This Crazy Family Life

Like most bloggers, I post the "good pictures" of the Janaros and their doings. But I presume that nobody thinks we have an "idyllic Catholic family life."

Oh my, no. No, no, no. It's quite crazy, really.

I have frequently mentioned on the blog that ours is a home with a disabled father and a mother who has to work. We really do have a happy home, though. Not perfect at all, but happy. Fragile, but happy. Happy, but crazy too.

Other than school, daily schedules can be quite chaotic and subject to change at a moment's notice. The kids and their mother come and go on all sorts of errands, engagements, and adventures. Eileen has school-related meetings, Teresa has karate, John Paul has basketball or tennis, Agnese and Lucia have choir or sports, and everyone has homework and studies and tests to prepare for. The girls are in high demand as virtuoso babysitters. Everyone also has friends. And Eileen somehow finds a way to shuttle one and all back and forth to their activities.

But who is the most wiped-out, exhausted person in the house every day? Me.

Last year our second car, a 1994 Toyota Camry, finally pooped out (in the sense that it needs more repairs than we can afford -- the engine is still just fine -- ANYBODY WANNA BUY A CAR FOR PARTS?). We have been a one vehicle family since the past summer. One vehicle, seven people.

Granted, the "one vehicle" is a Legend. The inimitable 1993 Toyota Previa minivan. We've had it for twelve years, and though it has become a bit of a sardine can, it still gets us around.

Eileen almost always drives. I only drive short distances on familiar roads. I take prescription medications that are a great help to me, but it is good to heed their labels and "use care" even beyond what is necessary. Above all, driving is too stressful, too exhausting, too much of a strain on my condition.

This means that Eileen bears much of the burden of running the Janaro shuttle bus. She is an excellent and willing driver, ready to take on additional tasks even beyond the needs of our family. I thank Jesus for her energy and her enormous love. I am in awe of her vigor, and sometimes I wonder what would become of us if it failed her. She doesn't want me to worry about this.

But I do.

Meals are often "grab-and-go," and that's not ideal. But we do have dinners all together sometimes during the week, at the dinner table. It's hard during the school year, but dinner together is an especially good time, because we really do have fun together.

We are squeezed into a very small house and basically stuck with its mortgage. So we bump into each other a lot, squeeze past each other, and try to remember Pope Francis's "three words" (see picture): Permesso ("excuse me" or "may I?"), Scusi (sorry about that), and Grazie (thank you). We joke sometimes that an Italian heritage family also needs a forth word: Basta! (Enough! Stop! C'mon, quit making a fuss!).

We shout at kids (sorry, Dr. Montessori), and kids shout at each other, but we can laugh and forgive. We are funny, peculiar, smart, disorganized, cheerful and joyful. We are blessed by one another. Our happiness as a family is as secure as one can hope for in this life.

Still, the kids are young and none of us knows what may come in time. We are on a road together. I beg Jesus every day to keep our family united with Him and with one another. And Mary and Joseph and St. Michael and our guardian angels and St. John Paul II....

Every Sunday the family goes to Mass together. The Mass and the Eucharist are the rock of our life together. On Sundays we are gathered into the heart of Jesus and sent forth again, with Him, on the journey of our time with all our needs and hopes and our growing.

The Rosary is a crucial component of our family life. It is our goal to pray it together every day, but it doesn't always happen as a family event, and when it does we don't always have full participation.

As our children grow into young men and women, we want to educate their freedom rather than require them to conform in a way that might engender resentment against the Rosary now or later, when they are adults. A positive witness from us, we believe, will bear greater fruit, as we entrust everything to Mary's loving heart.

And, of course, Josefina is always a "wild card" who can sometimes get us all laughing during the Rosary without even trying. And some really great family discussions have come about in the time we spend procrastinating before saying the Rosary.

Our house is crazy and messy and cluttered. Eileen works so hard to keep everything going, teaching, taking care of me, mothering, running the home, and filling in all the gaps left open by my own incapacity. Thank God she has such amazing resourcefulness, but the strain is hard for her and I am broken again and again by the limits that keep me from contributing more in the way of nuts and bolts and the elbow grease that one usually expects from the biggest person in house. Not to mention financial stability.

