Ash Wednesday For Mommies

Image by jezobeljones via Flickr

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the holy Lenten season. I accidentally slept too late to attend our parish's Ash Wednesday service and receive ashes but, I did enjoy a special morning prayer session, thought about ashing myself (but chickened out), listened to high, ringing Gregorian chant and took the kids for a soothing drive during naptime. I needed some thinking space.

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We went winding our way up the road, slow driving, silent radio, windows cracked, just looking to see what we saw. I brought my pruning shears and clipped some feral forsythia and then stopped again at the side of a little marsh and snipped a bouquet pussy willows and thought of the pussy willow tree leaning over our late-condo unit.

I parked the car in an ancient New England graveyard and unrolled the window to breath a little of the early spring chill. I called my sister and talked to her, digesting parenting maxims and our latest epiphanies and spiritual development. A bluebird flew past and landed in a tree directly in front of me. I've never seen a bluebird in my life. I have to say that the idea that it might be a sign, crossed my mind.

They are doing The Stations of the Cross at our church every Friday and I am toying with trying to go and take the boys. I know it sounds a little nuts to take children through something so somber and mature but, I am not sure I could find a way to go without them and I think there's something good about showing children that life includes death and sorrow and heaviness. This is real and in many ways good.

I am still not exactly sure what I am giving up for Lent. And yeah...here we are on the first day already. I have considered giving up the comfort of my pillow but I honestly think it might not be much of a sacrifice since I occasionally sleep flat on the mattress for part of the night anyhow. I have toyed with different food penances and am not sure I have anything very solid there and I am not sure where else to go with my mental train of thought but I am still praying and waiting with open hands for something I can release. Letting go can be so good.

Related articles

• Lent for Dummies (chicagonow.com)
• The Liberation Of Giving Up (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Ash Wednesday Observed (trinityhawaii.wordpress.com)
• Kids ask: What's Ash Wednesday? (dsgnmomonline.wordpress.com)
• Your Educational Guide to Ash Wednesday (badlandsbadley.wordpress.com)
• Ash Wednesday: Why Ashes Are Applied in The Forehead (analuzcastro.wordpress.com)

Beach Trust

On my mind today are trust, safety and neighborliness. Most strangers are normal human beings...they're you and me and our friends and relatives. Most people who talk to us or approach us aren't dangerous and are perfectly trustworthy. There are of course the random few who are devious, unreliable or even terrifying. This is reality. That said, it is my opinion that those people are:

A.) very rare
B.) usually very spottable

I'm of the old mindset that says you should smile at strangers, wave to people if they let you cut in traffic and make friendly small talk with the other people in line at the bank. I don't teach my children that they aren't to talk to strangers, I teach them that when the nice grandpa ahead of us in line at the check-out says that he "Likes those red shoes young man!" you should dimple a grin and tell him politely, "Thank you very much! I like your tie!" I think if we just trust the people around us we'll buy goodwill for ourselves, show the love of Christ (He did say that love would be the magic mark of His followers) have more fun waiting in lines and sometimes other people will help us when we need it most.

Reid meets the sea 

 

I still teach my sons of course that they shouldn't take candy apples from strange women with warts on their noses, they shouldn't get into cars with random men with green skin and there is to be no signing up for a lifetime supply of iPod just because a really fast talking young fellow with a big grin suggested such when we were down in Times Square. Don't worry. But, I'm trying to avoid the philosophy of stranger danger and instead preach love for fellow man and that we should know and understand our neighbors...even if they're just our neighbors for an hour in the next booth at a restaurant.

Mostly, this sort of courtesy is warmly received by the public but almost never do I hear similar ideas proposed by other mothers. Moms today...yea people in general are terrified of everyone in the world that they do not know. I think this is such a crying shame. But, I do have to share that I have noticed two things that have given me hope.

1. This woman....and the parenting movement she spawned.
2. Beach Trust

Everybody locks their houses up like crazy and people lock their cars, password their computers and have secret codes for everything under the sun but the one place where people still trust each other? The beach. Have you ever noticed that at the beach people leave all of their belongings sitting there in bags and run off like silly kids to splash in the water?

 Unattended beach goods at the Rhode Island shore this past weekend

They drop their towels on the beach blanket, leave behind the sunglasses they love, glinting on the top of their beach tote and go off for a half hour stroll down the shore, far out of sight of their goods. This is a fabulous thing that always makes me tremendously happy to encounter.

 Our own unattended beach goods!

I've never witnessed a beach robbery although I'm sure once in a blue moon it happens but I have seen perfect strangers haul a strolling families worldly goods up out of the range of the encroaching high tide or seen a woman chasing an absent swimmer's hat down the beach after it blew away. I love to see that. I love to be part of it. I love that something about the beach has allowed us to let go in some real, deep way and love and rely on the people around us.

Not just when the beach population is like this:

But even when it looks like this:

More love man, more love.

The Season of Lent

Lent begins today. We started the morning with an early morning Ash Wednesday service at church with a small group of friends and then the boys and I came home to talk it all over together through the rest of the morning. We talked about how Lent is a time like Advent when you look forward to an exciting new holiday and when you try to remember some special principles (Advent: hope, expectation, promise....Lent: how life can come from death, how loss and letting go can be good, self discipline) and we refreshed them on the story of Jesus life, death and resurrection.

At naptime we read the first story in one of their children's Bibles after the visitation of the three kings. We'll keep reading the life of Jesus through Advent until we reach the story of Easter itself.

Then we took a little break from all the chatter to dye a tablecloth to use on our dining room table during the Lenten season. The seasonal color of Lent is a deep purple, symbolic of royal dignity, solemnity and penance so, we took a white tablecloth and together the boys stirred it in the sink until it was a deep grapey shade. So pretty. They both had a lot of fun and we have a new decoration to remind us of the time of year we're going through.

I always try to give up something or things for Lent....a form of fasting (the only permissible form at the moment since I'm pregnant) and a way to give up something that in some way distances me from God and allow Him additional connection spots in my life. This year I'm giving up:

• Stress Binging on Bad Foods: This is an embarrassingly wretched behavior I've developed. I get stressed out and instead of (or sometimes in combination with) freaking out, I down a bunch of candy, leftover dessert items, Doritos....etc. Terrible, no good, very bad way. I am going to try to replace this behavior with eating something good for me or drinking water. This is also a subtle way to bless my baby and think charitably of the little one instead of downing toxic levels of less than helpful foods.

• Music to Fill The Spaces: I'm going to give up ambient music from iTunes and playing the radio in the car whenever we drive anywhere. The idea is not at all that music is bad (heaven knows, I love it a lot) but, I think a time of quiet is a good idea. I am hoping it will encourage us to make our own music, help me listen to my kids more and talk to them and just allow a space for peace and silence, the kind of place where scripture tells us the still small voice of God tends to show up.

I'm hoping to do a light form of food fasting and serve fish on Fridays instead of land animal protein which we have all the other nights. I am also trying to make sure to eat fish frequently now for the sake of getting all the Omega 3's that Baby needs for brain development at this stage.

One of my other goals for Lent is to try to find small ways to work charity into my life with my kids. I think there are some practical, kid accessible ways that we can participate in meaningful charity...taking gifts to neighbors, writing cards and letters for sick friends, picking out a little extra at the grocery store for the local food bank....etc. This is however, one of the weak areas of my Lenten plan. If you have ideas about how to teach kids to give to those in need, do share!