When Daughters Become Mothers

Being a new blogger myself, I haven't given enough attention on these pages to links with other great blogs.

Today, though I want to remedy that situation by sending you all to Theology of the Body, where you will read a lovely reflection written by a daughter about her mother.

It's a reflection we all ought to try as we mature and see our parents through the eyes of adulthood.

For my part, I can say that my own mother who gave birth to eight lively, intelligent and very opinionated children, had untold patience, care and love for all of us. She let us all go on to lead the lives we thought we
were meant to live, never holding on too tightly. What seemed to be criticisms at the time now appear for what they were: her attempts to mold us into loving, sensitive, and selfless adults.

Mom called us to high standards of frugality when her budget required that "we tighten our belts this month". She believed that a camping trip was an invigorating alternative to resort vacations. On those long road trips from Pennsylvania to Prince Edward Island , crammed into our station wagon with camping gear and essential clothing only, she led games of "I Packed My Trunk", and "Hinky Pinky" and many, many songs. When we were old enough we even sang in four part harmony, a feat not many families can boast.

Somehow Mom found money in the budget for all eight of us to have piano lessons, and she or my dad drove us 25 miles so we could take them. We all took turns practicing on an old upright piano they had acquired and painted white.

I don't imagine it was always easy to live on a pastor's salary, or for that matter to be a pastor's wife. But she entered into the heart and soul of each parish, accompanying my dad on his pastoral visits whenever it was helpful, going to meetings, and living with the occasional comments from parishioners about "all those electric lights on over at the manse". She made the wise decision to pay the electric bill herself, rather than listen to any more complaining about the "house that was lit up like a Christmas tree."

Mom and Dad are enjoying their retirement now and resting from their years of labor. They watch their children from a distance as we each attempt to raise our own sons and daughters, and they rarely offer advice. But their lives of sacrifice and good humor, and always giving more than they received have made their mark. And for that I am truly grateful.

The Prodigal Father

This morning the Anchoress, who is always at her best when writing about the human heart, graced us with the following. Check her site for more.

We all know the story of the Prodigal Son. It is (as Msgr. Charles Pope says here) almost “overly familiar”.

At mass today Fr. Dyspeptic -my favorite homilist, because he is scholarly but witty, and always blessedly brief- suggested that it is easy for us to identify with either of the sons, the prodigal or the ignored-feeling obedientiary, who has toiled in his father’s field, “but the story is not about either of them. It’s about the father.

The father who created you in his image, and loved you enough to give you free will; the father who steps out daily and casts his eyes upon the horizon, looking for you to come back. The father who “does not allow cultures or conventions to dictate his responses,” but who -when he sees you returning- cannot hold himself back, but instead runs to meet you and pulls you into his embrace, and blesses you.

The father who says “come back. I am here. I am waiting for you to return.”

Fr. Dyspeptic is not a parent, obviously, but he understands the unconditional and very vulnerable love of the parent. He understands that God -our divine and mystical parent- shares with human parents this endless longing to have our children near, even as we face their grown-up choices. Our children do not stay with us; they leave the nest. They develop their own sensibilities, sometimes in direct contrast to our own. Even if they are near, they distance themselves, and that is normal, and healthy; they need to discover for themselves all they do not know.

But we miss them. And we fret that even though we’ve taught them to swim, they may be facing more dangerous currents than they can handle, have moved too far from the safe shore. We toss and turn on wet pillows some nights, wishing them well, hoping they’ll be borne back on the tide, and land at our doors. We pray for them, and in the wee small hours we talk to photographs of their six-year old, smiling faces, and we say, “You are far away from us; you’ve chosen a distant path, but I will not give up on you. You are forever my beloved child.”

And God is sharing in that, on a meta-level. “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart…”

This is a post I'll be saving for myself and those wee small hours.

How Not To Convince Someone You Are Right And They Are Wrong

A French diplomat who has been mistakenly arrested by the bumbling English police bursts out:

"Your bananas are too long and bendy, your chocolate is not chocolate-y enough and you insist on eating prawn cocktail crisps despite the fact that we have told you not to!

(You can find this clip from the "Thin Blue Line" on You Tube, under a bananas label. It is slightly too over the top to post here!)

I remarked in a recent post that you cannot shoo stampeding Buffalo. Nor can you convince a grumpy twelve year old the first thing in the morning that yesterday's snack, still in it's little baggie will be just fine for today, not at all stale, and think of the starving people around the world who would love yesterday's snack for today's breakfast. Not if want to avoid an argument.

"Because I say so" carries little weight these days around our house, since our daughter has detected the flaw in that approach. "Why is your opinion worth more than mine?" Of course when it is necessary for our word to hold sway we have the means to demonstrate with utmost clarity why we are right and she is wrong, but in a few years even taking away TV and computer access will cease to be meaningful, especially if she has her own place to live. Who can say what is true and what is not? "You English insist on eating prawn cocktail crisps despite the fact that we have told you not to."

The holier people among us tend to demonstrate by their loving actions as much as by their words what is true in God's eyes. Holiness which communicates truth in this way is unmistakable if you are looking for it. This is not to denigrate words in any way. But empty words, words not accompanied by actions are futile.

I learned to pray the rosary from a group of people in my parish who gather every day after the 9:00am mass to pray before the blessed sacrament. I learned the words, the order of prayers, which mysteries are contemplated on which days, but more than that, I learned by this group's consistent, daily devotion the meaning of this form of prayer. Each rosary is offered for the intentions of the people gathered, genuinely offered, in the form of people on their knees directing hearts and minds to the Lord who is with them in body and in spirit. In our adoration chapel the prayers which have been offered throughout the day seem to linger, filling the chapel with warmth. Then the next day it begins all over again. I don't think I had ever understood the extent to which prayer is meaningful action before I encountered this group.

Mother Theresa is often cited as the supreme example of words expressed in action. Her ministry on the streets of Calcutta is well known and remains a powerful witness to the life of a true servant of Christ. Her work was unmistakably holy because it was grounded in her life of prayer. She allowed her daily existence to be directed by God, and so she lived as wonderfully as she could the life of truth, of Jesus crucified and risen. Her life was an on-going sacrifice.

Parents understand early on what it means to become sacrificial. This sacrificial living only intensifies as children reach adolescence, as we are discovering. It may be that the greatest lessons our daughter will learn from us during the coming years will be those of tolerance, faithful love in the face of discord, gentleness and unwavering forgiveness. If we can muster them. Our success will reside in our attentiveness to prayer, to the sacraments, and to deep humility. I pray daily for these gifts not only for myself, but for the sake of my daughter. Telling my daughter that she must eat stale food and enjoy it is not getting us anywhere!