My New Homeschooling Motto

Fight all error, but do it with good humor, patience, kindness, and love.

Harshness will damage your own soul and spoil the best cause.

 -- St. John Kanty

Do It Anyway

Because I am forever a day late (and often a dollar short-- especially if you only take cash and I can't use my beloved credit card), I am posting this beautiful poem the day after the feast for Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. My mom reminded me of it earlier in the weekend, and it seemed more providence than coincidence that I have that reminder right around the feast of this amazing saint of our times.

This was posted in Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta:

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. 

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  

Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. 

 Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. 

 Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. 

 Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. 

It was never between you and them anyway.

Down the Homestretch

"It is our part to seek, His to grant what we ask; ours to make a beginning, His to bring it to completion; ours to offer what we can, His to finish what we cannot." — Saint Jerome

We are currently wrapping up our year of homeschooling. Subjects are slowly being finished, workbooks thrown away, final touches being put on projects, end of the year assessments are being taken. As mom and Chief Education Officer (CEO), I am evaluating what worked for us this year, what we should improve, and what direction our little school will take next year.

I am, by nature, a perfectionist in many ways. I want all the lessons finished 100%. I struggled this year with my expectation that all finished work be completely correct, and if not, completely corrected. I like every "t" crossed and "i" dotted. In my end of the year evaluations, it is easy for me to see all those t's that not crossed, all the undotted i's. It is tempting for me to fixate on all I had hoped to accomplish this year that either was done hastily, done half way, or completely unattempted. I am again reminded of my imperfections as a teacher, a counselor, and a mother.

At Mass this past Sunday, The Feast of the Good Shepherd, our parish priest spoke of vocations. He very eloquently reminded us (by pointing out his fellow priests) that God does not call the perfect. That we should not allow our imperfections, our personality flaws, or our inadequacies, to stop us from pursuing whatever God is calling us to do. While this is so very true of the calling to our vocations, and especially the priesthood, it is equally apropos to those of us called to homeschooling. It is very easy to think we are somehow too undisciplined, too prone to anger or impatience, too distracted, too uneducated, too overwhelmed, or just too "not up for the task." We forget that our calling is less about our abilities and more about being an instrument of God's grace. We forget how God uses the lowest and the most inadequate as shining examples of how his grace can work through us. We forget it is about saying "yes" to God's will, not about being able to do it all on our own.

This year has been a year of learning to say "yes" to God in the little moments, because it is all those little moments that add up to our big eternal "yes." I learned to step back from the big picture and ask myself in each little moment, "Am I doing God's will right now?" Asking is this what I need to be doing to serve God right now has allowed me to recognize when I should be saying "yes" in a different manner, when it was time to put aside my own desires. I learned to serve him in changing the diapers, cleaning the spilled syrup, as well as in teaching mathematics.

 Asking each moment has also helped me learn to leave the rest to him.  If in each moment I was doing all I could, then I couldn't be bothered by what I couldn't do. If I was called away from school to clean a bathroom because two little angels (aka 3 year-olds) had gotten into the toilet *again*, I had to do my best to clean it and then return to schooling. I couldn't beat myself up over being unable to do it all. My daily To-Do List is almost always left with three or four items that I just couldn't get finished. Instead of worrying or giving into the temptation to feel more overwhelmed, I have been working on (only sometimes successfully) trusting in God to bring to completion what He feels needs to be completed.

While I certainly was not able to finish all that I had planned for this school year, I trust that my willingness to be at the disposal of God will allow him to finish all that he feels needs to be accomplished as we wrap up this year's educational pursuits.

Friday Food for Thought

"Without this love, you live a shallow life; you vegetate. Externally you do your spiritual exercises, fulfill the duties of your state in life, but if your heart is not there, life is not there. Without love, everything is painful, everything is tiring, everything is burdensome. The Cross, taken up hesitantly, is crushing; taken smilingly, by free will, and with love, it will carry you much more than you carry it."

--Father Jean C.J. d'Elbee in I Believe in Love

Friday Food For Thought

The Mother Theresa Edition

If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.

Try to put in the hearts of your children a love for home. Make them long to be with their families. So much sin could be avoided if our people really loved their homes.

When you look at the Crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.

Be humble and you will never be disturbed. It is very difficult in practice because we all want to see the result of our work. Leave it to Jesus.

Friday Food for Thought-- Thankulness

“Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.” - W.T. Purkiser

I was saving this quote for the week of Thanksgiving, but I have had so many little blessings this week I decided it shouldn't wait.

