Living a Well-Ordered Life

This past Sunday our priest gave a wonderful homily.  He said that if we pursue joy and peace, we will not find them.  We must first pursue a properly ordered life, pursue order, and peace and joy will then follow.  Currently, we do not live as we were designed to live.  We do not live well ordered lives.  God tells us what a properly ordered life should look like in the ten commandments, and if we do not follow them we cannot have peace and joy. (Note: the order of the ten commandments is such that the first three = how to properly love and worship God, the last seven = how to properly love your neighbor.) Even Christ on the cross had peace and joy because He was following the Father’s will.

I was then thinking about this is connection with homemaking (of course) and life in general.  It is not a matter of opinion, but a fact, that we need to live well ordered lives.  We live in a time where everything is fast paced; we have tons to do and there are lots of demands upon us; and we are constantly surrounded by distractions telling us “not to do” what we need to do.  Personally, on the days where I am ordered and efficient—when  I clean the house, am kind to my family, exercise, say my prayers, and don’t waste a lot of time—I am a much happier person.  (Amazingly enough, those also tend to be the days where I able to relax in the evenings as well.)  On the flip side, the days where I am not ordered—when I don’t say my prayers, don’t exercise, the house is a disaster and I can’t manage to get anything done—these are the days where I get impatient and irritable, and stressed.  On these days I am also very unhappy as I get mad at myself because I know that things are not as they should be.  

One thing that I am not saying is that to live a well ordered life, a person has to have a clean house in order to be happy.  Yes, in my family, that is the case.  If the house is messy we all get cranky, we have a hard time making ourselves do what we need to do, we are less hospitable, etc.  However, for some people, an untidy home may not bother them in the slightest and it does not affect how they love and worship God or love others.  A clean house is not a matter of truth.  But, if as the homemaker the state of my home does negatively affect a member of my family, then I need to address that and examine why things are in the state they are in.  Is it because I was too busy watching that television show to put away the laundry and vacuum the floors? Or is it because I was making paper snowflakes with my children and baking cookies for my neighbors?  Is cleaning your home and taking care of your family one of the Ten Commandments? No, but loving God is, and how can we truly love God if we do not properly care for what He has given into our keeping?

1.     I, the Lord, am your God. You shall not have other gods besides me.

2.     You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain

3.     Remember to keep holy the Lord's Day

4.     Honor your father and your mother

5.     You shall not kill

6.     You shall not commit adultery

7.     You shall not steal

8.     You shall not bear false witness

9.     You shall not covet your neighbor's wife

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods

Ordinary Service

“We are ordinary Christians who lead an ordinary life”

God is not removing you from your environment. He is not taking you away from the world, or from your condition in life, or from your noble human ambitions, or from your professional work... But he wants you to be a saint - right there! (The Forge, 362)

No matter how much we may have reflected on all this, we should always be surprised when we think of the thirty years of obscurity which made up the greater part of Jesus’ life among men. He lived in obscurity, but, for us, that period is full of light. It illuminates our days and fills them with meaning, for we are ordinary Christians who lead an ordinary life, just like millions of other people all over the world.

That was the way Jesus lived for thirty years, as “the son of the carpenter” [1]. There followed three years of public life, spent among the crowds. People were surprised: “Who is this?” they asked. “Where has he learned these things?” For he was just like them: he had shared the life of ordinary people. He was “the carpenter, the son of Mary” [2]. And he was God; he was achieving the redemption of mankind and “drawing all things to himself” [3].

