I have been contemplating this phrase recently, as I realize that there is no semblance of spirituality in my life as present, and I feel as though I am creeping back into my pre-Catholic ambivalence toward prayer. I find it increasingly difficult to remember that I should be praying, much less to actually carry through with a prayer that isn't in direct response to something I have heard or read--either about a friend of stranger's needs. I have always had a difficult time praying for my own "needs"--usually because I feel that they are imagined, or that I am beneath notice (a perspective that our pastor described as coming from a place of spiritual dryness, which describes me pretty well, I think) but that is a different topic altogether.
I have never been a very spiritual person, really. I found Catholicism liberating in part because the types of spirituality were varied, and the ones I was acquainted with required very little of the "personal relationship with God" kind of thinking, and memorized prayers provided much comfort--even though I hadn't (and still haven't) memorized all that I should have. Also because intellectual activity could be a form of spirituality. My first experiences of letting go of my defenses against spirituality was yoga, which immediately preceded my conversion, and on which I have posted before, in the earliest (and least successful) days of the blog. Eventually, I discovered a shallow level of Eucharistic spirituality, and developed a sense of closeness to God in prayer (particularly to Christ) which I had not previously experienced. This left me hungering for more, though since my daughter was born, I have had only minimal glimpses, occasional tastes. Moving, teaching, another pregnancy, and personal conflicts of one sort or another (often of the religious variety) have made these less frequent and have made me forget to seek them.
Many of the blogs I occasionally peruse (I can't really call it reading them lately--I hardly get a chance to sit down in front of the computer, and wouldn't at all if didn't have a laptop) have a definite relationship with prayer. There are prayer requests, accounts of prayer, even blog entries that feel like--or explicitly resemble prayer. There are accounts of day-to-day activities that are prayer-filled (the accounts and the activities). Many (but not all) of the blogs that I'm describing now are written by mothers. These are busy women!! So there is not a lot of discussion about solitude and contemplation. If there were, I am not sure I would believe it! So from this I get a rather busier version of St. Theresa's "Little Way"--that spirituality is to be found in little, everyday acts which are the path to holiness. I can see the various benefits in that kind of thinking. It was quite a novel idea to me in a way when I first read about the "Little Flower." But I confess that this kind of spirituality is beyond me--at least at this point. Yet I almost get the message--and the feeling--that this is "maternal spirituality." So many things alter with pregnancy and caring for children, it seems natural that a quieter, personal spirituality (shared spirituality is also beyond me--at least outside of Mass) should be one of the casualties. And the sheer logistics of trying to arrange my daily schedule so that I can teach for an hour and a half and make it to campus with a half-hour or so of office hours is exhausting. That reminds me! I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I don't know how I will make it. I believe in the possibility of doing academic work int he presence of children, and in caring for my own children as much as possible, but sometimes it all becomes cause for despair. And with the new apartment, I don't have to pay tuition for my son, but I can't really afford child care if I need it for the toddler. Luckily I have arranged it so that in the fall, once again, I will be free during the day with my daughter (a mixed blessing some days, as it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with her, especially as she enjoys her new-found taste of freedom in the new apartment). But I digress, and forget where I was heading anyway.
My point here is that the "Little Way" Spirituality doesn't work for me, and I have no solitude either for contemplation, prayer, reading, or academic work. It has not always seemed this bleak. I feel awkward leaving by myself in general, especially if my purpose for leaving is vague even to me. I always feel that I am leaving something behind. And during the day, I have no time alone and I am constantly busy with something that involves someone else. I feel guilty about the dissertation because I know that someone will be on my case about it at some point--in a couple of weeks when he returns from vacation (what a concept!!), actually. I had felt guilty about prayer. Recently, I haven't even remembered to feel guilty. And this is only one of the things that I imagine becoming more difficult when the new baby arrives. I have become a "Sunday only" Catholic, and not by choice. And Mass is so hurried, and so occupied with a squirmy toddler, and my thoughts stray to how the new one will fit in to the wrestling with children scheme. . . It goes by too quickly, and not quickly enough. In my first ecstasy of conversion, my discovery of spirituality, I did not imagine that I would experience such a waning. I think of this sometimes when I wander over to or check the post titles of "Et tu, Jen?"
13 comments:
This is a great post.
I am in awe of those mothers that seem to always 'keep their eye on the prize' and never seem to get distracted like I do.
At VBS last week we had a little problem with a couple girls wanting to leave early and skip out on Mass. I invited them to stay and come with their parents but they didn't want to. Ok. I was really nice to them but I was a little upset that their attitudes were so snotty. Their teacher said to me, "I just kept praying and praying for them and asking the Holy Spirit to tell me what to say" ... that hadn't occurred to me to do!
