Good News for Night People

An article I read today, "Why Mornings Don't Make You Moral," named a feeling that has always plagued me: my sense of inadequacy for being a night person. I have never truly accepted that doing household chores, writing blog posts and reading books until midnight is equally as honorable as rising before dawn to carry out the same activities.

Author Maria Konnikova points to research that disproves that somehow we are better at what we do in the mornings (unless, of course, we are truly morning people); it’s simply they are better matched to what is commonly accepted in society. 

Early birds aren’t ethically superior. And, to the extent that other research suggests that they are, it may just be that they are luckier: modern society, for the most part, is built around their preferences. We are expected to function well  early in the morning. We can’t just wake up when our bodies tell us to and work when we feel at our peak.

Ah, don’t I know it! Take this morning, for example. The alarm on my phone went off. I sleepily grabbed it off the nightstand, hit snooze and put it next to my pillow so that I could reach it more easily after five more minutes of sleep. My spouse is truly a partner in this love affair with the snooze button. Both of us like to stay up late but school starts at 7:40 so we drag ourselves out of bed, wake up the boys and get on with the day.

What I loved about this article is that it encourages those of us who are night people to accept our chronotypes; 40% of us do work better at night. The hard part, as the author points out, is that night people are swimming upstream. I complain about getting up at 6:30. I think of the poor children who have to be on the bus at 6:00, which means their parents are up at 5:30 or even earlier. If they are night people, I truly feel sorry for them (and the school day should be later and shorter but that’s a post for another day).

Truth is, I am not one of those parents walking my kids to school dressed all spiffy for work. I exchange pajama pants for jeans, put on a coat and call it good. I think of my friend back in Minnesota who had five children of her own and ran an in-home day care. At 6 AM she had the house cleaned and was up and at’em. I guess this article doesn’t erase my admiration for the morning folks, but it does help me not beat myself up for being a different chronotype. I like clean floors, too. At midnight.

Konnikova quotes both Aristotle and Ben Franklin, two men who lauded the morning for its apparent benefits. I side instead with the Garfield quote found on a free McDonalds drinking glass I used as a kid: “I don’t do mornings.” 

Remembering Peter

“Mom. I’m afraid of the dark. Oh, and I need to tell you something. I’m afraid of dying. Why does it have to happen?”

These were the words spoken to me tonight by my seven year-old son. I was lying next to my daughter, helping her fall asleep when he burst through the door to share his fears. I told him that I understood, that I’m afraid, too. I told him, though, that there is a psalm that brings me comfort in dark and scary times.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; 

whom then shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life;

of whom shall I be afraid?

Did Luke know? Did he know that of all days, this was the day he confessed his fear to me? On this day last year, my friend Peter died. Only 35 years old. So much more to offer the church and the world. Damn cancer.

The psalm I choose as a kind of theme for these Lenten writings, Psalm 51, is a renewal psalm; we will be made clean, given a right spirit. When we think of newness, I wonder if we too quickly conclude that newness equals goodness: a new house, a new friend, a new life. But sometimes newness just plain sucks.

When I went back to Luke’s room to tuck him in, I told him what today was. I told him that my friend died last year on this day and that I miss him. He asked his name. I said, “Peter.” Then I said, “Do you remember last week when we visited Libby, Cici, and Ike at their house in Harrisburg?  Peter was their Dad. I’m sure they are afraid, too, but they are also surrounded by people that love them and give them lots of hugs.”

My heart aches for them and for Katie, for Peter’s family and friends. As the wise preacher said plainly at his funeral, “This ought not be.” And yet it is. We are here in the newness of each day, trying to trust the promise of God showing up in the breaking of the bread, opening our eyes to the Risen Light in our midst, at our bedsides, in our fears.

Rest in Peace, dear friend.

Let Them Help: Musings on Children in the Kitchen

I shared this discovery with a friend the other day.  I’m sure if it’s much of a discovery to those who spend an ample amount of time with children, but it has eased my stress-level as a parent. The discovery is this: let them help.

I don’t mean chores per se, though they have their place. What I mean is intentionally involving really young children in the regular work of being a family. Dinnertime with three children is stressful when you value fresh, real food. There is the washing and chopping and measuring. My older boys help fairly often in the kitchen, but during the week they are usually doing homework or having some much needed decompression time. I want them to spend an hour in Lego land dinner because play does all of us a world of good.

