Here at Flunking Sainthood we’re always open to people telling it how it is. Today we welcome guest truth-teller Ellen Painter Dollar, who blogs for Her.meneutics at Christianity Today, on those days when you just can’t quite rustle up the kids to go to church. Preach it, sister. Yeah, there are some days when you just need to hang out at home.
I have often wondered how the Christian life would be different if God had become incarnate as a nursing mother instead of as a single man. Christian practices–solitary prayer and contemplation, weekly worship, sacrificial giving and service–require detachment from other people and mundane concerns, large chunks of time, and internal reserves of energy to engage with the world’s sore spots. As a housewife and mother of three, those are precisely the resources I have only in very short supply.
Detachment? I carry on entire conversations with my children while I’m sitting on the toilet. Time? In those rare moments unclaimed by children, chores, or work, I could pray, and sometimes I do. But honestly, using scarce and longed-for solitude to pray makes me feel like God is just one more being who wants a piece of me. Energy for ministry? Many traditional ministries (outreach projects, church committees, etc.) require yet more interaction in my overly interactive life.
My prayers are haphazard. At bedtime, I whisper a disorganized prayer that goes something like this: “Please take care of all the hurting people in the world, especially ____ and _____ and the little Haitian girl I read about in the paper. I’m sorry for yelling at the kids, pining over magazine spreads of renovated kitchens, and obsessively checking my latest blog post to see if anyone has commented yet. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have this man lying next to me and our three children sleeping nearby, all of us safe and healthy. Thank you thank you thank you. I’m sorry. Thank you. Amen.”
As I wrote on the Christianity Today women’s blog last week, my family’s church attendance has also become haphazard. Although we still attend church more often than not, we’re more likely to skip it than we used to be due to my own burnout and my kids’ lack of enthusiasm.
Our lukewarm church involvement is in part due to my own failures–a desire to avoid power struggles with my kids; my passionate love for lazy mornings, coffee, and the Sunday paper; my difficulty setting healthy limits on my commitments without becoming bitter. I should, and could, do better, and I thank God there is such a thing as grace. But our churches could also do better at building communities and promoting spiritual practices that are life-giving for everyone.
I have known Christians and churches who act as if our deepest attachments–to family, home, and fundamental daily needs that can consume so much time and energy–are at best, irrelevant and at worst, a barrier to a faithful life. That’s not an unreasonable conclusion. Jesus, after all, had few such attachments. He ate, drank, and slept, but he also had nowhere to lay his head. He asked his first disciples to leave their families, their work, and their possessions to live as itinerants.
But is following Jesus synonymous with imitating him? Are we all called to exercise the same detachment from home and family that Jesus and the disciples did? I hope not, because my attachments are so deeply embedded that if I were to disengage from them, I would also lose most of myself. Our culture tells us that being so attached to our roles as wives and mothers is bad for our mental health; the church tells us it’s bad for our spiritual health. But what if neither is true?
What would Christian practice look like if God had become incarnate as a nursing mother instead of a single guy? Perhaps we would understand that those who pace in the night with a colicky baby embody sacrificial love as much as those who toil on behalf of the world’s sick and poor. Perhaps we would know that muddled prayers whispered before sleep are just as good as eloquent prayers said on one’s knees in a solitary hour. Perhaps we would acknowledge that the weariness that leads a mother to question whether taking her kids to church is worth the trouble might be a sign that the church’s priorities, not just the mother’s or the children’s, are out of whack.
posted July 14, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Sometimes I’d like to skip church. But I think it would be more fun to send all my kids to church with my hubby so I could stay home by myself and sleep!
posted July 14, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Ah, that is a lovely thought. All moms should get a Sunday like that now and again — truly a day of rest.
posted July 14, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Wow! What a lovely and gentle way to challenge basic assumptions. I hear you asking only for an acknowledgment that Love with a capital L is obvious and worthy in the small consistent interactions with all those in our environment, and is perhaps most difficult with those closest to us.
