What now?

I’m feeling a little lost. I have been waiting for this week for months. For the time and space to do only what I want, when I want, for large chunks of time. But you know what? I miss having a rhythm to my days. Even the relatively unpredictable rhythms of young children. The best description I’ve been able to give is that it feels like I’m clapping off the beat, with that awkward, grasping motion that feels icky. The good news about this image is that I expect I will find the beat, within another chorus or two, and this too will pass.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1) It helps to have external markers for my days, even if they’re artificial, like I have to get to the store by 10, so that I can start the dish I want to make for dinner before I have to leave to pick up the kids by 2.

2) It’s good to make arrangements to meet with other grownups. As in, I invited E. for coffee this morning so I have to shower and make my bed before 9:00. Not that E. really cares if my bed is made or not, but I know that I do better at housework if company is coming. Also, it’s energizing to me and my writing to be able to talk about it with others.

3) Exercise is important. There is actually a room with exercise machines in my building, but I tend to forget about them. So far, I’ve found two walks that work for me:

a) 20-30 minutes around the block that includes a great view from just above our development, since we live on the side of a big hill;

b) along the beach that could be anywhere from five minutes on the pier to two hours in the hills.

The main thing is that I get outside and move. It’s good for my body and good for my mind.

4) Sleep matters. It is one of my soapbox issues that it is remarkable how little mental illness is apparent in the homeless population considering how little sleep these folks get. I’m working on establishing a regular 10:30-6:30 sleep schedule, which would be great for me. It’s not a coincidence that my worst day this week followed a night when I had to go to the bathroom twice(!) and then one of my kids fell out of bed and woke us all up. Hmm. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the connection until after dinner on that miserable day. Otherwise, maybe I would have taken a nap.

5) Caffeine and food are best taken in moderation.

6) Prayer is a good thing. Sometimes just noticing that I feel anxious is enough to help me settle into a few minutes, or maybe seconds, of silent, eyes-closed, wordless communion. Or contemplation of the beauty that surrounds me, wherever I am. I’m going to try H.W.S.’s recommendation of taking my worries to God and handing them over, as often as necessary. We’ll see how that goes.

7) Writing and reading every day. It’s good for me to see these as work, not just a guilty pleasure.

One piece that I haven’t figured out yet is where or when to volunteer some time to help people with more urgent, practical problems than mine. I walked into the St. Vincent de Paul shop the other day, but I didn’t work up the courage to talk to anyone. I think I will try again on a day when I’ve had more sleep.

The last thing I’m going to work on is some kind of big scheduling calendar, so I can lay out all the projects I’m supposed to catch up on this month and work through them, you know with priorities and resource maps, just like my life was a real job. Because it is.

Helpful and relevant excerpts from Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice, Advices and Queries:

“A life centered in God will be directed toward keeping communication with God open and unencumbered. Simplicity is best achieved through a right ordering of priorities, maintaining humility of spirit, avoiding self-indulgence, resisting the accumulation of unnecessary possessions, and avoiding over-busy lives.”

“John Woolman said, ‘As Christians all we possess are the gifts of God… To turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of Universal Love becomes the business of our lives.’ The principle of stewardship applies to all we have and are. As individuals, we are called to use our time, our various abilities, our strength, our money and our material possessions with care, managing them wisely and sharing them generously.”

Do I center my life in an awareness of God’s presence so that all things take their rightful place?

How have I been faithful to the leadings of the Spirit in choosing work or vocation?

What am I doing with my talents, time, money and possessions? Am I sharing them according to the Light I am given?

Do I live simply and promote the right sharing of the world’s bounty?

Do I keep my life uncluttered with things and activities, avoiding commitments beyond my strength and light?

Is my conduct at the workplace consistent with my life as a Friend?

How does my daily work enhance my spiritual life?

How do I strive to maintain the integrity of my inner and outer lives?

Gross Domestic Product

I’m sure that when you read the title some of you were afraid this essay would be about poop or leftover oatmeal or something. But no. It’s about economics.