I have been feeling pretty lousy the last month or so. The girls all came down with some little bug at the beginning of October and promptly got over it. I seemed to catch it, but have been unable to shake it. I am tired. Unbelievably tired-- more so than I was my first trimester. I have been schooling my girls from the couch. On those few times I attempted to go into public, I found myself not enjoying things I normally loved to do.

It turns out I did have the flu, it had gone on too long to bother to check for H1N1. I also have had a nasty sinus infection. And because of a fluke at the doctor's office, I had my blood drawn and they found I have some anemia. I know this is crazy, but I am glad to know all this fatigue is not in my head. It seems baby boy is still doing well, he sure is kicking up a storm, but I am lightheaded and tired, bone tired. I will be seeing a hematologist in the near future and until then I just have to take it easy--which is about the hardest thing for me to do.

Why did all this mess make me thankful? Because I have been so blessed by friends and family in the last few weeks, if I tried to list them all this post would be pages and pages. My mom came by last night with dinner (again), she brought an amazing meatloaf and my favorite pumpkin roll! She also brought a whole slew of food from my sisters. The girls and I had homemade banana bread for breakfast, and we have dinner (and yummy desserts) for the next few nights. I had a dear friend loan me saint costumes for two of the girls last week so I didn't have to worry about making or gathering them. She also lent me many much needed maternity clothes. It is such a relief to know I don't have to worry about dinner and I don't have to do the wash every three days.

On top of this my girls have really pitched in. Banana has taken on vacuuming, I can't do this at all during pregnancy or after the c-section. Bear has become proficient at cleaning up the kitchen and is even trying to help fold the laundry. On top of all this is my unbelievable dh. He has so much going on at work, but he has really taken on so much more at home. Preparing dinner, cleaning up dinner, bathtime duties, bedtime duties, he's pretty much had to cover them on his own.

So now I am asking myself how am I going to use all these blessings? First, I am going to have pumpkin roll for lunch :)

Friday Food for Thought

A few snippets from beloved saints.

"If I am not in God's grace, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there." -- St. Joan of Arc

"Since Christ Himself has said, "This is My Body" who shall dare to doubt that It is His Body?" -- St. Cyril of Jerusalem

"Love God, serve God; everything is in that." -- St. Clare of Assisi

Friday Food for Thought-- the Long Edition

Have you read Jen's post about breaking the will of God? If not, do so. It is amazing. I haven't been able to get it off my mind. I was preparing a comment and thought that instead of rambling on in her combox, I would post my protracted response here so as not to bore her readers.

This post obviously strikes many chords with me personally. The caller and I have much in common. I have three biological children and recently adopted a fourth and am in the process to adopt a fifth (special needs) child, and pregnant with the sixth. Do I ever get that nagging voice in the back of my head that says I am really doing this for some prideful reasons? Yes. Do I ever feel as though I am thwarting the will of God by adopting? Do I worry about the impact these decisions have on my other children? Are there moments I think we must be crazy? Yes, yes, and heck yes.

I had those feelings more intensely prior to Juliana's adoption. I felt I was somehow tempting fate bringing into our family a child I knew nothing about. If God wanted me to have more children wouldn't he have given us another pregnancy or spared us the pain of so many miscarriages? I would have moments of doubt, and then I would feel guilty for having doubts. I worried about our intentions, I worried we were biting off more than we could chew. I constantly prayed we were doing God's will, but since God doesn't send us handwritten messages giving us detailed descriptions of exactly how He would like us to carry out His will, I worried we were off the mark.

Then I realized God gave me these desires, he put in my heart the desire for children. My desire to be a good mother was precisely because it is through that vocation I could best serve Him. Yes, I could still be prideful, but that didn't mean He didn't will for us to adopt a child. In some ways, those doubts were more temptations to pride. I needed to accept who I was and who God was. Without Him, I don't even have the power to make mistakes. To expect that unless I am perfect in my intentions, I am not carrying out God's will simply cannot be true. My intentions will never be perfect, I am human. I have to trust that God will bring good as long as I do my best to serve Him now, which means acknowledging my failures, confessing them, and then working hard to serve him better next time.

Perhaps my favorite paragraph from Jen's post was:

"What I eventually learned that has brought me immeasurable peace on this subject is that it's more important to ponder how God can bring good out of any situation -- even bad, sinful situations that are the result of fallible humans' mistakes -- than it is to ponder what the details of his will are for any specific scenario. I've stopped spending so much time asking "Was this God's will?" and am trying to spend more time asking, "How can I serve God in love at this moment, right now?" Maybe the situation I'm in is the result of a bad move, but as long as I keep turning to God there will be an opportunity to bring love out of it."

