parenting & scripture: 4th sunday in ordinary time

“Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties.”

(1 Cor 7:32)

Parenting, thy name is anxiety.

This week I heard a mom joke that she tossed and turned for twenty minutes last night, mentally trying to design multiple escape routes from her home in the event of a fire.

“I thought, ‘What if the fire breaks out between my room and my daughter’s?’ What would I do then? So I had to come up with yet ANOTHER plan.”

We laughed, but behind the smiles lay a nod of affirmation: Yes, I’ve been there. Yes, I’ve worried about that. Yes, I’ve lost sleep, too.

Whether anxiety starts during pregnancy or flares during the teenage years, worry goes hand-in-hand with being responsible for a child. Parents cannot protect their babies from all the dangers in the world, and they toss and turn wondering how to make choices that will keep kids safe.

Today’s reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians speaks directly to our anxieties, both worldly and otherworldly. Yet this passage can seem frustrating: everyone suffers from anxiety; God doesn’t want us to be anxious; so, good luck reconciling those two truths on your own.

But read alongside today’s Gospel, we are invited to see anxiety in a whole new light.

While teaching in the synagogue, Jesus encounters a man with an “unclean spirit.” When the man cries out, Jesus orders the spirit to come out of him, and the man is set free.

A Scripture professor once told me that the stories about “evil spirits” in the Gospels can be read as descriptions of people suffering from mental illness. Lacking today’s clinical language of depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, people in Jesus’ time understood the forces that took over someone’s mind and behavior as evil spirits.

Anxiety falls into this category, too, given how devastating its darkness can become over the mind and body.

So today we hear a story of a man who brings his suffering into a holy place of worship, right to the feet of someone he senses – despite the darkness that has consumed him – can help.

And Jesus does not delay, to the amazement of those who witness the healing.

What if parents could bring their worries to church, in the hopes of being set free?

What if depression and anxiety were no longer cloaked in shame, but bravely revealed in the light of day?

What if we could marvel at the ways God can cast out demons and darkness in each other’s lives, instead of gossiping behind backs about other’s mental states?

Would we worry and agonize a little less, knowing that our faith and our community could help “deliver us from all anxiety and grant us peace in our day”?

My prayer, like Paul’s, hopes yes.

parenting & scripture: christmastide

Where have you found yourself in the Christmas story this year?

. . .

Some years I’ve been like the wise men. Seeking. Searching for a sign. Stranger in a strange land.

Some years I’ve been like the shepherds. Having to trust what others have told. Wondering what to believe.

Some years I’ve been like the animals. Simply witnessing the strange events taking shape before me.

Some years I’ve been like the innkeeper. Turning away, no room to offer. Too busy, too focused on my own concerns. Unwilling to open the door.

Some years I’ve been like Mary. Full of love but exhausted by its demands. Wondering what has been asked of me.

Some years I’ve been like Joseph. Struggling to fulfill my roles and responsibilities. Troubled at how my call has changed in ways I never imagined.

. . .

Scripture gives us many windows to enter the story, many shoes in which to slip our feet. And since every year is different, we come back to Christmas changed. Wondering where to find ourselves this time.

Sometimes we come bearing gifts; sometimes with empty hands. Sometimes we know for certain what we are seeking; other times we are wandering and lost. Some years are full of joy; others are deeply troubled. Some years we delight in birth; others are overshadowed by death. Some years the manger is our happy end; for others it is just the beginning.

But no matter where we find ourselves, the stable has room for us. And we only begin to grasp the mystery when we have approached the manger from all sides.

“Do we not all want to become shepherds and catch sight of the angel? I think so. Without the perspective of the poor, we see nothing, not even an angel. When we approach the poor, our values and goals change. The child appears in many other children. Mary also seeks sanctuary among us. Because the angels sing, the shepherds rise, leave their fears behind, and set out for Bethlehem, wherever it is situated these days.”

~ Dorothee Soelle, from On Earth As In Heaven

parenting in advent: 4th sunday

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.  And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.” (Luke 1:26-31)

The announcement of a child’s arrival rarely comes the way we planned.

For some it is an utter shock – unexpected, unplanned, unprepared. For others it is the culmination of years of trying – astonishment, delight, but still surprise.

Sometimes the news is revealed in the quiet of one’s own home, a breathless waiting for the lines to appear on the test. Sometimes it is announced in the sterile light of the doctor’s office. Sometimes it breaks into everyday life with a phone call or a letter that the long-awaited child is here.

