Love is a Verb

Several folks have requested that I post my "sermon" on my blog. Well, here it is, in its entirety. It was a 20 minute spoken piece, so it makes for a long read. Enjoy. We are off to Camden for an extended visit. Summer is well and truly here.

By nature I am a story teller. A teller of tales. Like my height, some are tall. Some, like my youngest child, are short. Often times, like all of my children, they are funny. But all are real. They are a way for me to speak my truth and find the humor in my everyday life. This morning I would like to share with you the story of how I learned to love. And by love, I do not mean the feeling of being in love. Of our cultures popular definition of love. But my journey to the realization that Love is a Verb. And if a verb, by definition, is an action, then it only makes sense that love is an act of will requiring effort. And a choice.

So sit back and get comfortable. Better yet, imagine yourself in my living room, sitting in a comfortable chair with the beverage of your choice in hand. Don’t mind the clutter. Clutter is inevitable when you live with 4 children. I am also in a comfortable chair with a cup of tea in my hand and I am relaxed and calm. My knees are not shaking and I am not worried that I will pass out in front of my congregation.

As with any good story, we must start at the beginning. No, I am not going to share with you the story of my birth. My Mom is here. If you are interested, you can ask her after the service. Instead, let’s start with the young woman that I was. Married to a man I loved. Working at a job that challenged me and living a good life. And I knew, in my bones, that I did not want to have children. I had known this for many years, since I was a teenager. You see, I am the oldest of 5 daughters. The youngest was born when I was thirteen. Raising children? I felt that I had been there and done that. Whenever I did get the occasional maternal twinge, I would go grocery shopping on a Saturday morning and watch a stressed mother attempting to wrangle some forbidden food out of her child’s grimy paws as the child screamed bloody murder. That’s all it took for many years to convince myself of the wisdom of my choice.

But do you know what? A funny thing happened. Over time, my life, although full and rich, started to feel incomplete. Something was missing. I never felt the proverbial “ticking clock” but I did start to sense that there might be something more that I was meant to do. Something greater then moving from paycheck to paycheck and weekend to weekend.

Much to our mutual surprise my husband and I decided to start a family. To take that great leap into the unknown. In time our first daughter was born. To this very day I am astounded that they let us take her home from the hospital. We had not a clue how to care for the small human being in our arms. She came with no operating instructions. No warranty. She spoke a language we did not understand. It still amazes me that we have managed to keep her alive for almost 15 years. But then again, she is a hardy soul. She even survived the time that I threw her up into a door jam when she was 3 months old and the time I sat on her by mistake.

What I was not prepared for was the love. I had loved the idea of her for many, many months. Yet, when she was placed in my arms and I looked into her eyes, I was lost. I fell in love. Deeply and profoundly. At the time, I had planned to return to work but soon realized that I did not want to miss a moment of her growing up. I made the choice to become a stay at home mom. A choice I was very lucky to have the option to make as many women do not.

Time passed and we decided that if one was fun, two would be even more so. As I carried my second daughter under my heart I did fret. In the middle of the night, when our fears tend to bubble to the surface of our consciousness, I worried. How could I love another child as completely as I loved my first? Would there be room in my heart? Yet, when my green eyed girl was placed, screaming, into my arms, I once again lost my heart. And even though she is a very different person from her sister, I fell as deeply in love that second time as I had the first. And I learned that my heart is not a room of finite space but as big as the whole outdoors. There was infinite room.

So, life was good. My daughters were growing. They were easy, biddable children. Not perfect, but real and funny and stubborn and smart. By the time my second was three years old I had grown confident in my mothering skills. I would even go so far as to say arrogant. I knew what I was doing and I loved my life. In those years it dawned on me that mothering; the growing and teaching and guiding of children, was what I was meant to do. It challenged me on so many different levels. Forced me to stretch, search and grow. They were teaching me as much, if not more, then I was teaching them. And, best of all, it was fun. We were all having fun.

So much fun that we decided to have another child. Yes, going from man to man defense to zone was going to be a challenge, but we both liked challenges. And there were no late night fears this time. I knew the capacity of my heart. Being one of many girls and already having daughters which meant that I had all of the girl clothes, girl toys, dress ups and assorted pink stuff, I naturally assumed that I would have another daughter. Her name was going to be Isabel. But my personal God, she has a wicked sense of humor. When the midwife placed my new child into my arms and I had wiped the tears of joy away enough to see, the first words out of my mouth were “what is that between her legs?” Much to my wonder and chagrin, I was the mother of a son. And he was perfect in every way. Falling in love with him was as easy and natural as a summer sunset.

I must take a moment to speak of my son. He is a wonder and a joy. But he is also a very challenging soul. I often say to him that God brought us together for a reason. He is meant to teach me patience and wisdom and I am to teach him how to be a great man. If I can keep him alive until then. He often drives me to distraction. He has humbled me as a mother. Early on he knocked me off of my pedestal and has kept me on the ground ever since. Kept me grounded. He has taught me that what I don’t know about parenting far exceeds what I do know. He has forced me to strectch and grow in ways that were often painful. He made me realize that love was not the feeling. Love was something much, much more.

