Tempus Fugit - Time Flies

It is said that time flies, and it does. Never has this been more clear to me than right now. Now, at the middle-point of my life, I can see how fast things travel. It seems like only yesterday, I was getting ready to go to Germany and arranging to get my passport. I realized today that my passport expired at the beginning of June. 10 years is a blink of an eye, but it was a productive blink.

In that time, we've had two grand kids, I found my passion (Philosophy). We have moved at least a couple of times. We've been homeless and re-established our home again. My husband and I have both changed careers. There have been ups and downs to our marriage. We have lost beloved members of our family to cancer, some of us have defeated it, and still others are fighting for their lives against it.

What hit me this morning is the lack of time that we spend with one another. In our day-to-day lives, how much time do we really spend with each other? Sure, you're constantly with people, but are you connecting with them? Are your kids watching videos or listening to their personal listening devices, or playing their video games while you drive them to yet another practice? Or are you talking to them? Are you listening to their day? Are you spending the precious time that you have doing something that builds that relationship? I spent all day with my kids yesterday, and I am pretty sure that nothing we talked about had any substance.

And what about your spouse? Do the two of you fall into bed at the end of the week, sleep like the dead, and then make love on Saturday morning (like an appointment) just so that you can say you spent quality time with them? When was the last time you asked them what they thought about the immortality of the soul or what they think it means to be married? When was the last time you made a real connection with your spouse, so much so that you really thought you got to something real? I'm betting that it wasn't recently. For me, it's not as often as I would like.

When was the last time you made real eye contact with someone you were talking to? Not business contact, but the real, personal contact that says, "I care about what you are saying to me and I care about you." It's so rare these days that it's noteworthy when it happens to me. I remember it.

As I am preparing for my father to die (and it's coming soon) and watching my grandson grow from a toddler and into a pre-schooler, I am struck by how little time we have. What do we spend our time on?

I have spent mine on making money, making a name for myself, ferrying my kids and husband all over the city. My 5 year old car has 175,000 miles on it. I put 161,000 of those on it. At a mile a minute, that's over 2,683 hours in the car. Driving. That doesn't include waiting. I have spent even more time than that sitting at a computer keyboard reading about the horrors of the world or reading about who said what to whom --essentially gossip and self-gossip.

I have also spent a good deal of time getting to know my children and my husband. I have helped them navigate the rough waters of being grown-ups. I have spent time sitting in offices listening to people pour their hearts out to me (unbidden) that they wish they'd had more time with the people that mattered to them. Those interactions are the ones that I treasure and these are the things that last.

Money and stuff can be replaced --you can have everything one day and be bankrupt the next, and on top of the world the next week. Honor is fleeting and completely in the hands of others --you can have a good name one day, and be worthless in the eyes of the world the next. Pleasure is fleeting and always leaves you wanting more.

Time, however, is completely limited. Whether we spend it glued to our screens, or glued to our chair at work, or glued to our steering wheel, is completely up to us. I have spent far too much time doing things that do not build relationships with the people who matter most to me. I have spent far too much time doing things that I really hate or that are abhorrent to me. I have not used the time that I had with my friends and family to it's best advantage choosing to be face down in my phone or occupied with what I was going to do next, or what I wished was happening instead of this interaction.

This mid-life seat at the top of the hill that allows me to see what has led to where I am and what comes next. And, like any good scout, I am paying attention to the shadowy spots, the rocks and boulders that could complicate my descent. I can collect wood and berries and hunt for food along the way, but choosing the path and companions carefully can make that job easier or harder.

How will I use my time best? Gather the right team, plan the descent and look forward to the rest at the end.

(c) Katie O'Keefe, 2016. All rights reserved.
Photo credit: "Time Flies" at QuotesGram, Chanda Enos, 2016. 

Lazy, Lonely Saturday

It sounds a little boring, but it's just what I needed: A lazy, lonely day to read and think.

The girls and grandson are off helping with a move. My husband is at work and my parents are off to a concert in the northern part of the state. It's just me and the kitties today. I have reading and writing to do, but somehow, they just needed to sit by the wayside and wait for me to catch up.

Sometimes all the things that crowd my time and compete for my attention, even if they are good things, crowd out my thoughts. Then, I become ineffective and stressed out.  One of my friends tells me this is because I am an introvert. I don't know - I like people. I love to visit with my friends and to talk for hours and hours, but somewhere deep down, I long for quiet solitude.