As with other events in his life, we should never contemplate Jesus’ hidden years without feeling moved. We should realize that they are in themselves a call to shake off our selfishness and easy‑going ways. (Christ is passing by, 14-15) 
                                                                              ~quoted from the Opus Dei daily message

As I was reading this it made me think about our conception of "ministry" and homemaking. (And what I am about to write sort of changes the subject slightly, but in a way, they go together.) It is often true that the homemaker is someone who also does a lot of volunteering or ministers to others. Some women who were extremely service oriented before they became wives and mothers might even go too far and completely exhaust themselves in the effort to "do it all."  We tend to only applaud and admire those who do a lot of ministry outside of the home, as if certain types of service mean more than others.  It is important to note that there is a time and a place for everything.  It is one thing for a woman who has children old enough to take care of the younger ones, to leave the home, and kids, for certain hours of the week and volunteer.  But for a woman who has babies and toddlers and diapers and naptimes, for her to volunteer would mean having to get a babysitter. When this is the case, careful thought needs to be put into this act of service. We need to remember that taking care of our own families and homes is also a ministry and it is our first ministry (for this time in our lives).  If my going and teaching religious education classes to other people's children means that my kids don't always get their own religious education (or on a more mundane note, that my house is messy, my family eats fast food for dinner, and the laundry isn't folded), then there is obviously a problem. (though, it is easy to take this too far and begin to use it as an excuse to not ever do anything.  There is a fine line here that we need to be careful of.)  One thing that we can do is carefully pick and choose what we Can do without taking away from our families.  For example, I attempt to make meals for women who have just had babies, as this is something that I can do in my own home.  Prayer is another means of service for the mother of young ones, and we all know that we need lots of prayer.

The point I am trying to make is, your home is a ministry, making meals, cleaning, changing diapers, is all service to others, it is an Ordinary service.  There are no bells and whistles attached to homemaking, no one puts on a banquet or gives rewards to the homemaker, but she is serving nonetheless.  This service is not less important because it is done in one's own home

Family

People often stereotype what it is like to be around family members during the holidays. And while I never realized it until recently, a lot of people don't get along with their family.  Some people may read that and think, "duh!" but I grew up in a family where we were really close, so, to me, it is rather an alien concept.

I have three brothers, no sisters, and five cousins. I have always been extremely close with all of my family members and I love being with them.  This Christmas all my brothers and I will be spending Christmas with our parents (and families) and we will try to be together as much as possible, not just on Christmas day when we Have to be together.  We are all very different with unique personalities.  Three of us are Catholic, one is Protestant; three of us majored in history, one in English; three of us are boys, one is a girl; three of us went to Hillsdale, one to West Point; three of us played baseball/softball, one didn't, are we noticing a pattern here?  While we do not have everything in common, we do find that we agree on the really important stuff.  We are all Christians, we are all happily married (and don't believe in divorce), we all love our parents and each other, we all discipline our children, and we all homeschool our kids. The list could go on about our similarities and differences, but the point I am trying to make is that we do not get along because we have everything in common. Our jobs are different, some of our views on parenting are different, some of us watch television and some don't, some can sing and some are tone deaf, but we LOVE to be together.  Do we still occasionally fight? Yes.  Do my brothers still try to just pull my chain? YES! But if we had the choice between being together or being with our dearest friends, we choose our family because we like each other just that much.  And, at least in my case, my best friend is part of my family.

What does this have to do with homemaking?  I want my kids to be as close with their brothers and sisters and cousins as I was with mine.  But that is not something that just happens accidentally.  You have to teach your children how to love their family.  While I fought with my brothers A Lot, I was also taught how to respect them, and how to treat them with kindness.  My father taught my brothers how to protect me and watch out for me, and they always have and always will.  If we just sit by and say, "Oh, they will love each other, they are family"  they might, but not necessarily.  I didn't have to teach my son how to love his sister, but I do need to show him how to treat her with kindness, how to protect her (not sit on her), and how to recognize that "when she hit you, she didn't mean to hurt you, she really loves and admires you."

The type of home that we create, and the culture that we surround our children with, will form how they view family.  I don't want my kids to have an uncle that they have never met, or cousins that they can't name. I want my children to be excited about holidays, just like I am, because that means they will get to be with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, and sisters.  One of the ways that we encourage our kids to love their family is to pray for different family members each night. Also, when Sebastian was younger we made him a photo album with pictures of all his cousins and aunts and uncles in it and we would go through it with him to make sure that he could recognize the family and know which cousins belonged to which aunt and uncle.  If we don't teach our kids that family is important, then they will grow up thinking that it's not.  Love is a choice, and while we can't choose who our family is, we can choose how to love them.

