Nothing reminds you that you are not out slaying dragons more than
cleaning toilets.
Or vacuuming. Or folding laundry. Or spending an hour and forty
minutes on the phone with Sprint to figure out how to upgrade your cell phone
(though they were very nice).
I left a corporate job in December of last year to pursue playing
with kids, running super long distances, and writing a trilogy. I was not
slaying dragons there either, but like many of my unpaid friends, it is still
tempting to introduce myself this way: “Hi,
I’m Lauren. I used to work as Project Manager in the Design department at …”
It is as though what I am doing now is not sufficient in and of
itself. The truth is what I am doing now is much more satisfying, though
doesn’t sound as glamorous.
The year leading up to my “career change” was fraught, filled with
so many cultural shocks both inside and outside of the church alongside my own
internal battles of calling and faith. It was a year of sharpening clarity
where I delved deep into my purpose, my spirituality, and my roles as a woman
and a mother. Just about the time I was
ready to burn it all down, I read LongDays of Small Things: Motherhood as a Spiritual Discipline by Catherine McNiel.
In her book, Catherine invites me into a space that is uniquely
sacred. And uniquely feminine. In the midst of a cultural backlash against
systems of oppression for women, I soak in the gentle, but strong reminder that
the feminine is created by God and in God’s image and is therefore God ordained.
Catherine unpacks the divine nature of mothering, the spiritual celebration of
our flesh. She reminds me that life has never been and will never be sterile or
even particularly clean. Not literally or metaphorically. She celebrates the
feminine images of God and invites me to connect with them. It is like drinking
from an ice cold hose in the middle of a hot, humid summer day. So refreshing.
It is interesting that Catherine crafted her book around spiritual
disciplines, a topic I have only ever heard taught by those not actively
raising children. She then invites me to see my experience as the expression of
all of them. Of the discussions on spiritual disciplines, two hit me most
strongly. The first is her discussion on Service.
Ironically, now that I am home, there is this assumption that
because I am a mom who works in the home, I can somehow, magically volunteer in
a million different ways. Presumably this is because just working as mother (or
as a mother with a full-time paying job) is somehow not service. It’s exhausting
and guilt tripping and a huge turn off. The truth is my hands are full of
service, and my most important constituents are the ones that leave their hand
prints all over my walls. If I fail to serve them, then I have failed in
service all together. There are plenty of voices in the world telling me I am
not enough… I need to do more. Catherine reminds me that God’s voice is not
among them. Her book invites me to re-frame my focus on service and rest in the
satisfaction of a job well done.
Perseverance is my other favorite discipline. I’m a distance
runner, so of course this speaks to me. My thirties have been a decade of
seeking emotional health for myself and, in turn, my family. Even so, I am
still in process. The process, though beautiful, is often a long slog with a slowly
changing landscape. Catherine reminds me that “it is not ease but challenge
that shapes our character into strength and beauty” (Long Days, 140). But in
life, like in running, slow progress is still progress. Through the practice of
perseverance, I have been working on my mind, my soul, and my body. After fifteen
years of working in a corporate job, I have finally found my passion and the
courage to pursue it. The beautiful gift is that I have begun a new journey. I
have a new goal to strive toward.
Now my days are filled with many small, inconsequential things
with a long run and a side of writing. The days are sometimes long, but every
woman I know has long days of sometimes very small, inconsequential things.
Sometimes, when we are lucky, the long days are about much bigger, grander,
life shaping things. In those days, the hard work and tedium finally pay off.
Until then, Catherine’s Long Days ofSmall Things encourages me to soak in the sacredness of my daily
experience.