We manage, but it's humbling every day. How does a man bear being put on the shelf, living every day in front of the fear that he is useless? He fears that he is useless in the lives of his wife and children, in building up his home. It is an awful solitude.

Yet in the midst of this solitude, new possibilities open up.

I know I wouldn't be much of a homemaker even if I were healthy, since I have zero domestic skills ... in fact, I have negative domestic skills (ask anyone in the house and they'll tell you): too often practical tasks that I try to handle end up on the edge of catastrophe. As it is, I have no little struggle keeping myself together through the day.

But I am, in an odd way, the anchor of the home. I am the one who is here, almost all the time. When I go out, it's usually with the rest of the family. I go in with Eileen and the kids to the Montessori school during the week.

I do my writing and my study in my corner of the living room, and our living room has become a place where we all like to hang out.

I take walks around the neighborhood, or in the area of the school. If anyone is home, they know I'm here. In a very elemental sense, I "hold down the fort." (I usually let the answering machine take calls when I'm alone, because they are almost never for me, and the machine takes better messages than I do... really.)

I can talk and I can listen, and I take an interest in everybody and lend an ear. This creates the unusual situation of a very "accessible Husband/Dad." Not being able to do much has its advantages. If someone needs to talk, I have all the time in the world to listen. A child may only want to talk once a year, but for that one time it's worth putting in the effort of being here.

Meanwhile, I share time with Eileen and the kids. Even if we are just sitting in the living room reading. Of course, an atmosphere of conversation tends to arise around me. The house is full of talk, serious or silly or both. Other times it's full of music.

I listen especially to Eileen as she shares with me the accomplishments and the problems of her work. She loves her task as an educator and a pioneer in the enterprise of the John XXIII Montessori Children's Center.

All of the children have received their elementary formation there, and Teresa and Josefina are still attending. I try to participate by being on the staff (I have this large title that I can't even remember right now). What matters is that I share her passion for this work and her investment of herself in it, that I love it with her and support her efforts.

I try to affirm and remind her of her value, which is something I can see more than anyone else.

I'm often absent minded, or wasting time on the Internet, or obsessing over photographs. I get absorbed in drawing out my own projects or procrastinating. I can so easily withdraw into my own brooding self and mourn my own frustrations. But I must dedicate myself again and again to remembering that she has to come first. One of the things that has saved my sanity is that -- at the very least -- she needs me to NOT GO CRAZY.

And through it all, we still love to be together. Thank God.

I know that I am not useless. But my peculiar place in our odd family is so hard to grasp. Perhaps there is a gift in this fact: I have to learn my task as it unfolds according to my possibilities and the variations of my health. And I am no less lazy than any other human being, but I struggle against it; I keep returning to the moment, and to the challenge of giving whatever I have to offer.

Then I repent of my sins, again and again, and I give the whole mess to Jesus and beg Him to keep me going. I beg Him to put it together even in the moments that I don't understand. I pray.

I write my blog when I can. And I know there are people who are struggling to find peace and need a lifeline. I'm begging for peace, for a lifeline, every day. Begging Jesus.

There is only one Absolutely Reliable Person, and that's Jesus. Wherever we are, we have to talk to Him every day, really, like it's a matter of life and death (because it is). That's the core of living faith: relationship with Jesus. Trusting, because He doesn't do things the way we expect Him to, but He does bring everything to the good.

As for the Janaro family, we live by prayer and work and suffering, by trying to love one another, by permesso, scusi, and grazie.

Especially GRAZIE, "Thank You," because we have so much to be grateful for, to God and to one another.

Within Shouting Distance

Josefina hams it up instead of doing her math.

It's remarkable that at the age of 51, the human being I probably spend the most time with every day is a seven year old girl.

Josefina is usually within shouting distance of wherever I am during the day. When she goes to the Center, I work in the office there. When she stays home, I stay home.

Much of the time, she does her things and I do my things. On home days, Mommy is often in and out of the house, but I am the fort holder. I'm always "around." I see what the dolls are wearing, or the latest artwork, or I hear about her most recent imaginative perceptions.

