The Quiet Life

I just finished watching/reading Middlemarch by George Eliot.  I enjoyed it very much, but I especially loved the last chapter of the book.  One of the heroines, who through the novel has big dreams of social change, abandons her plans to follow the husband she loves.  It is seen as a waste by some as she had true gifts of strength, intelligence and fortitude.  But Eliot says,

Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. 

…..

Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. 

I just loved that last paragraph- especially the acknowledgement that we all have better lives because of people who lived faithful, hidden lives.  Here's to the invisible mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and neighbors who made our lives beautiful.  May we honor them, may we be them.  

Martinmas

Today is the feast day of St. Martin of Tours.  He was a roman soldier who famously cut his tunic in half to give to a poor, freezing beggar.  That evening he dreamed that Jesus was wearing the torn tunic.  He awoke, was baptized and became a monk and bishop.  It's perfect that today is also Veteran's Day because he a patron saint of soldiers. 

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They colored while I read stories about St. Martin from these books.    

And they were excited to make our St. Martin's cake- his torn tunic.  

This afternoon while I was cooking dinner I walked on the porch and saw this.   They said, "We made a spider web with tape!   We are spiders and are catching bugs with our tape web!"

 

Today one of the children was really upset at an assignment I gave to write a poem.  The child totally froze up and could not move forward.  We had to really take time to name the fears, address the fears and work through the stage fright.  When it was time to write I said, "how about I sit beside you and I will write a poem too?"  And that's what we did.  The child wrote a precious poem they won't let me share, but here's mine.

I have four children I adore.

They are my joy and I find I pour

My life out to them and yet someway

In pouring out I'm filled each day.  

Our Lord has said a seed must yield

It's life to grow a healthy field.

And my cross I carry confident

That life's riches are best when spent.

Dying is living; spending is earning

Our Lord's currency I'm still learning

Lord, teach me the mystery to which You call-

To climb Your mountain I first must fall.