At Arm's Length

Is it just me? I've been noticing recently that I tend to keep relationships at arm's length. Do you know what I mean? Conversations are kept at a chit-chat level. It seems like there's this wall of unspoken pain dividing me from the people I talk to. You know the tension you sense sometimes when you ask someone how they are? They give a noncommittal non-answer and you know that all is not well, but feel that they really don't want you to dig any deeper. They're keeping you at arm's length.

Why? Why do we do this to ourselves and each other? Or is it just me? I don't think it's healthy and I don't think it's what anyone really wants. I think maybe there's a connection between getting so busy with the stuff of life that we lose touch with the people of life.

Do we think that others won't understand if we tell them what's going on in our heads? Are we afraid of admitting that our lives aren't perfect? Are we afraid of burdening others? Ironically, I find myself whinging about trivial things, while the big challenges of life remain an unspoken burden.

I don't have answers today, just lots of questions. Is it just me?

Why I Don't Join

A few times recently I've been asked to give my support in various ways to various "causes". My answer is always "no". I don't do rallies or petitions or donate to medical research or sell raffle tickets. That's right, I'm a mean, mean, nasty, horrible person.

Seriously, there is a reason I don't participate in any of these ventures. In most cases, their aims are good. I do believe that homebirthing should have an equal if not higher status than medicalised birth, but I haven't taken part in any rallies. I have a number of dear friends with MS who I would love to see healed, but I don't sell raffle tickets for the MS foundation (is that what they're called?). I also believe in many ideals that have no causes (that I know of) supporting them. I am against child abuse and neglect, but no one has ever asked me to donate to the child neglect foundation. Even if they did, though, I would say no.

I do believe that if anyone comes to me in need I should give as I am able. Food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, etc. What I don't believe in is the politicization of these causes. As far as campaigning the government to change this or that legislation - where should I start? Sorry, but not home-birthing, as wonderful as it is. There are so many more serious and far-reaching cases of downright immorality in legislation.

The reality is, that while there are a handful of organizations I am willing to support, there are many, many more that in some way undermine the foundations of my beliefs.

For example, I worked in medical research for a year before my conscience got the better of me. I have seen how the world of medical research works, not just from my personal experiences, but in discussions with friends who are still heavily involved in medical research. Even those with the best intentions can't escape the premises and philosophies that underlie the whole system of research. Premises and philosophies that fundamentally deny God and His part in human well-being. It would be wrong for me to support a system that denies God.

As for signing petitions, or rallying, or campaigning - I live in a society that once again denies God's part in the very fabric of society. Any argument I have against laws or systems is based on the foundation of God's laws and principles. These arguments fall on deaf ears in a secular world. Nor can I put my name on a petition with those who believe that social justice simply needs a human solution. I don't believe that even a billion signatures could bring peace to the Middle East, or food to the starving, or protect orphans from exploitation. Putting my name on that list implies not only that I care about the cause, but that I believe my name can make the difference. I don't believe that my name can make the difference. I believe that we live in a broken world that only God can fix.

This is not an excuse for me to sit back and watch the world fall apart from my armchair. It is not a call to less but a call to more. Knowing that my human hands cannot make a drop-in-the-bucket difference, I have the greater responsibility of representing God's way of life to everyone I interact with. I have the responsibility to find ways that I can support the needy without compromising God's values. Importantly, I must guard every aspect of my own life from the lure of hypocrisy. My time as a human being is merely the journey, not the destination, so there will be wrong turns along the way, and I won't perfectly represent the one cause that I do stand for - the coming kingdom of God.

So that summarizes why I don't join - I have joined The Cause, and beside it, there is no other.

Decluttering

OK, so this is the time of year for deep contemplation for me. (The rest of the year I don't do much thinking at all!) I have a compulsive tendency to declutter our house on a regular basis. But right now it's time to declutter my life.

I've been spurred on by what may seem an unrelated experience. Library story time. It's been a couple of years now since I attended library story time since Miss Curie has really outgrown it and - well, there are so many other things to do during the week. I was shocked at the chaos that greeted us at the library. Almost all the people there - adults and children alike - were carrying on conversations as if there wasn't a poor young lady trying to read to an undisciplined group of children. Kids were wandering around, fighting unchecked and apparently unnoticed. When I asked the librarian about it later she said that this is what it's like every week now.

