The Care of Precious Things

"I've spent my life protecting precious things."

Wendell Berry

Lately (always) I've been thinking about motherhood. And for my single dad friends, you too. And what I find today is something that is concerning ~ the care of the most precious of things...our children. 

The Lawman is my favorite person...my children hear this from birth. It's an anchoring knowledge that your parents love each other the most and that you are next in line. While he is my favorite person ~ I listen to him above anyone else, as well. Recently he has been listening, reading and quoting Wendell Berry. He's always honored this poet-prophet, but our schedules and choices have kept him from exploring Mr. Berry much. But things have changed and I am benefitting from the beauty Wendell expresses through his life and his writings and his talks through my husband. If I were to explain who he is I would say that, Wendell Berry helps us identify the precious things in life and how to care for them. 

"We do not have the right to ask whether we will succeed or not. 

The only question we have the right to ask is 

'What's the right thing to do?'"    

Wendell Berry

I'm not sure how someone can grow up in America and not be marked, at the least, with the push for success and performance. In everything. Americans are close to never okay with not succeeding, I know my heart races if I think I might not. But when we talk about mothering we cannot mother with success being our goal. Like Berry says we must mother from the place of "What's the right thing to do?" and it is this kind of mothering that is the most valuable and the most exhausting. 

What does doing the right thing look like in mothering, practically? Well, it looks like a lot of small right choices. "I don't like to think about the future because it's not here yet." WB says...I like this - a lot. This philosophy in no way goes with a success driven mentality. You might have heard things like "You won't get where you want to be if you don't know where you're going." or "If you aim for nothing, you'll hit it every time." Hog wash. That's no way to live a life. I prefer what Jesus said ~ 

"Don't worry about tomorrow, 

it will have troubles of it's own. 

Look at the flowers - they're not worried. 

God sees every bird that falls, 

how much more will he care for you?" 

(Ami version:)

But if you parent with the idea that you will do the right thing in this moment you will take care of the most precious of things in your life in the most beautiful way. This is not a focus on the child - it a shift in focus from what are many good things in a moment to "What is the right thing in this moment?"


The push of successful parenting means you have an end goal. Here are a few goals I've parented toward over the years:

Academic Achievement

Healthy/Fit

Jesus Lovers

Missional

Family Oriented

All of these are great things to see in a child. But if you get to year 18 and see your child leave home having embraced and met these goals, but are self-focused, building their kingdom and not His, anxious and driven and not asking "What is the right thing in this moment?" - the child has not been taught to do the right thing; but rather to set and attain goals. 

There are two very different ways of living. One embraces productivity and one embraces meaning. 

I'm hoping to blog some about mothering not from a place of enlightenment, but rather from a place of encouragement...from a mom who has walked the trail for a long time and still stops often to look at the map. I've made so very many mistakes and Jesus in his kindness has redeemed so much as my kids have surrendered to him. I'll share those mistakes so that maybe a momma out there will not make the same ones.

For now the right thing for me to do is to hop off and thank each of my children for playing peacefully while I blogged these 20 min.