gospel, interrupted

How I heard Palm Sunday:

When the hour came, Jesus took his place at table with the apostles.

Mama, I need Polar Bear. Read Polar Bear. Read. Please.

I tell you, Peter. Before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, what do you hear? I hear a lion roaring in my ear.

Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still not my will but yours be done.

Big Trucks and Diggers! I need Big Trucks and Diggers!

They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?” He replied to them, “You say that I am.”

The wheel loader scoops and lifts and loads – oops, no, don’t pull the pages too hard or the dump truck part will break.

But they continued their shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Can you use your quiet voice in church? Shhh…no. Quiet. We use quiet voices while we’re listening.

Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

Mama, do they have donuts today? Should we go check to see if there are donuts?

Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Shhh. Use your QUIET VOICE IN CHURCH. If you cannot use your quiet voice, you are going to have to leave aga – ok, that’s it. You’re leaving. Here, take him.

And when he had said this, he breathed his last.

Mama, home. Let’s go home. I’m hungry. I’m tired. Home.

. . .

A mother’s distraction? Maybe.

But aren’t all our hearings of the Gospel interrupted?

We pick up the book after making the coffee and before loading the dishwasher. We squeeze in church between breakfast and a birthday party. We listen to a sermon while plotting our to-do list and planning our errands.

We are always humans trying to hear the divine, listening with half an ear amidst all the chatter and clutter. We are never gods ourselves, with undisturbed attention, uninterrupted time, undistracted minds. We are creatures of distraction, people of interruption.

But might this be precisely the point?

Incarnation was interruption: God breaking into our world, becoming human. Resurrection was a wrench-in-the-works of reality, too: death becoming life, transformed and brand-new.

The Gospel was always meant to interrupt us. To interrupt injustice with truth. To interrupt guilt with forgiveness. To interrupt violence with peace. To interrupt ambition with humility. To interrupt selfishness with love.

No wonder it still interrupts today. Even this holiest of weeks is still full of work deadlines and school drop-offs and vacuuming and vet visits.

And the little ones can’t sit silent for the sacred mystery of holy days. They still fidget and squirm, whine and yawn. (So do adults sometimes, if we’re honest.)

Proof of all the human he came to save.

. . .

In case you missed it, I’m now a contributor at CatholicMom.com. Click here to check out my first post on how to live Lent as a busy mom. 

May you have a peaceful, prayerful Holy Week! (Amidst the chaos and craziness of daily life, of course.)

what if we had a mommy war and nobody came?

Several parenting blog posts recently went viral among my Facebook friends.

First there was Glendon’s cry to not carpe diem and to soak in the kairos moments. Then the Huffington Post offered “Apologies to The Parents I Judged Four Years Ago” about one mother’s conversion from harsh critic to sympathetic insider.

In Catholic circles, Simcha’s encouragement to the mother with only one child was shared and reshared. As was the stay-at-home-mom blues.

But as post after post popped up on my friends’ walls, I noticed one thing. Only the new mothers were sharing them.

Moms with babies, toddlers and preschoolers leapt on these stories – of being real, of encouraging each other, of stopping the cruel judgment. But the moms I know with grade-schoolers, high-schoolers and beyond? Silent.

Did they not need the same reminder to play nice? Was the battle no longer theirs? Did they simply stop caring?

As someone swept up in the worries of new parenting, I found myself floored by this obvious fact. All the wise and experienced moms I knew seemed to have risen above the mommy wars, while my friends were firmly entrenched in the fight.

When would I, too, reach the place where I was confident enough in my own parenting to let all my silly insecurities go?

All the arguments over how we bear and birth and feed and clothe and teach young children – they’re meaningful to the extent they help us figure out how to take our first few steps in this strange new land called Parenthood. But once we’ve learned how to walk, we’re no longer concerned with bickering over breastfeeding vs. formula.

Because, as this wise and witty blogger describes, little of it matters in the long run.

I often find comfort in the fact that whenever I ask my own mother, over a panicked phone call, if any of her five kids did x or didn’t do y, I always get a pause and then the same light-hearted response: I don’t really remember!

During my first few months as a mother, I simply could not believe this was true. How could my mom have possibly forgotten the Life-Altering Transformation That Is Getting Your Baby On A Nap Schedule or Starting To Feed Your Child Solid Foods or Diagnosing That Strange Childhood Rash?

But now that we’re on baby #2 and seem to have lost any knowledge we thought we gained with #1, I completely understand how it happens.

I barely remember the days, only a few short years ago, when my first was a baby. Now my new obsessions are potty training and preschool, not naps and nursing. With the questions and concerns that arise at every new stage, we lose the worries of the last.

Which underscores the truth that ultimately, most of the daily dilemmas don’t matter. Each human being turns out to be a mysterious mix of nature and nurture, impossible to predict, define or control.

But when we’re taking our first few toddling steps into the world of raising children, we have no idea what we’re doing. We’re bumbling along, trying to make the best decisions with little experience and lots of anxiety – a perfect recipe for insecurity. So even when we try not to trash-talk other parents, the cruel beast of judgment sneaks in and rears its ugly head.

We roll our eyes. Snicker behind others’ backs. Share juicy gossip of “you won’t believe this…” with our spouse over dinner. I’ll admit to it. I bet you’ve done it, too. But for what gain?

In a season of life when the mommy wars are still raging around me, I wonder about peacemaking. At the heart of the Gospel is a call to make peace. Beyond passive observers or angry protesters, what would it mean to be a peacemaking parent among parents? To actively build up instead of tear others down?

I know that I want more peace and less anxiety around my parenting, and I imagine most new parents are in the same boat.

So I’m throwing it out there:

The next time someone invites you to a mommy war – through their gossip or email or jokes or judgment - try not showing up.

Instead, wonder about what it means to be a peacemaker.

Take a stand against pettiness and pride. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Try compassion or empathy. Picture yourself as an older, wiser parent and imagine the better perspective you’d bring with more confidence.

Because wouldn’t it be lovely to live a world of parenting peacemakers? To be at peace? To teach our children the same?

What if they threw a mommy war and none of us came?