For anyone who’s not clear, and even I had to look it up to be sure, Gross Domestic Product is generally defined as the total of the monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country’s borders.

GDP is often cited as the main economic indicator of the health of the economy. An official definition of a recession (like the news media and politicians keep talking about) is two quarters in a row of decline in GDP. However, there are some drawbacks to using GDP as the sole indicator of economic well-being of a country.

For one thing, GDP does not account for any of the resource costs involved in that production. For example, many economists, professional and amateur, have written about the fact that the environmental degradation required to produce goods and services is not accounted for.

Another major point of discussion is how to account for the “informal” sector. Goods and services that are produced and distributed but not bought or sold through the ordinary retail system. This might include union carpenters who moonlight as handymen or the people who sell televisions by the side of the road.

One of the largest elements of informal labor is housework. From cleaning your toilet to making dinner to knitting Christmas presents – a tremendous amount of labor and materials are consumed but not accounted for. If you work as a maid in a hotel, that is counted as part of GDP. If you change sheets for your grandmother, even if she slips you five dollars for it, that is not counted.

So why the economics lesson? It’s because I am reconsidering my own economic participation. Over the last couple of years, I have not contributed much to the official GDP. I just did our income taxes and I had none last year. But I did a lot of work.

One estimate of the fair market value of a housewife’s labor would be $138,000. Which does not include the services I provide as a fundraising and organizational development consultant for a number of Quaker organizations. Or writing this blog. (More on that note in a minute.)

At various points in my career, I have felt more and less concerned about the economic value of my work. Over the years, I have earned between $3.35 and $75.00 an hour. I have complained heartily about being nothing but a wet nurse. I have railed against the injustice of the gaps in my career that are associated with child bearing. I have also been really grateful for times when I haven’t had to feel conflicted about staying home with a sick child.

Right now, I’m pretty happy with the mix of homemaking and ministry in my life. I’m managing to both write and make dinner almost every day. I feel like my contributions to my family, my local Meeting and the wider Quaker world are being recognized as valuable even if I’m not getting paid.

Unfortunately, this happy balance is not to last. In 2008, I will need to bring more cash into our household. Why? Because the financial aid system for our children’s school expects that once all your children are in school, both parents will be employed, for money. They can’t make me go to work, but they will adjust our assistance as if I were earning money. So I’m looking for work.

But if I were working 15-40 hours a week on a paid job, I would have to give up some of the other activities that fill my days. Our house cleaning standards, even such as they are, will probably decline. I will have to step off at least one, maybe all five of the Quaker committees I serve on. I probably won’t have time to be costume mistress for my kids’ school plays. Certainly it will affect my traveling ministry with convergent Friends. And this blog will surely suffer.

But I hope my blog won’t die. It has brought me much joy, many new Friends, and provided a discipline of writing that has served me well.

Part of my efforts to find ways to make writing pay was the addition of the Google ads to my blog. I was hoping it would cover the purchase of new reading material. Well, so far, they’re earning about $1 a month. Which is pretty close to covering my actual costs of writing this blog, since I only use free online services. It would just about keep me in pens and notebook paper for the first drafts of my posts. However, Google only sends you a check when you reach a total of $100. So in about 10 years, I’ll get paid back. Ummm, that’s not actually going to work very well. So I’m looking at other forms of writing for a living.

Suggestions are welcome. Prayers are welcome. Sympathetic ranting about the warped economics of family life in postmodern America is also welcome.

Here’s my current prayer:
May God help me to find the right balance of GDP and domestic harmony.

Links about marriage

I'm trying to catch up with my housework and my writing before a job interview this afternoon. I hope to finish three posts about my Prophetic Witness workshop, the Re-Imagine Experiment I recently finished, and the upcoming Church Basement Roadshow.

In between, I treated myself to reading Jenell Paris's blog this morning. She had a great post about the true meaning of marriage.

Maybe this will make up for me not posting last week about the California Supreme Court's logical decision to uphold equal rights.

