The Flower and the Nettle (1936-1939 with young children) and War Within and Without (1939-1944) by Anne Lindberg
January 24, 2008 Newsletter

Then she write on another evening - what it all comes down to (like the cathedrals - we don't see the results)... I love this line!!! Around the house with a lantern to look a the sleeping children and put on an extra cover. The miser's hour for a mother - she looks at her gold and gloats over it!

But where is the real me? It is completely buried. I want to stop being a good housekeeper. I want to go back again to being a bad housekeeper and a good writer! But can you do it (you insert here what makes you you) and be interrupted - even at lunch - by children and household problems? It demands a different person. I had to put the writer and dreamer away and become the practical aware immediate mother-housekeeper. The transition from one to the other is terribly difficult, perhaps impossible. Can one be a good mother and write? Can one be a writer for half the day? I oscillate between the two. In Englewood I wrote but was a terrible mother-wife. At Lloyd Neck I wrote and was a good wife, but not a good mother or housekeeper. At Illiec I was a good wife, an excellent mother and housekeeper, and not a writer at all...We must not expect perfection any more but work in the teeth of the storm - in snatches of time and ease - in the twenty minutes's. It means disciplining my self - my two selves.




Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss
March 8, 2008 Newsletter
Another angel has flown into my home, though not on wings; and I have four darling children. My hands and my heart are full…

(switching later to her kids running in the room)…As she listened the three children rushed in from school, and threw themselves upon me like men assaulting a fort. I have formed the habit of giving my self entirely to them at the proper moment and now entered into their frolicsome moods joyously as if I had never known a sorrow or lost an hour’s sleep. (sister in laws later question when Katy resumed serious conversation when kids left… - What are you made of that you can turn from one thing to another like lightning? Talking one moment as if life depended on your every word and then frisking about with those wild boys as if you were a child yourself…) Katy’s response - “I have always aimed at this flexibility. I think a mother, especially, ought to learn to enter into the gayer moods of her children at the very moment when her own heart is sad. And it may be as religious an act for her to romp with them at one time as to pray with them at another. As Helen went away to her room I silently prayed that the letter might bless her as it had blessed me. And then a jaded, disheartened mood came over me that made me feel that all I had been saying to her was but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, since my life and my professions did not correspond. Hitherto my consciousness of imperfection has made me hesitate to say much to Helen. Why are we so afraid of those who live under the same roof with us? It must be the conviction that those who daily see us acting in a petty, selfish, trifling way must find it hard to conceive that our prayers and our desires take a wider and higher aim. (I liked how she mentioned she is so strong at one moment and then all of a sudden gets the mood that is so oppressing over her - without expecting the change.)

(Her picturing her child singing that had died when she talks about a woman she loved that just died)... - Only those who have suffered thus can appreciate the heart soreness through which, no matter how outwardly cheerful I may be, I am always passing. And just as I was writing these very words, my canary burst forth with a song so joyous that a song was put also in my mouth. Something seemed to say this captive sings in his cage because it has never known liberty and cannot regret a lost freedom. So the soul of my child (that had died) limited by the restrictions of a feeble body, never having known the gladness of exuberant health, may now sing songs that will enliven and cheer.



January 31, 2008 Newsletter
One night last week I spent applying cold washcloths to Camden's little head to fight off a fever. When I stumbled to my computer the next morning there was a beautiful poem that a new friend that receives our letter on Thursdays sent that was just published by St. Anthony's Press. Her name is Mary Zachmeyer and she first wrote me a few weeks ago with the advice - never ever take your children or your family for granted, for she has lost her husband, and also her son too young. This poem was absolutely beautiful written with love of her grandson. If you don't have your own child to picture, or your own grandchild, picture a little one that you have fallen in love with, that you pray for when you lift your eyes to the hills. If you'd like to send her a note her e-mail is mlzach@msn.com. Congratulations, Mary, on your poem being published!!!

The Arms of a Child
I try to concentrate
on the latest best seller,
but grandson sleeping in my bed
distracts

and so I return to life
back to what is familiar—
a child sleeping quietly—
to a spot which never leaves
that corner of the heart,
the cliché-but-true world
that makes it revolve.

