Author: scbilder

Bring Back the Overture!

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Photo by Ylanite Koppens

This may be my least popular opinion to date. My husband recently showed me the movie, Ben Hur during a lenten date night. I highly recommend this Christ-adjacent film to anyone looking for an epic religious watch. Among the things I love about this movie, it has a 6 minute overture. This 1959 classic was created in a time when films were an experience rather than an easy way to kill a couple hours on the couch. They were made to draw you in, take you on a journey and teach you something along the way. No wonder the overture was 6 minutes. In order to fully embark on such an adventure one must first settle into the proper frame of mind and put aside all other cares for a while. 

Sadly, even my husband and I didn’t sit through the entire overture. Our excuse was that after putting baby to bed it was already late and Ben Hur is not a short movie. Everyone can come up with a similarly valid excuse to fast forward to the opening scene. We are a society of people totally incapable of sitting still and entering into an experience for just 6 minutes. Even in the theater, the overture has been replaced by mind numbing previews. There is a need for constant entertainment at the push of a button which has infected every corner of our society. It’s practically unthinkable to go for a drive without switching on the radio or a preferred podcast. To simply sit with our own thoughts even for a few minutes is outright nightmarish. 

We desperately need the overture in our lives. In addition to being a marker of inspired storytelling, it was also a luxury of a slower, simpler time. Going to the movies was a fun outing and a much needed break after a long week of hard work. Now people hide from the world and from work to binge shows on their computer. They need not even leave the comfort of their own bed. This once communal pastime has been entirely flipped on its head. 

Additionally, this inability to endure 6 short minutes of rousing orchestral music at the beginning of a film highlights a much deeper issue among people today. If we can’t do this, how on earth are we ever going to be able to sit in silent, rapt attention before God? I am a firm believer in the power of prayer, especially fervent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. We fill every waking minute with noise, tuning into any voice we can find for fear of a silence which might allow us to hear the one voice that matters most. Over the din of life how can we possibly hear God when He speaks to us?

Chalking it Up to Warm Weather

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Spring is in the air! Even though the trees are still far from full bloom and the winter chill lingers we have been blessed with a slew of warm, sunny afternoons. We made the most of these by showing baby girl how to add some color to these grey Indiana days. Admittedly, at this juncture, mommy and daddy have more fun with the sidewalk chalk than she does but she drank in the warm weather all the same.

Seasons of Love

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Photo by Rainstorm Photo

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. This mommy’s usual blogging time was spent snuggling a sweet little girl with a case of the sniffles over the last couple of weeks. She was extra cuddly and not thrilled about long naps by herself in the crib for a while. As I write this, she is snoring happily in her room. Praise God!  

I recently had cause to consider the role of the Catholic faith in marriage. It’s easy to gush about the beauty and permanence of sacramental true love when everything is shiny and new. My husband and I are still living the fairytale. We have been married for nearly three years and have fallen even more in love with each other since we said I do. We have one perfect baby girl and, God willing, will be giving her some siblings in the near future. With the exception of a few difficult days I can honestly say that thus far marriage has been a delight. However, I was reminded of something the priest said during our Pre-Cana. The wedding is not the goal. It’s not the end. For most couples it’s not even happily ever after. Certainly happiness will be seeded throughout the life that you’ll build together but real marriage is not a fairytale. Rather the wedding is the beginning of the story. 

No matter who you are or how in love you may be, the honeymoon will come to a close eventually. The reality of the rest of your life with this same, flawed, broken person will set in. You may say and do things to each other that you regret. You may learn things about your spouse which very well may have been deal breakers if you’d known them before getting married. Someday you may even wonder if you would’ve been long separated if not for your mutual commitment to the Catholic faith. These thoughts of doubt do not make you a bad spouse but are merely manifestations of our fallen human nature. 

As with any vocation, marriage comes with seasons of joy and of hardship. You and your spouse are different people and will clash eventually. Of course kindness toward your spouse is never overrated. There is no single person on the planet more deserving of your forgiveness and grace than the one who has promised to put up with all of your nonsense for the rest of their life. Unfortunately, it’s also true that familiarity breeds contempt. There may come a day when compassion toward your spouse falls shy on your list of priorities.

It is in these seasons of darkness and distance in your marriage when a strong Catholic faith is absolutely critical. If it was easy everyone would do it. We Catholics are not called to do what’s easy. The cross of marriage can be the heaviest of all, particularly in those moments when it seems like your faith is the only thing you have left in common. That cross will grow and some days seem unbearable. We will fall under its weight like our Lord on the Way to Calvary and, like our Lord, we too must find the strength to pick it up daily and continue on in our marriage as a loving husband or wife. That one thin, crucifix-shaped tether between you and your spouse can and will hold you together and see you to better seasons if you let it. God can work miracles through anyone. Even if you have to wait for the bliss of salvation in Heaven, better days are coming. 

