Mary Hood Hart's blog

On the virtues of standing in line

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:04:12 -0500

When I lived in England twenty years ago, one aspect of British life was very appealing to me—the queue. I loved the orderly way in which the British lined up for buses or to purchase tomatoes (to-mah-toes) at the greengrocer. Patiently, with great decorum, the English wait in line. It is an art form.

This queuing up, as they call it, fills a deep need of mine. In most areas of my life, I am notoriously untidy, scattered. But when it comes to waiting in line, I can become militaristic. There’s comfort in a well-ordered queue. Even if you find yourself near the back, you feel confident that if you follow all the rules, waiting patiently for the bus or the clerk to wait on you, your patience will be rewarded. There’s no anxiety, or concern that somehow you’ll be overlooked. You take your place and wait with quiet confidence.

In England, if someone broke a queue, you could almost be sure the person was a foreigner. I don’t recall ever witnessing a Briton disrupt a perfect line. When I was there the British were too polite to call attention to a line-breaker. They may “tsk tsk” quietly, but I never saw anyone raise a ruckus over a broken queue. It was as if the line-breaker, just by virtue of having committed this grave social sin, had condemned himself. Nothing need be said.

Prior to England, I lived in Italy, and the Italians had no regard for queues. When a bus arrived at the stop, they flooded through the door. I was virtually swept into the bus in a tide of bodies. There was no pretense of a line, and, because of that, I didn’t feel much anxiety. When there are no hard and fast rules, there’s also less concern about injustice. Interestingly, though it was chaotic, we all seemed to make it through the line.
Most disconcerting to me is waiting in line in the U. S. Perhaps because we’re a melting pot, we seem to have no consistent standard of waiting in line, no clear and fast rules. Sometimes, we’re like the British, patient and orderly. Sometimes, we’re like the Italians, a mad rush of bodies. Most times, we’re somewhere in between.

Waiting in the cafeteria line in high school is one of my bad memories. The line was always long, and lunch time short. What I found most troubling was the attitude of some of the more popular kids. If one popular kid was in front of the line, a flock of their peers would suddenly appear and cut in front of the rest of us, those who lacked status in the schoolyard. Sometimes, they wouldn’t even bother to acknowledge us; occasionally, one would smile our way, and say, “you don’t mind, do you?” We never voiced our objections. But inside I seethed.

Like me in the cafeteria line decades ago, many of us become indignant when people break the established norms and expect special treatment. Those of us who are willing to wait patiently in line may consider ourselves more civil, more sensitive to inequality, more considerate of others. However, we reserve our indignation only for “average” Americans like us. Celebrities are not expected to wait in line.

In fact, many of us wait in line for hours just to see them. Typically, people willing to wait in line are almost always considered inferior in status to the privileged. And that distinction is becoming increasingly more pronounced. Waiting in line may soon become an activity strictly for the economically disadvantaged. Disney World, for one, has developed a system that if you buy a special pass (for a fee prohibitive to the average American) you can avoid the long lines for its attractions. There are other ways that the more privileged among us, not celebrities per se, can bypass lines—through “first” or “business” class status on airlines, in hotels, etc. These days, it’s becoming common for the wealthier among us to pay others to stand in line for them.

Standing in line in the U. S., and elsewhere, is rarely just. Indeed, those who are downtrodden find themselves most frequently in long lines—for a bed in the homeless shelter, a bag of groceries in the food pantry, or a vaccination at the health clinic.

In developing countries, waiting in line for scarce goods and services is a fact of life.

The injustice of lining up runs the gamut from the trivial (my high school cafeteria) to the profound (lines of refugees awaiting care for their most basic needs).

Jesus showed great concern for those who couldn’t make it to the front of the line. He noted the grave injustices he witnessed. Indeed, he stated clearly that in God’s kingdom, the first would be last, and the last would be first. When it comes to the world’s resources, we Americans are among the most privileged, the first in line.

When serious about building God’s kingdom, Christians seek justice for those who are, economically, socially, and politically forced to the back of the line.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Summer adventure beginning to end

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:45:10 -0500

This summer, I’ve been surrounded—by laundry, dirty dishes, flip flops, damp towels, human beings. When I leave for work in the morning, my car backs cautiously around one vehicle after the other, lined up like circus elephants in our driveway.

All four of our children, ages 16 to 24, are home, a home purchased after two of them moved out, and, when all of us are together, feels crowded. On top of this, we’ve had guests: this week, son Charlie’s girlfriend. In the last two weeks we’ve had daughter Katie’s boyfriend, her best friend from high school, a current co-worker, and a former roommate. Last night, daughter Anna’s two friends arrived.

When I wake in the morning, I tiptoe to the kitchen to start the coffee, making as little noise as possible because someone is usually sleeping on the sunroom couch. Lately, it feels as if I’ve hardly left the kitchen, preparing meals and cleaning up afterward. Second only to the kitchen is the grocery store, where I find myself at least once a day. I can’t believe how quickly Diet Cokes and bottled water disappear from the fridge.

Yet when one child (adult, really) comes to me and asks: “Is it okay if Holly stays here a couple nights?” I find myself, without hesitation, saying “sure.”

I want them here, all of them, even though it’s lots of work. I want them here, even though we’re overcrowded and I can never be sure who I’ll find showering in the master bath. I want them here even though long after Jim and I’ve gone to bed we are awakened by the sound of ice clinking in glasses and the laughter of friends.

Yes, friends. Not just my children laughing with their friends. Our children laughing as each other’s friends. This is one of the bonuses of family life, something when they’re small you don’t really expect as a reward—witnessing your children enjoy one another as adults. When our two sons, 18 and 20, went deep-sea fishing the other morning, rising at an unheard-of 5:00 a.m., I remembered their former adventures, less sophisticated, to be sure—the many excursions they embarked on as boys. How many times in their childhood had I watched these small boys set out to explore the nearby woods, donning outfits and carrying special gear? And here they are, two men, as tall and strong as they once imagined they would be.

