Mea Culpa

It has been a rough week - one of those weeks where I've seen too much of myself. I've been angry and impatient. I've been depressed and tired. It's been a week where everything, no matter how well-intentioned, has turned into crap. I sing with Joe and Blue, "I did that."

I am a maker, a little creator, fashioning my world with these two hands, with this mouth, with anger or peace. My children suffer under such a creature as me. They deserve so much more.

I am less than I ought to be.

I want to make the days better. I want to fashion them through the freedom that is given through grace - to laugh without resistance, to smile without this downward tug.

I am less than I ought to be.

Puppets and cartoons and sing-songy songs saturate my brain, turning it into crap. But I still know one thing: Elmo sucks. I used to love him, but a half hour of the furry red bundle of cute makes you wonder how Dorothy keeps from going belly up. Or at least vomiting little goldfish vomit all over the multi-colored pebbles that line her cell.

While we're speaking of excrement, I changed a dirty diaper today. And then, fifteen minutes later, realized that the boy was just revving the ol' engine. Tuning the orchestra, if you will. And the movement that followed was less than sublime. So I changed that one too. Last diaper. I call Laura and ask for more diapers - my only request. I don't request a book by von Balthasar or a CD, no newly released movie, not even a pack of new pencils (I love new, wooden pencils). Just diapers, please. And hurry.

O Lord Jesus, I am less than I ought to be. Heal me.