poverty. There were mostly new immigrant families and a few rural families who were coping with the radical changes of insane property values, horrid traffic, and stressed community systems. Large families attended Sunday Masses at multiple Maryland parishes that were only few miles apart. Steadily attending Mass at a single church to create a stable community was an unusual act in this City Community. I almost missed a First Communion once for my daughter's friend because a Large Family that I saw at my church for Daily Mass for over three years, chose a different church for their second grader's First Communion and yet a third church for their youngest child's Baptism a few months later.

During our five years in the Diocese of Washington DC we meet wonderful fellow parents but it never developed into a large cohesive into a supportive community like in Arlington. Instead, it was more like I developed individual friendships with different families. That sense of being alone only intensified after we moved to the Diocese of West Virginia, a state with less than a 5% Catholic population.

The loneliness was good for me. Left alone, I had the space to develop an intimate and more individual relationship with Christ the King.  As new Catholics, Jon and I had to invent our own holiday traditions. We had greater freedom to experiment with prayer, homeschooling, and Catholic education. With no one around us to copy, we had to copy the Holy Family directly.

After 8 years of loneliness, my Catholic family is quirky and strong. We pray the rosary. We attend Adoration. We teach the basics of First Communion. We do these things, not because these rituals are convenient or popular, but because these are the hidden strengths that keep our family well-nourished, spiritual strong, and emotionally stable.

We are open to the secular world, because most of the people we interact with on a daily basis are non-Catholics. We are able to see the good in other faiths and other perspectives. At the same time, we have a daily reminder that our Catholic faith is an undeserved gift. Being a weird minority in a non-Catholic world gives the gift of constant humility.

Because we were raised outside of a Catholic bubble, my husband and I are pretty calm about our children's spiritual future. We made a lot of sinful mistakes in our past. God still claimed us as his kin, cleansed us, and set us right. Every human being's spiritual journey is as unique as a thumb print.

Loneliness can lead to Solitude--Solitude is a priceless gift in our Faith. No matter how strong a Faith Community is for someone, the biggest struggles --Death, Cancer, the Uncertainty of Premature Labor--all leaves us grappling alone before God. Loneliness gives us practice. Practice, in the spiritual life, is never wasted time.

Loneliness also gives me contrast. I'm a better friend, a better Mom, a better wife, a better Carmelite community member, because I've been lonely. True spiritual connection is prized when its rare.

Loneliness also got me more in touch with myself. As an extrovert, my inner life was something vastly unknown until my late thirties. I was raised to be too much of a social chameleon--I cared too much about what other people thought, said, or did. I translated that co-dependent thinking easily into my religious life. "Oh what do you think Jesus wants us to do in X,Y, and Z situation." Being left alone for years with just the text of the Scriptures, some writings of the saints, and an occasional treatise from the Pope was the best thing that ever happened to me. Living without an emotional support network, was similar to St. Jerome hanging out in a cave in the desert. Great inner growth happens in solitude.

It looks like we will soon be moving to a new vibrant Catholic faith community. Frankly, I still feel little shocked. At Swim Team Practice, there is a Mom of 7 who is eager to hold my fragile, premature baby. It feels odd and a little self-indulgent to ask a stranger to hold my child so that I can give my arms a rest, or go to the bathroom alone.

I'm grateful for help. Community life is a gift. In the end, however, our vocations are our own. Everyone has tough nights when they feel alone and tired and discouraged. Even Jesus, had his moments in the Garden. We Catholic Moms who go solo in the world, more often than not, have a special grace. We get more practice relying on Him, instead of relying on one another.

Why I Homeschool

I've got a second grader in my house who dreams of being a French pastry chef. No one in my extended family really enjoyed cooking before she appeared in my house. I have pictures of her turning up her nose at her one year old birthday cake. At the time, I thought she didn't like chocolate. Now I know her palate rejects grocery store bought cake--only the serious homemade cake will do. Now she is gleefully making up original recipes like chocolate and lime cake.

For history this year, we have studied famous chefs from around the world. Did you know the head White House Chef is a woman for the first time ever? Did you know that there is a special club for all the chefs of the Chief heads of State?  Or that Abraham Lincoln told a famous campaign story involving gingerbread men?

I love the challenge of making academic studies relevant to my kids. My kids ask such interesting questions. In the age of the internet, it only takes a few clicks find detailed answers for them. Curiosity comes from the Latin word "to care." It's a grace to be this involved in the day to day support of my daughter's development.

