Weekends with Chesterton, first post!

I'd say this is my inaugural Weekends With Chesterton but that'd set my pants on fire, because 1. it's not the weekend (to be fair to myself...in mom time, Wednesday is totally kind of sort of like a weekend because time...it just keeps slipping away) and 2. I've been hanging with GK for years. Just not on the blog. Or in a book written by him. Just with books written about the books written by him. Because GK is more along the lines of:

And I'm more like....hmm...how would I put this gently?

So, I read books and blogs and articles about GK because the one time I tried to listen to an audiobook of Heretics or Orthodoxy (see, I don't even remember which one it was), by the third chapter, it was so far beyond my understanding that I had to ask Joseph what the original point of the book was. 

Hat tip to Mr. C, so long as the hat is not donning my head because the hot air inside of it won't hold it up (jk, I tip my hat toward him time and time again because the man was brilliant and should be canonized, in my outspoken but humble opinion.) 

So, here's my quote for the week:

"The business done in the home is nothing less than the shaping of the bodies and souls of humanity." 

-GKC-

It baffles me when a certain argument is made against Catholicism, particularly in a very open-minded, tolerant, nonjudgmental, loving rant against the male population in our Holy Mother Church - the one that women are suppressed and hated and treated as lower-class citizens.

Let's pause and think about this.

When you're finished laughing and wiping the ensuing tears caused by said hilarity, continue reading.

Au contraire, my friend. GK embraces the Church's understanding about the sacred nature of women and the work that women have been assigned. I'd venture to say that he's the most prolific and poetic writer in our century regarding this discussion, though there are piles of books I haven't read, so make your arguments and recommendations. 

In this sermon,  Father Mozzie discusses this very belief taught by Holy Mother Church (side note: how DARE THE CHURCH HATE WOMEN, SO MUCH SO THAT....wait, the Church calls the institution created by Christ Himself while on earth....a....wait for iiiiiiit....a mother.  Also, listen to the whole thing to get to the point. You're welcome.) - that God has shared with women His creative power, a gift not given to men or angels. And that gift is sacred. Men are entrusted with the spiritual lives of those in their care and women are entrusted to bring new souls into being. It's not a design of one job being better or harder, but a design where each complements and balances the other. 

CS Lewis writes that, "The homemaker has the ultimate career; all other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career." 

Tooooootttaaaalllly me, as I calmly and peacefully put my two cherubs to bed.

And the reason that homemaking is the ultimate career is because it is the vocation that is always, always, aaalllllways surrounded by little ones, soaking up the big, brand new world for the first time. And it's what we surround them with that they soak up and live out for the rest of their lives. 

In rare moments of inspiration, I thank the Good Lord for allowing me to partake in the vocation where the only thing He asks of me is to love. I don't have the burden of feeding my family, of providing for a roof over our heads, of bringing sacraments to the dying, or listening to confessions for hours on end. I'm commanded to love. My salvation depends on how well I love and teach love. 

The beauty of homeschooling lies less with the elasticity in schedules, learning philosophies, and curriculum choices and more with the lessons taught through the constant sacrificial love that I, as a mother, have been called to. My little sponges get to see me from the moment they wake up until the moment their little eyes fall shut at the end of the day. Every moment is an opportunity - a calling - for me to show them sacrificial love, through housework, through cooking, through schooling. They get their lessons from no one else. 

My lessons are based around the knowledge that homeschooling isn't tasking me with the job of raising financially successful citizens, but citizens of Heaven.

The Behnke brood. Or those from whom we ask constant help. I've heard it both ways.

I strive for an orderly home not because of pintrest, but because God created an order to all things and it falls into natural law that humans strive toward order. That doesn't mean perfectly scrubbed surfaces and flowers adorning tabletops, but order. And with order comes peace. And with peace comes a greater understanding of the presence of Our Lord. I strive for my home to be open and welcoming to all those that pass through our front door. I may be shoving a pile of books to the side with my foot as I welcome you in, but I've been tasked to welcome you in with love, and that I will do.

I strive for simple, healthy meals because cooking meals for my family isn't simply to nourish their bodies, but to nourish their souls. I treasure the (again, rare) moments when I'm cooking in a peaceful, clean kitchen, and reflect that 2000 years ago, another Mother cooked a simple meal for her Son as He finished up a long day working alongside his earthly father. It helps me have a connection with this Mother with whom I so often feel I have so little in common.

I need this.

I'd settle for this, too.

I dream of quietly living out our days learning about the world God created. 

And in all of these attempts at living out a quiet, simple live, I pray and hope that my children learn that it's not easy being a mother, particularly one who surrounds herself, without break, by her children. I pray and hope that they see that I actively choose to educate at home because their father and I firmly believe that they will get no better lessons in love and faith anywhere else, by anyone else. I pray that they see the sacrifice that their parents give; that when we (ahem, I) fail at loving them in moments of selfishness and fatigue and overwhelmedness, that I do my best to reach out to my own Mother and Heavenly Father and beg them to teach me the same lessons that I'm doing my best to teach my own children. 

William Ross Wallace refrained that "the hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world." My rose-colored naiveté tells me that mothers all do the best they can, but I know that's not true. With the revolution decades ago, the world has been telling mothers that they can do bigger! better! things with their life if they don't stay home with their children. I cringe for the babies that are left alone; for the toddler who begs for nothing more than a cuddle from his mother; for the preschooler, terrified of entering into the big world without her mommy, and forced to do so anyway; for the middle-schooler bullied every single day in his classes because he's a little different; for the high-schooler who has been raised so distant for his parents that he makes choices based on the experience of his peers, rather than the counsel of a wiser authority. My heart hurts for them. Those children will one day rule the world and their cradles were hurriedly rocked by a foot, because their mothers' hands were too busy becoming successful in the world.

This is what my cradle looks like. Peaceful, I know.

I'm not perfect. I'm learning, over and over and over again. There was a point in my life, not too long ago, that my children pretended to be me by falling onto the floor in a sobbing heap. I understand and ache for those mothers who have no choice but to work. I get angry at the fathers who put them in those positions. 

What I'm trying to say is that GK was spot on when he says that we, as mothers, particularly as homeschooling mothers, are shaping humanity. Not only are our children the future of society, but the future of The Church, as well. And that's a pretty big task that we've been entrusted with.  But if we stay faithful in these little tasks, then the reward shall be great.

"His lord said to him: Well done, good and faithful servant: because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." Matthew 25:23

We're not convincing our neighbors of our sanity when my children ask to pose with a statue of Our Blessed Mother for a photo on Mother's Day. If this is crazy, I don't want to be sane.