Miscellaneous from the Week

Mary writing JMJ at the top of her schoolwork: can't start too early teaching that all work is for the glory of God!

Enjoying Oreos and milk after picking a wagon full of weeds for Mama

Margaret donned a cape in the afternoon, announcing solemnly, "I a Wonder Pet." We went to dinner and that's when I noticed that she was still wearing the cape!

Mary at bedtime

How could anyone ever be frustrated by her?

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Apparently twice per year, our local minor league baseball team, the Knights, hosts an education day: it plays its game in the daytime instead of the evening to facilitate school groups attending. Some families from our homeschooling group decided to attend. I thought it was a neat opportunity for our children to try this bit of Americana for only $5 per ticket.

Grampa Neil is in town from California for John's upcoming First Holy Communion!

Neil and I remarked at the incessant and blaring noise at the game. I was feeling spiritually assaulted: is it purposeful that the worldly spirit incites us to listen to noise all the time? If we are constantly hearing noise, every moment of the day, we can hardly hear God. If we can't so much as drive in the car without music or talk radio, if we can't set down our smart phones and stop checking email incessantly, how can we feel the Holy Ghost moving in that moment?

I noticed that watching the game itself wasn't enough. During every moment of transition, clowns would run out on the field and play games, do antics. Voices blared over the microphone encouraging us to dance in our seats or make the weirdest faces possible or just scream as loud as we could. Rock music shook the speakers all the time. Honestly, I couldn't hear my kids and I had to shout to communicate with them. It was as if we couldn't go one moment without double and triple layers of entertainment, leaving no ability to just talk about the game with a companion or notice the quiet interest in how the men rake the field in between innings.

The close-up view from our seats

Sharing one small ball of cotton candy: I have a major sweet tooth but was only able to stomach one bite of it!

Our sweet children showed their natural, human avarice at the game: nothing was enough to satisfy them. I don't say that to be particularly critical of my children: avarice is yet one more sin natural to the human condition since the Fall. There was a play zone at the baseball park, an area similar to a carnival and requiring additional tickets. Of course, the kids wanted to play there and one child wouldn't drop the subject till, after all my calm explanations and firm boundaries, I had to say that not one more word would be allowed to be said about the play zone. Similarly, the children wanted me to buy the junky toys for sale--foam fingers and the like. I explained yet again that we were going to enjoy the very special treat of attending a baseball game with our friends, eating the park's expensive food, without also buying overpriced junky toys that we don't need and will break very soon, and without going to play at a carnival. This led to complaining that "nothing about the day would be fun" unless we could play at the play zone and buy the junky toys . . . and while we're at it we needed to buy more treat food than the pizza, water, and cotton candy that cost an arm and a leg.

I was becoming very distressed at my children's complaining behavior. They were complaining so much about nothing ever being enough, I felt they couldn't even enjoy the baseball game. But then I realized that it was not my children in particular (I hope, I think), but the human condition. This is what sin looks like. I see it more obviously in small children because they don't know how to be sophisticated like adults. They throw fits, stamp feet, and cry.

But we adults struggle just as badly with nothing ever being enough. Whatever insufficient progress I have made in this spiritual area has taken me several decades. Why on earth would I think my children six, four, and two would have achieved any sort of mastery of detachment from objects? It's a ridiculous notion.

So, I moved from feeling distressed about how the children weren't perfect to meditating on how we adults are rarely satisfied. One cookie isn't enough, we want two, three, the whole bag. A few decent outfits are nice, but it would really be okay if we had this many more. The car is fine, but really we want this other better one. The thanks we received felt good, but we really won't feel appreciated till we receive this many more accolades. The income buys A,B, and C but we really want enough to buy X,Y, and Z. It's never, ever enough.

I decided that I was going to stop considering myself a total failure in the moment because I couldn't get my children to feel satisfied in their hearts and to consider that I'd done my duty by God by holding firm, not giving them anything more than the fun day as planned, and giving them the talk several times about being satisfied and not coveting. One thousand experiences like this (boundaries, limits, the talk) later and we might start to make some spiritual progress!

(On the topic of gospel poverty, if you want to read a really scary and convicting book, try Happy Are You Poor: The Simple Life and Spiritual Freedom. It was so well-documented and convincing in its terrifying message, I had to set it down numerous times and stop reading.)

Scrubbing Down the Outdoor Furniture

Each spring, we spend an afternoon scrubbing down the outdoor furniture and wood framing in the sun room. We do this right after what we locals call "pollen week." I don't know much about the phenomenon except that for one week, every tree in the South drops all its pollen. One can watch waves of yellow pollen floating in the air. Every surface becomes colored with thick yellow dust. I know I get headaches, scratchy throat, itchy eyes. We don't even let the kids play outside that week. Bees and wasps fly thickly, drunk on pollen. I just looked at the local Pollen Count for the last month and see that it went dramatically from numbers in the mere tens day after day to 700 and peaking above 1,000.

As if scrubbing with soapy water in the warm weather wasn't motivation enough, the children jumped for joy at getting to wear their swimsuits for the first time this season.

They actually did a really good job and I remarked to myself how much labor three little kids six and under can accomplish. After all the furniture was washed, I suggested they wash the swing set, which they did: and then they promptly made a water slide out of it!