bearing blog

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

The clock is ticking down to Ash Wednesday and I'm still wondering what I'm going to "do" for Lent.  I am a little bit jealous of my husband, who never worries about it, but cheerfully gives up chocolate every single year and calls it good.   As I have written in previous years, I have sworn off all non-obligatory food-related sacrifices because they mess with my head.  I think maybe I was on to something when I wrote this post before Lent another year:

Do you think maybe it's backwards to try to think "hmm, what can I give up for Lent?  Something that I like, something that's a sacrifice, hmm..."

Do you think maybe it might be better to think first "What particular virtue do I want to develop, or what bad habit or vice do I want to eliminate?  How could I fulfill my vocation better?" ... 

... and then, having answered that question, to consider what sacrifice would actually serve that goal?  I mean, maybe chocolate is really hard to give up, but maybe it's not a chocolate-free Lent that would best help you grow in holiness.  Unless you have a disordered attachment to sweets in particular, and you think chocolate is actually getting between you and God, and that's what you're hoping to work on.

Or is that just me being overly analytical?

I think I will go back to St. Francis de Sales today and consider his idea of discerning which one virtue (or a very few virtues) to focus on.  Maybe that will help me think of something.  I already have a couple of good ideas for small things I plan to do, but unfortunately none of them are things I can do daily.  On the other hand, if you put it all together, it might work out to almost daily.  

I need something to read, for one thing.  One of the most rewarding things I ever did during Lent was read the Diary of Sister (now Saint) Faustina -- the one who saw the Divine Mercy apparitions.   I came out of it with a much better understanding of what the Church means when it calls an apparition "worthy of belief," which isn't the same as coming right out and saying "This really really happened exactly the way the visionary said it did and you have to believe it really happened."  Because even if you were to assume that St. Faustina was delusional or mistaken about what happened to her (I guess it doesn't work if you assume she was a liar), you would find that her writings about her experience, the thoughts she took away from them and transcribed, are true to the Gospel and inspire love of Christ.  Probably more than anything you're likely to read here.  

I was thinking about paying $3 for a pdf of Amy Welborn's newly refurbished, Lenten-devotional form of her late husband Michael Dubrueil's work The Power of the Cross.    (She has it in forms that should work on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, or iPhone; not having any of these I was going to go for the pdf.)  Or I might pull Fulton Sheen's Life of Christ off my bookshelf -- it's just about the right length for Lent.  Or I might start re-reading Volume 1 of Jesus of Nazareth, since Volume 2 will be released next week, and I could take them as a whole.

Last year I didn't give up computer time, facebook, email, or blogging, on the theory that to do so would be the equivalent of giving up answering the phone or opening the mail.  And I probably won't do so this year either.  But one thing I did do was set time limits around my internet usage, and that turned out to be pretty valuable.  So I may do that again this year.   I also thought that I might consider which of the political blogs I follow tend to be the most destructive to my internal peace, and temporarily delete them from my reader.  

My schedule is such that I get about two opportunities a week to visit the Adoration chapel all by myself for more than an hour.  Only I rarely, or never, actually use the time for this.  I always have something else to do (and in fact I do not think of these time blocks as "opportunities to visit the chapel" but rather as "planning time" or "me time.")  I think I may try using these time blocks for Adoration instead.  It would probably be good for me to give up planning time to God.  Theoretically his plans work out better than mine anyway.

Well, that's enough of that:  it's almost time to start school.   So, comments topic of the day:  Not "what are you thinking about doing this year," but let's look for evidence of good ideas from the past.  In your most fruitful Lents, what were the sacrifices or devotions that enriched you the most?

Switch.

Readers who have been interested in following some of the threads about personal change -- becoming an athlete, overcoming gluttony, detaching from time, and maybe even beginning the devout life à la St. Francis de Sales --  might be interested in a quick-read book I just finished, one that Mark got for free at work after the author made a presentation there.

The book is Switch:  How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.  It seems to be aimed at the business/management market, and indeed most of the many and very interesting anecdotes have to do with encouraging behavioral change in other people, but there is a sprinkling of stories about personal change as well.  I don't think the logic is perfectly crisp (and Mark wasn't terribly impressed by the author's presentation), but I think it's worth reading, if only because the anecdotes are so fascinating and varied.  For example:

• How aid workers permanently improved child nutrition in a Vietnam village with no extra resources
• How hospitals reduced medication errors by discouraging staff from distracting nurses
• How therapists taught child-abusing parents techniques that dropped re-offending rates from 65 to 20 percent
• How one hospital nearly eliminated IV-line infections with a single policy

... as well as some other examples of effective techniques from popular gurus that will be familiar to many readers of this blog, such as Dave Ramsey (the get-out-of-debt-with-cash-in-envelopes guy), "FlyLady" Martha Marla Cilley (the clean-your-house-by-shining-your-sink lady), and Brian Wansink (the lose-weight-by-shrinking-your-plate professor).

