Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 60

On Forgiveness, When No Forgiveness Is Possible

Reflections on the Stations of the Cross
Jesus is Nailed To the Cross

Jesus being nailed to the cross, by Michael Willmann, via Wiki Commons

I began this series with a story about a really bad roommate situation. The last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about that situation, and realizing what a grudge I still hold. It’s a little ridiculous, truth be told. That all went down fifteen years ago. What am I accomplishing by clinging to bad feelings? At the same time, it’s not as if I haven’t tried. I have tried to forgive. I once heard it said that the action of forgiveness is accomplished through the speaking of the words–that you forgive by saying “I forgive.” So I quieted my mind and imposed that act of will. I said, “I forgive (name).”

I did that a bunch of times, actually. Clearly there’s more to it than that.

I spent my second spiritual direction meeting chewing on this issue. She asked me to draw out an experience in which forgiveness was very difficult, but I accomplished it. How? What I realized was that for me, forgiveness and resolution are tied together. Resolution implies reconciliation. Reconciliation implies interaction. What made it possible for me to forgive in other situations is resolution, which ends with a relationship that moves forward. So the fact that I’ve never seen these roommates again stands as an obstacle to reconciliation and forgiveness.

What is the solution, then? Am I supposed to scour social media and find these women so I can say, “Hey, remember me? I want to have it out with you about what happened that semester in Iowa.” Uh, no. That’s just picking a fight.

I took a few moments in the middle of that meeting to be still and ask the Spirit for a direction. And the whisper I heard said, “Be reconciled to the emptiness.” In other words, stop fighting the lack of resolution, and make peace with it. Maybe then a way forward will reveal itself.

It’s a bit of a stretch to use the eleventh station–Jesus being nailed to the cross–as a focus on forgiveness. That was something that came after he was already hanging on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And yet that’s what seems most pertinent to me right now. It’s hard to imagine any situation harder to forgive than an entire system and all its minions conspiring to kill you, systematically, slowly and tortuously. There is no potential for resolution here. What is being done to Jesus is a violation so thorough that there is no way back. How could he even spare the emotional energy to consider forgiveness, let alone “make it so” (to insert a bit of Trekkiness into a serious subject)?

I don’t have an answer to this conundrum. As I write, it occurs to me that many people face situations that are, or at least seem, to preclude forgiveness. How do you forgive one who murders a loved one? How do you forgive an abuser? Truly, aren’t some things beyond human capacity?

Spiritual direction took place first thing Friday morning. That evening, as Christian and I lay in bed chatting, he shared with me a story he’d heard. A man chose three people to send good vibes or well wishes to every day. One of them was someone he cared about. One of them he had completely neutral feelings toward–you know, somebody that rides the bus with you every day but you’ve never talked to. The third was someone he did not get along with at all.

As I listened to this story, I realized I was hearing my way forward. I didn’t have to live with that emptiness for very long. It is my heart that needs softening, mine that needs change. So I chose three people to pray for–someone I love dearly, someone I don’t know well enough to have feelings toward, and one of those roommates. Perhaps–I can hope, at least–that prayer eventually will be my resolution, as it was for Jesus.

Kid Quick Takes

Because I can tell those Stations of the Cross posts just aren’t cutting it for most of you…. :)

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Who, Me?

I’ve been realizing anew lately the beauty and the hair-pulling potential that is toddlerhood. Lacking speech, Michael shrieks his displeasure–and you know toddlers are always wanting something for no reason other than because somebody else has it. When he doesn’t get his way, he’s a sight to behold.

Yet outside those moments he is so adorable. He’s so free with his laughter, and so lovable. I really want to write a post on this topic, but I have to wait until after Easter I’m afraid. (Note to self…)

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Nicholas (and Michael) with Mr. Gorilla

Nicholas had his kindergarten screening this week. He got a little overwhelmed as we were walking in–somehow it’s very different to tromp around the parish like you own it on Sundays and choir practice nights than it is to walk in and realize it’s now a school and a whole lot of unfamiliar adults are there to talk to you. For one awful moment I thought he was going to refuse to go. Then he grinned and took off with the first teacher with that Peter-Pan walk, feet spread out wide, bouncing from side to side. The teacher who brought him back forty-five minutes later said she asked him what his favorite part was, and he said, “All of it!”

