NB: I wrote this several months ago, but it continues to capture some of my feelings about recent goings on.

Dear Church,

I don’t like to feel like a Complainer, because a Complainer is about the worst thing anyone can be.

Complainers are politely dismissed, rarely listened to, and only accepted if they Change Their Ways and focus on The Positives. Regardless of whether their concerns — er, Complaints — are justified.

I’m sure this social conditioning has a purpose. After all, any human community can thrive only when its members are positively disposed toward working together, as a community. It’s the point of being community. I get it.

And honestly, who WANTS to dwell on the negatives? It’s depressing.

But, Church, you told me that you were the Keeper of the Word, the Keys to the Kingdom, the Barque of Peter that is headed toward the Pearly Gates and interested in taking as many souls with it who are willing. And now I am questioning whether that glowing Positive Course is even true…or whether YOU even believe it is true.

Some of us were born on board this Ship, others boarded at many ports along the way. We’ve been on board for a long time. Long enough to experience many crews and hands. Long enough to have realized that not everyone on board is (yet) a saint.

One of the hardest things to deal with on this long voyage is watching fellow members decide to jump ship. Some of them, sure, make reasoned decisions to disembark at a port along the way and discontinue the journey. We miss them, especially we who have begged them to stay. Some can’t even wait for port. They decide to try their luck in the sea. The grief is worst for those.

There are others, though, who don’t *want* to disembark, but who are so miserable that they try to stay on board, but barely. Maybe they are hiding in a lifeboat thinking about cutting the line. Maybe they are hiding somewhere on board, in the cargo hold or far below deck, where they are unlikely to run into Crew members who have turned out to be violent or unstable or unable to keep their hands to themselves. Maybe they think, “If I could just get off this ship with *something* that floats, I could still ride in the wake and follow the ship to shore without having to stay in this mess.

You see, they still believe the overall Course of the Ship. They just have given up hope that they can be fully functional members of the society on board the ship and that mere survival requires distance.

Now, you would think that the Captain and Crew of a ship that believed in its Course and desired to get as many people to the destination as possible would actively be checking in with its passengers, ensuring they had what they needed for their journey.

If abuse, for example, were prevalent on the ship, who would want to stay? Would it not make sense to throw the abusers in the hold and boot them off the ship at the next port? If there were individuals on board who had never learned to live in community, would it not make sense to instruct them in some best practices? If there were folks who needed a bit of extra support and care, would it not make sense to minister to their needs in a special way?

I can tell you, if I noticed that the ship’s Captain and Crew seemed less and less interested in the people on board — especially the suffering — and more and more interested in stopping by any port or island where there was a promise of Treasure….if I noticed that the Crew was spending more and more time pursuing their Own Pursuits and dismissing the stated needs of their passengers, or even the care of the Ship…if I noticed that at every port the Crew was taking on more hands who seemed to prefer expeditions that steered the ship off its course…I would begin to lose faith in the Captain and Crew of that ship.

Let me speak bluntly, now. Because I think you can see where I’m going with this.

The Church is hurting. Individuals and families on the Ship are suffering. Many of them are overwhelmed by real need, real disease, real abuse, real sadness and debilitating despair. Real sin.

There are women in “Good Catholic Families” who are afraid to deny their husbands sex because they know their husbands are sorely tempted or addicted to pornography. Or because their husbands give them zero attention outside of the bedroom.

There are children in “Good Catholic Families” who are addicted to devices because their moms are always “doing God’s work” and are too busy to spend time with them.

There are couples trying to adapt to Christian Marriage without support for the “sick times” that come on all too quickly. There are other couples whose marriages should have been stopped before they even got started…had those in charge of their formation taken their role seriously or been willing to Say Something when they Saw Something.

There are individuals whose mental health struggles keep them at arm’s length from participating in the Good Life of the rest of the community. They are lonely, broken, and sad, but no one seems to want to or know how to listen to them.

There are victims of sexual, emotional, physical and even spiritual abuse who are literally hanging onto the side of the ship, teetering on the verge of letting go. They can’t wrap their minds around how this ship, that promised to carry them to Salvation, has no remedy for them and struggles even to acknowledge them. They watch their abusers, in the meantime, be promoted up the ranks or participate in all the perks of being a passenger, with none but the victim the wiser.