It's not really loneliness (I can be more lonely in a crowd). It's more like a retreat. I think that's one of the reasons that Adoration is such an effective prayer form for me. It allows me time to just Be. I have to be quiet and I have to listen.

I have been studying the pre-Socratic philosophers for the past four weeks and read in a secondary source that the Pythagoreans believed that silence was divine. Of course, the only primary fragments we possess from this school are those of Philolaus, who really says nothing about silence being divine, but I think they probably did believe that. If moderation and the study of the smallest clues that Nature gives us to seduce us into discovering her secrets is what you're after, then observing them in silence makes sense.

It's the same with Prayer.

When I shut up and hold still (which isn't often!) I can actually hear the world around me. I pay attention to and address the small things that help me head off big problems that might follow later. I give myself time to think and plan a course of action instead of rushing head-long into something I'll regret later. Through prayer, I find the small things about myself that need amending and being quiet gives me the mental clarity to see what needs to change and how best to change it.

So, while I didn't get much of my reading done for the week, I spent a good bit of time unpacking the past week. Now, I have a direction and a plan for the coming week and with my batteries recharged, I'm ready to take it on.

Short, Sweet, and Still a Prayer

I recently read a post over at The Radical Life (one of my new favorite blogs) challenging me to think about what my "idle" is. It's a very thought provoking post and made me really stop to examine what I'm doing with my idle time.

I think my most common default looks something like this:



Into this mess that I call a life, I have been trying to insert some meaningful prayer time. And kind of failing in many ways.

Recently, however, I found a few apps that are so simple, short and sweet that everyone has time for them. Why is this important?

I really love to pray the Liturgy of the Hours (I use iBreviary on my Android tablet and my iPhone). The problem is, except for the weekends, I often don't have time to pray them. So my confessor encouraged me to start small. Like micro-small.

It's like texting God. That way you're keeping the conversation going, and not racking up guilt-points. And I find that, as Warner suggests, when I build even a little bit of time in for prayer, it tends to expand, rather than shrink. As I work on this, I find that my idle, begins to not be email, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but a little one-on-one with God.

Here are a couple of mini-reviews with links to more detailed ones at CatholicMom.com:

All of these are iOS unless otherwise indicated.

"Honor Your Inner Monk" - St. Meinrad Archabbey - Free (iOS and Android)

What can I say? This app amuses me. It engages me and I use it. The iOS version is more amusing than the Android version. It's great for students who don't have time for prayer built into their days because it can be done in a minute or less.

Things I like best:

• Short prayers that function as action points. You'll be thinking about them all day.
• The monks' chorus calling you to prayer and singing "Amen" when you finish.
• A puff of incense smoke to kick off prayers.
• At the end of each month, they give you feedback for how your prayer life has been. Last month, I got the "Sad Trombone" and an opinion that "You can do better than that." 

And this month, I have. I need that sort of accountability.
See more here.

"Short Prayers App" - Valent Richie - $1.99

This app is great for short prayers for all reasons and seasons. It's got them all: The four basics (Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be), along with many, many other favorites. Some are in English and Latin.

Things I like best:

• A wide variety of prayers
• Alarms that can be set for times or places. If you set it up, it will prompt you to pray when you reach a destination or get ready to leave.
• Shake for a random prayer

There are a couple of gems in this app. I especially like Aquinas'  "Prayer before Studying or Reading" and Ignatius of Loyola's "Prayer against Depression".
Read more here.

"The Mary App" - Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception - Free 

This app was originally designed to accompany Fr. Michael Gaitley's "33 Days to Morning Glory" Consecration Program, but it works just fine as a standalone app.

Things I like best:

• Visually, very nice to look at
• The Rosary, chaplets and other prayers (this app has a ton of content)
• A really great set of catechesis on what the Catholic church teaches about who she is, including a nice FAQ section for quick answers to common questions.

This is a more comprehensive app and the prayers are a bit longer, but it's is one of my long-term go-to apps.

Read more here.

"Via Crucis" - Valent Richie - $1.99

These are based on the Meditations of St. Francis of Assisi's Way of the Cross. This app is nice because because you can go away and come back, which makes it easy to use over the course of a busy day. It will keep a push notification on the icon so that you remember that you haven't finished up, yet. This is a great one for Lent.

Things I like best:

• The artwork is lovely
• You can start, go away and come back later
• The devotions are lovely (if a smidge long)

This app hasn't been reviewed yet. when it goes up, I'll include the link. 