Last, and probably least (important, interesting, etc), here is the link to my own definition of marriage.

I cleaned my desk today

I wish I had a digital camera so I could take before and after pictures. From mountains tending towards landslides of paper to everything actually fitting in its place, this project was a good balance between homemaking, writing, and ministry.

The simple housework of cleaning, sorting, and rearranging the files and papers has cleared a physical space for writing again.

For my children, I found the tickets to the Lawrence Hall of Science that a Friend gave me months ago - they expire at the end of June, so we're in luck!

For my husband, I found the handouts from the clerking workshop I went to last year.

For various aspects of my ministry, I was able to separate the projects/files that I'm done with from the ongoing/new commitments. I typed up and sent off the report on my final session as clerk of the Quarterly children's program committee. I made a new folder for the clearness committee I'm convening this month. And I moved all the old files off of my desk and into a file box on the shelves next to my desk, so I can actually get to the projects I'm supposed to be working on now.

One one level, it was all housekeeping. On another level, it feels like clearing the mental space for my new phase of life to emerge. Maybe I'll be up to regular blogging again.

More Possibilities Are Emerging

One of the very first posts I ever read in the Quaker blogosphere was Martin Kelley’s post on the Emergent Church Movement: The Younger Evangelicals and Quaker Renewal. Over the last couple of years, I’ve come to articulate much more clearly my own understanding of the intersection between the emerging church trend and the Religious Society of Friends. I would call this convergent Friends; you may have your own words for this.

Last week, I met way more emerging church folks than ever before. (Here I should say that I am not an expert on the fine points of distinction between the terms emerging or emergent, nor do I know much of the history or who’s who in the internecine squabbles. I am not inclined to debate them either. Let’s say that to me they all refer to postmodern religion. Whatever that means to you, so be it. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it.)

I went to lunch with the presbymergent crowd – Karen Sloan invited me to tag along, and I’m really glad I did. It was very, very interesting to me to hear another denomination talk about the emergent trends among them. They sounded a lot like the conversations I have had with folks about convergent Friends – the internet/non-geographically based conversations, the cooperation across various divides within the denomination, the concerns that maybe the denomination is dying, all sound familiar. Are we trying to reform the whole thing? to renew a particular concern? just the last gasp of a dying beast? I recognized the concern that this be just seen as a conversation that is happening – a series of parties in conjunction with a bunch of other conferences. And especially Karen’s own description of how this ministry of connections is what is exciting to her and so she’s just doing it, even though it’s not a paid position. Gee, that really sounds familiar.

After lunch, Karen talked to me a little more about getting more involved with the emerging church conversation – how that is possible and helpful and difficult all at the same time, possibly especially for me as a Quaker and as a mother.

The whole thing made me think more seriously about being more organized about convergent Friends. About taking it more seriously. About being more explicit about what it might mean to be an emergent Quaker. I realized I have not really focused on the emergent part of convergent lately – this year I have really been focusing on the Conservative (in the Quaker sense) part of convergent. But this turn in the conversation was good for me. Each emergent church person struggles with something a little different, and finds different necessary resources in the movement. For some of them, it is looking for a less hierarchical form of leadership and more equality in ministry. For some, it is looking for more relevant, maybe ancient but now uncommon, forms of worship. For me, it is looking for examples of a different way of being Christian. Both different from the historically-minded folks of the Christian Friends Conference in northern California and different from the exclusive/elitist, just-war-justifying, culturally conformist folks of many mainstream and evangelical traditions. I’m interested in how to be a follower of the Way of Jesus, in simplicity and integrity, with harmony and equality, and forcefully pacifist.

When I look at the emergent folks, some of the things they are searching for are elements we Quakers take for granted. And some of the things they take for granted are hard for us to articulate and agree on. We have so much to learn from each other.