But the news is never quite as we expected.

When we are far from parenting’s beginning, we picture how the announcement might look, feel, or sound, and how we will share it with others in turn. But the reality – the years of infertility, or the recurring miscarriages, or the “oops!” baby, or the failed adoption – can be darker shades of grey than we ever imagined. And even when the child is hoped for, longed for, prayed for, we still find ourselves overwhelmed by emotions. Joy. Fear. Love. Anxiety. Wonder. Despair. Hope.

Parents often find themselves younger or older than they would have liked. They don’t have the money or the job or the partner or the resources to raise the child in the way they wanted. They ask, “How can this be?” They wonder how they will bear the news. They grieve the loss of their former life even as they prepare for the future to come.

“The world is never ready for the birth of a child,” wrote one of my favorite poets. It has always been such: parents have never felt fully prepared, completely ready, absolutely certain that they knew what they were getting themselves into.

Zechariah was troubled. Joseph was troubled. Mary was deeply troubled. Each had to lay aside expectations of what a child or a family or a parent should look like. Each had to give themselves entirely to trust in a strange and surprising God. Life was never the same after the news.

Is this Advent’s reminder to us, year after year? That Christmas is never quite what we expected, either. That our plans are not always God’s plans. That we can only prepare so much before giving over to trust in our surprising God, for whom nothing is impossible.

Our hopes and dreams for ourselves, our children, our lives all exist within God’s greater dream of love for us. A love which we will never fully understand or grasp or even imagine. A love which will challenge us and demand from us things we never wanted to give. A love which asks us to trust what we cannot see.

May delivery be easy,

may our child grow and be well.

Let him be happy from time to time

and leap over abysses.

Let his heart have strength to endure

and his mind be awake and reach far.

But not so far

that it sees into the future.

Spare him

that one gift,

0 heavenly powers.

 - from “A Tale Begun” by Wislawa Szymborska

parenting in advent: third sunday

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,
to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners. (Isaiah 61:1)

He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty. (Luke 1:53)

I never really loved Mary.

I know that’s a horrible thing to admit, especially growing up Catholic. And I liked Mary just fine: she seemed like a nice mother and an awfully brave girl to have done the things she did.

But I never loved her.

To me, Mary was unattainable perfection. Virgin yet mother, sinless yet human – it didn’t make much sense to me. Mary popped up a few times a year – the Christmas crèche, the May crowning – but most of the time she didn’t cross my mind.

Until a wise woman I met in grad school told me that during the darkest moments in her life, the times when she could barely pray at all, she could always pray the Magnificat. Because Mary’s hymn of praise to God was a prayer of a strong and brave woman: a mother of faith and a prophet of God’s justice.

I never read the Magnificat the same way again. And I came to see Mary in a whole new light. She became a woman of justice. She became a champion of the poor. She became the kind of strong, passionate mother I hoped I’d be.

Mary’s words that echo Isaiah’s truths remind me that she must have been the first to teach Jesus about God’s justice. That God raised up the lowly and cast down the powerful. That God fed the hungry and sent away the wealthy. That God would turn the world’s order upside down to care for the poorest and weakest.

Mary’s mothering in the light of justice reminds me that I have to teach my children what it means to love a God who loves the poor. What it means to feed the hungry. What it means to heal the brokenhearted in a broken world.

Her strength and faith remind me that from the humblest of circumstances and quietest of voices can come the conviction that changes the course of human history.

And in an Advent pregnant with God’s promise, in a world crying out for justice, in a home with two boys who need strong models of faith, I love Mary for that.

parenting in advent: second sunday

“A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!” (Isaiah 40:3)

“Since everything is to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be?” (2 Peter 3:11-12)

Variations on a theme, it’s a conversation that plays out in many corners.

The latest version I heard came from a mother furious with her son’s soccer coach for scheduling practices on Sunday. “How are families supposed to get to church,” she lamented, “when we have games on Saturday nights and practice on Sunday mornings?”

Raising children of faith – any faith – has never been easy. No matter the culture, it has always been full of temptations, frustrations, and distractions that make it hard to keep spiritual practices at the heart of family life.

Religion is not cool or sexy or popular. It calls for commitment and sacrifice and humility, none of which ever top Parents magazine’s “quick ways to have fun with kids!” or Seventeen’s “must-haves for this school year!” But lots of parents dedicate their time and effort and energy anyway.