There are one-time Crew members who passionately sought to support their fellow travelers and desired to implement programs and community events that would reach some of these wounded and broken passengers but were told by the Captain that this was not their duty and that, because they couldn’t control their zeal, their services were no longer needed.

There are others who noticed criminal behavior of high-ranking Crew members and were silenced with threats of violence…or worse, were tossed overboard in the middle of the night.

Many of the longtime, committed passengers have appealed to the Captain and the Crew, relentlessly. Some have simply given up, finding no quarter for their heartfelt concerns. Some have even banded together, without the Crew’s blessing or involvement, to try to resolve some of their issues, and have ended up creating more problems and have brought down the ire of the Captain, facing strict rations and even confinement. In the name of Unity.

Even “good” Crew members who seem to have a modicum of concern for the plight of the passengers seem to prefer pat answers and trite responses rather than to really engage in meaningful knowing and community with their passengers. In fact, the more challenging the circumstance, the more likely the Crew members are to resort to spiritual platitudes that offer little real hope of redemption. And then, they avoid future interactions with those passengers whenever possible.

I don’t want to be a Complainer. But it is almost as if the Crew has lost faith in the Course itself and believes, perhaps, this sordid squalor is really All There Is.

And if it is true that the Captain and Crew are wondering if the Course is worthwhile, then perhaps all of the side excursions make sense. Perhaps it makes sense why the Crew seem to be recruiting hands who do nothing for the passengers but make the Crew’s lives more pleasant and fulfilling, even if that fulfillment is only in the form of base pleasure and the revelry of the moment.

Or perhaps it makes sense why the Captain and Crew are bartering at ports in ways that curry the favor of the ruling bodies there, picking up Causes and Activities that seem to have political benefit more for those bodies than for the Ship’s passengers and Course.

For the passengers still yearning, and hoping against all hope that the Course will prove True and the ship will carry them to that destination — *especially* those whose hope has been strained by abuse or who feel unseen and unheard in their struggles — it feels like a punch in the gut to hear the Captain of the Ship announce that the Course is not, in fact, what they thought it was, and that instead a new direction will be charted. To watch the Crew no longer simply ignore, but actively hunt down passengers who have been on board for years and force them off the ship via ultimatums that they cannot accept nor understand breeds horror. To watch the Captain announce that primacy of place will be given to passengers who openly revile the values so many on the ship have been striving for, however imperfectly, and put Crew members in place who openly sneer at — or who even caused — the struggles so many existing passengers face is too much to bear.

A Church that struggles to support the people who are trying to stay on the boat and are falling off the sides should not be pushing those people away and letting them drown while they send out lifeboats to the people calling for mutiny and seeking to change the ship’s direction.

Unless, of course, the Church has lost faith in its own Course.

Spoiler alert! You may want to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2 before reading this post.

The nostalgia was palpable as the movie began — a guy and a girl, laughing, singing, embracing, sharing hopes and dreams of the future. A storybook romance.

Fast forward to the revelation of a painful void created by the absence of a father, the loss of a mother. A son’s uncertain identity, and all the reservations and questions that come with it.

Then, the unimaginable happens — the father appears, and reveals that the son’s life is the product of true love — a beautiful, meaningful gift. Embellished, even, by the depiction of a baby in utero, growing under the loving embrace of a father and a mother.

I knew at that moment that a twist was inevitable. There was no doubt. It was all too “good” to be true.

Enter the plunge into the modern world’s despair.

The beauty and grandeur of the father’s home, his grace and charm, his warmth and his care were revealed as an illusion. What had appeared to be an outward-focused benevolence, a desire for union and communion for the good of the other, were shown to be a selfish, unrestrained passion. The singular devotion for one woman was a sham; she was just one of many partners who had bought his line. His progeny were begotten purely for his own fulfillment — they were of no value in and of themselves. No one was above being discarded once their purpose had been exhausted.

Guardians grabbed our hearts with nostalgia, and crushed them with reality.