Am I called to do something about this? Yes. What will that look like? I’m praying hard about this. And I’m not that skilled at anything called prayer. Mostly I have a sense of opening my heart to the universal breath of life and love and hoping that something will come to make sense. Maybe the reason for all this housework this summer is to give me the physical, repetitive work that is often conducive to more open-ended thinking. I’m trying to keep my little notebook handy to write down insights as they come to me. The zoo has also been quite a productive place to think.

I’m also entering a period of discernment about employment. I sense (from some external markers) that I have about another year to be free to pursue unpaid ministry. Or shall we say another year for homemaking to be my sole economic contribution to our family. I’m thinking a lot about how my gifts and calling to religious teaching and evangelizing ministry could become paid work. There are a number of crazy possibilities that occur to me and Chris, but most of them involve a lot of other people changing to make them possible. One of the things I learned in Weight Watchers was about the benefits of writing down a Winning Outcome (a vivid and concrete description of what you want to see happen) – but one of the criteria is that it must be based on changes I can make, not dependent on other people to change. So this is going to be a long process.

I’m off to the FGC Gathering in a few days. (All those other posts I was hoping to write? Probably not going to happen before I leave.) I’m really hoping and expecting to have more conversations about convergent Friends with folks from a wide range of places and perspectives. If you’re going to be there, you can leave a note for me on the message board – my last name is actually Mohr – and we can arrange something. Look for me around the Junior Gathering in the mornings and at my Tuesday night interest group with Liz Opp: On Fire! From Small Nudges to Faithful Obedience.

Mothers as Traveling Ministers

The mundane details that I wrote up before I left, but didn't get to post.

One of the things that modern Friends have lamented, in my hearing at least, is the lack of practical details about how earlier generations of women managed to leave their households for extended periods in the service of God.

This may be excessively detailed and boring to most people, but it has occupied an enormous amount of my time and energy over the last month, along with the spiritual and logistical preparations for my part of the traveling ministry I’m engaged in. And it’s my blog, so there.

A partial explanation of the arrangements I have made in preparation to be away from my household for five days:

Childcare
My husband will drop our younger son off early at the home of a neighbor/classmate whose parents will then take him to preschool at the usual time. After lunch at school, another classmate’s parents will take our son to their home until my husband can pick him up. Our older son will go to a classmate’s home one day and stay at the school’s extended day program two days. This is a balance between imposing on our friends and paying for childcare. In preparation, I have hosted extra afterschool playdates at our house with these classmates. Over the weekend, my husband has invited another father with two sons to join them on an outing to a nearby wetlands. I also traded workdays at our cooperative nursery school so as to work the Tuesday before I leave, rather than the first morning I get back.


Meals
I have prepared menus and shopped for groceries for the week, as usual. I purchased more prepared foods than usual (like frozen pizza) to facilitate my husband making dinner after rushing from work to pick up both boys and then home. My husband is a competent cook, but this is still a hard part of the single parent routine. I baked and froze extra batches of zucchini muffins and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for snacks for the week. Our sons are used to helping set the table and clearing up for meals.

Housework
My husband and I share these duties in any case. I’m leaving the laundry and dishes caught up. The boys are accustomed to emptying the dishwasher and folding/putting away their own laundry. I don’t know if the floors will get swept or the sinks cleaned while I’m gone – if it really needs it, they’ll manage. My husband is always more likely to vacuum than I am anyway.

Other Friends have agreed to call our house and check in with my husband on several evenings, to be friendly and see if he needs anything by way of material or moral support.

We are blessed.

I hate mopping the floor

Of all the regular household chores, I think I hate mopping the kitchen floor most. Well, realistically, more than anything that doesn’t involve other people’s body fluids, let’s just say.

I procrastinate fiercely against mopping the floor. Some of my best housework is done in this mode, as in folding laundry or cleaning my desk is usually much more interesting/important/urgent than mopping the floor.

But today I broke down and did it. I learned several lessons, none for the first time.

1. It works much better to scrub the floor in the morning or afternoon than to wait until the end of the day and then think I’m going to do it. ‘Cause most days, I won’t. Much better to start when I’m not already worn out.