They take the babies to be baptized, the kids to faith formation, the whole crew to church on Sunday mornings. They do it for lots of reasons, and sometimes they’re not sure why. But it has to do with helping make their children the “sort of persons you ought to be”: people who treat others well, who act with kindness, who stand up for what they believe in.

All of this work of parenting – the arguments over why you can’t wear those clothes or listen to that music or skip church on Sunday – is the work of preparing a way in the wilderness, making a place in our hearts and lives for God to enter in. Because the truth is that the temptations, frustrations, and distractions “out there” are in our own hearts and minds as well. The wasteland and the wilderness are often closer than we’d like to admit.

Advent is about this, too. About being counter-cultural. About being quiet when the world says noise! About being still when the world says rush! About simply being when the world says do!

About preparing a way to become the people we ought to be.

Have you made any counter-cultural decisions as a parent? What message do you hope this sends your children? 

parenting in advent: first sunday

“Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.” (Isaiah 64:7)

At the university where I went to grad school, there is a pottery studio. No mere hangout of artsy undergrads, this is a place of pure creation.

Until I crossed its dusty doorstep and breathed in the deep smell of clay, I never imagined how the work of a potter’s hands could be theological, philosophical, intellectual. But the master and his apprentices have devoted themselves to an art that springs from the heart of the university and the abbey. Theirs is a craft that comes from deep within the land: the clay hidden within the hills, the water that flows deep underground, the wood from surrounding forests that stokes the kiln’s roaring fires.

The few times that I’ve been privileged to watch the potter at his wheel, I marvel at his intense concentration on the clay taking shape beneath his fingers. His hands instinctively know how to bend and curve to produce the cup or bowl or plate he desires. But as he works, he speaks with reverence of honoring the materials and the process by which pottery is created. He honors the life within the art, the freedom of the clay itself to become what it can be, the beauty it can call forth from within the potter.

Isaiah calls God father and potter. Yet the connection between parent and artist is not always immediate. Yes, the raw material of the child is placed in our hands and given to us to mold. But we were not apprenticed in this demanding work; nothing prepares us for this all-consuming call. Yes, the work is less certain science and more attempted art. But it is not always beautiful and attractive; it reveals our darkest sides and our deepest flaws.

Sometimes these words of Isaiah seem too easy: we are passive clay and God is active potter; we lie waiting on the wheel for God to shape our lives. What I forget when I breeze over this image is that God as father is like God as potter: blessing the creation, honoring its freedom, celebrating its unique beauty. There is a gentleness to God’s hands, a loving working on our lives. We are works in process, always spinning round the wheel.

Our work as mothers and fathers is earthy and embodied like the potter’s. The wisdom that guides us is found deep within, even when we struggle to let it shape us. Perhaps this image of God as parent and potter can invite us to see our parenting as art, to see our children as works in process. In this Advent season of preparing, how can we give ourselves into God’s hands to be softened and smoothed into the people we hope to be?

parenting in ordinary time: solemnity of christ the king

I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal. (Ezekiel 34:15-16)

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me…

Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:35, 40)

Toward the end of my time in grad school, I took a class on ministry through the life cycle: the joys and challenges of caring for people from childhood through the elder years. And during our class on ministering to young families, we watched a video of a speaker encouraging a church full of mothers that their work as a parent answered the call of Matthew’s Gospel: to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend to the sick. Whenever they cared for children – the least among us – they were caring for Christ himself.

I remember my reaction vividly. With the confidence and wisdom that one can only swagger before having children, I raised my hand and declared that this so-called parenting expert had it wrong. The idea that Christ’s commandment to care for the poor and needy – the very criteria by which we will be judged at the end of times – could be satisfied by raising one’s own kids was a complete cop-out.

It was really about justice, I argued. It was really about solidarity. It was really about radical love for marginalized members of society. It was not about diapers and bottles and car pools and doctor’s visits.

If anything, I soap-boxed, Christian parents were called to teach their children what it meant to actually visit prisoners, to actually welcome strangers, to actually feed the starving. Anything less was simply the watering down of American Christianity.

(Oh, the charming arrogance of bold declarations made from the sidelines. I am one heck of an armchair quarterback.)

Years later, I can tell you with just as much confidence that I only had it half-right.

Yes, I still believe that parents have a duty to raise their children to care for those in poverty and need. Yes, I still maintain that the watering down of the Gospel is an alarming trend for those of us who live in relative comfort and wealth. Yes, I still argue that today’s Gospel is about radical love and charity and service – a disturbing reminder for we who squirm in the pews and wonder if our lives will leave us on the right or the left side on judgment day.

