What I'm "Giving Up" for Lent

 Sarah Combs bedroom, designsponge.com

This image came up when I searched for "Spanish minimalist decor." My home is decorated in a Spanish Mediterranean/Mexican hacienda style, with the goal of a colorful and cozy but uncluttered, minimalist aesthetic. Though I don't care for white walls, this bedroom presents the balance of color and interesting objects with a peaceful simplicity that I love. It is, however, lacking in books, which isn't to be tolerated, and I'd add a bit more artwork and personal effects. I find that one must begin with a vision for one's home, beyond the general desire that it be clean, beautiful, and orderly. What does this have to do with Lent?

For past Lenten seasons I've given up clutter, but I was not specific enough regarding how to make that happen in a systematic way. A couple of weeks ago I was contemplating conservative media in a blog post, and I felt at a loss as to how I might give up certain aspects of internet use for Lent. Immediately following that post, I spent a whole day internet free. 

That was a glorious day. I felt much less stressed. I was more productive, finishing all of my daily routines without feeling rushed. I spent plenty of time in contemplative pursuits--praying the Rosary, spiritual reading, and creative endeavors. It was, like, the perfect day! 

Instead of trying to limit internet use each day to a certain amount of time, and/or cutting out particular things entirely, like social media, I'm going to make Wednesdays and Fridays internet-free for the duration of Lent. These are traditional Catholic days of fasting and abstinence. 

As I'm a vegetarian (I don't even eat fish), I don't need to abstain from meat on Fridays. I will replace that with abstaining from internet use. I think we only have a couple of obligatory fasting days during Lent, one of them being tomorrow, Ash Wednesday. I'm going to extend Wednesdays as days of food fasting, in addition to internet abstinence, throughout this liturgical season. This practice will mitigate some of the internet-produced clutter, which is mostly involving that of the mind, but it also clutters up my time. This leads to my next plan for giving up clutter. 

I will work on decluttering my home for a minimum of three hours a week. I initially thought I'd set it at five, but I want to set myself up for success. Five hours is my true goal, but three will suffice. I will keep a log of the time spent decluttering, and use a timer for 15-minute chunks, so as not to overwhelm myself. The time I'm giving up for decluttering will be in addition to my regular housework. 

I think that between the everyday duties for mental health outlined yesterday and this giving up of time away from the internet and toward decluttering, I will grow in virtue, which is the point of Lent. These small sacrifices will have the added benefit of bringing my vision for my home to more perfect life. I will outline my plans for spiritual devotion for Lent later this week. 

Happy Fat Tuesday everyone, and have a blessed Lent!

My Vegetarian-to-Vegan Journey

Hey everyone! I'm so excited to introduce my first youtube video for the blog. This is very old school--just used the app on my laptop. No editing or anything. Very minimalist, yes? 

The video chronicles the background of my vegetarian journey, which began over 20 years ago, and where I'm at now with newly becoming a vegan. I hope you learn something new and feel inspired to be a better you!! 

If you enjoyed the video, please "like" it on youtube! Thanks for watching, and I'll be doing more videos on this topic, so stay tuned...

SFL Series--Sewing the Seeds of Contentment

Our society does not encourage the practice of contentment. The impulse is ingrained within us from a very early age to always want more. We are not taught to have a spirit of gratitude and humility. The consumer culture flashes images in front of us for the purpose of instilling insecurity, greed, and idolatry. No exaggeration. 

The antidote is simplicity. It's that "much not more" principle I wrote about in the previous post. It's about focusing on what's truly important in life, putting first things first. The classical Christian model for living embraces a continuous encounter with Truth, Goodness, & Beauty. Though material wealth is not in and of itself bad, spiritual wealth must take precedence. It isn't enough to see the proverbial glass as half full rather than half empty. The Good Life is exemplified in the words of the Psalmist, my cup runneth over. Happiness is measured by the degree of contentment.

Joy can only be found in the fear of the Lord. A path to contentment, which is rooted in wisdom and humility, begins with the bookmarking of our days in prayer and devotion. Start small. This morning I read from a Catholic prayer book and prayed a decade of the Rosary. I am currently reading the book of Mark, so I read a portion of a chapter. Sometimes I will follow up with journaling. Before bed, you can wind down your day with another decade of the Rosary, write 5 things for which you are grateful that day in a gratitude journal, and do some spiritual reading that inspires you. 

It can be tempting to do too much, to embark on a complete overhaul with an hour of prayer and contemplation twice a day. You may need to simply begin each day with a Hail Mary, before you do anything else, and end each day with a short prayer with your children. And of course remember to say grace together as a family before meals. Perhaps you could carry your Rosary in your pocket and pray one decade at a time throughout the day.

With prayer and devotion anchoring your days, you will have the peace and serenity, the repose of the soul, to go about your daily round in an organized and purposeful fashion, not wasting precious time; making every activity, large or small (and our days are mostly small, aren't they?), an offering to the Lord. Contentment comes of resting in Him. 