Some days, I need to lie down a lot. She will come and settle in nearby with her coloring stuff, and draw her pictures and talk to me.

I am grateful to have her.

"Helllllllooooo. How may I help you?"

Remembering a Very Special Summer

Northern California (pic by Agnese). So glad they had this time!

The Janaro family summer is coming to a close.

It was a time of many blessings for us. The pace definitely slowed down. We rested. We spent more time together. We didn't worry about the school week. We watched the World Cup, and some late night movies. Eileen and John Paul played tennis. I worked a little with John Paul on the guitar, and he practiced quite a bit on his own. He's getting pretty good. When everyone else is gone, John Paul and I will continue to take advantage of the opportunity to listen to some of that great Music-That-Nobody-Else-in-the-House-Likes.

We all had some good conversations, and in general there was more space for personal time, one-on-one time without the looming shadow of all-the-stuff-that-needs-to-be-done hovering over people. Eileen and I even talked about literature... a little bit. What a beautiful thing it is to linger over the morning coffee with my wife. (It's not so easy to find time during the school year, so I will have to make sure that I don't miss the opportunities when they do come.)

Then, of course, there was the California trip for John Paul, Agnese, Lucia, and Teresa. They have been back for a week now, and school is beginning for the three high school kids. It was a great vacation for them, and a lovely interlude for us as well with Josefina here at home.

Of course, there were also all the usual mistakes and tensions of daily life. In this blog, I always emphasize the good stuff, but of course we're a normal family. We get irritated with one another, negligent, stupid, stubborn, negative, and all the rest. And we have enough Italian blood to put fervor into whatever we do (good or bad). In other words, there's plenty of yelling in the house. But there's also good food!

John Paul & Agnese hiking in Yosemite

So far, our teens have been specially blessed with good companions and a human environment that permits them to grow through the challenges of adolescence in a healthy way. Still, these are challenges, and they are not easy. Eileen and I have been discovering new dimensions of motherhood and fatherhood in our relationships with the kids. The top four kids can pretty much "take care of themselves" on the physical level, but they have different kinds of needs -- more intangible and personal.

It's really hard to discern and help at this point. It demands attention, availability, and patience. These kids need guidance and space to be free; they need space to test their freedom, and to (OUCH!) make mistakes. None of my disabilities excuse me from the very real task of being a father to them, and I praise God for the grace that makes me able to give of myself to my children in the way that they need me now. Several times this summer, I was able to help one or another of the kids with their personal challenges in ways that convince me that they really need me as their father.

Teresa with one of the Big Trees

I can't go hiking or boating or fishing with them (like I dreamed when they were little). But I get up in morning and beg Jesus for the grace to love these persons, to be a father to them. I entrust myself to St. Joseph, asking him to pray that God make me the man, the husband, and the father He wills me to be.

And every day, I fail. I fall short in my attention, in my courtesy, and as an example to them. I fail them, not because I'm too tired or too sick. No, I fail them precisely in those responsibilities that are within my power, in ways that I see clearly and want to fulfill. I forget, and I give in to selfishness, laziness, and the temptation to turn my wit toward cynicism.

I struggle against this every day, in all my relationships. With trust in Jesus, I will continue to struggle. I will continue to ask the Holy Spirit to form the virtues and gifts in me that empower me to give myself to my wife, my children, and my neighbor... i.e. anyone who has been entrusted to me in God's plan.

And when I am in a dark cloud, I am still called to give myself, even if all I have to give is my difficulties, my aching cry to God, my incomprehensible solitude. Is this a gift for others? Never give up because God knows what He is doing. God knows what others really need from me.

Now I walk in the dark and Mary, my merciful mother, holds my hand.

Our Children are Made For God

In my last post, I spoke about marriage and children. Ah yes, the children. The vocation to participate in God's creative love for them extends to the "raising" of these children.

It’s hard enough to provide them with food and the needs of daily life. But our task as parents is greater than this. Each child is a person—a developing and expanding spiritual universe of understanding and love, of creativity, of searching and questioning and hunger. Their hunger is not just for bread, or for education, or for human affection. It is all these things, but—within and beyond all of this—it is a hunger for God.

