I take great, great comfort in the idea that I am but one little part of the whole Body of Christ.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the enormous amount of work that needs doing in the world, as if it were my duty to join EVERY good new group, donate to EVERY natural disaster relief fund, and participate in EVERY community outreach (pro-life witness! feed the homeless! teach the children! knit blankets for the sick! write to the imprisoned!).
Of course all of these things (and many more) are good, and worth doing, but the amazing, sanity-saving fact is that I DON'T HAVE TO DO THEM ALL. There are other members of the Body to do them! I only need to do the specific tasks given to me, and I can leave the rest to others in total peace--without having to convince myself that the other tasks are less important, or actually wrong, or whatever. Nope, those things I'm leaving undone are important, and the people doing them are very good. They are the other players on my team, and as long as the team as a whole is getting things done, I only need to do my own little part. I don't need to plan for the team, and I can leave all the coordination to Captain Holy Spirit. He's up to it; I'm not and don't need to be. THANK GOD.
Liz Bruenig said at one point that twitter gives us a God's eye view of the world (every trouble, every act of cruelty, etc passing before our eyes) without the wisdom or power to respond to them as God would. It's wearing and can erode our hope in acting where we're placed.
That is so insightful. Seeing every unkind word creates a yearning for correction or reconciliation; but the neverending flood makes us feel impotent, then probably apathetic and despairing (unless we have powerful "countercharms" like prayer).
Social media was a big force in making me feel like I had to do everything--"am I a good person if I haven't posted in response to __________? Must I also donate to ___________"? - but I'm happy to report that's less of an issue now, since I deleted almost all my accounts a couple years ago!
I just started volunteering at our county hospital holding babies in the NICU. I've decided to do this instead of teaching our parents' First Communion class at my parish. I was able to fight the guilt of not doing both with this same idea. How amazing that I can do something valuable and needed and important that *also* lines up perfectly with my heart's desire (holding babies). It's OK if someone else takes over teaching the class.
My grandmother just passed away and it’s been very obvious through her care in hospice that the steps necessary for giving her dignity and aid was a responsibility too great to be borne by any single person. The family rose up together - each according to their gifts - to play an important role. She had 10 children and each have different skills, so I felt like one part Mirabel from Encanto or another part of this “vast superhuman entity” that is a large family. The amount of support from the medical system (nurses, doctors, occupational therapy, physical therapy, respiratory therapy) was also great and felt superhuman at times. Although if I’m picking, I’d rather have a miraculous casita who helps me clean up…
Apr 17, 2023·edited Apr 17, 2023Liked by Leah Libresco Sargeant
I love Children of Men but as an unmarried and childless 30-something woman OOF does that line in the review about being a human rankle. I think I do share a lot of the author’s understanding of time and continuity, but it does seem like others want to shut you out of that past a certain age if you don’t have kids. Childless people are - in the eyes of some - just a little less of a person, their lives a little less “real” than those of others. (While I know some happily married and childless couples in this age bracket, the majority of people I know without kids are in that situation due to not finding the right partner or infertility. Perhaps her social circles are different, but the implication that it’s mostly millennial dilly-dallying didn’t feel true to what I’ve observed.)
That said — re continuity, religion is an obvious answer, and for me musical traditions like classical/hymnody/folk are a big part of that. Passing on old myths. Keeping local history and preserving architecture in a part of the country determined to erase its history. Caring for those older than me and being part of the lives of those younger.
One thing about being Catholic: there’s a strong promise that marriage is not the only (or the highest!) way to be fully a person and make a gift of yourself to others. Individual churches and priests don’t always do a good job telling this truth.
It’s complicated! I’m Anglican, albeit new to that tradition and raised low church Protestant, and part of a congregation where marriage/parenting pressure is much less present than in many other churches I’ve been around. I think it helps that the priest is childless/trying to adopt due to infertility and makes special effort to be thoughtful to people in that situation. I’m grateful for it, as scripture is… incredibly clear on how unmarried and childless people are central to the work of the kingdom.
That said, I do find that status as a single woman does feel… not “lesser” exactly, but non-normative in some ways, and vaguely threatening to some in that setting? It’s peculiar, but I’ll just keeping hanging out with the cool people at church 😎
One of the things that I find fascinating is how humans build on each other's work creatively. Sometimes it feels like a giant game of "yes, and" that we are all playing together. I first noticed it in relation to image memes - how a meme starts and then gets remixed with other memes in really creative ways (the communities on twitter and reddit used to be really good at this; feels like it's less common now, perhaps). Trying to explain a meme to someone who has none of the background internet knowledge sometimes feels like that scene from The Princess Bride ("Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.")
I've recently been watching clips of old musicals, especially of Bob Fosse's choreography, and what I have noticed is how familiar they feel, even though I've never seen much of his work before. His work has been transmitted as part of the cultural conversation. (An example: https://youtu.be/xXonK8EBqmk - this is clearly where Michael Jackson got his influence from).
My son is 6, and he's becoming an avid reader. As I think about what books to give him next, I realized that part of what I am doing is passing on some of the cultural conversation that I received. As our pop culture gets more atomized and less common (I know so few of the current pop artists and movies), I wonder what that means for the art our generation and future generations will create. How do we build art, literature (and by extension, philosophy and theology) when we no longer have a common creative language to draw from?
I am of the mind more folk art, or local art, is actually better. I'm out of the pop culture loop myself, but mostly because too homogenous, and therefore boring, across spectrums. This sense was driven home to me recently as airing the same night, or nights very close to eachother, were the Country Music Awards - mainstream production on major network with a bunch of artists I hardly recognized and forgettable performances, and the Americana Music Association Awards that was recorded in September but aired (maybe again) on PBS. I grew up a country music fan, but through my husband's interest I discovered the folk roots of country music, and we've enjoyed many roots type of music performances which are easier to find at smaller, local venues. These types of performers fly under the radar at large but there is a neat almost community around them because you have to seek them out specifically. And it's a bit more robust than you'd expect. So I think local communities will continue to create art as they have always done and affect those around them. The same goes for churches and the art they create for worship.
Choreography is a wonderful example in its own right, considering how specific, detailed dance works are handed down for decades in both the ballet and the theater world, outlasting the lifespan of the choreographer themself.
In 1995, my husband of 18 years having left me, I went to Washington DC to study bioethics in the hope that immersion in something deeply important to me would help distract me from my all-consuming pain. That strategy was partially helpful.
In the process I attended a Catholic church with vibrant liturgy and a strong sense of commitment to Church teaching on social justice. I vividly recall numerous times being at Mass with tears streaming down my face, unable to pray, but taking great comfort in knowing that, although I knew no one, somehow I was included in the prayers of the faith community and was, though mute, being lifted up to God.
"Americans vaunt the nuclear family because for most of them it’s all that they have left. The warm blankets of tribe, clan, ritual, and soil have all been stripped away, and immediate family are all that remain between them and the cold night of an impersonal universe that will not even notice their life or their death."