Chapter One of the book is available on the authors' website here.

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Nowadays when I read self-help books of any kind, I find myself testing them against my own experiences making serious, deliberate changes.  I have made two life-altering, "previously impossible" changes now:  I've gone from being mostly sedentary to regular vigorous exercise and even athletic competition; and I've gone from being a habitual and even compulsive over-eater to, well, not being one at all anymore.   Those are fairly recent, within the last three years, so they are still fresh in my memory, if not entirely completely understood and processed yet.  

I can go back farther and remember a couple more successful changes.  One significant, life-altering change was made about ten years ago in conjunction with another person, my friend Hannah, when we with our (then) one baby each quite deliberately set out to create a "tribe," a sort of extended family for ourselves and for our kids and husbands, by sharing one day's worth of our work each week.   Hannah and I had to make another deliberate change about three years ago when we realized we absolutely had to integrate our homeschooling efforts if we were going to keep up our (now two days a week) schedule.  

So when I look at a book like this -- a book that purports to explain how to make difficult changes happen -- I feel that I can really evaluate it on the merits, at least as far as personal change is concerned.  (I've never been a manager, and I've never had to enforce any really major changes in the family's behavior, so I can't really evaluate it in terms of encouraging others to change.)

And my judgment is that this book meshes really well with my experience.  Let's take a look.

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The Heaths organize their book around a borrowed image of something I've written about before, the divided self.   They envision:

• the logical, decision-making, long-term-focused self as the reins-holding Rider; 
• the emotion-driven, pleasure-seeking self as the much more powerful Elephant; 
• and the environment or situation that influences both as the Path.  

The various chapters in the book offer advice on how to "direct the Rider" (that is, how to show the intellect where to go and what to do, what steps to take;  how to  "motivate the Elephant"  (that is, to get the emotional side on board with the change and thus harness its power, or at least, how to reduce its resistance); and how to "shape the Path" (that is, how to change the situation to make the desired change easier for both Rider and Elephant).

At first I was a little skeptical about this way of framing the divided self, but as I went through the book I came to see that it is indeed an apt analogy (and a neat organizational principle as well -- which always appeals to me).  

Here's a quick outline of their main points, with comments about how these fit into my two recent experiences with personal change:  becoming an athlete and overcoming a lifetime of overeating.

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I.  Direct the Rider

A.  "Follow the bright spots:  Investigate what's working and clone it."  

The only recent exercise I had successfully stuck with was YMCA swimming lessons once a week.  So when I decided to exercise twice a week, I picked swimming.  

I didn't know about any normal-eating "bright spots" before I started, but an example of this would be if you picked up a book like Thin For Life:  10 Keys To Success from People Who Have Lost Weight and Kept It Off by Anne Fletcher -- which is based on data from the National Weight Control Registry -- and tried to follow their recommendations.

B.  "Script the critical moves.  Don't think about the big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors."  By this they mean, identify one or two specific action items that pack a big punch.  

The perfect example of this is the four-point "No S Diet" published by Reinhard Engels.  It goes like this:  "No snacks, no sweets, no seconds, except on days that begin with S."  Easy to remember, and really quite effective for many people.    As for me, it took a long time for me to discover the critical moves for reducing my own weight, but now that I have them, the task of maintaining is much easier.  They are:  no seconds, no bedtime snacks, sharply curtail alcohol, use small plates.  If I concentrate on those four rules, my weight goes down surprisingly quickly.

As for exercising, I guess you could say that my "specific behavior" was "Get in the pool twice a week."  If I do that, I get enough exercise.

 C.  Point to the Destination:  Change is easier when you know where you're going and why it's worth it."  

I didn't need much intellectual convincing that it was a good idea to get some exercise.   Here's a post I wrote about the non-weight-loss benefits of regular exercise.

As for overeating, you might think that I would know intellectually my whole life "where I was going," but actually I didn't.  It wasn't until my intellect grasped the (should-have-been-obvious) fact that I was simply eating too much food that I was able to make the change.

 

II.  Motivate the Elephant.

A.  Find the Feeling.  "Knowing ... isn't enough..."

One of the things that went "click" for me and let me stop overeating was the onset of a feeling -- the feeling of being really sick of overeating itself.  When I suddenly started to feel disgusted with my behavior (rather than with my appearance), I started to act to change.  And (before I decided it was bad for my sense of compassion) I used to deliberately linger over watching other people's disgustingly gluttonous behavior, e.g., at salad bars.  Effective, if spiritually damaging.