Those years after he was born were difficult. I had been home, full time, for 7 years. The joy I found in mothering was beginning to be tarnished by the day to day drudgery of caring for my family. The constant rounds of laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, errands and basic bodily care of small children, all while living with the inevitable fatigue of night feedings and waking, began to wear me down. I had signed up to be a mother but what I needed was a wife. It was the mindless repetitive nature of the work that dulled my spirit. The routine and the sameness of each day, which is so important to children but can be so hard to live as an adult, was at times mind numbing I was restless and increasing unhappy. The fun was harder to find, the laughter less frequent.

Add to that the fact that parenting is such a long term project. For years and years, when I worked in the “real” world, I would periodically receive a performance evaluation. Set goals. Attempt to met and exceed them, and if I did, I was rewarded. A raise. A bonus. A promotion. All of these things affirmed that I was doing a good job. When you have children, there are no performance evaluations. No promotions or raises. My husband would tell me what a good mother I was but I also told him what a good father he was. A mutual admiration society. But there were nights, and still are, when they could not even hold hands long enough to say grace without someone squeezing too hard, kicking under the table or doing an eye roll to provoke the others to giggle. In reality, how did I really know that I was doing a good job? Was it, if they, at 18 years old, were still alive? Or if they were in college? Or out in the world living their dreams? Or, possibly, in the State Penitentiary? Until then, there was not much coming back to me to affirm that I was indeed doing a good job.

Inspiration, life changing ideas; often come from the most unlikely places. When I needed it most but did not even know I was looking, a new way to live presented itself. It came from a cooking magazine, of all places. Cook’s illustrated to be exact. The editor, Christopher Kimball, starts each issue with a lovely piece of writing. One weekend, while at my Mom’s for a little R & R, I picked up an issue and started to read. He wrote about his love of cooking. For me, cooking had always been just another chore. If I could not get it on the table in 20 minutes, I didn’t cook it. The least amount of time spent in my kitchen, the better. But this man was writing about cooking the love he felt for his family into each and every meal he prepared.

He was feeding his family love. Way to woo-woo for me, were my first thoughts. But some things stay with us. Churn in our minds. His philosophy had found fertile ground. Slowly but surely, little seedlings of interest grew and I taught myself to cook. The kitchen became a place of peace and creativity. Often with a small child pulled up to the sink on a chair, I started spending more and more time cooking. Cooking love into the food. The chore, like the smell of minced garlic or baking muffins, slowly became a pleasure.

It began to occur to me that if I could cook love into the food I fed my family that maybe; just maybe, this could work for other chores. Could I fold love into the laundry? Wash the dishes with love? Could I rethink how I walked the days of my life by seeing what I did with my hands and my body in this new light? It took time. It also took mindfulness. And, to be honest, it was done in fits and starts. But whenever I felt myself slipping back into the dullness I would remind myself that everything that I did for my family I could choose to do with love. Was an act of love. Well, maybe not cleaning the bathrooms. I’m still working on that one.

How are you all doing, by the way? Anyone need a refill? Help yourselves. Are you enjoying the story? Good. Hang in there; I still have some interesting parts left to share.

Once again, I had my feet on the ground. Life became lighter. There was more laughter and more fun. You know where I’m going with this, don’t you? You see, someone was still missing. My husband and I talked long and hard about having another child. The reasons not to were all valid. The con list was long. One thing kept coming up, though. Someone was missing. For both or us. For all of us. So we decided to leap into the unknown one more time. Against all of the odds. My age. Our family finances. Our mutual sanity. One more time. One more child.

Our little girl was born five years ago. She slid into the world surrounded by her siblings, her aunts and her father. She arrived in a rush and once she was in my arms and I had kissed her salty brow, I thought to myself, “We are all finally here. Let the party begin.” And of course, as with all of the others, I fell in love. Madly in love.

To be totally honest, the next two years were very challenging. It was hard work. But no one ever promised me that parenting was going to be easy. People often ask me what it is like to have four children and I always give the same answer: Loud. It is just plain loud. There seems to be someone always screaming. Screaming with joy. Or laughter. Pain or anger. Just plain loud. Every once in a while I daydream about running away and joining a convent, taking a vow of silence and making artisinal cheeses. But the thought of going through menopause with 100 other woman always brings me to my senses.

The only thing that stands out about that time after my last child was born is that those two years passed in a flash. If pressed I would not be able to tell you even one good story from that time. I was too tired and too busy. But then something happened that profoundly changed my life. My husband and I separated. And a year later we were divorced. Please know that my ex husband and the father of my children is a good man, a good father and still my friend. All things that I can say now with truth.