2. Those fancy floor cleaners don’t really work. Or at least they don’t work any better than straight ammonia and water. I think I’ve bought my last bottle of stuff that smells good but doesn’t really clean anything. I don’t know if ammonia is better or worse for the environment, but at least it’s functional in the first place.


3. If you really want the floor to get clean, you have to get down on your hands and knees with the scrub brush. The sponge mop is just an in-between tool. As one of my college roommates quoted her mother, while on her knees in our kitchen in preparation for her mother’s visit, “the sponge mop just moves the dirt around.” I was not convinced then, but I am now.

The worst part of mopping our current floor is that it doesn’t actually look any better when I’m done. I don’t mean it doesn’t look different – it does, but it’s not any prettier clean. The vinyl flooring is so old, so chipped and stained, and ugly to begin with, that I don’t get the sense of satisfaction out of seeing my nice, clean floor.

I suppose I should remember to be grateful that I have a floor to take care of, and that I’m not required to mop anyone else’s floor for my living. Dear God, help me to not be resentful of the blessings in my life.

The good news is that, at my current frequency of mopping, I probably only have to mop this one once more. Yes, we’re moving next month, to a slightly smaller, but brand new and owned by us, home in the nearby town where Chris works. I’m starting to be excited about the little things – like having two bathrooms and new paint and carpeting. I never really pictured us buying a brand new condo (aren't we more the funky old house types?), but the various first time home buyer’s assistance programs that we’ve been advocating for all these years are finally coming back to help us, and this is what we can afford. Small, but enough. Dear God, help me to know when I have enough.

Actually, the kitchen floor will be much smaller in our new home. So small that I’m thinking I might not even buy a new mop. Since I already know that to really clean it, I have to use the scrub brush, I’m thinking maybe I’ll just use a regular sponge to wipe up spills and then scrub it when it needs all over cleaning. If you have any experience with these newfangled floor cleaning devices, I’m open for other suggestions. Maybe if it was a fun tool to use, I’d use it more often. Because the Lord knows I don’t need any more excuses for not mopping the floor.

Holy Week 2021

I didn't intentionally choose this week to begin my sabbatical. A collection of external factors coincided to make this the right time. I only realized this coincidence would be true a couple of days ago.

But it feels good. Around the world, this is a week of holidays for Christians. In some contexts, secular holidays - schools and businesses are closed. In other contexts, the procession from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, with special rituals of remembrance on each day in between.

• • •

Holy Monday was the overturning of the tables in the temple. A challenge to unjust economic systems. For me, this time of rest and creative activity feels like a direct challenge to the economic structures of our day. For me, this ten week period feels like a sabbath season. A time to make right the patterns of my life. 8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will.

What do I will? And perhaps, not what I will, but what God wills. Not God's agents on Earth, not the church, not the government, but the Holy Creator, Source of All Wisdom, Beauty, Goodness. Not Caesar.

My main plan for this week is to begin by writing every day. To go swimming several days. And to schedule all the appointments that I put off until now. A haircut, a mammogram, new glasses, and more. It may take my whole sabbatical season to get to them all.

I already scheduled two - a deep cleaning for our house and our car. These fall into the category of things I could do for myself. However other people will be more efficient and right now I would rather pay someone to do it well and get it over with and not be exhausted when it is done. It will free me to think about other things instead of fretting about the housework. This goes against all my home training, but for once, I think it will be a good tradeoff.

• • •

Later in the week, Maundy Thursday is a reminder about community and service to others. Will I find ways, during this sabbatical season that overlaps with the Covid19 pandemic, to break bread with others and wash their feet? As a serious extrovert, I need to talk to other people for my own mental health. And as a human being and a Christian, I need to be of service to other people. Also for my own mental health. But I also need to practice some discipline around "custody of the eyes". The main purpose of this break is to bring forth that which is in me - to give to the world that which only I can give. Not to spend the time reading what other people have already written.

But recognizing the enormous privilege of having ten weeks in a row of paid leave, without even a newborn baby to take care of, I want to find some way to be of practical service to the community around me in this time as well.