B.  Shrink the change.  "Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant."

Oh yes, this is a big one:  measuring my successes meal by meal, snack by snack, and workout by workout.

C.  Grow... "Cultivate a sense of identity." 

I definitely did this.  I set out to create an identity of myself as a person who exercises, an "athlete."  I imagined myself as a "person who goes to the gym" -- and then I tried to do what I thought that person would do.  It is more than just "Well, she'd go to the gym, duh!"  When it's an entire identity, you have to fill in lots of details of character.  

A person who was like me, except she goes to the gym.... well, she'd have two sets of workout clothes, not one.  And she'd keep her bag packed all the time and in the car so as not to miss an opportunity.  And she would be the sort of mother who expects her kids to manage in the gym child care for half an hour, not the sort who would reflexively reject gym child care.  And she would occasionally take a yoga class if she happened to arrive at just the right time.  And she wouldn't care if occasionally slipping that workout in meant she would wind up washing her hair twice in a day, or that she would have wet hair or wrinkled clothes when she got where she was going. "Sorry I look like a mess, I just came from the gym," she would say.

As for overeating, well, that's the power of the mantra, "I don't do that anymore."  I have observed before that when maintenance requires me to go back to extra-careful eating, it takes me a few days to settle back into the pattern of impulse resistance, almost as if I had forgotten how to do it.  I wonder now if it doesn't take a few days to switch into the "identity" of a non-glutton.  

III.  Shape the path. 

A.  Tweak the environment.  "When the situation changes, the behavior changes."

So many strategies here.  Buying smaller, divided dinner plates was, I'm convinced, the single most helpful environmental change that I made.  

B.  Build habits.  "When behavior is habitual, it... doesn't tax the Rider.  Look for ways to encourage habits."  [including checklists and what the authors call "action triggers," i.e., decisions "to execute a certain action...when you encounter a certain situational trigger."]

I've written a lot about habits, so that's nothing new, but I like the concept of the "action trigger," which the authors recommend for motivating people to "do the things they know they need to do."   One example of an action trigger might be, "I'll change the batteries in my smoke detectors on the same day that I change the clocks."  The authors say that dreaming up an action trigger reduces personal resistance enough to be like creating an "instant habit" -- and if that's correct, then it's powerful indeed.

An example from my overeating life would be when I decided that when I finish my first plate of dinner, I'll get up and get a cup of coffee or a piece of gum.  From my exercising life:  "I'll head to the Y right after the preschool music class every week."    

Everything gets a lot easier when you're in the habit, but making these little micro-plans -- basically just deciding when and where you're going to do something, and taking a moment to imagine it happening -- could perhaps carry you along until the habits are established.

C.  Rally the herd.  "Behavior is contagious.  Help it spread."  

This one has more to do with encouraging change in a group (for example, how managers might get a whole slew of employees to adopt new safety rules) but I still think I saw some of it in my own change.  For one thing, I tried very hard to look to my fit and active and not-at-all-gluttonous husband as an example, and as part of my change -- it's hard to see which came first here -- we reinforced our whole-family identity as "a family who does active things together."

And I am sure that it helped me feel comfortable in my new role as "a person who exercises" that I was part of a larger organization, a member at my local YMCA, and that two or three times a week I was literally surrounding myself with people who already were who I aspired to be:  "a person who goes to the gym."  I felt that identity coalescing as I found that I knew the names of the staff and they recognized me, as I nodded hello to the same people I saw from time to time in the locker rooms, as my kids got comfortable in the child care and made "favorite" friends among the staff.

I think that blogging about it helped too.  There is a certain risk you take in announcing to the world that you're making a change.  I admit that I feel responsibility toward "the blog" to stay on habit at this point!  I don't want to let you all down!

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This post has gone on long enough, so I'll end here, but I'm pleased at how it coincided so neatly with the start of the new year!  I'm not making any new year's resolutions myself, but I wish the best to any of you who are.  

(Just do it at some other YMCA, not mine.  The parking is bad enough as it is.  Ah, January...)

168 hours.

In my "Resolution" post from this summer, I said I was going to try to kick the habit of considering my time as my own:

Previously, I tried to deal with the visible problem in ways that actually worsened the underlying cause.  When I dieted to lose weight, I became MORE obsessed with food, and especially with "getting enough nutrition" and "getting enough to feel satisfied."  When I have wrangled with time in the past, I have tried to do it through ever-more-finely-divided scheduling:  Not enough time with the kids?  Put them in another block on the schedule!  Some scheduling is necessary, obviously, just as nutrition is necessary for the dieter, but a schedule is not going to solve the problem of undue attachment to control over my time.  If anything it feeds the notion that I CAN control and own time that "belongs" to me.