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He followed that up on Tuesday with a horrible day. Not even so much a horrible day as a horrible late afternoon. It was like a switch flipped, and he said, “That’s it, all my goodness is used up.” I’ll spare you the details. I kept my cool, but that boy lost three days’ worth of screen time and earned an hour of chores, one minute at a time.

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At some point during this ordeal, Miss Julianna stood at the stop of the stairs looking down with her hands on her hips at him, and said, “I count eighteen! Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!”

“Julianna!” I said, but my attempt at severity was severely undermined by the giggle I couldn’t restrain. “It is not your place to count him down! I will take care of Nicholas!”

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Being up at 5 or 5:30 every morning, I’ve come to recognize certain patterns in the kids’ early-morning patterns. Michael, for instance, used to have a fussy minute or two around 5:45 a.m., about the time he needed a toilet. Julianna’s pattern the last few months is vivid dreams in the hour between 5 and 6. She talks in her sleep. She’s hard enough to understand while she’s awake; asleep it sounds like gibberish. But the other day I heard her giggling in her sleep. Her giggle is like silver. It was just darling.

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I’ve come to a realization: I like my children much better when they have no screen time at all. I’ve seen other parents say that aggression goes up when the kids watch TV. I always thought it was because they were watching superheroes or something else with violence built into it, but I’ve been observing the phenomenon in my house lately, and it doesn’t matter if it’s Thomas the Tank Engine, Tinker Bell, Mary Poppins, Minecraft or math and writing games–the instant the screen goes dark, they start getting angry with each other.  I mentioned this to my mother yesterday and she said, “Oh, yes. That’s why I stopped letting you girls watch Saturday morning cartoons. I thought I’d be nice and give you a treat, but you were so bad afterward I said, Fine, enough.” (The business with Nicholas began with turning off the iPad.)

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It’s always interesting to me to analyze the differences in personality among my children. For a long time you can’t really do that, you know? They’re just progressing through early-childhood stages. With Nicholas, I’m finally realizing what probably should have been obvious long ago: his devil-angel tendencies are not a stage. He is a strong-willed child, and nothing is going to make him suddenly become thoughtful and compliant as his older brother is.

I spend more time problem solving how to bring Nicholas along, in terms of behavior, than any of my other children, including the one with special needs. But it’s good for me as a mother. It’s a challenge to both intellect and conscience. I realized yesterday I’ve been absorbed by the overwhelming task of novel revision, and I was not taking time to spend with him. So yesterday we spent the entire afternoon together. I got no writing done at all, but we made these flowers for grandparents:

And I painted a picture with him (which, spookily enough, I had dreamed about doing the night before. This is the picture I painted in my dream).

 

Stripped of Humanity

Reflections on the Stations of the Cross
Jesus is Stripped Of His Clothes

 

Photo by Ania Krawet, via Flickr

The first summer I worked with my dad on the farm, we were also preparing for my sister’s wedding. One morning my mother came out of her room and grabbed me by the arms with a vaguely wild look in her eye. “I dreamed that you were getting married, and you climbed up in the tractor in your wedding dress! And you didn’t know what to do with the train, so you shoved it behind the seat, in all that dust and grease!“

Human society has always imposed a complicated set of guidelines about attire. We choose styles to disguise the imperfections of the body, to flatter our figures or our skin tone, to show respect or to convey a mood. You can overdress and insult a host; you can under-dress and insult a host. We judge people by their clothing choices (Example A: the flap about people wearing jeans/shorts/spaghetti straps/etc. to church. Example B: the saggy pants phenomenon). Schools and workplaces have dress codes, because theoretically, what you wear tells something about you.

Nakedness just isn’t done. It conveys an image of vulnerability or licentiousness, depending on the context. Being stripped naked as a public punishment? That’s a big deal. To be vulnerable is one thing. To have it forced upon you is much worse.