Sanctify Your Work

"There is an urgent need for spreading the doctrine of Christ. Store up your training, fill yourself with clear ideas, with the fulness of the Christian message, so that afterwards you can pass it on to others. Do not expect God to illuminate you, for he has no reason to when you have definite human means available to you: study and work. (The Forge, 841)

The Christian must have a hunger to know. Everything, from the most abstract knowledge to manual techniques, can and should lead to God. For there is no human undertaking which cannot be sanctified, which cannot be an opportunity to sanctify ourselves and to cooperate with God in the sanctification of the people with whom we work. The light of the followers of Jesus Christ should not be hidden in the depths of some valley, but should be placed on the mountain peak, so that “they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” [1].

To work in this way is to pray. To study thus is likewise prayer. Research done with this spirit is prayer too. We are always doing the same thing, for everything can be prayer, all activity can and should lead us to God, nourish our intimate dealings with him, from morning to night. Any honourable work can be prayer and all prayerful work is apostolate. In this way the soul develops a unity of life, which is both simple and strong.

We have considered the reality of our christian vocation: how our Lord has entrusted us with the mission of attracting other souls to sanctity, encouraging them to get close to him, to feel united to the Church, to extend the kingdom of God to all hearts. Jesus wants to see us dedicated, faithful, responsive. He wants us to love him. It is his desire that we be holy, very much his own. (Christ is passing by, 10-11)"

~ From the Opus Dei daily message for December 12, 2012

One of the hardest aspects of homemaking is sometimes the mundane(ity) (not a word, but it should be) of our tasks.  The world tends to despise the homemaker because they do not understand her.  They also do not understand the concept of sanctifying your work, which is, I believe one of the saving graces of the homemaker.  Perhaps in a larger sense, mopping my floors and washing my dishes isn't That important, but it all depends on the manner and attitude of how I mop and wash.  In the reverse, not mopping and not washing can become a sin if I am just being lazy and selfish. When performing my duties I need to remind myself Why I am doing them. Each of these tasks is part of the larger work of creating a home for the glory of God and the service of others. 

Organization, It's a Good Thing

I am not a naturally tidy or organized individual. However, I LOVE for things to be clean and organized and I am married to someone who absolutely HATES mess.  What does this mean? It means I need to have a clean house or my husband gets stressed out and uncomfortable (I, also, tend to get cranky because I don't like mess either).  The question then arises, how does a rather untidy and unorganized person keep a clean house without spending All of their time cleaning? Because we all know that we really Can't spend All of our time cleaning.  You spend time thinking about how to be more organized than you are and what to do to make yourself better at what you do. I do this a lot.

What people often forget is that organization and tidying up after oneself actually gives you more time to do other things.  When I walk in the door I can either hang up my purse, put away my keys, put my shoes in my closet, and hang up my coat (and also teach the kids to do the same things), or I can stack everything on the dining room table to be put away at a later date.  Then, when I actually need to dust or vacuum, I first have to spend at least 30 minutes tidying up all of the mess around the house, this is time lost.  It took me a long time to recognize the truth of this extremely reasonable idea, but I have finally gotten there.  Does this mean that I always put things away immediately? Of course not, I am struggling against my natural tendencies as a dining-room-table-stacker, but I recognize that there is a better way to live.

I have, therefore, been devoting some of my thoughts about organization to the horrid task of grocery shopping.  I really hate grocery shopping.  We only have one car so in order to go grocery shopping I have to do the following: (if I want to stay on budget and not have to make more than one grocery shopping trip) menu plan, take Patrick to work, go to two or three different stores with my kids, get home, feed the kids (as it is lunch time by now), clean out the fridge in order to fit in the new groceries (throw out all of the food that has gone bad), and put away the new groceries. Spend the afternoon recovering (I wish) and then later, pick Patrick up from work, drive through rush-hour traffic to arrive home and make dinner.  Like I said, I hate it.  So, I was thinking that there had to be a better way without my resorting to grocery shopping on Saturday or Sunday.  Then, during a recent conversation with a friend of mine she mentioned some things that she does when preparing to grocery shop and so I decided to come up with a Grocery Shopping Plan.  Here is the plan.