The nod to old-fashioned family values, the organic process of creating life, the father-son bond — it seemed so unbelievable because, to our modern world, it is unbelievable. Millions of people today have no idea what a nuclear family is actually like. Marriage ‘till death do us part seems like a pipe dream. Embryos are being pieced together in petri dishes, purportedly sometimes with more than two parents. Wombs are being bought and sold (and soon, perhaps, artificially provided), sperm donors are carefully selected for the perfect genes, and frozen “left-overs” are being crystallized into jewelry and keepsakes — all for a price. Many of the children who are “lucky” enough to be born of the “love” of a man and woman find themselves unwanted, uncared for, and left to their own devices, or tossed about in the wake of divorce or separation. Some even find themselves literally being sold in human trafficking by people they thought would give them the attention or protection they craved.

Guardians gives us a great cross-section of today’s population: The cocky hero with the absentee father who struggles with insecurity under his confidence and pride. The emotionally chilled lead heroine who fought her way to the top and isn’t about to let any man crack her tough exterior. The horrifically abused underdog who’s trapped, understandably, in her need for vengeance. The socially oblivious, honest-to-a-fault strongman who everyone likes to have around because he’s just so quirky. The meek, subservient female character who has only ever been told that her value is what she can do for someone else. The scrappy thief who feels like he’s always been “bad” and isn’t quite sure if he’ll ever be able to make himself “right.” And a genetically modified non-raccoon who is quick to deal out insults as a cover for his vulnerability, his wounds rooted in his creators’ lack of personal care.

Oh, and there’s the adorable Baby Groot. I’ll come back to him in a moment.

Violence, abuse, neglect, impossible standards, betrayal, abandonment, use. These are the realities of the modern world. The Guardians are the heroes du jour — resilient outcasts who will make a way against all odds. And this second installment brought into focus just how enormous the odds are.

It used to be, I believe, that our collective hope in old-fashioned values was kept alive by beacons of light — people who appeared to be living in upright, morally virtuous ways. Couples who seemed to have enviable relationships of 50, 60 years or more. Individuals whose public personas exuded extraordinary generosity and kindness. Who appeared to keep their promises. Leaders who we thought stood on principle and fought for what was right.

Historical fiction and popular entertainment boasted heroes who were unflappable in their fight for justice. Teachers, priests, and coaches pushed us to grow, and encouraged us to become better, stronger — and we perceived them to have precisely the virtues they aimed to cultivate in us.

But, like Ego’s planet, the inspirational beauty of those old tales has been shown to be rotten at its core — if not in truth, then in perception. And today, perception matters more.

In our world, spouses aren’t faithful. Parents don’t stick together. Neighbors don’t watch out for each other. Priests, teachers and coaches can’t be trusted — too many have abused children. Government leaders are corrupt. Heroes are conflicted, and some villains may not be so bad after all. Everyone is broken, and the old values — well, we’re not sure anyone ever really lived them out to begin with. So now we’re kind of making it up as we go along.

On the one hand, that frees us from the harsh judgment of the past — it promotes empathy and understanding. Everyone has a seat at the table. Anyone can “belong.”

On the other, there seems to be a pervasive confusion about what things are “right” and “wrong,” to the point where almost every type of behavior seems justifiable to some degree.

In any case, it is clear that the old order of union and communion doesn’t apply anymore, and must be replaced with something much more inclusive.

In that vein, Guardians 2 argues that “family,” in its traditional sense, is dead.

The message resonates powerfully with the modern person because it speaks to the lack we experience. It even attempts to provide a common-sense substitute — “friends are family,” it reiterates, over and over again. And for many, this rings absolutely true. And necessary for survival.

But you know what’s interesting?

They can’t let go of family altogether.

Enter Groot, dancing and joyfully oblivious to the violence around him. Being sheltered. Yawning and laying his head upon Drax’s shoulder.

The child still exists. And the child is the sign of hope.

Fidelity, true love, acceptance, affirmation, protection when we are vulnerable — we all ache for these. In the one place where these are first possible for us — our biological familial relationships — our hopes are often dashed. We are repeatedly, sometimes cruelly, let down. We are abandoned by those who are supposed to love us most. We learn to earn these things. We put up with all kinds of use and abuse seeking these things.

Sometimes, we even harden our hearts, afraid that on the other side of possibility lurks even more rejection, more use, more hurt.

But, if we are perceptive enough, the innocence and dependence of a child reminds us

-We were and are worthy of love.