For now, you can find the app here.

#FiveFavorites - Five Things for Advent

Advent is almost here and until I was sidelined today by a sinus and ear infection, I hadn't put much thought into what I was going to do to keep the season (other than write a huge series on music for Advent and Christmas - more later). So, today, I hopped on Pinterest and found some things that got me thinking about preparation. Not just of the home, but of the heart, too.

1.  The Advent Wreath

Last year, I had to improvise my Advent wreath. This year, is no different. My Christmas and Advent decorations are still locked in a storage shed in a neighboring county. And although I could go get them, I'd be hard-pressed to find them. So, again - I am improvising.

But, this year, I have the power of Pinterest so I found lots of cool ideas for making my Advent wreath even more cool. Here's the front runner, so far:

Created with moss wrapped around a lampshade skeleton with a wire wreath anchored to the top, this is by far the glitzy-est Advent wreath I've ever seen. It'd be really nifty to use with the Jesse Tree Tradition....

2. A Jesse Tree

When I was a kid, we did the Jesse Tree. Each day of the month of December, leading up to Christmas Day has an Old testament story and a symbol connected with it. These stories trace the lineage and "types" of Jesus. There are books that you can get to help you design your meditations. The little chart above is one that I found on Pinterest and, although it doesn;t give all the bible verses and stories of each character, you get a pretty good idea of what the plan is.

I always thought it was a cool way to trace Salvation History and the Messianic prophecies through the Jewish people to Jesus. It gave me a sense of the connectedness of God's promises to us that He would save us from our sins. Sadly, it is not a tradition that I carried on with my own children. But the Advent Wreath above gave me some ideas about combining the two observances.

3. The Advent Family Activity Calendar 

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has put out a resource calendar for families who want to give back to the community and deepen their faith during the Advent season. This calendar includes an activity for each day of Advent and a companion calendar takes you through the Christmas Season.  With reflections on the scripture as well as suggestions for works of mercy on each, you can get your family fully involved in making room for Jesus. 

You can find both calendars here.

4. Do Some Extra Devotional Prayer

Seriously, there are SO many good Advent books out, but I'll suggest the two that my friends at CatholicMom.com are giving away this week: Lisa Hendey's "O Radiant Dawn" and Sarah Reinhard's "Welcome, Baby Jesus".  

These ladies are wonderful writers and have crafted family-friendly, easy to use resources to help you and your family spend just a few minutes in prayer together through this busy month.  

Click here to go to CatholicMom.com to enter!

I also highly recommend the Magnificat Advent Companion. You can get it in print, on your Kindle or as an app in the iTunes Store. I reviewed the app last year, and plan to buy it again this year. It's easy to use and handy to carry around on your phone or device.

5. Learn Some New Songs

Fr. Dwight Longenecker had a "mega-post" today titled "10 Reasons Why Catholics Should Sing Good Hymns". Fr. Longenecker walks through 10 reasons (as the title suggests) why hymns are crucial to the spiritual life. And not just any hymns, but good ones. He not only explains what constitutes a good hymn, but offers suggestions and provides videos of good examples.

And over at The Beautiful Music Challenge last week I rolled out "10 Hymns You Should Know: Advent and Christmas Hymns." Over the next five weeks we'll be exploring ten hymns and carols for Advent and Christmas: where they came from, what they mean and how to sing them. At the end of Advent, you be all set to sing carols at Mass or at home for all of the 12 Days of Christmas. If you would like to join the fun, you can link up here. But, honestly, we need a better example of "O Come, Divine Messiah". If you have one (that I am legally allowed to use!) send it on over!

Below is a version of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" in Latin by Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly. This is one of my favorite pieces for Advent, but sadly, it's been so long since I've gotten to sing it that I have forgotten many of the tricky parts that make it awesome. I sight read it a few weeks ago and it was a very humbling experience.  Take a listen.

The Advent of Advent!

My son and daughter at St. Mary Church, German Village
with one of my favorite Advent Wreaths.

I have to admit, I love Advent. I love the restrained joy of preparation for the coming of Jesus. I love the music and I love the spirit of the season.

No really. I do!

There is something about Advent that gets me thinking about the joy of the Unexpected. The Birth of the Messiah was a gift that was expected. Oh yes! But the presentation wasn't quite the way it had been envisioned. There were Angels singing. There was that amazing Star of Bethlehem. But then there were those smelly shepherds, too. And a manger? I can just see First Century Martha Stewart-ish types thinking, "Surely we could have done better..."