• • •

Holy Friday and Saturday are about dying to self and waiting in the deep unknown. Am I able to give over my own longing to know or do or be anything and sink down to that seed that God sows in the heart? And to let that seed grow in me and breathe in me and be in me without striving to make myself more? For that seed to increase, I must decrease. In my striving and my desire for control and for fame and fortune and, and, and... everything. Not my will, Lord, but thine.

• • •

Then next Sunday, I will be going away. To an undisclosed location. For a week of self-denial of other people and the freedom to just write. A rebirth in some ways, maybe more like extended labor. I don't think it tracks to a resurrection. I'm afraid it's going to feel more like an extended Holy Saturday.

But we'll see. What freedom comes in that emptiness? What new inspirati­on or motivation? What will I be able to produce under those conditions? I have no idea.

Seventeen years ago, I went away for a solo retreat for a weekend. At that point in my life, what I most needed was for no one to touch me for 48 hours. I literally had to wean the baby in order to go away. The writing was just a serendipitous byproduct. But my life has changed ever since. And that baby is 19 years old now.

One of the things people keep telling me is not to have too high of expectations for myself in this sabbatical season. To not feel like I have to fill it with any particular kind of productivity or to set too concrete of a goal. That has been helpful advice.

But I am trying to establish the conditions for creative output to be possible.

I am trying to leave margins of time and energy to do what feels right in the moment.

To seek God's guidance in each day, each moment. And then to follow that guidance wherever or however it may lead.

• • •

This is the way.

That would be enough.

Amen.

Runner? Writer? Quaker?

Who, me? That name would not have occurred to me.

What makes me a runner?
What makes me a writer?
What makes me a Quaker?

I think I’ve hinted about it before, but I’ll make an official announcement now. I started running this fall. More specifically, I am in phase VI of the program outlined by the Contemplative Scholar on her blog this spring. This is a very new thing for me. I haven’t run this much since my 10^th grade P.E. class, and Mrs. Howe would tell you I didn’t run much back then either.

It’s funny to me how much of a difference it makes to say “I’m going for a run” than “I’m going for a walk.” I started telling myself “my run” when I was up to about six minutes total (out of a 30 minute walk) just to practice saying it out loud. I’m up to a grand total of 12 minutes now, but it’s framed by 10 minutes of walking to warm up and 10 minutes to cool down, so I’m still walking more than I’m running. Nonetheless, it feels accurate to say I’m running now. But I don’t think of myself as a “runner.”

What difference does it make? If I run, then I’m a runner. Any first grader can tell you that. But I have no interest in claiming the identity of a runner. I don’t want to hang out with other runners. (Partly, I’m still afraid they’ll laugh at me.) I’m not going to start buying running magazines. I’m not interested in entering races or raising money by running a marathon. I’ll be happy, I think, just to get up to 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise and stay there. Frankly, I’d rather swim, but pools cost money and right now I’m better off running outdoors for free. My husband now, he’s the runner in our family. Me, I just need some exercise.

The question of whether or not to call myself a writer has been a struggle this summer, since technically that’s the work I’m supposed to be doing these days. How many hours a day or a week do I have to put into it to legitimately call myself a writer? One of the non-Quaker bloggers I read, Kristin of (Un) Veilings wrote about this identity dilemma last week. Her point is that the act of writing makes her a writer. But still she wonders how to tell people you're a writer if you don’t have anything to show for it. Well, this month, I have overcome one hurdle. My first print article since I started focusing on writing has been published in Friends Journal. It’s called “A Convergence of Friends.” Much of the content was originally written for this blog, but I pulled it together for a fairly long article. (This issue also features a great article by Martin Kelley.)

(I did have an article published in Friends Bulletin a couple of years ago, which was my debut as a published author. It was also featured in my meeting’s newsletter and my son’s school newsletter. You can read it here. For those who are following along at home, I wrote it the same weekend I started reading Edna St. Vincent Millay.)

