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My kids are in to Harry Potter, and I told them that I relate a lot to the Weasleys, the large family with lots of hand me downs and a crazy but affectionate

mom.  They told me that there are two differences between us and the Weasleys.  One, we are not poor.  Two, our house is not upside down.  They didn’t say anything about the crazy.

Our Lent began in a haze, we all had the flu and infections, we stayed in bed for about 2 weeks.  I had thought about giving up chocolate for Lent, or coffee, but in the end, considering the state of our family life, I have joked with friends that I have decided, for Lent, just to try hard not to give up.

One day, in the midst of the illness, I thought I was well and I got up and hauled myself to an early morning Mass.  The homily was on this passage, from the Gospel of Matthew, and it is a great gift to me, because it has given a spiritual focus to my Lent that I never expected.  I have been meditating on this passage for several weeks now.

Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.  Matt 5:48

For most of my adult life, I have had a love/hate relationship with this exhortation to be perfect.  Yes!  I think, I do want to be perfect, and God wants me to be perfect, so I just need to try harder!  No! I am reminded when I fail, I can’t be perfect, so why does God even ask this of me?  Bible studies have taught me that this perfection can only be acheived in and through Him, so we are more perfect the more dependent we are on the Lord, the closer we are to Him.  We are more perfect when we take full advantage of the sacraments and open up the fonts of grace in our lives.  But still, I never understood, because I have remained so very imperfect.

I had it all wrong, I learned, as the priest explained that a Greek understanding of “perfect” is totally different from our Western understanding.  To the Greeks, this would have meant to be “one, united, whole, complete.”  In other words, it does NOT mean that all of your shoes are lined up neatly in your closet, or that you always know the right thing to say, or even that you never fall apart.

As a classicist, I don’t know how I missed this, but I can really get absorbed in this Greek notion of perfection.  I think of a world view cultivated in white buildings, against a blue sky, reflecting the bright Mediterranean sun.

Perfection is to be united with the Blessed Trinity, and this comes  Only through love.  Whatever you do is perfect if you do it with love.  God’s love for us is perfect, and we are called to reflect that love, back towards God but also out into the world, all around us.  So, you put away your shoes, with love, because you know that the family life is smoother when there is order, or you accept that the shoes are not put away, because when you came in the door you had to run to change a diaper and start dinner and dry a tear and find a baseball glove.  This does not mean that anything goes, but that when you correct your children you do it with love because you know that they need help to make better choices.  When the love starts to slip away, you take a deep breath and say a prayer that the Infinite Source of Love will fill you up again.  You try, a little bit at a time, to remove those things which cause you stress and separate you from God’s Love, but you accept, in humility, that those things which you cannot remove must be there to help you grow, so you try to love them, too.

For me, this unity with God also means asking, at any given moment, what I am supposed be doing, and then giving my whole self to that one thing.  I am supposed to be bandaging this knee, and being present to this child.  I am supposed to be washing these dishes, and feeling the warm water.  There is a peace that comes with it, because I really can only do one thing at a time, and the other things just have to wait.  If I am interrupted, I need to take a moment to think, and pray, am I supposed to stop for this interruption, and change what I am doing, or am I supposed to lovingly put off that other thing to finish this task?

They will know we are Christians by our love, and for perfection that love must be pervasive.  When our lives and our homes are aglow with love, they are perfect.  Western perfection, in the form of order and joy and beauty are parts of this, but they are not ends in themselves, and they are sterile without love.  Even sacrifice is empty without love.  This Lent I have had to do without the strength that comes from checking off a box every day, yes, today I did without butter.  Right now, I am too weak to do without butter, or chocolate, or coffee, or bread.  I can rely only on Christ’s sacrifice to give me the strength that I need each day, and I have had to ask myself, am I acting in love?  I only have His strength when there is love.  Am I trying to be perfect for this world, or perfect as my Father in Heaven is perfect?  Am I doing what I am supposed to be doing, and am I doing it with love?  When I try to be perfect for this world, I work hard for a while, fail, and give up.  It happens over and over again.  So this Lent, I am striving for something much smaller, something that no one can really see, I am trying to love and I am trying not to give up, on myself or on God.  God knew that this was just what I needed.

My feelings toward Lent in the past are no secret.  It is usually a really tough season for me, a mother who feels like at the end of the day of giving all of myself to my children there is little extra left to give to God.

Discipline has also been a challenging idea for me lately.  It seems counterproductive to my free will, which I feel can often be squelched by the demands of motherhood.  Take away my free will and I recoil at the thought of discipline.  Why would I hone and sharpen that which is already so limited?

This year, however, God has graced me with a new outlook toward the disciplines associated with Lent.  He has shown me how desperately I need them to see Christ more.  He has reminded me that true discipline will ultimately allow for greater free will.  It will help cut down on the wasted energies and allow me to devote more of myself to that which brings me joy, the root of which is in Christ.  Greater discipline translates to greater freedom.

If free time is my desire, the discipline of time can do me a world of good.  Do I spend time on the computer and often overindulge without knowing I am doing so?  Yes, definitely.  Do I carry on conversations with friends much longer than necessary in order to avoid the tasks at home?  Indeed.  Do I conduct myself with laziness during the long afternoons?  At times, yes.  More discipline in these areas would actually free up more time to do things I love, like running, blogging, talking with my husband.  From there, added discipline will mean more time spent in prayer, meditation, and study of the Bible, linking me to Him the source of strength and goodness.

And why is it that every year, I seem to have Lenten “aha!” moments like these?  No doubt God must roll His mighty eyes and give a hearty laugh at the repeat wisdom He imparts to little old me every year.

Though tried and true, the lessons of Lent are essential.  They are renewing and rejuvenating.  Add in a little sunshine to the picture with Lent happening in March and April and how can we not glean all the goodness Lent has to offer?  Three days in and I am already seeing the first fruits.  Thank you, Jesus.

From today’s meditation from In Conversation with God:

So many people have their own plans for their own wellbeing that only too often they look on God simply as someone who will help them to carry out those same plans. The true state of affairs is quite the opposite. God has his own plans for our happiness, and He is waiting for us to help him accomplish them – and let us be quite clear about it: we cannot improve on God’s plans….He arranges everything in such a way as to make detachment from ourselves and from our future plans easy…so that we become saints.

A lot to pray about here!

Recently my father and I were having a conversation in which he mentioned a local news story he had seen. He paraphrased the coverage and explained that the producers predicted that the recent economic downturn will create the first generation of North Americans whose living standards will be lower than their parents’ material living standards. In other words, the home you make for your adult family will not be as nice as the one in which you grew up as a child. Until this point in U.S. history the name of the game has always been, to “give my kids more than what I had” or to “make it big.” Now, however, we have seen the macro-effects of a country who got heady with their spending. It all popped. The housing bubble popped, people trying to outdo their parents by buying more were humbled by the crash of credit.

The economic shift hit everyone, not just the irresponsible spenders. I read several articles in our alumni magazine about how 30% of the most recent graduating class has accepted unpaid positions after graduation, 40% work for NGOs and scarcely any are headed to Wall Street. What a change! What a departure from the big days of Goldman Sachs hires and six figure 22 year-old salaries of just six years ago.

Our country has been collectively disappointed by the fleeting nature of material wealth, but I also find myself wondering about the micro-level of these changing expectations. What is going on inside each family, rather than in “the Sun Belt” or the “inner cities?” What is important to us as adults? When Dad mentioned that my generation would be “worse off” then our parents’ generation, my mind immediately snapped to my immediate family. We fit the generalization. We provide “evidence” for this local news story’s headline! My parents were both career naval officers. Yet, my husband and I are living on one Army officer’s salary, we will have a much larger family and he does not intend to make a career of the military. There is little mystery in the world of government salaries. We don’t get Christmas bonuses, nor unexpected promotions, it is all laid out in a little chart that gets approved every year on the floors of Congress. Therefore, it is fair to say that my family is living at 50% the standard of living of the home in which I grew up.

“But, wait,” I thought, “no way, this news story is garbage. You can’t measure my quality of life by the figures that plink into our online bank accounts on the 1st and 15th of every month!” Rather, I think there is something much more profound going on here. Could it be that some members of our generation have made the educated decision to live off less? Is it possible that some graduates of 2000 and beyond insulated ourselves from the economic depression by limiting our expenses before it was a national mandate. Our frugal spending is proactive rather than a reaction to the crisis of a job lost or a mortgage foreclosed. We spend only on necessities to teach our children the way to live rightly rather than shocking them with less spending because one parent lost a job that was needed to “make ends meet.”

So, to that local news team that drummed up a story about our generation’s “lesser expectations” by looking at lower starting salaries or lower family net-worths – I challenge you to look a little deeper. Perhaps there is a cultural shift going on here: led by children who were raised and educated to know what is important and who have, consequently, set out to live our lives with these much changed, not lowered, expectations.

In the recent onslaught of holiday cards and letters, we received the gamut of greetings. We learned of the joys of new babies, the accomplishments of children, the travels of friends and families, and for the most part, the happy reflections of 2009. The reports were uplifting and especially endearing accompanied by pictures of smiling people and children, dressed well and seeming to have it all together.

Happy first week of Advent, dear readers!

When she comes down with 101 degree fever the morning she’s supposed to babysit, as she lies shivering on her sickbed, she will text her 13-year-old best friend. Her 13-year-old best friend has no plans, because she’s 13, so she will happily say yes. Oktoberfest plans for tonight are still on!

Some other reasons to hire 13-year-old sitters?
Reason #137: She will call you Mrs. [Last Name], even if you live in the urban northeast where teenagers typically call adults by their first names at best.
Reason #89: Because she’s only 10 years older than your kids, your introverted and mom-attached 3 year old son will develop a crush on her, making mom and dad’s departure very easy.
Reason #174: Her own mother is still protective, since she’s only 13, which means mom will drop her off, come in to say hello, and be home nearby and on-call throughout the night. Effectively, I have an energetic 13 year old PLUS her mother who has already raised 3 good children.
Reason #2: Because babysitting is one of a few jobs she’s old enough for, she’s more than delighted to have a job and will approach it seriously, with zeal, freshness, and respect. She plays with our children better than any sitter we’ve had.
Reason #1: She costs at least 30% less than late-teenagers… it’s like buy 2 hours get 1 free.

God bless you, Sarah, and all the other dear young sitters out there. Thank you for your sweetness, and for helping us keep the fun and flame in our marriage.

Now go call your 13-year-old sitter today!

In light of the upcoming race, it seemed appropriate to post my current workout routine in the hopes that it will become the next great fitness empire. My husband played golf with the husband of “Mrs. Buns of Steel” and claims his golf game would improve if I could create a similar empire and he could retire and play golf all the time. I won’t make it up from Texas for race day (or will I?!?), which is probably a good thing since I am at least as competitive at Juris Mater and would be killing myself secretly doing two-a-days before and after the kids were asleep just to smoke the other builders in the race.

My workout is entitled: A Trip to Costco.

The warm-up: Gather all belongings pertinent to such an outing, including, but not limited to water bottles, snacks, blankets, cars, books, baby carrier, purse, list, cart cover, coupons, sunglasses, extra clothes, diapers, towels and a tent, because you never know what will happen.

With all items assembled, it’s time to step it up a notch. Carry all aforementioned items to the car along with ~20 pound baby/car seat combo. Strap other two boys into car seats. Good, we’re already working up a sweat.

Use the 20 minute drive to Costco to get in the zone. Listen to some pump up music at a high volume.

When you arrive at Costco, the baby will unexpectedly wake-up and refuse to make the transfer to the baby carrier without eating. That’s ok. You can stretch and do calisthenics as you climb over the seats to remove baby from his seat and feed him while sitting on the floor of the car…also great for you abs as you try to balance to not fall over.

Baby, suitably tired, goes into baby carrier. Proceed to weight training as you lift 40 pound and 30 pound toddlers into cart.

Run from the parking lot to the entrance. Since you parked far away from the door so no one would see you feeding the babe on the floor of your car, you’ve got a long way to go while wearing the baby and pushing 70 pounds.

Flash Costco card, then hand it to your 3 year old. He will proceed to drop it at least four times, not maliciously mind you, but because he is distracted by searching for the free samples.

Work on your agility as you dart off course to pick up said samples.

Need some strength training? That’s on deck as your husband has requested Gatorade. No need to worry about the rookie mistake of bending from the waist to pick up heavy things…the baby strapped to your chest forces you to squat, using the correct muscles.

Proceed through your shopping list at breakneck speed for fear that the baby will wake up any minute, trying hard not to take anybody out with your careening cart. The wild look in your eyes will make the slower carts cower in the center book section.

Ah, but this is all indoors, you may say. How will my lungs be ready to exercise outside? Take a few laps around the refrigerated produce section, because they rearranged it AGAIN and you can’t find the spinach.

Head for the check out line. You will definitely be breathing hard at this point.

Head for the finish line, which is a good thing because the baby is stirring…the person waiting to highlight your receipt just may hand you a medal today…but WAIT! Emergency u-turn. The photo counter was still closed when you began, so you have to turn around to get your on-line ordered photos, straining every last muscle against the forward momentum of the cart + boys + food. The receipt highlighter mercifully lets you take a shortcut through the gate when she realizes the problem.

Finally head back to the parking lot, get in one more round of weight lifting in as you unload the boys and costco items. Baby wakes up on cue. Stretch well while bending to put 3 boys back into their car seats, then collapse into the front seat.

Good thing you remembered to gather all the water bottles during the warm-up. Drink some water and, realizing you didn’t pack yourself a snack, eat half of the boys’ before handing it back to them.

Crank up the a/c. Congratulations. You just completed your workout regimen AND got your shopping done.