But, isn't that always the way, though: We all have a vision for our Christmases and they are never quite what we imagine that they will be. I have found, that if I relax and let God take the lead, Christmas always turns out for the best. That's because God knows me, and He knows just precisely what I need. No matter how much planning I put in or how much control I assume on myself, there is always a glitch. But it's there for a reason. God is always making the crooked straight. I think that's what Advent is all about: Letting God make the crooked ways straight so Jesus has a place to dwell when he comes to us.

So, to prepare for Advent I've got a couple of things cooking:

Over at "The Beautiful Music Challenge" today, I am continuing my series "10 Hymns You Should Know" with two Advent Hymns to get ready for the beginning of the Advent Season this Sunday. Join in the fun with your family. Music is a great way to teach about the real Gift of Christmas!

And, over at CatholicMom.com, they're hosting an Advent Wreath Link-up starting on December 9th. Read all about it here and then get ready to join in the fun. Last year, my Advent Wreath was in deep storage and I had to improvise a little. But it was so much fun, I think I'm going to get creative again. I'll be hitting Pinterest for ideas later on!

Life in the Slow Lane - The Joys of Small Town Living

Really.

I am not making this up.

Recently in my little town, they had a worm race at the local public library.

Frog races? Dog races? Rat races? Sure, you can wrap your brain around that. But, worm races? Not really. But like the latest birthday party or family reunion, it's all in another week's news around here.

What are Rt. 42 Reindeer are doing? Oh, you don't know about them...

The Rt. 42 Reindeer Celebrate Fire Prevention Month in October

Along the main drag, just to the south of town, there's a house where the grapevine reindeer celebrate each month/holiday with tableaux. You can look them up here on Facebook. They have a fan page. People actually watch to see what the reindeer are doing and then report on it in the local newspaper.

While the newspaper in the closest city is reporting death, destruction and personally delivered mayhem, our little town paper plugs right along with the big news stories of the week. You know, worm races, grapevine reindeer and birthday parties. 

Some people might laugh at the lack of "real news", but I think it's a good thing. It's a restful thing. It's a reminder that the whole world isn't really crazy. There are actually people doing normal things like getting up, going to work, raising their kids and loving their families and their country. Everyday people, doing everyday things. And that's important because the everyday is what life is really all about.

The big dramatic things may test us like gold tried in fire, but the everyday hammering is what shapes that substance into the people God wants us to be. It is in getting up to go to work, in doing the laundry and rocking the babies, that we live out our vocations. It is the small, quiet joys that make our life richer and bring us closer to the One who made them all possible.

So, excuse me while I go out and enjoy the sunset from the back deck and watch the chickens make their way to their roosts for the night. Except for the coyotes hanging out in the field out back, there's not much news around here today. And that's just fine with me.

Epiphany and epiphanies

Every year we go to a party at one of my friend's houses for The Feast of the Epiphany (the 12th and last day of Christmas). She is a musician, like I am, and her husband is an artist. Though I only see him a couple of times a year, this particular gentleman is a man that I respect, not only as an artist, but as a person. He's unbelievably intelligent and insightful. He is charitable and prayerful, but in a quiet way. When I speak to him I get the sense that he is drawing from the springs of the greatest silences in the world. A place where things that have been unspoken dwell waiting to be given words to express what they are. He seems to have the gift to see right into your soul and say to you exactly what needs to be said at exactly the right moment. You find that you must listen carefully and completely to get the full impact of what he has to say because it is as rich as a really good cheesecake: you want to savor every morsel of it and get every crumb of meaning out of what he says.

Several years ago, I had quit singing. There were many reasons for the decision, some valid, some not so valid; some my own reasons and some were reasons that were foisted on me. My soul was just withering up and I was becoming a very bitter, angry and sad person.

I was at this Epiphany party and our host made the point to seek me out and talk to me. He told me that the music was as much a part of who I am as my body was. He told me that my particular gift was the ability to sing from"inside the song". He told me, "It's a gift that not all singers possess. There is something that moves me every time you sing at church. It moves me like no other singer."

As he spoke to me, I began to cry. I couldn't stop myself. I just stood there holding my wine glass and my plate of desserts with silent tears streaming down my face. My husband came to try to "rescue me", but I didn't really want to be rescued. I wanted to be told the truth. Not singing was eating away at me. I was dying inside.