Before I read the review I was going to comment on tribe & soil, and then that quote hit me right in the 'woah's. As basically anyone who has talked to me for more than 30 minutes knows (or who has read my comments in this forum): I *love* Minnesota. It is a place where I'm rooted and it's one of the few places I've lived where people take *active* pride in that communal rootedness. Rootedness takes work. It takes a willingness to open yourself to your neighbor and neighborhood. A willingness to dwell in the history of the place (including the ugly parts!) and be part of crafting a narrative that will extend into the future. There are thriving community associations, a strong sense of volunteerism, and a deep belief in the power of small d democratic politics to create and improve society. The Great State is a political institution, but it's also a story we are a part of.
I've found similar feelings of comfort, joy and rootedness in another persistent democratic institution: labor unions. It's a choice to be a part of a union, it's work to engage in solidarity, and it's deeply satisfying to be part of a story that has a past, a middle, and a foreseeable future.
Oh my goodness, I would have loved this so much when my babes were small. What a wonderful organization. I still have my Maya Wrap because I like to wear other people's babies now that my youngest is 17.
I really enjoyed this post. It resonated with me as a secular scientist, parent, and child. I understand that the words I speak, the city I live in, the techniques I practice in the lab didn't come from me, preceded me, but that I can contribute to them in some small way. Likewise I see the continuity in the religious rituals that my in-laws practice, and take joy in sharing them with my children even as I watch those rituals slowly change.
On a related note--could you do a post on caring for and honoring the aging as their capacities diminish? Just starting down this road and I would love to hear about others’ experiences. I’ve come across a lot about the anxieties and stresses of watching this happen and being unable to help, but I’d be curious if anyone has positive stories of how to handle the shift to becoming a caregiver to those who once cared for us with humor, humanity, and grace.
I've been feeling the darker side of this lately. After the pandemic a lot of educational structures are struggling, including in some ways my own. Given that it is a remarkable institution to which I have dedicated myself, the possibility of its decline has an impact on me in a way that, were I to treat it as a mere job, it wouldn't. The anchoring goes both ways. I suppose that's the problem with a less isolated self; "but then, those who love must share the fate of those they love."
On the other hand, religion helps here, to repeat the obvious but true cliche. The idea that every failed good deed will be ratified in Heaven is a great comfort.
I was thinking similarly actually, in a melancholy vein. First, the "right" answer is probably faith and family to the original question, but my mind went to the current state of the institutional Catholic Church. I'm immensely grateful to the good Lord that He has anchored me enough in the faith of my childhood that I believe in what the CC teaches and that it's a divine institution, and, therefore, I will not leave it. But if I didn't have that belief I would both drop it and also despair...because, in my mind, where would I go?
But the second place my thoughts went to is my friend, whose hand I held in her livingroom as her husband's lifeless body was carried out, covered by an American flag plastic tarp. I watched his mother come in and collapse in absolute grief and disbelief. I watched his young son shake his dad's lifeless body at the funeral trying to "wake him up." The were completely heart wrenching and raw experiences. He was a combat veteran who experienced much loss on his multiple tours of duty, particularly in Afghanistan. What happened with that disastrous withdrawal nearly 2 years ago was a big fat middle finger to those who served over there and sacrificed much to serve a country and ideals they believed in enough to sacrifice for. What a betrayal. He thought he was working for something greater than himself. Apparently, it meant nothing, and I wish he'd had the faith to see his life and service in a more eternal light in that horribly mad moment.
Man, I keep thinking about--and praying for your friend and her husband. Such a tragedy.
On a theological level, I can't stop thinking about the way the Good Samaritan story is followed by Mary/Martha. The Good Samaritan is about giving ourselves to the love of our neighbor here and now--he trusted the inkeeper not to defraud him, the wounded man to recover, and so on. But Mary, sitting at Christ's feet, is even more essential. Both fundamentally--God is real, and has priority in all things--and also because inevitably, the systems we serve will betray and disappoint us.
But of course, it's easy for me to say, sitting here in comfort. The right answer is easy in a vacuum. In reality? Who knows where I will be. May the God of grace have mercy.
Thank you, Scott! His name is Jason. There is more to his backstory, but ultimately I think he succumbed to a despair you or I might not have due to a certain social capital buffer, including a lived experience of faith, to deal with life’s difficulties and disappointments. I still have hope for him, but the aftermath has been brutal on his family.
Analisa, thank you for sharing! I read this a couple times, but I found it really didn't speak to my current vexation with the institutional Church. I understand the frustration with polarization, but I find you can circumvent a lot of that angst by simply avoiding most online stuff. I think the online atmosphere has held a certain toxicity level for a long time going back even to the blogosphere. But I find on the ground level, at the personal level, the Church is not nearly so bad in that way.
I'm mostly at a loss for what members of the hierarchy have done, and are doing in a lot of places, especially over these last 3-5 years. More than once in recent years I think I could have been scandalized out of the Church if I didn't firmly believe in its divine origin. That is just not something I ever imagined myself thinking or feeling in my life! !
I think I have a slightly different take. Christianity is famously a historical religion: Christ suffered under Pilate, lamented Jerusalem, wept for Lazarus, sweated blood, and so on. So I think it's worthy to give one's life to worthy historical action, even if we're more like Bonhoeffer than Jesus, never certain of the rightness of our actions and causes. Maria Skobtsova talks about how we should "lay down our souls for our friends," meaning that we must reject any loveless "Jesus and me" spirituality that preserves our personal status at the expense of others. I think MLK Jr. often said the same thing, especially on his explication of the Good Samaritan.
But at the same time, having faith that somehow Christ will redeem all things takes the edge off. If I fail in a good fight, I know that I won't have fought in vain--for the redeeming God of the universe is on my side.
I think it's the idea - of an educational establishment, of policing - that is the soul and the human institution is the "body" in which this soul rests. Consisting of fallible people, the human institution will mess up, but the idea will rise above all failure and corruption and be carried on by new people.
I sometimes imagine a fictional a group of Christians, living in Pompeii. I Imagine that they have unique talents, unique gifts, unique ministries. They hear a call from God. They fast. They pray. They share money in common. They plan. There is real sacrifice, real suffering, real hunger in these early moments, but it is worth it, knowing what they will accomplish. Then Vesuvius erupts.
There is no one to carry on their particular project, no memory. Their sufferings are erased from history.
This is why God's memory is so important. They will have loved well, served God well, done good things--even if these things fail to come to pass in this fallen world. Even if their particular idea dies, their particular contributions are meaningless, they are kept in the mind of God, treasured and honored.
It isn't about being validated on earth, even as the only way we can show our love for God is by loving our neighbors on earth, in the midst of complex, fraught, politically murky projects.
I love this reflection! It's similar to what I've been contemplating recently. The early Christians did not set out to establish Christendom. They were very clear that the Kingdom of God was mainly a spiritual reality that involved belief in the Gospel, personal repentance, and a burden of moral behavior. They were not so worried about creating a more "just" society or leaving a legacy other than faith. And yet, somehow over time, because enough grains of wheat fell to the earth and died, Christendom emerged. Even Benedict, who only sought to escape the temptations of the world in order to focus on God, could have no idea that his monastery would become the leaven and foundation for Christian Europe.