As I write this I know full well that our difficult seasons are still to come. These lessons don’t come from my own experience but from listening to the experiences of others. As God intended, marriage is the closest we can get to heaven on earth but in our fallen nature we often forget the bliss of this particular sacrament. Thus, it is always necessary to remind ourselves of the fairytale when our own stories first began by perusing the wedding album or making time for date night. As stated earlier, marriage is not a job or merely a relationship. It is a vocation calling us to give one hundred percent of ourselves even on those days when it seems that one hundred percent doesn’t amount to all that much. 

Crystalline Sunlight

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The Midwest truly is a miraculous land where everything simply grows. After just one afternoon of 40-degree temperatures, I thought I spied a few tiny buds already beginning to peak into the treetops and the grass definitely seemed greener. However, even as we catch a glimpse of Spring, I still love to see the sun twinkle off the last of the Winter’s snow.

Sleep Regression: The Gift of Difficult Naps

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Our baby girl is growing up. Teeth are coming in and she’s starting to take solid foods. She’s just discovered how to crawl, albeit a strange one-legged crawl that makes her look like a hermit crab. She can now pull herself to standing and it won’t be long before she figures out how to toddle around on two legs. These are all very big changes for a very little person and they have taken a toll on her nap routine. After months of long easy naps in the crib our daughter has hit yet another round of dreaded sleep regression. During the day she sleeps more on me than she does anywhere else at the moment. I was just beginning to get the hang of household chores and meal prep in those quiet hours when she enjoyed her afternoon siesta but we have once again leveled up.

Although her freshly difficult naps come with a brand new set of inconveniences, I can’t honestly say that I’m terribly upset about it. I don’t always get to the dirty dishes in the sink or the clutter on the coffee table and my arms occasionally start tingling from holding her for long stretches at a time. However, truth be told, I’m loving every minute of it. I am drinking up each and every hour that passes with her snuggled against my chest. My day-to-day is far from productive but amid all of her new growing pains she became downright cuddly. As the song goes, “let them be little.” One day, not so far from now, she won’t need mommy’s shoulder to fall asleep on. I can’t wait to chase her through all of the walking and talking still to come but for now I am savoring the blessing that is sleep regression. 

Motherhood is Not Traumatic

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Photo by Polina Tankilevitch

This seems to be an unpopular opinion in society though happily is gaining traction. I recently listened to an episode of Pints with Aquinas where Matt Fradd interviewed Nick Freitas. At one point in the conversation Nick made the observation that we have a tendency to ‘bubble wrap’ the world for every veteran we meet because we incorrectly assume they have all experienced trauma. I believe that we’ve done the same thing to motherhood in a way. 

For one thing, I think we put far too much emphasis on postpartum depression. When a woman becomes pregnant she can hardly turn around without hearing assurances that it’s okay if she doesn’t feel that instant connection when baby is born. Of course, postpartum depression is real and it by no means makes you a bad mother. I simply believe this is the exception and not the rule. We have turned pregnancy and childbirth into a medical condition bordering on a disorder when, in the past, it was always a beautiful and natural human process. Despite the exhausted struggling mothers we see on TV, I think most women are blessed as I was, with the overwhelming joy of motherhood upon giving birth. 

This leads to my second objection to the traumatic motherhood mentality. Although your body, your schedule and your life will never be the same after pregnancy and childbirth, these changes are generally for the better in my opinion. At no point have I found myself itching for an excuse to get away from my daughter. If anything, I adore her too much, sometimes to the exclusion of other important things. People are so eager to lend a hand with babysitting or simply by holding baby so mommy can have a break. While this is greatly appreciated and occasionally necessary, it’s never really been the kind of help I wanted. In truth, I was often far happier in the early days to accept a home cooked meal from a friend while I got to simply become acquainted with this beautiful new human God gave us. To this day I still don’t enjoy leaving baby girl with others, even trusted family members, when my husband and I go out. Our daughter is not someone I want a break from. 

My life did not end when she came into it. Quite the opposite. Likewise, I have never resented my stretch marks. Perhaps that does put me in a minority, but I look like a mom and it’s a fact that I am immensely proud of. My body now bears visible signs of the sanctifying work I have given my life to. My husband isn’t less attracted to me because my tummy has a few lines on it. I am still perfectly able to dress neatly and attractively, never having felt the need to resign myself to lumpy mom jeans. In short, I am not a victim of motherhood. I am not a slave to my baby. This is no more or less that the work that I signed up for, the work I believe God made me for. I am absolutely overjoyed to fulfill that purpose, the vocation of marriage and all it entails including the responsibilities of motherhood.