-We were and are worthy of care.

-It is an injustice for a child to be abandoned, neglected, abused, bought and sold.

We do want better for future generations.

There’s no doubt that Guardians is speaking to the heart of a world that has lost hope in the traditional idea of “family.” That despair is pervasive, even as we watch the characters struggle toward some semblance of healing.

But even as the film advocates for a re-definition of family, even as the characters come to terms with the fact that their parents, creators and caregivers have failed them in many ways, the presence of a child calls forth the hope that for this one things can be different. For this one I can make a positive difference.

May the presence of children always do the same for us. May we see in it a spark of hope that family is not dead — and strive to do what we can so that tomorrow’s children can know the fathers and mothers that they deserve.

The author of our guest post is currently a missionary in South America with The World Race. You can find more information about Chrissy, her mission and how to support her at the end of this blog.

I stood on the top level of the rickety scaffolding, dust mask on, power sander in-hand, taking in my surroundings as we began preparing to paint the last of the the 4 houses for the girls’ orphanage.

I felt strong. I felt tired. I felt…. feminine.

As I sat there, all of the people who had criticized my femininity and tried to tell me what being a woman entails popped into my head and I could hear their voices as clear as day.

Telling me I needed to wear make-up. Telling me to wear more skirts and dresses. To do my hair differently. To go shopping and do my nails and be less bold. To bat my eyes and use my “feminine wiles” to get what I want. To sit back and “learn how to follow.” To be less independent.

All of this because in their eyes I was somehow failing to be feminine.

Out here on the field we get it all the time. Many contacts or people in the community will overlook us and go straight to the men for answers even if they aren’t the team leader. When we show up to volunteer for anything involving lifting or manual labor we hear things like, “They sent you? But you’re women…” Around the world we have to fight harder to have our voices heard and our leadership respected.

Well I have a message for those people and whoever else may come along on behalf of myself and all of my sisters.

Our femininity is more beautiful than the way you want us to look.

Our femininity is bolder than how you want us to act.

Our femininity is stronger than what you say we can do.

The dictionary defines the word feminine as “of, relating to, or suited to women or girls.” So why do we cling to the idea that the only things suited to women are delicate, dressed up, and demure?

There is nothing wrong with these traits but they are only a fraction of all that is “suited to women.” To me, the best of femininity goes to our depth of strength and long-suffering endurance. We bear children for goodness sake! And those are qualities you can’t stuff into stilettos and a sit-back-and-watch way of life.

Pope Saint John Paul II described the feminine genius as having 4 primary  pillars.

• Receptivity: the ability to love sacrificially and receive life
• Sensitivity: the strength to look beyond the exterior
• Generosity: the availability to the needs of community and profession
• Maternity: the cultural, spiritual, emotional, and/or physical acceptance of other human beings.

And it takes strength and endurance to embrace those pillars every day of our lives.

I want the girls in this orphanage to look out their windows, see us up on those scaffolds, and know that women can have more than boyfriends and babies. I want them to see that the same women who braid their hair and play their games are also capable of hard work and fighting for their dignity. I want them to know that they are strong and capable. I want God to use us to open their eyes to who a woman REALLY is.

I am a woman.

I always have dirt under my nails.

I look great in a dress and heels but I also look awesome in jeans and my favorite baseball tee.

My idea of “doing my hair” means I brushed it that morning.

I can quiet a room of a room full of screaming children with one hand.

I can also pin a toddler with my legs and simultaneously change an infant’s diaper in under a minute.

I’m just as capable with a hammer as I am in the kitchen.

I would rather climb a mountain or bungee jump than go to the mall.

I can Netflix binge romantic comedies like it’s my job and I’ve read 15 books while on the world race.

I love manual labor and I also love ministries that involve playing with babies.

I am receptive to God’s plan for my life.

I am sensitive to the needs of the people entrusted to me.

I am trying every day to be generous like Him with my time and with my love.

I am maternal in my care for those around me

And I am hella feminine.

Original post can be found at chrissycasazza.theworldrace.org.

Chrissy Casazza the second oldest of five in a loud, Italian, Catholic family. While she dreamed of becoming an actress and using her platform to defend the faith, God called her to major in Special and Early Childhood Education. After teaching in public school for a year and a half, she was called to long term mission with The World Race. You can learn more about her and her missionary activity at her blog and you can support her mission here.

