Adulthood

I wonder if the point isn’t to reach adulthood
Without bad memories.
Much of childhood is training, after all,
And training is not often pleasant, but painful.

I wonder if the point is to reach adulthood
Growing in wisdom, and in favor with God and man.

Which is not to say that childhood should be harsh,
But that if a child matures well,
Even with some vivid memories of correction,
That’s to be expected, and, indeed, unavoidable.

One Nap

His whole life, Caleb has napped
On my back, in the bed, in the car,
Without real pattern that I could tell.
When he was sleepy, he slept.

These last days, he has taken one nap.
Long, in the middle of the day.
He is ready for bed by 7 or 8,
And wakes by 7, the happiest baby you’ll see.

I say this to the concerned mother in me:
Yes, you do notice things.

Stray Comment

A friend of a friend
Watched us tell of our struggles,
Our thanksgivings.

Later she said,
My crowd sticks to the surface.
We keep our junk to ourselves.

But you all just talk about it.
That’s probably better.
Why don’t we all do that?

I don’t know.
But consider this
An invitation to openness.

All So Needy

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
It’s clichéd and makes me a little mad.

But if I set aside the anger and let myself
Actually look at the ways I don’t measure up,
The sorrow I feel as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend,
I think of how needy we probably all are,

And I resolve again to be kind.

Gospel as Incarnation

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And the word became scripture.

We understand that God took on human form
And lived in a specific place, in a specific time.

Could it be that we should understand scripture
Similarly, that words came to a place and time,

That God spoke to the people where they were,
Not in some universal way, but specific?

And if so, how does the incarnation of the words
Affect the incarnation of the man,

And my understanding of them both?

First Thing

I usually try to get up before the children
And get an hour of work done in the silence.
This morning, though, fighting a cold,
We all woke up together
And Joe said, “Mommy, read to us,”
Which he rarely does.

So I gathered picture books and we enjoyed them
Together.

The work will always be there,
But Joe will not.

Reality

Years ago, a sweet homeschooling mother
Was talking to a single mom.
Both had daughters going through puberty.

And when the sweet mother mentioned
Her sweet daughter sometimes slammed doors,
The single mother started to laugh and said,

And all this time I worried that it was
The public school influence on my child!
I would never have guessed you dealt with that, too!

Recently, I spoke with a man who admitted
Fistfights with a brother for the bathroom.
My sons are still at an age of fistfights for a toy.

It gives me hope for my sons, who scuffle,
And then play, and then scuffle again,
That perhaps they will turn out okay.

I can wish for perfect self-control,
But there is time for that, too,
And more growing up that they need to do.