When I describe the chaos at my house, my co-workers joke that I need to come to work to get some rest. And, I admit, in those rare hours when I am alone at the house, when they are all at the beach or a movie, I enjoy the stillness. But it’s a different stillness from the empty nest. It’s the stillness of anticipation, like the pause between acts of a play or the interlude between symphonic performances. It’s a pause that includes the knowledge that now is the time to prepare for the next good thing.

Just a few minutes ago, at 6:00 a.m., the house became emptier. A dramatic amount of stuff was cleared of our small living space. Our oldest son just drove away in his SUV full of rucksacks, a cooler, book bag. Even though there are six young people still sleeping all through the house, I feel the difference. Watching him leave, I felt as if I was watching a sandcastle slowly cave in to a rising tide. My great summer adventure is beginning to end.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Parenting: there is no substitute

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:17:56 -0500

When my children were young, our public schools began character education. I was skeptical, even then, about its effectiveness. I would drive by the elementary school and see the character “word of the month” posted on the school sign – honesty, for example – and wonder how such a concept could possibly be conveyed to a child through education.

And while the motive for character education is certainly admirable, the results are questionable. Indeed, this generation of college students, the cream of the crop when it comes to the products of our schools, apparently have little compunction about cheating. Many admit to cheating regularly. Surely, if character education were working, the results would be most noticeable when it comes to honesty in academics.

In a recent opinion piece for the New York Times, conservative columnist David Brooks suggests that character education fails because schools cannot “teach” morality. He says advocates of character education have miscalculated when it comes to human nature. One doesn’t “decide” logically to behave a certain way.

For example, a person doesn’t make a decision to engage in risky or immoral behavior. If human beings were deciders, then character education makes sense. We would then choose not to do something based on the information we’ve attained. Like computers, we would store the information in our memories and make the choice with the most logical outcome. (I will not eat this doughnut because its fat content exceeds healthy limits.)

Instead, Brooks argues, human beings are perceivers. We make our decisions based on the environment we have been raised in and currently find ourselves. For example, even knowing all the risks, a person may opt to take drugs because he or she prefers an altered consciousness rather than coping with the pain of life. Or, a person may choose to become involved in an unhealthy relationship because he or she is desperate for emotional attachment. Purely offering information about destructive choices fails to persuade people from engaging in behavior. (I will eat this doughnut, even though I know it is bad for my health, because the temporary pleasure it brings me exceeds my concerns.)

Even if character education isn’t effective, what’s wrong with offering it anyway? Isn’t it better than nothing?
The problem with relying on the schools to teach character is that many parents then abdicate their crucial role in forming their own kids’ character and in engaging in important dialogue with their kids. They then come to expect institutions to form their children’s character. Indeed, it is much easier to rely on an institution to educate our children than to accept the responsibility ourselves, especially when the institution is composed of “experts.” Recent generations of parents are now accustomed to relying on “experts” to guide them in rearing their children. Over time, parents’ confidence becomes eroded. It’s also uncomfortable and time-consuming to talk to our children about moral issues, especially when our own behavior fails to live up to the standards espoused. Some parents feel hypocritical if they talk against pre-marital sex or marijuana use, when they indulged in their own youth. So, rather than risk dialogue with their children, they avoid the subject altogether.

In much the same way they rely on schools, parents rely on the institution of the Church to teach their children morality without considering the tremendous influence the home environment plays in a child’s character. As a religious educator, I’ve encountered many families who come to the parish only when their children start to act out, expecting somehow that an injection of religion will rescue their child from a wayward path. What they fail to realize is that they, the parents, must invest the time and energy in forming a Christian environment in their home, ideally from the beginning of a child’s life, supplemented, of course, through the support of the parish community.

Another advantage to parents of relying on institutions to raise a child is the option of then blaming the institutions when the child begins to stray. Rather than honestly looking at their own lives and their own example (far more influential than moral instruction) parents blame the “systems” that failed their children. And the child, too, learns to avoid accepting responsibility.

The hard truth is this: parents and the home environment play a crucial role in a child’s character. Parents who offer a stable, loving home, and who model good character, are far more likely to instill those moral values in their children. What the children learn at school and church is no substitute.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

The paradoxes of motherhood

Thu, 10 May 2007 11:55:25 -0500

It’s funny how the memory of little moments can remain with us throughout our lives while even dramatic experiences fade with time. One such little moment in my life occurred when I was late in my pregnancy with my first child. Unemployed at the time, I had grown accustomed each morning to working the crossword puzzle in the daily paper. Sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee (I allowed myself one cup a day), doing the puzzle, I became aware that soon I would be surrendering this pleasant routine. I knew that it was only a matter of weeks before my relatively serene world would be turned upside down by an infant.

While I had a premonition of the changes I’d experience, I was still unprepared. Little did I know how demanding an infant can be. I remember clearly another time, when I was in the grocery store with Katie, then about a month old, when I encountered a middle-aged man who glanced at her in the grocery cart and remarked, “I see you brought the boss with you.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Yes, the boss. This tiny, helpless being controlled my life, dictating when I slept and when I woke, when I ate and when I showered. Never before had I been required to surrender myself so completely to care for another. In that regard, it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.

It was the best of times because I fell madly and completely in love with this child. It was the worst of times because I was exhausted and too often alone (we had no family close by, few friends and my husband traveled with his work.) Gradually, my life became more predictable. While I was still madly in love with my daughter and couldn’t imagine life without her, she was no longer the sun around which my world revolved. Jim and I start going out to dinner. I developed friendships. I started a part-time job. Eventually, I became pregnant again and again and again.

Reflecting on the days of my life before and after children, I discover that one major theme of motherhood is adjusting to change. As soon as we become mothers, life demands adjustments, some major, some minor. These adjustments come in many forms. Not only are we forced to change our routines— obvious, external changes—but we are changed within.