Today contemplate contentment. Practice a detachment from worldly distractions and pull focus on what is in front of you. Do the next right thing, one thing at a time. No multitasking! We will continue to ponder this principle of contentment, starting with the tiny acorn. Soon we will have grown a mighty oak with deep roots and will shelter under its branches.

My Celtic Roots

I have for a very long time been drawn to all things Celtic--art, poetry, music, folk tradition and faerie lore, symbols, clothing, history, Medieval and Renaissance festivals. And more recently, St. Brigid, St. Patrick, and the prayers and blessings of the Carmina Gadelica. Not believing in reincarnation, I have speculated that being drawn to certain cultures and time periods as I do is a result not of one's own past life experiences, but the former lives of one's ancestors. Feelings, looks, personality, spirituality, what one loves and disdains, what one is drawn to, even memory in a mystical sense, are all passed on through the blood from generation to generation.

I have written before of my Catholic great-grandmother, Ruth Valley Roush. Her father was Levi Valley (originally spelled Valle), whose ancestors had come to Canada from France in the 1600s and eventually found their way to Vincennes, Indiana. Ruth's mother was Alice Maud Sharp, an Irishwoman. So Great-Grandma Ruth, who I do remember and who died when I was four, was almost entirely French and Irish, with a smidgen of American Indian.

Today I made an astounding discovery with an internet search. God bless Google, truly! The Valle family of France originated in Brittany, a peninsular territory in the northwest corner of the country. Brittany is one of five regions recognized to be of Celtic heritage which continues in the present day, having a particular language and historic culture in common. The other regions are Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and the Isle of Mann. Ruth was almost entirely Celtic!

I do have other European ancestry in my blood, Dutch and German. (Incidentally, the Germanic peoples are also historically connected to the Celts!) But I feel most connected to the French and Irish, which might seem to be very different culturally. Yet Brittany is distinct from the rest of France in its Celtic tradition, so those peoples had, and still have, more in common with the territories of Great Britain as mentioned. Valle is one of the most ancient family names in Brittany, and they were distinguished members of the aristocracy in the region.

I think that my conversion to the Catholic Faith has drawn me even more closely to my Celtic heritage, and I am so excited to continue this exploration of my roots. I think that we can feel a little lost in the United States of America, because we are a very young country and increasingly distanced from our immigrant ancestors. So if you feel inexplicably drawn to certain countries, cultures, time periods, and traditions, I think it's worthwhile, especially in the spiritual sense, to find out where you come from. In this way you may figure out where and how you belong.

Walking on Water

I have been reading Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.  Perhaps you remember her book for young adults, A Wrinkle in Time.  My 5th grade teacher read this to the class. Then I read it myself, along with the sequels, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet.  In Walking on Water, L'Engle writes about being a Christian artist.  I was reading this before bed last night, and in the middle of the night, I was awakened.  I'm going to tell you what I was told.

We have all been sold a bill of goods. How long in human history this has been going on, I do not know. Since the Fall in the Garden, I imagine. Since the angel pointed to the door and told Adam and Eve to never come back.

We are told that we are the sum total of all the things that have happened to us, the good and the bad. Especially the bad. These trials have made us who we are today, "they" tell us. Our hardships have made us stronger. We have learned from our mistakes. Indeed, we have learned. But we've learned the wrong things.

When I was twelve years old and on the verge of womanhood, I was strong, fearless, and filled with faith. I was destined to set the world on fire. I was innocent and full of Wisdom. Then one summer day, the spiritual attacks began. I can't bear to tell you what happened. I was betrayed. I betrayed myself. In hindsight, I should have never gone back to school. I should have flown to the woods behind my house and stayed there, let my wings finish drying undisturbed. Then I might have risen so high that nothing could bring me down. Instead, my wings were clipped, over and over again. So were yours. Do you remember?

Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday. Lent, in the Christian tradition, is a time for healing. We walk the road to Golgotha and see the horrors of the cross. We stand with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with Mary Magdalen and the beloved disciple, and we don't look away. When it's all over, we walk with the Magdalen and find the tomb empty. That is the message. The tomb is empty. The pain and the suffering are not to be found. There is only a garden, and He meets us there. He bids us to go, to fly away and tell the world that it has been saved, once and for all.

This idea that we should wear our misery and mistakes like a badge that identifies who we are is a lie. Often I have longed to be that 12-year-old girl again, the one with the glistening wings. She knew Truth, and Beauty, and eternal Love. I knew that she was still somewhere inside of me, for decades I knew. Sometimes she would surface and guide me. She was my Spirit-filled soul made visible. She is who I really am.

It's time to reclaim your lost girl or boy. It's time to shove off the accumulated dust and debris of past hurts, wrong turns, guilt, and misguided choices. It's time to do it in one, once-and-for-all heave-ho. "Get behind me, Satan!" Command this in the name of our Lord.