But I still think it's a good idea to know how I'm spending my time; a basic axiom of my personal philosophy is Data is good.  (Gathering data isn't always time well spent, of course, but the data itself is a good thing to have.)

 

I recently read a somewhat-fluffy book with one good central idea:  168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam.  The author has, I think, bought a little too much into the anyone-can-have-it-all fallacy, and accepts a bit too unquestioningly the way time-use researchers classify home parenting activities (is "child care" really only the hours we spend feeding, dressing, and playing with our kids?  how about cleaning and cooking and gardening alongside them?)  She also suggests a little too blithely that the problem of the time crunch can best be solved by paying hired help, e.g., by sending out laundry.  (I recognize that it's a matter of figuring out what your time is worth and outsourcing the things that make financial sense; but still, that's going to rankle people who could never afford that kind of outlay.)    

But she's still written a fairly interesting book around this core concept:  Measure how you spend your time, on the scale of hours-in-a-week, and then you can look at how you're spending it and decide if you're spending it the way you want.

I've thought about making a time log for a number of years, and have always been kind of intimidated by the prospect.  But this book got me into the mood to try it for a week.  So I printed up seven spreadsheets marked out in fifteen-minute increments, and started writing down what I was doing periodically through the day.  I started at 3 pm on a Monday, and I stopped at 3 pm the following Monday. 

(My recommendation if you try this, by the way:  I found that by far the easiest way to get most of it written down was to go make a record on the page every time I finished doing something.  Also, not to sweat the plus-or-minus-a-few-minutes, and not to worry if it doesn't all add up because of multitasking.)

Then, on a morning with a cranky teething baby in need of lots of rocking, I sat down with a spreadsheet program and added it all up.

Next post:  what I found out.

Not-so-toy houses.

Some time ago I wrote a post called "Toy Houses" in which I quoted St. Francis de Sales.  That was before I started up on my Introduction to the Devout Life series (which, by the way, I've got only the final part of the book to blog... more on that soon).  The passage I quoted is really what got me interested in St. Francis.  Here's the whole post:

Jen at Conversion Diary has a post up with a quote from St. Francis de Sales that I'd never encountered before.   Quoting it in full because it deserves it:

Soon we shall be in eternity and then we shall see how insignificant our worldly preoccupations were and how little it mattered whether some things got done or not; however, right now we rush about as if they were all-important. When we were little children how eagerly we used to gather pieces of broken tile, little sticks, and mud with which to build houses and other tiny buildings, and if someone knocked them over, how heartbroken we were and how we cried! But now we understand that these things really didn't amount to much. One day it will be like this for us in heaven when we shall see that some of the things we clung to on earth were only childish attachments.

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't care about these little games and trifling details of life, for God wants us to practice on them in this world; but I would like to see us not so strained and frantic in our concern about them. Let's play our childish games since we are children; but at the same time, let's not take them too seriously. And if someone wrecks our little houses or projects, let's not get too upset, because when night falls and we have to go indoors -- I'm speaking of our death -- all those little houses will be useless; we shall have to go into our Father's house. Do faithfully all the things you have to do, but be aware that what matters most is your salvation and the fulfillment of that salvation through true devotion. 

Isn't that wonderful, realistic, practical writing about detachment?  It seems that so many of the saints are urging us to be ethereal and otherworldly, passing through the things of this world like light and with nary a thought about any of the stuff around.  Well, thank you St. Francis for recognizing that most of us live in the world, with children and spouses and other people we provide for... we touch the things of this world, and are touched by them.  

I think he does a fantastic job putting things in their proper place.  "I'm not saying that we shouldn't care... because God wants us to practice on them... Let's play our childish games... but... not take them too seriously."  Strikes the perfect note, I think...

 

I still really, really like that passage a lot, but I've come to realize it's not as simple as it seems:  our daily work is not all "toy houses."  St. Francis says "we shall see that some of the things we clung to on earth were only childish attachments."  I don't think it's instantly obvious which are and which aren't.  Especially when our daily work is raising and educating our children.  But even so when our daily work brings us into contact with grown-up human beings, strangers and friends and acquaintances.

Other human beings are not toy houses.  To be a Christian is to believe that the things of this world are unimportant; but also to believe that the people of this world are vastly, vastly important.  And to us, the people whose special care and education has been entrusted to us are especially important and our greatest responsibility.  

All that is easy to say, but my point is:  It's a little tricky to see where the "toy house" ends and the "real house" begins.  One of my daily jobs is teaching the children.  I get very preoccupied with the school schedule and the best way to go about instructing them and how best to balance my time.  Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and found myself grappling with the question of which I should teach first to the middle-schoolers, the dative case or the ablative case?  This is not something that should keep me up at night, but it does.  