Once we have children, we adjust our goals, our priorities. We weigh the importance of relatively small things—which would I rather do tonight with this unexpected slice of free time, read a book or take a shower? And of larger issues—which education is the best for our child—private, public or home school? And of even larger issues—what values will we impart? Mothers are required to think beyond themselves, every day, in small ways and large. We become profoundly aware of the consequences of our decisions.

The paradox of motherhood is that we are freed and bound. Mothers are offered opportunities to become liberated from selfish concerns while at the same time we are intimately bound to our children. And the grace of that experience, that paradox, can be found in how we respond to being freed and bound, all at once.
How do we surrender ourselves and our time without resentments, without neglecting our own physical and emotional well-being? How do we give our children all they need without smothering them with too much emotion, care or material goods? How do we offer our lives to our children without ending up depleted and unsure of who we really are? How do we give our children what they need without giving them so much that they grow to feel entitled, ungrateful?

There are no easy answers to these questions. And over my 24 years of motherhood, I have found myself inadvertently nurturing my children and my resentments, inadvertently neglecting my own needs and my children’s, inadvertently giving my children too much one time and giving them too little the next.

Indeed, the older I get the more I see how imperfectly I have filled this ever-changing role of mother. The paradox is that, because of my humanness, my love will always be enough and it will never be enough. And yet, this is where the grace comes, despite all the changes, all the mistakes, love remains, emptying me and filling me, again and again and again.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Worry accomplishes nothing

Thu, 03 May 2007 12:34:16 -0500

Recently, on a weekday afternoon, I walked into our church gathering space to prepare for an event when I encountered an elderly lady, in her 80s, sitting alone. After greeting her, I asked her if I could do anything for her, and she told me no, that she was just waiting for her daughter to pick her up from a church function she’d attended. Her daughter was late, she said, and she was beginning to worry. I offered my cell phone, but she told me she’d already called and couldn’t reach her daughter.

“It’s not like her to be late,” she said. “I hope she’s all right.”

I checked back ten minutes later, and the gathering space was empty. Her daughter had arrived. This brief encounter prompted me to realize that, no matter how old their children may be, mothers never outgrow worrying.

However, if there’s a prime time for worrying, it seems to be the one my husband and I are currently in. In our early 50s, we’ve been faced with more potential worries than ever before. Two teenagers at home, one an inexperienced driver. A son in the Army. A young adult daughter living on her own, teaching in a public high school. Elderly parents, one quite ill and in need of round-the-clock care.

Of course, the state of the world gives us all plenty of reason to worry. Violence. Global warming. Terrorism. Poverty. Corruption. Injustice. The list goes on.

Many times I worry most when I am deprived of information. One of my children is due home at a certain time, hasn’t arrived and can’t be reached by phone. Worry sets in. A suspicious symptom requires a test. Days go by waiting for a result. Worry sets in.

Other times I worry when I’m given more information than I need. When my adult son tells me he wants to own a motorcycle one day, my brain starts flashing in red neon “Danger! Danger! Danger!” When my daughter, laughingly, tells me she accidentally walked into a moving bus (suffice to say she was unhurt), I find that story more alarming than humorous.

Still, I know that worry is a fruitless exercise. It accomplishes nothing and destroys my peace of mind. Yet, as a mother, how do I avoid it? Isn’t it, after all, an expression of love and concern? If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t worry. Right?

Yet there is a huge difference between worry and concern. According to my dictionary, “worry” is defined as mental distress or agitation. Concern is defined as marked interest or regard. Therefore, worry diminishes life, while concern enriches life.

Concern is expressed in face-to-face dialogue, a hand-written note, a phone call to inquire about one’s needs. Concern is expressed in collaborative attempts to find solutions to problems, in prayer. Expressing concern occurs in relationship with God and others.

However, worry is manifested in unhealthy ways—lack of sleep, anxiety, irritation, a sense that life is spinning out of control. Worry is also more troubling because we do it alone. In fact, when I share my worries with another, they are rapidly diminished. Sometimes, just voicing them to another person provides me the perspective I need to put them in context and re-gain peace of mind.

Saint Francis de Sales, doctor of the Church and spiritual advisor, offers these words of advice which we (mothers especially!) can take to heart: “Be careful and attentive to all the matters God has committed to your care, but if possible do not be solicitous or worried; this is, do not burden yourself over them with uneasiness or anxiety. This worry only disturbs reason and good judgment and prevents you from doing well the very things you are worried about.”

As Easter people, we have been gifted with the Lord’s peace. At each celebration of the Eucharist, we pray “protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope…”

Through the Holy Spirit, that joyful hope is present to us now.
On this subject, I offer again the words of Saint Francis de Sales. “One of the signs of the genuineness of inspirations, especially extraordinary ones, is peace and tranquility of heart in those who receive them, since the Holy Spirit is indeed powerful, but with a strength that is gentle, mild and peaceful.”
Through life’s trials, may our hearts be gentle, peaceful, and mild.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

On the power of poetry

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:01:59 -0500

My daughter is a 10th grade English teacher. This is her first year of teaching. She was visiting one weekend not long ago and told me she was planning to teach a unit on poetry. She asked me for ideas.

I was once an English teacher. I was also a poet. I studied creative writing in college, with an emphasis on poetry. For my master’s thesis I created a thin book of poems. As an adjunct for a local college, I taught English composition and literature. Poetry was my favorite subject, my passion.

When Katie and I sat down to talk about poetry, I pulled an old textbook, the one I once taught from, off the shelf. It is X. J. Kennedy’s Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. I’m not sure if it’s still used anywhere, but it’s a great book. When Katie and I turned to the poetry section, I felt as if I was paging through a family album of old photos. The passage of time (more than 10 years) since I had taught the poems created in me a sense of nostalgia. Not only did I remember the poem, but I remembered teaching the poem, the responses it evoked in my students, even some of the essays (good and bad) my students wrote in response to the poems.