                                                             Grocery Shopping Plan
Wednesday: The day before the actual shopping.
  1. Menu Plan: Make sure that I do it when I am slightly hungry so that it is easier to pick meals.  (I have tips for menu planning, but I won't get into those now.)  Menu planning means that I am also making my grocery list at the same time.  Make sure to plan a, make-ahead-meal, for the actual grocery shopping day, either soup or a casserole. 
2. Clean out the refrigerator.  (This tip is from my friend and I thought  it was genius.) This way, when I get home I can just plop the groceries in and save tons of time.
Thursday:  Grocery Shopping Day
 1. Eat a good breakfast.  Never go shopping when hungry or thirsty or you will find yourself buying all kinds of things that you do not need and aren't on your list.
 2. Make sure that the kitchen is clean before leaving the house.  The last thing that you want is return home and have no where to set the dishes down.
 3. Shop. 
 4.  During the afternoon, make dinner so that when I return home with Patrick in the evening, dinner is ready.

This is the plan.  The goal is to make this plan a habit so that I always naturally follow it, and make my life less stressful.  You will notice that the amount of work that I have to do has not changed, just the manner and order that I do it.  

As you may have gathered by now, I think that homemaking is extremely important.  But, I am by no means a perfect homemaker.  I do, however, think that part of being a good homemaker is constantly striving to be better.  I very often fail, but the important thing for me to do is recognize my faults and not accept them as inevitable. 

I Have Done Enough

My sister-in-law recently had an interesting conversation with a fellow academic.  At one point during the conversation the man said that his wife had sacrificed by putting her career on hold in order to have a baby.  Now, he would like to have more children, but he thinks that it is not fair for him to ask her to sacrifice more.  She has, in his words, sacrificed enough. 

I am relaying this story not to gripe about the “One Child and Done” mentality or the woman who has a baby and then must hurry back to her career.  What I find so very sad about this conversation is that it is an example of a point of view that is rather widely held.  Many people seem to think that we have a “right” to be selfish.  We can give of ourselves, but only so much because there comes a point where we have sacrificed enough and we now deserve to think of ourselves; we must put ourselves first.  Even if we are not as blunt about it as this, we still hold this view, I know I do.  Every day when my kids go down for a nap, I take some time to relax and get my energy back for the rest of the day.  It is a good thing that I do this, it is best for my family that I do this as it means I am not as cranky.  However, it is not my RIGHT to do it.  If I have other people to take care of and a house to clean and there just isn’t time in the day for me to take a break, I don’t get to say, “Ok, I have given enough today, I’m just not going to make dinner or change any more diapers.” It doesn’t work that way.  God doesn’t tell us to love selflessly as long as it is easy--that is why it is called a Sacrifice. 

Sacrifice is the “forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.” When we decide that we have “sacrificed enough” we are saying that other people are of less value to us than ourselves.  Think of this definition and how it applies to Christ’s crucifixion.  Christ sacrificed Himself for us.  He decided that we were more important, of more worth, of more value, than Himself, than of God Himself.  Yes, Christ rose from the dead, but He died, and His rising makes His sacrifice no less significant.  But what if He had changed His mind?  What if, after one set of scourging Christ decided that He had sacrificed enough, that He was done.  Part of a crucifixion is not enough, Christ had to DIE, not just be badly wounded. 

Considering the sacrifice that He made, God asks very little of us in return.  But, we are called to be like Christ, which means that we are also called to suffer.  The modern world thinks that sacrifice is a bad thing, but it isn’t.  When we suffer, when we sacrifice something for others, we ourselves are changed for the better.  If I devote selfless love towards my family, it will increase my understanding of the selfless love of God.  And when we sacrifice and give to others, we need to do so, not grudgingly, but with a joyful heart. 