My friend never broke eye contact with me, "I know this might be painful for you, but I really feel like I need to say this to you. I couldn't let you leave without telling you: You need to sing. You have to find a way to sing."

I nodded. I don't think I could even speak. I knew he was right. I did take his advice and found a way to sing. It truly has made all the difference. I couldn't pray without my music. Sure, there are times when it's nice to just go to Mass and not be "on". But, week after week, the music is where I find my prayer. It's where I find encouragement, a kick in the rear and comfort. With out it, I am diminished.

This year, I was chatting with him about this blog and about how I haven't posted much on this blog in the past year. He kind of smiled and said, "You know, I find that I have to wait a few years for things to become a story. If I try to write about things that are going on right now, they become to big and overwhelming to me. They have no perspective. It's better to let them sit for a while until they can be encapsulated into an 'episode' and then they can be dealt with as a story."

And, you know, again, he's so right. This past year was overwhelming. Between the four people in our family we had 10 hospitalizations, a car accident, a death in the family and all the attendant drama of being a modern family with special needs children. How on earth could I hope to give some perspective to that mess while I am still going through it?

I don't think it is an accident that both of these revelations happened on The Feast of the Epiphany. God puts people in your life at the most unexpected times and places. He provides guidance from the most unlikely sources. I never expected to have the direction of my life changed by idle cocktail chatter. But, that's how it is sometimes. Sometimes, Epiphany is quite literal.

In the meantime, I am so grateful to have friends in my life to help me get through the rough times. For all of you who have said prayers for us, sent us cyber hugs or just thought fondly of us in this past year, I thank you. My thoughts and prayers are with you all this morning.

Hopefully, 2010 will provide some perspective so that I can start writing again. I know it's not great stuff. It's not the height of political prowess. It's not the grandeur of life-changing prose or poetry. It may not be anything important or moving or consequential that I am writing about. But, I appreciate you reading it all the same.

A Day of Repose

I wish it was summer for a little longer this year. Only in the last couple of weeks have I actually gotten to do any real resting from my ultra-insane year. But, in just two weeks, Kinderchor begins practice again. I can't believe it's already almost Fall!

Over the summer, we all decided that I needed one full day off of all work per week. This is a good thing. All winter I was working 7 days a week. The decision was made to make Saturday my "day off". I must say that I am quite relieved to have it. I think I was really burning out.

As a result of taking this day off, my youth choir at the parish, who previously practiced on Saturdays, is going to have to have their practice bumped to another night during the week. This is going to make for 3 evening practices with three totally different choirs per week.

The biggest issue facing me with this schedule adjustment is prep time. The choirs are all working on completely different material (one is a German choir, one is an adult church choir and the third is a bi-lingual Spanish/English children's choir). Research and practice time are not easy to come by as it is.

It is truly a matter of good organization and good planning, though. I really need to get my practice space and times organized a little better so that I am not wasting time clearing music off of my piano to practice and searching for all my materials every time I go to practice or prep practice plans for them. Everything is a huge mess. Which means that I need to spend a couple of uninterrupted days cleaning and organizing. And because I am working Monday through Friday, that probably means a Saturday work day.

For right now, though, I am being very jealous about my Saturday day of rest. I am being very particular about how I spend it. I have to fight the urge to work on music or schedule meetings for planning committees. Actually, I am trying not to spend it cleaning either. I don't want to be like the proverbial Grasshopper and say there's plenty of time to do it later, but I just need that break in the action right now.

In music, the rests between notes are as important at the sounds. They create dimension and color for the piece. Rest is just as vital in life as it is in music. So, I am hoping I to keep that day clear for as long as I can.


BTW - the graphic above can be purchased as a button through CafePress, here. I think every choir director in the world should own at least one.

Focus

I am having the worst time focusing on anything at all. Every time I start something, I get distracted by some thought that pops into my head and I go off on another tangent. I am so incredibly distracted!

Today, while I was working, I started entering data into my database and broke to do something else three separate times before I finally got it done. And those were just things for work...that doesn't even take into account what is gnawing away at my sub-conscious from other quadrants of my life.

As usual, I have got myself to a busy place: A place where I can just handle what I've got to do. But I am so disorganized right now that everything is a first priority and nothing can wait.

I guess I'm going to have to sit down with my Palm Pilot and get realistic. Otherwise, I'll get it all done, but none of it well.