Katie and I selected poems from the book we thought would be appropriate for her students. We discussed how she might approach teaching them. First, I said, always read the poem aloud. Poetry is written to be read aloud. Second, teach them how to read the poem for its literal meaning first. If they don’t understand what’s literally being said, they will never be able to understand it on a deeper level.

Poetry isn’t intended to be obscure. In fact, it can be easily accessible. However, it cannot be approached as a puzzle containing a hidden message we are required to decipher. From that perspective, it becomes an exercise in frustration.
Poetry has its own logic. The best way to approach poetry is with an open mind. We must allow it to evoke a response in us without over-intellectualizing. Closer to music than prose, poetry relies on sound, image, symbol, and rhythm to work its magic.

I told Katie she will discover that the students who are less academically inclined will be the most responsive to poetry and will themselves write the best poems. Because they have long ago realized they don’t easily come up with the “right” answers, these struggling students will be less concerned about “getting” the poem and more open to allowing the poem to “get” them. After she taught the unit, Katie told me my prediction came true.

Poetry has the power to change lives. I know that firsthand, because my life was changed by an encounter with a poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot. Before I met Prufrock in a freshman English class, I had intended to major in biology. I was planning to become a veterinarian.

My encounter with that poem led to my becoming an English major. My subsequent encounters with poetry led me to develop a new awareness of the power of language, of symbol, of sensory experience as evoked through imagery.

Later I became a Christian, and I am convinced that my encounters with poetry awakened in me a way of viewing the world that made me more open to God’s grace. It would not be exaggerating to say that God spoke to me through poetry, and poetry now speaks to me of God.

A perfect example of this occurred just before I began writing this column. I checked my e-mail in-box to discover a poem sent to me through a subscription (free) to the Writers Almanac, an NPR spot hosted by Garrison Keillor (www.writersalmanac.org).
Before I starting writing this column, this poem by Jane Kenyon, “Briefly It Enters, and Briefly It Speaks,” was waiting for me. It reads in part:

I am the blossom pressed in a book, found again after two hundred years…
I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper…
I am water rushing to the wellhead filling the pitcher until it spills…
I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden…
I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Dying to self, rising to life

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 12:45:31 -0500

For many years, our oldest, Katie, wanted a real bunny for Easter. Year after year, she was disappointed.
Having owned a rabbit as a child, I knew enough about rabbits to know we were not good candidates for bunny ownership. At that time we owned two large dogs and a couple of cats. Bringing a rabbit into our family would have been cruel. Not succumbing to Katie’s wish for a real bunny was one of the saner decisions of our parenthood. Sane but painful to Katie nonetheless.
Though she tried to feign happiness with her Easter basket of goodies, including every variety of bunny—chocolate, stuffed, ceramic, plastic, rubber—except the living kind, Katie’s disappointment each Easter morning of her early childhood was impossible to disguise.
It’s not easy to reconcile a child’s disappointment with Easter. Easter is a season of hope and joy. What happens to a young child’s experience of Easter when her hopes are dashed? How do you help her celebrate Easter when the joy she thought she’d find in a warm, furry creature eludes her—year after year?
Perhaps we could’ve tempered some of this disappointment had we not encouraged the myth of the Easter Bunny. The idea that she could appeal to him, even when Mom and Dad said no, kept her hope alive. We suggested that both Santa and the Easter bunny were respectful of parents’ wishes and didn’t bring gifts mommies and daddies disapproved of, but Katie didn’t buy that. She thought the Easter Bunny’s generous heart would satisfy her intense longing even over our objections.
Reflecting on Katie’s Easter disappointment prompts me to consider how even we adults become so easily deflated during the Easter season. How is it—with the hope, the promise of resurrection, of new, everlasting life—do we still feel pangs of disappointment, even despair? How is it that Easter joy eludes us?
Two possible explanations come to mind. First, we seek to be satisfied by that which can’t, ultimately, satisfy us. In Katie’s case, her longing was in the form of a furry creature, which, once she owned it for a period of time, would cease to bring her the joy she expected had she discovered it on Easter morning. The reality of bunny ownership would prove less thrilling than the prospect. The cuddly rabbit she envisioned would wriggle out of her embrace.
While maturity changes these childish longings, they do not disappear. We still have our longings for material and temporal satisfactions. We seek our satisfaction in that which will never fully satisfy—success, material goods, relationships. Ultimately, these will disappoint.
Another reason we can experience disappointment, even in the midst of the Easter season, is that we confuse Easter joy with happiness, which is transitory and elusive. Happiness is to Easter joy what the McDonald’s jingle is to Mozart.
Joy isn’t dependent on circumstances, moods. Unlike happiness, joy is not something we pursue. Joy comes from surrendering to God’s will. And while we may often say we want to do God’s will, that expressed desire is usually insufficient. When it comes down to it, especially when God’s will conflicts with our own, we resist giving up control.
The first step to relinquishing control is accepting that we are, ultimately, powerless.
Ironically, as long as we try to rely on willpower to accomplish an objective, we will continue to assert our own will. When we recognize our powerlessness, we are finally open to the process of surrender.
A priest friend once told me that we can not make ourselves surrender to God’s will just as we can not make ourselves fall asleep. At first, I was taken aback by that statement and hesitated to believe it. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.
When we want to fall asleep, we may place ourselves in an environment that promotes drowsiness, we may follow routines that promote healthy sleep habits, but – in the final analysis (unless we are using pills) – we rely on something subconscious, something deeper, to lead us into sleep. In fact, the more we try to sleep, the less likely we are to fall asleep. We cannot will ourselves to sleep.
Surrendering to God’s will is similar. We can place ourselves in an environment that promotes surrender to God’s will, we can follow a pattern of regular prayer and worship, we can relinquish unhealthy behaviors and attachments, but—in the end—surrendering is a gradual process that occurs, like sleep, without our bringing it about. (Indeed, it is not truly surrender if we bring it about.) Humility (powerlessness) and openness to God’s grace lead to surrender.
When we have surrendered to God’s will, we die to self. This dying to self happens, bit by bit, through the course of our lives. That is the Paschal Mystery, after all. Easter is about dying to self and rising to the abundant life we have been promised.
Easter Joy.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Attending to messages

