Body, Mind, and Spirit

I'm trying to think of how I can write about health and happiness and how it's all wrapped up in our relationship with God ~ and not make it sound trite. You see, I need to write it more for myself than for anyone else, actually. So, how do I tell myself, in words that I will understand and take to heart, that

• the packet of hot chocolate mix ~ with marshmallows ~
  that I stirred into my coffee this morning,

  the 10 or 12 jelly fruit thingies I snitched when
  the kids weren't looking,

  the extra two breadsticks ~ with butter ~
  that I had with dinner,

  the scanty five minutes I spent reading a book
  with my toddlers today,

  the uncorrected math papers lying on the school
  cabinet,

  the walk that I didn't take this morning
  even though I promised myself I would

  
  

coincide exactly with the fact that

I've spent more time on the computer today than I have reading from the stack of spiritual books on my bedside table.

I've been reciting the rosary of late. Reciting it. Not praying it with focus and attention.

The last really good talk I had with my Maker was .... Um, I can't remember when it was.

Anyway, you get the drift...

I find myself periodically falling off the wagon for many different reasons. Which wagon? Pick your wagon: the always popular diet and exercise wagon, the organized homeschooler wagon, the attentive wife and mother wagon, the dutiful homemaker wagon, the child-of-God wagon...

And I've had good reasons to fall off these wagons.

Too much stress

too much on my mind

The children keep me so busy...

I'm too tired

There aren't enough hours in the day

If my health were better...

If I had enough money...

If I had a little help around here...

My early life didn't prepare me for "it"*

My nerves can't take "it"

I'm not cut out for "it;" I 'm not that kind of person

"It's" not that big a deal; who's going to care anyway?

I know "it's" important, but I just can't tackle "it" now...

I just don't have any willpower

My whine du jour: I'm getting too old for this...
* you name "it."

And sometimes these were valid excuses. Four babies in five and a half years gave me every reason to have a messy house in the first years of my marriage. Months of bedrest for pre-eclampsia twice in less than three years excused many bare bones months of homeschooling. I could even use a diseased knee as an excuse not to exercise for several years. Things happen. In order to handle one stressful part of our life, we often have to compensate by dropping the non-essentials. This is OK.

• A perfectly clean house is not essential ~ it's nice, but not essential.
• Meticulously organized plans and records, extracurriculars, and "brag points" are good things in homeschooling and in conventional schooling, but not essential
• Loving your husband and children and fulfilling your duty toward them pleasantly is necessary, but being a modern hybrid of June Cleaver and Gina Lollabrigida is not necessary.
• Being healthy and in control of your habits (like eating) is necessary, but being Denise Austin is not necessary.

Though we tend to expect it of ourselves sometimes, we're not super human. There are some handles we do have to let go of. Wives and mothers tend to have a heckuva long train of wagons trailing behind them.

That's the thing, isn't it?

All those wagons we talk about falling off? We're not riding in them; we're pulling them! And when we lose our focus, or just give up on something, it's not that we're falling off wagons; it's that we've stopped pulling them. Sometimes we're just being lazy, and we usually know it. Sometimes we really do need to stop or slow down. And sometimes we're perfectly justified in saying, "Hey, wait a minute! Why am I pulling this one?"

All except that last wagon I mentioned. You already jumped ahead of me to that, didn't you?

We all know it. That child of God wagon. Dang, we want to be pulled in that wagon. I know I do. But there's no room for us to ride. By our prayers, our corporal and spiritual works, our practice of the virtues we can and do pull it. And darned if it's easy. But, God willing, there's no room in there for us to ride. That's where He piles the good stuff: our crosses and the graces that go with them, merit earned by prayers we've said, those gifts earned from the Sacraments and from our good works, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost...

This is the wagon that holds the strength we need to pull all those other wagons. I only hurt myself by making excuses not to heave-to on my spiritual life. Everything else is so much more bearable when I know He's walking beside me.

That's the whole point.

When I'm pulling that child-of-God wagon, I'm keeping Him company. Christ walks beside me, regardless, but if we're keeping each other company, the journey is a whole different experience because I know He's there with me.

Me and my wagons.
Him and His cross.