OK, so maybe dative vs. ablative is a toy house.  I shouldn't be so worried about it.  What about my seven-year-old's First Communion prep, though?  And what about history?  What about science?  There's moral content and theological content to all this stuff.   Like it or not, at every minute aren't we forming these eternal beings?  How can anything in contact with growing minds not also touch their souls?   And that is what starts me getting "strained and frantic."

Here's another example.  I hate it when the house is messy.  I'm not exactly a neat freak but I feel so much better when it's all picked up and tidy.  "Strained and frantic" to get things back in order -- that's me.  And yes, "someone" wrecks my little project all the time.  So reading that, it's all very well to say, "Hey, keeping the house orderly -- not such a big deal.  It's got to be an example of the "childish attachments" St. Francis was talking about.  I should calm down about it."  But then I remember that I have to get after the children to hang up the coats and take off their muddy boots and put books away instead of sleeping with them and crunching up all the pages, and I start thinking:  And yet it is my job to teach the children to love order and discipline and to take care of their things and think of others' feelings and to do their part in our family, and how can that be a toy house? 

So it gets all mixed up in my mind.  Obviously I should worry less and love more, but it's disturbingly hard to tell the difference between "doing faithfully all you have to do" and "taking [all you have to do] too seriously."  I mean, is that entirely interior or is there something exterior about it?

I could start by YELLING less, I suppose.

 

Surprisingly relevant suggestions.

You know, I've been blogging about Introduction to the Devout Life, getting an overview of the whole book, and tentatively trying some of the ideas in it; and I'm hoping that by the end of it I'll have an idea of how to follow its suggestions more thoroughly to attack a pressing problem, namely, undue attachment to my time. 

I've been following Gretchen Rubin's blog The Happiness Project for some time now, off and on, and today she posts "9 surprising mental exercises" that she bills as, oh, productivity- or creativity-enhancers.  But I found them fascinating because for weeks now I've already been pondering some of them as spiritual exercises for becoming more cheerful and positive about interruptions and schedule changes, all in order to detach myself from a firm grip on "my" time and cultivate an attitude instead of Omnia pro Te.

Here are the exercises out of the nine that struck me as exactly relevant:

1. Spend an hour each day without saying anything except in answer to direct questions, in the midst of the usual group, without creating the impression that you’re sulking or ill. Be as ordinary as possible. But do not volunteer remarks or try to draw out information...

3. Talk for 15 minutes a day without using I, me, my, mine....

5. Keep a new acquaintance talking about himself or herself without allowing him to become conscious of it. Turn back any courteous reciprocal questions in a way that your auditor doesn’t feel rebuffed...

9. From time to time, give yourself a day when you answer “yes” to any reasonable request.

The other suggestions struck me as neutral or contrary to the changes I would like to make for myself, but still interesting and maybe good for others -- check them out if you like.  

Wanted: Honesty.

At Whatever, science fiction author John Scalzi has some good things to say about finding the time to write.  

As I read it, I thought that it really applies to anything people say they "want" to do.

So: Do you want to write or don’t you? If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.” And that’s fine. Just don’t kid yourself as to what “yes, but” means.

If your answer is “yes,” then the question is simply when and how you find the time to do it. If you spend your free time after work watching TV, turn off the TV and write. If you prefer to spend time with your family when you get home, write a bit after the kids are in bed and before you turn in yourself. If your work makes you too tired to think straight when you get home, wake up early and write a little in the morning before you head off. If you can’t do that (I’m not a morning person myself) then you have your weekend — weekends being what I used when I wrote Agent to the Stars.

And if you can’t manage that, then what you’re saying is that you were lying when you said your answer is “yes.” Because if you really wanted to write, you would find a way to make the time, and you would find a way to actually write. Cory Doctorow says that no matter what, he tries for 250 words a day (that’s a third of what I’ve written in this entry to this point), and if you write just 250 words a day — the equivalent to a single, double-spaced page of text — then in a year you have 90,000 words. That’s the length of a novel. Off of 250 words a day. Which you could do. On the goddamned bus. If you really wanted.

This is why at this point in time I have really very little patience for people who say they want to write but then come up with all sorts of excuses as to why they don’t have the time. 

I particularly liked the line:  "If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.”"  Rings true, no?

I hear it about homeschooling from time to time.  I occasionally hear "I would like to homeschool, but there's no way I could do it, I don't have the patience, etc."  This is a good example, because believe me, every one of those obstacles has been overcome by many, many people who really wanted to homeschool their kids.  Or, lacking a desire, who really believed it was what they ought to do.  There is nothing wrong with not wanting to homeschool your kids, by the way.  And it's not what everyone ought to do.   But again, honesty about it.

