In Pursuit of Crawling

Beware Flying Blocks!

So, I suddenly find that I have a seven-month-old on my hands. How did this happen?  Finn has become a real-life, impossibly cute whirling dervish.  He's eating real foods- without milk in them- like banana and avocado (and spreading them everywhere) .  He's increasing in manual dexterity (and throwing range)every day, sitting up all by himself, rolling places on purpose, chattering away using consonants, and mostly getting into all sorts of trouble.  For instance, he seems to have a built-in radar system that tells him what the most dangerous thing he could play with is and how to get to it.  Also, if he does fall, his head seems to gravitate toward the hardest surface, even if it seems impossibly far away.  And he's not even crawling yet . . . Oy vey!

Can you spot what's out of place in the bathroom?

Speaking of crawling, Finn is well on his way there!  He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth, bouncing with all his might.  In rare fits of exuberance, he can launch himself forward a few inches, but for the most part he just ends up pushing himself further and further backwards.  Usually, he ends up at a dead end (occasionally with his legs stuck under the couch) and just lays there kicking and kicking.  Then, I pull him toward me, using his blanket like a magic carpet, and he is restored to his toys from which he had, bit by bit, scooched himself away. All this backwards madness, however, will soon allow him to use those well-practiced muscles to move forward.  At which point, all is lost for poor Mama, who will have no idea how to keep him out of EVERYTHING.

 Who me?

Sometimes Finn's daily education in the art of crawling seems an apt, if imperfect, metaphor for my spiritual life.  I know my limitations; I just want to crawl toward some spiritual goal. I seem to work and work at something, say patience or saying my prayers regularly, only to find myself seeming to move backward from my goal.  I end up undoing myself, with a little help from distraction and the gravitational pull of Satan's temptations.  Yet, God manages to pull me back to Him on the fabric of His Sacramental grace, always available underneath me.  All my spiritual struggles will be worth it, because they build my spiritual muscles, fed by His Grace, to help me to co-operate with the work of that grace in my life. 

During Lent I especially feel like a spiritual infant, trying to crawl toward Christ, but constantly slipping backwards. Yet that is the very reason why God's Church provides us with the spiritual exercises of Lent, to spur us on toward our goal of Heaven, supporting us with the Sacraments.  As the priest reminded us at Ash Wednesday, Lent reminds us that this is not our home.  By struggling against our attachments to this world, we prepare our hearts for Heaven.

Our parish Priest asked us to pray the fifteen prayers of St. Bridget as a spiritual exercise this Lent.  (You can find them here.)    I particularly love this excerpt as a Lenten prayer:  

I beg of Thee O King of Saints, to comfort me and help me to resist the devil, the flesh and the world, so that being dead to the world, I may live for Thee alone. I beg of Thee at the hour of my death to receive me, a pilgrim and an exile returning to Thee. Amen. 

May you all have a blessed Lent!

Today is: The Feast of St. Peter Damien

Finn is: Seven Months, One Week, and Two Days Old

Mama is reading: The World, The Flesh, and Father Smith by Bruce Marshall

P.S. Look at my lovely Valentines!