Patience

My mother always told me never to pray for patience, because God would test it. She was SO right. Every time I have ever prayed for patience, God comes along with the most patience testing thing He can come up with seeming to say "You want patience? You'll have to work for it, baby." As they say in body-building: No Pain, No Gain. Right? But, I am a wimp. I don't like pain. So I stopped praying for patience, preferring instead to let the world just hit me in the face and do what I could to stay upright.

As a younger woman, I never put much thought into what patience actually is. I could define it, like a vocabulary word, but defining it and understanding the concept are two different things. I was too busy being impatient to want to understand the concept. It took too long to think about. My nickname as a child was "Impatiens". Not because I was a pretty as a flower, but because it was a play on words on my most strong personality trait.

As an adult and a mother, I knew I had to develop some patience and have struggled with it ever since. Recently, from the vantage point of almost 40 years of life on earth, I have been considering where my life needs to change direction and what I need to do to become a better person. Patience has become the focus of those considerations, more than once.

The dictionary defines "patience" as: 1) the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like. 2.) an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner. 3.) quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience. (from dictionary.com)

If I had to define the word "patience" myself, it would be the ability to have grace under pressure; to be the harbor of peace and calm in a stormy world. I am not a patient person, by nature. The storms of life rock me too hard to be a "harbor of peace". And as far as waiting for anything without restlessness or annoyance: Hah! forget it. Bus drivers incur my wrath quite frequently.

In my long years of working for the church, I have heard many homilies on peace and patience. The best one I ever heard was from a priest who was, himself, impatient. He said that rather than praying for God to give you patience, you should ask God to give you some of His patience. God, being eternal and the source of all peace, has plenty to go around. And Father was right. It does help to pray for God's patience. Our own patience is finite, by our very nature. God, being infinite, has all the patience in the world.

Believe it or not, I am much better at being patient than I used to be. Those who have known me for a long time will attest to that. Those who have known me only a short time will wipe their brows and say, "Really?! I sure am glad I didn't know you way back in the day."

I am still not the most patient woman in the world. My children and husband will attest to that. But, I am working on it. Building patience, is a lot like body-building. It must be tested in order to grow. If all you did was lift weights with 5 pound weights for the rest of your life, you would never get to that 300 pound bench press.

Having situations arise in my life that require more patience than I have is a test of my strength. Sometimes I surprise myself and handle things well, and sometimes I fail miserably. But, with God as my spotter, I know that I will never be completely crushed. I just have to let Him know when I need help.

Image: Atlas holding up the heavens - from a vase in the Vatican Museum.

You are here.

I have a tendency to live outside the moment when I am stressed out. I "borrow trouble" and play the "what if" game, or, even better, the "shoulda, coulda, woulda" game.

Recently, when I was getting carried away by stress and over-activity, my husband shared the following thought with me:

"Every now and then, I bend down and touch the ground and say, 'I am right here, right now.' "

I looked at him like he was crazy. But you know what? It helps to remember that there is nothing your can do to change the past. It has passed. There is no point in worrying about the future. It is not always in our control. All we can do is live in the present and make the best decisions we can make.

So, today, with only one or two of my (giant) list of Christmas presents bought (and none wrapped), a to-do list as long as your arm at work, rain pouring from the sky just in time for the morning commute, and 9 masses in the next 5 days, I am touching the ground and saying, "I am right here, right now." And somehow, I'll get through it all.

The Time Famine

While I was on my way to work this morning I started thinking about all the things I have to do this week and I realized that there was not enough time to do them all. I have a friend (whom I do not see often) who titled this crisis "The Time Famine".

I am not sure when it became a crisis for everyone else, but sometime in the mid-1980's I realized that I didn't have enough time to do everything that there was to do. But, everyone seems to be suffering with it now. So as I was thinking about not having enough time, I spent some of that non-existent time thinking about why we are having a time famine.

Is it the advent of computers that has done it to us? Maybe it is because we expect things to be done so quickly and efficiently that we try to cram even more things into our schedules. I thought that computers were supposed to save time, (and typically they do from my experience) but all too often these days, I find that time runs out even faster than it did the year before. And, I find that more often than not, I am glued to a computer keyboard (as I sit here writing, yet again...) trying to beat deadlines and trying to cram more into the precious time that I have.

Is it because we rely on our private cars to get us from here to there in the fastest way possible? Maybe if we had to take more time to do things, we wouldn't try to schedule so much in one day. In taking the bus, I know exactly how long it is going to take to get from point A to point B, so I am better able to get a handle on my schedule. I don't try to do more than I can possibly fit into the day, because it would be silly (and slightly frowned upon by the bus company) to stand up next to the driver and say, "Couldn't you, like...speed...maybe just a little bit? I have so much to do and if you go just 2 miles per hour faster, I might get it all done."