You may not have come across them yet, but these yard signs have become rather prevalent in some of the neighborhoods I drive through to get to work.

By now I’ve had a few weeks reflecting on this as I drive in everyday. And more recently I found this article in the Huffington Post as to how it originated. I have put together a response, but first it may be best to reflect on why I felt compelled to do so.

I do not feel I need to respond because I inherently disagree with what is on the sign. In fact, if you take each phrase literally, with no context, I actually agree with the original sign 95%. In fact, the only thing I don’t completely agree with is that Kindness is Everything (kindness is entirely valuable and necessary, but not everything) So why say anything? Why reflect on this at all?

Because as a Catholic in the U.S. what I believe doesn’t fit with the major narrative of either the political left or the political right. Even in the Huffington Post article, it’s clear that the above sign took off after the presidential election. And I really understand this. President Trump is extreme and so the negative backlash has also been extreme. But I find myself unable to join in with either side because neither is based in the fullness of truth. My reaction to the above sign was to reflect, think, and analyze rather than to take it purely at face value. Why? Because I have always been challenged by the Catholic church to reflect, think and analyze, to use the intellect and will that God has given me to pursue truth, beauty and goodness.

And I know the context of this sign, I know not only what it says in terms of face value but also what it implies. There are two sides and this sign represents one. It’s evident in Huffington Post comment box. You might even be able to put me into the ‘religious right’ that many talk about as being opposed to this sign (though my political views aren’t all that right or even fit on the left-right scale).

It’s either ‘black lives matter’ (political left) or ‘blue lives matter’ or even ‘all lives matter’ (political right). Well, as a Catholic, I absolutely believe in protecting the vulnerable, and there’s no question that black lives are vulnerable. I also believe that ‘all lives matter’ and that violence against police officers is unjustifiable and even dangerous to our society.

‘Women’s rights are human rights’ is something I completely agree with. But I also believe that not only is abortion not a human right, but that it violates human rights.

‘No human is illegal’ is one of the easier ones to get on board with 100%. As a Catholic, I believe in care for the immigrant, that our love of neighbor does not have borders. I do also believe that a country has a right to protect its borders. There is no simple solution but it is an issue that we must wrestle with because lives are on the line.

‘Science is real’ is one that I didn’t know was in debate but I have to talk about because the implication is that there are some who believe that science isn’t real. Science is a system that organizes, builds and tests knowledge.  So in that context an argument about the reality of science makes very little sense to me.

‘Love is love’ has always bothered me, because one, on the surface it means absolutely nothing. It is like saying a = a.  This is obvious and meaningless. But, the implication, that all love is the same, is simply untrue. I do not love my dog the way I love brownies, my daughter or my husband. It is important and necessary that I love them each differently.

I think it is impossible to fully express all that I believe in the context of a yard sign. But a sign like the one above compelled me to try, even if just to let someone else know that there is an option outside of ‘right’ and ‘left.’ My hope is that it would pique someone’s curiosity and encourage them to ask questions. I know I would be happy to have that conversation!

Here is my response.

Update Oct. 12, 2020: The sign is now available for sale and you can find more information here.

Let me preface this post by saying that I’ve never been what you would call a “feminist”. For a long time it was even a stretch to call me “girlie”. I was the only girl born to either side of my family among all my cousins. I hated dolls. My best friends in high school were guys. Even when I made global news about breast milk pumping in airports, I was speaking up out of frustration over the lack of basic facilities for handling a bodily fluid need, not to declare a woman’s rights war over the sexualization of women’s breasts (to clarify: I don’t have a position one way or the other here, just that whatever works for a mom and her hungry baby is what matters). I say this just to set the stage for where I’ve come from in my perspective on this topic. 

There’s an unrest among many women in my position. We are career women who have embarked on parenthood. We have heard and embraced the ideas of, “if you can dream it, you can do it” or, “the old rules around women and their place in the home and society have changed – take advantage of the doors the women before you have opened and define your own path.” We have done just that.