This morning, the first thing I saw was this picture, shared by a friend on my Facebook wall:

This was taken at a cancer hospital. Look closely. The snow has fallen as if Mary is carrying someone.  When I could bear my struggles no longer, Jesus sent her to me.  She led me by the hand to the Church of her divine Son.  Still I have carried the junk of the past, every last piece of rotting flesh and dry bone.  Spiritual warfare is real.  The devil is glad that people don't believe so much in him anymore.  He can go about his work quietly, performing spiritual lobotomy on anyone he can get his fangs into.  He uses every tool in the shed, including the people closest to us, to convince us that we aren't good enough. That we will never be forgiven.  That we can never forget our ghosts and must go on haunted forever. That at our core, we are not worth being saved.

It's a lie.  I am NOT the sum total of all of the bad stuff that has happened in my life, whether it was caused by me or someone else.  You are not your every false decision or careless action.  You are not the abuse you have suffered. You are not who your monsters say you are.  Turn on the light.  See, the tomb is empty.  Now turn around and be free.

Back to Basics--Revisiting the Concept of Organic Mothering

Organic Mothering is both a parenting style and a philosophy of natural family living. It encompasses the tenets of attachment parenting, eating organic and locally grown food and other practices of sustainability, and homeschooling or other, alternative education choices that offer trust and freedom for children.

OM is a spiritual practice focusing on mindfulness and awakening to the authentic self. It honors nature and flows with the rhythm of the seasons. It embraces the wabi sabi elements of simplicity, imperfect beauty, and paring down life to what is essential.

OM creates space for a woman--and her husband and children--to breathe, to be present in the moment. It brings a sense of purpose and meaning to the activities of each day, facilitating in the creation and appreciation of Beauty and the fulfillment of the poetry that is Life. 


If you go back to the very first post on this blog, these are the words you will find. I had a vision for Organic Mothering, and as far as I am aware, I coined the term. It is used by others now, but when I initially searched to make sure I wasn't stealing anyone else's blog title or idea, I didn't find it anywhere. I'm pleased that it's a concept that has caught on and inspired many.

It's hard to believe that this blog has been going since 2011! Much has changed in my life since then, most notably that I am now Catholic. The sentence, OM is a spiritual practice focusing on mindfulness and awakening to the authentic self, strikes me as a bit New Age today. That isn't surprising, though. It reflects all of the self help study I did in my 20s, and that's okay. I still need to grow in the area of mindfulness, of being keenly aware of my words and actions. But increasingly that awareness is centered on the tenets of the Catholic Faith and the Church that Jesus founded. How well, or how poorly, I see Christ in each person is the ultimate litmus test of mindfulness.

What about the "authentic self"? In Simple Abundance, Sarah Ban Breathnach wrote that the authentic Self is "the soul made visible". The question currently is, is it well with my soul? Is the Holy Spirit living visibly in the depths of my heart? I read once in Carol Houselander's The Reed of God that as we grow in becoming more like Christ, our rough spots may actually appear worse, as they are juxtaposed against the blinding light of the life of God within us.  That's my paraphrase of what she wrote.

Since I joined the Catholic Church, my "cradle Catholic" husband has reverted to the Faith, a great miracle if ever there was one. Now we are a Catholic household, each of us working out our salvation, individually and together. My vocation as a wife is to get my husband to heaven; his is to get me to heaven; and ours is to get our child to heaven. Any notion of "organic mothering" now pivots around being Catholic.

Home-centered learning is about being Catholic. When my home education efforts revolve around teaching and experiencing the Faith, all goes well. When they don't, it doesn't. I am currently reading The Joyful Home Schooler by Mary Hood, Ph.D.  She points out that in the Bible, God admonishes parents to teach their children in the ways of the Lord and his Word. Nothing else. Hood is Christian but not Catholic, so of course she doesn't talk about the Magisterium of the Church. Religious differences aside, I love what she wrote. God has not directed us to focus on lesson plans or grade levels or to create a mini educational institution that mirrors the public schools. Though she doesn't use the term, what she is talking about is establishing in one's home a domestic church.

We do have a responsibility to equip our children with the knowledge and skills that they will need to make their own way in this world. However, academics must always be secondary. As we read stories from the Bible, study the Catechism, and learn about the saints; as we pray together and talk about our Faith; as my child is mindfully lead to become the person that God has created her to be; the reading, the math, and the writing will follow. Trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit is paramount to anything that can rightly be called an education. There is no education without Jesus and his Church. It follows, then, that there is no real education in the public schools. Even if there is no choice but to send one's children to a public school, parents are still required to be their primary educators.

Getting back to the basics of organic mothering means going higher up and further into the Catholic Faith. It means that there is no separation between life, learning, and religion. As Charlotte Mason said, education is the handmaid of Religion. Along with flowing with the rhythm of the seasons, we follow the liturgical year. We gratefully care for all we have in stewardship to God. We behold the Incarnation and the image of Madonna and Child, of God become man, nurtured at the breast of Mary. What greater symbol of organic mothering could there be? What greater Beauty?