Ultimately we all fail in life because we die. Most of our works will be forgotten even by subsequent family generations, and yet it is important that each of us lives or has lived. It's quite a paradox in some ways, but faith helps knowing that our lives are not meaningless and to remember we are only pilgrims passing through on the way to our true home. I think the early Christians really understood this.
I suppose religion is an easy answer, though no less significant for it. The teachings of Jesus definitely imbue a faithful life with a profound sense of meaning. We are bringing the kingdom of God to earth! We have the chance to be part of rescuing someone else from hell! We are waiting patiently and eagerly for the return of Christ, our bridegroom. It almost feels like being in a fairy tale. We might not be there hero, but we're on his team.
As for family, American culture and history tends to erode the sense of continuity, since we are a nation of immigrants, whose ancestors have left a homeland, and very often, the intervening generations have migrated within the country, starting over again and again. This is my experience at least, including a sense of alienation from both sets of grandparents. Yet I am fiercely attached to my father, and resolved to keep his legacy alive, while also providing my children and (hopefully) grandchildren a family tree with many branches that all support one another. This family mission is especially important to me when I struggle to find a church that takes seriously the mission I described above (yes I'm an evangelical and I know other Christian traditions approach the mission differently, though I hope it's at least recognizable across our divides).
I also homeschool my children, and I am trying to make the Classics a core part of our family education. We are already starting to make connections between old fables and fairy tales, and I hope that knowing where we've come from will give my children an appreciation for how we got here today.
Finally, I've decided to get into fiber arts. I'm self taught and just starting out, but one inspiration was the knowledge that for most of history (before the industrial revolution anyway), "fiber arts" was not just a boutique hobby, but an essential way that (usually) women provided for their families and communities (I read this in a blog post that I can't find anymore). And not only that, but it was a cooperative practice that helped shape and preserve the stories and histories of each community (think of how we have idioms such as "spin a yarn" to describe storytelling). I hope I can get to a point where I can make things that are truly useful and beautiful, and that it will provide opportunities to connect with other fiber artists, to teach my daughters, and make heirlooms worthy of keeping. And of course, I hope to learn more about the history of textiles so I have a better appreciation of the whole phenomenon.
I like the fiber arts thing. That's an interesting take and so purposeful. I've been thinking on the interest in homesteading, chickens, gardening, fiber arts, sewing, etc... as reaching out to connect to a greater human experience than simply being an individual "consumer."
I am a homeschooler and daughter of at least 4 generations of interrupted cultural transmission (British Raj, Partition of India, immigration, me). I am deep in the space of reclamation of cultural heritage for myself and my family. For us that includes the western canon of Classics and also our indigenous stories and fables, language, culture, religion, handcrafts, agriculture, and other aspects of an entire way of life. It's a very big job and I just wanted to applaud you and say I'm trying, too.
I feel the same as you about family. I met my husband in college in Houston. He is from Kansas. We moved to Boston for grad school, and ultimately landed in North Texas. I *hate* that my family and his, are all over the country. It was just the general expectation if you were smart - you'd move to the best school, regardless of its location.
Homeschooling my four led us down a different path - one of the importance of family physical proximity. My kids started in community college and will be transferring to a local university, greatly increasing the chances that they will live locally if they marry and have children. I have encouraged this for years. Having my first baby 2000 miles from my family, in a dark and cold winter after growing up in Houston, was the hardest thing I've ever done.
I am a fellow fiber artist. I love the history, the utility, the social-ness, the beauty of it. It's a great example (I crochet very elaborate blankets as one of my antidepressants!)
“What’s something you’re working on whose fruits you expect not to see?”
My job. I lead a ministry organization that I was more or less hired to start from scratch. During the hiring process I was asked, “How would you assess the success of your programs?” I’m sure the interviewer had in mind things like metrics for attendance and engagement — quite reasonable things for somebody in my position to think about. But the answer I actually gave, only half tongue in cheek, was “When the children’s children of the first students continue coming to the Christian study center, because they still care about being a faithful Christian presence in the university.”
At some point (I think after I started the job), I was struck by the full implications of this standard for success: I won’t *fully* be able to know if my efforts these first few years were on the right track until I’m no longer in this job. That’s pretty daunting — it takes a lot of hope and faith.
(Of course, I’ve also been able to see fruit from my efforts even in these early stages. I wouldn’t be able to continue in the work if I couldn’t see *any* positive results until after my role is completed. Much like parents and scientists, I’m sure.)
I have been thinking about ties to family and place, but also historical events and living memory. I'm a first generation American. My father came here as a refugee from Communism and my mother's family came seeking a better life. I had all my grandparents alive until I was 22 and then they started passing away, the last being my grandmother who was almost 98 when she died in 2018. My older siblings and I were steeped in the stories of my father's journey in particular. The need to escape the Soviets because staying meant a death sentence, the leaving the country with nothing but what they carried in the cab of a pick up truck, the bullets that flew over the ditches as my grandmother covered my toddler father's body to protect him, the Provision of God along the way when food was scarce, and the American soldiers who tipped my grandfather off that a refugee round up was coming to their camp so he was able to hide and avoid being sent back to a certain death. My grandfather would never make it back to his home country or see his parents again, and my father was deeply affected by growing up as a refugee even though they were finally able to make a good life in America. I think he always had a profound sense of exile. Mostly because I have had a nagging feeling of being in exile all my life as well no matter how good the community around me has been. Sometimes I ponder how I live with the effects of the Russian Revolution every day of my life...over 100 years later.
Anyway, the point is that I'm in the older half of my siblings and because we were a lot closer to my grandparents and their own life experiences, we more strongly internalized them as part of our stories as we heard the living memories. The bottom half of the siblings were more removed from those experiences as our grandparents were older by the time they had memories, more incapacitated, or dying. They don't seem to have internalized those stories into their own as much, and it has gotten me thinking about my place in passing on memories, both family and historical experience, to my own children.
As a side note, JPII wrote a great book that got too little attention, IMO, because it came out around the same time he died, called "Memory and Identity" that relays his thoughts on the relationship between the two things. I found it to be a fruitful read.
Bernadette, you put words around my initial response, which was family, national identity as an American, and living memory. My family has a strong sense of story and we frequently tie our personal stories to the larger American narrative. As a single example, I have an uncle who forged his mother's signature to join the Marines at age 17 during the height of the Vietnam War, and his brother who was only two years younger than him went to Europe two years later to avoid the draft. It's been fifty years since those events and because I've been told that story and I know and love both the people in it, they still shape my thoughts about when we as a country go to war, and why, and who bears the burdens and scars of fighting when we do. Plus now I think about my grandmother, and I wish I could ask her to recall her thoughts and feelings as a major American political conflict played out in her living room.