How can my wife and I give them God?

The awareness that we are called to be instruments through which our children discover and experience the love of God as Father is truly overwhelming. Nevertheless, we see in the gospel that Jesus is always asking His disciples to do the impossible. After He finishes preaching to five thousand people, He tells His disciples to give them the food they need to eat for their journey home. "Feed these five thousand people!"

What do they have to give? They have seven loaves and a few fish. They have something, but it is clearly not enough.

We too have something: our own poor, selfish, struggling humanity. But there is something else we have, and—like the disciples—we keep forgetting it! We have Jesus!

My wife and I have Him in a particular way, precisely in the way that our children need to come to know Him, through the grace of the sacrament of marriage. Our marriage is the foundation for a communion of persons, and Jesus is at the center of that communion, so that we and the children can grow in the ways of self-giving love.

We need to ask for faith to recognize that He is with us as husband and wife, as father and mother, as two fragile, limited people, so that He can take us, and (yes, like the loaves) break us, and give Himself through us to our children and to everyone He entrusts to us.

Lord Jesus, give us faith to recognize Your presence in our lives every day, and increase our confidence that with You, nothing is impossible. In Your hands, may our poor humanity be transformed into the gift of Your love for each other and for our children.

"The Janaro Family" Turns Sixteen Years Old

John Paul at maybe three or four months old.

So do you have a little baby in the house? On June 1, 1997 we had our first little baby at three o'clock in the morning. I guess I'm supposed to say something like, "Gee, it feels like it just happened yesterday!"

Actually, no. It doesn't feel that way at all. It was, in fact, sixteen years ago. Since then, I've lived half my adult life (note, I said "adult" life, which was preceded by 18 years of "pre-adult" life... you don't need to do the math). Four daughters have come after him, and many things have happened since then.

Sometimes I'll come across a book and realize that its been 16 years since the last time I read it. That feels unusual. Light in August by William Faulkner... I just read that recently, didn't I? No, actually, I was reading it while we were waiting for John Paul to be born. That seems like "yesterday."

John Paul at the age of sixteen.

But with my son there is a relationship. There has been a certain intersubjectivity* (n.b. *large philosophical word) between father and son, and with the other members of the family. It is the history of a relationship and a larger context of relationships that has grown and changed from year to year. My own childhood years seem very long in my memory. In a way, his years seem long too, at least when I think of the time in terms of our relationship and the subsequent development of our family up until the present.

John Paul was born like a little boxer, shaking his fists and wailing but also looking me straight in the eye with what appeared to be a sense of awareness and intelligence. Smart little feller.

He was the beginning of our family. He was the one who made me look at myself for the first time and say, "I'm a father." It put fear and trembling into me.

We're all growing together. At every point, I feel a more profound sense of helplessness: "How am I going to be a father to this (these) child (children)?" Somehow, Eileen and I have found the resources for every stage thus far. We are flawed parents raising flawed children, but we are also blessed and lifted up by grace and carried all along the way.

What does a father do? I don't have a clear "formula;" its a gift that keeps unveiling itself. A father loves his wife, and is grateful for her. He spends a lot of time on his knees begging God for help. He tries to teach and love and discipline with a trust in the grace of vocation and the providence that makes a family, as well as a healthy awareness of the "organic" reality that nurtures, in time, both interrelationships and the individual uniqueness of each person in a family. He never gives up on paternal tenderness, even when he fails every day. He prays together with the family. He prays alone, for the family. He prays and works with his wife, and trusts above all in the grace of Jesus present through the sacrament they share in marriage.

He is aware of the failures of his children, he is patient, he instructs, he corrects, but always he forgives. He does his best to be a man, but doesn't try to prove his manhood in some artificial way, and doesn't get insecure about his own weaknesses, because everyone is weak... (and fathers will be confronted with their human weaknesses in so many ways). He doesn't withdraw or hide. He just keeps getting up again, and keeps working on it.

Real Life, Real People, Real Love

"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).