When nakedness is used as a weapon, it dehumanizes the victim. The Romans certainly weren’t the only guilty parties. The Nazis come to mind, and I’m pretty sure nakedness has been used by the “good guys” to get prisoners to talk, too. At a more local level, if you think about it, sexual abuse does the same thing: it forcibly exposes what is meant to be intensely personal.

You and I are not the kind of people who would use nakedness as a weapon. But focus on the end rather than the means, and this hits pretty close to home.

Let’s face it: virtually all of us routinely and systematically go around dehumanizing people who are “other.” Gay or lesbian, ethnicity, Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, atheist, entitled rich, lazy poor, crunchy-granola, Republican, Democrat, “traditional”, “happy-clappy”–we generalize, we label, we list reasons why an individual member of a group is different, and by extension, less-than. Don’t blow this off. It’s insidious. The best of us do it, and most of us aren’t “the best.” If you want to know the truth I caught myself doing it the other day.

And free speech has trained us to say whatever we want about anything and anyone without regard for the dignity of the people involved. I’ve stopped reading through the comments on news stories because I always come away feeling a little nauseous.

Photo by Howard*k, via Flickr

Facebook, Twitter & all are terrific resources, capable of enriching our lives and connecting us to people long gone. But they also make it easy to blanket the airwaves with rants we would never dare to speak to the person involved. That would be rude! Couch it in generalities, though, attach the words, “just sayin’” or “I don’t mean to offend BUT…” and we figure it’s par for the course.

Deep down, we know the darts are still going to hit their marks. But we’re more concerned about our own right to opine than we are about the dignity of others.

And every time we engage in this behavior, we do just as the Romans did when they tried to strip Jesus of his humanity.

Something to think about.

Grief

Jesus Meets The Women of Jerusalem, by Nheyob, via Wiki Commons

Reflections on the Stations of the Cross
Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

There are times when I want to reach into the Gospels and shake Jesus. It’s not all his fault, of course. Some of the blame lies with the evangelists–these guys were not telling a complete story, only the highlights. No story makes complete sense when you’re missing the subplots. Over two millennia things have gotten lost. Context. Tone of voice. Facial expressions. You know. Minor things.

Even so, there are an awful lot of times in the Gospels when Jesus seems determined to willfully misunderstand. To be deliberately obtuse–quarrelsome, even. He gets up to read in the synagogue, and people are impressed with his wisdom and understanding, until he gets done insulting them, at which point they want to stone him.

This is another one of those times. Jesus is carrying the cross he’s about to be nailed to, and some women are weeping for him. Does he thank them for the love they show? No, he gets all, “Hey, don’t cry for me–you’re the ones on the you-know-what list.”

The set of Stations we used when I was a kid (and which they use at Alex’s school to this day) interpreted this as Jesus setting aside his own suffering to comfort the women of Jerusalem. All I have to say is, if that’s comfort, I’ll take suffering.

Ah well. Jesus was constantly setting people back on their heels, not just Pharisees but his own disciples. So I’m in good company. And the fact is, every time a Gospel story makes me say “Whaaaa?” I respond by thinking and reflecting on it.

In this case, I think the takeaway is about the purpose of grief. When we confront untimely death, either of a loved one or a complete stranger (think Malaysian jet liner and mudslides), we tend to focus on how tragic it is for them.

And yet the sorrow we feel is really not for them, but for ourselves. I think everyone knows that on an intellectual level, but sometimes we don’t follow that knowledge to a point of deeper self-awareness.

Loss can open our eyes to ways in which we’ve gotten our priorities out of whack, or to character flaws we’ve chosen to gloss over. When I find myself confronted with untimely death, I think, What things did that person leave unfinished? What relationships went unrepaired? What regrets might they have had? What regrets do their loved ones have?

And then I begin to ask myself the same questions–and that is when things change.

Weep not for me. Weep for yourselves and for your children. It’s provocative, and I’m sure there’s more to the story than what we’re given in the Gospel. Even so, maybe this is Jesus’s way of saying, “Don’t wallow in your grief and then go back to business as usual. You’re heartsick over the suffering you see, but how is it going to change you? How will it redirect the trajectory of your life?”

Some questions can’t be asked too often.

