Magic Hands

I'm sitting here this morning trying to write my sermon.  But after the shootings yesterday at Sandy Hook Elementary School, everything I had planned to say no longer seems, well, right.  I'm trying to figure out how to talk about what happened because it has to be talked about; it has to be named.  And yet I have no words.  Having no words is not easy for me--

This may seem simple and trite, but here's what keeps going through my mind.  I'm reflecting back over this week, my first week of being an ordained priest or as some call it "getting the magic hands."  My family has always asked when I would get the mojo (I know completely sacrilegious and inappropriate, perhaps my bishop will never see those words).  "Hands" that is the word that continues to resonate in my mind.

See this week I went on Mommy strike.  I felt that my children were becoming unappreciative and entitled, and so I stopped doing some of the things I normally do like waking them up by bringing a tray of hot chocolate and/or coffee to their bedside.  It was an act of love, an act of servant hood, an act I deeply loved doing.  I have hated not doing it this week.  I have missed doing it this week--each time I bring them their mugs, I gaze down at their sleeping heads and pictures of time fly through my head.  I see them at all stages of their lives sleeping peacefully in my home, under my roof--where I can see them, touch them and hear them breathe.  And I know all too soon they will begin one by one to not be here as they move onto the next phase of their lives.  And so in an attempt to "help them" develop into caring compassionate adults, I stopped my morning ritual.

Last night while watching the news I thought to myself, "how many of those parents would give anything to take a mug of hot chocolate to their sleeping babies, to gaze down on them and remember the past and look with anticipation to the future.  How many of them wouldn't care if their children acted spoiled as long as they were still in their homes and not slaughtered in a school."  And I wept.  I wept for the parents, for the children, and for all parents and children.  And I wept for how hard it is to parent, for how hard it is to say no to our children.  And I wept for parents who do their very best and either they don't feel good enough or society tells them their not.  I wept for those parents who have lost children and for people who have never had them, for parents who did everything they knew how to do, and still life for their children didn't turn out the way they wanted.  And I began to struggle--what is all this teaching me?  How can I learn from this, should I just forget my strike?  Should my hands once again bring my children their mugs no matter how they behave?  And then I thought and am still thinking about the consequences of that....

I want to be clear that I am making no judgments on parenting--shoot I think the idea of being on strike means not ironing their sheets when I change them--but I do wonder.  I wonder if we want our children to feel so loved and safe and good that we forget that our jobs are also to develop them into caring, compassionate, loving adults.  If we allow behaviors to begin to be fostered because we are afraid--afraid our children won't love us, afraid our children will reject us.  That fear is powerful.  That fear sometimes leads me to give in, to look the other way, to say, "it's not so bad." As one of my closest friends said to me yesterday, "do not give in, remember why you are doing this. Stand up for yourself and tell your kids the truth in love.  You deserve their respect and admiration. 

And so I'm back to "hands".  Yesterday I held my children a little tighter and a little longer even though they squirmed to get out.  And I know many other parents did as well.  I think about what we can do with our hands--we can make mugs of hot chocolate, We can hug our children and other children, we can hug and hold the hands of those that grieve, and we can hold up our hands and stay "stop".  But I think what makes all of our hands magic is that we can use them to pray.  And today I will do just that-as a priest and as a mother; I invite you to do it with me.   Tomorrow I'll think about the hot chocolate.