But what I have learned in my short stretch of parenting is this:

If I don’t see Christ in my children, if I don’t remember their weakness, if I don’t serve their daily needs with love, then I’ve failed this Gospel call as well.

I can claim to work for justice but treat my own family unfairly. I can claim to love my brothers and sisters around the world but struggle to love those in my own house. I can claim to care for the poor but miss the needs of those right before my eyes. Because the other half of the equation is the everyday reality that meets the radical ideals. The domestic church that looks inward to turn outward.

Every day my children cry out because they are hungry. Thirsty. Lonely. I scoop them up with kisses and promise to tend to their needs. And that is good and right – all that I am called to as a parent.

But every day there are babies just like them who cry out and aren’t heard. Who hunger and aren’t fed. Who thirst and have no clean water. Who suffer and die from diseases that have simple cures. And if I don’t care about them, too – if I don’t share my wealth and resources, if I don’t change my habits to live more mindfully, if I don’t teach my children that caring for the poor and fighting against poverty go hand in hand – then I haven’t seen Christ in all his many faces.

From where I stand now, I see that my wise-grad-student, wise-child-free self was both right and wrong. The call is radical and can’t be domesticated. But the domesticated love is sometimes the most radical. It is dirty and demanding and exhausting and everyday. It is Christ in my children’s eyes and Christ beyond my front door. It is, as many theological truths prove, a “both/and.”

My mothering spirit is not for only those I have been given to raise. It is for all who cry out for what my children enjoy whenever they need: healthy food, clean water, warm clothes, a doctor’s care. To do any less is to ignore the face of Christ where he plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his.

parenting in ordinary time: 33rd sunday

She obtains wool and flax and works with loving hands. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her fingers ply the spindle. She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy. (Proverbs 31: 13, 19-20)

“Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.” (Matthew 25:21)

Here is what my hands did today: Changed diapers. Washed dishes. Stirred oatmeal. Poured milk. Dried tears. Wiped mouths. Typed emails. Filed papers. Turned pages. Hung laundry. Tickled tummies. Stacked blocks. Served dinner. Drew baths. Tucked blankets. Patted backs.

Parenting young children is hands-on. It’s dirt under nails after digging in the sandbox. It’s pruned fingertips from playing in the bath. It’s calloused thumbs from constructing cribs and climbers.

We use our hands all day long – to turn ingredients into dinner, to turn chaos into cleanliness, to turn tantrums into laughter. We work with our hands at home, in the office, in the classroom. We carry babies, we carry briefcases. The most ordinary of actions, the most basic of motions – what could be holy about hands?

And yet we prove our great love through tiny gestures, our faithfulness through small matters.

Imagine all that Jesus’ hands did. Touched lepers. Held children. Broke bread. Poured wine. Dirty, ordinary, everyday work. But done with the greatest love that ever spurred two hands to action. And so it was good; it was holy; it was divine.

People often talk about “the hand of God” as a weighty influence, orchestrating events and controlling outcomes. But the fingerprints of God are often small smudges: startling sunrises, quiet lulls, surprise encounters, well-placed words. God’s hands are at work in the world in small ways as well as grand. And inspired by our Creator, our hands are invited to create in small, everyday ways as well.

Hands and fingers, nails and skin. Whatever work we are called to in the world starts with the same two hands. And while we sometimes envy the work of other’s hands – I wish I were more artistic, I wish I were stronger - God has entrusted us with talents all our own. We are simply called to care for them well so that we can return with hands full of what they have multiplied.

What we do with our two hands becomes the work of our lives. They allow our gifts to flourish. They make our faith and our love known. They seek to leave a small corner of this world better than we found it.

As parents we hold hands, and then one day, we have to let them go. A million small gestures will pass unnoticed in between, but they are the stuff of vocation, the proof of our faithfulness.

What good work have your two hands done today? What small ways have shown your great love?

parenting in ordinary time: 32nd sunday

“Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13)

Being a parent means staying awake. Pacing the halls with a colicky newborn. Watching over the crib of a feverish toddler. Comforting a child after nightmares. Listening to the giggles of basement sleepovers. Quizzing the student the night before exams. Waiting anxiously for the teenager’s return at curfew.