I'm going to add that book by JPII to my reading list! In exchange, I offer you this lovely essay by Sarah Bessey that really captures the family side of living memory; it mirrors my own experience of family legends being passed down and I really, really love it. https://sarahbessey.substack.com/p/love-stories
Such a good point about the older siblings having a stronger bond with the grandparents. Certainly true in my own family of origin, as the oldest of six. My father told me when I was a much younger adult that there is always one sibling in a group that assumes the duty of uniting all the others. That was his job, and he said it would be mine. I think he was referring to temperament, but it's probably no accident that we are both the firstborns. In fact, of my own four, I would expect my eldest to have that role in her sibling group. This job of uniting the family would naturally carry with it the job of passing on the stories.
> What’s something you’re working on whose fruits you expect not to see?
Virtually everything parenting- and sustainability-related is this way to some degree. I hope I get to reap a little of the benefits of raising my children and trying to reduce our household trash, but the reality is that in my lifetime I’ll only see a small portion of the effects, good or bad, of my efforts.
Tolkien’s short story “Leaf by Niggle” is excellent on this.
This is such an interesting question, thank you for pondering it and letting us ponder it with you!
I have a long and enduring complicated relationship with Christianity, i.e. I wish I could believe in it to an extent that would enable me to be part of this "vast, superhuman entity". There are some other similar superhuman entities, but the political, ideological ones are a bit shallow and puny compared to the the majestic ships of religion that plow the waves for centuries and even thousands of years, their large hulls filled with memories of the dead and the needs and ambitions of the living.
Since I lack the ability to throw myself in this ship - and I feel the absence of such a ship for me very keenly - , my child is not part of the ship, either. We don't have a huge family, either, but I think it is immensely important fo her to know she is part of a story that is bigger than herself. I've always made a point to tell her about all those family members whom I remember and who came before here and the ones that might come after her. She seems to be very aware, as far as I can judge, that SHE IS NOT ALONE but that my beloved granny, her beautiful four great-aunts, great-great-Aunt Louise to whom our awful porcelain used to belong and so on are all on her side. She seems to find it very satisfying. I also tell her about her own children and grandchildren because I want her to know that her story will extend beyond herself, that she is not an end point but a beginning as well.
As a teacher, I do a lot of work that will become visible to others, but not to me. I've sort of made my peace with it - I try to love and serve the people I get to meet and hope they will bloom when they've gone beyond the little stop in their road where they met me.
I so agree about social media vs. in-person. I wish I could remember who said it to me, but the gist of a statement I love is, "The solution to polarization among Catholics is parish life." I used to be part of a homeschooling hybrid that very much had the attitude that their way was the only way to be Catholic, and to protect your children from "modern society". I call BS. I love the diversity of my parish. Everyone there loves Jesus, in many different ways. It's wonderful. Politics comes up almost never (except when my priest showed me a very political meme on his phone after Mass one day - not OK, IMO, but I do love him).
"Where, if anywhere, do you feel like you belong to what Mr. Psmith calls the 'temporarily above-ground part of a vast, superhuman entity'? Is there anywhere you feel the absence of that connection?"
Where I feel the belonging most intensely is where I feel its absence most acutely. That is, a sense that I must belong to what I love because it's who I am (my calling, my nature, what makes me me, rather than someone else) is only desire. And desire is not fulfillment. Instead, it seems like many practical obstacles (perhaps of my own making! I'm not trying to blame others for the obstacles, just noting the obstacles... exist) stand between my desire and its fulfillment.
The subjects I ended up loving most intensely by the end of high school were math and music, especially choral music. Both were despite (and maybe because of – I could just be a masochist) some obstacles, including health worse than anyone guessed at the time.
In college, I chose math as the more practical course than music. But it takes a person more exceptional than I turned out to be to earn a PhD in math despite unexplained health setbacks (or, I guess, to make peace with the entry-level industry jobs available to math majors who can't give their bosses adequate explanation of health problems that interfere with productivity). That period of youthful good health to "prove yourself", earning some grace for infirmities later on? I never achieved it. And I do mean "achieved": thanks to the wonders of modern medical technology, many *can* achieve it, who couldn't before – and as a result, we are *expected* to achieve it. If, in my youth, I had known about my body what I know now, I would have taken the music major – though it would have had its own heartbreaks. As it is, though, I miss the I miss the mathematics I almost had like Millay said she missed her lovers – "the rain / Is full of ghosts tonight"; "I only know that summer sang in me / A little while, that in me sings no more."
I do write music, sometimes. I even have some talent for it. But never having expected to make a career of it, I understandably... don't know how to make any sort of career of it. Especially since my connection to the Anglican liturgical music I love is through ECUSA, a church I love, but which I'm not certain can love me back. My religious loyalty to ECUSA conflicts with my loyalty to family.
Both the family I was born into and the family I married into are mostly irreligious and find ECUSA off-puttingly "woke". Had I found an ACNA congregation, my family might be less repulsed politically (though they'd still roll their eyes at all the smells 'n' bells foofaraw). But the flesh-and-blood congregation I discovered and fell in love with was ECUSA. The hell of it is that my kids and I have been so germy since the world opened up after COVID, and the congregation contains so many elderly and immunocompromised, that I haven't dared to physically return to it since COVID. So I sit at home and write music for a church filled with people whose lives are busy enough without my music, people who have always been kind to me, but who probably mostly forget me since I'm not there anymore. It is unrequited love.
It's quite likely that I'm literally "writing songs that voices never share". While I have the technology to typeset the scores and even make music videos of the music using virtual instruments (though it's incredibly time-consuming to do all by oneself, and hard to justify in the face of actual responsibilities), I haven't built the social capital to get my music performed any more than rarely, much less "officially published".
I can't even successfully ask for two minutes' of my own family's time at Thanksgiving to honor a recent death in the family with a short composition (deliberately written short so as not to tax their patience!) – and it's not like it's my family's fault! I'm usually so overwhelmed with the responsibilities of mothering in an uncooperative body that I'm forever behind on everything else, including the logistical, managerial, organizational aspects of successfully sharing any kind of creative work with others. Even sharing a two-minute video clip at a Thanksgiving gathering takes a fair amount of logistical work: when is the host comfortable sharing it, will the technology work, will the guests be OK with the short "interruption"? (though it shouldn't be an interruption – if it is an interruption, then I am an interruption to my own family!)
Others, with the exception of my husband, who is, after all, only one person, just don't have the luxury of caring about what I can contribute – or at least what I can contribute by being me, as opposed to some replaceable cog in the machine. I sense that my suckiness as a cog forfeits any entitlement to be appreciated for who I am, for my non-cog qualities.
From a fellow math and music lover, and parent of a young adult with an invisible chronic illness...hugs. It sounds like you have a lot of grieving to do, as does my daughter. You'll be in my prayers.
I take great, great comfort in the idea that I am but one little part of the whole Body of Christ.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the enormous amount of work that needs doing in the world, as if it were my duty to join EVERY good new group, donate to EVERY natural disaster relief fund, and participate in EVERY community outreach (pro-life witness! feed the homeless! teach the children! knit blankets for the sick! write to the imprisoned!).