Some people consider the busyness of mothers itself to be prayer. That we've dedicated our lives to this vocation of ours and our caretaking itself becomes prayer because we're doing it not just for our children but for Him. I think that actual prayer is necessary and good but in times like this when you are feeling overwhelmed, I think you should cut yourself some slack and understand that God understands. He knows where your heart is.
Entropy has an excellent point; I couldn't have said it better myself. When you are fulfilling your role as mother, wife, teacher, sister, daughter, etc., you can and should see this as developing your spirituality. You are not a "Sunday only" Catholic, as this blog post proves. You are a very busy Catholic. Add that business up to the Lord; I promise you He understands. Heavens, He gave you all the busy-ness to begin with.
By the way, it was nice to hear that another mother finds the caring of children to be overwhelming at times; I thought I was just a poor mother or wasn't handling it well. Cheers.
-C
By the way, it was nice to hear that another mother finds the caring of children to be overwhelming at times; I thought I was just a poor mother or wasn't handling it well.
Have I given this impression? I didn't mean to. I know how I'd like everything to work out, but that doesn't mean it always ends up looking like it should. I'm more patient than I used to be, but that's not saying much!
Thinking some more... The other thing is, I don't want to be satisfied with this "busy-ness-as-spirituality" and I guess I feel guilty for feeling like I just don't have time for anything else right now. :P
One thing to keep in mind as you peruse other mom blogs is that most of us present a picture of our lives that is distorted. Not intentionally; but we tend to blog about the moments of great success (or great failure) and not the teeth-gritting getting through the day busyness.
I sometimes wonder what kind of impression people get of my prayer life as I read the blog. I sound like such a good pious person sometimes. But I tend to blog more about the times of fruitful prayer than the long stretches of spiritual dryness. On the flip side, I think that blogging about my prayer life makes me more attentive to it and reminds me to pray.
That's one reason why I blog prayer requests. It helps me remember to pray.
One thing that just occurred to me as I was writing this: Have you thought about praying for time to pray? When you become aware of feeling frustrated and guilty, ask God to help you find more time for him in your life or for the ability to offer up your busyness to him, to draw closer to him as you go about your work. Faith itself is a gift and so is the ability to pray. It doesn't come from us, it comes from God. So we have to ask for it.
I've been praying for you as I pray for all the pregnant moms I know, but I'll include your prayer life in my prayers to. When I remember to pray.
One last thing: some days I don't think I would pray at all if we hadn't instituted bedtime prayers with Bella. After her bath and right before we put her down we go through a little ritual of blessing her with holy water and praying for all our friends and family and loved ones and all the intentions people have asked us to pray for. Then we say an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be. It's a nice pause in our day when we're all together and with God, even if she does squirm and fuss through most of it. If you don't already pray with your kids, you should think about starting bedtime prayers with them.
Whatever you can give God, he will give you back. As Melanie said, so many of us paint a picture on our blogs that is unintentionally distorted. None of us are perfect. I hope that all of us have moments like what you describe - I think Mary probably did too. What mother of a toddler (or toddlers?) doesn't?!??!? Their job is to test.
I can only get through my days with prayer. Sometimes I mean it and sometimes I don't. I just have to trust that God can make the best of it - and of me - despite my failings. Because I'm trying...and so are you.
Don't be too hard on yourself. You're a mother. That is its own path to heaven. I think Jesus must know this too, or HIS mother wouldn't be Queen of Heaven, right? :)
Stay strong. I'll say a prayer for you.
We should never be satisifed with our spirituality "as is". We should constantly be looking for ways to deepen our faith and our expression of faith with God. But we do have to recognize that we are only human. And...don't forget to pray for yourself. You mentioned you often neglect this but you must try to remember to do this. We all must pray for ourselves as praying for ourselves is a very humbling experience. It reminds us that we can't go it alone - a prideful thought by the way. We need the help of God constantly, so always pray for yourself. It's actually easy to pray for others (those poor poor people who need ours and God's help...note sarcasm). Praying for ourselves, on the other hand, is a different story. It's kind of like not wanting to go to confession because you can't think of any sins you've committed. A priest once told me that that is when you need confession the most! Was that rude? Sorry if it came across that way. I didn't mean it to. I just know that I, too, fall victim to forgetting to pray for myself.
-C
Hmmm... The reason I tend not to want to pray for myself is less that I feel like I don't need the help than that, you know, God's probably busy elsewhere right now... Ha ha. And also that I feel like it's selfish to ask and ask and ask for help for this or that, even if its for growth (though I do that more--it's the help for specific situations that I find is difficult). I mean, isn't prayer in part to get us to think outside of ourselves? This is a passing thought. I'll have more to say later. I appreciate Melanie's thought:
Faith itself is a gift and so is the ability to pray. It doesn't come from us, it comes from God. So we have to ask for it.
