Tess read the story of Martha and Mary for bible study this week.  I try to base my own reading and journaling around what the children are studying, both to be efficient with my time and to help them flesh out what they are learning. Knecht's Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture has been such a treasure in this regard.  So wonderful! The practical application questions are challenging. 

Today's reading notes are from both this short study and an essay I read on Essentialism (do click through to her thoughts) based on this book. The premise is that we often experience great temptation to sample all the good things and experiences we hear about and as a result we spread our efforts so thin that we make little impact in any of those areas.  Instead we are encouraged to consider what is truly essential in our lives, our days, our vocations.  Do those well – Multum Non Multa. 

To discern what is essential at any given moment Lou Holtz, Notre Dame football coach, says to ask ourselves:

The acronymn obviously is WIN.  What's Important Now?  It may be most important that we stop procrastinating and finish our chores or prep for the morning.  It might be most important at a given moment that we set aside our work and listen intently to a small person with big things to say.  It might be important to go outside or say our prayers or make a call. There is no right answer for each person or each moment.  That's all discernment. 

 Knecht's commentary echoes this thought.  Instead of a pat answer, he urges us towards integration of corporal and spiritual works.  Work and rest. Martha and Mary – who both loved the Lord tremendously. 

The dissipation question was convicting and a big focus point for this year. I like to think big thoughts.  Too often they are lost in my head because the thinking is often more appealing than doing.  Big thoughts can disintegrate into daydreams, a little of which is delightful but too many, left unchecked, lead to that dissipation, a frittering away of our energy. 

Solution?  Back to that buzzword – What's Important Now – which ought to lead us towards doing the next right thing and the next. 

Two stories have occupied my thoughts this week.  The first came during our morning time reading in Character Calendar about St Lucian, whose scriptural expertise paved the way for St. Jerome to produce the latin Vulgate.  He 'labored abundantly for the edification of others, but could not prevent being sometimes judged and despised by others," reads his biography.  The author goes on to explain that history has largely forgtten St Lucian and given St.Jerome the credit for the Vulgate we have today. We were challenged in the day's reading to ask ourselves if it bothers us when others are credited for hard work we have done or made possible. 

A different spin on that question came in the form of a story told around the prison camp fire by the peasant Karataev in War and Peace. The old man, a gentle, working class philospher told the story,

"…of an old merchant who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once to the Nizhni fair with a companion- a rich merchant.

Having put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morning his companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstained knife was found under the old merchant's pillow. He was tried, knouted, and his nostrils having been torn off, "all in due form" as Karataev put it, he was sent to hard labor in Siberia.

"And so, brother" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), "ten years or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict, submitting as he should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God for death. Well, one night the convicts were gathered just as we are, with the old man among them. And they began telling what each was suffering for, and how they had sinned against God. One told how he had taken a life, another had taken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply been a vagrant and had done nothing. So they asked the old man: 'What are you being punished for, grandfather?'- 'I, my dear brothers,' said he, 'am being punished for my own and other men's sins. But I have not killed anyone or taken anything that was not mine, but have only helped my poorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had much property. 'And he went on to tell them all about it in due order. 'I don't grieve for myself,' he says, 'God, it seems, has chastened me. Only I am sorry for my old wife and the children,' and the old man began to weep.

Now it happened that in the group was the very man who had killed the other merchant. 'Where did it happen, Daddy?' he said. 'When, and in what month?' He asked all about it and his heart began to ache. So he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet! 'You are perishing because of me, Daddy,' he says. 'It's quite true, lads, that this man,' he says, 'is being tortured innocently and for nothing! I,' he says, 'did that deed, and I put the knife under your head while you were asleep. Forgive me, grandfather,' he says, 'for Christ's sake!'

Karataev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he drew the logs together.

"And the old man said, 'God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His sight. I suffer for my own sins,' and he wept bitter tears. Well, and what do you think, dear friends?" Karataev continued, his face brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story: "What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the authorities. 'I have taken six lives,' he says (he was a great sinner), 'but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don't let him suffer because of me.' So he confessed and it was all written down and the papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the papers all in due form- the authorities I mean- time passed. The affair reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar's decree came: to set the merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. 'Where is the old man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from the Tsar!' so they began looking for him," here Karataev's lower jaw trembled, "but God had already forgiven him- he was dead! That's how it was, dear fellows!" Karataev concluded and sat for a long time silent, gazing before him with a smile."

Teresa of Avila and other Carmelites have written extensively about unjust accusations, insisting odds are that we have also had good attributed to us which we did not merit.  Further, if we are being unjustly criticized it is also often true that we are guilty of other wrongs which have mercifully gone unnoticed. 

These have been challenging concepts for me. I am a melancholic by nature, keenly – often, overly – focused on justice.  As is so often the case, God's ways are not ours however, and we rarely consider things from as many angles as we ought.   The old man, without in any way approving of man's wrongdoing,  knew all things went through God's hands first. The court had sentenced him falsely, but he was in truth, convicted by his own personal sins.  He knew his fate was not actually in the hands of men, but ultimately of God.  A more perfect trust in Divine Providence would be hard to imagine. Likewise we are assured St Lucian was quite content knowing God was aware of his efforts in this world and that any accolades accrued here are worthless in comparison to those in the next.   

It all comes out in the wash is the gist.  Easier said than done, no doubt. I am grateful for the inspiring examples literature and history provide. We are encouraged to focus more on how our things look in the eyes of eternity than on the approval or condemnation of our contemporaries, whose judgement can never be omnipotent. 

"Why do I share this?" 

A dear friend added this line by way of explanation when she had shared her truly lovely January mantle decor. I understand why she may have felt the need to justify sharing it at all.  Many voices over the years have attributed various self-congratulatory motives to those who share online.  For all I know there are cases where those may apply. Certainly that is not true for all artists and authors through time, however.  As I have been gathering and returning some old favorites into my regular rotation lately, I have considered the impact their words and images have had on me and my own motivation for sharing.  

Why do I share? 

I share because the reflections shared by older women inspired me so very much when I was first making a home and raising a family. They were a gentle means of accumulating little bits of art, history, and philosophy in bite-sized bits – which was all I could manage in busy seasons.  Strung together they resulted in an education for which I am eternally grateful in our era of strict, functional practicality.

I share because I have come to believe that beauty is not simply the dessert or worse, the junk food of life. It is vital sustenance which nourishes and builds our strength and vision. We should consider it a foundational building block rather than an indulgence.

I share because the first and most natural response the Magi had upon learning of a young mother with a blessed child was to share their gifts. They went to great lengths to bring beautifully bright, precious, and sacred things, riches full of symbolism and layers of meaning. They were gifts that touched the senses.  We can imagine some then, too, scorned these as impractical and unnecessary.  

We need both Martha and Mary, practicality and vision, to be productive and contemplative. We need feel no guilt over encouraging both and bringing a little ray of light into someone else's day.  As another friend shared, beauty is not like a cake where your large slice diminishes the amount left for others.  It is a candle which can ignite those nearby.  I am so grateful for the women who have shared their gifts so generously and helped me to likewise brighten my own little world.