Monday, December 16, 2013

"Most" Posts of 2013

Whelp...I kind of jumped the gun on the Top 10 Posts of 2013 thing (--since *when* am I ever ahead of schedule?!), and it got switched to something cooler, so take a look!

{Post with the most clicks}
Don't Have Kids. Unless you've been living under a rock the past week, if you read my blog, you've seen this one. I am so flattered that y'all liked it so well. One of my favorite things is learning something from an unexpected place, or re-thinking something that seems trivial into more solid thoughts.



{Post with the most comments}
...It was actually the same as above...so I picked a runner up...
What's on Your Bookshelf? This was a fun link-up post with pictures of our bookshelves.  I listen to books more often now than read them....but books with pages are still my favorites :)








{Post with the best picture}
I should probably have picked this one of my boyos AND Sr. Agnes Therese AND baby sheep AND Benedict Cumberbatch, but The One About the Snake was too good to skip...there was a SNAKE!  Kudos to my dear siblings for getting me through that one. I'll tell you, blood is thicker than that snake--and he was fat!





{Post that was Hardest to Write}
It was definitely hardest to write Common Ground: Macklemore's 'Same Love',  but a catchy tune got stuck in my head and got me thinking about the "other" side on one of those "hot-button" issues...







{Post that was my Personal Favorite}
Sometimes I'm trying to have a new perspective on something, most of the time I'm being silly, but this post was just straight up from my heart, however corny that sounds. Fear & Loving was putting in words and sharing with you some ground-breaking vulnerability and honesty. I'm a pretty private person, so catch it while you can, folks!






So, there you go, Round #2 of the 2013 wrap-up.  Here's lookin' at you kid for another stupendous year to come.


Linking up with Sarah from 



Saturday, December 14, 2013

Top Ten of 2013

Slightly narcissistic, but for your enjoyment...here's what I thought was my best this year...click the number words to get to the post.







Linking up with Sarah from Amongst Lovely Things for:

Perhaps I will make a another, less self-centered list of the ten posts from other people that I loved best this year as well...




Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Don't Have Kids

In the height of wasting some time online the other night, I came across this gem, "28 Reasons You're Better off Never Having Kids".  [not rated G].

Allow me to get out my soapbox...

source

...ok, here we go.

Now, I can fully grasp any number of serious reasons for not having children, and I can completely comprehend that a fulfilling life can be lead sans offspring, and I am well aware that some people are not ready, or not able to have children.

How-ever.

This piece, however playfully meant, does an injustice to parents and those without children alike.

It says to the childless: you can live as selfishly as possible.  You can sleep whenever you want. You can eat whatever you want. You can party, and have a cleaner home, and travel, and go to the bathroom alone, and have more money, and swear (yes, that was on the list...!) all on your own, as much as you would like, with no strings attached...just don't have kids.


And, just as callously, it says to the parents: your life sucks.

just your basic poster-children parents, right here...
source
They are wrong, and they are wrong on both counts.  To be childless does not mean that you have any right to be a selfish, self-centered person with nothing better to do than take naps.  To be a parent does not mean that you have no enjoyments in life, and have given up on any indulgences, and all sleep or health. These things have more truism than truth to them.

I would argue, that the strings that children attach to us (heart-strings, if you will, as I'm trying to be dramatic...), are entirely worth it.  Children are everything that that silly internet fodder meme-list is saying they are. Children are annoying, they are messy, they are enormously inconvenient. They take up enormous, and often baffling amounts of time, energy, and money.

source

And yet, that is the point.  The demands that our children make upon us take us outside of ourselves, and draw us closer to Heaven. 

heart-strings...

On the flip-side, it is offensive to think that folks with no kids are as shallow as that piece makes them out to be. The people in my life who are childless are in fact extremely generous souls.  One of my dearest friends has no children, and is one of the most mother-ly women I know, caring for her family, friends and community in countless ways.  Another childless friend pours what seems to be every waking minute into caring for those in medical crisis. Those without children are called to live selflessly in other ways, to highlight and bring about the good, the true, and the beautiful with the time, energy, and strength that we parents lack.

source/Shel Silverstein
God calls each person or couple to a certain life. He calls some to have 7 children. He calls some to have no children.  He calls no one to live for the self.  Each of us must pour out our lives, must lay down our selfishness, to make any progress.  It truly is "in giving that we receive, in dying that we are born to eternal life".  The death that St. Francis speaks of in that prayer must for certain be our death to self, for that is what Christ did for us.