as i have written in a previous post, i am determined to notice the deeply spiritual nature of the holidays, even in the midst of the chaos of family life with young children. as my old vanderbilt divinity school professor, bonnie j. miller-mclemore, writes:

“limiting spirituality to the ‘inner’ life and restricting theology to the life of the mind ends up excluding a huge portion of life from both faith and theology” (in the midst of chaos, 7).

is there anything in this world that trumps parenthood in its simultaneous associations with the supremely holy and the utterly mundane?

speaking of holy (or shall i say holey?), in the midst of chaos, there is growth.

what sorts of insights are emerging from your own versions of chaos? play along if you’d like. in the midst of erica‘s chaos, there is awe, and in the midst of maryann‘s chaos, there is wonder.

wednesday marked the first day of hanukkah and the first day of december, and last sunday marked the first day of advent. my favorite local radio station began playing holiday music before thanksgiving, and a giant inflatable santa has been looming over union avenue since before the last pumpkin was procured from beneath his (slightly premature) air-filled feet. this is the time of year when i usually get serious about my spirituality.

in years gone by, i have read a bit of tillich each day, edited and published college students’ thoughts on advent, and spent time pouring over wonderful holiday stories by harper lee and truman capote. but those years are as i just described: gone by. there is no time for intense study, no time for ruminating on light in the darkness, no time to be so intentional about making room for hope and divinity and the dawn of new life. 

instead, there are santa beard christamas countdown calendars involving cotton balls and glue. there are cookie-baking parties and charlie brown specials. i think bonnie j. miller-mclemore says it best in her book entitled, “in the midst of chaos:”

“when people think of the spiritual life, they typically picture silence, uninterrupted and serene — a pastor’s study, a cloister walk, a monk’s cell. thinking of parenting, by contrast, they imagine noise and complication, dirty diapers, sleepless nights, phone calls from teachers, endless to-do lists, teen rooms strewn with stuff, and back seat pandemonium. by and large, these portraits are accurate. the life of faith requires focused attention that comes most easily when one is least distracted, while caring for children is one of the most intrusive, disorienting occupations around, requiring triage upon triage of decision and response. can one pursue a ‘spiritual’ life in the midst of such regular, nitty-gritty, on-the-alert demands” (2)?

when the holidays hit, there is no time to simulate the perfect conditions, tie up loose ends, or send grief away on a month-long cruise. my children are just as inclined to create poopy diapers and impromptu marker-on-wall illistrations on christmas morning as they are on every other day. there is no such thing as escaping the chaos in order to locate one’s spirituality. the meaning is IN the chaos. the chaos IS the pastor’s study, the cloister walk, and the monk’s cell. parents have the added challenege and opportunity to look for the extraordinary in the ordinary.

so that is what i’m going to do this holiday season. i am going to look for moments of deep truth and goodness in the midst of our particular brand of pandemonium. and then i am going to post about these moments in an image or phrase. if the bedlam that exists in your house should happen to contain a glimpse of divinity or insight, do share (themsrevolution(at)gmail(dot)com)! there’s no telling what we can find in the midst of chaos.

[source for this post can be found on the bibliography page located on the sidebar to your right.]

if there is one word that has been used throughout the centuries to describe the complex and ever-evolving vocation of motherhood, it is SACRIFICE. there is the physical sacrifice of the body’s shape, the luxury of sleep, and necessary attention to hygiene and self-care. there is the mental shift from adult conversation to peek-a-boo antics and from reading the new york times to highlights magazine. there are the social cutbacks that result when gatherings are carefully planned around nap times and sitters’ schedules, and sleep becomes more enticing than a night on the town. and of course, there are the more existential sacrifices — the sad farewells to those parts of a mother’s identity she once held so dear. we are left uttering phrases such as, “before i had kids, i was on track to become a partner in the firm,” or “before i had kids, i used to love to paint.” even those of us whose lives are a far cry from “father knows best” have given up quite a bit to become mothers.

instead of examining motherhood’s association with sacrifice, our society (with the help of religion) has idealized unconditional self-sacrificial love. but there seems to be a growing number of modern mothers who are grappling with the ideals of heroism and self-diminishment and looking for something more. futhermore, it isn’t even really accurate to describe the whole of motherood as sacrifice. in an article entitled, “parenting: mutual love and sacrifice,” author christine gudorf writes about parenting her two adopted children with medical handicaps. she asserts,

“the most revealing lesson the children taught us is that love can never be disinterested…. every achievement of the child is both a source of pride and a freeing of the parent from responsibility for the child…. all love both involves sacrifice and aims at mutuality.”

in other words, sacrifice is only part of a larger progression toward mutuality.

in her book entitled also a mother, bonnie j. miller-mclemore writes,

“even  in the earliest moments of nurture the nurturer receives something in return, and hopes to continue to do so. the ideal [of unconditional self-sacrifice] harms persons, particularly women, who already are over programmed to give endlessly, leaving them ashamed of the self-interest that naturally accompanies their love…. parents, and mothers in particular, do better to admit, and even affirm, their limits and the hopes and needs they harbor, both in relationship to their children and in regard to their own work” (164).

though motherhood and sacrifice will forever be intertwined, there is more to the story. there are endless gifts, from the first “i love you” to the great privilege of seeing the world anew through the eyes of our children. on my quest to find the middle ground between june cleaver and superwoman, i’ve found many compelling truths but the chief of them is this:

we are not to give everything up, nor are we to try to have it all. and somewhere in between these extremes, amidst all the moments of depravity and richness, there is mutuality, a mutuality that has the potential to increase as we journey further down the road of motherhood.

[sources for this post are located on the bibliography page found in the sidebar to your right.]