Someone Watching You

As I was making dinner this evening(Actually it was a couple of minutes ago. The dinner is now in the oven and I should be cleaning up the dinner-prep-mess, but I am writing this instead). To continue, as I was making dinner this evening my husband came into the kitchen and it popped into my head that he would probably ask me "what's wrong?" (he didn't by the way).  I thought this because whenever I am tired my demeanor is very similar to when I am upset about something, probably because they often go hand-in-hand.  But this evening, there was nothing wrong, I'm not even THAT tired, comparably.  Thinking about it a moment I started to wonder what I am portraying to my children, to my spouse, and to others, through the Manner in Which I do something.  So, while I finished making dinner, I pretended that someone was sitting in my kitchen watching me. When I did this I immediately noticed that I stood a little straighter, I was more efficient, and my face probably looked a bit happier.

   How would we live our lives differently if there was always someone watching us?  It can't be the same person each day or we would grow complacent towards them, like we sometimes do with our spouse.  But what if a new person came into your home every single day and just sat and watched how you clean your home, parent your children, cook meals, and spend your free-time? Would your day look different? Of course it would, we want to project the best picture of ourselves that we possibly can.  We recently had some men working on the tile in our kitchen for a couple of days.  I found that on those days I was more patient with the children and an all around better mother because there were strangers in my home who heard how to talked to my kids.

   What we often forget is that while there is not someone sitting at my kitchen table observing how I make dinner, there is always someone watching us. No, not Big Brother, but our children, and our spouses, our guardian angels, and, most importantly, God.  We should tried to remember that and, just maybe, it will help us to, if not be more organized and efficient, to at least be a little more joyful as we go about our tasks.  I want to teach my children how to do something well and with a good spirit, so, like all things in parenting, I need to set that example first.

Caroline Ingalls: A Good Homemaker

I love Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books. I have read the Little House on the Prairie series many times over the years, both as a child and as an adult.  I am currently rereading them aloud to Sebastian and he is loving them.  Whenever I finish a chapter, I tell him what the next one (that we will read next time) is titled and he always says something like this, on the chapter where Pa builds a new floor and roof for the house, “Oh, can we please read one more chapter, I never knew how to build a roof before.” Or, when we will be reading about building a fireplace, “Oh, can we please read one more chapter, I really want to know how to build a fireplace.” As a young girl, I was never very interested to read about how Pa built everything, but that is what Sebastian loves. (This is but another example of the differences between little boys and girls.) These books are so wonderful to read to one’s children as they have MANY examples of how a child should obey his/her parents.  There is one instance where Laura is out in the barnyard at night with her mother. They are going to go and milk the cow since Pa is away in town and when Ma goes to pat the cow, she discovers that it is in fact a bear.  She turns to Laura and says “Go into the house Laura” and Laura turns and obeys.  This scene was a perfect opportunity for Sebastian and I to then have a conversation about the importance of obeying one’s parents without arguing. The last thing I want is to ever be in a dangerous situation, to tell my son to do something, and for him to turn to me and say, “why?”  There are many wonderful teaching moments within these books, but I digress.

   It is always fascinating to read books as a child and then to reread them as an adult. This is not the first time that I have read these books since I became a homemaker but each time that I do read them, I am more and more impressed with Ma.  In my mind, Ma is the perfect example of a good homemaker.  Here is a woman who, without complaint, moves from a comfortable home in Wisconsin that is near lots of family members, to the wilderness of unsettled Kansas, miles from another human being and even further from civilization.  And she does not do this only once, but rather moves multiple times in order to start all over.  She works so hard to provide and care for her family, and even in the wilderness, she teaches her daughters how to be young ladies.  As a former schoolteacher, she was extremely well educated and she passed her love of learning on to her daughters.  I think that Caroline Ingalls is a homemaking inspiration and I always work so much harder around the house after reading about all of the things that she did just to keep her family fed and clothed. But she didn’t just do the bare minimum, wherever they went, she made a home for her family. Laura often describes how comfortable and clean their houses were with the checked tablecloth and lamp on the table, the beds neatly made in the corner, and the little china shepherdess up on the mantle.  Caroline Ingalls cared for her family and she did so to the best of her ability.