7 QT: Dead birds, Dante, and butter-churning

Hi Kelly!

1.

The weather is very insane here lately. Warm, sandal weather one day... and Thursday night, a massive snowstorm and a power outage. This resulted in another snow day at my boys' school. If you're keeping track, that would be #11. Over two whole weeks of class-time gone, due to inclement weather. And it's April now.

However, the forecast for Monday is 19 degrees celsius. I still have snowsuits in my entrance-way, but now I also need to go find their shorts in storage this weekend.

2.

While I'm griping about the weather, I can't help at laugh about this incident: You know how one of the first signs of spring is the first sighting of a robin? Well, this year, the first robin we spied was outside our church, dead, and tipped over in a snowbank.

(No, not that dead robin.)

The kids were upset to think it had either frozen or starved to death, having appeared too early under the false hope that spring had already sprung. What an omen.

3.

I have started re-reading Dante's Inferno for a little pre-Holy Week gut-check. I couldn't get past the first stanza without crying like the blubbering, repentant sinner that I am.

Midway in our life's journey, I went astray

from the straight road and woke to find myself

alone in a dark wood.

I have been very aware of my lack of zeal lately, especially in regards to the daily duties of my vocation; this line struck me so profoundly. I was especially touched but saddened by the words "woke to find myself alone." In selfishly cutting corners and wishing away the moments until bedtime approaches, I too will wake to find myself literally alone, their childhoods over and my most fulfilling season of life squandered.

Rereading Dante has been my clarion call to embrace my life, rather than simply coast through it.

~four~

(The digit 'four' has stopped working my laptop. I have no idea why.)

5.

Last night while cleaning the kitchen, I listened to a great talk on the Circe Institute website by Angelina Stanford. It's called "What is a Woman?: A Reexamination of Feminism and the Church." In it, Stanford illustrates how the Industrial Revolution paved the way for modern feminism by decentralizing the role of women in the home. Prior to that epoch, men and women had equal roles in the running of home with the vast amount of responsibilities that entailed, as well as running cottage industries and the training of children towards home-centred work as well; this demanding life required a man and woman's full-time input. When factories took over the production of most of the items women (and men) made at home, the life of an at-home mother became perceived as less meaningful. What could be done for pay became the most valued. 

She also, fascinatingly, describes the Victorian attempt to recast motherhood as holy and worthwhile by enshrining the Angel of the Hearth image of womanhood. In doing so, Stanford says, religious expression became uniquely femininized as "demure piety" was upheld as the ideal. This then shifted the previous notion of the role of the father as a spiritual head. This led to the loss of interest in faith by men and their rapid decline in church attendance.

It was a fascinating and highly worthwhile presentation.

6.

I owe a shout-out to a friend of mine, who I know reads my blog, for challenging me to listen to something slightly more worthwhile than the chit-chatty podcasts I indulge in on the regular. While I do enjoy the light and conversational Tsh Oxenreider, my friend pointed out that I need more intellectual stimulation to feel content. So I drummed up the Circe Institute that very night. (It was listening to this delightful talk that I decided to pick up Dante once again, in the hopes of memorizing some passages.) 

7.

In fact, my friend's point relates very much to Angelina Stanford's talk; our society had very much been, at one time, a made up of producers. The work of life was making and creating the most necessary items, be they clothing, quilts, food or houses themselves. Now we have fallen into the tempting, but ultimately dissatisfying, habit of being plain consumers. In light of this, I am trying to reclaim more satisfaction in my humble everyday life, and I do so by cooking more from scratch, sitting down at the piano and (awkwardly) plunking out hymns for my children to sing along with me, and reading better, more challenging books. Perhaps that last item seems more of the "consumer" category than "producer" but I do notice when I have been reading slightly more demanding texts, I engage in better conversations with my children. 

(One of two times I have made butter from scratch. Back when my second child was still in the womb so I had leeeetle more free time on my hands.)

{Although we'll be at it again in two weeks because Noah has requested a pioneer-themed birthday party, and I'm opting to use his guests to help make their own party snacks.}

Related to conversing with my older children, while I do grieve the quickly passing time of their early childhood -- my oldest, Noah, is almost eight now, and is reading to himself more often than I can to him -- I find such joy and amazement in this new phase of parenting. Raising children who have reached the age of reason requires me to flex my mental muscles more and it is deeply satisfying. As well, I have the tremendous joy of still experiencing early childhood with Anna, who is only three, babyhood with Elijah at almost 10 months, and the charming on-the-cusp-ness of Isaiah, at almost six, who is turning the corner to the age of reason himself quite quickly, but is still more often than not, a 'little' child. So it is quite a privilege to span so many developmental stages among four children.