Make Me

***I had my first speaking event last Thursday, and I've spent a lot of time in the past month preparing for it. Sorry, but I used my good blog ideas for the speech so I couldn't give away my whole speech to you, my 5 devoted readers.. That said, the speaking event went very well and my speech turned out well enough to be reproduced here! Here it is, my talk entitled: MAKE ME.***
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"So, when I told my husband that I was going to be speaking to you all and needed to fill up 15 minutes, I asked him if he had any ideas. He suggested 5-10 minutes of silent reflection. I was surprised he didn't say that I should just hold a phone up to my ear, as that seems to keep me talking forever. Then I realized that with all the time I spend talking to my friends, sisters, and mom who are here tonight, I decided I just better get to the point.
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My name is Mandie D. I have 4 daughters. I just turned 30 a couple of weeks ago. I would say thinking about God stuff as it relates to our daily lives has been a hobby of mine for some time, but only recently at the request of my darling husband have I started to write it down, so I started a blog. When my mother called me to ask me to speak to you all, I already had a blog idea percolating in my head, so I knew what I wanted to talk about. I mean, I am speaking at a mother’s evening, to a room full of women who are bringing their daughters to a wine and cheese. Even if I add all of my children’s ages together, I only get 15 mothering years… Compare that to my own mother’s 131 years, I figured that I wasn’t all that qualified to just talk about motherhood here.. So instead I’m going to talk about Firemen and Monks. And although I have no experience being a fireman OR a monk, I figure none of you do either! (I promise I will make a connection to motherhood!)
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When it comes Firemen. I do have some experience. I mean, I have watched the movie Backdraft and the new one that ‘s called Fireproof. I don’t remember much about Backdraft, but Fireproof was one of those movies that has stuck in my head ever since I watched it.
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For those of you who haven’t seen it, it was a very good movie. Supposedly it was all about the marriage relationship of two people, but deep down, I think it was mostly about Caleb, the main character, struggling, like we all do, with some major flaws in himself. While Caleb was an excellent fire captain, making sure his crews were ready and prepared and responding immediately and with bravery when the alarm sounded, MAN, he was lousy when there was no “bell” in his life.
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The man couldn’t do the dishes, get groceries, sweep the floor, and he resented every request that his wife and his duty as a husband made of him. See, a fireman usually works in 1 day on, 2 days off shifts, and while he had achieved great discipline during his 24-hour shift, he was super-selfish and downright sinful with his 48 hours off. I don’t know anywhere that 33% is a passing grade... So why the big difference?
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In the realm of firefighting, Caleb had to be ready to get up and go as soon as the bell sounded. While a fireman knew that answering the call of duty may be dangerous and difficult, he also knew that NOT answering the call would be far worse. The truck must always be ready, you can’t waste time, because someone’s life could be at stake. It was urgent, it was understood. This was his duty as a fireman. But when he was at home, away from the great discipline of the bell, his life was a mess.
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Now towards the end of the movie, Caleb seemed to be getting the other 66% of his life in order, and we saw a great sequence with him doing his duty in the fire station. In that scene, Caleb was coming back from a long day fighting fires and he was obviously tired, he had taken his helmet and jacket off when the alarm went off again. There was not even a second of hesitation. He pulled his suspender over his shoulder and off he went again.
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For some reason, for Caleb, as well as in my own life, it is difficult to treat our daily duties with the same determination and energy that the fireman does. When I smell the diaper, I do that thing where I pretend that my nose isn't working (while my husband pretends the same thing) and we wait until one of us "breaks." When children are fighting, I get angry because it means my phone call is interrupted. When a child talks back to me and stomps away, I consider whether I could let them get away with it just to save me the time and hassle of following through. There has been more than one morning in which I held the covers over my head and tried to direct a 3 year old as to where she could get her own cereal and milk. For a fireman, there is no question. Whether they were sweeping the floor, sleeping in bed, prepping the truck, or playing cards, they jump up with determination in their faces that they are going to do their duty. We need a discipline outside of ourselves to do the work that makes us holy. Left to ourselves, well.. it isn’t pretty.
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That fire fighting scene changed my life. I knew that I wanted that kind of dedication in my life, and that kind of attitude toward my duty.
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It kind of reminded me of an article I had read a couple of years prior. I was in one of the darkest mommy moments in my life. The constant NEED of 3 small children, and pressures of my life, looking at the state of my soul and wondering if perhaps I should have become a hermit instead of a mommy and wife..
