Thoughts from a Householder

Have you ever noticed that the World's great spiritual heroes did not have children? Or at least, were not actively raising them as the primary caregiver.

Not Jesus - he loved children, spent time with children, instructed his followers to come to him only as a child would. But, he wasn't raising children. Not the Buddha. Not Mohammad. Not Moses. Not C.S. Lewis. Not Mother Theresa. Not St. Francis or Martin Luther or Thomas Merton. And Hinduism suggests by definition that the season of life best spent in pursuing great spiritual depth is after your child raising days are done.

This occurred to me as I stole a quiet moment while my own exhausting children napped, and gazed out the window at the winter-barren trees, contemplating the limitations of my worldview filter. Suddenly, two unrelated memories suddenly came to mind at the same time, and this thought was the result of their collision.

The first memory was an article I recently read, in which the author (Jeffery Paine) described a spiritual man by saying "simply watching the way [he] opened a door gave one an idea of what enlightenment is." I thought about what it looks like when I open a door - heavy bags dropping off both shoulders, baby on the hip with his shoe falling off, preschooler trying to wrench his hand free of mine, digging his heels in to avoid being taken through. Not quite the very picture of enlightenment.

The second memory (though they came at the same time) was of the only time I was ever yelled at in school. It was my art teacher in seventh grade, and I had put away some supplies in the wrong place. I was nothing like a troublemaker and my mistake was innocent and easily correctable. Besides the shock of being yelled at I felt the sting of injustice and I've never forgotten it. But today I thought of how quickly my own patience is drained and I wondered for the first time what it was like for her, teaching the hooligans that made up my seventh grade class.

And I realized then that people who walk serenely through doors very rarely are doing so surrounded by children. More, that those who achieve acclaim for their great accomplishments of Spirit are rarely those who are raising children.

And yet, being a mother and a primary caregiver is hardly an obstacle to spiritual development. I have found nothing to be so enlightening, so character sharpening, so weakness illuminating, so virtue defining as the non-stop practice of self sacrifice, creation, and surrender that is pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. Though I may appear half crazed, sleep deprived, harried, and unkempt, my soul is being taught and sharpened and purified. I'm not able to sit and ponder this, or even be aware of it most of the time. But soul refining is the work of struggle, sacrifice, discomfort, and perseverance. I would never have realized how impatient I was without these two non-stop boys and I'm certain my soul will emerge from these years stronger for it all. Maybe Mommy-Bootcamp is even better for my soul than spending these years in constant meditation.

I'm doing a workbook about unleashing your creativity with a group of people, and I'm enjoying the process very much. But it seems I'm always having to defend these mothering years. Though they may appear to be sapping my time, energy, and creativity, I'm confident that this is the type of refining process that is always needed for anything of value to be salvaged and purified.

Thank you, my children. You have nearly entirely replaced my Muse and I am the better for it. Nothing could be more beautiful and enlightening than every day with you.