For example, yesterday I went to the doctor. It takes one hour on the bus to get there, half an hour at the doctor's office and one hour to get home, for a grand total of two and a half hours. This same trip would have taken about one hour, total, if I had driven a car. But...I would have had to go to Wal-Mart, or the grocery store, and then run to the church to handle some paperwork, or run to pick up my daughter to take her to practice, or an appointment, or something. I would have been totally overscheduled and I would have been frantically trying to get it all done until 10 o'clock at night.

Is it because we just have too much to do? I have only two children. They are both teenagers, but what they do in a week staggers me. Currently, we have three dance practices, doctor's appointments, two choir practices, two youth groups, and various social activities, too. And that doesn't even count the things that my husband and I are involved in. If I had a car, it would be even busier. I can only imagine what it must be like for my friends that have 4 or 6 or even 10 kids! (Seriously, how do you do it??)

The fact is that we are all suffering from this time famine and at some point it will bite us, if it hasn't already. Maybe the trick is to know when to turn it off. There will always be demands for our time...we just have to figure out when to say "Enough!"

I think I may be about there.




Dali Melting Time Clock by Perpetual Kid - Yes, you can really buy it.

My Children: The Strangers

My Children: the strangers
One of the toughest things that I do is being a Mom. It's hard because you raise your children to be strong, independent people, but yet, you want them to obey you, too. I have found, recently, that my kids need to have a little less independence and a little more structure to their lives. Even though we don't have to be eyeball to eyeball with them all the time at this age, they still aren't all grown up yet (even though they look like it!)

My greatest sorrow is the loss of my connection with my children over the last couple of years. Once they hit those teenage years, everything started to shift. I felt like I could take more time for myself and for my relationship with my husband, because they were more independent and able to be on their own more. But in reality, I have left my children drifting without a compass.

One of the things that has always defined our family until recent years has been that we always have dinner together. Unfortunately, with everyone running 15 different directions at once, our "dinner hour" has been shattered. Now, if we have popcorn together, it's a big thing. Even when we go out together, we are fragmented in our discussions. It's always about what's happening next in the day, which is good, but never really gets to the heart of who we are as individuals. It's never really about what we hope for or what our thoughts are.

Michael and I tend to do that kind of talking regularly, between the two of us, and it really helps us live with one another, and we have grown closer over the past couple of years. But we so infrequently spend time with our kids that they are becoming strangers to us.

It seems to be so hard in this active world we live in to take the time to listen to our kids, so we just don't get it done. And that's a shame...because it seems like the only time I talk to them is when I have something to chew them out for, or yet another chore for them to do, or when they are yelling at me about something that the other one did to them.

Maybe part of the magic of being a good mom is taking that time to just sit and listen to the banal chatter about Halo or about AFI or about whatever other subject is the most important thing in my children's life. I feel disconnected with them right now.

And if I am feeling lonely for them, they must be feeling lonely for me, too.

Taking time for my daughter

So often I am on the run with a vengeance. That goes for the rest of my family, too. Frequently, we are running until the very last second we can hold our eyelids open. Tonight, however, was an early night. I had a short rehearsal for a gig this weekend and then nothing else. Michael went to bed early, The Prince was off playing with some friends, and The Princess was on the phone, so I just went out and sat down by the remnants of the fire we used to cook dinner and kind of relaxed in the quiet evening on my back porch (OK, it's a deck...The Princess tells me, "Get over it, Mom. You have a deck.")

So, I was very surprised when The Princess told the friend she was on the phone with "good-bye" so she could come sit on the deck with me for a few minutes and visit. And I heard her, she really did hang up just to talk to me and promised that she would call the friend back when I went to bed.

I was truly shocked! A teenage girl without a phone growing out of her ear is like a hockey player with all of his own teeth. She didn't really have anything earth-shattering to tell me. She just wanted to visit, to tell me about her dance class and show me her new steps. We talked about all that and then we talked about our container garden and how well it was doing, and how nice it was to have a few minutes to spend at home, alone, without the boys.

So we sat. We moved all the plants on to the porch in case the coming storm was packing some hail. We watched the sunset and watched the clouds roll in. We listened to the neighborhood settle in for the night and chatted...about nothing in particular.

And it was wonderful...God is SO good!