I grew up with this mindset too, no holds barred. Anything a guy could do, I could do better if I put my mind to it. I could have the best of both worlds as far as I was concerned. I could tumble like a boy, but then squeal and refuse to eat the worms they dug up on the grounds of being a girl. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do but couldn’t because I was a woman, and I worked hard to live without any regrets in wondering what I could achieve. I went to the best school I got into and accepted the best job offer from the best company I received upon graduation. I went on to live in several of the best cities in the world and eventually got a job at a company ranked #1 in the world for “Best Place to Work”. Because, that’s what you do, I thought. In my lifetime women had the same rights as any man, so I had no excuse but to live that way thoroughly and strive to enjoy the same level of accomplishment that any man could. I never felt a sense of obligation to do it because I was a woman, I did it because I was just striving like any young adult would in the effort to pave my own way to the “American Dream.”

Thinking Ahead

As for planning for a future family, well, I didn’t really. I was never someone who envisioned my wedding day or pre-named my future children. It’s not that I didn’t want to get married or have children, or that I thought girls who did envision these things were wrong. I just didn’t want to wait longingly for something that God may not have planned for me. What if He intended for me to be single and I wasted my whole life wishing for a husband? What if He didn’t intend for me to have kids and I built my whole life around having them? I loved kids and was always attracted to caring for them, but I didn’t mentally prepare myself to have some of my own.

In part, I was too busy working on my career. Some colleagues were parents, but if they were they often had live-in au pairs, found daycares that were open for more than 12 hours a day, or they would dart out of the office at 4:30 while the rest of us silently (and ignorantly) grumbled. I was rewarded for giving my all and working endless hours, but if I ever pushed back with personal boundaries on my schedule or task overload I was swiftly reminded of the sacrifices of the career women around me. The female manager that missed her childbearing years for her career wasn’t going to let me off the hook to leave work in time for a date. The female supervisor that was sour about someone else raising her children via daycare wasn’t about to encourage my work-life balance efforts. If they were going to sacrifice to be where they were, I sure as hell would have to as well.

Luckily for me, God did have both marriage and a child in His plans for me. This week my amazing little girl turned 18 months old. She is full of smiles, is busy learning words, has big plans to convince us to take her outside, and loves kitty snuggles (read: whaps). I look at her with awe and gratitude, especially when the buzz of the day winds down and I fill my free moments looking back at pictures of her. My husband and I stare at the baby monitor while she sleeps and say over and over, “she’s such an angel”. And we believe it with our whole hearts. She is an angel, a gift, and a life-altering wonder.

My Cup Overflows

Here’s the thing… I’m stuck. I’m a career woman and a mother. Read that again. I’m a career woman and the all-encompassing nature of what that means. I’m a mother and the all-encompassing nature of what that means. I’m both. This sounds like “having it all”, and that’s certainly true in some ways, but the reality is that my cup overflows… life is streaming down the side of my cup and into a puddle on the floor where it gets run through and stomped on and lapped up by the cat. It’s chaos. Abundant. But chaotic. And the crazier thing is there are other women that I know have it harder than I do. WAY harder. Multiple kids, kids that are high needs, single moms, moms that work for an hourly wage that is lost when a kid is sick, moms who rarely see their kids because the family needs a second income to get by, or hopeful moms who can’t wait to conceive after years of trying. I’m not any of these moms, and I struggle. I have my mom nearby for part of the year and I struggle. I enjoyed an incredible 6 month paid maternity leave and I struggle. I have a little angel child that sleeps better than I ever imagined and an amazing, supportive husband who runs home from work when I need back up and I still struggle. Why do I struggle? Because I’m a career woman and a mother. I’m both. And neither relents for the other.

I’m not alone, but it certainly feels like it when I’m asking for flexible work hours or having to dart from the office to care for my sick baby. I’m not the only one, but it feels like it when my colleagues wonder why I’m missing happy hour, again. The questions around my commitment to my career-woman responsibilities start to rise, so I shift my attention back to work. No sooner than a moment after my daughter sees my wandering eyes looking towards my laptop does she find a way to break a rule and win back my attention.