And I hear it about regular exercise -- much more commonly than about homeschooling.  "I want to exercise, but I don't have the time."  Same thing.  Whatever your obstacles, whatever your set of obstacles, other people have had them, and some of those people -- the ones who really wanted to -- have gotten through and over and around them.  

The doing is the measure of the wanting.  "Doing" might involve planning and preparing, but it implies action of some kind.  Without action, so-called wanting is only vapor and wind.  Not wanting at all.

Which makes me think that a good resolution to make might be to stop saying "I really want to do X" when the evidence demonstrates that I don't.  And that means facing up to some truths about who I am, because don't we all measure ourselves in part by what we imagine ourselves doing, rather than by what we really do?  And couldn't that truth set us free?

Like this:  

• I don't want to read stories to my children every day. 
• I don't want to go to Mass except on Sundays.  
• I don't want to turn off the computer every night as soon as my husband gets home.
• I don't want to take public transit instead of my car.
• I don't want to grow kitchen herbs in containers.
• I don't want to stop feeding the kids convenient and cheap packaged cookies for tea snacks.

What don't you really want to do?

Introduction to the Devout Life.... how's that going?

So I temporarily paused my blogging about the book Introduction to the Devout Life while I tried to put into practice some of its suggestions, which I organized in this step-by-step grand plan.

I have followed through a bit.  I thought I'd write about how it was going.

* * *

SETUP  PHASE 1

Begin by setting out on "St. Francis's Three-Step Program" to rid yourself of mortal sin and of any attachment to it.

(1) Read Part 1, Chapter 8 and then pray the "novena" formed by the ten meditations in Chapters 9--18 of Part 1.

(2) Prepare for confession with these readings: Part 1, Chapter 19; Part 2, Chapter 19; Part 1, Chapters 20 and 21.  Make a good confession, preferably a general one, preferably general, accusing yourself directly, simply, and specifically as described in Part 1, Chapter 19 and Part 2, Chapter 19.

(3) While still in the confessional:  Let a solemn resolution as described in Part 1, Chapter 20 be part of your Act of Contrition.

I did this, except I didn't really make a general confession (just hopped in the line before Mass on Sunday, and did the best I could in a reasonable amount of time given the long line behind me).  

I don't make novenas very often, or perhaps I should say I don't finish them very often.   I must have been more motivated than usual.  At any rate, I knew that one of the upcoming steps in my plan would be committing to a form of morning prayer, so I decided to pray each of the novena prayers first thing in the morning.

An aside.  "First thing in the morning--" That's pretty ambiguous, isn't it?  "First thing in the morning" might mean before even sitting up in bed.  Or it might be "right after I get my coffee" or "as soon as I get to work."  Hm.  Well, in this case, it meant "after I put on my glasses and get the book open, but before I get up to go to the bathroom and brush my teeth."

It probably helped that Mark was out of town for a lot of this time.  Solitude helps me pray.  Getting married and thereby sharply decreasing my solitude was good for me in a lot of ways, but there's no doubt that one reason I pray less than I did 12 years ago is that I'm alone less.  (St. Francis had some specific things to say about "interior solitude," which I hope I can use.)

Anyway, the novena wasn't accompanied by any fanfares, or even a tingling feeling by which I might know that it was working, but I did finish it, and I did go to confession last Sunday at the end of it.  

* * * 

Then I woke up on Monday and started fresh on my first two desires.

FIRST  DESIRE 

Learn to pass from prayer to my duties "with such gentleness and tranquillity that the soul is not disturbed."

Resolution 1:  I will meditate on St. Francis's Part 2, Chapter 10, "Morning Prayer," and use its counsel to compose a brief morning prayer which I will write down and keep at my bedside. 

Resolution 2:  I will try to pray the Morning Prayer daily and I will endeavor, with God's help, to pass from the morning prayer to my duties "with gentleness and tranquillity."  If I forget to pray it first thing in the morning, I will do it as soon as I remember, and again will endeavor to return to my duties "with gentleness and tranquillity."

So far so good.  I wrote down a morning prayer on a sheet of steno paper.  At the bottom I added a paragraph copied from St. Francis about keeping silent as long as possible after finishing, "so as not to spill the balm of prayer."   I left the sheet of paper on my bedside shelf.  I have been praying it before even standing up out of bed, which works pretty well because my daughter and baby sometimes wake up when I get out of bed, but generally stay asleep as long as I am still there.  

This works much better than my previous attempts to get up, brew coffee, and settle down with a cup of coffee and a breviary.  So far I have been able to maintain tranquillity at least until the children wake up.

