. . . the end is not as fun as the start.
Please stay a child somewhere in your heart.
- U2 Original of the Species
This is my ringtone. Everytime someone calls me I'm reminded to slow down (which may account for why I miss calls).
I hate the battles of getting ready and leaving the house. I used to be so good at sliding in just on time, verging on late but not quite. However, the kids have changed my morning routine a bit, yet somehow I always think I'll have just enough time until I glance at the clock as I'm grabbing the backpacks and then I start yelling at Eydie to hurry up and get in the car because now she's in the front yard looking for her pretend key. This sometimes results in a threat or a spanking, tears (on her part), tension (on my part), and is just not the way I want to start the day. The other day she told me, "I hate it when we have to hurry." Yeah I know. Me too. But how can I break this cycle?
For starters, I should get up and get the kids and myself ready earlier. But more than that . . . I don't want to hurry in life. One of the reasons I like to backpack is because there is no schedule each day other than walking. You eat when you're hungry and go to sleep when you're tired, and you don't answer calls or texts or emails or think about what you should be doing. You slow down. And in the slowing, you take in the beauty around you, you listen to the stories of your fellow hikers, you feel the pain and the strength of your body.
I'm reading a book called Sabbath in the Suburbs right now. These are some of my favorite quotes so far:
You want your children to have a spirit of service? A sense of the Holy? A curiosity and openness to the world? Cultivate those things for yourself. Let them see you do it. Become the parent and person you want to be. It's one of the most important things you can do for your child. (38)
Two months in, we've already botched the call to weekly rest. We've also had flashes of luminosity, in which we looked around and sighed with satisfaction. But those moments were fleeting. Despite these stops and starts, I have to think that Sabbath is worth the struggle. The victory is in showing up and making oneself available . . . Just as I seek to be present with my kids, not because every moment will feel holy and blessed but because holy and blessed moments don't happen unless I am present. (39)
[My aunt Sherry] once described the experience of waiting for an oncology appointment. "I can tell who's in the waiting room with cancer and who's healthy and just dealing with an iffy test of something. The people with cancer are the ones waiting there patiently. It's kind of peaceful. It's always the healthy people who come running in or who start tapping their feet or griping to the receptionist. We're the ones whose time may be short. But they're the ones who act like it." (56)
"If we refuse to rest until we are finished, we will never rest until we die." - Wayne Muller (qtd. 77)It is difficult, counter-cultural, to be uninvolved. We feel bad for not giving our kids every opportunity to play sports, go to camps, go on mission trips, take lessons. These are all good things. Some of my favorite memories from my own childhood. But we also need to give ourselves permission to say no without the guilt that we are depriving our child of another learning/growing opportunity. There is value in slowing down. The lesson our kids may need to learn is how to be still. I love how our children's minister, Suzetta, encourages our kids to find the quiet place God put in each of us. Our Wednesday night kids know that stillness is a spiritual discipline. And that it requires practice.
And I need to practice as well, to surrender my to do lists for a good book, to push my kids in the swing, and to help Eydie find that dang pretend key.