The Good Fight

The career-woman mother still has to choose between the two. I know career women that continue with their careers and come to a partial peace with putting their kids in day care. They field emails by day and wage daycare-germ wars at night. Warriors. I know career women who leave their well-earned careers and fully commit to being a mom and a housewife. They agonize over the pull between their love for their child/family and the deep fear of being left behind in the work world. Soldiers. I also know women who decide to leave the office and create their own businesses while working from home (with or without childcare help at the same time), hoping to achieve the ideal balance of being a mom while contributing to the world through a passion or cause. Heroes. When we all come together in a rare moment of connection, we look at each other with a cocktail of emotions, mixing trepidation, comparison, connection, and compassion. We are all torn. The many hours of sweat and tears poured into our careers are hanging in the back of our minds while we relate to each other about the very real adjustments of parenthood. We ask each other how we are handling the changes, and none of us really can say with confidence that we feel settled. If we are vulnerable, we commiserate and look at each other without a solution. We, the answer finders, the do-it-all and let-no-hurdle-stop-us workers, we find ourselves at a loss, baffled that in this day in age we are still so far from a solution. We say with enthusiasm, “There’s got to be a way to make this better!” “Maybe we should team up and start a business to help other career woman who are also moms.” We race through ideas and feel connected in the conflict.

But when we part ways, we go home, feed our babies, dunk the spaghetti-sauce-covered kids in the bath, read stories with different voices for each animal, and rock and sing our kiddos to sleep. We snuggle them just a bit longer and feel grateful to be a mom, sneak out of their room and head to the kitchen, corralling the remains. And then we grab our laptops and tablets and reignite our minds with ideas, work, articles and trainings. We squirrel through our to-dos, realize laundry is still sitting in the washer and wish there were more hours in a day. We think back about how women before us kept their homes immaculate and kids well fed and dressed, and we can’t help but wonder if it would be better to go back to a time where there wasn’t the temptation to mother and work. With a pang of guilt, we wonder. We would never want to give our babies back for our careers. We also can’t fathom a life without the intellectual invigoration of being able to dream big and achieve goals like our male counterparts do. While we aren’t the first generation to have the luxury of choice, we are one of the first to have the option to pursue any career we like and don’t have the societal guarantee of being a mom and a housewife. This is a double edged sword that seems to have more vivid pain points than ever before as the family unit struggles and women start to put their foot down in search of a better way.

What We Preach

From my perspective, there are two important pieces that are missing to make “a better way”; a larger recognition of how much things have changed for women and how little has changed around them, as well as an honest conversation about what will never change because it was by God’s design of women. I look back at myself as a younger woman and wish there was an emphasis both on how I could do anything and how I was made with an incredible gift to bear children and the responsibilities it brings. I wish I was encouraged to grow both gender neutrally and gender specifically. Where there were conversations about feminism and women’s rights, I wish there was less focus on women being treated like men and more focus on how the design of women gives them a different strength and daily demand – one that men will never get to fully experience and one that requires a different way of working. And I wish that when there is discussion about things like government-mandated maternity leave we can recognize it isn’t women asking for an exception (or in some people’s eyes, women feeling entitled to paid vacation *eye roll*), it is women needing society to wake up and realize that they can’t have women and mothers in the workplace without the workplace supporting the true form of who women and mothers are. We women are privileged, we are capable, but we are also limited just as men are limited. Stay-at-home husbands still can’t carry a child for 10 months, birth them, breastfeed them, or answer the cry of “mama!”

The Result

So, here I am. Mother of one. Employee at the #1 “best place to work” with a generous maternity leave and an 80% work arrangement that is supposed to provide “flexibility”. Still torn in two. After 18 months of my sweet girl’s life, I have realized that no company – even the “best” one to work at – can take away the sting that a mom feels when she leaves her baby with someone else while she goes to work. Or the punch she feels when she gets a mediocre performance rating at work because she can’t compete with her non-mother or sacrifice-all-mother counterparts. I look at my family and realize that there’s a need for me that no one else can fill as the mom and wife. My career, despite all it has given me in experiences, colleagues, travel, and accomplishments, is limited compared to the gratifying peace of knowing that my family is cared for, well fed, bills are paid, cat is spayed, Daniel Tiger is played, dinner is made, because at home I’ve stayed. Even if I don’t do any of those things, I’m still a hero just because I’m a mom who kisses boo boos and sings silly songs. Who breaks out the finger paint during the day and scrubs it off the couch at night. Who packs the diaper bag with snacks, toys, books, blankets, sunscreen, tissues, bandaids, wipes, hats, gloves and lovies better than Mary Poppins. Who wears workout pants like they are jeans and just might also call them her pajamas to make it all happen in a day. And who fears, deeply, that the identity she built and the blood, sweat and tears she poured into the career she left will fade too quickly away behind diaper cream and sticky handprints on the coffee table. That her social life will be limited to mommy gab of diaper blowouts and Pinterest recipes. And that the day she does try to return to her career roots she will get a judgmental scowl at the “gap in employment” listed on her resume.