So what on earth does this have to do with mental decluttering? It really drove home to me how socially acceptable it is becoming to look out for number one. It really drove home to me how rapidly our level of concern for our fellow human beings is degenerating. It really drove home to me again how disconnected we are becoming from one another.

It got me thinking about how I spend my time each day, and really intensified my urgency to focus on character in my girls. I spend way too much time and energy on selfish pursuits. If I let myself continue on that path the outlook for my girls is grim. If they don't see me sacrificing my wants for the greater good, they're not likely to go out looking to learn it elsewhere.

The pressure as mothers is to give our children "the best". (OK, I know I'm repeating myself, but repetition IS a great form of emphasis.) What we get duped into thinking is that a never-ending whirl of extra-curricular activities is what is "best". We start to truly believe that the important thing for our childrens' futures is to achieve a particular academic level (preferably well above the average for their age) along with a mile-long list of skills ranging from tying shoelaces to speaking several languages fluently. I've jumped on that bandwagon many times. There are many things I passionately want to teach my children. Of itself I don't think this is a bad thing, butI can see I've just got to keep a steady focus on what will see them through any coming storm. The extra-curricular activities truly are extras that need to fit in around the business of real living.

The most important thing is to ground my girls firmly in faith, hope and love. These are not sideshows - every activity, however exciting or mundane - needs to revolve around these principles.

So what does it look like to focus on character? For me, it means slowing down and paying attention. It means not ignoring one sister hitting the other on the head in frustration. It means not pretending not to see when The Chatterbox defies orders and pops out of bed for a play. It means not being too busy to answer questions about why we have standards for how we treat others. It means not being too tired to guide a reluctant child through writing a letter to someone who needs encouragement. It means not squashing the creative spirit of Miss Curie because it's just too much hard work to guide her ideas towards something productive.

I get tired just thinking about it. That's where I need to give up some of the things that I like to do in order to stay committed to my number one responsibility. Some of the sewing projects may gather dust on my desk for years to come. I may never find the time to buy a perfect matching set of glasses to replace the many that have broken in the last eight years. I might not get all my garlic planted before May. Trivial things, but hard to give up because I'm selfish. If I remember where we're headed and Who we're trying to honour it doesn't get easy, but it does get worth it. Dresses and glasses and gardens will all pass in time. Character lasts. Too often in the battle for our attention the trivialities win. Today, in this house, character wins. The challenge is to make sure it wins every day.

Reconnecting With Reality

Reality. Usually when someone loses touch with reality it's because they're getting in touch with a fantasy that seems a lot more enticing than real life. We live in a world that sends us thousands of invitations to disconnect from unpleasant realities.

I have a habit of disconnecting. Usually I detach myself from my present life because I'm trying to make it better. Looking for ways to buy stuff online so I don't have to venture into real shops with my three very real children who like to touch and try and taste all the real stuff on the real shelves. Searching for other homeschoolers close to me so I don't have to travel so far to social events. Looking for new craft and sewing ideas. Looking for the perfect curriculum so I can spend less time planning and thinking and more time doing with the girls. The theoretical goal is to have more time and energy to invest in relationships.

The thing is, real relationships happen in the real world and disconnecting from the people I love doesn't exactly foster those relationships. The natural drive for many human beings is to make things better. That is good. As long as we choose the right kind of better. So often I don't. The perfect curriculum is an utter failure if the search for it robs my children of our relationship. The perfect educational opportunity is worse than lost if by the time it eventuates my girls are traumatized by Mummy's traffic temper. The end doesn't justify the means if the means destroys the end.

The right kind of better is better understanding of each other. Better focus on the needs of others. Better ways of investing energy into the character development of my children. By the way, right now one is asleep and the other two are out at Bunnings with Daddy, so I'm not detaching myself from my family to write this!

If I'm honest with myself, I'm trying to fill myself up with my searches for better things and better ways to do things. I'm trying to fill up a great, gaping, bottomless hole with more emptiness. There's nothing wrong with shopping online or looking for people of like mind or admiring other people's handiwork or looking for better ways of teaching - not of and by themselves. There is something seriously wrong with unconsciously looking to those things for a sense of fullfillment.

So... it's time for me to reconnect with reality. Time to get back into the mucky world of actual human interaction. Time to invest myself in the relationships that won't disappear when the power fails.

Rise Up In Submission!

Submission is usually viewed as a dirty word these days. It smacks of out-of-date values and patriarchal oppression. What could possibly be good about submission?