“Perhaps we would understand that those who pace in the night with a colicky baby embody sacrificial love as much as those who toil on behalf of the world’s sick and poor. Perhaps we would know that muddled prayers whispered before sleep are just as good as eloquent prayers said on one’s knees in a solitary hour. Perhaps we would acknowledge that the weariness that leads a mother to question whether taking her kids to church is worth the trouble might be a sign that the church’s priorities, not just the mother’s or the children’s, are out of whack.”
Are these current limitations a result of having only a male model of God?
(I just want to hug that sweetheart in the snuggly purple jammies.)
posted July 15, 2010 at 1:02 pm
I completely sympathize and I only have one child! I loved the example of your prayers, they sound very similar to my own.
posted August 8, 2010 at 9:09 am
Thank you for putting it so beautifully. The guilt can be crippling, can’t it? We expect ourselves to parent like Mary, to pray like Hildegard, to serve like Dorothy – all of which are full-time endeavors, and all of which are, if done as passionately and completely as these women did it, mutually exclusive – at least for a season.
So what WOULD life-giving faith-community practices look like for those of us who are parenting full-time for a season? (If there’s a desperate-sounding note here, let me be honest – I’m an “on-leave” pastor married to a pastor, and my three little preschool PK’s and I are tacitly expected to be in church every Sunday. And I want us to be there, I really do…) I think that the offered reflections about the imbalance resulting from a single-male-only model of what faithfulness looks like are on target. But in the concrete, in the “now” of our lives, what might faithfulness look like, and how might it be nurtured and supported in the context of our real, blundering, trying-to-get-something-right faith communities?
posted August 9, 2010 at 11:51 pm
“Perhaps we would understand that those who pace in the night with a colicky baby embody sacrificial love as much as those who toil on behalf of the world’s sick and poor. Perhaps we would know that muddled prayers whispered before sleep are just as good as eloquent prayers said on one’s knees in a solitary hour. Perhaps we would acknowledge that the weariness that leads a mother to question whether taking her kids to church is worth the trouble might be a sign that the church’s priorities, not just the mother’s or the children’s, are out of whack.”
That is brilliantly put. What a great article. Great thought provoking question: what if Jesus had come as a nursing mom. Thanks for sharing.
posted August 13, 2010 at 10:16 am
Coming late to the discussion, but I wanted to thank everyone for your comments. This piece, and my original one on Christianity Today, have sparked a lot of discussions and I’m currently reworking both articles to contribute to an anthology on how parents can (or can’t) instill values in their children.
Elise – I especially appreciated your comment as a pastor and the wife of a pastor. Some other clergy who have read this have responded with, “Well, I have no choice about going to church on Sundays so how about you get over it.” Which maybe missed the point? Anyway, I don’t have lots of specific ideas for different practices, but I have some thoughts. A Jewish woman told me that in Judaism there is an allowance made for mothers of young children; they are not expected to participate in any religious activities that have time constraints that are difficult to reconcile with unpredictable children’s schedules. I’d like to see a simple recognition in Christian churches that we all go through different phases of life, and that disciplines need to reflect that. Perhaps churches could teach and nurture prayer practices that don’t require long stretches of solitude–ways to use breathing techniques, for example, to stop and center oneself in the midst of a busy day. Consistent, well-staffed nursery care during worship services is a must, and I am shocked at how many churches not only don’t provide this, but don’t even think they need to. In my experience, churches need to be willing to pay their nursery staff–even if they are teens from the congregation–so that parents can count on them being there. I also think this post relates in some ways to Jana’s post yesterday on how teens aren’t getting their faith nurtured in church. Neither are parents, perhaps for the same reason– churches are focused on activities and making people feel good instead of nurturing deep, challenging faith. I’d be thrilled if my church did fewer activities but provided more depth in sermons, Christian education, etc.
I’ve gone on too long, but it’s something I continue to ponder. Thanks for the feedback!
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posted September 11, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Thanks for sharing this! It was so poignant. I’m a stay at home mom, and we are an active duty military family (so Daddy has a CRAZY schedule). We just get burned out at times & crave a lazy family filled morning. Funny enough, these are the times that I feel closer to God. Enjoying our little ones and watching them play sprinkled with a bible story read by Daddy just feels more natural at times than doing the “get ready” shuffle with our 3 children & then everyone splitting up in different directions once we get to church. I still feel guilty, though. Thanks so much for sharing!