And to Sarah for her thoughts on mothers! :)
And C, I don't think there's any danger of me being satisfied. Ever. :P (Well, in a lot of life's aspects, anyway. Marriage--yes!!) I used to take pride in that streuben nach dem unendlichen (if I remember my German Romanticism correctly--"striving for the infinite"), but it gets annoying and difficult to live up to! ;)
"And also that I feel like it's selfish to ask and ask and ask for help for this or that, even if its for growth (though I do that more--it's the help for specific situations that I find is difficult). I mean, isn't prayer in part to get us to think outside of ourselves?"
It is, yes. But that's the end goal of prayer rather than the first step. It seems to me here we're talking more about setting out on the beginning of finding a prayer life rather than the final heights of mystical contemplation.
It helps to look at the one prayer Christ himself taught us to pray, the Our Father. This is the most profound prayer you will ever pray. And it's so simple a three year old can say it perfectly.
First, we start by acknowledging our complete and utter helplessness and neediness. Before God all or us are newborn babies who can't do a thing for ourselves. And just like babies sometimes we don't even know what we need or how to ask for it. We just know how to scream. But like a good father, God interprets our screams and gives us what we need, and his response is much better than a human father's because he can read our minds and see our souls and he doesn't make mistakes.
We ask that his name be holy, not because it isn't already; but that it be holy to us, that we remember who he is, his power, his goodness, his love and we call him by name with the proper reverence and love and trust. Thinking he's too busy to hear us, is treating him as if he weren't really who he says he is.
When we ask for his kingdom to come on earth, we're asking for him to come into our lives and order their minutest details. If my heart is truly his kingdom, then everything in it belongs to him and he is responsible for it all. But I have to turn it over to him, if I cling to running things my way, he'll let me be the boss of me, even if I botch it up.
Jesus tells us to ask God for our daily bread. That's all the little inconsequential things we need to keep going day in and day out. He's reminding us that nothing is too small to pray for. Even if it's just thinking of what to make for dinner when you're tired or what to give the kids for lunch. Yes, I actually prayed about that first one today.) Even a slice of bread is not too small for him to care about if it concerns us. He'll take care of all our needs if only we ask him to.
We ask God to forgive us and that's a biggie because we're recognizing that we screw up. All the time. And he's paying attention. And so we need forgiveness. But we also need to forgive others and to forgive ourselves too. If God can forgive the worst sinner, he can forgive all the screw ups I've made. (Yelling at the baby, ignoring her cries to do just one more thing or get another minute of sleep, all the mess ups we make of our lives and our kids' lives.) But only if I'm sorry, which means letting go of the guilt once I've repented.
Finally, when we ask him to protect us from temptation and evil, we're acknowledging all the pitfalls of our lives. (I usually think of my worst faults here: my lack of patience with whiny babies, my selfishness like my desire to read all day instead of doing housework, or my laziness in letting something slide until tomorrow instead of doing it now.) If we start praying by acknowledging the difficulties we have, then we're bringing our real selves to God, not false masks. To be honest with him, we have to start off our prayers by admitting to ourselves that we need help.
That's why in the Liturgy of the Hours the first prayer of the day starts "Lord, open my lips" and every hour starts by asking, "God, come to my assistance; Lord, make haste to help me." We can't do it alone, even the most holy of us can't even pray without God to take the first step and open our lips for us.
I forgot to add my main point: the our father is a very needy prayer. We keep asking for stuff for us, us, us.
But the one way it keeps us from being too selfish is we pray in the first person plural not the singular. We acknowledge that the needs we have and that we present to God are universal, human, part of being God's family. In the set prayers of the Church, except for the Creed (in the Latin and every other language, it's singular not the butchered plural we use in our bad current translation), we never pray alone, we always pray in the plural. (it used to bug me to pray "Bless us, O Lord" when I was eating alone until I realized I am not alone but praying with everyone else in the world who is eating today.
So if it helps, pray your prayers for yourself and also for all other mothers who are in the same boat. When you pray for the ability to pray, pray for those others who don't know how to pray or who don't have time to pray for themselves. That way you aren't being selfish, you are also reaching out to your brothers and sisters in need.
The other thing is, I don't want to be satisfied with this "busy-ness-as-spirituality"
Me too, though I really haven't done much in the way of moving beyond that. I gotta confess here: my only dedicated prayertime of the day is when we say a decade of the rosary at night with the girls.
I say the morning offering sometimes, and if someone or something pops into my head during the day I'll offer a quick prayer about it.
And of course we go to Mass on Sunday -- lately that feels like much more of a sacrifice than a spiritual respite.
Mrs. D- I totally understand what you mean about Sunday Mass!! It's more about keeping the toddler pacified than anything else! (Except that it's beginning to be about whether I can kneel with a belly!)
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