A Cold Day At The Zoo and other Quick Takes

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I planned a trip to the zoo this week for spring break. Of course, silly me, I assumed it would actually BE spring, but apparently that’s too much to ask. It was twenty-four degrees when we left home. Christian assured me it would warm up quickly as soon as the sun rose. Two hours later, when we pulled into the zoo parking lot, the temperature had managed to brush the freezing mark. With a strong wind.

 

Alex takes a break from talking Minecraft with his buddy to pose with Mr. Gorilla

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Did I mention I was plus-one? We invited Alex’s friend along, so it was me and five children. And did I mention Julianna was sick? She threw up before we even got to Alex’s friend’s house. I was really not sure I was making a good decision, but frankly the idea of dealing with the kids deprived of the trip they’ve been anticipating all week was just more than I could stomach.

 

Nicholas (and Michael) with Mr. Gorilla

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The carousel at the St. Louis zoo is free for the first hour, and despite having a zoo membership and tickets to blow this year, we figured it was wiser to make for the carousel while it was free. The problem was the kids were cold, and there was a jackhammer working next door. Michael spent the entire ride shrieking.

 

The first animal Michael really thought was interesting.

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Despite the rough start, it turned out to be an enjoyable day. We alternated indoor and outdoor displays so we could warm up every few minutes, and by noon or thereabouts it was actually a civilized temperature to be outside, provided you wore a heavy coat that was zipped up. And Julianna only threw up once more.

(Right there is the sign of a veteran mom, n’est-ce pas?)

 

We were buying souvenirs and I thought about getting this for Michael.

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The real moral quandary of the day was this: I had planned to end the day with a visit to my ninety-year-old grandmother, and I really, really wanted to see her, but I really, really didn’t want to expose her to The Bug. I ended up calling Grandma to ask what she wanted me to do. We had a mother-to-mother conversation about the nature and duration of this bug, and she decided we should come on over.

I made Julianna keep her distance, but by now Julianna seemed to be on the mend. She ate Great-Grandma’s saltines and asked me to run the player piano. She perked up as soon as I started playing Chim-Chim-i-nee and A Spoonful of Sugar and Puff The Magic Dragon. Then the boys joined us. All told, we had about forty minutes of player piano time, after which we took Great-Grandma out for dinner and headed home. Julianna, predictably, kicked the bug in a third of the time it took the rest of the family. I tell you, for a girl whose babyhood was peppered with hospital scares, she’s healthier than anyone else in the family.

Grandma and me at dinner

 

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Here’s a Julianna story. The night before the big trip, she began whimpering and complaining about her tummy hurting. “Do you need to throw up?” Christian asked her as she stood over the toilet.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. “Do this: HUAAAAAAH!” (You’ll have to use your imagination on that one.)

Julianna went, “HUAAAAAAH!”

“Okay, all done?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, get in bed, then.” And off she went. We didn’t hear another peep out of her all night.

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Obligatory mention of The Novel That Won’t Die: It’s a good thing I have a deadline, because this last (or perhaps I should be realistic and say “latest”) set of changes is going so s-l-o-w-l-y. In the past I’ve waited to incorporate changes from my critique partners until the whole works was done. This time, because I’m trying to hit the aforementioned deadline (a contest), I have to do both at the same time. Man, it’s going slowly.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I spent three days down for the count from The Bug. Today (I’m writing Thursday afternoon) was the first time I was able to exercise in a week. And Spring Break doesn’t help either. But I think that’s just life, and I have to deal with it somehow or another.

Veronica

Reflections on the Stations of the Cross
Veronica Wipes The Face of Jesus

Photo by contemplative imaging, via Flickr

One thing about growing up on a farm with three siblings is this: there’s always some sort of vehicle available, but that doesn’t mean it’s in great shape. Cars get really beat up and gunked up when they spend that much time on gravel, and we changed our own oil (why yes, I do know how to change oil…though I haven’t done it in so long I’m not sure I could find all the right outlets at this point), so they never got looked over by mechanics until something actually went wrong.

And then sometimes the warning signs were there, but I was too inexperienced to know how serious it was, and my parents were too overwhelmed by minor things like, I don’t know, harvest, to be able to take time to test drive it.

