Silence is golden

   

         I’m not quiet very often.  I talk a lot (and very quickly, or so I’ve been told).  In fact, I think the only times I’m any good at keeping my mouth shut and my thoughts to myself are when I meet someone new and my innate shyness creeps in or when I have some sort of illness that prevents me from speaking.

            This week, I am experiencing the latter and for 2 days I’ve had to really decide what words are worth enduring physical pain to utter.  It doesn’t happen very often but when it does, it’s always such an intriguing experience to be virtually speechless.  It can be frustrating, for sure, to be incapable of communicating my thoughts and feelings very easily but it can also be an amazing opportunity to really identify and understand my own thoughts.  And never do I listen and observe more, than when my mouth is closed and my voice silenced.

            Whether it’s from the overwhelming social inadequacy that comes with my bouts of shyness (which are much less frequent in adulthood than they were in childhood) or from the physical inability to speak due to laryngitis, a bad sore throat, or the painful recovery from extensive dental work (like I’m experiencing this week)- the lessons that come with silence speak loudly and profoundly in my life.

When my voice is stilled, my mind is usually more at peace too.  When I don’t (or can’t) rush to speak my own mind, I see and hear so much more of what’s going on around me and what’s going on in the minds of others.

Silence, I think, is the easiest path to humility but perhaps is the hardest one to take.  It’s so much easier to allow every thoughts and idea to spill forth from my mouth as soon as they formulate in my mind- sometimes before.  Incidentally, silence has never gotten me into trouble that I can remember, but speaking my mind, especially with little to no forethought, has caused more strife in my life than I care to admit.

It’s crazy, really, considering how much I usually like to talk, but I'm sort of enjoying this little reprieve from hearing my own voice.  It’s giving me a great chance to hear and, strangely enough, to see others much more clearly.  And it’s giving me a chance to see and be aware of my own thoughts better too.  

Silence is golden and with it comes not only greater peace and humility but, I think, greater understanding and wisdom as well.  Still, when my mouth is feeling better- there really is so much I’m anxious to say…….

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An answer to prayer: a rich young me?

    Tim and I have been a part of “Teams of Our Lady” for about 7 years now.   It is a wonderful faith sharing group for Catholic couples.  Last night we had our monthly meeting for August and somehow during the meeting, in the midst of discussing the convenience of following the teachings of the Church and whether or not we allow selfishness and misunderstanding to cloud our relationship with Christ and our spouses, the topic of Facebook came up.   I have had a love/hate relationship with Facebook since joining the sight in 2008.  I love that it connects me with friends I would otherwise not ever hear from, and I love peeking at it throughout the day when I am feeling bored or lonely.  I hate that I feel the need to peek at it throughout the day when I am feeling bored or lonely and that it seems to stir up feelings of inadequacy quite often as I see what is going on in everyone else’s life as I am feeling bored and lonely.  Anyway, I was sharing my internal emotional battles concerning Facebook and one of the members of our group, who incidentally is not at all involved in Facebook, asked me if the positives were really as positive as they seemed.  “Are you really connecting with others?” he asked. 
    After the meeting, Tim and I always continue the discussion.  So we drove home, once again talking about the pros and cons of social media.  I decided I really needed to just pray about it.  In all my stressing over whether I was keeping my internet usage in perspective and had a healthy balance in life with it, I had never really asked God what he wanted from me.  When I sat down to pray last night before bed, as I always do, I just ask God to enlighten me.   “Help me to know what you want for me concerning Facebook, God”  It was a strange prayer, I suppose, but one I think He has been waiting to hear.  I, then, looked down at the list of scriptures given to me by my spiritual director and opened up to the next one on the list.  Mark 10:17-22.   Now, God does not often answer my prayers so definitively or so quickly but the Bible reading was about “The Rich Young Man.”   The story tells about a man who comes to Jesus asking Him what to do to gain eternal life.  Jesus answers that the man must give all he has to the poor and follow Him.  The man leaves sadly, not willing to make the sacrifice.  He is too attached to his worldly comforts.  I’ve read the story many, many times and it is one I really like.  This time, it spoke to me even louder than ever.  God was clearly asking me to sacrifice my Facebook usage because somehow it was keeping me from completely following Him.  I knew I had to quit.  I went to bed resolving to deactivate my account in the morning. 
    I did not sleep well.  Somehow in my sleep, and the waking moments in between, I was thinking a lot about giving up Facebook.  I kept thinking about all the good things.  The friends who I only ever communicated with through the internet.  The ones I had found after losing contact for years and years.  The encouragement I sometimes got, or gave ,when life was hard and struggles were shared through status updates.  The joy of seeing new babies and wedding announcements and milestones in life on Facebook.  The cool videos and pictures and website links I had learned about.  Did I really want to give it all up?  It certainly wasn’t all bad.  But, in my heart I felt like the rich young man.  Jesus had told me what to do, after I had come to Him asking, and now I had a choice to make.  Would I go away sad, or would I leave it all behind and follow Him? 
    I woke up in the morning to a list of notifications on my Facebook page.  People had responded to things I had shared and said nice things to me.  Yet, with Tim’s help I deleted my account.  I did not just de-activate, with the option of logging back on at anytime I wanted.  I deleted.  The account is gone, with all the cute little pictures of my kids, all my status updates and message history, and tagged notes, and videos, and friends list and more.  Instead of feeling relieved or spiritually uplifted. I felt sad, like the rich young man, even though I did what I felt like I was supposed to do. 
    In my sadness and unsettledness I went back to the Bible story.  I just needed a little reassurance, and since I could not put it on Facebook and get the feedback of my friends, I went to the scriptures for the comfort of my Lord.  I re-read the story.  It says, “Jesus looked at him (the rich man), loved him, and said to him, ‘You are lacking one thing.  Go, sell what you have, and give it to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven;  then come and follow me”  (Mark 10:21).  I read it more carefully and noticed, Jesus loved the man.  Before He spoke and asked the man for his sacrifice, He loved him.   He said to the man, you will have treasures in heaven.  Jesus was not asking the man to make the sacrifice as a test or as a punishment.  He loved him and wanted what was best for him.  Jesus knew the earthly treasures, though they in and of themselves were not bad, were not what was best for the rich man.  The treasures in heaven would have more than made up for the sacrifice.  He wanted the man, and me, to sacrifice the good things in life for the better things Jesus has to offer.  It is never easy to sacrifice, at least not for me, or apparently the rich young man, but it does allow God to fill our lives with better things.  So good-bye Facebook, if you need me you’ll find me right where God wants me, trying to follow His Son, Jesus, without my earthly treasures….