Of course all of these things (and many more) are good, and worth doing, but the amazing, sanity-saving fact is that I DON'T HAVE TO DO THEM ALL. There are other members of the Body to do them! I only need to do the specific tasks given to me, and I can leave the rest to others in total peace--without having to convince myself that the other tasks are less important, or actually wrong, or whatever. Nope, those things I'm leaving undone are important, and the people doing them are very good. They are the other players on my team, and as long as the team as a whole is getting things done, I only need to do my own little part. I don't need to plan for the team, and I can leave all the coordination to Captain Holy Spirit. He's up to it; I'm not and don't need to be. THANK GOD.
Liz Bruenig said at one point that twitter gives us a God's eye view of the world (every trouble, every act of cruelty, etc passing before our eyes) without the wisdom or power to respond to them as God would. It's wearing and can erode our hope in acting where we're placed.
That is so insightful. Seeing every unkind word creates a yearning for correction or reconciliation; but the neverending flood makes us feel impotent, then probably apathetic and despairing (unless we have powerful "countercharms" like prayer).
Social media was a big force in making me feel like I had to do everything--"am I a good person if I haven't posted in response to __________? Must I also donate to ___________"? - but I'm happy to report that's less of an issue now, since I deleted almost all my accounts a couple years ago!
I just started volunteering at our county hospital holding babies in the NICU. I've decided to do this instead of teaching our parents' First Communion class at my parish. I was able to fight the guilt of not doing both with this same idea. How amazing that I can do something valuable and needed and important that *also* lines up perfectly with my heart's desire (holding babies). It's OK if someone else takes over teaching the class.
So good and so important. We are finite, but parts of a Body which work as a whole. This, too, is a comfort to me.
Yes, I love this image!
This is a major theme of the book You’re Only Human by Kelly Kapic (came out last year). Highly recommend.
My grandmother just passed away and it’s been very obvious through her care in hospice that the steps necessary for giving her dignity and aid was a responsibility too great to be borne by any single person. The family rose up together - each according to their gifts - to play an important role. She had 10 children and each have different skills, so I felt like one part Mirabel from Encanto or another part of this “vast superhuman entity” that is a large family. The amount of support from the medical system (nurses, doctors, occupational therapy, physical therapy, respiratory therapy) was also great and felt superhuman at times. Although if I’m picking, I’d rather have a miraculous casita who helps me clean up…
I love Children of Men but as an unmarried and childless 30-something woman OOF does that line in the review about being a human rankle. I think I do share a lot of the author’s understanding of time and continuity, but it does seem like others want to shut you out of that past a certain age if you don’t have kids. Childless people are - in the eyes of some - just a little less of a person, their lives a little less “real” than those of others. (While I know some happily married and childless couples in this age bracket, the majority of people I know without kids are in that situation due to not finding the right partner or infertility. Perhaps her social circles are different, but the implication that it’s mostly millennial dilly-dallying didn’t feel true to what I’ve observed.)
That said — re continuity, religion is an obvious answer, and for me musical traditions like classical/hymnody/folk are a big part of that. Passing on old myths. Keeping local history and preserving architecture in a part of the country determined to erase its history. Caring for those older than me and being part of the lives of those younger.
One thing about being Catholic: there’s a strong promise that marriage is not the only (or the highest!) way to be fully a person and make a gift of yourself to others. Individual churches and priests don’t always do a good job telling this truth.
It’s complicated! I’m Anglican, albeit new to that tradition and raised low church Protestant, and part of a congregation where marriage/parenting pressure is much less present than in many other churches I’ve been around. I think it helps that the priest is childless/trying to adopt due to infertility and makes special effort to be thoughtful to people in that situation. I’m grateful for it, as scripture is… incredibly clear on how unmarried and childless people are central to the work of the kingdom.
That said, I do find that status as a single woman does feel… not “lesser” exactly, but non-normative in some ways, and vaguely threatening to some in that setting? It’s peculiar, but I’ll just keeping hanging out with the cool people at church 😎
One of the things that I find fascinating is how humans build on each other's work creatively. Sometimes it feels like a giant game of "yes, and" that we are all playing together. I first noticed it in relation to image memes - how a meme starts and then gets remixed with other memes in really creative ways (the communities on twitter and reddit used to be really good at this; feels like it's less common now, perhaps). Trying to explain a meme to someone who has none of the background internet knowledge sometimes feels like that scene from The Princess Bride ("Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.")
I've recently been watching clips of old musicals, especially of Bob Fosse's choreography, and what I have noticed is how familiar they feel, even though I've never seen much of his work before. His work has been transmitted as part of the cultural conversation. (An example: https://youtu.be/xXonK8EBqmk - this is clearly where Michael Jackson got his influence from).
My son is 6, and he's becoming an avid reader. As I think about what books to give him next, I realized that part of what I am doing is passing on some of the cultural conversation that I received. As our pop culture gets more atomized and less common (I know so few of the current pop artists and movies), I wonder what that means for the art our generation and future generations will create. How do we build art, literature (and by extension, philosophy and theology) when we no longer have a common creative language to draw from?
I am of the mind more folk art, or local art, is actually better. I'm out of the pop culture loop myself, but mostly because too homogenous, and therefore boring, across spectrums. This sense was driven home to me recently as airing the same night, or nights very close to eachother, were the Country Music Awards - mainstream production on major network with a bunch of artists I hardly recognized and forgettable performances, and the Americana Music Association Awards that was recorded in September but aired (maybe again) on PBS. I grew up a country music fan, but through my husband's interest I discovered the folk roots of country music, and we've enjoyed many roots type of music performances which are easier to find at smaller, local venues. These types of performers fly under the radar at large but there is a neat almost community around them because you have to seek them out specifically. And it's a bit more robust than you'd expect. So I think local communities will continue to create art as they have always done and affect those around them. The same goes for churches and the art they create for worship.
Choreography is a wonderful example in its own right, considering how specific, detailed dance works are handed down for decades in both the ballet and the theater world, outlasting the lifespan of the choreographer themself.
In 1995, my husband of 18 years having left me, I went to Washington DC to study bioethics in the hope that immersion in something deeply important to me would help distract me from my all-consuming pain. That strategy was partially helpful.
In the process I attended a Catholic church with vibrant liturgy and a strong sense of commitment to Church teaching on social justice. I vividly recall numerous times being at Mass with tears streaming down my face, unable to pray, but taking great comfort in knowing that, although I knew no one, somehow I was included in the prayers of the faith community and was, though mute, being lifted up to God.
"Americans vaunt the nuclear family because for most of them it’s all that they have left. The warm blankets of tribe, clan, ritual, and soil have all been stripped away, and immediate family are all that remain between them and the cold night of an impersonal universe that will not even notice their life or their death."
Before I read the review I was going to comment on tribe & soil, and then that quote hit me right in the 'woah's. As basically anyone who has talked to me for more than 30 minutes knows (or who has read my comments in this forum): I *love* Minnesota. It is a place where I'm rooted and it's one of the few places I've lived where people take *active* pride in that communal rootedness. Rootedness takes work. It takes a willingness to open yourself to your neighbor and neighborhood. A willingness to dwell in the history of the place (including the ugly parts!) and be part of crafting a narrative that will extend into the future. There are thriving community associations, a strong sense of volunteerism, and a deep belief in the power of small d democratic politics to create and improve society. The Great State is a political institution, but it's also a story we are a part of.