Despite these fears, I’m taking a leap from my career-woman post and gambling that I’ll find a way; at least a way that’s better than the grind of trying to do both. I’ll support my husband’s efforts to provide for us financially, and he is supporting my part-time involvement with a nonprofit that keeps my mind active and my soul fed. I will teach my little girl that motherhood and being a career woman both have their place in different life seasons. I will strive to empower and encourage other career-woman moms when they feel disconnected from their former selves. Most of all, I’ll never cease to support the progression of finding “a better way,” knowing that my daughter too will be capable, driven, and a potential mother facing the same questions. May we progress to a place where women give each other a hand in this struggle (rather than compete), where the work world accommodates both a man and a woman’s schedule, and where the decision to bear and raise children is seen as a gainful, beautiful choice that only enhances a woman’s ability to achieve her full potential.

Original post can be found at Classy Not Pricey.

Last spring a lovely group of ladies joined me in the Endow study “Setting the World Ablaze: St. Catherine of Siena.” (Never done one? Check them out!)

One of the things I find charming about Endow studies is how different aspects of the study — sometimes the words on the page, sometimes the discussions that they prompt — smack me upside the head at just the right time. Those messages stick with me and continue to challenge me long after the study is over.

And sometimes saints just stalk me. Ask me about St. Anthony of Padua. Or the kissing saints.

I’m convinced it’s a coordinated effort to save my soul. Seriously. Life’s full of distractions, and God knows I need reminders about the Important Things. So he sends in special agents — like friends, family, random strangers, or even sometimes a 14th-century doctor of the Church whose body is in Rome and whose head and thumb are in Siena — to bring me back around.

As I was flipping through a travel book from my honeymoon shortly after the Endow study was over, out fell these prayer cards from St. Catherine’s tomb at the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.

I’m not sure whether my husband and I picked them up on our honeymoon in 2009 or if he picked them up during a previous trip to Rome. All I can say is that, true to form, St. Catherine is one persistent woman. At minimum, six years had passed before I happened to flip open that travel book, and it just happened to coincide with the end of the Endow study.

Finding the prayer cards caused me to reflect again on a particularly memorable quote from the study. In the following message from The Dialogue, God responded to St. Catherine’s request for guidance on pursuing perfection in charity in a broken world:

So if you would attain the purity you ask of me, there are three principal things you must do:

You must be united with Me in loving affection, bearing in your memory the blessings you have received from Me;

With the eye of your understanding you must see my affectionate charity, how unspeakably much I love you;

And where the human heart is concerned, you must consider my will rather than people’s evil intentions, for I am their judge — not you;

If you do this, all perfection will be yours.

(pp. 191-192 of The Dialogue, translated by Suzanne Noffke, O.P.)

Need a New Year’s resolution, anyone?

Oh, and if there is one thing I learned from the Endow study, it’s that Grandma’s arm twisting has nothing on this woman. If you’re being stalked by St. Catherine, be prepared to hear from her, even when you’d rather be left alone in your errant or cowardly ways.

She was known to be especially persistent in reaching out to and encouraging her spiritual children who were struggling. Sometimes this took the form of calling a disciple away from worldly pursuits, with copious reminders of her maternal affection; other times this meant calling a pope to “be a man” instead of a cowardly boy in the face of political pressure.

I can’t say that I enjoy being stalked by saints. It’s really uncomfortable to have your soul pricked where it most hurts. I just hope that in the end I’ll be able (to paraphrase St. Catherine) to bear it in memory as a blessing from a loving Father.

Some honeymoon photos of St. Catherine’s hometown, Siena:

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