Thus it was that at 6:40 on a Saturday morning, when I was supposed to be at school checking in for a band trip, my car instead was wheezing, smoking and eventually coming to a sorry stop at the edge of a completely deserted two-lane highway, three miles from home and a mile and a half from school. I was frantic. Being a classic Hermione Granger, I’m still not sure if I was more panicky because I was stranded or because I was going to miss the band trip, which was part of my grade.

In any case, I took a deep breath and took a logical first step. I needed to get the car off the side of the highway. I put it in neutral and started pushing it with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the open car door.

And then, salvation came in the form of some random nice stranger who did not attempt to molest or kidnap me, but helped me push the car around the corner onto the first turnoff, and drove me to school just as the bus doors were closing.

As the bus pulled out, I made a vow: I will never, ever drive by somebody on the side of the highway who needs help, ever again.

Naturally, that vow has been broken a fair few times. But even so, it was a formative experience for me. I never forgot what it felt like to be helpless and terrified and alone, and have someone show kindness. When I chose a Confirmation name later that year, I chose Veronica, because Veronica had wiped the face of Jesus. She had served Christ in need. That was what I wanted my Christian life to look like.

Photo by Damian Gadal, via Flickr

It still is. So this stop along the Via Dolorosa is more meaningful to me than most. The thing I find most profound is that even though Veronica did what she did out of the goodness of her heart—out of love, without thinking about reward—she came away with something truly priceless: a physical reminder of Christ. Yet another reminder that doing things that are uncomfortable and difficult do, in the end, bring us joy.

Backup

Simon Helps Jesus Carry The Cross

At the end of November 2011 I learned two terms I’d never heard before: “irritable uterus” and “wimpy white boy.” Irritable uterus leads to 37-week C section. 37-week C section leads to “wimpy white boy” spending ten days in the special care nursery two hours away from home.

Ten days in the special care nursery two hours away from home leads to…well, a family situation nobody was prepared for. Christian was trying to work–because he couldn’t take time off while I was gone and be there to help when we got home as well–and keep the kids’ anticipation of Advent activities. And clean. And cook. And grocery shop. And oh yes, prepare the choir for Christmas.

Thank God, he didn’t have to do it by himself. As it turned out, the ranks mobilized. My parents. My sister. Friends took turns watching kids, too, so Christian could work and grocery shop and meet choir obligations. People brought food. Cleaned the house. Took care of school transport. At my end, once I was officially checked out of the hospital, people brought food to save me from beggaring myself in the hospital cafeteria.

It was a humbling experience. We had always been sticklers about thank you notes, but it was soon clear that there was no way we were going to be able to keep track of who we owed thank you notes to, much less get them written. And I realized that if the tables had been turned, I wouldn’t have been at all worried about receiving a thank you note.

As long as we’re alive, there will be unpleasant or difficult situations forced upon us. Like Simon, impressed into service to carry a cross up to Golgotha. It’s good for us to be reminded that even Jesus didn’t get to Calvary all by himself. He needed help to carry the cross.

Then again, did he, really? Isn’t this more like it was in the desert, at the beginning of his ministry, when the devil tried to get him to use his divinity to his own advantage? Jesus could have thrown himself down and required the angels to save him. Likewise on the way of the cross, he could have played the God card to get him to the top of the hill. But that would sort of defeat the purpose. Because his human frailty, which made hade him need help, serves to remind us that we don’t have to carry our burdens alone, either. In fact, we can’t carry them alone.

The idea of rugged individualism sounds great, but the reality is that we need each other. Especially when those tough times come calling, and we’re faced with situations nobody should have to handle. Think of 9/11, of Sandy Hook or Katrina. Stories of heroism come out of the worst tragedies and the ugliest realities of human existence.

We need each other. That’s what Jesus teaches us in this station. We need each other, and when we are willing not only to give with grace, but to accept what others give, that is when humanity shines brightest.

Down Syndrome Awareness and Impromptu High School Reunions (a 7QT post)

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HAPPY T21 DAY!!!!!!!

Three copies of the twenty-first chromosome, or 3/21. Also known as the first full day of spring. I think that’s appropriate. Because there’s so much more life in life with Down syndrome than the uninitiated person thinks when first encountering Trisomy 21. I thought life as I knew it was over. In a way I was right–things changed–but not for the worse.