Now, on to the second:

SECOND  DESIRE

Refuse to multitask, but rather, "Accept all the duties that come my way peacefully, taking them in order, one by one."

Resolution 1:  I will look people (especially children) in the eye when speaking to them or when being spoken to; give them my whole attention, not just what's left over from my work. 

 

This is still shockingly difficult, but I am working on it.  Sometimes I forget.  Sometimes I remember and still don't do it, answering my kids without looking away from the computer.  I am trying to follow through, though:  when I "catch" myself talking without looking at the children, I am forcing myself to put down my work completely and go engage with them.

* * *

I'm going to keep working on these through this week before picking up St. Francis again.  The next part of the book is about dealing with temptation, and maybe it will give me a chance to troubleshoot.

Introduction to the Devout Life shout out.

So, I understand that despite the dearth of comments, there are at least a few people following along with my series here on Introduction to the Devout Life, which is also entangled to some extent with my resolution to detach from "my" time by applying some of what I learned in giving up gluttony a couple of years ago.

If you are following along, would you mind dropping a comment in this post just so I know you are still reading?

And also if you are willing, comment on if you are "choosing a virtue" of your own to develop, in the way that I am choosing detachment from my work and my time? 

I'm about to make a post with a proposed step-by-step plan for following through with St. Francis's advice, but it's necessarily going to be very specific to my own needs.  I was wondering if anyone out there is following along but working on a different virtue.

Introduction to the Devout Life: Choosing virtue in the performance of duties. (b) Fidelity in small things is as important as fidelity in great ones.

Turning now to Chapter 35, "Fidelity on All Occasions."

Be prepared... to undergo many great trials for his sake, even martyrdom; resolve, should he ask, to give him all you hold most dear:  father, mother, brother, husband, wife, children, your eyes, your very life; such sacrifices must find your heart ready.

But as long as his Divine Providence spares you these great and painful trials... bear patiently the small trials that are your daily lot, those little inconveniences and trifling losses... A headache, a toothache, or a cold; the bad temper of one's husband or wife; meeting with disdain or sulkiness; a glass broken; gloves, a ring or a handkerchief lost; the inconvenience of going to bed early or of rising early to pray or go to Communion; a feeling of embarrassment in performing certain devotions in public, all of these things, when accepted and embraced with love, are most pleasing to God.... as such opportunities occur at every moment they enable us to heap up spiritual riches if we only take advantage of them.

What can we glean from this passage?

(1)  Opportunities to embrace God's work in love occur at every moment, so look for those opportunities as often as I remember.

If I take nothing else from this, I'm going to try to take that an opportunity is available "at every moment" to do "my" work for the kingdom of God, if only I sit up, take notice, and offer that work in love.   I put "my" in scare quotes because I have a choice at all times:  to do "my" work or to do God's work.  It might be different work; or it might be the same work.  But even if it's the same, by turning and offering it to God in love instead of irritation or whatever my personal response to it might be, I make it God's work.

(2)  Respond cheerfully and constructively to the "theft" of "my" time or the undoing of "my" work.

For someone like me who's severely attached to time, it's obvious what sort of "little inconveniences and trifling losses" I need to bear patiently:  The baby who cries just as I think he's down for a nap at last; the syrup spilled just as I finish mopping the floor; the playdate cancelled just as everyone's ready to leave the house; the schoolwork completed that turns out to have been done sloppily or completely wrong.   First, I have to quit complaining about them; second, I have to drop the work I thought I was meant to do, and instead take up the work that these little undoings ask of me.  Lie down to nurse the baby; show a little one how to clean a sticky spill; explain the change of plans to the disappointed children, and help them find a different activity; patiently re-teach the lesson until it's mastered.

St. Francis describes St. Catherine of Siena's example in doing humble things for the love of God, and goes on:

I give you this example... to show you how important it is to direct our actions, however humble, to the service of God and advise you most earnestly to imitate the woman praised so highly by Solomon who put her hand to strong, noble and lofty things yet did not neglect her spinning wheel, she hath put out her hand to strong things, and her fingers have taken hold of the spindle.  Put your hand to strong things... by prayer and meditation, by frequenting the sacraments and teaching others to love God, inspiring their hearts to good; in other words by doing all the great and important things whenever you have the opportunity.  But do not forget your spinning wheel, that is to say, practise the humble and lowly virtues which grow, like flowers, at the foot of the Cross:  helping the poor, visiting the sick, looking after your family with all that this involves, above all practicing that diligence which admits no idleness...