The stickler in the daily routine is usually Miriam. She has toys but seems to forget that. She is so curious and into everything! Nathan or I would lose our patience trying to keep her occupied while we got things together. Then it dawned on me: let her help. Let her help cook dinner.

Miriam helping to make sweet potato rolls

This parent/three-year-old cooking team is not all peaches and cream, of course. Slow food takes even slower. Peeling six carrots tonight seemed to take an eternity. Oh, but how she loved trying and when on of those little carrot peels falls on the floor, it’s a little joke and we laugh. Then there are the knives. When I wasn’t looking for a brief second, she was trying to cut an onion with the knife blade the wrong direction. Thankfully she still has all her fingers.

The joy of it all comes from spending quality time. She is pouring and dumping, stirring and measuring (spilling and spilling and Did I mention spilling?) But I find that even with the rags I need to clean up the mess, it is worth it. Well, at least on a good day when I have the energy for stir-fry. Other times, we settle for PB and J.

A Flood of Questions

Was there a Noah’s ark?  Where is it?

How big was it?

What animals were on it?

For some people of faith, these are important questions. I must confess; they are not my questions. On this First Sunday in Lent, those that follow the Revised Common Lectionary heard a portion of the flood story from Genesis 9. What we hear is a covenant story, the story of God’s promise never to destroy the world by a flood; the rainbow in the cloud seals the deal.

Yet every time I hear this story, I struggle with questions. Not questions about the facts. The legend of Noah, like other poetic accounts in scripture, doesn’t need to be literally true to be true. No, what I question is how this story gets overly domesticated.

Want to have a Noah’s ark themed birthday party? There are 116 pins on Pinterest (I checked). My children had Noah’s ark banks and a Noah’s ark puzzle. Sounds like folks in Kentucky are building a Noah's Ark Theme Park. Hmmm...So, to make it really exciting, does it get flooded while everyone is sitting around eating cotton candy?

Ok, so that was snarky ("built out of gopher barky-barky?"). But really: this biblical story is about life and death. Yes, the animals, they came aboard “two-by-twosy” as the camp song goes, but most of them perished. All humanity was wiped out save Noah and his family. And yet it becomes the theme for baby showers and room décor?

The good news in the story, of course, is that that it reveals a promise. We can see past the destruction to the rainbow. I get that. On my good days, I believe it. Yet floods are very real and climate change has and will lead to more flooding in low lying areas around the world, particularly in places that do not have the riches to buttress them. I want to believe whole-heartedly that God will not destroy the world by a flood, but there is no guarantee that humans won’t.

Water cleanses and destroys. This is the truth. It gives life; we do not survive inside or outside the womb without it. This is also the truth. I can believe in a divine power working in and through these waters, but I still have questions.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.- Rainer Maria Rilke

Peace Extended

I was exhausted from a day at work and flustered by my children’s exhaustion at the end of a bitterly cold week. And that was before we ventured out to the Cub Scout’s annual Pinewood Derby, an event that, although fun for the kids, tested every bone in my body that longed for peace and order.

While the scouts excitedly raced their cars down the track, the background noise of those watching grew louder. Before long, the voices of those running the event were shouting. It was past my daughter’s bedtime. My older son realized that his favorite book was in Dad’s car and Dad had left early for a funeral visitation. Everyone left mad about something or just plain tired.

After this spent parent herded three spent children into the house from the garage, we took off our coats, hats and shoes. It was after I had taken off my own boots that I experienced the unexepected. Still wearing her lavender Frozen mittens, Miriam reached out and grabbed my right hand. Then she shook it vigorously and said, “Peace be with you.”

In her book In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice, author Bonne J. Miller-McLemore quotes Gertrude Lundholm:

Many Christians seem to think that the peace of God is just about their own internal peace of mind, as if being a Christian is kind of like being on a tranquilizer. But God intends to stir us up….to make us notice new things, to keep us from being complacent (In the Midst of Chaos, p.16).

Sometimes we are given a right spirit when we least expect it. Miller-McLemore challenges the notion that we find spirituality by going off to pray in undisturbed silence. Without discounting the need for this, she also reminds us of the Spirit’s presence in the midst of chaos. Miriam’s sign of peace made palpable the Spirit’s presence for me tonight. What was that presence for you today, that moment that caused you to notice the “new thing” springing forth from the daily chaos?