I can't say it any more eloquently than that. Her recommendation of the book He Leadeth Me is one I heartily second. I read and blogged a little about this gem of a book last spring. There are any number of issues in our little household in which we find ourselves looking for God's will and asking ourselves are we clouding His will with our own desires. They come in the form of how we manage our finances, how we manage our time, our discipline techniques, our schooling choices. Really, the list is endless. As I quoted in that older post,

"To predict what God's will is going to be, to rationalize about what his will must be, is at once a work of human folly and yet the subtlest of all temptations. The plain and simple truth is that his will is what he actually wills to send us each day, in the way of circumstances, places, people, and problems. The trick is to learn to see that-- not just in theory, or not just occasionally in a flash of insight granted by God's grace, but every day..."
From He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek.

Now that Juliana has been part of our family for almost a year, so many of those doubts have melted away. Before the adoption, even on the plane ride to China, I worried about our decision. Now I can't imagine life without her. On the plane ride home, Juliana had a terrible fever. It was higher than any of my children had ever experienced. I was worried sick for her and I was tired from the whirlwind trip we had taken, and an exhausting plane ride. On the 11 hour flight from Tokyo, I sat next to a Korean man. He had two daughters of his own. He asked about Juliana and was shocked to learn we had three more little girls at home. He asked if I really thought I could love Juliana as much as my biological children. Had he asked me that question two weeks earlier on the flight to China, I might have been hesitant. However, after two short weeks, looking at that dear sweet child, sick as she was, I already knew the answer, I already loved her that much.

When I think back on the process, the moment I truly realized this was without a doubt God's plan-- Juliana's baptism. No matter what my intentions were, no matter how flawed I was, this child, solely through God's providence was welcomed into the His family, His church. That moment was so monumental, I knew that my intentions were completely insignificant and I thanked God for taking them and making something of beauty beyond comprehension.

Friday Food for Thought

I had really hoped to post something relating to guardian angels since today is the feast of guardian angels. However, most of the tidbits I found about angels were a little too schmoozy for my taste. So you get a good quote from my patron saint, St. Frances of Rome. She was especially close to her guardian angel who would light her path so she could tend to the poor. For this reason she is patroness of motorists.

Her quote seems very fitting to our week here. I missed Mass last Sunday because of JuJu's emergency room visit (a very, very rare occurrence for me). Since then I have wanted to attend daily Mass each day. This hasn't been possible because each girl has successively come down with this bug. Today is first Friday and a feast, and I am afraid we won't make it to Mass. Banana is going to have to go to the doctor for a strep test.

“It is most laudible in a married woman to be devout, but she must never forget that she is a housewife and sometimes must leave God at the altar to find him in housekeeping.” ~ St. Frances of Rome

And just so I am not entirely neglectful of today's feast, this little quote made me smile after a long week of tending to sick children:

"The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly." ~G.K. Chesterton, "Orthodoxy"

Friday's Food for Thought

I am really enjoying this Friday quote post. Today's quote has to be one of my all-time favorites. It is from a prayer book I found at a used book store, the book is probably one of my favorites as well.


"You may dazzle the mind with a thousand brilliant discoveries of natural science; you may open new worlds of knowledge which were never dreamed of before; yet, if you have not developed in the soul of the pupil strong habits of virtue which will sustain him in the struggle of life, you have not educated him, but only put in his hand a powerful instrument of self-destruction."
St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

Friday's Food For Thought

Continuing last Friday's quote, here's one for this week. You'll recall Banana's comment about my age. That combined with this pregnancy making me feel I am not as young as I was (Banana's pregnancy was a decade ago), led to this week's selection.

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

h/t to my dh, always one to remind me how old I'm getting :) Good thing he's right there with me!

Courage

“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is a quiet voice at the end of the day, saying ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”– unknown

I came across this quote on the Internet a few days ago. I don't remember exactly where, but it jumped out at me. It has been a long few weeks around here. Unfortunately, there have been a few moments I roared, though not out of courage. This reminded me tomorrow is a new day-- a new opportunity for the quiet courage demanded by my vocation.

I would love to hear other quotes, sound bites, adages, or proverbs that hit home for you this week. I am thinking about making this a Friday tradition for me as I have quite a few in my draft posts.