I’m still not quite sure how much I’m prepared to claim the identity of a writer. I haven’t done any work to develop it as a craft. I’ve never taken a writing class or workshop. I think blogging has served some of the same purposes as a writing group. I feel obliged to write more frequently and I know other people will read it. I enjoy the feedback I get from readers. [Hint, hint.] I’m fortunate that Chris M. is a skilled editor. (Really. He used to work for Random House and everything.) As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the main problem is that I have to carve out the time to focus on writing. I understand that discipline is a problem all writers have – suddenly so many other things seem so important and interesting… But I suspect this is especially true for mothers, not to let the housework or childcare or committee work expand to fill all my waking hours. Virginia Woolf wrote an essay about the need for A Room of One's Own. So far, I've got a table in the hallway of my own.

Quaker? Now there’s an identity I claim proudly. I recently left a comment that now strikes me as unfortunately smug about how I am a Quaker not because the history is so cool or because the people in it are so amazing but because God called me to be a Quaker and hasn’t let me go. If it were a crime to be a Quaker, the circumstantial evidence would all be against me. I have shelves full of Quaker books, subscriptions to Quaker magazines, and a calendar full of Quaker appointments, not to mention this blog. I spout Quaker jargon without even thinking about it. Waiting in front of the meetinghouse on a Sunday morning would be a fine place to come to arrest me.

But is that what makes me a Quaker? If I run, I am a runner, whether I look like it or not. If I write, I am a writer. Do I quake?

Do I really believe that we can know God’s will and do it? Do I listen and follow God’s direction?

Have I been brought off from notions and left at the feet of my Inner Teacher? Do I bring others there too?

What are the ways my life testifies to the Light of Christ within me?

Is my life noticeably simple? In dress, speech and manners? Is it centered aright?

Am I at peace with All? Do I utterly deny all fighting with outward weapons?

Do I have enough integrity? Is there a congruity between the ways I earn my living and manage my household? Do I tell the truth? When? Where? To whom? How forcefully?

Am I part of a Quaker community? How much of my life do I give over? How much do I include my children?

Do I consider myself equal to others? How do racism, class-ism and homophobia affect me and my reactions to people?

Am I living a sustainable life?

How? In what ways? Compared to what or who?

And finally, do I wish to be part of the Religious Society of Antiquarians or do I see Quakerism as a living, fire-breathing faith?

Slacker housekeeping?

There’s nothing like reading a Laura Ingalls Wilder book to make me feel like a slacker.

"Mother always flew. She never sat down in the daytime, except at the loom or spinning wheel… After mother and the girls washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, they brought their handwork into the dining room.” (Farmer Boy)

So why can’t I even wash my own dishes every night? Laura’s mother probably couldn’t have slept in the same house with the piles of laundry that seem to live around here.

But what really amazes me are the children: Almanzo, in Farmer Boy, seems to spend all his time wishing he didn’t have to go to school so he could stay home and plant pumpkins or haul timber or shear sheep. My children seem to think that brushing their own teeth is just too big of a chore, much less walking two miles to school or carrying wood or water. I’m guessing that some of the difference is in the selective memory of the author, but some of it is in the nature of the chores themselves and some of it is just how manual work is viewed nowadays.

For example, one of my own children, who once upon a time would rather throw himself on the floor and cry than make his own bed, was really excited when I first said it was his job to empty the dishwasher. One reason: it seemed like real grown up stuff. Handling sharp knives! Carrying glass! The novelty has of course worn off. But I learned something. My child doesn’t really complain about things that are hard; he complains about the things he thinks are too easy, too babyish, not important enough. Even Almanzo didn’t like having to stay in the house and polish the stove. So, note to self: keep looking for harder things for them to do – the challenge is part of the attraction.

