We moved to Connecticut two years ago. The first year we were here was a bit like being on a private retreat with just my husband and the three girls who moved with us. Because of COVID-19 protocols here, we spent most of our time alone together, with brief visits from our eldest son and his family. It wasn’t the resting kind of retreat; it was the kind where you dig deep and do hard interior work. The second year has been markedly different. As the world opened up to us, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many more people. In Catholic circles, this has yielded an interesting phenomena. Frequently, I will meet someone for the first time and they welcome me with some variation of, “I’ve been reading your column/book/blogs for years and I feel like we’re already best friends.” Sometimes, when my girls are present, this is followed by our new acquaintance telling the girl all about what she remembers from when that child was born or received her first Communion or some other event that I documented and offered for public perusal. It’s all very friendly and I’m grateful for the kindness of strangers who are ready to be instant friends.
I often feel as if I should offer a caveat, though. I want to remind my new friend that I’m not the same girl I was when they first read that carefully crafted bit of writing. I want to tell her that no matter how faithfully she’s read over the years (and thank you for that), she’s only seen through a small window of my soul at a finite point in time. I’m not still stuck there. I used to be so confident, so sure about the proper way to raise a child, to nurture a marriage, to make a home, to worship in the heart of the church. I thought I had the right way all figured out. And I thought that if you just determined the right way and persevered on that path, all would be well.
But now I know that thoughtful, well-intentioned parents can seemingly do nearly all the right things and their grown families are much messier than their vision ever was. I know that people can be on fire for orthodoxy and orthopraxy in their liturgies, and they can be equally committed to judging and condemning the people who worship alongside them. And then they can leave the church altogether. I know that the most well-ordered homes can struggle daily with deeply rooted interpersonal dysfunction. Life is hard, and so many of us think (or thought) that means we have to try harder.
But really, we have to surrender. We have to relinquish the notion that it’s up to us to get everything right. Jesus never asked us to get it all perfect. He never laid the burden of our salvation on our shoulders. Indeed, he took that upon himself and invited us to follow him, shouldering only a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. He didn’t tell us to forge the path of perfection. He asked us to follow him on the path he’s forged.
He wants our trust. We are sure to encounter challenges along the way. There will be opportunities to die to ourselves, to relinquish our pride, to be humbled and then to be made holy. God knows we can’t figure it all out on our own, and he promises us we don’t have to try to do that. Instead, he invites us into conversation with him, and he offers us the grace and strength of the sacraments.
Sometimes, the early books and blog posts make me want to cringe a little. I want to put my arm around that wholehearted girl and tell her not to try so hard, to pace herself, and to practice softness and compassion with herself. She’s going to need it over the long haul. I want to gently inform her that Jesus already knows that her plans aren’t necessarily the best plans, and that she will fail and she will fall. I want her to know that when it happens — and it will happen again and again — he opens his arms wide with mercy and begs her to let him envelop her there. There, he will perfect her, and that is truly the only plan for perfection there ever was.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
