Long Days

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.