Next, I have to share with them the chores that I think are really important. Notice there are two parts to that: working together and work that matters. In Mary Rose O’Reilley’s funny and profound book, The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd, she quotes a farmer she knows as saying, “How does a man talk to his boys if they don’t do chores together?” O’Reilley actually got rid of her dishwasher so she and her teenaged children would have to stand around for a while each night, one washing and one drying. She says her kids weren’t happy about it, but they did actually spend more time together. Another Quaker family I know with three boys, ages 10-15, has instituted a policy that no one should do a chore alone. Then everyone knows how much work there is and none of it takes as long or feels as thankless.

The other part is feeling like the work you do really means something. Almanzo knew, and his parents reminded him, that if they didn’t hoe the corn or milk the cows or patch the quilts that their family would literally suffer. Not putting your toys back in the box doesn’t quite have the same impact.

So what are the right chores for our modern children to do if we don’t have a backyard of forty acres to plow? One answer is to look at what are the chores that we think are important to do. Do we mow the little bit of lawn that we have? Do we clean our own bathrooms? Do we participate in the manual work that is still required to make even our modern homes run smoothly? Or do we hire that work out, deeming it too unimportant?

What if a child development expert told us that one of the most important things you can do for your children is to teach them the basics of home maintenance, like replacing a button or scrubbing a bathtub? What if an expert said that it would keep our kids off drugs, build their self-esteem by developing real competencies, save money and develop healthier bodies and relationships for the whole family? I’m not actually an expert, but I’d like to play one in this essay, and I really do believe all of that.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t idealize manual work. It’s hard. It’s boring sometimes. It hurts sometimes. A favorite anecdote in my own family is one my father told me when I was about sixteen.

When my father was sixteen, his father got him an apprenticeship in the carpentry trade. My dad was actually too young and still in high school, but my grandfather pulled a few strings and worked out a deal where my dad could do his apprenticeship in the summers and afterschool, so that when he graduated he’d be ready to get a real job – a pretty good paying one in the Bay Area in the early 50’s. So my dad starts in and he’s a teenager and not so enamored of school, so it was going all right. But when you’re swinging a hammer all day long, you’re naturally going to miss the nail a few times and sometimes you’re going to hit your thumb. And that got him to thinking. His father’s thumbnails were always black and permanently flat. My dad realized that he could spend the rest of his life flattening his thumbs or he could go back to school and spend the rest of his life flattening his backside, and he thought that would be a whole lot easier, so he did. And so did I.

Nonetheless, he still knows how to build a house from scratch. As I was growing up, manual work was just something you had to do. You didn’t have to like it – and believe me, I complained plenty. But they couldn’t or wouldn’t pay someone else to do something we could do. I learned how to make a cake and clean a toilet. I knew how to split and stack firewood. I helped fix cars and plumbing and pour concrete stairs. And these are all useful skills. But if I don’t use them, I can’t teach my kids. Which brings me back to my slacker housekeeping. If I want my child to respect manual labor, to understand the real sweat and skinned knuckles that go into making civilization, he has to do some. And so do I.

Douglas Steere, author of Work and Contemplation, was for many years in charge of the AFSC youth workcamps. He said that people were always trying to change the schedule. In order to fit in some additional thing, they would want to shorten the work part of the day. But Steere always insisted that the work part last eight hours. First of all, so that the people they were helping would recognize what they were doing as work. But also because it is in that last two or three hours that real learning sets in. Only then do you understand what it really takes to do the jobs usually done by poor people. Then you ask yourself seriously, "why did I come here?" and "why am I doing this?" Then you learn how much strength and endurance you really have. None of which you ever get to if you just come out and do a project for a couple of hours and think, “that’s not so bad, it was kind of fun.”

So am I suggesting that our six-year-olds should be chopping firewood for eight hours everyday? No. But I am recommitting myself to doing the life-supporting housework with my children that will challenge their muscles or coordination or brains, or all three, and trust them to do it to the best of their ability.

I would love it if it weren’t true when they inevitably say, “I’m the only one who has to do this.” So let’s share this parenting challenge. What chores/schedules work best for you? What’s the funniest excuse you’ve ever heard? What’s your favorite "learning moment"?