>Gearing up

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So this week I am gearing up.  No, not for Christmas, don’t be ridiculous! I don’t go into overdrive on that until four days before the big day.  We’ve got plenty of time!  Nope, I’m gearing up for a week of meetings with schools.  I’ve been brainstorming with a few good friends (Nora, you’re the best) and consulting with therapists and tutors.  And this week, I’ve got meetings for both Marta and Sbird regarding school and how to meet their needs.

When you have a kid, or two or three, who don’t fit the regulation mold or requirements for regular standard issue schools, you have to plot and plan on how to make things work.  You have to consult brainstorm and pray to figure out solutions that are positive and scenarios that will support your kid’s needs and how they can learn where they are at.  ADHD, school delays, language barriers…this is just a few of the hurdles.  And so, as a mom, you “put on your cape,” strap on your armor, and you set up meetings.  You go prepared to be charming, persuasive, as well as firm and clear headed.  You brace for battle and hope for miracles.

And so I am.  I will be praying through this week, hoping for great solutions and brave hearts and minds, willing to try something new and different.  If you have a mind to pray, I’d appreciate prayers for this as well (if you remember in the midst of the festive preparations).  And while I hate to beg again for prayers, we have so often, I will.  Because I have some research to sift through, others to present to those in charge.  Because I will go to the mat for my kid(s).  I will beat the bushes for tutors and helpers and beat on principal’s doors (nicely but firmly).  I will try to open some eyes to new possibilities, not only for my kids but to open a few doors that have been shut too long.

It would be a miracle but we need some new options after the new year.  And this week, I’m gonna see if we can’t make some  headway into making one, or a few, of those become real.  And that would be the best Christmas present of all.

>Feast of St. John of the Cross

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It’s the Feast of St. John of the Cross.

St. John of the Cross is one of the Doctors of the Church, a renowned Mystic, and has some of the deepest thinking and most beautiful writing of the Church.  It is no easy read however and I have only barely dipped into some of  his writings.  His most famous work is, of course, “The Dark Night of the Soul.”  I learned about him first through my love of the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, a close friend of St. John.  Together they worked to reform the Carmelite Order which had strayed from it’s founding principles of poverty and prayer.  And so they did. 

St. John knows of that tough spot, desolation, difficulty in prayer, and yet, he knows it’s bounty as well and the beauty that can be found even in that.  He writes beautifully of the call to die to one’s self.  No small feat that, but in that, in bearing life’s crosses, we become more truly us and therefore closer to God.  He also wrote that “Silence is God’s first language.”  See, so much for me to learn! That’s one of the reasons I like him. 
Here is another, a quote:

“Where there is no love, put love — and you will find love.” 
Happy Feast day!
 Icon by Lynne Taggart
 
St. John of the Cross, pray for us.