A lonely existence

        Does anyone else feel like, somehow, the most significant moments of life have been reduced to Facebook statuses, twitter “tweets”, or text messages?  In the past, my family was great at calling each other for birthdays  We’d all crowd around the phone and sing “Happy Birthday” and tell the birthday boy or girl, in our own voices, how much we love them and how we were wishing them a special day.  It wasn’t quite the same as being together but with 1000 miles between us it was the best we could do.  When new babies were coming we would anxiously await the phone call that baby had arrived safely.  We would ohhh and ahhh at the newborn baby sounds in the background as we spoke with the new mother.  Again, a real live visit, complete with snuggling and kissing, would have been better but at least the phone call was personal, time consuming, and conducive to sharing joy and excitement.  We used to celebrate victories, triumphs, and even loose teeth with phone calls and conversations and time spent together.  Nowadays, no one sends birthday cards, no one calls to talk to each other, no one takes anymore time out of their busy schedule than it takes to type a few abbreviations into their cell phone (probably while simultaneously driving their car or grocery shopping) to share in the lives of loved ones.  It really upsets me, though I, too, have taken the impersonal, “easy” way out by wishing happy birthday through Facebook, and congratulating successes by “writing on the walls” of those I care about.  
    What is wrong with us that we cannot make real communication a priority?  Why do we settle for “soundbytes” instead of heart-to-hearts, and cryptic initials (think bff, lol) instead of heartfelt words of love or encouragement?  Relationships are suffering and families are distant and I think it has a lot to do with all the great tools of communication we have at our disposal.   Relationships take time, communication is not supposed to be quick and easy.  Talking to those we care about should never be seen as an obligation or a chore.  If we cannot take the time to tell our family and friends that they matter to us than we cannot expect to have any strong ties in this world.  Loneliness is inevitable if our only means of communication involve cell phones, and notebook computers, and the other person need not even be present. 
    I am so saddened by the loss of real communication.  Conversation is an art and we are losing it!  I recently “quit” Facebook.  I took a few weeks off to re-assess the place it holds in my life.  I found it quite freeing to be away from the world of cyber-“communication”.  I liked not feeling like I had to check my page every few hours and see if anyone had anything to tell me or ask me, or see if anything monumental had happened in the lives of my friends.  I did not miss Facebook.  But, I did miss people.  I did miss my friends and I realized that, unfortunately, without Facebook (I do not text or tweet) I had no communication with many of them.  So I went back.  I decided to settle for status updates and brief comments rather than real conversation because it seems it is the only option available these days.  But, though I am back, I’m  still sort of missing my friends and family….

