I don’t know when different language skills are supposed to develop, but I”m constantly amazed by my son. Lately he’s been using similes.

» He bit the front leg off an animal cracker and said, “It’s like a drill.”
» I blew a raspberry on his belly and he said, “It’s like a lawnmower.”
» He crumpled his napkin and said, “It’s like a shovel.”

Okay, I don’t know what that last one meant, but 2 out of 3 is pretty good for a 25 month old.

Lillian has started waving and clapping. She says something like “Hi Da Da.” Which sounds a lot like “Bye Da Da.” So that’s what she does every time I leave the house and every time I come home.

She’s also finally over her “I only love mommy” phase, so I get to play with her a lot more now.

Preface

On facebook.com there is a group titled “We Are Catholic!” The group has a discussion board where teens discuss various thoughts about our faith, and one teen posted a question about discerning her vocation. Dozens of people replied, including me; Here is what I posted.

What’s the Worst that Could Happen?

I read somewhere that moving and changing jobs are two of the most stressful events in a person’s life. I don’t know who conducted that study, but I’m guessing they weren’t Catholic; Discerning a vocation is one of the most traumatic experiences a faithful young Catholic goes through. It is especially traumatic because it can go on for years, and includes dramatic shifts from one vocation to another. Shifts that are sometimes peaceful, sometimes passionate, often difficult, and occasionally angry.

However, there is something even more traumatic . . . that is, after fully committing to one vocation, you still have serious doubts about your choice.

Adults Who Struggle with their Vocations

I’ve read books by ex-priests and by divorced people who still struggled with their vocation after ordination or marriage (I won’t mention their books here because I don’t want to support their writings, which are often anti-Catholic, but if you send me an email I might share the authors with you).

I’m not talking about the occasional thought about what life would be like if a person had made a different choice. I am married, love being married, and have no doubt that this is the vocation God called me to. And even I occasionally wonder what life would be like if I had entered a monastery–that though usually pops up on days when I have to race a kid to the doctor, make sure my rent gets paid, fix the lawn mower . . . oh yeah, and find time to go to work, then get home and pass out only to be woken up at midnight to change a screaming baby’s diaper while I’m half asleep and accidentally put the diaper on the wrong end . . . on those days, sure, I do wonder what the monastic life would have been like. But wondering is different than doubting, and I’ve never doubted my vocation–there’s too much love here.

God has blessed me with a peaceful heart about my vocation, but I wonder why some people don’t find peace after they are married or ordained. After reading a few books by people who were unhappy about their vocation, I am willing to make a guess; their writings give me the impression that they struggled with Christ’s love. Feeling Christ’s love from others, understanding Christ’s love, and, most importantly, sharing Christ’s love by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Advice from Pope Benedict XVI about Discernment

If you are discerning a vocation, the first thing you should do is surround yourself with people of deep faith who are capable of sharing Christ’s love with you; Start with your family (if possible), then with your church (if possible). Seek Christ’s love for the rest of your life. Share Christ’s love for the rest of your life.

“Prayer itself, born in Catholic families, nurtured by programs of Christian formation, strengthened by the grace of the sacraments, is the first means by which we come to know the Lord’s will for our lives. To the extent that we teach young people to pray, and to pray well, we will be cooperating with God’s call. Programs, plans and projects have their place; but the discernment of a vocation is above all the fruit of an intimate dialogue between the Lord and his disciples. Young people, if they know how to pray, can be trusted to know what to do with God’s call.” Pope Benedict XVI [emphasis mine]

What The Rest of Us Can Do

For the rest of us, the best way for us to help someone discern their vocation is to fill their lives with love by listening to them and by praying with them. Listening to them is a key part of ministering to them; we must focus our ears so we can hear their hearts. Our goal is to help them filter out the noise the devil fills our lives with and to hear God inside.

“When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking” (CCC 1777).

And after the choice has been made, we should continue to love them the way Christ taught us.

St. Therese of Lisieux said, “My vocation is love.”

I’m trying to mow my lawn with a criss-cross pattern like a baseball field

A well mowed baseball field

My Lawn

It’s been a month, but I can’t make the criss-cross pattern stick.

Today, I tried mowing the lawn twice, once in both directions, but the second mowing pretty much erased all the lines from the first mowing. I’m ashamed of my failure, but I’m not giving up; I’m off to Google to see if I can find anyone else who has successfully turned their backyard into a baseball field . . . I do happen to know a professional baseball field maintenance worker (Dave do you think you can get me some base-line chalk?)