I've found similar feelings of comfort, joy and rootedness in another persistent democratic institution: labor unions. It's a choice to be a part of a union, it's work to engage in solidarity, and it's deeply satisfying to be part of a story that has a past, a middle, and a foreseeable future.
One specific example I just stumbled on: a baby wearing nonprofit with a lending library! https://babywearingtwincities.org/
I am a direct beneficiary of this organization and I'm so glad you shouted it out!
Oh my goodness, I would have loved this so much when my babes were small. What a wonderful organization. I still have my Maya Wrap because I like to wear other people's babies now that my youngest is 17.
Singing old music. Also, wearing the vyshyvanka on special occasions in the last year or so.
I really enjoyed this post. It resonated with me as a secular scientist, parent, and child. I understand that the words I speak, the city I live in, the techniques I practice in the lab didn't come from me, preceded me, but that I can contribute to them in some small way. Likewise I see the continuity in the religious rituals that my in-laws practice, and take joy in sharing them with my children even as I watch those rituals slowly change.
On a related note--could you do a post on caring for and honoring the aging as their capacities diminish? Just starting down this road and I would love to hear about others’ experiences. I’ve come across a lot about the anxieties and stresses of watching this happen and being unable to help, but I’d be curious if anyone has positive stories of how to handle the shift to becoming a caregiver to those who once cared for us with humor, humanity, and grace.
Thank you! And that's a good request. In the meantime, you might like the profile I did of the end of life care offered by the Dominican Sisters at Hawthorne: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/life/work/the-gift-of-palliative-care
I've been feeling the darker side of this lately. After the pandemic a lot of educational structures are struggling, including in some ways my own. Given that it is a remarkable institution to which I have dedicated myself, the possibility of its decline has an impact on me in a way that, were I to treat it as a mere job, it wouldn't. The anchoring goes both ways. I suppose that's the problem with a less isolated self; "but then, those who love must share the fate of those they love."
On the other hand, religion helps here, to repeat the obvious but true cliche. The idea that every failed good deed will be ratified in Heaven is a great comfort.
I was thinking similarly actually, in a melancholy vein. First, the "right" answer is probably faith and family to the original question, but my mind went to the current state of the institutional Catholic Church. I'm immensely grateful to the good Lord that He has anchored me enough in the faith of my childhood that I believe in what the CC teaches and that it's a divine institution, and, therefore, I will not leave it. But if I didn't have that belief I would both drop it and also despair...because, in my mind, where would I go?
But the second place my thoughts went to is my friend, whose hand I held in her livingroom as her husband's lifeless body was carried out, covered by an American flag plastic tarp. I watched his mother come in and collapse in absolute grief and disbelief. I watched his young son shake his dad's lifeless body at the funeral trying to "wake him up." The were completely heart wrenching and raw experiences. He was a combat veteran who experienced much loss on his multiple tours of duty, particularly in Afghanistan. What happened with that disastrous withdrawal nearly 2 years ago was a big fat middle finger to those who served over there and sacrificed much to serve a country and ideals they believed in enough to sacrifice for. What a betrayal. He thought he was working for something greater than himself. Apparently, it meant nothing, and I wish he'd had the faith to see his life and service in a more eternal light in that horribly mad moment.
Man, I keep thinking about--and praying for your friend and her husband. Such a tragedy.
On a theological level, I can't stop thinking about the way the Good Samaritan story is followed by Mary/Martha. The Good Samaritan is about giving ourselves to the love of our neighbor here and now--he trusted the inkeeper not to defraud him, the wounded man to recover, and so on. But Mary, sitting at Christ's feet, is even more essential. Both fundamentally--God is real, and has priority in all things--and also because inevitably, the systems we serve will betray and disappoint us.
But of course, it's easy for me to say, sitting here in comfort. The right answer is easy in a vacuum. In reality? Who knows where I will be. May the God of grace have mercy.
Thank you, Scott! His name is Jason. There is more to his backstory, but ultimately I think he succumbed to a despair you or I might not have due to a certain social capital buffer, including a lived experience of faith, to deal with life’s difficulties and disappointments. I still have hope for him, but the aftermath has been brutal on his family.
As a fellow Catholic dismayed at the current state of our Church, I thought you might appreciate this article as much as I did (you too, Leah): https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2023/03/16/polarization-communion-sam-sawyer-244882
Analisa, thank you for sharing! I read this a couple times, but I found it really didn't speak to my current vexation with the institutional Church. I understand the frustration with polarization, but I find you can circumvent a lot of that angst by simply avoiding most online stuff. I think the online atmosphere has held a certain toxicity level for a long time going back even to the blogosphere. But I find on the ground level, at the personal level, the Church is not nearly so bad in that way.
I'm mostly at a loss for what members of the hierarchy have done, and are doing in a lot of places, especially over these last 3-5 years. More than once in recent years I think I could have been scandalized out of the Church if I didn't firmly believe in its divine origin. That is just not something I ever imagined myself thinking or feeling in my life! !
I think I have a slightly different take. Christianity is famously a historical religion: Christ suffered under Pilate, lamented Jerusalem, wept for Lazarus, sweated blood, and so on. So I think it's worthy to give one's life to worthy historical action, even if we're more like Bonhoeffer than Jesus, never certain of the rightness of our actions and causes. Maria Skobtsova talks about how we should "lay down our souls for our friends," meaning that we must reject any loveless "Jesus and me" spirituality that preserves our personal status at the expense of others. I think MLK Jr. often said the same thing, especially on his explication of the Good Samaritan.
But at the same time, having faith that somehow Christ will redeem all things takes the edge off. If I fail in a good fight, I know that I won't have fought in vain--for the redeeming God of the universe is on my side.
I think it's the idea - of an educational establishment, of policing - that is the soul and the human institution is the "body" in which this soul rests. Consisting of fallible people, the human institution will mess up, but the idea will rise above all failure and corruption and be carried on by new people.
Maybe. But my faith isn't in history.
I sometimes imagine a fictional a group of Christians, living in Pompeii. I Imagine that they have unique talents, unique gifts, unique ministries. They hear a call from God. They fast. They pray. They share money in common. They plan. There is real sacrifice, real suffering, real hunger in these early moments, but it is worth it, knowing what they will accomplish. Then Vesuvius erupts.
There is no one to carry on their particular project, no memory. Their sufferings are erased from history.
This is why God's memory is so important. They will have loved well, served God well, done good things--even if these things fail to come to pass in this fallen world. Even if their particular idea dies, their particular contributions are meaningless, they are kept in the mind of God, treasured and honored.
It isn't about being validated on earth, even as the only way we can show our love for God is by loving our neighbors on earth, in the midst of complex, fraught, politically murky projects.
