Hey! Hey! Hey!

Generally speaking, I like dogs. But I don't like my neighbors' dogs. In fact, sometimes I wish I had a BB gun in order to gently convey to these dogs my feelings about their feelings about my being in my yard. After all, I can't go in my own yard without them hollering at me: Hey! Hey! Hey! Or when I walk in the morning, before most people are awake, the dogs are hollering at me: Hey! Hey! Hey! Whatchadoin'! Hey!

- Hey! yourself, you dirty curs!

I shake my fists.

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There are days, when educating my children at home (without a teaching certificate) is rough. It is always an exercise in interruption, patience, and trust. And when I think my child has reached a milestone, the next day she has forgotten it all. It makes me want to rip out my hair in great handfuls, to bang my head against the table. Are they really learning? Does any of it make a difference? I know the answers, of course. But not convincingly. The nice thing about moments of self-doubt is that it allows me to examine what I am doing in order to do the best I possibly can, it allows me to practice letting go of this myth of perfection.

Of course, being a stay-at-home dad is itself an interesting proposition. It's lonely and humbling. But there are brilliant moments, like getting Jack Henry out of the crib and seeing the toothy grin on his face, his joy at seeing my face. Like hearing them laugh. Like listening to their dreams rattled off in half-words and lisps and with stark, real joy. It strikes me sometimes that I am glimpsing the face of God in their unsullied joy and love; and that I am allowed to live.

People tend to vocalize their admiration for what I do, but I think it amounts to nothing more than, "You poor, poor man." And while I love being at home full-time, it is an endless source of struggle for every atom of me. It is learning to live with doubt and failure. It is learning to be small. I always hated that Scripture "Live a quiet life." It whispers against my fantasies, my selfishness, my Mittyishness. And now I've come to realize that it is my salvation: littleness, quietness.

You either die for love, or you just die. It's really quite that simple.

Staying at Home

In a recent post, I mentioned how housework and childrearing were liturgical. That wasn't my insight, but Margaret Kim Peterson's. In fact, she has a book on the subject that was just released last week: Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life. I listened to an MP3 of a lecture she gave earlier this year in Florida and it was a profoundly interesting and theological view of diapers and laundry. You can download the lecture here.

(Click on "Margaret Kim Peterson," and you're good to go. The introduction is difficult to hear, but you will be able to here Mrs. Peterson's voice clearly. I was able to burn the entire lecture onto one CD and listen to it in my sweet MINI van.)

By the way, this lecture is no conservative diatribe about the necessity of the woman to be home - far from it. If you like that sort of thing, this isn't it. Sorry. This is an incredibly intelligent woman speaking from where she is - and how she finds ministry in all those monotonous chores that make us loony.

Please listen - especially if you're a House Spouse. Sometimes being at home can be a lonely place. Sometimes it can seem purposeless.

It isn't.

This work also is the work of Christ.

Thinking about Stability

Someone asked Abba Anthony, “What must one do in order to please God?” The old man replied, “Pay attention to what I tell you: whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.” – St. Anthony the Great, Third Century

"And you will be saved" - many Christians stumble over these words. But consider Jesus' teaching about who may inherit eternal life - those who follow Christ (Mt 19.29) and who obey the commandments (Mk 10.17-21; Lk 10.25-28). In other words, those who love God and who love others - they will inherit eternal life. The kingdom of God is not something that can be boiled down to mere belief or trust. It is that, certainly. But it is more.

Abba Anthony is answering the needs of those asking the questions. The need may not be the same as your own, but we can learn from his teaching regardless.

And so Abba Anthony, the father of monasticism, said to one who questioned him that three things must be done to be saved: (1) No matter who you are, have God before your eyes. (2) Do everything according to the teaching of the scriptures. (3) Wherever you live, do not easily leave it. (To another, Abba Pambo, one nearer my size, he said, "Do not trust in your own righteousness, do not worry about the past, but control your tongue and your stomach.")

It is the third item that I want to write about today. It's not that I fully understand the first two items, but the third item, the idea of stability, has been stewing in my mind. Abba Anthony tells us, we who are so quick to wish for something different, to be content where we live. Stability was one of the early vows made by monks of certain orders, which also included poverty, celibacy, and obedience.

Why stability? Because there is restlessness in the human heart. This restlessness is a kind of unfaithfulness. It rejects what is for what might be. One stops seeing the bread around him and begins to seek other nourishment. And if such restlessness is given its head, then one becomes useless where he is. One becomes salt that has lost its saltiness.

I have been struggling with stability for the past three years, for much longer if I am honest. I have to wrestle with my understanding of myself as a stay-at-home dad. Of course, most of the time I do not think about it. But people bring it up, things happen. My being a stay-at-home dad was not a decision that was completely mine, if you know what I'm saying. But perhaps my best decisions are ones that don't include me in the decision-making process. Such decisions are the simple, though personally difficult, moving of the hand of God.

So the place I live is home; I am an oddity surrounded by children who invent ways of graying me. My wife loves her job. And I love mine. And though I sometimes wish it were different, she wishes so less than I do. But she does sometimes, and those are hard days for me.

Today I received an e-mail from my mom saying she had spoken on the phone with an old friend from Georgia - some of our oldest family friends, though it has been at least twenty years since we've seen them. My mom told her that I was staying at home with the kids and Mrs. Manning replied that she thought that was wonderful.

That kind of response to my situation comes almost exclusively from mothers. Most men have spent a Saturday afternoon watching the kids and quickly extrapolate from that experience an unwillingness to do so on a full-time basis. Meanwhile, mothers, I believe, are operating out of the principle of Misery Loves Company. "See," they think corporately, their feminine minds psychically connected, "it's the real hardest job you'll ever love." And so it is. And I imagine for most women, it is far more difficult than what I experience, because my wife is so untiringly helpful at home. Most men are ass-sitters; such is my natural state.

But I still grow twitchy at times, wishing I were somewhere else. I hear a myriad of ghosts whispering mad words in my head. And then the soft voice of Abba Anthony cuts through the cacophony: In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. (Oh, and, Pambo, control your stomach.)

Yes, Abba Anthony. Thank you, father. Pray for me.

Excreta! Excreta! Read All About It!

As a stay-at-home dad, one of the things I hate is messes. Why? Because I am naturally lazy and it makes work. Because I'd rather be sailing. Because it is the instant interruption of anything I'm doing (blogging, writing, freelancing, cleaning, napping, being fed grapes while being fanned, placing bets, getting pedicures, etc.). It makes me boil. So I get anxious around mealtimes, knowing (the absolute knowledge kind of knowing) that I will have to clean up a spill: cheesy pasta, sugary milk and soggy cereal squishies, juice, peanut butter smears, jelly glops, bread crusts, crumbs, SpaghettiOs, or whatever may be on the menu.

It's so . . . out of control.

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Recently my little raccoon has taken to biting. He mainly bites the yellow-haired child - who takes things from him or tries to enforce her queenly rule over him - so my concern is not all that great at this point. All the same, I may lay off reading the Thomas Harris novels to him at bedtime.