a mother's rule of life, some resolutions, and enjoying my children

I started writing a bunch of posts about the book I finished reading recently, a mother's rule of life, and just couldn't do it. But Josh did, funnily enough, though he hasn't read the book. here's his post. Read it. It's about more than just that book, but it's all related.

So, as far as new year's resolutions go, one of mine will be to create a Rule of Life, and stick to it as best we can. My children need this-- I need this!

Next, I'd like to get back into knitting. This involves organizing yarn and needles. I dread that part, but I will be so glad I did.

I'd also like to start writing more poetry. This is probably because I'm feeling rather famous since the Circe Institute used one of my poems in their magazine, a poem I wrote shortly after Calvin was born. If you haven't already, you should definitely sign up-- it's free and it has some really, really good things in there. I'm planning to read the "what are we doing to our boys" article many times. I love that it isn't a whiplash response to a feminist culture as so many Christian "manliness" articles are. This is nothing like that. This article--interview, actually, with Cindy Rollins and James Daniels--is exactly what I need now, as I feel lost in raising men. Men who are kind and strong and true, in the fullness of what those words mean.

Also--and this is my biggest focus this year--the thing I most want to set my mind upon-- I'm going to start enjoying my children, instead of just babysitting them. Maybe that sounds weird to you, but I've found that mindset in myself so often and it is tragic. It seems like it would be so natural, but really, mothering is the last thing that is natural to anyone. Maybe some do it better than others, some easier than others-- but I don't believe it's natural for anyone. I was telling my sister-in-law recently about how a few years back (before I'd had kids) she had confessed to me how mothering just doesn't come naturally to her. I remember feeling sort of sorry for her. Oh, that's really too bad, I thought, it will come naturally to me, of course, because I'm dying to be a mother! Wrong. We had a good laugh about it a few weeks ago, because I understand now.  Giving up your life, your whole self, is never, ever natural for any human. It is right, it is good, it is Christ--but it is never natural.

Anyway, back to enjoying my children this year. I think that this has everything to do with being in the moment--such a cliche phrase, but I really mean it. Josh and I were talking about this the other night, too. By living in the moment I'm referring specifically to watchfulness. Kallistos Ware has this to say--

The Greek word [for watchfulness] used here, nepsis, means literally sobriety and wakefulness...and so in the context of the spiritual life it signifies attentiveness, vigilance, recollection. ...The "neptic" man is one who has come to himself, who does not day-dream, drifting aimlessly under the influence of passing impulses, but who possesses a sense of direction and purpose. ...'He knows where he has come from and where he is going.'

I know this is getting long, but keep reading--

Watchfulness means, among other things, to be present where we are--at this specific point in space, at this particular moment in time. All too often we are scattered and dispersed; we are living, not with alertness in the present, but with nostalgia in the past, or with misgiving and wishful thinking in the future. ... The "neptic" man, then, is gathered into the here and the now. He is the one who seizes the kairos, the decisive moment of opportunity. 

I could keep quoting. I could quote the whole book, really. But there you have it: I want to live now, loving my children now, not waiting eagerly for when they're all in bed at last and I can breathe. This is it--this is the time I have their souls in my keeping, and I want to keep well what God has given me.

Gathered into the here and now.

The Russian philosopher and theologian Paul Evdokimov says, "The hour through which you are at present passing, the man whom you meet here and now, the task on which you are engaged at this very moment-- these are always the most important in your whole life."