Great opportunities of serving God are rare, but little ones are frequent, and our Lord has told us that if we are faithful over little things, he will commit great things to our charge.  Do everything in God's name, then, and it will be done well; whether you eat or drink, take recreation or turn the spit, you can profit in God's sight by doing them because it is his will.

Here is another tool for discernment, one that might serve as a check on my tendency to prioritize other things above my family's "little" needs.  The small daily tasks are not necessarily less important than apparently great ones.  So when setting out to place one action above another in the hierarchy of "things I've got to get done," I must not be fooled into thinking that the grander task, or the less quotidian one is the one I must be called to most strongly.   

Introduction to the Devout Life: Choosing virtue in the performance of duties. (a) Obedience as a tool for discernment.

I blogged last time that, taking to heart St. Francis's advice to desire all good things in their due order,  I would focus on one virtue to develop:  "avoidance of over-eagerness and anxiety."

This is the title of Chapter 10 in part 3; it is, in my judgement, thematically linked to Chapter 11, "Obedience," and Chapter 35, "Fidelity in all occasions" (meaning, "faithfulness in lowly tasks as well as great tasks.")  All three of these chapters have to do with virtue in the application of one's efforts to one's duties.   Which comes down, in many ways, to the correct and ordered use of time.  And that means, in turn, detachment from "owning" time.   It belongs to God, not me.

 I know in my heart that I have much to learn from these three chapters.  They are about getting your priorities straight.  They are about honoring ALL your duties, even the seemingly insignificant and lowly ones.  They are about doing all things out of love.

Let's take a look at them, one at a time, and see if we can extract some practical advice.  I'll start with chapter 11, "Obedience." 

Wait a minute, that's another virtue... I thought you were going to attack only one virtue at a time?  Well, obedience is relevant, because it's not only a virtue, it's a principle  by which we can figure out what our duties are in the first place.

Necessary obedience is obedience in ecclesiastical matters to magisterium, bishop, and parish priest; in civil matters to the appropriate authorities; and domestically, the filial obedience to parents, the appropriate kind of obedience of wife to husband*.   

Francis says of necessary obedience, 

...no one is exempt from the duty of obeying those whom God has placed in authority over us, to direct and rule us in their own particular sphere.    We must... obey their commands; but to be perfect, we must also take their advice, and even fall in with their wishes, so far as charity and prudence allow.  We should obey orders which are pleasing, for example, to eat, or take recreation, for though obedience seems no great virtue in such circumstances, it would be wrong to disobey; we should also obey in indifferent matters, for example, with regard to what we wear, in taking one road rather than another, in singing or being silent, such obedience being very praiseworthy; but our obedience will be perfect when exercised in difficult, unpleasing and hard matters.

Voluntary obedience is that "to which we voluntarily bind ourselves and which is not imposed on us."  Francis's example is that "we may freely choose our spiritual director or our confessor."  Another example (this is my own understanding) might be the voluntary decision to adhere to some kind of rule of life.  And although Francis puts "obedience of servants to master" in the category of "necessary" obedience, I rather think that in the modern American economy the obedience of employee to employer is really voluntary obedience, since it is contractual.

Much more is worth reading, if "obedience" is the particular virtue you seek!  But I will go on and see what can be extracted from this relevant to mine, namely, anxiety and over-eagerness about (a.k.a. disordered attachment to)  my duties, how I spend my time.

Obedience is one way we know what we must do.  (It's not the only way, nor even the primary way, but it is maybe one of the easiest ways.)    There's the obvious things, like having to go to Mass on Sunday, and having to do whatever it is we are supposed to do for our paid employment, and there's the things our spouse asks us to do...  

I don't think I have to belabor the point here, nor get sidetracked into developing obedience as a virtue.  Here is what I really need the "obedience" chapter for.  Often I find myself saying, "Hang on a minute, I really have to do this thing first..."  One of the habits I must develop is being truthful about whether I "really have to do this thing first."   And to know whether I'm truthful about it I must be able to answer the questions:

• Am I bound to do this thing AT ALL?  
• And if I am, am I bound to do it FIRST?

Obedience is one way I might be bound to do that thing... or conversely, it's one way I might be bound NOT to do it!  

So I guess one piece of advice that can be extracted from Francis's wisdom here is:  know each day exactly what tasks and projects I am bound under obedience to accomplish.  Realistically, this will be a tiny fraction of the "things I have to do."  But it's good to know which ones these are.

Some days that might be "work on the taxes, because paying taxes is the law."  Some Sundays it might be "attend Mass, because it's a precept of the church"  Another day it might be "write down how much I spend at the grocery store, because my husband asked me to help him keep the family budget."  You see?

Understanding what obedience really requires of us ought to be a way to reduce our anxiety about tasks, because it helps us discern our true duties. 

Comments solicited!