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About this time, a friend sent me an article about monks. Actually it was about a hermit named Carlo Carretti. He had spent over 10 years in the desert living on goat's milk, translating the bible into Bedouin, praying in his own perpetual adoration to the Blessed Sacrament.. Super hard-core, holy guy. Interestingly, when he returned to Italy to visit his family, he found his mother to be more contemplative than he was.
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Carretto was a smart enough guy to realize that HIS time in the desert had not been wasted, but that his mother had also done something amazing with HER time. She used her 30 years of mothering to develop holiness in her life…living in her own kind of desert and her own kind of monastery.
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So a mom’s life is like a monastery? I had a little trouble seeing how my life had any resemblance to the monastic. I mean, if we look at the life of a monk (especially a hermit!) it can be kind of hard to see how a man who gives up everything for a life of poverty, spends most of his time in silence, alone, and praying, can be much like me. I mean, I don’t get 5 minutes in the bathroom without fingers under the door. In fact, I think if I were Carretto’s mother, I would have been begging for some time alone, with or without the goat. My picture of a monk was someone who got to pray when they wanted, eat what and when they wanted, sleep without crying babies waking them up, and never again having to worry about what to wear to an “Evening for Mothers” for example, I’d have my simple black dress for every occasion!
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But you know what? Monks don’t get to do what they want, when they want. Sure they might have tried it for a while, but the great monastic fathers, including St. Bernard who was declared a doctor of the church, were great advocates of the discipline of the monastic bell. This bell would tell the monks when it was time to wake, eat, pray, work, play, & sleep.
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Bernard didn’t believe that doing what you want when you want was how holiness was to be found. While these men gave up everything they owned to become monks, St. Bernard and St. Benedict, and monastic fathers throughout history have asked for more: they asked the monk to relinquish control of his time.
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Now while Caretto’s mother did not have a monastic bell telling her what to do, she was constantly answering the needs of her family, from preparing meals, to cleaning messes, to holding babies, to kissing owies… Those were her bells.
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The only thing is, for me, 2 years ago, in that darkest of mommy moments when I reflected on the 5-1/2 years straight that I had been pregnant or nursing, I realized that I didn’t want to answer the bell anymore. I’d fallen into a deep resentment of the duties of my vocation. Those same duties of motherhood that made Carretto’s mother so holy, well, they had me looking less like a monk and more like oh, I don’t know... the Incredible Hulk.
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Whether I liked it or not, I had to admit that the Incredible Hulk did not have a very probable likelihood of raising happy, faithful, and loving children. If I wanted my children, my husband, my family, and ME to be the people God created us to be, I had figure out how to let these bells make me holy.
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By nature we don’t seek the best thing, not even the thing that will make us happiest, but usually whatever thing gives us the most pleasure at that moment. And although I secretly insist to myself that if only I had it MY way, things would be so much better, I know deep down that these bells are not an obstacle to my holiness, but perhaps the very means by which God is perfecting me.
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Left to myself I would be lazier and crankier, and Incredible Hulkier. Somehow I NEED those interruptions and those inconveniences to teach me the virtues that I lack. I just need to tune my ears like Carretto’s mother did to hear in the simple duties of my life the ringing of the call to duty: the monastic bell, calling me to remember that it is God’s time, not mine. And like Captain Caleb Holt I need to approach my whole life with the fireman’s discipline, ready to serve when I am called, putting on not a protective suit, but the full armor of God to preserve me from resentment and sluggish responses to God’s signified will in my life. A fireman never goes into a fire without his suit or he will get burned, and we must remember that if we spend too much time answering our “fire calls” without putting on the armor of God, we too will face mommy burnout.

(This is where I donned the fireman's helmet and opened my Bible.)

“Finally, draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power.
Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.

Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all (the) flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit.” Ephesians 6:10-13 or 18

So, my ladies, we may not hear the monastic bell or a fire alarm pointing out to us what God wants for our lives, But we can learn to pay attention to the different sounds of the bells in our lives. Maybe it sounds like the baby crying, or the 4 year old. Maybe it will sounds more like your fancy dish shattering on the floor, or perhaps the bell will be completely silent and sad, or very wet with tears. It could even sound like the Iowa Fight Song, at least that’s what my mom hears when one of us calls her cell phone. Regardless of the sound (or smell) of the bell, we must choose to allow it to make us holy by offering God our willingness to have Him make us who HE made us to be. Our prayer must everyday be: I know that I can’t (and won’t) do it myself, so go ahead Lord, Make me… holy."
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