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 09:05:38 -0600

As I write this, 11 messages are stored on my home telephone’s voice mail. I have 331 e-mail messages in my inbox. (I let them accumulate.) I have 8 text messages in the inbox on my cell phone. I have 7 saved voice messages stored on my cell phone. While I am not one to instant message, my kids communicate by instant messaging all the time. Perhaps one day I’ll take it up, too.

This is the age of the message. It’s the rare American who doesn’t have at least one answering machine, a cell phone, and a computer. Most of us are, indeed, saturated with messages.
To say that I’m addicted to getting messages may be an exaggeration, but my reliance on them is extreme. I check my inbox with a frequency that exceeds necessity. I become anxious if someone tells me she left me a message and I didn’t get it. How could that be?

I’ve learned how to check voice messages remotely, so if people call me at work and I’m on vacation, I can receive their messages from wherever I am.

I am also bombarded with commercial messages. Years ago, television and radio commercials were introduced with the phrase: “And, now, a message from our sponsor.”

These days, commercial messages are so naturally a part of our lives, they need no introduction. We encounter them everywhere, from magnetic strips plastered to vehicles to placards on shopping carts.

A particularly engaging or otherwise notable commercial becomes ingrained in our culture. From our youth, baby boomers remember Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” Alka Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” And Mr. Whipple’s admonition: “Please, don’t squeeze the Charmin.” We remember the lyrics to commercial jingles better than we know the words to popular songs.

Because we are saturated with messages of every type, we find it challenging to filter out what’s important from what’s not.
This surfeit of messages infuses our lives and, as a result, drowns out more subtle messages. Overwhelmed, we find ourselves ignoring the gentler messages, the ones that aren’t clamoring for our attention by buzzing, ringing, and beeping. It’s easy to ignore the messages that don’t appear on our television and computer screens, the ones that don’t catch our eyes and ears through neon flashes, intriguing phrases, or memorable jingles.

These messages, the gentle ones, come to us in subtle ways, yet they hold for us much deeper meaning. They are the messages conveying love, need, brokenness, heartache, desperation, loneliness. Often unspoken, they are conveyed through a touch, an expression, a posture. Their subtlety demands our full attention.
Too often, distracted, we miss these messages within our most intimate relationships. We easily overlook them in the relationships we share with all people across the globe. And we overlook them in our relationship with the Lord.

Because we are distracted, called in so many different directions, we must make an effort to quiet ourselves, to pay attention. We must listen to and respond to the question our risen Lord asked Simon Peter and continues to ask each of us: “Do you love me?”

If we have the courage to answer “Yes, Lord, you know I love you,” Christ calls us, as he did Peter, to feed his sheep. We then become, like Peter, a living message, sharing the good news of his love with our intimates and with the world.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

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“Do you know where your children are?”

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:44:48 -0600

From my youth, I remember a public service announcement that would come on television weekend evenings around 11:00 p.m. In an ominous tone, the announcer would say: “It’s eleven o’clock, do you know where your children are?”
The announcement was intended to provoke in parents an awareness of their responsibility to know their children’s whereabouts at all times. I’m not sure when the announcements stopped, but even decades later, the question “Do you know where your children are?” resonates through my mind especially when my 18-year-old son is late for his curfew. I’ve come to realize that, as the years pass, I find it harder and harder to answer that question.
When my children were small, it was easy to keep up with their whereabouts. Either they were home, at school, or at the home of relatives or friends. Almost every night, by nine o’clock, we were all under the same roof.
Those days are long over. Only our youngest now lives at home. At 15, she’s still close enough to home that I’m comfortably assured of her whereabouts. I also take full advantage of cell phones, and, since she has her own cell number (a luxury, I admit), I do appreciate the fact that most of the time when she’s not with me I can reach her by phone. But in the case of the other three, once they left home to go to school, my awareness of their whereabouts rapidly diminished.
Trying to protect children into young adulthood is like playing a game of tug of war with a stronger opponent who gradually gains the upper-hand. When they’re little, you have a strong grip on the rope, even feeling as if you have the advantage. But as time passes, you begin to realize you’re in for a serious struggle. Gradually, you feel the rope (apron strings?) slipping from your hands, and by the time your kids are adults, you’ve either let go, (after some serious rope burn), or you’ve been pulled to your knees. Inevitably, you surrender.
When it comes to our two oldest, ages 20 and 23, I’ve surrendered. With the third, age 18, the rope’s burning my hands, and it won’t be long till I’m forced to let go. Letting go, as painful as it can be, is a sign of faith, in this case, faith in my children’s ability to care for themselves, and faith in God’s providence. It’s been said that faith lets go (surrenders), while hope hangs on.
So, even once I’ve surrendered, I still have the maternal urge to protect them. I’ve been told by seasoned mothers to expect my protective instinct to endure well past its effectiveness. So, though I now realize I can’t protect them from harm, I still hope for my adult children a safe passage through their days. I hope that my daughter, a public high school teacher, will never encounter the violence that’s infiltrated our country’s schools. I hope that my son, in his third year at West Point, is spared the trauma of fighting in a war. I hope for my children’s safety when they travel. I hope they choose wisely when it comes to their relationships, habits, and health.
According to my dictionary, one definition of “hope” is to “expect with confidence, trust.” So, my hopes for my hopes reflect optimism and are offered in faith.
However, I know that parents’ best hopes for their children are sometimes shattered. There are times in life when the worst outcome occurs, and all that we hope for our children seems lost.
It is at such times we cannot rely on wishes, hopes, or instincts. We surrender these and place our trust in the Parent whose love welcomes home the lost, restores shattered relationships and lives, and promises healing to broken hearts.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Parting is sweet sorrow

