Last night Chase and I met with a current student from our alma mater. He was home on break, and for about two hours we talked about what made that school special, why our time there was great, and how we can be involved now that we're nearly 10 years out from graduation.
As we recalled classes about Aristotle; discussed the good, the true, and the beautiful; and remembered the moment when we learned what the liberal arts are really all about, I changed dirty diapers, bounced Spencer to sleep, and responded to calls of "Moooooooooommmmmmm" from the kids' room. (Lily and Connor were supposed to be going to sleep.)
There was such a juxtaposition for me - I have often framed it in my mind as "the urgent versus the important." We all know important things we should be doing - investing in relationships, caring for our family's deep needs, cultivating our souls. But urgent things have to be done - paying the utility bill, mowing the lawn, washing the dishes, even going to the bathroom - and these things often fill up our time, never allowing us to get to those important things.
As I've processed last night's discussion and spent part of the morning yearning for those college days again - days when I got to sleep in until noon, when the most urgent thing I had to do was write a paper on The Republic, when I first understood for myself the love of learning for learning's sake - my paradigm has changed a bit.
Poopy diapers, dirty dishes, laundry, and cat litter that needs to be changed still stare me in the face, and these are still the urgent things that take me away from many important things I would like to be doing. However, I think that in this stage of life, these urgent things ARE the important things.
People always tell you when you're a parent of small children how quickly the time goes and how you'll blink and your babies will be gone to college. And to be honest, it just doesn't feel that way at all when you're in it. But I have noticed, particularly since Spencer (my third child) was born late last fall, that there are fewer hours in the day to accomplish all that there is to do. And when you're busy, time flies, so consequently, my days are going by much more quickly. My time is no longer divided between two children, but rather among three. Which means I have two kids in diapers to change, two sets of food to cool and cut before each meal, three kids to dress in the morning and put in jammies at night.
I have 40 - 40 - fingers and 40 toes that have nails requiring clipping. I hardly kept up when I had just my own 10 fingers and 10 toes with growing nails. Imagine how far behind I am now that I have 4x as many! And clipping baby and toddler nails takes longer than clipping child or adult nails because those little ones don't hold still!!!!
So what I'm processing is this: I would love to be reading great books with people who also love and are reading those same books. But probably how I need to spend any reading time I have today is reading about how to shape and mold these little mounds of clay spinning around my house. I have a stack of books on parenting, discipline, character building, and children that will be of much more use in my daily life than Aristotle will right now. And while Aristotle is amazing, somehow i feel like it just wouldn't be the same readinghim right now.
I don't believe it is the books I read that are going do the majority of cultivating my soul in this stage of life. It is the raising of my children that digs deep into the soil of my heart and makes me each day a bit more human. Their tiny feet tramp out foolish pride (in the state of my house, in the taste of my cooking, in the perfection of my projects). Their curious eyes always learning from and copying who and what they see burn the knee-jerk reactions from my daily responses. And their innocence and need for someone to invest in their sweet souls in turn somehow helps my own soul grow in depth and breadth.
There will be a season, a different season, for diving head first into great, hard, wonderful books. But in this season I believe it is The Berenstain Bears, Curious George, and Fancy Nancy that are important, so long as they're shared with developing minds and small, maleable souls. Speaking of which,there is a 4-year old patiently waiting to read The Berenstain Bears for the 100th time...
In my world today, these are the cultivators of my soul:
How blessed I am.
