Family
Spirituality
Living Faith:
a collection of columns
from Catherine O’Connell-Cahill that appeared in At Home
with our Faith.
Can’t hear yourself
think?
Four o’clock come
and gone. Preschooler who refused to nap enters extra-cranky stage.
Dreaded Dinner Decision can no longer be staved off. Family members
begin pre-dinner ritual of simultaneous desperate demands for attention.
"Where is that book?" inquires husband exasperatedly.
"I’m sure I left it right here. Are you sure one of the
kids didn’t take off with it?" "Mommy, look how I bit
my peanut butter and jelly into a number seven!" exclaims 3-year-old,
producing it for display. "Mom, what’s the greatest common
factor of 27 and 54?" bellows 10-year-old from next room. Husband
locates book under stack of other books where he put it earlier; laughs
sheepishly. Daughter bounds back to kitchen clutching numeral-shaped
remains of PBJ sandwich, jelly clinging to hands and now probably
all other surfaces en route. Son makes third request for mathematical
support at top volume. Mom growls, "If you’d all just give
me a minute . . ." Son asks in friendly tone,
"Hey Mom, what’s wrong? You got an attitude?"
A typical "Arsenic
Hour" in most homes. A perfect opportunity, says Greg Pierce,
for us families to practice "spirituality."
Is he nuts?
Pierce, a publisher
and past president of the National Center for the Laity, recently
outlined his vision for a "spirituality of work," which
he insists means not only paid work but also the unpaid variety we
pursue in our homes. For years Pierce has been impatient with the
notion that spirituality happens only with "silence, solitude,
and simplicity," which you might find in a monastery but not
likely in a family or on the job. "Noise, crowds, and complexity"
are the bywords of the spirituality of work, he says. (Although in
my case, my friend with seven kids would chuckle at the thought that
a husband and two offspring constitute either "noise" or
a "crowd.")
Pierce suggests five
disciplines of the spirituality of work:
1. The discipline
of sacred objects. These might be religious art, photos of family,
or other objects with meaning (not necessarily overtly religious).
Give your home this test: Would a visitor be able to identify what’s
important to you as a family just by looking around? Would your house
identify you as a Catholic family?
2. The discipline of
living with imperfection, which reminds us of our human frailty and
"disabuses us of any idea that we can bring about God’s
reign on our own, without divine help," says Pierce. We won’t
be the perfect parent, decorator, housekeeper, chef, gardener, homework
supervisor. But this means we also need:
3. The discipline of
assuring quality. Living with imperfection can’t become
an "excuse for doing less than our best," says Pierce. I
recently heard it put this way: Be ambitious about your family life.
Not about money or kids’ grades, but whether you’re living
out the values you believe in.
4. The discipline of
giving thanks and congratulations. Cultivate the daily practice
of thanking one another regularly for thoughtfulness, patience, hard
work. Comment frequently on how your children are growing in knowledge
and grace.
5. The discipline of
deciding what is enough . . . and sticking to it.
Pierce describes his commitment to be home for dinner even though
it often means leaving work undone and deciding how much is enough
profit for his business. For families this discipline might mean deciding
what is enough in the areas of money, things we think we have to buy,
even how clean our house has to be. Each of these decisions influences
even more crucial choices, like how much time we spend with our kids
reading books or shooting baskets.
Many people say we
need more discipline in our lives. Try these on for size. COC
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