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 12:28:25 -0600

The Sunday after Thanksgiving was unusually quiet. By late in the day, the stillness was palpable. After the three oldest had departed, even my husband, Jim who rarely speaks of such things said, “It was sad to have them go.” Teen-aged Anna, the youngest, admitted that she would happily have continued to sacrifice her personal space, sharing her bedroom and bath, for more time with her siblings.
The holiday had seemed like such a long stretch of time—four days—and at first the time seemed sufficient. But by Saturday, it was clear that we had once again run out of time, that, even though we’d known it would be coming, the end of our family Thanksgiving arrived much too soon.
Perhaps grief is too powerful a word to describe what we experience every time our children leave to return to their lives apart from us, but the temporary loss of their presence evokes in the ones left behind an emotion similar to mourning.
Of course, we take comfort in knowing the children will return, and fairly soon. Christmas break follows close on the heels of Thanksgiving. And the anticipation of our reunion with them makes it easier to say good-bye this time around.
This sense of joy in the presence of the loved one, sadness at his or her departure, and anticipation for reunion is a common cycle of family life. Whether they are intimates with whom we share a home, our extended family, or our dearest friends, leave-taking and reunion are cause for anticipation, celebration, and mourning.
Military families are particularly familiar with this cycle, adding to the usual emotions a deep concern for the safety of their deployed loved ones.
This cycle doesn’t stop at death. When a loved one dies, we experience a profound mix of emotions. We feel joy by remembering the times we shared and by celebrating a unique and beautiful life. At the same time, we experience a profound awareness of that person’s absence, and we grieve over the loss. With hope, we anticipate reunion with him or her in the life to come.
Such must have been the case for the community whom Jesus left behind. The depth of joy and comfort they must have felt in his presence juxtaposed against the violence and horror of his death prompted in them profoundly conflicting emotions. What intimacy they must have felt at the Last Supper. What fear they must have felt when he was arrested and taken from their midst. What despair as he was nailed to the cross. What grief when they laid him in the tomb. What joy when, resurrected, he appeared to them.
Although he left them again to ascend to the Father, he promised to remain with them always.
This cycle of love and loss, reunion and leave-taking, that we experience in our earthly families, among our intimates, has been redeemed through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
Even in the darkest hours of loss, we remember his promise that all separations are but temporary; all suffering will be eased; all tears of sadness will be replaced with tears of joy.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Parting is sweet sorrow

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:39:33 -0600

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Returning to Italy as a Catholic

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:13:36 -0600

I fell in love with Italy over 30 years ago, when I was a 19-year-old college student participating in a study abroad program. I loved Italy, the Italian people and their way of life so much that, after one summer there, I returned the following year upon my college graduation. I rented a small apartment near Urbino, a university town high on a hill, and stayed for almost a year. When I returned to the States, in 1977, I had intended to return to Italy that same year, but my plan fell through. I did not return again until this year when my husband and I accompanied a group from my parish and our priest Fr. Hector on a pilgrimage, which included stops in Rome and Assisi.
I approached this long-awaited reunion with both excitement and apprehension. Of course, I had changed a lot in three decades, and I knew Italy had, too. Would I discover that what I had loved about her was eroded by the passage of time? Would all the stories I told to my husband about my days there come to life for him, as well? Or would they seem like fairy tales?
However, if I knew that even if I arrived to some disappointment over a more modern Italy, I was sure of one thing: since I hadn’t been Catholic the first time I was in Italy, I was—if nothing else—bringing a new perspective. When last at Rome, as a young adult agnostic, my visits to the Vatican, churches and museums were simply opportunities to appreciate history and fine art. Certainly, through the lens of faith, I expected a more profound experience this time around.
Unlike 30 years ago, this visit would include a private tour of the Vatican museum, a dinner at L’Eau Vive (where meals are prepared and served by a sisterhood of lay missionaries who sing the “Ave Maria of Lourdes”), a prayerful, early morning visit to the churches of Saint John Lateran and Saint Mary Major, and a general audience with Pope Benedict XVI. This time, my visit to Assisi, too, offered a spiritual dimension I didn’t experience when I first saw Assisi three decades ago.
I am not the kind of tourist who absorbs and retains information. When I travel, I am drawn to experience over facts. Therefore, when I walk into a church or a museum, while I pay attention to the information I’m offered and I find it enlightening at the time, I don’t leave with a head full of facts. I walk away with an impression, a memory of an experience, more sensory than intellectual. For a long time in my life, I saw this as a handicap which I tried to overcome. But in mid-life I have come to accept my tendency to emphasize experience over facts, and to find value in my less conventional style of sight-seeing.
So, although our tour of the Vatican museum (led by an art director who personally had participated in the restoration of the Sistine Chapel) was chockfull of fascinating information, my impressions are more sensory than factual. I remember most vividly the throngs of visitors from all over the world elbowing through this sacred space, all of us involved in an awkward minuet, moving from room to room, with eyes, heads, and limbs fully engaged in the impossible task of trying to absorb in only a few hours the astounding beauty surrounding us. This time around, visiting the Sistine Chapel, an experience I found vaguely disappointing 30 years ago, I was deeply touched, even in the midst of whispering tourists, shuffling feet, these sounds punctuated by the guards’ booming voices: “Silenzio!” Beyond all the distractions, Michelangelo’s masterpiece commanded my reverent attention. Touring Saint Peter’s Basilica had the same effect.
The next morning, we returned to Saint Peter’s Square to attend the general audience of the Pope. This was somewhere I could never have envisioned myself 30 years ago. It was a beautiful, cool October morning, around 8:30 a.m. when, along with thousands of others, we arrived for the audience which was scheduled to begin two hours later. Jim, always impatient, said, “The Pope’s the only person I’d wait two hours to see.”
Yet the time flew by as we watched the people around us. The atmosphere was like that of a festival. People on every side of us were speaking in their native languages, and as the time for the Pope’s arrival grew near, pilgrims stood on their chairs straining to get the first glimpse of Benedict XVI in his Pope mobile. Excitement rippled through the crowd when he was spotted. We were fortunate that, in the crowd of tens of thousands, the Pope drove by within only yards from our seats. Both Jim and I felt deeply touched by his presence. In person, he seems much more vital than the camera portrays.
A group of about 50 German teenagers dressed in royal blue t-shirts and waving red scarves were near us, and, when introduced their wildly enthusiastic response to the Pope’s presence was inspiring. His greeting to them was exuberant. During the audience, he spoke to us fluently in six languages. As he spoke, I was struck by the universality of the Church, the great beauty in our diversity, the gifts that each culture, ethnicity and race bring to Catholicism. I was deeply touched reflecting on the common bond – the love of Jesus Christ and the desire to live the Gospel – that had brought us together in this place.
As a young adult, I traveled to Italy and elsewhere seeking meaning for my life in the people, places, and events I experienced. In all my travels, however, I failed to find the meaning, the purpose, I was seeking. Over time, I discovered that people, places, and events in and of themselves invariably disappoint and cannot satisfy the heart’s deepest longing. Since then, I have been gifted with the eyes of faith, and whatever I experience in my life’s pilgrimage, home and abroad, is made meaningful by God’s grace.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Self-consiousness gets in the way

