Be Still and Know

Sophie looks at my phone case. “I love the flowers Mama! It looks like a princess phone!” She giggles. “Except princesses don’t usually have phones do they? They ride horses and sing but they don’t usually have phones.” Her little 4 year old tongue lisps over the word “usually”.

I laugh and acknowledge. “That is true, they don’t have phones.” I marvel at the meaning, the base instincts inherent to a phone, curiosity and the need to control.

We have had a slow morning. Husband is sick so I have spent my time going from one simple task to another, making coffee, making eggs, changing diapers, picking up, helping my son manage his emotions over a craft gone wrong, watching the girls dress up as princesses and elves.

The water pressure is good today, so I decide to take advantage and fill the bathtub. Once it is full, the water pressure is still good, so I start the clothes washer too. I soak in the epsom salt and smell of lavender and when I am clean, lift the baby from her bouncer next to the tub and dip her into the water.

Lily startles for a second, the water is different. I immerse her up to her neck and hold her solidly. She relaxes and stays completely still. I realize she is resting in the sensation of water. She is noticing its warmth compared to the cold oxygen outside, the way her muscles relax. Our washer and dryer are in the bathroom of our little cabin so the whoosh whoosh of the washer fills the air. I realize that she probably has distant associations with the womb from 4 months ago, the warm water and the whoosh whoosh of my heart.

She starts to kick and splash as I wash her. I think how good it would be to take life like that. To be totally still in each moment, steeping in the memory of Heaven and the presence of God in every facet of our life. To cement in our memory every precious gift, the little hands and feet and blue eyes of my baby girl, the gift of her life.

I remember how I wanted to go to mass this morning, felt Mary’s beckon to go see her Son. And then as I met my children’s need for me and saw how sick my husband was, relinquished heavily to domestic duty. But Mary whispered to me, “Meet my Son in your children. See Him in them.”

I remember too reading Brother Lawrence, as I was getting sleepy last night.

1. “The most holy, common and necessary practice in the spiritual life is the presence of God; that is habitually to take pleasure in his divine company, speaking humbly and conversing with him lovingly at all seasons, at every minute, without rule or measure – above all in the time of temptations, sorrows, dryness, distaste, even of infidelities and sins.

2. One must try continually so that all of his actions without distinction may be a sort of little conversation with God; however, not in a studied way, but just as they happen, with purity and simplicity of heart.

3. We must do all our actions with deliberation and care, without impetuosity or precipitation, for this shows a disordered spirit. We must work gently, and lovingly with God, and beg him to accept our work; by this continual attention to God, we will break the demons head and make his weapons fall from his hands.” - The Practice of the Presence of God

So… now to calmly make peanut butter sandwiches in the spirit of our Morning Offering. Come Holy Spirit. Guide me, Angel of God… especially help me through brushing all my daughters’ wet hair 😳