Watch this two-minute video. Please.

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For example: Wednesday evening I took Julianna up to church for choir practice (me) and church school (her). Our church is half a block from Applebee’s, Wendy’s, Ruby Tuesday, Taco Bell, and a steak-pizza place. So when you step outside you never know what fried-and-or-grilled yumminess you’re going to smell. “Wow,” I said. “That smells good, doesn’t it, Julianna?”

“Fiss…taco!” she said.

“Fish taco? You are silly!”

Julianna’s silvery giggle made me smile as I backed out of the parking lot.

She sang “Spoonful of Sugar” for a while, and then, about a mile from home, returned to food. “What..iss…my fayvote….thing…to eat?” she asked herself. “Um, um, um, pah-ta and bok-ley” (she’s not kidding; she scavenges plates for uneaten broccoli) “and ah keem and FISS…TACO!” Hysterical giggling. First grade humor, Julianna style.

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Speaking of first grade–a week ago I met with the principal, Julianna’s teachers, and a district sped administrator about holding Julianna back for next year. They wanted me to know what services are available in the years following high school–the law says kids can be served by the local school district up through age 21, and in some places the local district offers job training programs for that three-year window following the standard high school time frame. Not here, though. Here the goal is to have students graduate on time, or add one semester or year if it’s really necessary. Given that and the reasoning laid out in an earlier blog post, the principal decided to honor our request. So Julianna will spend one more year in the first grade. We promised them we’d never ask again. :)

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On a more serious subject: In the past month or so, there have been three unexpected, untimely deaths among my acquaintances. I haven’t talked about it because it’s not my place to put other people’s lives on display, even if it did impact my life. But this week I lost a high school classmate–the second of my classmates to pass away since this school year began. I’ve done a lot of soul-searching the last few months connected to these two deaths.

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My high school class got together around the funeral/visitation of this classmate. We started reconnecting on Facebook a couple of years ago in advance of our 20th reunion (twenty years! How is that even possible?). The thought of myself as an adolescent, as I said earlier this week, gives me the willies. The thing is, when I was in high school I thought I was the only one who was misunderstood and misfit. It never occurred to me that–gasp!–EVERYONE FEELS THAT WAY. (Duh.) As I’ve spent time around my classmates in adulthood I realize how very much I like them–men, women, people I never talked to in high school because I was so intimidated by social interaction. It makes me wish I’d understood earlier what it means to be an introvert.

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Photo via Wiki Commons

Call this one “I’d Rather Eat Ice Cream.” The night we got together, I was the only one not partaking of a beer. I had to drive, so I didn’t want alcohol (I have pathetically low alcohol tolerance), and I only had about an hour to spend with them, so I didn’t want to waste a minute going to get a glass of water. But I think my classmates weren’t sure what to make of it. Maybe Kate’s a teetotaler?

The truth is that since I started counting calories I classify all food & drink in one of two categories: Worth The Calories or Not Worth The Calories. I’ll have a margarita or a daiquiri on occasion, a glass of wine–but most of the time, given the choice, I’d rather save the calories for ice cream. :)

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Did you see this?—Hug more, Scold Less: Strict Parenting Linked To Childhood Obesity. My first reaction to this headline was to go leave a scathing comment about nonsense. We are very strict with our children. That’s why they’re so well behaved. And not one of them is anything even close to overweight, much less obese. Now, I’m fully aware that this is attempting to disprove science via anecdote. Nonetheless.

Of course, I hug my kids all.the.time. And we do talk about the why behind food rules. So I’m strict, and I hug. Gasp! The two are not mutually exclusive! What a concept!

Meeting Mommy

Reflections on the Stations of the Cross
Jesus Meets His Mother

Does anyone actually say “This hurts me more than it hurts you”?

I have to admit I have my doubts. I certainly never heard it except in a Bill Cosby routine. I can’t help thinking that’s one of those “elder” tales that everyone learns without ever being told, like walking three miles uphill both ways in the snow.