This isn't entirely about submission, but the negative emotions that tend to be attached to 'submission' are representative of a troubling trend. See, I've noticed something about my generation of women. It may be true of the men too, but since I have the most to do with other mothers, that's who I'd like to write about. We don't like to take advice. More specifically, we don't like to take advice from those who out-of-date values would urge us to call our 'elders and betters'.

We don't mind our friends reassuring us that we're doing fine, but when someone older suggests that there might be a better way to parent, we muse that they can't possibly remember what it's like; or we shrug off their comments as old-fashioned, misguided or downright wrong. What makes me think that my six years of parenting three children is superior to twenty years raising five or six? Certainly it's not a good idea to listen to everyone with an opinion - we'd spend our whole lives going round in circles. However, I think we need to carefully examine what makes us reject what our 'elders and betters' have to say.

Having come out of a medical research background, the latest research is not a good enough reason to close our minds to different ideas. Researchers are still human, they have unavoidable biases - ALL of them - and at any given time most researchers are really only looking at one variable. At one time, the latest research showed that soft drinks caused polio. Later on, another scientist found that polio and soft drink consumption were two unrelated effects of the same cause - warm weather. So how do we choose who to listen to?

The book of Proverbs tells us that there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of it is death. I fear we are all too ready to follow the trends of what seems right today, instead of going to the source of Truth to find out what is right today, tomorrow, and ever more. Instead of simply embracing parenting styles that seem right, we need to ask ourselves honestly if they are in keeping with Biblical principles. And before we object to the parenting styles of the past that don't seem right we need to be ready to consider that they may also be in keeping with Biblical principles.

Finally, I think we young mothers need to be ready to accept that we don't already have all the answers and be willing to listen to someone older and wiser than ourselves on the off chance that they might actually teach us something. Submission isn't voluntary slavery, it's the freedom to let others have the right answers once in a while. There are many other contexts for submission that I'm not even going to touch right now, but I think it's worth starting a revolution. Let's rise up against the trend of knowing it all, and submit ourselves to the possibility of being wrong once in a while. Let's rise up in submission.

Pausing to Reflect

It's hard to believe that it was less than two weeks ago that life changed dramatically for thousands of Victorians. The tragedy of the loss has been on my mind ever since. My heart goes out to those who suffered - I can't even begin to imagine the depths of their grief, so I won't pretend I can.

There is so much that I want to say about what happened and why, but I feel it is not my place and not appropriate at this time. My hope is that people will pause and reflect on life and on our society and turn those reflections inward. It would be very easy to get angry and blame Them, but I believe every Victorian (including myself) should take this opportunity to carefully consider their personal responsibility.

My prayers are with those who are suffering.

Another Secret of Time

We've been going to the pool a little more often now that it's been HOT. I've been amazed to see Miss Curie and Angelina are learning to swim after just five lessons at $2 each a year ago, and one free lesson this year. And even Chatterbox is blowing bubbles.

Do I have brilliantly talented children? No, not really. (Of course, I think they're brilliant because I'm their Mum, but if I'm being objective about it they're not overly sporty.) Have I been teaching them to swim myself? Well, not exactly.

And here we have the second Secret of Time that I'm discovering (only I guess it's not a secret now that I'm telling you). I'm sure many other experienced parents already know it well. If I'd spent bucketloads of money on swimming lessons the girls would probably be a bit better at swimming, but my time just being in the pool with them (and not a lot of time, at that) has achieved almost as much as several hundred dollars.

Now, my point is not to say that swimming lessons are a waste, and this is really not about money either. The great revelation to me has been just how much my time can teach my children. I have occasionally shown the girls how to blow bubbles or given Chatterbox a dunking, and the Raamonster has been involved with giving them rides on his back and getting them to jump to him. Beyond that, we really haven't set out to teach the girls to swim. It seems that just being there, in the water - talking, playing, and admiring their little achievements - was enough.

I don't like the term "quality time" because it usually implies that a little bit of time doing something big is what children need. I think that the evidence of many divided families shows that more time doing little things is more valuable in the long run. I will qualify that, though. In my experience, my time with the girls does'n't "count" for anything if I'm not mentally and emotionally present. Chatterbox doesn't get her "fix" from sitting on my lap while I'm surfing the net. Likewise with the Raamonster.

Well, I could blather on for ages, but my delightful little Angelina is reading a story (she's just learning to read), so I'd better practise what I'm preaching and give her some time!