The name of Jesus is a prayer. When I confess that Jesus is Lord, I am doing so much more than just saying words. I am expressing my commitment in a perceptible way. I am bearing witness. I am lifting up my soul in prayer to the One for whom everything has been created, the One who was born and died and rose from the dead, the One who established Himself as the center and the fulfillment of history, the One who draws all things to Himself, the One who has entered my life, my history, and has proven that the meaning of my life is to belong to Him.

I confess that Jesus is Lord.

He is my Lord. I exist for Him, in a world that exists for Him, this God who became a man and poured Himself out in love on the cross. He pours Himself out in love for me in this moment; He begs me to open my heart and let Him love me in this moment, so that He might fill me with His Spirit and free me to love Him and be transformed in His likeness and cry out "Abba!" This is life. God. Love.

My mouth. This is the reason my mouth was created: to say, "Jesus is Lord!"

For me, this is not an abstract idea. Jesus has grabbed hold of my real life. Every day I see faces that remind me that this is a fact. My confession of faith is not made in solitude. I belong to the Church, and this "Church" is not a faction, not an organization defined by some agenda. It is "living stones," it is real people.

Even as I type these words, I am not alone. The Church is in my living room. Here are six people who remind me that Jesus is Lord of this moment. We are a family. Sometimes we drive one another crazy and get frustrated. We are always falling short, and failing one another. Still, He is Lord, and He is changing us through this life. He is shaping our lives right now, in this moment. Here is this woman and these children (watching a hockey game, doing homework, driving a toy truck on the arm of my chair); without Jesus this moment would have been impossible. Without Jesus, we would not be together.

 

This moment is entirely the fruit of a history of belonging to Him.

The commitment of marriage and family does not have its source in my own generosity. I know very concretely that without Jesus, I would never find the courage to share my life with another human person, much less to surrender myself with this other person to the creative freedom of God so that new human persons might come into the world and experience love through us.

Without Jesus, this doesn't happen.

I am certain that those who aspire to live marriage and family in a true way are sustained by the grace of Jesus Christ. If they do not know His name explicitly, still it is His grace that engenders within their hearts the seeking, the hope, the longing to see the face that makes love possible. In that longing, that poverty, He draws them and sustains them and shapes their hearts and their voices so that one day they will sing the glory of His name.

I am certain of this. I know that without Jesus, my own life is impossible.

Without Jesus; without the Church and her enduring witness; without the supernatural strength of the sacraments; without the people (beginning with my own mother and father, my brother, and others--you know who you are) who confessed with their mouths and lived with their lives this faith, and who communicated to me a love of God that is greater than all my fears...without this reality I have no life.

I have seen life. I have seen with my own eyes that Jesus makes it possible to live a marriage and not be afraid of life, of children, of the mystery of children who need love that is greater than anyone can give.

I have lived with these people, who can give themselves in little gestures, who witness the love of God in their  goodness and their confusion, who struggle and endure and suffer and find joy. I know these people who are so inadequate and broken in themselves, but who are not defeated by their own failures; these people who find forgiveness and extend forgiveness and carry on with a hope that is greater than their weakness.

And I have known certain real people who love Jesus with a vividness that sacrifices everything in an exclusive commitment to Him, a commitment to speak His name to all, to go anywhere, to pour themselves out for persons they have never met....

Without the experience of such a love for Jesus and for me, my life would be nothing. I would have my solitude, my sickness, and the prison of my own thoughts. And a deep desperate cry to an unknown Someone: "please, come!"

Jesus is Lord.

I have seen this. And it is real life. I tell fun stories about my family, and we do have a lot of fun, but family life is hard. Its mysterious and overwhelming. Its messy. Its exhausting. Its a human family, and Jesus doesn't do magic. He doesn't make our humanity disappear; He embraces it and transforms it in His patience, in time.

The name of Jesus is not magic. There are many people who talk about Jesus and do stupid things. Even crazy things. There is nothing surprising about human failure.

The miracle is this life which amazes us, which makes us go forward, stumbling, falling, forgetting, being sorry, being forgiven, stumbling and going forward, convinced that He is with us and that His love is greater than everything.

