It is nearly the beginning of a new year.  I sent out my Christmas/New Years cards though I avoided Facebook seasons greetings because of the feeling that for some, life may not seem so great right now.

The smiling faces and happy happy appearance of the lives of others can be kind of silencing/deafening when your heart is feeling low and hopeless.

If that is you, I just want to say I hear you.

Below is the photo I took for our Christmas card photo.  It was early in December and I knew the next day it was going to warm up, rain, and wash all that beautiful snow away.  So I was on a mission.

Kevin helped me get the boys together in vests and warm yet photogenic clothes.  I set up the camera in front of the playhouse. Kevin very “scrappily” built the boys a playhouse this past summer with a base structure of palettes foraged from the dump.  I then went back to the house to gather everyone.

Our 4 year old put up resistance first.  He screamed to be given a ride up to the playhouse in his sled.  Honestly it was not really a crazy request, but I balked at it anyway and then wisely gave in when I saw I was losing the battle.  Once we were all up at the playhouse the kids weren’t quite cooperating with my vision.

Instead of keeping my cool, I melted down.

It was kind’a ugly.

I cried in a VERY hormonal pregnant way and went on  and on about how I only asked them to do this 1x a year for our Christmas photo… yada yada yada.  I went back to the house crying all the way.  I gathered myself, took off the puffy winter coat I was feeling very frumpy in, wiped my tears, and headed back to the lions den to try again.

To the boys credit and Kevin’s, they all had pulled it together and we got this photo:

A photo that yes, I think represents our family at its best, and I love it.

I look at it and appreciate its sparkle even more knowing what we looked like and how we felt just minutes before.  It is a vivid reminder of our imperfect life.

Yet at the same time when sending it out on cards I realize people only see the seconds after/sanitized version.

Since the cards hit the mail I have confessed this story to as many people as I could.  I have felt this great urge for people to see inside the photo.  It is so easy for us all to look at each other and only see the “picture perfect” and not the other side.  But isn’t it the other side that really gives us communion with one another?

I love my family, I love my life, it’s true, but we are not perfect and never will be.

So here’s to the real in 2013.  Whether you are saying bring it on, not so fast, or come what may, I wish you a picture imperfect, but very real year full of unexpected blessings.

Love,

~Lisa

This is the quintessential view of my childhood.  The roller coaster coming into my home town.  I remember it especially at night, I’d be asleep in the back seat coming home from somewhere and then wake just in time to see it all lit up, it was then I knew we were almost home…

Just beyond the roller coaster lays the Atlantic Ocean and about seven miles of gorgeous sandy beach and then at the tip of the peninsula, where we lived, rocky beach.

Photo posted by The South Shore Page on Face Book

I only rode the roller coaster twice.  Both times on the same day in 8th grade.  My friend who was way more adventurous than myself “encouraged” me by offering to let me sit next to her cousin (who I had a crush on).  I remember wrapping my arms like a Twizzler candy around the lap bar that was meant to hold me in.  There was a big gap between my thighs and that bar and as we went down the biggest hill my behind flew a foot or two in the air as my stomach dropped.  I thought “What are these people crazy?  If I wasn’t holding on for my life I’d fly right out of here!!!!”  I got a fat lip that day from hitting my mouth on that ill fitting bar as I held it tight.

The park closed not long afterward and everything but the old fashioned merry go round left our little spit of heaven.

Yesterday the boys, Kevin, and I attended a “raking party” at the local retirement community.  My oldest 3 are in Scouts and every fall the Cub Scouts rake the tons of leaves that fall on the property for the residents there.  The boys had a great time.  With ~O in the stroller I walked around and chatted with other parents and snapped a few photos.

On the way home the view was beautiful.  Because I’m usually driving and/or do not have my camera with me, I can never capture it.  This time it was a crisp clear day, the mountains were capped in snow, and Kevin was at the wheel so I decided to try.

This is the view when we are about 5 miles from our house.  This spot is at a higher elevation and as we get closer home and go down into the valley the mountain disappears.

It wasn’t till I uploaded these photos that I made the roller coaster connection:  This mountain is my kids roller coaster,  their sign that we are almost home.

We all have those bits of life, be they landmarks, people, seasons, that says something so integral and deep in us that all we can do is exhale and know home is not far off, even if just in memory.

~Lisa

The older boys have today and tomorrow off.  I love moments like this when they are engaged quietly together in some activity.  I couldn’t resist taking this photo earlier today when they were reading together through the Dungeons and Dragons book ~K got for his birthday.