I was away on a retreat this weekend, and when I got home, I discovered I missed two very important milestones in my children’s lives.

1) Lillian learned how to crawl.

2) Isaac learned that it’s funny to spray people with the water hose.

It’s amazing how much my mood affects my kids’s moods. Yesterday I got upset when I tripped over one of Isaac’s toys for the millionth time (a classic dad move). So I went into what I call “Angry Cleaning” mode–most of the time I’m okay with the mess that comes with kids, but sometimes it overwhelms me and I have to clean everything. Unfortunatly, Isaac is brilliant. He learns everything he sees. So when I got upset for a little while and cleaned the snot out of our appartment. He started acting upset too. It was obnoxious. . .he’s my little mirror. So no more “angry cleaning” which is a shame because “angry cleaning” is the most efficient and effective form of cleaning I know . . . I bet “angry cleaning” would be popular with Darth Vader.

Last night our washing machine broke. It got to the spin cycle, but stopped before draining any of the water out. We could hear the motor humming, but nothing I did would make the machine work.

I searched around the web for a couple hours and found these two great sites that described problems that seemed similar to mine:

Sannerud.com “This site had a great walk throug with pictures.

Partselect.com “This site has a couple of pics, and the problem he described is similar to mine.

Fixya.com “This site has a detailed write up of how to change the coupler. This write up along with the Sannerud pics got me through the ordeal.

The first step is to collect the proper equipment:

• 1 box Mike and Ike
  
• 1 can Diet Dr. Pepper (Cherry Vanilla optional)
  
• 1 book on tape (I chose Star Wars Jedi Quest: The Way of the Apprentice)
  

I spent a couple hours this morning driving around getting all the necessary parts and letting work know that I wouldn’t be in today. That got me through about half the book.

You’ll also need some kind of water pump to drain the washing machine. Here’s my water pump:

Keep in mind that these water pumps come in a variety of shapes and sizes,

so make sure you pick the water pump that fist your family’s needs and budget.

After I drained the tub, and followed the instructions on the pages above, I was disappointed to discovered that the coupling wasn’t in bad shape (apparently Gina had that problem fixed when we first started dating, and the heavy-duty coupling has held up pretty well), but that meant something else was wrong, like the transmission/gearbox. I sent out some emails, and while waiting for their responses, I pulled the washing machine’s water pump off in order to drain the last little bit of water in the tub. When I got the washer’s pump off, nothing came out. That’s because it was clogged by one of Lillian’s socks. And there is proof that washing machine’s eat socks.

I put everything back together, and it’s working about as well as it was before (which isn’t great, but it’ll do until we can afford the more expensive repairs).

When I was growing up I was always amazed that my dad knew how to fix everything. . . . I’m getting there Dad.

The family is fed, the kids are bathed, read, and in bed, the dishes are done, the laundry’s folded, the house . . . um, clean enough, and the bills aren’t due tomorrow, so today is a happy day.

Once upon a time, I remember saying, “I’m not afraid to have kids, they won’t change my life that much; after all, I’ll still be myself.”

Ahhh, silly Doug.

Trying to “be myself” causes 100% of the problems in my life. The more I let go of myself (that is to say, the more I let go of my pride), the happier my family is.

THE core teaching of Christianity is self-sacrifice. That is what Christ did for us, and what he asks us to do for each other. Self-sacrifice is an important part of love. I’m not talking about full-blown martyrdom, but rather, simple humility.

Absolute Truth: You cannot love without begin humble.

I don’t know how marriages work if they aren’t founded on the principals of Christianity. You might think that is an incredibly ignorant statement, and I’d agree with you. I don’t know enough about other faiths to know whether if self-sacrifice plays a part in their beliefs, but self-sacrifice is the most important thing Christ did for us, it is the first thing he asks us to do, and it’s the most important element of marriage. Not communication. Not commitment. Humility: the constant struggle to love others as much as you love yourself.

That is what makes a family work. When I get home from work, I want to sit down and read a good mystery novel, but my son loves Richard Scarry, so that’s what we read. I want a cool new ultra-portable eee pc, but the car needs new tires. Being selfish always has horrible consequences.

And what do I get for all this? Love. True love. Powerful love. Straight from God, passed on through my beautiful wife, and kids. The kind of love that makes you know that life has meaning. Joy. Security. For Eternity. And if you’re wise enough (or in my case, the Holy Spirit shields you from your own stupidity) you’ll find a spouse who can teach you the true beauty of humility, a spouse who is easy to love. I adore my wife.

“There is no beauty as enduring as a humble and gentle spirit”
~phs 1 Peter 3:4