Obviously, divorce was not in the life plan that I had written for myself. We do not always have a choice about the path we are going to walk in this life. Bad things happen. Unfair things. Terrible things. But even though we do not always get to choose the path we walk, we do get to choose HOW we walk the path. And that is the true measure of a man or a woman. How we choose to live in the face of the unexpected. Once again, at a time when I was lost but not looking for inspiration, a book fell into my hands. An oldie but a goodie. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled. Things happen for a reason and I was meant to read that book at that point in my life.

Not only did it confirm that I had to do the hard work of suffering. That I had to walk in the darkness, for how ever long it took, if I was ever again to truly walk in the light, but it expanded my concept of love. Yes, I knew that I could love with acts of my body and of my hands. But Peck took that to the next logical step. To love with my entire being. My mind. My soul. My spirit. But this loving could not be done without effort and will. Loving, true loving, is work.

It meant that listening became an act of love. Now I know that this isn’t true of any of you listening to me today, but do you realize that we often listen with only a fraction of our true capacity? Maybe 15%. I know that I can drive a car, listen to the news on NPR, write a grocery list in my mind and listen to a child tell me about her day. Yes, I can. But not well. And not with 100% of my being. My children now know that if they really need me to listen that they need to tell me. It oft times has to wait, but when the time is right I can now listen with every cell of my body. This is an act of love and requires enormous effort.

Remembering is also an act of love. Remembering the little things that we are told. The friend that is sad. The child that had a boo-boo yesterday. The parent that had a bad day. One of my sisters’s recently called me when I was at the end of one of my black days. Yes, they still happen. Just not as frequently and they do not last as long, thank god. But she called and I talked and I wept. And she listened. That was her first act of love towards me. The second was when she called me the next day, in the middle of her busy day, to ask if I was feeling better. The remembering was as important as the listening.

Telling truth is an act of love. It takes effort and can be painful but it is an act of love. And if we expect our children to be truthful we ourselves must speak truth to them.

I think that one of the greatest and hardest acts of love is forgiveness. Not just of others but of ourselves. When we can’t or don’t forgive it is as if we carry around a sack of rocks. We can choose to carry the rocks, certainly. But wouldn’t it be easier, make us lighter, if we could put the sack down? The forgiveness is as much if not more a blessing to us then to the one who has transgressed. Forgiveness can be given weeks, years or decades after the transgression occurred. The person that needs to be forgiven may not even still be with us. But the work needs to be done if we are to act with love.

My children often fight. At times about the silliest things. Yes, it is true. They are not the little angels that they appear to be in church. When the harsh words fly or the fists lash out, feelings and bodies get hurt. When the dust has settled then they all know that there is still work to be done. Introspection is called for. Responsibility needs to be accepted. Apologies offered. And the final step, the hardest step of all. Forgiveness must be asked for. And given. Freely. With love. As an act of love to the other. And to the one asking for forgiveness. If I teach my children nothing else in our time together, this is the one most important thing I hope to teach them. How deal with conflict in a healthy manner. A loving manner.

I know exactly what some of my children are thinking right about now. “But, Mom, you don’t always listen to me. Or remember. As a matter of fact, you forget…a lot!” Yes, my dears, I do. But as I often tell you, I am an imperfect, human woman. And what I have been talking about today is an ideal. An ideal is a bright, shining idea. One we strive to reach. Like that perfect image of the snowman in your mind before you start building it. Or that image of the perfectly round pancake. You may not always achieve your vision, but that doesn’t stop you from trying over and over again. So, no, I may not always listen, remember or even tell truth, but I am always trying. Striving towards the ideal.

Scott Peck writes, “Love is not simply giving, it is the act of judicious giving and judicious withholding as well. It is judicious praising and judicious criticizing. It is judicious arguing, struggling, confronting, criticizing, pushing and pulling in addition to comforting. It is leadership. The word judicious means requiring judgment, and judgment requires more then instinct, it requires thoughtful and often painful decision-making.”

Even though I fell in love with all of my children I now know that was but the tip of the iceberg. The instinct. That is what keeps us from chucking the screaming infant out of the window when we are tired. True loving is something else entirely.

Today I have spoken about loving as a mother. As a woman I am still trying to figure out how this would apply to a mature adult relationship. Frankly, I don’t know what that is any more. Check back with me in a year or two. I will hopefully have worked some of it out. Because I do know one thing. These remarks, this philosophy, will have changed by then. I will have rejected the parts that don’t work for me and melded in new bits and pieces. Like my life, it is a work in progress.

So, love is a verb. It is the doing, more then the words “I Love You” that is the proof of our hearts. It is the doing in the face of the mundane, the day to day, the routine of our daily lives. It is the little things we do for the ones we love. It is acting with love even when we do not feel loving. (repeat) We have a choice every moment of every day how we are going to walk the paths of our lives. Loving these children with my mind, soul and body is not always easy. But I never walk my path alone. Good, kind people, family and friends alike, walk next to me. And of course, we do reap what we sow. And so I know that I am deeply and profoundly loved as well.