I feel just so tremendously blessed to have them in my life and be mom to them.

The day is sure to be full of activity, running around, someone mad about something, someone else bored and needing redirecting, etc. but I value these small moments.  They just make life feel so full and beautiful.

~L

Kevin, the boys and I went to church last night.  It was a special service to kick off the Catholic Church’s “Year of Faith“.  I have felt tired and a bit out of sorts the last couple of days so Kevin offered to take the older kids while I put ~O the littlest to bed and got some rest myself.

While Kevin got the kids a quick meal he explained to them that he was taking them to church.   There was a fair amount of screaming from at least one child and exclamations like; “I don’t want to go!” and “Why do we have to go?!”.  Nothing too different than when we head to church Sunday mornings.  I almost felt bad for them. I don’t remember as a kid going to many “extra” services and I’m sure I would have complained at the time too, but hearing Kevin explain to them about the “Year of Faith” and how by attending this service we would be coming together with our community and that the boys presence was important to strengthen others in their faith, well he had me convicted and I knew that I needed to go and personally “show up” more than sleep.

It was a Penetential Service.  What I had recalled Kevin describing it as was a service with a group absolution portion (forgiveness of sins) and then private confessions, if you choose.

Part of my reticence was that I hadn’t been to confession in over 20 years.  I confess to God many times a day in the moment, but in front of an actual human being acting as God’s servant, no.  For about a year now I’ve thought of going, but the reality kind of made me a bit sick to my stomach.

Throughout the service the kids were a dream.  I felt so strengthened by all five of them in the pew with us.  I think it was the best they have ever behaved at church.  Taking them in this quieter than usual setting at bed time was an act of faith itself.  I was flanked by the two middle boys one at each side, under my arms like I was a mother bird.  We sang together and listened to Father ~L speak about Saint Dismas , the thief to Jesus’s right as he was hung on the cross who stood up for Jesus and in doing so acknowledged his own sins and asked Jesus to remember him in Heaven.  Father ~L spoke about how it was the very first confession.

Then the service was over…  or really just beginning.  My heart beat a little quicker.  It was announced where six or seven priests would be located in different private areas of the church.  There was no communal reconciliation as Kevin had alluded to.

One of the older boys turned to me after they had pointed out where our parish priest would be located and said with excitement and joy “Can we go to Father ~T?!”   How could I deny him confession??  My heart soared, really, that going to confession sounded so good to him.  I don’t ever remember feeling that way as a child.

I thought, “I guess I’m doing this.”.  I started to make a plan.  Do I bless myself first?  I remembered about 3 lines of the Act of Contrition, the prayer asking for forgiveness of sins that I learned as a child before my First Reconciliation (confession).  Luckily Father ~L mentioned that anyone that didn’t know what to do and hadn’t been to confession in a long time they could just go in and say “Our Lady Sent me.” (that would be Mary).  Ok, but even that felt a bit awkward to me.  At least it gave me something to go with.

We went to the front of the church, behind the altar, and stood in line.  There was a sort of vestibule where we waited and then two rooms where different priests were hearing confessions.  Kevin and our two oldest took their turns, then it was my turn.  The room we were to say confession in was down a short hall and to the left.  I went in and sat in front of our parish priest.

I stumbled in my words, I think I almost giggled, I know I smiled inappropriately.  I felt lost but eventually managed to confess some things that had been on my heart.  The process did not feel natural or comfortable, it felt funny telling someone I knew such heartfelt personal things.  I tried to look at him as the human embodiment at that very moment of God.  I  was completely without pretense, vulnerable, like Jesus had allowed himself to be on the cross.

It wasn’t till the end when the absolution came, my head bowed, and Father ~T prayed over me that my humbled spirit felt the warmth of forgiveness spread throughout my body.  I was surprised to truly feel something, but I can’t deny it.  I felt lighter.

I met the rest of the family at the back of the church where they were quietly waiting for me and we headed home.

It wasn’t till I woke at 1:30 in the morning and was replaying the night in my mind that I realized I hadn’t shut the door to the room I made my confession in.  I started wondering “Did everyone out there (about 6-8 people) hear my confession?!”.  I had a little anxiety and eventually resolved it by recognizing my humility and that perhaps if they did hear it would do them some good to witness another persons’ humanity.

At breakfast this morning I asked the boys if they could give me the lowdown on Reconciliation as I didn’t really remember.  They both told me that they didn’t remember the prayer when they went in to confession and that neither of them had thought to shut the door either.  They didn’t seem at all bothered by this.

They met God like a child and last night, so did I.

~Lisa