No one ever got into the parenting gig to get more sleep. But wiser parents assure me the sacrifice is worth it. Our watchfulness bears witness to their wondrous growth. Before our very (bleary, heavy, drooping) eyes, tiny babies become grown adults. Their needs and wants, desires and demands call on us to stay awake. Caffeine becomes our common cup.

But the watchfulness of parenting has a terrifying side, too. We watch them fall, get sick, lose friends, break hearts, fail tests, hurt themselves. Tragedies happen from which we are helpless to protect them. We know neither the day nor the hour, but somewhere along the line our children will know pain and suffering deeper than we ever fear.

Yet the fear can’t paralyze us. We have to do our best to care for children and protect them, while knowing that life – and death – is beyond our control. We hope, trust, pray. The core of love, and faith.

Jesus weaves a parable of watchfulness: women prepared and unprepared to meet an honored guest. When he finally arrives, at an hour none had guessed, some are ready and some are not. So the wise get to feast while the fools have to wander.

And what seems like a harsh story of lines drawn between in and out, us and them, good and bad, is really a wry reminder that the unprepared can get caught up and miss the mark. When the important moments happen, when the bridegroom arrives, when the day of judgment comes, those who were wakeful and watchful are not surprised. Those who were delayed or distracted are dismayed.

In the upside-down world of parables, it’s always worth noticing what Jesus does not say. He doesn’t say that the wise virgins who stocked their lamps with oil knew the precise time of the bridegroom’s arrival. They weren’t smarter or more connected or more intuitive than the others. They simply planned to watch and wait well.

Likewise, the wise parent does not know what will befall or befuddle their child ahead of time. They just know they must stay watchful and wakeful – to witness joys as well as falls, delights as well as despairs. All they can do is plan best they can, watch and pray. Hope, but not hover.

The vigils parents keep are holy hours. Witnessing the unfolding of a personality, an imagination, a maturity is a powerful – and sometimes painful – process. We have to stay awake to know how we’re called to respond.

What are you waiting for as a parent? What are you watching for? What keeps you awake?

parenting and Scripture is a new weekly series designed to give parents of young children a chance to reflect on the Sunday readings outside of Mass (often a three-ring-circus-of-Cheerios-and-cry-rooms). Something to chew on as we’re chasing the little ones and wondering, “Did I even hear the readings today?” Or something to muse over after we’ve put the babies to bed. 

parenting in ordinary time: 31st sunday

I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap, so is my soul within me. (Psalm 131: 2)

We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children. With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us. (1 Thes 2: 7b-8)

My babies are not quiet eaters. They snort and wheeze, gasp and gurgle. So loudly that strangers often ask if the child is ok, if he has a bad cold, if he always sounds like that.

Yes, I smile in reply. So far my children have proved to be loud nursers.

And yet both boys – like many babies, I imagine – have shared a wonderful habit of sometimes slipping off the breast with a quiet sigh and a contented smile, letting their head flop back in a deep sleep that we affectionately referred to as “drunk on milk.”

I loved to watch them doze silently then, finally quiet and calm, bellies full and smiles satisfied. They want for nothing in that peaceful moment. Their bodies breathe in a deep peace.

Once the hungry cries have ceased (and our own blood pressure has dropped!), we can find something sacred in the act of feeding a child. Grandparents find joy in giving a bottle; fathers delight in watching the toddler gobble down dinner. We find satisfaction in meeting the needs of little ones and knowing that we can provide for the simple things they want – milk, food, comfort, sleep.

Regardless of how we feed our babies, the act of satisfying their hunger requires a gift of self: our attention, our time, our patience, even our very bodies themselves. The way we care for children is a sign of our love, a symbol of our affection.

And the satisfaction we find when we see that their needs are met, that they have quieted and stilled themselves on our laps, is a tender moment of caring for the youngest among us.

I love this image of God holding us like a weaned child on its mother’s lap. And I love that Paul uses the same gentle image of mothering to describe his affection for the beloved people he served.

Imagine what a church we could be if our leaders saw themselves as caring mothers. And imagine what a people we could be if we quieted our cries and demands to simply settle ourselves into the loving embrace of a mothering God.

What are the gentle, quiet moments you enjoy with your child?

parenting and Scripture is a new weekly series designed to give parents of young children a chance to reflect on the Sunday readings outside of Mass (often a three-ring-circus-of-Cheerios-and-cry-rooms). Something to chew on as we’re chasing the little ones and wondering, “Did I even hear the readings today?” Or something to muse over after we’ve put the babies to bed.