I love this reflection! It's similar to what I've been contemplating recently. The early Christians did not set out to establish Christendom. They were very clear that the Kingdom of God was mainly a spiritual reality that involved belief in the Gospel, personal repentance, and a burden of moral behavior. They were not so worried about creating a more "just" society or leaving a legacy other than faith. And yet, somehow over time, because enough grains of wheat fell to the earth and died, Christendom emerged. Even Benedict, who only sought to escape the temptations of the world in order to focus on God, could have no idea that his monastery would become the leaven and foundation for Christian Europe.
Ultimately we all fail in life because we die. Most of our works will be forgotten even by subsequent family generations, and yet it is important that each of us lives or has lived. It's quite a paradox in some ways, but faith helps knowing that our lives are not meaningless and to remember we are only pilgrims passing through on the way to our true home. I think the early Christians really understood this.
I suppose religion is an easy answer, though no less significant for it. The teachings of Jesus definitely imbue a faithful life with a profound sense of meaning. We are bringing the kingdom of God to earth! We have the chance to be part of rescuing someone else from hell! We are waiting patiently and eagerly for the return of Christ, our bridegroom. It almost feels like being in a fairy tale. We might not be there hero, but we're on his team.
As for family, American culture and history tends to erode the sense of continuity, since we are a nation of immigrants, whose ancestors have left a homeland, and very often, the intervening generations have migrated within the country, starting over again and again. This is my experience at least, including a sense of alienation from both sets of grandparents. Yet I am fiercely attached to my father, and resolved to keep his legacy alive, while also providing my children and (hopefully) grandchildren a family tree with many branches that all support one another. This family mission is especially important to me when I struggle to find a church that takes seriously the mission I described above (yes I'm an evangelical and I know other Christian traditions approach the mission differently, though I hope it's at least recognizable across our divides).
I also homeschool my children, and I am trying to make the Classics a core part of our family education. We are already starting to make connections between old fables and fairy tales, and I hope that knowing where we've come from will give my children an appreciation for how we got here today.
Finally, I've decided to get into fiber arts. I'm self taught and just starting out, but one inspiration was the knowledge that for most of history (before the industrial revolution anyway), "fiber arts" was not just a boutique hobby, but an essential way that (usually) women provided for their families and communities (I read this in a blog post that I can't find anymore). And not only that, but it was a cooperative practice that helped shape and preserve the stories and histories of each community (think of how we have idioms such as "spin a yarn" to describe storytelling). I hope I can get to a point where I can make things that are truly useful and beautiful, and that it will provide opportunities to connect with other fiber artists, to teach my daughters, and make heirlooms worthy of keeping. And of course, I hope to learn more about the history of textiles so I have a better appreciation of the whole phenomenon.
I like the fiber arts thing. That's an interesting take and so purposeful. I've been thinking on the interest in homesteading, chickens, gardening, fiber arts, sewing, etc... as reaching out to connect to a greater human experience than simply being an individual "consumer."
I am a homeschooler and daughter of at least 4 generations of interrupted cultural transmission (British Raj, Partition of India, immigration, me). I am deep in the space of reclamation of cultural heritage for myself and my family. For us that includes the western canon of Classics and also our indigenous stories and fables, language, culture, religion, handcrafts, agriculture, and other aspects of an entire way of life. It's a very big job and I just wanted to applaud you and say I'm trying, too.
I feel the same as you about family. I met my husband in college in Houston. He is from Kansas. We moved to Boston for grad school, and ultimately landed in North Texas. I *hate* that my family and his, are all over the country. It was just the general expectation if you were smart - you'd move to the best school, regardless of its location.
Homeschooling my four led us down a different path - one of the importance of family physical proximity. My kids started in community college and will be transferring to a local university, greatly increasing the chances that they will live locally if they marry and have children. I have encouraged this for years. Having my first baby 2000 miles from my family, in a dark and cold winter after growing up in Houston, was the hardest thing I've ever done.
I am a fellow fiber artist. I love the history, the utility, the social-ness, the beauty of it. It's a great example (I crochet very elaborate blankets as one of my antidepressants!)
“What’s something you’re working on whose fruits you expect not to see?”
My job. I lead a ministry organization that I was more or less hired to start from scratch. During the hiring process I was asked, “How would you assess the success of your programs?” I’m sure the interviewer had in mind things like metrics for attendance and engagement — quite reasonable things for somebody in my position to think about. But the answer I actually gave, only half tongue in cheek, was “When the children’s children of the first students continue coming to the Christian study center, because they still care about being a faithful Christian presence in the university.”
At some point (I think after I started the job), I was struck by the full implications of this standard for success: I won’t *fully* be able to know if my efforts these first few years were on the right track until I’m no longer in this job. That’s pretty daunting — it takes a lot of hope and faith.
(Of course, I’ve also been able to see fruit from my efforts even in these early stages. I wouldn’t be able to continue in the work if I couldn’t see *any* positive results until after my role is completed. Much like parents and scientists, I’m sure.)
I have been thinking about ties to family and place, but also historical events and living memory. I'm a first generation American. My father came here as a refugee from Communism and my mother's family came seeking a better life. I had all my grandparents alive until I was 22 and then they started passing away, the last being my grandmother who was almost 98 when she died in 2018. My older siblings and I were steeped in the stories of my father's journey in particular. The need to escape the Soviets because staying meant a death sentence, the leaving the country with nothing but what they carried in the cab of a pick up truck, the bullets that flew over the ditches as my grandmother covered my toddler father's body to protect him, the Provision of God along the way when food was scarce, and the American soldiers who tipped my grandfather off that a refugee round up was coming to their camp so he was able to hide and avoid being sent back to a certain death. My grandfather would never make it back to his home country or see his parents again, and my father was deeply affected by growing up as a refugee even though they were finally able to make a good life in America. I think he always had a profound sense of exile. Mostly because I have had a nagging feeling of being in exile all my life as well no matter how good the community around me has been. Sometimes I ponder how I live with the effects of the Russian Revolution every day of my life...over 100 years later.
Anyway, the point is that I'm in the older half of my siblings and because we were a lot closer to my grandparents and their own life experiences, we more strongly internalized them as part of our stories as we heard the living memories. The bottom half of the siblings were more removed from those experiences as our grandparents were older by the time they had memories, more incapacitated, or dying. They don't seem to have internalized those stories into their own as much, and it has gotten me thinking about my place in passing on memories, both family and historical experience, to my own children.
As a side note, JPII wrote a great book that got too little attention, IMO, because it came out around the same time he died, called "Memory and Identity" that relays his thoughts on the relationship between the two things. I found it to be a fruitful read.
Bernadette, you put words around my initial response, which was family, national identity as an American, and living memory. My family has a strong sense of story and we frequently tie our personal stories to the larger American narrative. As a single example, I have an uncle who forged his mother's signature to join the Marines at age 17 during the height of the Vietnam War, and his brother who was only two years younger than him went to Europe two years later to avoid the draft. It's been fifty years since those events and because I've been told that story and I know and love both the people in it, they still shape my thoughts about when we as a country go to war, and why, and who bears the burdens and scars of fighting when we do. Plus now I think about my grandmother, and I wish I could ask her to recall her thoughts and feelings as a major American political conflict played out in her living room.
