It’s been a busy two weeks, with Palm Sunday, Spring Break, Easter, two birthdays, a broken finger and the need to fill three cavities. I’m also preparing for National Boards which takes up a lot of writing energy when I’m down a pinky. It makes typing something of an adventure.
However, I know the only way forward is through. I need to write, to grow my skills at writing. This week I am praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet. It is a fitful journey for me, as I usually remember I need to pray right before I lay down, and it means I can’t lay down because if I do, it will be tomorrow and I’ll be behind another day on the Novenas. My Novenas are more like quintina, but it’s progress, not perfection.
God I suspect is amused by my fiftul devotions. At least, I hope so.
Meanwhile, we are back to being a family of eight, plus two cats. Today I chipped my tooth. It has been a week of minor inconveniences.
Fortunately, there are moments of joy which restore the spirit when minutia threatens to drown life. My youngest son plays softball. He calls himself safe at every base. He also pitches.
It’s a joy to watch because you get little moments like the third base girl who recognized her opponent had made it to third each inning but never home. So she assured him, “The important thing is, you didn’t get out.” and he punched the air as he walked back to get his glove. Likewise, when another student got upset, the other student said, “I think I need to give you some space.” These simple statements had a clarity and charity often missing from seemingly more adult, more educated, more capapable individuals on line and in real life.
These kids with special needs have visible difficulties, but the rest of us, who can hide our difficulties, could learn to respond to frustration, to discouragement and dissappointment with more thoughfulness. We could learn empathy from these little ones, who savor making it to the next base as if they hit a grand slam.
I went back to my unfinished Novena. Maybe I could just make it to the next decade. I pinky promised God.
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