Praying Deeply While Having Young Children

One of the difficulties of being a Lay Carmelite, is that our prayer routine is pretty strict. We're supposed to pray 1/2 an hour every day, plus pray the Daily Office twice a day and attend a Carmelite meeting once a month. It's awesome to have that intense external structure sometimes. As a new mother, however, that same structure can feel impossible. Pregnancy, birth, and night time nursing sessions all play havoc with my daily prayer schedule.

As a contemplative, I need time to pray. I need that time just as surely as I need extra glasses of water while I breastfeed or extra time for naps while I care for a newborn. I telling myself it's okay to pass off the baby to my husband and say "I need time to pray."

I have to hold my prayer sessions lightly right now. It's easy to get interrupted by the newborn and the two year old. It helps to think of Jesus as a friend. A real life friend in my kitchen isn't going to be upset that I take a moment to get my early-rising daughter breakfast. We can still resume our conversation after I finish my task.

At the same time, if I get interrupted often from my children in the morning, I need to make it okay to ask for my husband's help to get more time to pray alone in the evening.

Prayer is as essential as water. "I thirst for you as a deer seeks running water" it says in the Psalms.

A woman at Swim Practice was freaked out to discover that I was a Carmelite "on top of everything else." I told her jokingly, "No, no. It's the opposite way. I'm able to do everything else because I'm a Carmelite."

I don't know how to keep on top of my required prayer scheduled right now--in the middle of having a newborn, planning moving, writing a book, and teaching homeschooling. I only know that I've stumbled on something good with a Carmelite prayer life and I'll try my best not to lose it during the tumble of daily life.

Carrying On a Routine In the Middle of Transitions

This is a week of transition for us. We had a home inspection for the buyer at our house yesterday. This morning we have the home inspection at the new house we'd like to buy. It's so weird to be in the middle of this buying and selling process. Either the buyer loves the house and we're out in a matter of days, or it's back to square one.

I'm dealing with the stress of the uncertainty by bulking up on the homemaking routine. We started skipping evening Swim practice so that we can eat a normal, hot dinner at 6 PM. I started cooking dessert again for the first time in months. Even in the middle of all the extra home improvement projects, I make sure the fridge is stocked with food and there is a little bit of clean laundry in the dresser drawers.

Yesterday, I had six kids and a dog in our the minivan for a long country drive. (Going to the park was out of the question when it was 20 degrees during the buyer's home inspection). We listened to Disney's "Tangled" twice on the car's DVD. There is a song where Rapunzel complains that her daily household chores of sweeping, cooking and laundry only keep her busy until 7:15 AM.

I had some issues with those song lyrics. First, I don't know what kind of household she's dealing with but my domestic chore list is never done by 7:15 AM. Second, these domestic chores are not "nothing." I grew up in the post-Betty Friedan world where routine domestic chores are seen as beneath the dignity of college educated women. It was a real shock to become a stay-at-home Mom and find out how much those routine tasks matter.

I swapped Betty Friedan and Arlie Hochschild for Mother Teresa and St. Martin of Porres. Both Mother Teresa and St. Martin of Porres, loved to scrub toilets for Jesus. They actually sought out that humble work right after receiving great honors from famous patrons. I thought about their example yesterday while I unclogged a toilet under an intense time pressure yesterday. I'd done a lot of abstract legwork before our move--comparing mortgage rates, etc. Probably nothing was as important, however, as making sure we had 3 fully working toilets before our home inspection. Jesus really uses every tiny act for the glory of his kingdom. There is no "small act" when its preformed with love.

As someone who loved the intellectual stimulation of college, I prefer when Jesus calls upon my writing, public speaking or thinking skills. That doesn't mean that I don't realize how important it is to have also developed an ability to bake. Yesterday, after a rough day, I pulled out the new mini-muffin tins my 7 year old had requested during our last Walmart run. (I'd accidentally packed all our cupcake tins when we first put the house on the market six months ago). Even thought I was super tired, I made chocolate icing from scratch for her because an non-iced cupcake is a pathetic thing.

When the cupcakes were cool, the 2 year old and 4 year old joined the 7 year old for an impromptu icing party. This was the first time my smallest daughters were old enough to be a real help in the kitchen. I look at their lovely faces and felt a feeling of peace. I don't know where we will be for Advent. We could be here. We could be at my Mom's house. Or we could be in a rough kitchen in a new house that needs a lot of repairs. No matter where we are, this trio will be having fun icing sugar cookies together before Christmas.

It's the people that matter, not the setting. I'm grateful that I've got enough humility to keep life running relatively smoothly while we potentially change the backdrop of our life.

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