I'm going to add that book by JPII to my reading list! In exchange, I offer you this lovely essay by Sarah Bessey that really captures the family side of living memory; it mirrors my own experience of family legends being passed down and I really, really love it. https://sarahbessey.substack.com/p/love-stories
Thank you for the recommendation!
Such a good point about the older siblings having a stronger bond with the grandparents. Certainly true in my own family of origin, as the oldest of six. My father told me when I was a much younger adult that there is always one sibling in a group that assumes the duty of uniting all the others. That was his job, and he said it would be mine. I think he was referring to temperament, but it's probably no accident that we are both the firstborns. In fact, of my own four, I would expect my eldest to have that role in her sibling group. This job of uniting the family would naturally carry with it the job of passing on the stories.
> What’s something you’re working on whose fruits you expect not to see?
Virtually everything parenting- and sustainability-related is this way to some degree. I hope I get to reap a little of the benefits of raising my children and trying to reduce our household trash, but the reality is that in my lifetime I’ll only see a small portion of the effects, good or bad, of my efforts.
Tolkien’s short story “Leaf by Niggle” is excellent on this.
Oooh, this makes me think of "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury - highly recommended!
This is such an interesting question, thank you for pondering it and letting us ponder it with you!
I have a long and enduring complicated relationship with Christianity, i.e. I wish I could believe in it to an extent that would enable me to be part of this "vast, superhuman entity". There are some other similar superhuman entities, but the political, ideological ones are a bit shallow and puny compared to the the majestic ships of religion that plow the waves for centuries and even thousands of years, their large hulls filled with memories of the dead and the needs and ambitions of the living.
Since I lack the ability to throw myself in this ship - and I feel the absence of such a ship for me very keenly - , my child is not part of the ship, either. We don't have a huge family, either, but I think it is immensely important fo her to know she is part of a story that is bigger than herself. I've always made a point to tell her about all those family members whom I remember and who came before here and the ones that might come after her. She seems to be very aware, as far as I can judge, that SHE IS NOT ALONE but that my beloved granny, her beautiful four great-aunts, great-great-Aunt Louise to whom our awful porcelain used to belong and so on are all on her side. She seems to find it very satisfying. I also tell her about her own children and grandchildren because I want her to know that her story will extend beyond herself, that she is not an end point but a beginning as well.
As a teacher, I do a lot of work that will become visible to others, but not to me. I've sort of made my peace with it - I try to love and serve the people I get to meet and hope they will bloom when they've gone beyond the little stop in their road where they met me.
I so agree about social media vs. in-person. I wish I could remember who said it to me, but the gist of a statement I love is, "The solution to polarization among Catholics is parish life." I used to be part of a homeschooling hybrid that very much had the attitude that their way was the only way to be Catholic, and to protect your children from "modern society". I call BS. I love the diversity of my parish. Everyone there loves Jesus, in many different ways. It's wonderful. Politics comes up almost never (except when my priest showed me a very political meme on his phone after Mass one day - not OK, IMO, but I do love him).
"Where, if anywhere, do you feel like you belong to what Mr. Psmith calls the 'temporarily above-ground part of a vast, superhuman entity'? Is there anywhere you feel the absence of that connection?"
Where I feel the belonging most intensely is where I feel its absence most acutely. That is, a sense that I must belong to what I love because it's who I am (my calling, my nature, what makes me me, rather than someone else) is only desire. And desire is not fulfillment. Instead, it seems like many practical obstacles (perhaps of my own making! I'm not trying to blame others for the obstacles, just noting the obstacles... exist) stand between my desire and its fulfillment.
The subjects I ended up loving most intensely by the end of high school were math and music, especially choral music. Both were despite (and maybe because of – I could just be a masochist) some obstacles, including health worse than anyone guessed at the time.
In college, I chose math as the more practical course than music. But it takes a person more exceptional than I turned out to be to earn a PhD in math despite unexplained health setbacks (or, I guess, to make peace with the entry-level industry jobs available to math majors who can't give their bosses adequate explanation of health problems that interfere with productivity). That period of youthful good health to "prove yourself", earning some grace for infirmities later on? I never achieved it. And I do mean "achieved": thanks to the wonders of modern medical technology, many *can* achieve it, who couldn't before – and as a result, we are *expected* to achieve it. If, in my youth, I had known about my body what I know now, I would have taken the music major – though it would have had its own heartbreaks. As it is, though, I miss the I miss the mathematics I almost had like Millay said she missed her lovers – "the rain / Is full of ghosts tonight"; "I only know that summer sang in me / A little while, that in me sings no more."
I do write music, sometimes. I even have some talent for it. But never having expected to make a career of it, I understandably... don't know how to make any sort of career of it. Especially since my connection to the Anglican liturgical music I love is through ECUSA, a church I love, but which I'm not certain can love me back. My religious loyalty to ECUSA conflicts with my loyalty to family.
Both the family I was born into and the family I married into are mostly irreligious and find ECUSA off-puttingly "woke". Had I found an ACNA congregation, my family might be less repulsed politically (though they'd still roll their eyes at all the smells 'n' bells foofaraw). But the flesh-and-blood congregation I discovered and fell in love with was ECUSA. The hell of it is that my kids and I have been so germy since the world opened up after COVID, and the congregation contains so many elderly and immunocompromised, that I haven't dared to physically return to it since COVID. So I sit at home and write music for a church filled with people whose lives are busy enough without my music, people who have always been kind to me, but who probably mostly forget me since I'm not there anymore. It is unrequited love.
It's quite likely that I'm literally "writing songs that voices never share". While I have the technology to typeset the scores and even make music videos of the music using virtual instruments (though it's incredibly time-consuming to do all by oneself, and hard to justify in the face of actual responsibilities), I haven't built the social capital to get my music performed any more than rarely, much less "officially published".
I can't even successfully ask for two minutes' of my own family's time at Thanksgiving to honor a recent death in the family with a short composition (deliberately written short so as not to tax their patience!) – and it's not like it's my family's fault! I'm usually so overwhelmed with the responsibilities of mothering in an uncooperative body that I'm forever behind on everything else, including the logistical, managerial, organizational aspects of successfully sharing any kind of creative work with others. Even sharing a two-minute video clip at a Thanksgiving gathering takes a fair amount of logistical work: when is the host comfortable sharing it, will the technology work, will the guests be OK with the short "interruption"? (though it shouldn't be an interruption – if it is an interruption, then I am an interruption to my own family!)
Others, with the exception of my husband, who is, after all, only one person, just don't have the luxury of caring about what I can contribute – or at least what I can contribute by being me, as opposed to some replaceable cog in the machine. I sense that my suckiness as a cog forfeits any entitlement to be appreciated for who I am, for my non-cog qualities.
From a fellow math and music lover, and parent of a young adult with an invisible chronic illness...hugs. It sounds like you have a lot of grieving to do, as does my daughter. You'll be in my prayers.