I have seen a life that is only possible because He has conquered fear, He has conquered death. He has really, truly been raised from the dead, in transformed and glorified flesh and blood. I believe this in my heart. It is His flesh and blood and His glory that makes my own life. It conquers my weakness, renews my spirit, sustains my hope.

Just Don't Get Too Involved

We have arrived, once again, at these meaningful weeks that mark the end of the calendar year and the beginning of the liturgical year. For many of us, its a season of tensions, where different facets of our lives come together and jostle with one another.

We are preparing for the celebration of the mystery of the incarnation, of God taking our human nature and being born of the Virgin Mary. Of course, in the "bad-old-world-out-there" its time for the annual celebration of...um...umm... lights and decorations and family and "the spirit of giving" and songs and eggnog and, especially, stuff! 

We Christians of course are not like that! We remember The True Meaning Of Christmas. We don't start celebrating before Christmas (well, not too much...). We observe Advent (kind of). We decorate first and above all with the Nativity scene (ours is made in China).

We Janaros put an Advent wreath on the table, with candles (and we have to watch the girls to make sure no one's hair catches on fire).

We Janaros actually have a lot going on in this season of preparation. Teresa's birthday, December 6. Agnese's birthday, December 21. (Mine is after the New Year.) This means family celebrations and birthday parties too. Also--even though we're not tainted by the Materialistic and Consumerist Culture--we still have to do some shopping. In other words, we want some stuff. But not too much stuff; we wouldn't know where to put it.

We also try to observe this as a penitential season. (Which means...what did we decide to do? Oh, we still have to think about that.)

Its Advent! Christmas is coming! Christ is coming!

God is coming.

Uh oh....

People used to ask Jesus, "what must I do to be saved?" I find myself saying the same thing. For me it means, "God, You are the Lord of all, and *wow* here You are, so...heh...I hope we can...um...make some kind of a deal...?"

I shouldn't be surprised that people want to dodge the whole "incarnation" thing. Really, its a bit overwhelming. I'm usually overwhelmed by it, insofar as I take it seriously. I feel like saying:

"Dear God, I want to know You and obey You. I certainly don't want You to be mad at me. And I know that I'm all messed up (but don't forget, this whole 'freedom' schtick was Your idea--You never asked me; I probably would have been fine if You had made me as a rock). 

"Can't You just 'fix' me? Just do it, like, from up there. 

"Oh, and give me a 'How To' manual, something like Rules For How To Operate My Human Being: Final Edition. 

"And, God, I think You're awesome. You are the Creator of beautiful mountains and galaxies and everything. You are greater than everything. And really, I'm okay with that. In fact I think its wonderful. If You could just stay up there and be God, it would be great....

"But there's no need to overdo it.

"You just stay up there and keep the universe going, and I'll stay down here and make myself happy. Of course I'll follow Your Rule Book...most of the time. Oh, and give me stuff when I ask for it, please? 

"I'll worship You, no problem (make sure the Rule Book has a chapter on that). I'm not proud or arrogant or cruel or perverse or anything like that. I'm a good person. I try very hard. And I understand: You're God and I'm the creature. It will be great, God. Just don't get too involved, and everything will be fine."

Of course, I would never really say anything like this; I know that what I usually think of as "the Rule Book" doesn't permit me to present this as a serious proposal. But these words express an attitude of heart, the attitude that I usually have in my life. I think many people have a similar attitude. Good people. Even Christians.

I'm also a father. What would I do with a child like this? The child says, "Dad, you're great, tell me what I'm supposed to do, give me what I need, and then go away!"

Obviously, this child is a teenager.

I'd be patient. But I wouldn't be satisfied. My child needs so much more. I'd hope that one day this child would come to me and say, "Dad, I think I'm in love."

If I Were an Onion, I Would Want You To Eat Me

We had this delicious stew for dinner with chicken and beans and spices and onions. I was eating mine up and enjoying it (of course, I'd hardly taken a spoonful and John Paul was already eyeing the pot and saying, "Is anybody gonna want more?").

One of the main reasons why fathers are given authority in the household is because otherwise they would starve to death.

Then there's little tweety-bird on the other side of the table. Josefina is carefully removing each onion slice and placing it (neatly) on the side of her dish.