I exist
in the eyes and smile of this child
as he looks up
and the world stops to love.
He lifts his arms to hug
and they fit
better than any pair of gloves—
arms around a child—
the reason God created them
Mary L Zachmeyer (Central Nebraska Poet)



January 10, 2008 Newsletter
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you,
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows might go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.


(describing the kitchen scene after the death of the father)...Never since they were small children had they clustered about her so, and never since then had she been so aware of the smell of their hair, their softness, breathiness, abruptness. It filled her with a strange elation, the same elation, the same pleasure she had felt when any of them, nursing, had fastened her eyes on her face and reached for her...her hair, her lips, hungry to touch, eager to be filled for awhile and sleep.

She had always known a thousand ways to circle them all around with what must have been like grace. She knew a thousand songs...In the summer she kept roses in a vase on the piano, huge, pungent roses, and when the blooms ripened and the petals fell, she put them in a tall Chinese jar, with cloves and thyme and sticks of cinnamon. Her children slept on starched sheets under layers of quilts and in the morning her curtains filled with light the way sails fill with wind. Of course they pressed her and touched her as if she had just returned after an absence. Not because they were afraid she would vanish as their father had done, but because his sudden vanishing had made them aware of her.

The chapter goes on in detail the calmness they surrounded themselves with the next few years before the girls married. I just loved the way she described how the mother made their lives beautiful. I especially love how she described their new awareness of each other. That line in itself was what I have desired - to be aware of details, to be aware of touch, to be aware of colors, to be aware of what seems to be such "trite" parts of our lives, when those are the most beautiful pieces in our lives if we truly think about it. (Exerpt from Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson) November 11, 2007 Newsletter

Poem from June 14, 2007 Newsletter
Good morning! It's Father's Day this weekend and I want to type out for you a poem that hung in the bathroom of my home as I grew up. For 30 years of my life - these are the words I daily read. Don't read them now with anything but goals in the back of your head with your contact with children in the future. Don't let your mind go to any line that wasn't how you were raised. Instead - look at this poem with vision on your future contact with your own children, your own grandchildren, your neighbors, or just all that you come in contact with. We have no idea what the impact of our actions on a small scale will do on a larger scale in the life of someone that we meet. This is just such an incredible poem - it speaks for itself this week.
Children Learn What They Live
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves an din those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.
- Dorothy Law Nolte

The Gift of an Angel by Marianne Richmond
November 16, 2006 Newsletter
I saw one of the neatest children's books when I was in Billings. The title is The Gift of an Angel by Marianne Richmond. From now on - you all have a perfect book to give to new parents, or for baby baptisms, or just to your adult children about the angel God sent for them. "...Gathering His host of angels, the Lord considered them one by one. "I need a volunteer," He said, "to watch over this daughter or son...your role in the child's life, will gently unfold with the days. You'll be a protector, keeper, friend...and wise teacher of life's ways. You'll inspre the child to explore as only a little child can, with wide-eyed wonder and innocence, with impulsive abandon...." And near the end of the book, "One more thing, dear angel, before you go. Life is not always laughter and smiles...not all discovery and fun. There will be frightening times for sure when danger stirs alarm. It's then you must forget all else and protect this child from harm." And so it was at heaven's door as the angel prepared for flight that God said, "Be good and do your best," and hugged His angel tight. The pictures are beautiful.


July 14, 2006 Newsletter
Hi! Our entire excitement at our house this week revolves around the movie Cars - so if you don't have any interest in that, I don't have much else to add to this e-mail!!! How fun to look at life from the eyes of a child - the theater looking so huge, the popcorn smell, the huge candy packages... It was a fun week to be a parent & just see Camden laugh & pretend he's Lightening McQueen - on his bike, with his cars, on his scooter. I hope that you have had the chance to just take in the joy of a little one, and if you haven't - start looking into eyes of little children. They see so much good around (just the excitement of the mundane grocery shopping)- how small their problems, how huge their joy!