I’ll be honest – I’ve never blogged before. I’m not much of a writer, in fact the entire act of writing doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m an engineer and I LOVE math and logic, so I know I come from a foreign breed of women. But I’m still a Catholic first, so to many I know I appear to be a walking contradiction as a working mother. So if I can figure out how to balance out my life and it’s many contradictions without grave injury, I’m hoping I can at least survive at this whole writing gig. Forgive me, for this will probably appear to be rather sinful for an English major to read.
Now that we’ve worked our way through the Penitential Rite I think we’re safe to move forward into meat of the word. So, how about a “word of the day” theme? I can work with that.
Today’s word of the day… jackhammer.
Oh yeah. There has been a steady cacophony of this lovely sound going on at my office building for a few weeks now. Sometimes it hits that certain migraine-inducing level of insanity, but most moments I tend to drown out the noise. My co-workers, however, (all male, by the way – we’re engineers, the statistics are true) aren’t handling this well at all. They have called HR to gripe and complain, others have left the office to go work from home. It has definitely impacted our ability to have conference calls or meetings in this area of the building.
But for some reason, it’s just not getting to me like it does them.
First off, the noise – for whatever reason – makes the baby in my belly dance. Also, I tend to have a really childish sense of humor about the whole thing – raising boys does that to you. Every time the noise starts my first reaction is to say “excuse me”, as if I’ve embarrassed myself publicly. I sit here and giggle to myself like a 6 year old boy. I really don’t think my coworkers are impressed anymore.
I keep wondering, why is this not bothering me!? And then one day it dawned on me… I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m a mom.
Now, several of my coworkers are married with kids, so it’s not necessarily the general “family noise” that seems to make me immune. Moms and Dads are just different.
See, despite the fact that I work during the day I still have that standard maternal nature. I go home, clean out lunch bags, help the kids with homework, snuggle on the couch, ask about their day, fill out permission slips and write checks, all while making a fully balanced meal. Moms just DO that. The constant music of “Momma, Mom, MOMMY!” rings in this confusing evening harmony that tends to sometimes sound a lot like Holst’s “The Planets”, which is beautiful but not very easy to dance to.
But yet… we do! We dance to that kind of music!
Sure, it’s pretty stressful at times, and there are certainly outbursts of random notes that just don’t make sense. But it’s beautiful – it’s LIFE!
Then, I got to thinking about women in the Gospels – really, not much has changed over the centuries!
Mark’s Gospel tells us that “Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint Jesus in the tomb” (Mark 16:1) – despite everything they were going through, they got up and did what needed to be done. After learning about Christ’s Resurrection, Mary Magdalene went and told Jesus’ companions “who were mourning and weeping” (Mark 16:10). Sigh – men.
I just find it so amazing how God works with both the male and female aspects in His creation. Both are so necessary, they balance each other out in such perfect harmony. What would God’s perfect creation of Earth look like without the great masculine and feminine of Mars and Venus balancing out the Earth in the Natural Order? God’s creation is truly miraculous.
So, here at work the jackhammers droll on…
But my little baby and I are dancin’, and laughing about fart jokes… all while the men-folk curse the heavens and run away crying.
It’s okay, that’s why God made women – someone’s gotta do the work!
Catholic Sistas 