Words escape me

    God blesses some people with the gift of being able to talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere.  He bestows upon some the talent of making others feel at ease, comfortable, valued even from the 1st conversations they share.   God has created people in this world with amazing social graces…. but not me.  No, for me God decided on shyness, awkwardness, and a total ineptitude for small talk.  Words, which I so much adore in their written form, have a habit of escaping me totally when I attempt to actually use them in a conversation, especially with someone I barely know.  I get embarrassed when I try to search for something intelligent to say while chatting with casual acquaintances, or complete strangers, or even, at times, family members (especially in-laws).  I feel stupid.  I sound stupid.  I probably look stupid.  Social gatherings often leave me feeling insecure and when I leave, I immediately start analyzing all the stupid things I did say, or thinking of witty things I should have said.  Many times, I would rather just stay in my nice, safe, isolated comfort zone at home, surrounded by my children who, for better or for worse, rarely seem to listen to me close enough to tell if I say anything stupid to them.   
    As home schooling mother, I really cannot get away with that very often.  Or maybe because I home school, I could get away with it but because I home school, and am therefore responsible for making sure my children are “properly socialized”,  it is important that I fight my anti-social tendencies as much as I can.  And so, I do.  It seems we are always running off to some co-op class, or field trip, or park day, or birthday party.  As much as I would like to, I don’t really get to stay home and hide from my social inadequacies very often.  One might think all the opportunities to socialize would help me to hone my skills, such as they are.  It seems I have the chance to practice often enough I should really be getting better at the whole small talk thing.  In truth, I probably am a little better than  I used to be at small talk and idle chit chat, but still, I am not altogether comfortable around new people.  And there are days- days when I am especially insecure, or especially introverted, or just especially stressed out- when I am not altogether comfortable around those people I do know well.
    Ever since childhood I have hated being shy.  I have always wanted to be one of those people who others are just naturally drawn to- the life of the party, a social butterfly.  I always felt like I was the only one in my family who was shy at all.  I always felt like I was the only one at school who struggled with the “normal, public school socialization” of being herded in our peer groups from one class to another and I spent most of my education with my nose in a book to shut out the peers who so mercilessly teased me about my social inadequacies. 
    Like I said, God blesses some people with flawless social skills and wittiness but, obviously not everyone.  And, yet with all my introversion and unease, God has blessed me…abundantly.  I have a handful of wonderful, devoted friends.  I have a husband I can talk to about anything and everything.  I have five children, who though they do not always listen like they should, have shared with me remarkable conversations about everything under the sun.  I may feel anti-social and inadequate but God has always put people into my life who are able to look past my occasional (or not so occasional) stupid comments and love me for who I am.  I am never going to be the life of the party or a social butterfly.  For whatever reason, God did not create me that way.  But He does give me so very much… so, I guess I am finally ready to accept my shyness as just a part of who I am- imperfect and awkward but loved, always loved.   

And the answer is....

I attempted to create suspense by ending one of my recent blog posts with a Hollywood type "cliff hanger".... are my children (and home schooled children, in general) unsocialized? It is a truly intriguing question, I'm sure. And, I'm afraid I have left my readers hanging a lot longer than I had originally meant to. I had intended to revisit the subject right way but with our overwhelmingly full social calendar have not had the chance. This, I guess, answers the question quite quickly and concisely, albeit without much drama or fanfare.

My children and I are, obviously, kept busy enough and, yes, they interact regularly with other children. They have friends who attend public school, friends who attend Catholic school and, friends who are home schooled like themselves. They are friends with boys and girls alike. Some of their friends are older than they are, some are younger and some are the same ages. I have heard, and have seen for myself, that home school children are often very good at communicating with all kinds of different people. By not spending 6 to 7 hours a day in a classroom of their "peers", they are able to interact with and build relationships with many different kinds of people. My children know all the employees at the library, they are on a first name basis with the grandmotherly cashier at the grocery store, they all play well with the pre-schooler across the street and they have helped out while I've babysat for a friend's toddler throughout the past year. They are accustomed to talking to adults as well as children of all ages. My children, while not necessarily social butterflies, are fairly good at communicating and tend to make friends easily. They certainly never feel lonely or isolated!

Now, all that being said, I do think the concern surrounding socialization was valid only a few short years ago. When I was growing up (in the 80’s and 90’s) I had never heard of home schooling. Everyone in my neighborhood attended the local neighborhood school. In fact, the sidewalks were busy in the mornings with all of us walking to school together. Back then (and, of course, even earlier) home schooling was rare. It was considered radical and controversial. I’ve heard stories of home school families whose children could not play outside for fear the neighbors would turn them in for truancy. Many families did choose to isolate themselves to do what was right for their children though it was not readily accepted or respected. I feel I owe a debt of gratitude to those home school pioneers who risked persecution from uninformed friends and family in order to pave the way for the acceptance of home education. I am so blessed that others had the wisdom and courage to forego the “normal” socialization (that includes so much bullying and peer pressure) to blaze a trail for the home schooling families of today! I feel confident, that though home schooling does present its challenges and drawbacks, lack of socialization is not one of them! A bigger concern for us is how to fit in all the social activities and get our school work done as well!