Taking a breath

Sometimes things happen and you're not sure why Fate is so cruel. For example, we had a Blizzard over the weekend. In about 36 hours, the sky had dumped 20 inches of snow on us here in Columbus. All my plans for the weekend were out the window. No shopping trips, no birthday party, no masses to sing for...everything stopped. The city was more than quiet, it was silent.

I don't remember seeing this much snow since I was 7 years old in the Bizzard of '78. I can remember opening the drapes of my parents' house and not being able to see the house across the street through the snow. It never got that bad in our neighborhood. We didn't really have much wind, but there was plenty of snow!

But, it wasn't so bad. I got to really clean my kitchen. I made homemade chicken and noodles and fresh bread. I visited with my kids. We walked over to my in-laws and had a lovely, small-scale birthday party. I slept soundly and took a couple of naps with my husband. I even did some long-overdue sewing. We all snuggled in and enjoyed the down time.

Sometimes, when I am moving at the Speed of Sound, I need God to step in and slow me down. I am sure that the rest of the city does not appreciate the means by which it was done, but maybe more of them needed to slow down, too.

Now that I am all rested, I am ready to take on the snowdrifts, and tonight, I think we're building an igloo in our back yard. We'll see how much we get done...

Sunday Dinner at Mom's

I guess I have an unusual family. In fact, I know I have an unusual family. I am the oldest of five children, the youngest of whom is 17 years younger than I am. The oldest of my little brothers is only two years younger than I am, but the younger three kids are all younger by enough that I was celebrating my 10 year class reunion, before they were even out of high school. Such a wide range of ages could make for a very fractured family. But, my mother, in her infinite wisdom, was not about to let that happen, so she instituted "Sunday Dinner".

Sunday dinner is done at Mom's house almost always. We have tried having at the kids' houses, but somehow it just doesn't work. There's not enough room, it's too far (even though Mom lives further from the city than most of us), you name it, there's an excuse. We celebrate all the birthdays and the honoree always gets to choose the menu. We have had everything from steak and chicken for grownups with healthy appetites, to a "cereal bar" for my son, Michael, when he would eat nothing else. It is very relaxed (almost to the point of being comatose). We all sit around and chat while dinner is getting ready. Sometimes we help with the cooking and preparation, other times we don't. Long ago Mom gave up trying to clean up for all of us, but somehow the chaos suits us. We just move anything that is in the way off to the side and sit on the chairs, the floor, the tables...wherever we can find space.

Dad is never exactly thrilled to see us all coming. He hides in his room or goes and plays his trumpet in another room. He is a very introverted person by nature and none of us really takes offense. He just needs his quiet time and we need to see each other and touch base.

Sunday Dinner has become a touchstone for all of us. As we have gotten married and had children of our own we have become quite a mob. When all of us are together, there are 21 of us. We use our time together to bounce ideas off of one another, to cry on each other's shoulders about the stupid thing our kid did at school and to share the small triumphs of our own lives. When I miss a Sunday Dinner, I become disjointed and out of touch with my siblings and I begin to miss them. Even the younger kids have insights to offer to us older kids that we have never would have seen with our jaded eyes.

No...none of us is perfect. And yes...we get into some HORRENDOUS fights, but, each week, we know that Mom will be serving up dinner for all of us. All of us, whether we behaved ourselves last week or not, will be welcomed back, and, indeed, expected at the crowded table. And that's what a family is. It is a place to renew and recharge. A place where we can go to get a hug or a pat on the back. A place where we can be loved for who we are and not what we own or what we have to offer. A place where there is forgiveness and love.

I love my family, warts and all. I hope that Sunday dinner becomes a tradition in more households. It is priceless.

Healing with my music

I am listening to a bunch of relaxing music today. I've got Boccherini, Vivaldi, Rimsky-Korsakov, Bach and many more in my playlist. I am trying to chill out.

Everything in this world is so tense. It makes your hair stand on end! I have found that there is no hurt in the world too great that music cannot help me to heal it. If I am angry, I listen to my angry music and walk and eventually I feel better. When I am sad, I listen to my sad music and it expiates the pain. When I am stressed, I listen to music that relaxes me and eventually, I can de-tox and be useful to people again.

I don't know if it happens this way for other people. I find that I can put myself into the singer's (or writer's) shoes and it helps me cope with the feelings that I have. It gives them a voice. It allows them to be heard, even when I have no words to express them.

"That which comes the closest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley