I Filled The Diaper Drawer. Then I Freaked Out.

They’re so small.

You’d think that a mother approaching the birth of her fourth child in seven years (well, 7 ½) wouldn’t be floored by the sheer tininess. But as I pulled out our trusty cloth diapers, counted them, stacked them in the drawer, I couldn’t believe it. Every single baby diaper fit in one drawer. After close-on four years of double diapering, it just blew my mind.

I have to admit, I’m kind of freaking out here. People get out of the habit of having babies around, and then they feel a tug in the heart to have another, but they think back on the intensity of the experience, and they get scared off. When we started trying for #4, we were still in full-on Baby mode. But it took us six months to conceive. A lot can change in six months. And a lot more in the nine months that follow. We are no longer a baby household. We are a nighttime-and-nap-time-diapers family. A my-youngest-child-is-talking family. An everyone-has-chores (although they don’t always do them) family.

But seven weeks from now…

Well, let just say it’s making me think about how many more things than diaper drawers are going to change.

Some nights, I already get up seven times in six hours. How in the name of all that is holy am I going to comfort Julianna after a nightmare, the drama king when he has a runny nose, AND nurse a baby during the night?

How am I going to exercise? And post a blog? It’s already a delicate balance to do those two things and still get Alex off to school.

How am I going to chase down the munchkins when they run in opposite directions and I have a baby attached to the breast? (Is it possible to run and nurse simultaneously?)

I’m well aware that the writing is going to have to simmer down for a while. A good long while. But, um, I can’t even get the house clean now. How can I add the time commitment of a newborn on to the kid commitments I already have? The last time I had a baby, Alex was in preschool for a whopping two mornings a week. I freaked out when he had eight weeks of baseball once a week. And now it’s all-day school and piano lessons and homework, and Julianna on the bus, and Julianna’s speech homework, and…

Folks, I’m a little intimidated by what my life’s about to become.

Don’t get me wrong. It’ll all be worth it. The back shot, the surgery, the two weeks without driving and six weeks without lifting, the sleepless nights. It’ll already be worth it a week in—a day in. But there were plenty of times in Nicholas’s first six months when I lost all semblance of cool. And as I begin to contemplate the change to come, I’m kind of scared.

Pour some loving on me, folks.

Just Write
Published in: on October 25, 2011 at 4:09 am  Comments (26)  
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What if My Attitude Shapes Reality?

(Warning: This is going to be an uncomfortable read.)

One of my blog friends started a series yesterday on “the practices of mothering.” Sarah’s blog, Emerging Mummy, is one of the must-reads of every day, no matter how busy. Sarah breathes serenity through her words, exudes a faith that I can only hope someday to emulate in my own life and circumstances.

But when I set out to skim her blog on my reader Monday afternoon, it was as if God was prying the blinders off my eyes, holding my head still and making me look head-on at something I didn’t want to acknowledge.

“The words I scatter so carelessly around me can take root in the hearts and minds of us all, giving a narrative deep in the core about ourselves, the God we love, each other and our world,”

she wrote, and I felt a deep shot in my gut. What do I say to my children? The umpteenth glass of spilled milk, the stepping on the books on the floor even though there’s plenty of room to walk on either side, the dumping copious amounts of water on the floor…what do I say in those times, which come a dozen or two times every day? How am I teaching my children to view the world…and more importantly, themselves?

“I’m not a big fan of complaining about my tinies, of talking about them like they are a gigantic pain in the neck… I never want to make them feel like an inconvenience, like they exhaust me or that I don’t take great joy in being their mother.”

Oh. My. Word. That’s me. Is that what my children think?

Immediately I started listing the tickle wars, the giggles, the kisses and swinging and turning upside down, the book reading and playground-visiting and construction-truck-watching and dessert-making. I tried to tell myself that the good outweighs the bad. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve recognized something in myself that I don’t like.

I have to be honest, I argued. If I pretend like the bad stuff doesn’t happen, I’m sugar-coating the truth, telling only half the story. If I really want to be of use to other mothers, I need to be real. And besides, I’m not being true to myself if I’m all happy-happy.

But then it occurred to me: if attitude changes everything, might it change, not just my vision of reality—but reality itself?

Criticism and negativity form a vicious circle: the more you complain about something, the more you find to complain about. Isn’t that exactly what I’ve been fighting with lately? What if, by choosing not to highlight the bad, but the good, I teach myself to see the world through a more life-giving lens? Isn’t it possible that if I focus on the good, I’ll be better able to recognize it? Is it possible that if I chill out about the mountains of irritations and focus on what’s good and beautiful and holy about my children, that not only will I see the good more clearly, but so will they? And if they see the good in themselves more clearly, are they not more likely to act accordingly?

Holy cow. Hello, Philippians 4.

Published in: on June 8, 2011 at 4:43 am  Comments (5)  
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In Need of a Fresh Start

Anger Controlls Him

Image via Wikipedia

So I’m a slow learner.

I know that attitude changes everything. I know that put-on anger in the interest of discipline leads smoothly to real anger, and real anger to helpless rage, and that starting a cycle leads to looking at all of life in the negative.

And yet here I am again.

On the highway home from choir practice last night, with the remnants of Alex sulking, Nicholas dirty (again, despite plentiful opportunities on the toilet) and Julianna unbuckling Alex’s seatbelt just to be a stinker, I gritted my teeth and said to Christian, “It’s a good thing I’m already pregnant, because otherwise I might just say the heck with the whole thing.”

“Speaking of negativity,” Christian said sternly.

Angry Talk (Comic Style)

Image via Wikipedia

Yeah, fine. But Julianna tore up two scrapbook pages yesterday. Two of my best, mind you. And when Christian called at noon the day before, the phone line opened to the dulcet tones of two children screaming….and screaming…and screaming. (I think it was because we’d come inside for lunch instead of playing outside. I don’t exactly remember now, it’s all running together.) Christian laughed. “Great, go ahead,” I said furiously. “While I’m the one that has to deal with it.”

 

I’m in need of yet another fresh start, people. It’s been coming on for a while, and I knew it. I kept trying to ward it off, nudge the inertia just a degree or two to the left. But here I am. If you’ve got a few spare prayers, toss them my way, will you? Because it’s time to go get the kids up, the Morning After Choir Practice, and I really want today to be a fresh start.

Published in: on June 2, 2011 at 5:23 am  Comments (12)  
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Reflections on the End of the World

Taken May 22, 2011

Image by BFS Man via Flickr

If you knew this was your last day on earth, what would you do today?

Usually when people ask this question, they’re trying to get us to think about our lives differently, to rearrange our priorities properly. It’s a rhetorical device used to make the point that a lot of what we spend our time doing isn’t really all that important.

So what would I do, if today was the end of all things? Well, I’d do a lot of things. I’d keep the kids home from school. Leave the computer off (because obviously the novel’s not gonna get finished anyway). Go out in the middle of nowhere and sit for a couple of hours. Take the whole family out for a 5-star dinner and eat whatever I want, as much as I want.

I can come up with quite a few ways to spend my last day on Earth. You know what all of them have in common? They’re all things you can’t do day after day. What I just described is not sustainable. You have to live real life.

The fact is, we’re never going to know when the end of all things is approaching. People may try to nail down an exact date, like Harold Camping, or they may say, “We may not know exactly when, but everything predicted in the Bible is coming true: wars, natural disasters…so I know it’s coming soon!” The trouble is, wars and natural disasters have always been with us and will always be with us, whether we like it or not. I don’t believe we’re in the end times any more now than they were in 1201 A.D., when an earthquake killed over a million people in Egypt and Syria.

I know none of you need convincing on this topic. I’m only bringing it up to point out that we can’t live “like it’s the last day on Earth”—unless we rethink what that means. We can’t spend our savings, ignore our health in the interest of enjoying the bounty of the world. We can’t stop working and paying the bills in the interest of spending quality time with our families. All we can do is live our everyday lives in the best way we know how: juggling responsibility and relaxation, family and work, and striving to discern the path of righteousness through petty squabbles and earth-shattering decisions. And if we’re doing that, then why worry about when the end is coming? We’re already doing everything we can to be ready.

Published in: on May 25, 2011 at 6:55 am  Comments (9)  
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Great Expectations

The problem with special, “all about me” days—birthdays, Mother’s Day—is that you build up your expectations for them so high that no day can support the weight of the tower constructed on its slim shoulders. After all, a day is pretty much the same, no matter what you call it: the sun rises, the sun sets, it rains, it doesn’t rain, you shower, you eat, you take care of kids…

I’ve had some less-than stellar Mother’s Day weekends—like the weekend we planned a trip toKansas Cityto celebrate. We ate a so-so meal at a really expensive restaurant (well, the meal was good, but the much-vaunted chocolate dessert buffet was distinctly less than exceptional). That trip, my choice of activity was the art museum. But we had two boys—Alex and my nephew—and instead we went to the zoo. (I really don’t like zoos.)

I’ve also had the most wretched Mother’s Day ever. Specifically, two years ago, the Mother’s Day that I spent sitting in the PICU with Julianna. (I felt pretty sorry for myself that one. Wallowed in it, in fact.)

But this year was different. Mother’s Day fell in a really crazy weekend: a wedding, a wedding meeting, a baseball game, a barbecue for a critique partner—and that was just Saturday’s commitments. That doesn’t include the work party we hosted on Friday night, or the bedroom rearrangement we were undergoing, or the broken lawn mower that had to be fixed so we could finish the lawn! And because Christian knew that I’ve been tired and stressed lately, he wanted to make sure I had a chance to relax. Bless his loving heart.

But it doesn’t matter how much someone tries to make a day nice for you—it’s you who decide how you’re going to accept their efforts: with grace, or with petulance. And I’m sorry to say that many years I’ve adopted the latter course instead of the former. Well, this year, I was determined to behave differently.

And so, even as Christian went about trying to give me a day off, I went looking for ways to help lighten his load. And you know what? It was a beautiful day. A day without simmering resentments, a day free of bickering between spouses, and with very little yelling at kids.

A day I would love to imitate every day.

For three cuties on a bunkbed

and moving the boys in together at last
and for their enthusiasm over the idea of being roommates

For a Mother’s day brunch enjoyed outside
and homemade pizza (everyone should have helpers this cute!)

For almost two uninterrupted hours, spent on the delicious pleasure of working on a novel

and the fact that the words finally began to flow on the novel again, after months spent procrastinating while I do other paying projects

For a husband who fixes lawn mowers and makes mattress supports for bunk beds, and involves his sons in the process

For a day spent loving each other instead of working side by side—even though we were working side by side, in many cases, I’ve never fully appreciated the difference before

For beautiful weather
and a concert with my firstborn to end the day

*

 Shared with Multitude Mondays at A Holy Experience

Published in: on May 9, 2011 at 5:45 am  Leave a Comment  
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Sometimes, Motherhood Ain’t Pretty

Frazzled

Image by Martin Cathrae via Flickr

I had intended to piggyback on my Tuesday post, and wax sentimental about the reaction of my children when I walked in the house after a two-day absence. But my final parenting moment last night involved Nicholas screaming…yes, screaming…in my face for ten minutes straight because he dropped a squishy pool ball on his way up the stairs, and I told him he could have it back in the morning.

Maybe I should’ve given it to him. But it was choir night. Bedtime was long gone before we ever left church.

The tantrums have been less severe lately (knock on wood), because I’ve been trying to set him up for success. Being hungry and/or tired sets him off, so I’m more cognizant of snacks. We’ve rearranged the carpool so he gets a full nap at least two days a week every week, and especially on Wednesday—choir day—I try to make sure he gets a very long one. And it seems to be working. He’s eating vegetables now without having to be bribed every other bite, at least.

The difference is in me, too. I know Nicholas hates being yelled at; scolding of any kind pretty much turns him into a sullen, uncooperative lump who hollers so loudly that he actually can’t hear the meaning of anything I say. So I’ve been trying to cool my temper, which—let’s face it—runs on a much shorter fuse than it did when I was a parent of one.

But man, I was tired last night. Unreasonably tired. And I lost my cool.

Before very long, Nicholas had forgotten what he was screaming about; he knew only that he must keep screaming or life as he knew it would pass away. Screaming through the toileting routine. Screaming while having his teeth brushed. Screaming while being diapered. Screaming while having his jammies put on.

I don’t deal well with screaming. It flays my nerves. I can’t breathe properly; I can barely think. Usually I remove the offender: put him in his room and go downstairs, where the noise is only an irritant and not a scouring pad on my soul. I come back in five minutes and offer him a snuggle. But that technique, although usually successful, involves multiple repetitions over twenty to thirty minutes. And last night, I knew it was tiredness. He needed sleep—and so did his roommate, who has school today.

Finally I yelled downstairs to Christian, who was making his lunch: “I’m past my limit! I need you up here NOW!”

Christian came upstairs and walked to the crib, where Nicholas lay on his tummy, still screaming. “STOP IT. RIGHT NOW.”

And you know what? That stinker stopped crying. Just like that.

Insides quivering, I left the room and went to say goodnight to Alex and get myself ready for bed.

These are the motherhood moments that I agonize over sharing. I should couch them in humorous terms, like my friend Abby. I should draw a spiritual lesson out of them, like my friend Sarah. At least ten times during the writing of this post, I questioned my judgment in sharing it at all. If I confess to losing my cool, will I not bring DFS swooping down on me?

But this is real. The beautiful moments? The ones that transcend ordinary life, elevating it to something not much short of Heaven? Those are real. But so is this. It’s part of the growing that I know now will continue until the day I die. And as I put myself out here as a…persona? an expert? or, just as an mirror for everyone else’s experiences…I think it’s important to acknowledge the ugly moments along with the transcendent ones.

Show me some love here, moms. ’Cuz I’m needing it today.

Published in: on April 14, 2011 at 7:14 am  Comments (13)  
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Existing in the Moment

Holy Spirit,

Image by kelsey_lovefusionphoto via Flickr

It’s easier to be thankful in the crisis moments. Crises burn all the pettiness out of life. During them, you really exist in the present. You stop getting angry because the dishes aren’t done and the city didn’t plow your street properly, and your brain hums with awareness of all that is good about the humdrum, ordinary circumstances of life. So really, crisis points are themselves something to be thankful for.

But this was not a crisis weekend. It was just an ordinary weekend at the end of a long week strung with snow days. And I got crankier by the day, for no good reason at all, my vision zeroing in on a snow pile of minor irritants until I had a fight with my husband. And this morning, as I sit down to write down my gratitude moments for the week, it feels fake and super-saccharine to talk only about them, and pretend like the rest of it never happened.

I’m beginning to realize that when I am content, when my brain relaxes, the buzz of the Spirit in my brain signals that I’m existing in the moment. I’m not worrying about the novel without a home, or the novel without a structure, or lesson schedule or getting the carpet shampooed or figuring out Julianna’s future. In those fleeting moments, I simply am.

I had several of those this weekend.

There was the moment Friday afternoon when I sat upstairs, typing Lenten recipes and novel scenes. The sound of giggles downstairs bypassed my usual filters, and I realized—really realized: my children are playing together. They’ve been playing together for half an hour without bickering—just enjoying each other. My fingers paused, my hands dropped to my lap, and instead of thinking or problem solving, I just listened. Listened to the laughter of my children enjoying each other, loving each other. And it made me realize anew how much I love my children.

There was the moment an hour or two later, when all fell quiet for a moment, and then I heard Alex’s voice: “I love you, Nicholas.”

There was the moment Saturday night, when I called my dad and Alex commandeered the phone. And while I tossed clothes in the dryer and got ready for bed, I kept an ear trained on the conversation in the hallway. “I only had school on Monday this week,” Alex said. “I think my mom probably liked it. Because she doesn’t have anything to do except sit in front of the computer all day long.” I paused with my toothbrush halfway to my mouth, a shot of mingled horror and amusement and guilt piercing my chest. Is that all he sees of me? It was like a split-second examination of conscience. I tripped along memories, trying to convince myself that the time I spent with him this week making valentines, playing Batman, reading books and baking, actually counted for something. But it was another reminder that my work is not more important than my children.

And there was bedtime on Sunday, as I sat singing Child of the Moon to my children. Between one word and the next, right before my eyes, Julianna turned to her big brother and smiled, then crooked an arm around him. They looked like high school buddies, not small children. And then Alex turned his head and smiled at her, nose to nose, eye to eye, and love poured out of their gaze and smacked me with the sheer force of its power, stealing my breath for half a second. And in that moment, I understood anew how love can be so powerful that it becomes a physical force in the world, like the Holy Spirit, an uncontainable manifestation of the love of Father and Son.

Moments like these, I ache to capture on camera, but my camera is downstairs in the drawer, and even if I had it on me, by the time I pulled it out and turned it on, the moment would be past. So instead I just sit and drink it in. Ten minutes later, I’ll be mad because somebody hit somebody else or spilled a glass of milk, or distracted by a troublesome manuscript, or the phone will ring and I’ll go back to worrying about NFP presentations and DS support groups…but for that one, brief moment, I am present in my own life.

More gratitudes:

Having babysitting on Friday for the first time in weeks

Getting a lot done because of it

Having the house back, with all family members going where they’re supposed to go M-F.

Alex growing and stretching and relaxing into his role as big brother—and luxuriously enjoying it!

A good book

The first step toward reclaiming my weight

Packing snow

Calvin & Hobbes snowmen, courtesy of my husband

A hush over the creek

Published in: on February 7, 2011 at 8:11 am  Comments (3)  
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Teaching a Healthy Sexuality to Our Children

Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures

Image via Wikipedia

From day one, one of the most intimidating things about parenthood for me has been how to teach my children sexual morality. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. As with every area of parenting, we think about the way we were raised—what worked, what didn’t—and we try to imitate and improve. Of course, what works and what doesn’t is different from child to child within a family, but I’d like to propose a general first step:

Begin by speaking of the human body with respect.

I got to thinking about this at Christmastime, when my sister and her husband shared that their son, a second grader, has recently brought home a fit of the giggles about the word “booby.” Now, we all went through this. Somebody says something at school, you don’t know what it means, or you have a vague idea but not a clear understanding, and it becomes a source of hilarity because you know, instinctively, that it’s a taboo subject. Anything related to the body—whether it’s excretory or sexual in nature—falls under this heading. It happened to me; it happened to you; I feel safe saying it’s fairly universal human experience among children who attend school.

The problem is that then our first lesson in human sexuality is one that turns the body and its most miraculous function into something dirty, something to be giggled about in private, and never really understood.

When I heard that story from my sister, I realized that before long, it’s going to happen to my son, too. And I started wondering how to head it off. That’s when I realized:

The only way to get ahead of this is to start talking about the body frankly and respectfully from day one.

I was working in the Church when the sex abuse scandal hit the fan. Because I worked with school children, I was required to do “Virtus” training. They presented the idea that we should use body terminology with children. We should get them used to the words “penis” and “vagina,” and stop shrouding those parts of our bodies in undignified terms like “wee wee.” We shouldn’t

Eugen de Blaas: The Flirtation

be embarrassed to name the parts of our bodies; our bodies and all their functions are holy. If children’s first lessons in sex consist of dirty jokes and embarrassed giggles, how can we be surprised at the corruptions that ensue in adolescence and adulthood? They’ve laid down a film of disrespect for the physical human person, and all the healthy layers we try to put down on top can’t overcome a shaky foundation.

Christian has always understood this instinctively. He banned the word “boobs” from our house, because it has this connotation of disrespect. If you’re going to talk about a woman’s breasts, say breasts, he says. It’s more respectful of the woman.

Kids need to be introduced to human sexuality the same way they are introduced to everything else: one tiny piece at a time, beginning in early childhood. For a very long time, I resisted the idea that we should be doing sex ed in early childhood. But as time passes, I recognize the wisdom of it. If we wait until a girl gets her period to give her any sense of her own sexuality, then the first associations she has with the subject are wrapped up in awkwardness and self-disgust.

The concepts of abstinence, of the sexual act being something reserved to marriage, and so on—these concepts are built upon a foundation of respect, and if we wait till puberty to teach them, we’ve missed the boat. By then, kids’ attitudes are already half-formed. Cloak the human body in dignity, not in giggle-worthy slang, and you lay the foundation for children who have a healthy attitude toward sexuality—and toward the opposite sex.

It’s not a total solution, but it’s a place to start.

Published in: on February 1, 2011 at 7:05 am  Comments (14)  
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Here And Now

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
-Henry David Thoreau

There are times in life when every word I read seems to be a message from Heaven hammering home a single point. The last two weeks or so have been one of those times. At first, it was just a hint here or there, whispering “joy in the moment.” But although I recognized the squirm in my belly, indicating that this message was looking for a home, I was too busy focused on my family, which looked more or less like this, to pay attention:

Since Christmas, it’s been nothing but sickness and interrupted nights and snow days, and the associated hits to my productivity. I have been gripey and complaining in increasing negativity, in defiance of Heavenly messages. So God upped the ante, until every blog post and news story and every word out of my husband’s mouth pounded at the message of celebrating the moment and the need to stop worshiping at the altar of productivity. And then, I went through the last six months’ pictures, sending $40 of developing to Target in preparation for a new round of scrapbooking, and I realized: Holy cow. Look at those moments! I had forgotten. My life is made of joy.

Living in the moment. Celebration, a blogger said, is how we live in the present. Me, I live in a world of multitasking, the antithesis of living in the moment. My brain is always skipping ahead, wrestling with writing issues, or wallowing in past experiences, comforting myself through the painful slowness of my goals with the thought that someday, the kids’ll all be in school and I’ll be able, like Thoreau, to go to the woods. I can hear Yoda saying, “This one, long have I watched. All her life has she looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never her mind on where she was.”

Here and now. This moment is all I have; the future, as the green guy said, is always in motion. (Wise little alien that he was.) It’s foolish to pin my hopes on an ideal world that in all likelihood will never materialize. I will always have sick kids and snow days, doctor appointments and IEP meetings, school pickup and dinner to make, that will prevent me from retreating for weeks to a woodland paradise. But then, without them, life would be empty. Where would I learn about suffering and joy, beauty and pain, and the way they are all inextricably linked together?

So today I recommit to the count of a thousand gifts: sparkling moments sprinkled in among the gray winter of discontent. Today I commit to learning that elusive skill of living here, living now, of sucking the marrow out of life and celebrating the present.

-Perfect Snowflakes: One drifting down to rest on spidery crystal legs on the rubber strip below the window of the truck. One on the head of one perfect little girl (sorry the focus isn’t terrific–you try getting this girl to stand still long enough to have her picture taken!)

-The way the energy level of the house changes when Alex comes home from school, an immediate electrification of the air, an instantaneous alchemy of completion.

-The warbling giggle of my almost-22-month-old as said big brother chases him around the house roaring, and Julianna sits off to the side giggling uncontrollably at the rank silliness of the menfolk.

-A DQ Chocolate Extreme blizzard, shared with my girl

-Wonderful teachers for my children

-Choir members who build a community around us

-A few stolen moments by the river, watching the ice grind itself into perfect circles as it spins around the bends on its way to warmer weather:

-Gratitudes that are not meant for public consumption

-The chance to submit a manuscript

-The chance to make a difference by working at the diocesan level, and by teaching NFP

-The privilege of the writing gift, which I must remember is just that, a gift, and less important than my ordinary, humdrum life

-The structure that limits my writing time, which makes me focus and produce instead of wallowing and wasting time. (At least, not wasting as much time.)

-Grandmothers who have lived long enough to be known and loved by their great-grandchildren

What do you have to be grateful for today?

Published in: on January 17, 2011 at 6:33 am  Comments (6)  
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Changing the World, One Pixel at a Time

Mosaic of a seagull (using birds and other nat...
Image via Wikipedia

For the last couple of days, everyone has been sounding off on the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik blames the tenor of politics. Rush Limbaugh (of course) blames the Democrats—if not for the shooting, at least for daring to say that  the tenor of political commentary such as his is unacceptable. And although many bloggers just want to vent their outrage, others are using the occasion to forward their own political agenda—of whatever color.

But they’re all missing the point.

It’s a big world out there, and the problems are even bigger. Once in a while, a regular person finds him or herself thrust into a position to change the world—like intern Daniel Hernandez. But most of the time, people like you and me have no control over the big stuff. And the more time we spend bemoaning the state of the world, the harder it is to see that our responsibility in making the world a better place lies in the normal course of boring, everyday life, amid soccer tournaments and office politics. The Big Picture isn’t a single, gigantic image; it’s a compilation of countless single pixels, a mosaic made of billions of individual persons, whose actions send ripples into surrounding pixels. The world doesn’t change from the top down; it changes from the bottom up.

“Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek Neo-Platonic schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the way down to the smallest scale (microcosm or sub-sub-atomic or even metaphysical-level). In the system the mid-point is Man, who summarizes the cosmos.” (Wikipedia)

When we rail against headline-grabbing problems at the “big picture” level, we fail to recognize that these incidents don’t come out of nowhere. The way we treat the clueless clerk at the checkout stand; the words we use when addressing other drivers—this is how we impact the world. These are the lessons our children learn, and build upon as they grow. If we never admit our own fault in a conflict, the next generation will believe that they never have to apologize. If we never make a calm, respectful attempt to reach understanding with people who upset us (at church, at school, at the office), our children will grow to believe that it’s normal to harbor grudges that fester in silence and resentment.

These attitudes grow, like a big snowball of negativity rolling downhill, all the small-scale pettiness, nastiness and cruelty that humanity is capable of, naturally giving rise to more cruelty and nastiness.

I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t be outraged, that suicide bombers and shooters and sexual predators are blameless, or shouldn’t be held accountable. But in the end, the only way to change it is to change the messages that people hear.

File:Closeup of pixels.JPGWhatever your beef is with the world, work to change it within your own sphere of influence. The fact that 90% of children diagnosed prenatally with Down’s are aborted makes me nearly choke with rage. But howling about it isn’t going to change it. When the Scary Bad messages are deafening, and people have nothing with which to counterbalance it, how can I expect them to do anything other than exactly what they do? The only way I can change it is by giving Julianna to the world—publicly, as I do here; by advocating for tearing down the walls in the schools and in the community, and (to a much lesser extent) by weighing in politically.

Changing the world starts with you and me. If you don’t like what you see, change the message in your own pixel. If you abdicate your responsibility because the business of life is overwhelming, how can you stand on any kind of moral pedestal and pass judgment on everything that’s wrong with the world?

Published in: on January 11, 2011 at 7:11 am  Comments (4)  
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