"What's wrong with the onions?" I asked.

"I don't like the onions."

"Ohhh," I replied. "You know what? If I were an onion, I would be really sad if Josefina refused to eat me."

"Why?"

"Because I would be so lonely on the side of the dish. And I'd be so sorry not to be eaten by Josefina."

So she thought for a moment, and said, "Would you want me to eat you more than anyone else?"

Oh no. How did I let myself get into this position? When you have several daughters, you have to be careful not to play favorites. I always tell them that I love each of them in the special way that only she can be loved.

That sounds like a political answer, but its true. Why does every woman think she's special? Because she is special. Its not a competition. Right from the beginning, every girl should grow up with the awareness that she is a gift. Fathers should foster this awareness.

This can't be done without attention. And real attention is difficult. It is an interior thing. It is the fruit not so much of a self-conscious effort, as it is a kind of sacrifice, a self-effacement that makes space for each person to be the object of a special appreciation and gratitude. Of course, sons also need attention, but with different accents (that's a topic for another time). Every child needs this from his or her parents.

I've never been very good at self-effacement. And its not a matter of being timid or passive. Its a matter of humility. Humility is the habit of wonder and gratitude in front of everything. Humility sees everything coming from the hand of God. It is a grace for which we must pray.

Getting back to the story: If I were an onion, would I want Josefina, more than anyone else, to eat me? I deserved this question. I set myself up for it. What do I say?

"Well," I said, "If I were your onion, I would want you to eat me."

Hahaha. Back to the dinner. Josefina continued to add to the arrangement on the side of her dish.

Finally I said, "Bring those onions over here. I'll eat them!"

Family Is An Ongoing Adventure

We had a happy celebration of John Paul's 15th birthday. He also celebrated the last day of school at Chelsea Academy, where he had an excellent freshman year of high school. We are very proud of him.

Fifteen years. It just doesn't seem possible. In my memory, I feel like I can just walk right into those days when he was born. I can close my eyes and practically inhabit that time, remembering the sights and sounds and smells: He was very late in coming. Eileen and I kept watching videos, and sitting on our old futon couch in the first house, waiting days and days for something to happen. We read our books (I was reading a Faulkner's Light in August, which I finished before he was born). We went out to Washington D.C. to the art museum, hoping that perhaps Beauty might encourage the kid to get moving (by then he was over a week late). We went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Georgetown, mainly because we loved the food, but also joking about our hope that the ancient wisdom and tangy spices of the descendents of King Solomon might be medicinal (Gosh! It's been fifteen years since we've been to an Ethiopian restaurant?? Now that just won't do at all!).

And then, finally, seeing him for the first time, crying and clenching his fists like a little boxer. It's all there in my memory, in a way that is more vital and supple than anything could be on any media device of human invention. It's internal to me, as are all the years that followed--years of being a father (a status that once seemed so strange and new, but that has become fundamental to my character as a human being).

These past fifteen years have been rich with experience and joy and suffering. John Paul has four sisters, Eileen and I have learned much about each other, and marriage, and that Jesus is worthy of our trust even in (especially in) the dark places. We have also learned that being a family is an ongoing adventure. As our kids move into adolescence, we feel like we're becoming parents again for the first time.

In a sense, John Paul is being "born" into adulthood in these years. His physical growth is obvious, but a more profound development is taking place in the soul, the mind, the heart--in his "self-awareness." We have done what we can so that John Paul could grow up knowing that he is loved. We have been far from perfect in this, and we can only trust in the mercy of God to bring good even out of our weakness.

And now we are doing our best to guide him, and to foster an environment in which he can begin to take the first steps of mature freedom.

Fr. Carron recently put it this way: "youth is the time of the You." It is the time for the person to discover that he or she belongs to Another, and to begin to hear the call of that Other. The great energy of freedom awakens to its dramatic possibilities.

For me as a father, it means learning new ways of being present for my child. It means a greater commitment to struggle against the sloth that continually creeps in and inclines me to treat my children as appendages of myself. It means growing in my own awareness of my dependence on the One who has given me this vocation. Day by day, I place my trust in His grace.