moving towards peace

Over at this living angel's space , I recently read about her journey into peace with her three little loves that day. It touched me so much to read about their adventure. It was a familiar exchange that I have experienced between me and my own babes, where the only thing that brings us peace is getting out and breathing with the wild, open air.

After reading her words, I was immediately envisioning our own escape and had little ideas floating around my mind about where we might go but left the details unplanned because, well, that is where the magic takes place. But yesterday morning brought with it the knowledge that the car seats were not in our car, but rather with daddy in his car...which was at work. That was because on Monday the car wouldn't start and we had to be rescued and the car seats were eventually transferred to the van (the one we aren't driving because it is without A/C) and surprisingly (totally kidding...not surprising at all) I forgot to put them back into the car that we got working again.

So we were stuck at home for another day. Which is really not a big deal at all but it WAS a big deal yesterday because yesterday was one of those days where we all needed some peace. You know those days, right? The ones where someone poops on the floor because the diapers haven't been washed and also because every time you put on this child's clothes, she takes them off anyway and where there is no food in the house but it doesn't matter anyways because the dishes are piled so high that even if there were food...there would be nothing clean to eat on. The kind of day where asking your child to put on undies if he wants to go out front or stand in front of the open window sends him crying on his bed, and really, what does it matter if he wears undies or not? But for some fear-based reason, you worry about him standing in front of the window without underwear on and your fear squashes his freedom. It was a day where none of us remembered how to share and where the craft project we were working on got some of us so frustrated that it was no longer fun...where little girl was in need of extra love and nursing but where patience was thin, feelings were hurt and this mama took a few time-outs for herself. You know what kind of day I am talking about? The effort it took to understand and respect all of our different wants and needs required a little bit more than what we had to give.

A tiny get-a-way was totally called for, but it wasn't happening.

During one of my self-imposed time outs, I was reading a bit from the book Seven Times the Sun and drifted to the section on celebrating peacemaking. My eyes absorbed these words:

"With our children we are faced with the best and worst in ourselves. Perhaps no one in our lives can inspire our hostility and anger to surface quite as readily and completely as these people we call our daughters and sons."

"Perhaps you have noticed that there are a great number of children growing up among us with iron-strong wills. These children have to be strong and willful to put forth the kind of energy necessary to set our world aright again. Parenting such children makes us feel at times that we must use an iron hand with them if we are to retain any semblance of order and control. It is easy to feel that if we choose not to wield the iron hand, we will allow chaos to run the household."

"These children who are gracing our planet with the gift of the willful act need a generation of parents who are equally as strong and decisive. These children are hungering for guides to help direct the energy forces they bring to the earth - not to smash their energies with an iron hand nor to sit idly by and allow these energies to be unleashed wildly upon the world. But guides who are able to teach peace - respect for oneself, others, our homes and our world. The elements that produce peace in our selves and our homes are the same elements that produce peace among nations and peoples. Here in our homes, here is the learning ground. And when we create peace with our children, then perhaps, we, too, will really learn something."

I learn something everyday. Not that I always create the peace that I ache for...but that I am reminded loud and clear why these little souls came into my care and love.

So we learn, and un-learn and then re-learn again the ways to express ourselves without being destructive. We makes big messes without worrying about the clean-up. We take nature walks outside when the house is just too small. We wait on when the time is right to escape, because sometimes the lessons come from sitting with the chaos and creating peace with what we have.

And then, we start all over again come morning.