And yet there are times when I know there’s a truth beneath the tall tale–at least in the case of the pain a parent feels on behalf of his or her child. How many times I’ve wished I had that horrible virus instead of my kid, because I can take medication and I know how to cope with it. How many times I walked into the PICU/NICU braced against that heartsick twist as I looked at the masses of wires and IV lines and sometimes vent and NG tubes. My baby couldn’t feel it; she was heavily sedated. But it hurt me.

There are other kinds of heartsick on the way. Every once in a while I snag a glimpse of them, when Alex wilts under a slight real or perceived, when awkwardness or embarrassment sends his tender soul diving for cover. In temperament he is exactly like me, and I still get the heebie jeebies when I think about adolescence. It warn’t pretty, folks. Not at all.

Yeah, exactly. Apropos of nothing, I think that may be the tractor my mom used for my first driving lessons.

But there can’t be anything quite like watching your child die.

Jesus Meets His Mother

I can only imagine that as Mary watched her son approach the cross, she wasn’t thinking of angelic visions or gifts from kings, prophecies fulfilled or miracles achieved. She must have been remembering that game he played, where she threw her arms open and he, giggling, ran full-speed into them. That glimpse of tenderness he showed when he was only six or seven, the one that filled her with awe at what a beautiful soul had been entrusted to her care. Maybe even the exasperation she felt when she discovered yet another clay pitcher lying in pieces on the floor.

It must have been hard to be faithful that day.

Our children stretch us in ways we could never have anticipated, or likely borne if we knew about it in advance. They give us battle scars we wear with pride. They bring us closer to Heaven than we’d ever get on our own, not because they’re so angelic (though they are sometimes), but because they grow our hearts, our tolerance, our capacity for unconditional love–perhaps when they suffer, more than any other time.

Fallen

Reflections on the Stations of the Cross:
Jesus Falls

Sunday morning, 8:35 a.m. The family hurrying to and fro, getting coats on to get to church for choir warmup. Nicholas didn’t like the side of his reversible coat that was facing out. He wanted me to change it. I was trying to show him how to do it himself, and he went fish-limp, lip stuck out like a sulky three year old instead of the all-but-five year old he is.

I lost my temper.

Sunday afternoon, deep in the middle of trying to upload a home video–a job that’s been hanging over our heads for months (two Christmases on this video, if that tells you anything). Our camcorder uploads in real time. And woe to you if you touch anything on the computer while it uploads. Ten minutes before it finished, some little finger managed to get over there and disrupt the upload, causing us to have to start over.

I lost my temper.

Sunday evening, after dinner, tearing through video edits and feeling conflicted about not having cleared the table. “I’ve got it,” Christian said, and I breathed a sigh of relief–until, at 9:30 p.m., I discovered he stacked them in the sink instead of loading the dishwasher.

I lost my temper.

(News flash: bedtime is not a good time to lose your temper. Especially if you have a history of trouble sleeping.)

There’s been a lot of stress the past six weeks. The details aren’t important, but my self-appointed task during this time has been to keep the household running and the kids sane–and above all, to make Christian’s life easier by shouldering things I would ordinarily pass off to him. I always knew I had a husband who did a lot, but I didn’t realize just how wearing it was going to be to try to do those things myself on a sustained basis.

Until yesterday.

Falling under the weight of a cross is, unfortunately, something we’re all much better acquainted with than we’d like. Jesus fell down three times on the way to Calvary. So many parts of the Passion got skipped when they put these stations together; why did they put three falls in?

Maybe it’s precisely because the experience is so familiar, so inescapable, for all of us. It’s not falling, per se, that is so hard–although a fall definitely bruises my sense of self as follower of Christ. The trick is to get back up, which requires greater emotional and spiritual energy.

What’s really hard, though, is when I have to do it over and over and over again. Times like these, when stress makes itself known through lack of sleep and a sense of swimming upward through sand, the falls come faster and closer together. And the more times I have to pick myself up, the harder it becomes–especially when so many other people are depending on me.

That last time, it had to be a sheer act of will that brought a bruised and battered Christ to his feet. And although the act of being crucified and rising from the dead to break the power of death certainly outweighs an example of persistence, that example is what I most need to get me through.