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:57:11 -0500

As a child, I took piano lessons for three years, and I learned to play recognizable tunes. I had no real talent, but I was gifted with a love of music. While I lacked the discipline to practice often enough to become very good, I did enjoy playing.
However, each spring, when it was time for my piano recital, I became a wreck. My piano teacher let me choose a composition I knew well. Motivated by the potential embarrassment of making mistakes in front of an audience, I would practice my recital piece religiously.
Still, the actual performance created in me such anxiety that as soon as I sat down at the piano, my palms would sweat, my face would flush, my head would spin, and the piece I knew by heart suddenly felt as familiar as Swahili.
Even today, if I’m goofing around at the piano, I will be playing comfortably until someone walks into the room. Then, as soon as I’m aware I’m no longer alone, my fingers stiffen and miss their destinations, and the notes I read easily just moments before blur into a confusion of black dots.
This “performance anxiety” isn’t limited to piano playing. I’ve felt equally terrified when speaking to large groups (something I’ve done often as a teacher and columnist.)
I learned, however, the anxiety disappears once I’ve become immersed in the subject matter and have developed a rapport with the group. It’s when I’m self-conscious, aware of my “performance,” that I become ineffective in my delivery. What prevents me from being able to perform is not the audience’s reaction (none has ever been hostile) but a flood of paralyzing self-awareness.
I was reminded of this when I read a newspaper article about prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley. When asked her thoughts about the writing process, Smiley responds: “The way you learn to write is you learn not to write. It’s a matter of getting out of the way. I have to learn anew every day to sit and quit wasting time and to be there for the story to come, the characters to come.”
While I’d never heard the act of writing described this way, Smiley’s description is right on the mark. To be a good writer, one must lose oneself in the work. My experience with writing has been that the best of my work occurs when I am least conscious of my part in the process. On rare and extraordinary occasions, I have written pieces that seemed to materialize without me.
This ability to, as Smiley puts it, “get out of the way,” is critical to my prayer life as well. Like writing, prayer is communication. I’ve discovered that the more self-conscious I am when praying, the less I sense God’s presence in the experience. When I am conscious of being “in prayer,” I focus on the externals: what I’m saying, how reverent I appear, whether or not I am succeeding in “reaching” God. When I lose that self-consciousness, prayer loses it superficiality, its rigidity, and, often, like music or poetry, it becomes fluid, full of beauty and inspiration.
The times I have had the greatest sense of God’s profound love and grace in prayer have been the times when I’ve lost myself and had no expectations of receiving anything at all.
Perhaps we are most profoundly influenced in everything from writing to playing music to worshipping to teaching to loving, when we lose the self-consciousness that permeates almost every aspect of our lives. But to do so requires vigilance, as Smiley suggests when she says she must “learn anew every day… to sit and to be there.”
We live in a culture that celebrates the self. We are flooded with messages that promote perfecting an image, becoming somebody, finding self-satisfaction. We’re told we achieve happiness through self-gratification. The irony, of course, is that, in truth, self-absorption is an obstacle to lasting satisfaction, an obstacle to joy. Self-consciousness impedes our artistic pursuits, our personal relationships, and our response to God’s grace.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She is currently on a pilgrimage to France and Italy. This column ran several years ago.
She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.

Preparing to let go

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 09:55:27 -0500

Parenthood has its dramatic moments. From the miracles of pregnancy and childbirth to the excitement of baby’s first steps, parents are touched by countless experiences. While many of the most poignant moments are anticipated and recorded, more subtle moments pass unnoticed. One day, we awaken to discover that something’s different, that a shift has occurred in our lives without our even realizing it.

While we look to the dramatic times as milestones on our children’s journeys, every so often we need to reflect on the quiet ways our children affect our personal journeys as well.
It’s taken some reflection for me to understand why, now that my children are less dependent on me for their daily needs, I don’t feel that sense of relief I had always anticipated. Several years ago, in the midst of the frenzy of 3:00 a.m. feedings, diapering, bathing, dressing, I would dream of the opportunity to indulge myself. What a pleasure to escape all the drudgery involved in meeting someone’s every need (a very demanding someone, at that). Yet now that I’m free of all those duties, I don’t feel as jubilant as I expected to be.

Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t jump at the chance to start all over again. In Ecclesiastes, we’re reminded: “To every thing there is a season…”, and I recognize the season of childbearing has ended for me. My parenting duties no longer consist of the all-consuming demands of baby care.

But I’d be dishonest if I didn’t admit that this change has left me in some ways bereft. I’ve discovered that, as that season of my life ends, I’m feeling a little envious of the young parents with diapers draped over their shoulders. Even watching parents chasing toddlers (my least favorite phase) reminds me of a time when my constant attention to my children was essential to protect them from harm.
Now, all four of my children are either independent or close to it. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The whole point of parenting is to prepare our children for independence. Anything I do to inhibit that process is actually detrimental to their development.
For those in the midst of those frenzied years, no reminders that “they grow up so fast” will mean very much. Hours at home caring for small children can feel like weeks. But if I had known in my children’s early years what I know now, I would have appreciated the ordinary moments more than I did at the time.

If I had known how soon they become too big and tall to nestle there, I would have taken more pleasure in the times they cuddled on my lap or fell asleep in my arms.

If I had known how rapidly they’d learn to see my flaws, I would have reveled in that adoring, wide-eyed gaze. If I had known how easily they would one day claim to be bored, I would have appreciated the times they asked me to read them the same book over and over again. If I had realized how almost overnight they learn to manage on their own, attending to their physical needs would have seemed less like drudgery and more a tangible expression of love. If I had known how confident they would eventually become, I would have derived greater satisfaction from calming their fears.

Along with the freedom of being needed less comes a melancholy, a shifting of priorities, a focus on the years to come. I’m aware how important it is to pursue my own interests apart from motherhood, to develop my spiritual life, to nurture my marriage. I realize as my children begin to move into active lives of their own, they will, quite naturally, be leaving me behind.

So the onset of this season of my life is, like autumn, a time for appreciating vibrant color and acknowledging its gradual loss. It is a time of transition, of passage.

When they’re small, it may seem as if only our children are changing. But as each of their milestones is recorded, a gentle change takes place in parents, too. It is the change which prepares us for the letting go.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org. She is currently on a pilgrimage to France and Italy. This column originally appreared in 1998.

Who is entitled?

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 08:46:07 -0500

A few years ago, my husband and I were invited to a dinner party during the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. The dinner took place at a lovely home near the beach. The guests and hosts were all white middle-aged Americans with incomes well above-average.
During the meal, conversation drifted to Martin Luther King Day, and some guests began to voice their opinions that we, as a society and a government, are giving far too generously to people who, in these folks’ opinion, took advantage of what are often called our “entitlement” programs. It became clear that most diners at the party believed that the playing field between whites and minorities was now more than level, if anything, biased in favor of minorities. They also expressed the opinion that the poor were poor through their own fault because they were unmotivated, relied on government hand-outs and made bad personal decisions (giving birth to too many children, having these children out of wedlock, abusing alcohol and drugs, for example.)
Unable to remain silent, my husband and I defended the poor. We expressed our belief that white Americans from educated, middle-class families were born into clear privilege, having advantages in society that are still denied minorities and that we largely take for granted. We described our friendship with twin African American children whose mother died when they were born and who, without a father in their lives, were raised in dire poverty by an elderly, ill grandmother. These children, while the same age as our eldest daughter, could never dream of the advantages our daughter possesses.
At the time we met them, the home the twins lived in was in such a dilapidated condition that it clearly should have been condemned. Yet their grandmother actually paid rent to a white landlord who, in this rural South Carolina county, owned many such properties. If tenants objected to the conditions or made formal complaints, they would be punished with eviction or with increased rent.
Sharing the story of the twins, Jim and I tried to help our dinner companions see the poor from a different perspective, but our attempts failed. Conversation became heated. And while the evening ended politely, my husband and I left feeling as if we were seeing these people, up to then casual acquaintances whose company we enjoyed, in a different light. Indeed, our relationship was never the same.
Out of the 12 at the dinner party that night, 10 of us were Catholic. We had come to know this group through our parish. It was clear, however, from their opinions expressed, the majority of them were either unfamiliar with Catholic social justice teaching or disagreed with it.
Ironically, many of those who complain loudest about so-called entitlement programs have no qualms about feeling themselves entitled to the wealth and privilege they enjoy.
We Americans are among the most privileged people on the planet. The benefits we enjoy—seemingly limitless resources and opportunities—are easily taken for granted. If we mistakenly believe we are entitled to these benefits, without recognizing our obligation to share them with others, we harden our hearts toward those not so privileged, both locally and around the globe. And, when we perceive the poor as not working hard enough, or getting what they deserve because of poor choices, we feel justified when we don’t reach out to them and share our material wealth.
If we give ourselves credit for “earning” all we have, then, it becomes easy to forget our obligations to our brothers and sisters in need, especially if we feel threatened by their presence (consider the attitude of many Americans toward undocumented workers). Living in a culture that promotes self-determination and self-reliance, we are easily persuaded to think that all people, as long as they are willing to work hard enough, are capable of earning the benefits we enjoy. We give ourselves credit for what we have and expect others to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
Yet many of the poor are among the hardest working of us all and yet because of unjust systems (to name a few: an unfair minimum wage, lack of adequate health care benefits, discrimination, unequal education and housing) they are denied the advantages we enjoy.
Time after time, in the Gospel, Jesus commands us to care for the “least” among us – the poor, the marginalized, the public sinner, the ill, the prisoner, the suffering.
In his public ministry, always offering comfort and healing to those his society scorned, he disputed the predominant thought at the time that the poor and sick were being “punished” for their sins or the sins of their ancestors. He challenged the wealthy to surrender their attachment to material goods and give themselves to God and the service of their brothers and sisters. He expects no less of us today.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.